Saturday in the City

Amazingly, despite the wonderful abundance of vegetables we received from our first CSA delivery, we realized we needed more produce to get us through the week. Luckily, the Farmers' Market was open yesterday morning with the thing I craved the most--strawberries! We picked up a few other goodies as well, including some local kale, asparagus, potatoes, and honey.

These strawberries looked and smelled so good that I told Dan I would marry them if I wasn't already married.

Technically, Dan and I live in the City of Philadelphia, but we don't live in Center City, which is the downtown area and home to most of the city action. Dan works in Center City, and we make it over there from time to time, but we haven't spent nearly as much time there as we would like. Yesterday, we decided to remedy that, and we hopped on the train to take us downtown for the afternoon.

First stop was City Hall, where a statue of William Penn sits atop, overlooking the city (when it rains, it looks like he is peeing on the city, but that is neither here nor there). We had hoped to take the elevator to the top, which offers a fantastic view, but sadly the Hall is not open on weekends. Instead, we walked through the lovely courtyard and caught glimpses of dozens of skateboarders and bikers doing tricks on the plaza.

From there, it was on to Rittenhouse Square and the surrounding area. This neighborhood is home to city folk who have millions to spend on amazing luxury apartments, brownstones, and grandiose row houses. Needless to say, I will never live there, but it was nice to dream about living on a beautiful street like this in the heart of the city.

We spent a lot of time walking around, popped into Borders for a while, and then proceeded to the highlight of the afternoon: a trip to Capogiro. When Dan and I visited Philly last fall, this gelato shop was near our hotel; it was so good that we went their twice during our four-day visit. If you ever visit me, I promise to take you there, where a small cup includes two flavors. Dan's choices: champagne mango and orange cardamom. Mine: black fig and dark chocolate (and they are serious when they say dark chocolate--they have the richest dark chocolate frozen concoction I have ever seen). The variety of original flavor combinations is just daunting (they have a total of 368, which they rotate), and I can't wait until my next visit when I plan to try a favorite gelato flavor with espresso poured on top!