Pumpkin Carving at Art in the Age

I read a lot of local blogs, which is always a great way to find out about free activities going on in your area. Luckily living in Philly means a lot of free COOL stuff.

One of my favorite stores in the entire world, Art in the Age, hosted a pumpkin carving and fall cocktail party last night.

The store is exactly how I would like my house to look one day. I love going in there just for inspiration. And to look at clothes I can’t afford.

We were each given our own pumpkin and set to work.

Art in the Age also creates two liquors Root and Snap. I was pretty excited to try both out.

Kelly, from Living on the Vedge, joined us for the evening.

As much as I love carving pumpkins, I have a very short attention span. So I left Kelly and Eric to carve and I walked around and took some photos.

Pumpkin carving was a success!

We had plans to go out to dinner after the carving, but unfortunately Eric wasn’t feeling well. So we headed home to get him some food and sleep.

The Normal Commute

This morning I “slept in” and woke up in order to hit the road at 7:00, rather than the usually 6:00 am. For those of you that don’t know, I commute to work daily via bicycle. My trip takes me across the entire city of Philadelphia and out to the suburbs. It can sometimes feel like a long hike everyday especially when there is inclimate weather/strong winds but I rather take either of those options than have to sit behind the wheel of a car. For some reason when some people get behind the wheel of a car their mentality changes… this happens to me as well for some odd reason. I’ve noticed people become annoyed/flustered/angry about little things, and always in a rush. As a commuter I see this a great deal as no one likes bikes… I get it, people on their way to work don’t like to be inconvenienced even in the slightest, especially when they are “in a hurry.”

Today I was hoping just to make a random picture post from the commute and continue doing so, but today like many days I ran into another driver who just didn’t “get it.” What I mean by that is many drivers are ignorant to the fact that bikes are considered “motorized vehicles” and have to abide by the same laws (even though many don’t, especially in the city) and have rights to the road similar to those of cars. This ignorance became apparent today when a driver came behind my brightly flashing bike and proceeded to honk vigorously. Mind you this is a four lane road with shoulders on both sides, (that usually filled with parallel parked cars on both sides) so they could have easily passed me in the left lane. Instead, the driver’s action was to beep then pretend to side swipe me by getting inches away from my bike while speeding past. Now I am not sure why someone would do something like this, but I was intrigued to find out. Right after the driver pulled this stunt the light turned red nearly 100 feet ahead but in order not have to stop and deal with the situation they just caused they blew through it. I threw a little shuffle in my step and caught up with them at the next light. I was certainly surprised when I rode to the drivers side window to see an older woman, roughly 60 years of age. Unfortunately I wasn’t quite as composed as I should have been, but when someone deliberately puts your life at risk, its hard to be calm.

As we exchanged words she unfortunately was under the impression that I had no business on the road and should take my cycling to the sidewalk. For those of you who don’t know, riding on the sidewalk many places is illegal and truth be told, VERY, VERY dangerous. This is because as cyclist coming off the sidewalk into the cross-street, cars are only expecting pedestrians who move at a slower rate of speed, not a cyclist moving at a faster rate of speed. Studies have shown that a cyclist riding on the sidewalk is 2.5x more likely to get hit crossing the street rather than in the road.

Anyways I digress, my only suggestion is when you see a cyclist give them a break, even if it inconveniences you slightly.

Quick photo during this mornings ride as the sun was coming up, cruising on some back-roads outside of the city limits.

Lancaster Farm Fresh CSA Week 23

Our catch of the week:

3 lbs. Russet Potatoes – certified organic – Millwood Springs Organics

¼ lb. Bag Sweet Habanero Peppers – certified organic – Railroad Organics

2 lbs. Sweet Potatoes – certified organic – Shady Brook Organics

1 Butternut Squash – certified organic – Shady Brook Organics

1 Head Green Leaf Lettuce – certified organic – Back 40 Ranch

1 lb. Sweet Onions – certified organic – White Swan Acres

1 Bunch Easter Egg Radishes – certified organic – Windy Hollow Organics

1 Head Cauliflower – certified organic – Green Valley Organics

For dinner we roasted some of our newly acquired produce from the CSA including squash, cauliflower, leeks, sweet habaneros as well as some squash seeds and some of Lauren’s festive sweet maple glazed roasted nuts (recipe to come soon I promise!) We served these over top some brown rice and I made a quick raw cilantro pesto.

The pesto consisted of hazelnuts, pecans, cilantro, clove of raw garlic, salt, pepper, and some extra virgin olive oil. Like for any of my pestos, I start blending the nuts first, then add the green herb/veggie which in the case was cilantro, then the salt, pepper, and garlic. Next I blend those ingredients while slowly pouring extra virgin olive oil until the pesto has the consistency that I am looking for. Lately I have been making pesto a bit rustic to give it more texture and its takes a bit less time 🙂 Sorry about the photos, its so dark out side at dinner time these days…

My version:

Lauren’s:

Photos From The Weekend

It was a busy weekend, with not much to show for it.

Last week I heard about a tea class being held by City Planter and The Random Tea Room. I’m an avid tea drinker and I jumped at the chance to learn more. The class was held outside and was really awesome. I learned SO much in just the hour.

We went over more herbal blends then actual teas, and they had all the herbs on hand and we got to pass them around. Here is a small list of some cool things I learned:
There are a ton of hybrids of mint, we got to smell lime mint, mint julep, orange mint, etc.
I got to eat a leaf off of a stevia plant, and it was so sweet. 1 tsp of dried stevia is equal to one cup of sugar.
To dry herbs put them on a screen and in the oven for 2-4 hours at 150 degrees.
Some herbs are more potent when fresh. You can put the fresh herbs in an ice cube tray, fill with water, and freeze them. They can easily be thawed for use.
There are two types of fennel, fennel the produce and fennel the herb.
Ginger is really easy to grow, just grab a root from the grocery store and plant it! It makes a great houseplant because of it’s scent.

I left really excited about tea and plan on going to The Random Tea Room often, it’s right around the corner!

I spent the next few hours at home being lazy. I needed to go run but just didn’t feel like it. I was tweeting about my laziness when Krista, of Kristastes texted me and asked if we wanted to run together. Oh the power of social networking for getting my butt out the door!

We ran around the city for a few miles and then ran across the Ben Franklin Bridge! The bridge is a lot of fun to run over, with great views. There is a pretty steady incline, then downhill, then you turn around and do it all over again.

Here is the city from New Jersey.

We stopped on top to take a few photos.

And you bet there was some jumping!

And some jump fails.

I’m going to start incorporating the bridge into some of my shorter runs because of the ‘hills’.

Later in the evening we went to a friend’s going away party. Our friend Erin is moving to New Zealand, how awesome is that?!

We ended up at some dance club, except you couldn’t actually dance. I don’t think I have ever been told before not to dance…

Regardless it was still a fun night.

And then we paid the price of staying out too late on Sunday. There was a lot of napping going on in the household.

One of the only productive things I did was make scones. And awesome scones at that! There were pumpkin scones with a pumpkin spiced glaze. Recipe can be found here.

Before I made these Eric told me he didn’t like scones. And then he ate two.

And then probably the best news of the weekend is I got a new bike! Which brings are household total to 10 freaking bikes. For two people.

There is actually a method to this madness. I’ve had my current single speed for 4 years, but it’s always been too big for me. It wasn’t a big deal, but we started looking out for smaller frames. Well Eric came across this bike on Craigslist for a really good deal, and we didn’t want to pass it up.
So I have a new bike. I’m going to put my current wheels and seat on it. I will clean up my old bike and sell it. So if anyone wants a SS bike and they are over 5’9″, let me know!