Philly and the World

Food + Wine + Rum = Fun in Barbados

2010-11-24T04:02:00.000-08:00

From the woman who sells the Trinidadian treat known as “doubles” outside the Trimart supermarket; to the fresh seafood at Oistins Fish Market; the local produce, meats and poultry of the Cheapside market; and restaurants known for their refined versions of traditional Bajan fare, Barbados has a lot to offer food lovers. Not to mention Barbados is the only Caribbean island to have its own Zagat guide.

Chef Tom Colicchio (right) chatting with Nilou Motamed (left), editor of Travel + Leisure magazine.

So it is with this backdrop that the folks at American Express Publishing and Food + Wine magazine presented the first, "Barbados Food + Wine & Rum Festival," November 19-22. The event held throughout the island included cooking demonstrations and special meals with celebrity chefs such as Tom Colicchio, Ming Tsai and Marcus Samuelsson; wine demonstrations with expert Anthony Giglio; and cruises with food and drink as its central theme. All of it washed down with large amounts of rum--the sugarcane based drink believed to have first been distilled in Barbados.

Chef Ming Tsai signing a book for a fan.

Local food experts played a major role. Peter Edey, Caribbean chef, editor television show host; and John Hazzard, co-owner and executive chef of Marketfive restaurant were among local food experts who held cooking demonstrations and food tastings. This was a program for locals to get to know the International celebrity chefs and for tourists to learn more about island food and drink.

Maria Ling DeMarco (who contributed to this story) with chef Marcus Samuelsson.

Philly and the World attended the opening night “Moonlight Magic” party at the Hilton Barbados. It was an outdoor event with live Caribbean music and plenty of food. On the beach a tent was set up where Colicchio, Tsai and British chef Fergus Henderson signed copies of their books for attendees.

The gnocchi station.

Hilton chef Angela Garroway-Holland led the food service with recipes from the visiting chefs. Local favorites such as Bajan fishcakes shared the night with Asian-influenced kimchee pork belly buns and Italian-themed gnocchi with sundried smoked tomato pesto. There were petite filet mignon, pepper-crusted roast beef and grilled prawns with watermelon and guava coulis. Robert Mondavi had a strong presence in the wine booth. Women from Banks, the local brewery, were serving draft and the bar featured, what else? Rum.

Petite filet

The blue and white backlit dessert table created a frosty appearance on the warm Caribbean night. The obvious standout visually was a pyramid made of profiteroles (left). There was a display of molasses brulee (below), an island twist on the traditional French dessert, topped with local brown sugar. And there were small replicas of rum bottles made of white chocolate.

There were many members of American Express Publishing in attendance led by Ed Kelly, president and CEO, Christina Grdovic, Food + Wine publisher, and Nilou Motamed, editor of Travel + Leisure magazine. Richard Sealy, Barbados minister of tourism, welcomed guests touting the island’s reputation for hospitality.

White chocolate rum bottles

As Sealy noted, this is not a one-off deal. The next event will be held November 18-21, 2011.

Prawn station

A Trip to Eataly

2010-11-14T21:27:00.000-08:00

It was a cold Sunday afternoon in New York and we wanted to warm up with a proper Italian coffee, so we went to Eataly, the new mega-market with the best of all things Italian that opened August 31. More than two months later the place still had that new-store buzz.

The Lavazza café by the front door off Fifth Avenue was mobbed with tourists and locals. In a line that stretched into the pathway of customers wanting to go deep into the cavernous 50,000-sf space, a man in front of me was being photographed with different people. When it was his turn he was still involved with these pictures. The cashier finally asked for my order when he shouted for his drink. It was “The Fonz,” Henry Winkler.

"The Fonz" mingles with fans while waiting for coffee.

Waiting in another line for our drinks to be prepared, a tall stylish Italian woman with long blonde hair and plump red lips approached Winkler. Unable to speak English, she could only say the word “photo.” He obliged and when finished she smiled and struggling to speak as if both star struck and fumbling for the right words in English, she could only say, “Bravo, bravo.” Winkler took his drink to go.

Piemonte on left with espresso crema

Maria and I both wanted a bicerin (pronounced beet-chureen), a hot chocolate, espresso and cream foam drink. They were sold out so the cashier suggested a piemonte, a long espresso drink with cocoa and topped with whipped cream and dark chocolate flakes. Maria ordered an Espresso Crema espresso topped with frothed skim milk and in her case, sweetened with Italian orange syrup. You can rarely go wrong on a cold day with drink of coffee, chocolate and cream. But when using the best ingredients and having it prepared by skilled baristas, even when overwhelmed with customers, what you get are crafted drinks with balanced and rich flavor.

Waiting in line for gelato.

After our coffee we went inside the massive market. It was maddening and awe inspiring. There are areas for packaged goods, such as marmalades and panettone (the wonderful Italian sweet bread). There’s a gelateria, a Venchi chocolate counter, a second branded coffee stand selling espressos and coffee to go (Caffe Vergnano). And we’re still in the front room (opening picture).

The Rotisserie area

Further inside, the center of market, are the restaurants and fresh food stands. There are separate stands for fish, meat, poultry, fresh pasta, vegetables, along with corresponding restaurants. You can literally have a full-course Italian meal by going from one specialty restaurant to the next. But you would have to wait in line for each and every restaurant and spend a fortune. There are standing areas for drinks and Italian cheeses and salumi.

Inside the fresh pasta counter there are trays of fresh white and black truffles casually resting as if it’s just another tray of macaroni, with the addition of three-figure price tags. You can request truffles in the restaurants as well. I seriously doubt there is another retail outlet of any kind in the U.S. that has as many truffles on hand.

Past the fresh food and restaurants is the market, where you can do your grocery shopping. If you find that cutting your own vegetables can be difficult and time consuming task, just take them to the “vegetable butcher,” who will cut and prepare them for you. Fine Italian wine and crafted beer is available. Nearby are an Alessi cookware stand and places to buy Italian tableware.

Shelves of dried pasta.

In short you can buy all the fresh, prepared or packaged food you need to stock your fridge and pantry; have it prepared by staff members, or not; buy the cookware to prepare what you buy; and the tableware to serve what you bought and made; all under one roof. The added benefit is that all of the products are the best of what Italy and America has to offer.

The pasta restaurant

If you become overwhelmed with emotion from all of the fantastic food and you feel that you have to go to the source immediately, there’s a travel agent on site who will book your flight to Italy.

Eataly is the result of a partnership of Lidia Batianich, Mario Batali, and Lidia's son, Joseph Bastianich. These are chefs and restaurateurs who have combined celebrity with the chops to back up their public accolades. Another partner is the founder of the Eataly food concept, Oscar Farinetti. He wanted to create a food market based on quality local ingredients, a commitment to the slow food movement and value. He opened his first store in Milan. There are now five Eataly stores in Italy and three in Japan. The store in New York is the first in the U.S.

Truffles

For a place with such high-end products from Italy and the U.S. and with what must be astronomical rents, there is value. For example the coffee drinks at the Lavazza Café run from $2 to $4.50, extremely competitive with other high-end coffee establishments who often do not have professional baristas and the same quality ingredients. The fresh pasta, the best looking and most diverse offering I’ve ever seen, is also competitively priced. At the other end of the spectrum, the $25 panettone is well overpriced.

We returned to Eataly Thursday evening to get a quick pasta fix before attending an event. Even though it was only 5:30 p.m., the pasta restaurant was full along with several of the other eateries. We chose the only place that had availability at the bar, Manzo, the Italian steakhouse, the most elaborate restaurant. Fortunately, it had pasta and some exceptional wine by the glass.

