A Food Festive Day

Yesterday was Cinco de Mayo, and like many other Americans, I choose to celebrate this holiday with margaritas and delicious Mexican food despite not really understanding what the point of the holiday is. (Because I don't like to be 'that guy', I looked it up and have learned that its original intent is to simply commemorate the Mexican victory against the French in the 1862 Battle of Puebla, although it is presently celebrated more in the US just how I thought, as a day to appreciate Mexican heritage and culture, and consequently give us an excuse to overindulge in all that fantastic cooking).

However, we Pittsburghers are fortunate enough that we can cross over into two ethnic food worlds, as the St. Nicholas Greek Orthodox Cathedral runs its Greek Food Festival the first week of May, coinciding nicely with the holiday. And yesterday, I was one of those lucky Pittsburghers who got to experience both.

My husband and I decided to hit up St. Nick's for lunch, and we took advantage of the beautiful weather by walking from our house in Squirrel Hill through Schenley Park into Oakland. It was quite a hike, but the scenery was just unbeatable. Here are two pictures we took from the Panther Hollow Bridge in Schenley.





We had missed lunch by the time we got to St. Nick's, but the a-la carte menu runs straight through the day. We wound our way into the church basement (I could write a whole blog about how I love church basements and their random stages and feel of a Bingo game about to begin) and tenatively approached the food.

I am going to admit this right now: those big rotating meat-slab things at the Point during the Regatta have always made me a little terrified of gyros. Even though I lived within walking distance of the Greek Food Festival for six years, I had never been there, and really, the only Greek food I can think of that I've ever eaten was feta cheese and mini spanikopitas at someone's wedding reception. I was a little intimidated.

Lucky for us though, each food name had a description next to it on the order sheet, so I was able to see what sounded like things I'd like and pick those. After we paid and headed upstairs with our selection, I also had to try out the things they were advertising as 'Greek fries.' I don't know how authentic those were, but I was not going to pass up a chance to eat fries under the excuse of supporting a local Pittsburgh organization.

In the end, we decided on these choices:



The bottom left corner is the spanikopita (fillo pastry filled with feta cheese and spinach), above that is souzoukakia (meatballs in tomato wine sauce), next to that is a dolmathe (herbs and rice in a marinated grape leaf), and of course, those fantastic Greek fries (which were really just fries with feta cheese on top). Oh, and that's my carton of raspberry iced tea (I'm really a Marburger farms kind of girl, but so far, the only place in town I can find that serves those besides my old high school is Wholey's). If I'm going to celebrate, I'm *really* going to celebrate ;)

I really can't say enough good things about this food. That spanikopita was fantastic, and I'm really picky about meatballs, but this one was just melt-in-your-mouth good. The grape leaves were probably my least favorite, but even they were still tasty. And the fries? It was as if they had been snatched from the Potato Patch itself. Oh man.



Thankfully, we were a few miles from home with no car, so we got to walk off some of that meal and get ourselves prepped for Food Splurge #2 of the day.

Last night, we headed up Murray Avenue to Cuzamil, which is a tiny Mexican restaurant and bar that you would probably miss if you weren't walking right past it. And that's a shame, because now that La Fiesta is gone (bless its little soccer-game-supplying soul), this is probably the best Mexican restaurant in the city. The El Campesino on McKnight Road is a close second, but if you're staying within the city limits, Cuzamil is really fantastic.

They were packed (as expected), but the Buccos game was on, and we were feeling quite patient, so we ordered a pitcher of margaritas and set to work on the chips and salsa. The pitcher took a little while to arrive, but it was well worth the wait. The blend was light and delicious, a perfect balance of mix and tequila, so it wasn't overpoweringly sweet.

I had the chicken quesadilla, and my husband had the mahi mahi milanesa (I do not really know what 'milanesa' means, but I can only guess it means something like 'lightly breaded and fried in a batter made of amazing'). All the meals come on those huge plates with refried beans, rice, and salad topped with guac and sour cream, just like La Fiesta used to make. This is quite dangerous, as this place is literally less than half a mile from our house, and I no longer have the metabolism of my early twenties when I lived two blocks down from La Fiesta.

The best news of all? Somehow, our day's worth of gluttony spurred the Buccos to beat the Cubbies. I was going to make a comparison about the underdog Buccos being like the underdog Mexicans in the Battle of Puebla, and get all metaphorical to tie things together at the end here but... really, I'm still just working off that pitcher of margaritas ;)

Also, it's only 2.5 hours until the puck drops, and I've got to get my game face on! Let's Go Pens!!

Good On You, Gallery Crawl

Last night, we attended the first Downtown Gallery Crawl of 2010. In Pittsburgh, there are two main types of Gallery Crawls: the Cultural District every-so-often ones, and the monthly Unblurred First Friday ones. The Cultural District Gallery Crawls are held just where you'd think they'd be, spanning the Downtown galleries and event spaces, and covering a lot of the same ground as the First Night happenings. First Fridays, or Unblurred, are held on the opposite end of Penn Avenue, spanning the galleries and restaurants of Garfield from end to end.

