Weekend Update

This weekend was all about food and family. Sadly, it was also all about Meg failing to take pictures... as usual.

Friday night, Bill's sister Liss and her partner, Sean, came into the city for dinner and drinks. We took them to Zahav in Society Hill. I had never been there myself so it worked out really well.

Photo courtesy of the New York Times

Zahav is an Israeli restaurant that mixes real, true Mediterranean fare with a contemporary atmosphere. We shared a pitcher of Lemonnana, a mixture of whiskey, mint, lemon and verbena, which was pretty amazing. We also started with warm, Turkish hummus, crispy haloumi- a tangy cheese, Hungarian beef stew, fried cauliflower and stuffed grape leaves. The haloumi and fried cauliflower were out-of-this-world good. Our second plates of ground beef and lamb, hanger steak and spiced eggplant were also pretty delicious.

Photo courtesy of VisitPhilly 

The whole experience, however, was slightly lessened by the extremely pushy wait service and the terrible music. A weird, top-ten of the 90's soundtrack played really loudly, totally distracting from the food and conversation. And then our waiter and another member of the service staff constantly pushed us to buy more and look at more food, even when we made it known we didn't want more. The restaurant is hardly going out of business or lacking in funds, so the pushing was definitely unwarranted.



After dinner we headed to Triumph Brewery a few blocks away. Bill and I had been here once or twice before and really liked the atmosphere. Good drinks, casual atmosphere and fun, live music with a smaller crowd. Sadly, when we took Liss and Sean there, the place was packed and the music was bad. The dance floor was filled with drunk, aging hippies. We did grab a drink at the less-crowded upstairs bar and savored the rest of the night.



Photo courtesy of  Triumph Brewery 

Bill and I at Triumph a few years ago. 

The next morning, well afternoon actually, we headed to Northern Liberties for a hipster-style brunch at Darling's Diner. Darling's might be in the hipster-capital of the city but they have good food and they bring it out fast. I ate up a tasty eggs benedict with potatoes. Mmm....

Photo courtesy of Philadelphia Gay News 

If that wasn't enough eating out and stuffing ourselves, we picked up some dinner for ourselves and Bill's parents on Sunday. They stopped in on their trip back home from their vacation home in South Carolina and wanted something light and healthy. So we ordered pick-up from Fare, the organic restaurant down the street. Bill and I went to eat there when it first opened and while Bill thought it was decent, I was unimpressed. I was glad we went a second round, though, as my flank steak with potatoes and green beans was pretty amazing. The organic and locally-sourced meal got accolades all around. 

Photo courtesy of Drink Philly

So that was our food-filled weekend. Did you grab anything good to eat?

A few of my favorite things...

Its been pretty slow around here lately. We had a potentially exciting weekend ahead of us last Friday. We even finally walked the six blocks to Lemon Hill's bar to get a drink (which, btw, wasn't that great...). However, after that drink, I got hella sick. Saturday we went to do a house tour of a designer, Denise Sabia, who redecorated from only trash and flea market finds. Check out the first half of the tour here . I sniffled and sneezed through the entire thing. The second we got home and put some food in my belly, I was out cold.

We traveled up to Jersey that night for what was supposed to be a "siblings" weekend at Bill's sister's house. I laid around covered in tissues the entire time. Totally lame. So in total, my weekend pretty much looked like this...

Pillow and tissue piles wherever I went...

So sitting around in my own used tissue pile gave me plenty of time to look at fun things on the computer, debuting a new reoccurring post I'll call "A few of my favorite things...". No, they won't be kittens and snowflakes on eyelashes (although, they might be...), but I feel its ok for me to slip in my most recent fascinations in life, design, fashion and food.

So for our first round, here's what I've been obsessed with recently


1. The Watson Twins and Neko Case 


For the last week and a half, when I head to the coffee shop or plop down in our office to get some work done, I log into Grooveshark (an online music player for those who don't know) and instantly type in "The Watson Twins" or "Neko Case" and just play all of their songs for hours and hours. I've been a Case fan for as long as I can remember, but her sound never, ever, gets old. As for the Watson Twins, I found them through my other red-headed love, Jenny Lewis, but I've been digging their sound more than Lewis's lately.

2. Playing Photographer 

I've been trying to get better at taking pictures so I don't have to drag Bill out to every photo shoot I want or need to do. So I've been enjoying taking pictures around the house of mundane things and trying to make them more interesting. My favorite shot so far? This one...

Who doesn't want a bob-haired, glamorous Natalie Wood in the back of their photos?!

3. These shoes... 

From here. Mmmm...... 

4. Working out! 

I can't believe it, but I've been loving a daily 30-minute Pilates session. I've been feeling great, looking better and surprisingly, am in love with Pilates again! 

5. Above the bed

Since we moved in I've wanted to complete the fake headboard above our bed. I love the stripes, but I feel like the bed needs to be more grounded with some piece of artwork. The original concept was to put a large, blank canvas over the bed like this... 

But its hard to experiment with that. So I've also brought in the options of a square, Ikea Ribba frame...

But those seem extra bulky (and kinda scary) to put above our heads

My final option, that I think I'm leaning towards, is a "see-through" frame that I want to spray paint gold and fill with bright green leaves. Like this... 

But not like this at all. :-) 

The frame I picked out is the long one on the bottom, but I'd spray paint it gold and put in bright green ginkgo leaves! 

What do you think?

Valentine's Day in Pictures

Last night we had a cozy little Valentine's Day celebration at home. We watched our first date movie, Up in the Air, which is particularly special as much of the film was shot and set in my hometown of St. Louis. Bill made the night extra special for me by indulging me in my love of buttery popcorn goodness. Mmmm.
He also came home with flowers and a sweet Damien Rice song on the guitar. I love that man.

These pink flowers have lasted almost two weeks. I love them! 

Bill's V-Day present from his mom. He inhales these little guys. 

A card from one of my closest friends back home

My card to Bill. We found this picture last year. It pretty much describes our entire relationship. :-) 

Look at how red those suckers are! 

That's how we celebrated love! (With lots of kisses scattered in, of course.) 

How did you celebrate?! 

A dreamy house tour

This weekend, Bill and I did a house tour for the paper that was really beautiful. The couple, Shauna and Stephen, own this cute bow tie shop called Forage  as well as a little Etsy shop called Something's Hiding in Here, both super cute little stores. The couple are equally adorable and had lots of great little love stories to tell us for the Valentine's issue of The Great Indoors, which you can check out here. However, City Paper's website won't allow us to put up a ton of pictures, meaning we had to leave out some of the magic. So I thought I'd give a more detailed glimpse into Shauna and Stephen's romantic loft retreat.

(Click on the image for a larger version!)

                                    

Beautiful, huh? And let's give a hand to our amazing photographer, Mr. William McEwan! Can't do it without him :-)