The seafood restaurant

For my pappardelle with sausage and radicchio trevisano, I had a robust Barbaresco. Maria chose a Rosato Refosco—a young, fruity wine from the Bastianich winery in the Friuli-Venezia Giulia region of Italy—with her Tajarin Al Sugo D' Arrosto, thin pasta with a veal roast pan sauce. It’s one of those wonderful simple, regional Italian dishes that had me asking, “Why didn’t I think of that?”

Alessi cookware

Afterward, we went to the Lavazza Café for the bicerin. It’s a layered drink with hot cocoa on the bottom, espresso and cold cream on top. The barista explained that the proper way to drink it is to try to get a taste of all three layers without mixing it. Not an easy task but well worth the effort. Hot and cold, sweet and savory a really great way to end a nice, light meal and head into the night.

The Philadelphia Opera Company does it Again

2010-11-13T09:28:00.000-08:00

The Opera Company of Philadelphia held another one of its surprise public performances. This time they shared the wealth of talent in the Philadelphia area by inviting singers from 28 professional and amateur groups throughout the region to perform the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel's "Messiah" in Macy’s department store in center city.

The world’s largest pipe organ provided the music while 650 choristers startled and delighted shoppers by singing one of the best-loved choruses in all of music in the seven-story Grand Court of the former Wanamaker's department store.

It was sponsored by the Knight Foundation as part of its Random Acts of Culture series, taking “classical artists out of the performance halls, into the streets—and our everyday lives.” They are doing these kind of events throughout the country. The Friends of the Wanamaker Organ and Macy’s also provided support for the event.

The chorus was performed October 30 and the YouTube video has already registered more than 1.6 million visits as of this November 13 writing. The video is below.

River Lights

2010-11-13T08:12:00.000-08:00

The Light Drift installation with the Market Street bridge, 30th Street Station and Cira Center in the background. (photos from the Philadelphia Mural Arts program)

For three nights in October a section of the Schuylkill River in center city was transformed into a field of lights. On the water and along its bank vacuumed formed translucent shells were set up in a grid pattern and lit in constant changing glow of green, blue and white.

Known as “Light Drift,” the temporary installation was the brainchild of Boston-based artist J. Meejin Yoon and was created in collaboration with the Philadelphia Mural Arts Program. The display was interactive in more ways than one. Not only did it encourage interaction with the art work but those in attendance, in some cases unwittingly, controlled the lighting effect.

Inside the shells—made of a non-toxic and fully recyclable material called Polyethylene Terephthalate Glycol (PETG)—were Light Emitting Diode (LED) units, custom micro controllers and radio frequency identification (RFID) transmitters. The shells, also known as orbs, on the land respond to people in the area and use the RFID technology to communicate with the orbs in the water. The result is they change color. When someone approaches an orb on land, it communicates with a particular the line of orbs in the water and change into a milky shade of white. This is a transitional phase. When someone sits on the orb the line of shells in the water change from green to blue and back again.

On opening night, with soundscapes and new age music in the background, people milled about the orbs; touching and sitting on them while watching them change color on land and sea. Viewing it from above on the Chestnut Street bridge and “participating” with the display on the river bank with 30th Street Station, the Cira Center and the lit archways of the Market Street bridge in the background, there was calmness and warm feeling during the chilly night that no doubt was shared by others. It was a complicated installation but it appeared simple and pure in practice. It felt kind of magical.

Yoon is working at recreating the display in Boston on the Charles River. When the project is finished, the shells will be recycled.

Read more about it on A Daily Dose Architecture blog and see more images from Eric Höweler's flickr set. Below is a time lapse video of the Schuylkill River event.

Pat Martino and Table 51

2010-11-06T04:14:00.000-07:00

It was about 7:15 on a Friday night outside of Chris’ Jazz Café and I was talking to a woman outside the front door about my reservations for dinner and to see jazz guitarist, Pat Martino. I told her my name and that it’s a table for two and my wife was joining me in a few minutes. “Here it is,” she said. She looked at the woman just inside by the doorway and said, “Table 51.”

I followed the second woman past the crowded bar area through a narrow pathway against the wall passing tables full of people enjoying themselves and continued walking directly toward the stage. She stopped at the stage where there was a small table for two directly in front of Martino’s music stand. “Enjoy your night,” she said. “I certainly will,” I thought. The stage at Chris’ is only about a foot off the floor. I ordered a drink and the food for dinner. As the mushroom ragout, apple salad appeared so did Maria (she has a habit of appearing when food arrives). “Isn’t this a little too close?” she asked. I told her that’s a possibility.

As we were enjoying a shared dish of Jambalaya, Martino stepped out of the darkness of the tables, his signature Gibson in hand and made his way to the stage, along with his band mates Tony Monaco on the Hammond B3 organ and drummer Jason Brown. As soon as they got settled Martino counted off the first song and like a shot the three musicians began playing as if the building was on fire. Right then we both knew we had the perfect seat—an arm’s length from arguably the greatest living guitar player. Then I was upset because I didn’t bring my camera or my flip camcorder but quickly relaxed and enjoyed the moment.

Martino, dressed in pressed blue jeans, leather boots, blue jacket, green shirt and orange tie on his extremely thin frame is the picture of integrity. It’s with this same integrity that he approaches his music and his audience. Still, composed, spending much of his time sitting on stool but getting up every so often during high-octane moments, his long bony fingers lie across the guitar as if he is playing all five strings at once. What he is doing is playing melody and rhythm with exceptional speed and clarity with a technique that I’ve never seen. In fact it’s difficult to describe his technique and style in ways one normally plays the guitar. It’s kind of a holistic approach. Technique, precision, speed and artistry all rolled into a single person. No matter the how fast he’s playing or how difficult the passage, each note has a clear, distinct ring.

A video of Martino playing a Chris' Jazz Café in 2008

A total contrast to Martino was Monaco, whose body lunges and jerks all over the massive wooden keyboard, his one shoe off banging his stocking foot on the long wooden foot pedals beneath the keyboard while his face stressed and contorted in undefined expressions. Halfway through the first song he threw his sports coat to the ground. The knot of his tie was already down to his chest. As the first song ended his face was a puddle of sweat. After the first song, Monaco told Martino, “It sounds great. I’m happy.” He wasn’t the only one.

I couldn’t see Brown who sat directly behind Martino, but I could hear his steady beat and the way he was able to keep pace and lead with the constant changes in rhythm and intensity of sound.

Guitar solo on "Impressions." Recorded at Chris' in 2007

Martino, who lives in South Philadelphia in the house where he grew up, plays in his home town about twice a year. He spends much of his time playing around the world. He is particularly popular in Japan. Before the show, I was saying to Maria that it would be great to see him perform in some pristine Japanese nightclub in front of an audience that appreciates Martino and Jazz more than Americans. However, after watching his performance from Table 51 in the casual, cozy confines of Chris’ Jazz Café, and then seeing him mingle with some neighbors and family members afterwards, I couldn’t think of a better place to see this incredibly gifted hometown boy.

Opera Company of Philadelphia ‘Flash Opera’ Event at the Reading Terminal

2010-10-01T05:54:00.000-07:00

I don’t know what took me so long so post this, but on this gloomy rain-drenched morning in Philly it seems like a great way to warm one’s soul and enjoy the power of great music. It also seems appropriate as the Opera Company of Philadelphia begins its new season tonight.

This was recorded in April as members of the Opera company entertained the lunchtime crowd at the Reading Terminal Market with a performance of "Brindisi" from La Traviata in the aisles.

Enjoy

Boston’s Landmark Museum

2010-09-02T08:38:00.000-07:00

In Boston, you can leave Fenway Park, walk through the secluded and bucolic Back Bay Fens and come out 15 minutes later outside of the white granite neoclassical façade of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.