Typically, it's an easy decision of which crawl is best - First Fridays happen more regularly, and this (plus their location in Garfield) makes them a little less hectic and crowded. It's easier to get a decent glass of wine, and the galleries all serve snacks in addition to the alcohol. The Cultrual District crawls happen immediately after the workweek ends on Fridays, and if you don't get there early, all the galleries are going to be out of food and drink, and you're going to be standing around for ages trying to see any of the art.

However, we decided to hit the Cultural District Gallery Crawl to check it out, and I can say that we had an honest-to-goodness decent time. It started out slow - we were at Wood Street Galleries first, and they never seem to have anything truly interesting - but gradually improved as the night went on.

The highlights: Future Tenant's installation DO.YOU.ND3R5T@ND? Communication Through Technology. I was a little slow coming around to this when we first got into the gallery, but the more time I spent looking at the exhibit, the more I liked it. As it sounds, it was art focusing on technology that involves communication, from the soup cans on a string to IPhones and hands-free phones (probably my favorite piece - a painting of human-like birds on a telephone wire wearing headsets). It also featured a video of two dancers projected onto the wall, expressing non-verbal communication and lack of communication in relationships.

707 Penn Gallery: Particulate Behaviours. Some of this was a bit weird, mainly the two works of strips of paper on the wall that were meant to be 'activated' by pulling away the strip and allowing colored dust to fall to the ground. However, I really liked one part of the exhibit where you had to go into a little dark room that had a ceiling covered in clear globes of different sizes that reflected light. I'm all about light-art.

709 Penn Gallery: Adam Welch's A Few Objects on a Theme of Contradiction. This exhibit really fell flat for me. I'm going to just admit the truth: I didn't get it. The main piece when you entered the gallery was a dildo on a jackhammer that pounded against a piece of flat metal. Totally didn't get it. Sorry, call me a philistine, but I just don't understand. We didn't stick around too long in this gallery.

901 Penn Ave: Matthew Conboy's Pittsburgh Project. This one was probably the most interesting to me, as it was an exhibit of Pittsburgh photography, comparing work done by W. Eugene Smith from 1955-1956 with photographs taken in the past few years by Conboy. I thought the concept was fascinating, although the photographs themselves were a little lacking (this gallery and artist do get bonus points for the wine and snacks though!). One of my favorite things is comparative photography (this is a term I have made up), for example, a set of photos showing the same stretch of a city street in the early 1900s and then in present day. I really think there are so many possibilities with this type of project, and I was glad to see that other people out there have an interest in this same sort of thing that I do.

Northside Urban Pathways Gallery. This is a charter school (grades 6-12) located right in the midst of the Cultural District that always hosts a steel drum band and a bake sale. We checked out the bake sale, but happened to be stopping by between steel drum performances, so we just wandered around to look at the kids' projects that were on display. My favorite was the HIV/AIDS awareness project on display. I believe the boy who did it was named David, and I just thought he did a really great job explaining on a high school reading level the importance of getting tested, being safe, and spreading the word. I swore I wasn't going to ever get political in this blog, but I really appreciated his pamphlet on how teens and young adults should approach abstinence and safe sex, and also how these two things can be very much related. It didn't get religious or political, just very down-to-earth and common-sense. We need more of this kind of awareness in high schools, particularly our city schools. Good job. :)

Material Witness Showroom. This could be the totally wrong name of the place, but it's all I can find. We stopped in this gallery on First Night, but a bit of the art had changed, so we came back for a second round. The gallery is half-furniture (awesome, wooden furniture and fireplace-free active-fires) and half-art (this time paintings by Rachel Hallas, which were beautiful). It was a really nice atmosphere to hang out and relax for a little while, and enjoy some cheese, grapes, and delicious mini muffins. Yet again, you get a bonus point for feeding us while we enjoyed your art!

PA Culinary Institute. Just had to mention them again, since I stopped in for another brownie. They were just regular fudge brownies this time, and not the peanut butter and cashew ones of First Night, but man oh man were they good. Yum!

All in all, it was quite a good time, and I'm thoroughly proud of the Cultural District for keeping up with First Fridays. There isn't much that'll prevent me from going to any free Pittsburgh event, but it's nice to get the most out of my visit as I can.

The night was also noteworthy because my student ID that has given me free reign to PAT busses since 2001 expired on December 31st (your guess is as good as mine how it was in-date a full 2.5 years after I graduated), and this gallery crawl was the first time I've ever had to pay cash for a bus. Did you know that it costs $2.00 to take the bus?? And apparently, if we'd had to transfer, it would have cost even more! I'm mildly outraged by this. At Pitt, we paid something like $55 a semester for 'transportation fees' which included unlimited use of the PAT system, the inclines, the T, our Pitt busses, and VanCall. There must be a way around this... Anyone want me to TA their class for a free Pitt ID? I can do science or English, I promise!