An installation called Signs & Symbols created by children of eight community centers throughout Boston.

It’s one of the largest museums in the U.S. with more than 450,000 works of art. Its European art collection alone contains 22,000 works dating from the 7th Century to the late 20th Century. It includes an extensive collection of Northern European art, particularly Dutch and Flemish pieces, which was my focus for the few hours I spent inside the museum.

Jan Jansz den Uyl, Dutch, Breakfast Still Life with Glass and Metalwork, about 1637

David Teniers II, the Younger, Flemish, Butcher Shop, 1642

Roelandt Jacobsz Savery, Flemish, Forest Scene with Hunters, about 1615

Of course, any museum of its size and statue has a strong collection of some of the world’s premiere art works along with some French and Italian gems. In addition, its lower floors contain objects and artifacts from ancient, Greece, Egypt and the Roman Empire.

Pierre-Auguste Renoir, French, Dance at Bougival, 1883

Smiling Saint Malo, Normandy, France, about 1250-1300

Giovanni Antonio Canaletto, Italian, Bacino di San Marco, Venice, 1734-40

Alcove Bed, Paris, 1787, stamped by Jean-Baptiste-Claude Sene

Etruscan and Faliscan art of the Classical and Hellenistic periods

In November, the museum will open a new wing dedicated to American art.

North African ‘Desert Jewels’ on Exhibit at Philadelphia Museum of Art

2010-08-23T13:53:00.000-07:00

An exhibition of historic jewelry and photographs from North Africa will be on display at the Philadelphia Museum of Art in an exhibition called Desert Jewels, September 4 – December 5.

For thousands of years, North Africa, a region that comprises the modern nations of Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Libya and Egypt, has been a crossroads for trade and the transmission of cultural influences from the Middle East, sub-Saharan Africa and Europe. This exhibition explores the richly diverse artistic heritage of North Africa through the presentation of a group of extraordinary works of the jeweler’s art collected over the course of three decades by Xavier Guerrand-Hermès, of the Paris-based fashion empire. It includes 93 pieces of jewelry complemented by 28 late 19th- and early 20th-century images by photographers who were captivated by the allure of North Africa. The exhibit features ornate necklaces, bracelets, rings, and earrings, many of which have not been publicly displayed before this exhibition.

The exhibit will be in the new Ruth and Raymond G. Perelman Building, across the street from the main museum building.

“These objects illuminate the rich history of North African craftsmanship, which has been shaped by the imprint of many different cultural traditions,” said Timothy Rub, the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s George D. Widener director and CEO. “We are pleased to collaborate with the Museum for African Art to share this exceptional collection, which is remarkable not only for its quality and great beauty, but also for the rich insights it provides into the customs and cultural diversity of North Africa.”

Examples of jewelry created with combinations of silver, coral, amber, coins, and semi-precious stones demonstrate the shared aesthetic heritage of many North African societies, the Philadelphia Museum said in a statement. Meanwhile, variations in materials and motifs reflect significant regional differences. Brightly colored necklaces of amazonite beads or large amber beads, such as the Three-Strand Necklace made in Morocco, symbolize wealth, while pendants or enameled beads known as tagguemout are used to encourage the wearer’s fertility. Many of the works in the exhibition indicate regional and group identity, and many were designed to protect the wearer from harm. Hand-shaped amulets, or Khamsa, typically made of silver, are the most popular form of protective jewelry, and are sometimes engraved with prayers and inscriptions in Arabic and Hebrew. The jewelry on view also identifies its wearer. Women receive jewelry from their husbands when they marry and wear it as a symbolic expression of social codes and cultural identity. Some of the jewelry on view is unique to a specific geographic location.

Beginning in the 1860s, European photographers seeking images of foreign locales, set up studios in the major cities of North Africa, photographing women wearing their jewels, as well as documenting markets, ancient archaeological sites and landscapes. The popularity of these photographs, which featured images of Arabs, Jews, Imazighen (also known as Berbers) and people from sub-Saharan Africa, reflected Europeans’ growing fascination with the so-called Orient.

These photographs came to the attention of Western collectors in the 19th century, when archaeological monuments in the region were being explored, visited, and, in some cases, pillaged. Important photographers of the day including the Scotsman George Washington Wilson, the Neurdine brothers from France, and the Turkish photographer Pascal Sabah, visited the region. Some of their images were used for postcards, while other remained in little-known collections.

Captions: (Top) Necklace with central pendant, Tagguemout, 20th Century, Draa Valley, Morocco, Silver, coral, enamel, coins, glass, copal, shell, cotton, plastic, buttons, Photo courtesy of Karen L. Willis/Museum for African Art.

(Second image) Hand pendant with salamander motif, Khamsa 19th or 20th Century, MoroccoSilver, bronze.

Friendly Fenway Park

2010-08-22T12:27:00.000-07:00

Yes, it’s America’s oldest ballpark. Yes, it has the “Green Monster,” “Pesky’s Pole,” and other nooks and crannies that makes seeing a game at what John Updike called the “lyric little bandbox,” a memorial experience. But the thing that makes Fenway Park a truly great place is the people. And any conversation about the people of Fenway has to start with the ushers.

After attending a game at Fenway with standing room tickets on August 3, I’ve concluded that to be an usher at the historic ballpark you must meet the following criteria:

* Male;
* Retired;
* Irish;
* Catholic; and most importantly
* Good natured

I was attending the game with two minor (very minor) celebrities: “Fred Johnson” and “Disgruntle Guy” of the Fred Johnson Sports Show, an irregularly aired sports talk program on Live365 Internet radio. The good natured part of the ushers’ requirements came in handy as we wandered around the ballpark often in places where we shouldn’t be, asking silly questions and being in the way of others while taking pictures and video of our experience.

"Disgruntle Guy," "Fred Johnson" and Yours Truly

"Fred Johnson" and "Disgruntle Guy"

For example, we first entered the stadium behind home plate halfway into the first section of seats. It was a beautiful view. While showing the usher our tickets he pointed to the top of the first section and told us we could pretty much stand anywhere. Mr. Johnson asked the only question that mattered: “Is there beer up there?” The thin septuagenarian, wearing the official green shirt and khakis Fenway employee uniform, responded in a raspy voice from a bygone era: “Fenway Park without beer? Never gonna happen.”

The standing areas are marked “Standing” on the ground behind the last row of seats in the first section. We moved around a lot. At one point we found an empty space where we had a clear view of the field. I was taking pictures of the game and an usher came over and gave me some advice. The result is the opening picture. He then offered to take pictures of the three of us (the second picture). After that he politely told us we were in a “no standing” area. Mr. Johnson was inadvertently standing on the “No.” for “No Standing.” “I only let you stand there so you could take pictures,” the usher said.

Another usher moved us away twice from a no standing area. As we moved away to another section he said, “You’re making me work too hard.”

It turns out our experience wasn’t unique. The ushers and all other workers are old hands at dealing with tourists, locals, drunks, fanatics and every other kind of person that walks into the stadium. They are trained to be friendly and helpful. They do this for everyone and for everyone the game is an event.

You may have heard that the “Red Sox Nation” is a bit fanatical about their team. I’m here to tell you they are bat-shit crazy (look left). The Sheraton hotel where I stayed for four days looked like the headquarters of a Red Sox convention, with the lobby full of people wearing Red Sox hats, shirts and other “memorabilia.” If you wanted to strike a conversation all you had to do was ask is if they were going to the game today. This scene was played out in hotels all over the city, as fans from all over New England spent days in Boston happily pumping money into the city’s economy. An hour and half before the game the bars and restaurants around the stadium in the Back Bay neighborhood were alive with fans. People were lined up outside the Will Call gates and ticket entrances. The true measure of Red Sox fandom is that Fenway Park, as of August 9, has a streak of 742 consecutive sellouts dating back to May of 2003.

The game itself takes on the flavor of a rock concert or an evangelical church service. Cheers and applause are intensified as their sounds rattle around the metal beams, concrete and brick of the old building. Conversations naturally take on a louder tone. At the concessions beneath or behind the first section of seats it’s the same thing as excited people run in and out of the tunnels to their seats. The Italian sausage sandwich is the food of choice washed down with a Samuel Adams beer.

Fred Johnson Eats an Italian Pork Sausage Sandwich at Fenway Park

And it’s a democratic experience where everyone has access to all areas of the ballpark, unlike their arch rivals at Yankee Stadium where the high roller seats are separated with a chain from the rest of the rabble.

Yes, there was a ballgame that evening and it was good one. Beloved Mike Lowell, playing for the first time since June 22 and who was rumored to be the subject of trades, received a standing ovation for his first at bat and before the crowd had a chance to sit down drove the first pitch over the Green Monster for a two-run homer, driving the place into a state of bedlam.

After several questionable pitches at batters the benches cleared twice for a near brawl. The Red Sox won 3-1.

Boston and Me

2010-08-17T07:49:00.000-07:00

Even if the City of Boston didn’t name a street after me I would still like the place. After all, there are few things not to like about the city by the bay that’s not named San Francisco. I never knew its residents even heard of me, but here I am famous, with a street named after me in Little Italy. I am both honored and humbled by this recognition.

Water has a way of shaping a city. It's appearance, the way people navigate it, its food, its architecture, even its attitude. Boston is no exception. Most cities are built on a grid. The bay surrounding Boston prevents this. Inlets and harbors carve circular paths, inlets slice through the city. Compass points become meaningless. That's okay because Boston is still an easy city to get around.

Chinatown

I walked the heart of this great city from Back Bay to the South Bay, from Chinatown to Little Italy and from one body of water to another and another. When I was too tired to walk or got lost too many times, I took the “T,” the city’s efficient and easy-to-use subway system. Parks, historical sites, museums, great neighborhoods and places to drink—many places to drink—makes it easy to stumble upon something special. It’s a college town, so there’s a youthfulness and energy that fuels the bars, nightclubs and cafes—even in the summertime when I went.

Then there’s Fenway Park, the nation’s oldest ballpark that is absolutely worth a visit during a game, even if you don’t like baseball and can only get standing room tickets.

I spent a few days in this clean, vibrant city and enjoyed nearly all of my experiences. There are plenty of people writing about the must-see historical sites or other high touristed areas. I will highlight certain parts of this diverse city that I experienced.

It’s so close to my home in Philadelphia yet I rarely ever visited and I never stayed more than a few hours. But I’ll be returning.

So it turns out Tony DeMarco Way wasn’t named after me. It was named after a hard-hitting boxer who was a welterweight champion in the 1950s. That’s okay Boston; I still think you’re swell.

Summer’s Bounty

2010-07-30T17:56:00.000-07:00

In September I wrote about Greensgrow Farm, an urban farm in a downtrodden neighborhood where I have been buying local, seasonal food for years. I haven’t been there much this season since the spring. That’s because of the weekly farmers’ market that comes to my neighborhood.

For the past few years on Thursdays, a handful of local produce, fruit, and meat and egg producers from the surrounding counties set up stands across the street from the Eastern State Penitentiary Historical Site. This year we’ve taken full advantage of it and we haven’t been disappointed.

The market is sponsored by The Food Trust, a local non-profit organization that strives to make healthy food available to all. One of its many programs is weekly farmers’ markets in different neighborhood throughout the city and suburbs.

For such a small market the variety of locally produced food, nearly all of it organic, is astounding. Berries of all kinds, early season peaches and corn, cantaloupes and watermelons; share space with fresh and washed mixed lettuce, Swiss chard and green beans. There’s nothing like fresh peas, but despite the short season our bellies were full.

One of my favorite stands is Country Meadows Farm, which produces homegrown pastured meats and eggs. The flank steak and ground beef are outstanding. The pastured eggs have rich nearly orange yolks that are so difficult to find, even at places that sell organic or free range eggs.

Everything in the top photo with the exception of the wine and salad dressing was produced locally. The fresh mozzarella cheese for the tomato salad didn’t come from the farmers’ market but was hand-made locally from Claudio Specialty Foods in the Philadelphia Italian Market.

‘Let Them Eat Tastykake,’ Philadelphia Celebrates Bastille Day

2010-07-12T17:09:00.000-07:00

The ominous castle-like Eastern State Penitentiary Historical Site in Philadelphia’s Fairmount neighborhood was transformed to the infamous 18th Century Parisian prison-fortress for the tongue-in-cheek reenactment of the storming of the Bastille. The 16th annual event—a promotion of the neighborhood restaurants, businesses and the Eastern State Penitentiary—was held July 10.

With the Eastern State Penitentiary in the foreground and the guillotine in the background, the crowd awaits the start of the reenactment. Above, Queen Marie Antoinett addresses her angry subjects.

It was a glorious day for a beheading. An early soaking rainstorm gradually gave way to a bright sunny sky at 5:30 p.m., when the reenactment began. Before and after the main event local restaurants had stands selling French-themed food, such as crepes and garlic sausage sandwiches. Plastic cups of the French lager, Kronenbourg 1664, were available for $3 apiece. The event, which had humble beginnings, has grown into a four-day celebration with local restaurants hosting special French dinners, brunches, a bar crawl and other activities.

The spokesperson for the people confronts the queen.

The crowd may not have been thirsty or hungry Saturday, unlike their counterparts in the 18th Century, but they were looking for the blood. Some brought water pistols as they crowded around the prison to confront Queen Marie Antoinette, played by Terry Berch McNally, owner of the London Grill. The spokesperson for the disgruntled people shared a stage across from the old prison with the guillotine, which by the way was the real deal with a 30-pound steel blade. He led the crowd in song, rhymes and chants.

At first the queen appeared confused, taking the angry mob for a crowd associated with the World Cup. She blew into a Vuvuzela … poorly. She mocked the spokesperson for the people. They traded quips, mixing French revolution rhetoric with modern day references—including Arizona's immigration law, LeBron James, BP, and the Philadelphia Phillies. The queen calls the army. They appear on top of the prison armed, not with muskets, but with more Vuvuzelas.

She showed total disregard for the people. When they begged for bread, she proclaimed, “Let them eat Tastykake,” the brand name of the line of snack cakes made by the Philadelphia-based Tasty Baking Company. Her army then threw thousands of snack cakes over the wall, the vast majority of which were Hostess Twinkies to shame of the local company.

The people and the queen’s army battle while the Twinkies fall into the crowd like soft, spongy missiles covered in plastic wrap. The prison doors open and the first prisoner carried out is former governor of Illinois Rod Blagojevich, who is immediately returned to the prison. Then the queen appears and is slowly marched through the crowd, “perp walk” style to the song “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye,” to the guillotine.

The executioner was played by Fergus "Fergie" Carey, co-owner of the Belgian Café in the neighborhood and Monk’s Café in center city. Before the actual beheading, two watermelons were used to test the guillotine. It performed perfectly.

Preparing the guillotine to cut the watermelon.

Then it was time for the crowd to determine the queen’s fate. They wanted her executed but instead the organizers chose to give her “a fate worse than death.” They traded the queen to the Washington Redskins and presented her with a personalized jersey.

They never said what they received in the trade.

Exploring Old Treasures in a Dusty Store

2010-07-09T12:46:00.000-07:00

As expected many retailers were closed in Philadelphia on July fourth, but not everyone. Walking up 2nd Street in the Old City neighborhood there was an antiques store open.