Things to work on... :)

First Night

Apologies again for the hiatus. This time, my excuse is our lovely little pooch Lucy. We just adopted her, and she's a very cuddle-starved baby mutt who is taking up all of my time. I may not be a kid person, but owning a puppy has certainly solidified the fact that I'm a dog person. She's my little sweet angel doggy. I will surely post some pictures of her at some point, but first, I wanted to do my long-overdue post about First Night (apparently now with a sweet little red dog on my lap).

For the second year in a row, my husband and I decided to attend Pittsburgh's First Night with another one of our couple-friends on New Year's Eve. For those of you who are unfamiliar, First Night is an all-ages event held downtown on New Year's Eve, culminating with our version of the Times Square New Year's Eve Ball Drop. Because we're Yinzers and thus have to do everything our own way, our ball goes up, instead of dropping.

The city shuts down most of Penn Avenue downtown and puts up fire barrels on the street corners to keep you warm as you wander around and look at the events. This year was relatively warm (in the 30s), but a light snow/rain was falling the whole time, making it seem somehow colder than last year's below-zero windchill. The majority of the events are inside, but you do spend a good deal of the evening outside traveling between exhibits.

At last year's event, we'd been back in Pittsburgh for just over two months, and the excitement that I felt wandering around First Night was just electric: I was finally back with my people, back on the correct coast and in the proper time zone. Every time I heard a Yinzer accent or saw Steeler hats and jackets my heart jumped a little. Even the sound of the sax guy who can't play "Here We Go Steelers" in tune brought a tear to my eye. I was home.

So this year, being fully re-citizened to the 'Burgh, and now even being a homeowner within the city limits, I wasn't expecting the same kind of feeling. I was looking forward to the night, but I wasn't planning on feeling extra alive or hopeful or anything like that.

So thanks, my city and my neighbors, for continuing to surprise me :)

We started the night off with dinner at the Sonoma Grille. Neither of us had been before, and being the Central Coast wine country fanatics that we are, we were really excited to check it out. It was absolutely worth the price. I swear to you, the meal was an entire experience. If you go, I highly recommend getting the tapas platter, just so you can check out a variety of delicious flavors in small portions. And the wine? We picked a Paso Robles bottle that was so delicious we're planning on visiting the winery when we're in the area next month on vacation.

With that excellent start to the night, it was off to take in as much as we could of what the city had to offer. Probably my only complaint about First Night is that there is just SO much to see that unless you are very quick and working on a pre-determined schedule, it's basically impossible to see everything you want to see. I'll just touch on a few of the things we loved.

The Pillow Project's Present. Perfect. Tense. The Pillow Project is a dance company headed by Pearlann Porter, who is one of the most incredible choreographers of the present moment. I'm a little biased, maybe, because I used to take her class at Point Park, but her style is so innovative and the way her pieces have been experimenting with light recently is just fascinating to me (we also took in her piece in December at Dance Alloy, The Itch of the Key, which was incredible). This performance featured a male and female dancer behind the glass window of an otherwise-empty shop, dancing and interacting around two squares of light. It was set to Radiohead and Adele songs, and just very creative and enjoyable.

The Pennsylvania Culinary Institute. We made a point of stopping here after a tasty snack last year, and we were not disappointed at all. They had several different soups to choose from, hot chocolate and apple cider, and my personal favorite, brownies. This year's brownies had peanut butter icing with cashews. Sweet and salty and delicious, and only $1.50. I love that place.

WYEP Studios - Good Night, States. As I'm highly allergic to hipsters (those eight months we lived on the border of Lawrenceville were very tough on me), I'd been kind of avoiding ever seeing the Good Night, States, despite the good press they get locally. I guess I just assumed they were 'one of those hipster bands' whose crowd at a show makes me want to avoid the bar at all costs. However, the couple we were with wanted to check them out, so I decided to give them a chance. I was honestly pleasantly surprised. They've got a great sound, which is very catchy and not bored or whiny. Lots of instruments, but all of them have a unique sound and contribute to the songs. They reminded me a lot of one of my favorite little acts, Norfolk and Western. I could tell that these were actually talented musicians, and I think we will definitely check them out again around town.

Fireworks. I seriously wanted to do an all-fireworks blog. The way we Yinzers love our fireworks is something almost fanatical. The fireworks were set off between Fifth Avenue Place and the old Hornes building, and it was a little scary in those tight quarters, but still cool.

Overall, we had a great time. We didn't get to check out as much stuff as we would have liked to just because of time constraints, but the things we saw were really neat. I know it's a year away, but I really recommend everyone checking out First Night 2011 at the end of December.

And now, it's off to tend to the little red dog and get some sleep before my weekend of work begins. Here are a few parting pictures from First Night:

a resolution sculpture titled "Welcome Love" by Kyle Fischer, woven with ribbons of people's New Year's resolutions

Penn Avenue is closed down to traffic so First Night attendees can walk up and down the street

fireworks above the old Hornes building at the start of the new year