The Jules Goldman Books & Antiques (29 N. 2nd St.) store has only been at this location for seven months, which is why we were not familiar with it. He did little to nothing when it came to renovating the dilapidated store front or even inside the store. It doesn’t matter because the place is dream for anyone who loves to explore.

The store specializes in books and paintings, but you can find anything in the deep, narrow space. Vases from everywhere in the world share space with hundreds, of Sotheby’s catalogs. Painting and prints spill over every corner, nook and cranny. Thousands of books line the shelves of mismatched book cases and cabinets and stacked on the floor.

The affable owner Jules Goldman was sitting by the front door working on his computer. He told us he’s at the store every day. He goes to estate sales in the early morning two days a week and brings his finds to the store to open by late morning. In addition to what’s available to the public, there’s a large back of the store with more antiques and he has a farm house in Bucks County that has even more.

There were just a few people in the store around noon. A heavy set person wearing a “wife beater” t-shirt saw an old 45 rpm record on Goldman's desk with a black and white cover titled, “Stickball,” named after the popular baseball-like game played on the streets of East Coast towns and cities up until the 1970s. He asked Goldman to play it, which he did on an antique record player. It wasn’t a song as much as someone musing about the old days with music in the background. It was awful but it did coax some memories of another time. The three of us starting talking about stickball and handball and every other kind of game we played that involved a ball when we were kids.

The man asked Goldman about the record and he had no information. That’s the thing about Goldman and about his place. He collects without the rigor of historical information and other details that many collectors have. But he does have a good eye and knows his stuff. He just has way too much of it to keep track of it properly or know its provenance.

Near the back of the store on top of a cabinet were several large chandeliers. Indonesian art works depicting wayang shadow puppets near the front. Goldman notes that the frames are British. Why? Who knows? Asian and French art works share space with old Coca Cola marketing products. Even the books are stored haphazardly; although a large collection of French cookbooks were in one place. And, of course, there are records and CDs. I’m no expert, but everything that had a tag attached seemed to be priced fairly, particularly the paintings.

It’s an antique store where anyone can find something of personal value.

Small Town Pride in a Big City on the Fourth of July

2010-07-08T11:16:00.000-07:00

Members of the German American Heritage & Pride organization of Philadelphia ride on an incredibly long bike.

For the first time in years we stayed home for the Fourth of July and spent the day in the city. We were strolling down Chestnut Street in the Old City neighborhood when we stumbled upon the staging area for the annual Philadelphia Independence Day Parade.

Marching bands, ethnic groups and charitable organizations were waiting to participate in the parade that was dedicated to saluting American Armed Forces.

That night a big time concert and fireworks display was held on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway that could rival any event in the U.S. More than 100,000 attended the event. In fact, the Fourth of July is a week-long celebration that attracted more than 3.5 million people.

But despite the big city atmosphere of the evening event, the afternoon parade could have been held in any small town in America. And that’s the thing about Philly. It’s a big city that manages to maintain a small town feel.

More videos can be found here. More pictures from the event are below:

U.S. Navy personnel were honored along with the other armed forces at this year's parade.

You can't have a parade in Philadelphia without the Mummers. They prepare to participate in the parade.

Shriners on motorcycles.

One of the more colorful participants was the Singo Lodoyo traditional Indonesian dance troupe from Washington, D.C. More pictures below.

The Houses of Beverly Hills

2010-06-23T14:36:00.000-07:00

“You can see all the stars if you walk down Hollywood Boulevard,” as Ray Davies of the Kinks so eloquently put it in his warm and melancholy song, Celluloid Heroes. But if you want to see how the stars of Hollywood live, you need to walk along North Beverly Boulevard.

While attending the Financial Times Business of Luxury Summit just over a week ago, most days I walked to and from the Luxe Hotel on North Rodeo Drive where I was staying to the Beverly Hills Hotel where the event was held. Since L.A. is a car-centric city, I had the wide sidewalks much to myself and the only obstacle I encountered was crossing the four-lane speedway known as Sunset Drive.

Judging by the houses I passed each day on the palm-tree lined street, I’d have to say the living is quite good and each house displayed a bold and tasteful sense of individuality.

Some of the homes on the boulevard would be quite comfortable in a New England setting. Others looked toward Asia and Italy for their architectural characteristics. Then there are the quintessential concrete structures with terra cotta roofs that are so popular in California. There are basic ranch houses besides elegant mansions. And wooden structures next to houses with slate facades. Traditional structures with elaborate columns that would be at home in the Garden District of New Orleans sharing space with sleek, modern houses at home in a urban setting. The landscaping in front of each is just as diverse in its look and
aroma. If there was one dominate flavor, it would have to be Jasmine.

Every house represents the character of an individual yet manages to enhance and embrace the neighborhood.

‘Oh No, Not Larry Keengk’

2010-06-17T12:38:00.001-07:00

The taxicab driver taking me to the Beverly Hills Hotel for the FT Business of Luxury Summit Monday morning is a native of Iran and is of Armenian descent. He was moaning on and on about the economy and other things when he suddenly yells in an angry, tired, frustrated voice that combines the unique cadence and flavors of the Middle East and Eastern Europe: “Oh No, Not Larry Keengk.”

The fog of jet lag and an early morning rising was still working its way in my head while I wondered, “Who the heck is Larry Keengk?” Then I looked to my right and there’s CNN talk show host Larry King skinny as a rail and wrinkled like a prune wearing jeans and a light brown leather jacket. His one hand was holding a cell phone against his ear and the other a cup of takeout coffee. There is no one else out walking on the commercial part of Beverly Drive.

King is oblivious to the irrational anger and frustration of the cab driver as he continues, “He’s out here every day (stressing the words as if King took a dump on the street in front of him each day). He talks for a half an hour and makes millions of dollars.”

I didn’t want to delve into the irrational anger caused by the site of a television celebrity but this type of emotion, commonplace throughout the world, must be intensified in Beverly Hills where those who ply their trade in television and film cross paths daily with others who have less prolific jobs.

It was a short drive to the hotel and the cab driver was quickly in a much better mood, as if getting that out of his system was what he needed to get though another day. Like a shot of espresso.

I think if Larry King moved, the cab driver would miss him.

Philly’s Phinest New Restaurant

2010-05-31T12:55:00.000-07:00

Photo credit: M. McClellan

Iron Chef Jose Garces has taken the popular market-café concept and turned it on its head, taking it at least five steps above anything that’s available in Philadelphia. In fact, there may not be a place like this on this side of the Atlantic.

The Garces Trading Company has been the place I’ve been waiting for. I already told Maria that I’m leaving home to move into the restaurant. I’ll admit upon further review I was too gushy on The Philadelphia Inquirer’s food critic’s Craig LaBan’s chat (last post). But I still stand by my statement that this restaurant, café, market, whatever you want to call it, is easily the best new restaurant in Philly and may be the best restaurant in the city in terms of concept, quality, execution and value (value isn’t something one normally thinks of when it comes to a Jose Garces establishment).

On the market side of this food concept there’s cheeses and meats from Spain, Italy and France. There’s house made salami and country pâté. Included in the selection is Jamón ibérico, from the black Iberian pigs who roam free and live off a diet of acorns, herbs and roots. It’s the most expensive ham in the U.S. and until 2007, unavailable. Here, they serve it was a fine housemade mustard but it doesn’t need it. It melts in your mouth. There are canisters of infused olive oil, including black and white truffle oil (the real deal). They provide tiny throw-away cups and croutons to taste the selection. There’s nothing like earthiness and richness of truffle oil. You can buy the oil in branded, 12.8-ounce bottles. To go with the oil, there’s a vinegar bar. There are takeout meals, an on-site bakery with bread, pastries and desserts; and they have their own selection of blended coffees.

But what has everyone talking (and in the case of rival restaurateurs, fuming) is the state-leased wine boutique inside the market. The state-controlled wine system in Pennsylvania is as archaic as it is inefficient. It deserves its own story. To try to make it brief most people have to buy wine and spirits at a state controlled liquor store. The result is expensive wine with poor selection, unless you buy volume. Restaurants have a better selection but they pay nearly as much as customers, so, ultimately the customer pays even more. In addition, a liquor license for food and bars businesses is very expensive in Pennsylvania. The one good result out of this is chefs opening their own small BYO restaurants, where you can get great food in a casual atmosphere and pay retail for wine.

While restaurateurs have been complaining about this for years, Garces and his enormous brain figured a way around it where everyone wins. He convinced the state liquor control board to lease a space inside his restaurant. Inside the glass-enclosed boutique is a wonderful selection of 200 wines in a temperature controlled environment, almost all of them unavailable for retail in state liquor stores. You can select a bottle, pay for it at a dedicated cash register and then sit a table in the restaurant and enjoy it in the restaurant with fine stemware with your meal.

We’ve had lunch and dinner inside. We’ve had the Plats du jour twice for two: The bouillabaisse on day and the paella valenciana (with rabbit, gambas (shrimp), chorizo and fava bean salad) another. For lunch we've enjoyed the duck Lyonnaise duck salad (poached egg, duck confit, lardons and a mustard vinaigrette along with an omelet with a perfect custard-like texture. Without getting caught up in adjectives everything was exceptional in ingredients and execution (although I needed a magnifying glass to see the baby artichokes).

If you’re really fortunate, then you will have Brandon as a server, as we did for two of our three trips.

Enjoy it all you want. But you can’t move in. It’s taken.

The Hungry Caterpillar?

2010-05-26T06:54:00.000-07:00

After an early dinner recently Maria and I were walking down Fourth Street in Old City where we saw one of the more unusual sites that we’ve ever witnessed in Philly. Two men and five children were on bicycles balancing a large metal frame with crossbars. At least one of the bikes had a flat tire. They were moving very slowly trying their best to ride in unison but it was a struggle. When they turned onto Vine Street they came to a stop unable to balance it. This is where the following conversation took place:

Maria: What’s that?
Man: A prototype.
Maria: For what?
Man: We don’t know.
Maria: Where are you going?
Man: Around the block.
Maria: What do you call yourselves?
Boy on bike with flat tire: The Hungry Caterpillar (referring to the popular children’s book).

The mystery continues….

A Day at the Ballpark

2010-05-12T07:51:00.000-07:00

Baseball should be played in the afternoon when the sun is shining and the skies are blue in a stadium designed to bring people together and bring them close to the action on the field.

Ryan Howard awaits pitch. Above, Roy Halladay finishes a pitch while Plácido Polanco playing third base is in position to field a possible hit toward him.

It was exactly this type of day on May 6 when the Phillies battled the St. Louis Cardinals in a sold out Citizens Bank Park. The only thing disconcerting about the day is the corporate name of this beautiful stadium in South Philly.

Fans watching the game.

The game provided plenty of hitting, quality pitching and some dramatic tension as the Phillies won 7-2 in a game played at a brisk pace. Jayson Werth hit an opposite field home run and Raul Ibáñez hit a towering shot into the right field upper deck.

The upper tiers of the stadium between innings.

The tension came in the seventh inning with two outs when it appeared that Phillies pitcher Roy Halladay was going to be replaced. Halladay, currently the best pitcher in baseball, prefers to finish the games he starts, a rare feat in these days of specialty pitchers. He was not going to be finishing this game, as he already too many pitches. But it appeared he wasn’t going be finishing the inning with runners on first and second when Phillies manager Charlie Manuel jogged out to the mound and the infield players crowded around for the familiar routine that means a new pitcher was about to be replaced. The crowd stood up waiting to applaud Halladay’s effort but instead broke into cheer as they saw Manuel jog off the field without making the change. Halladay needed just one pitch to finish the inning.

The backdrop for this otherwise routine game was a sea of red and white, representing the Phillies colors worn by nearly everyone in the stand-room-only crowd that appear on every angle of this fan-friendly venue.

The standing-room-only crowd.

Of course, a Phillies game isn’t complete without that big green furry thing roaming around the stadium known as the Phillie Phanatic. Described on his Wikipedia page as being “overweight” with “clumsy feet, extra-long beak, curled up tongue, gawking neck,” he has been the official mascot of the Phillies since 1978 and one of the most recognizable sports mascots in the country, if not the world. A figure very similar to the Phanatic named “Slyly,” serves as the official mascot of a professional Japanese baseball team, the Hiroshima Toyo Carp. Below is a video of the Phanatic taunting Cardinal players on top of the Phillies dugout followed by a promotion for fans to vote for Phillies players in the upcoming Major League Baseball All-Star Game.

The game was played during a promotion known as the Business Persons Special. It’s an afternoon game played on a weekday. The games almost always start just after 1 p.m. The Phillies schedule a handful of these games each year. It serves several purposes: For the fans, it gives them an excuse to skip a half-day of work to go to the ballpark. For the visiting teams, it is always played during the last game of a series, so it gives them the opportunity to skip out of town early to their destination on a road trip. Even for the home team players, staff and umpires, it gives them a rare evening off. It’s best when the weather cooperates and the home team wins. I guess you would call it a win-win-win-win-win situation.

Ryan Howard's image on the Citizens Bank Scoreboard.

Rittenhouse Row Spring Festival

2010-05-09T14:24:00.000-07:00

Sunshine and blue skies on the first day of May provided the perfect backdrop for the annual Rittenhouse Row Spring Festival. The center city neighborhood of luxury retail establishments, world-class restaurants and high-end housing makes it the premiere place to live, work and play in the city.

Each spring the five-block retail district on Walnut Street (from Rittenhouse Square to Broad Street) is closed to traffic and tents are set up by merchants to celebrate the food, fashion and services that are available year round. There are cooking demonstrations, fashion shows, and music and dance acts set up at various places along the street. Philly is a food town and the tents from restaurants in the area are the most popular attractions and often sell out before the event ends. What follows are videos from the event.

The crowd during the event

The Philadelphia Boys Choir sing Michael Jackson's "I'll Be There"

A glimpse of the fashion show on the street

A dance troop whose name I did not get.

More videos can be found here.

The Obtrusive Sound of the CityCenter

2010-05-05T12:41:00.001-07:00

At first it sounds like a tuning fork has been struck, the ring-like tone pulses throughout the vast outdoor space. When it really gets going it becomes more like ear-piercing feedback causing people to stop in their tracks, hold their ears and turn their heads around trying to locate its source.

The true source of the noise is the wind. It whips across the Nevada desert and enters the brand spanking new CityCenter project on the Las Vegas strip. Where the wind becomes the sound is the tricky part. Even among the employees of the complex's stunning 47-story Mandarin Oriental Las Vegas where I stayed there is debate. Some believe the sound emits from an overpass and underground tunnel that leads to the below-grade entrance of the Mandarin and to an underground parking garage. Others point to the awe-inspiring leaning towers of the Veer condominium project. My money’s on the space between the Veer towers (pictured) and where it connects to the futurist metal-cube and angular Crystals luxury shopping mall.

Whatever the source, it’s hard to not think that it is a serious design flaw for the $11 billion, 76-acre luxury, retail, entertainment and residential complex that boast no fewer than eight world-architects.

The complex itself is an architectural and engineering marvel that I will write more about. But for now I’m trying to find out the source of the design flaw. I accidentally recorded the sound on my iphone and as soon as I can figure out how to convert it to a file that could be placed on the Internet, I will. But for now imagine what it would be like to purchase a $1 million condo in this complex and having to listen to the sound of an amplification system going wild with no way of controlling it.

The Big Short

2010-04-19T04:12:00.000-07:00

In the rarefied world of the bond traders on Wall Street they were the outsiders, oddballs even.

It included an incredibly smart and gifted man with one working eye and an undiagnosed case of Asperger syndrome who didn’t like to deal with people. In fact, you could say he didn’t like people at all. He gave up a career as a neurologist in order to spend untold hours each day sitting alone in an office staring cockeyed into a computer screen following the financial markets.

The group also included two men in their early thirties with no real ambition or direction who teamed up with a man who was a derivative trader but quit because he feared that the world was headed to a path of self destruction and he wanted to be prepared.

Then there was a former bond trader who had an amazing ability to outlandishly insult the “Masters of the Universe” at anytime or anyplace when he felt the person was either: wrong, a liar, or corrupt. He not only couldn’t help himself but he enjoyed it. He along with two other persons, with their own quirks who understood how “The Street” operated and wanted no part of it, joined forces.

None of these people knew one another or even knew of each others existence. But in addition to being outsiders, they had a few other things in common: They all started hedge funds. They all saw the insanity and breakdown of the home mortgage market and how the subsequent repackaging of these worthless pieces of paper into new investment "instruments" was taking down the financial markets around the world. And they bet against it and won.

Their stories are told by Michael Lewis in the book, The Big Short: Inside the Doomsday Machine. With Friday’s announcement by the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission that it has filed a civil fraud suit against Goldman Sachs, I couldn’t think of a better time to recommend the book.

The book combined a character-driven narrative with analysis of how the bond market nearly took down the world’s economy. It’s funny and sad. But for me it mostly induced anger at how innocent Americans were conned into buying mortgages they could never pay off, how the Wall Street investment banks bundled these mortgages into bonds and repackaged them again into collateralized debt obligations (CDOs), and how the risk of these investment vehicles was hidden from those who bought them.

It would have been one hell of a tale, except that it’s all true.

Solidarity with Poland

2010-04-13T15:45:00.000-07:00

I’ve exchanged a few emails with my friends in Poland during the past few days and they are experiencing a sadness that runs deep and familiar for a people who have experienced an insurmountable amount of suffering during the 20th Century.

The past suffering was the result of occupation—first Germany and then Russia. Their country was destroyed during World War II following the German occupation, but it was the people, sleeping in tents, in many cases with nothing but hand tools and renderings of the original buildings, who rebuilt their cities to come as close as possible to the buildings that were destroyed—an attempt to keep their culture and heritage.

Then along came the Soviets with their own brutal form of Socialist oppression, shutting off Poland from the world and imposing their will on a people still struggling from the aftermath of World War II.

My relationship with Poland is that I am the only U.S. journalist to ever attend Amberif, the trade show for the Amber trade. I visited the fair twice. It is held in the port city of Gdańsk, one of the cities destroyed and rebuilt after World War II. It is also home of the Polish Solidarity movement, which eventually led to the overthrow of the Soviet occupation.

I was there to cover an event for a jewelry trade magazine. What I got was so much more. I was welcomed with open arms by the trade fair organizers and the artists and craftsmen who turn this unusual material into objects of beauty and works of art. I was exposed to the history and culture of this northern Polish city on the Baltic Sea. But mostly I learned about the struggles of the people, many of whom lived through much of the country’s sad history. I also saw a rebirth and optimism as the city and country has, again, opened itself to the world.

One of worst acts of the Soviet regime was a massacre of nearly 22,000 of the Polish “intelligentsia,” including doctors, lawyers, scientists and military leaders. It was an attack that the Russians denied for years, blaming it on the Germans, but the Polish people and their leaders spent years trying to shed a light on this story. Commonly known as the Katyn Massacre, it wasn’t until the early 1990s that the Russians admitted their guilt, more than 50 years after event took place.

It is with profound sorrow that Polish president Lech Kaczynski, his wife, Maria, and 88 others, again among Poland's best and brightest, were killed on plane to commemorate the 70th anniversary of the Katyn Massacre, not far from the site. Many on board were leaders of the struggle to bring the truth of Katyn to the world.

The first time the intelligentsia was killed through a savage act of war and occupation. This time, it was a bad decision.

One friend wrote:

All the people who were killed the day before yesterday were politically involved in revealing the truth about the tragedy in Katyn that happened 70 years ago… On the plane, there were also the families of those who were killed in Katyn in 1940. There was also the over 90-year old Polish president Kaczorowski - who during the communist times was the emigrant president of Poland in London (because Poland had the second, unofficial government during Soviet Union, since we never agreed to be completely dependent on Russians). Imagine - so many years he survived, with Russians chasing after him, and now, when the work of his life was about to be successful, he was killed.

Another wrote:

Some tell that we are sad nation. Katyn was one of the reasons and now it takes more victims. It is so sad and symbolic. Most people in the plane were fighting for years for memory of this massacre - and it became death fight. But the world knows now.

I am crying.

OPENING DAY

2010-04-05T09:26:00.001-07:00

In less than an hour the Philadelphia Phillies will open the 2010 baseball season against the Washington Nationals in the nation’s capital. President Barack Obama will throw the first pitch for the sellout crowd on a beautiful spring day. Roy Halladay the newly acquired ace will get starting honors for the 2009 National League champs.

Roy Halladay

Opening Day means a lot of things. Most importantly it means the true beginning of spring, even though the weather doesn’t always comply. It’s also the beginning of another epic story that will last for 162 games during the season and, if lucky, playoffs and World Series games. It’s a story that will have twists and turns and sub plots, with almost all of it unfolding on the field on a daily basis. Baseball remains one of the things that unite us a nation. In honor of this day I present to you the world’s greatest baseball song every written, “A Dying Cubs Fan’s Last Request,” by the late, great Steve Goodman.

Lunch at the Reading Terminal Market

2010-03-21T15:07:00.000-07:00

It was just before noon on a Wednesday and we had just purchased wild sockeye salmon and crabmeat from John Fish Market; broccoli, mushrooms, bananas and red peppers at Iovine Brothers Produce; and a free range chicken at Godshall's Poultry. Now we are having an early lunch at the counter of Sang Kee Peking Duck. I’m enjoying roasted pork and duck with Bok Choy over white rice while Maria is eating sesame chicken. We did all of this under one roof.

Sang Kee Peking Duck

If Philadelphia has a gastronomic heart and soul it would have to be the Reading Terminal Market. It is one of the oldest and largest public markets in the U.S., not to mention one of the finest. There are more than 80 merchants that sell everything having to do with food. They share the space with vendors who sell books, crafts, plants and flowers. The butchers are skilled, the produce is always colorfully arranged, the pastry and candy shops are visually stunning and the restaurants represent a variety that is rare.

The counter at DiNic's

Maria and I have been shopping in this vast market since the 1980s, before we knew each other, when there was talk of closing the 118-year-old market as part of the construction of a new convention center. Instead, the city’s leaders listened to its constituents and embarked on a plan not only to save the market but to renovate it. The results have been better than anyone could have imagined. The aging and neglected structure was replaced with new HVAC systems. The light colored interior is highlighted by the reds, greens and blue colors marking the food stands. Plenty of attractive light fixtures hang down from the market’s high ceilings. The floor plan provides plenty of access for shoppers and the layout makes it easy to find your way around. Outside of its busiest times, such as a major convention, the place is designed well enough to handle the crowds.

A woman enjoying an ice cream at Bassett's

As market veterans, we chose our time to shop carefully, before the noontime rush. We were able to see our regular vendors and chat with them while it was still calm. As we ate, the terminal began filling up with hungry people for lunch. Locals, conventioneers and tourists wait in line at the sandwich shops, such as DiNic's for its famous pork sandwich and Carmen's Famous Italian Hoagies and Cheesesteaks for its Italian Hoagie with Prosciutto. They all mingle comfortably at tables set up throughout the market. Locals with their shopping lists in tow walk with purpose while out-of-towners stroll at a leisurely pace and stop to examine nearly every stand. They all mix well with the hungry lunchtime crowd. The sound of friendly conversation fills the space.

The counter of the Dutch Eating Place

Below is the first part of a video I took while walking through the market:

Published Story Update

2010-03-08T16:27:00.000-08:00

A story I wrote on automated jewelry design appears in the March issue of JCK magazine, the leading trade magazine for the jewelry industry. In the article I interview university instructors and artists skilled in using and teaching Computer-Aided Design/Computer-Aided Manufacturing software for jewelry design.

These instructors give their opinions on how jewelers can become proficient in using CAD/CAM, how much they need to spend, and the differences in using automated systems for jewelry design as opposed to designing jewelry by hand.

The story appears here.

Istanbul 101

2010-03-03T11:34:00.000-08:00

The driver we hired for a day told me he has lived in Istanbul for five years. He was from Ankara, the capital city of Turkey about 280 miles away. He told me he truly enjoys living in Istanbul, with the exception of one thing: the traffic.

I think this is a good a place as any to begin a story about this amazingly complex and contradictory city. It’s been said many times but it all bears repeating: Istanbul is the only city on earth that sits on two continents (Europe and Asia). Culturally, it is the crossroads of the Europe, Asia, the Middle East and Africa. Historically, it has been the capital city of the Roman Empire, the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, the Latin Empire, and the Ottoman Empire. It is as beautiful as it is complex, with water playing a major role in its topography and its way of life—bordered by the Black Sea to the north and the Marmara Sea to the south. The Bosphorus strait splits the city in two, with the west being Europe and the east, Asia.

The Istanbul of today is a Muslim city in a Muslim country that embraces western culture and modern life. The city was chosen as joint European Capital of Culture for 2010. The historic areas of Istanbul were added to the UNESCO World Heritage List in 1985.

In short, this city of anywhere from 12.8 million to 15 million people (depending on who’s counting) is a wonderful place to visit. I was there to cover a jewelry trade show located on the outskirts of the city, an hour’s drive to Eminönü, the heart of the walled city of Constantine in the southwest area of the city. The trade fair organizers arranged a bus for a group of us—which included journalists from India, South Africa, Lebanon and Hong Kong; about 20 Greek buyers; and a smaller group of Armenian buyers—where we received a tour of the historic area with a tour guide. We visited the Hagia Sophia, the Blue Mosque, the Hippodrome of Constantinople, and the Grand Bazaar. The bus took us back to the hotel as the sun was setting and the walled city began a transformation. Cafés were lit and filled with people, couples strolled hand-and-hand along the ancient streets and on the Bosphorus the lights of the boats cast a warm glow as they drifted along the strait. All I wanted was to get off the bus and join the crowds.

The following day an Indian couple and I hired a driver and went to the Istiklal Caddesi shopping area and another mosque in the walled city. However, most of the day was spent in confusion and frustration as the driver who doesn’t like traffic also didn’t know where the monuments and sites we wanted to see were, and spoke almost no English. This was compounded by our lack of knowledge of what we wanted to see and our inability to speak Turkish. For example, the Indian couple were insistent on seeing the “Emperor’s Palace,” which turned out to be the Topkapi Palace. The driver and his boss insisted that it was closed on Sundays. They weren’t buying it. It turned out that it wasn’t closed. But when we finally arrived, it was after visiting hours. We spent most of the day in the car where I was mediating between the Indian couple, the driver and his boss on the phone. Occasionally, the driver would slow down, point and say, “This is very old. Want to shoot picture?”

The following is an overview of the major sites of this great city:

Hagia Sophia. If there is one building that encompasses all of the history and culture that makes Istanbul the place it is, it would have to be Hagia Sophia. The current structure is actually the third church built on the site, which was finished in the 6th Century. It is considered one of the finest examples of Byzantine architecture. For 1,000 years it was the largest cathedral ever built.

Blue Mosque. Its official name is the Sultan Ahmed Mosque, but its common originates from the 20,000 handmade blue ceramic tiles inside the building. Completed in 1616, there are more than 200 stained-glass windows that bring light and heighten the blueness of the tile.

A man sells grilled chestnuts and boiled corn at the Hippodrome of Constantinople.

Hippodrome of Constantinople. Today it is known as Sultanahmet Meydani (Sultan Ahmet Square). In the fourth Century it was the sporting and social center of Constantinople, capital of the Byzantine Empire. It was a U-shaped track for horse and chariot races. Today it is a meeting place in front of the Blue Mosque and near other historical sites.

Grand Bazaar. It has to be the most famous place in Istanbul and maybe the most famous shopping center in the world. Certainly it is the most touristed. Opened in 1461, it has more than 1,200 to 4,000 stores (depending on who’s counting and how they count) attract hundreds of thousands of people who attempt to bargain with shopkeepers, who, let’s face it, are the pros.

Istiklal Caddesi. A modern pedestrian shopping district that attracts waves of locals and tourists. No bargaining here, although the prices are often better than at the Grand Bazaar. A video of the shopping district is below.

Kung Hei Fat Choi, Philly Style

2010-02-15T14:56:00.001-08:00

Sunday was not only Valentine’s Day but more importantly in our house it was Chinese New Year. We celebrated the year of the Tiger in Philly’s Chinatown where we unexpectedly watched a Lion Dance parade and enjoyed a late afternoon lunch of food that is suppose to provide good luck, wealth and a long life.

Approaching Chinatown we noticed a crowd of people on the corner of 10th and Arch streets, near the China Gate and heard the rhythmic sounds of drums and symbols. Then came a long, loud blast of firecrackers and above the heads of the crowd were large, colorful decorated lion heads bobbing. The parade moved north up 10th Street, made a left at Race Street and then headed north on 11th Street. They stopped several times to dance and light fireworks and visited a few restaurants and bakeries, offering good luck for the year. We followed the parade to 11th and Race streets where we decided to leave to enjoy some good luck food.

More pictures follow:

Good Luck Chinese Food That’s Delicious

2010-02-15T08:17:00.000-08:00

It’s a rare restaurant that combines the distinct and unrelated cuisines of Shanghai and Japan. It’s even rarer for a restaurant to do it well. Sakura Mandarin restaurant does it very well. Like most restaurants on Sunday, the green-colored corner space was packed with happy families and friends celebrating the Chinese New Year. The co-owner was able to get us a seat quickly by the window as a Lion Parade went on outside and we began ordering enough food to last us the day, since, as is the tradition for Chinese New Year, we are not suppose to cook or use knives. I’m also going out of the way to take in all the luck I can get in the hopes that 2010 will be much better than 2009 for us.

We began with the Japanese portion of the menu, rock shrimp tempura in a mango-chili sauce (pictured below). Tasty light-battered shrimp and asparagus in an orange-colored, red-flaked sauce that actually tasted like mangos and chili. Though it is a Japanese dish, the dish of seafood and vegetables kept with what should be eaten on Chinese New Year.

The rest of the meal we stayed with the Shanghai portion of the menu. Shanghai spring rolls (pictured below) were wrapped tightly and filled with cabbage, mushrooms and other vegetables. We skipped the sauce that came with the spring rolls and instead used the sweet mango-chili sauce that was left from our shrimp dish. The spring rolls are supposed to represent wealth and prosperity, symbolizing gold bars. They also represent deliciousness.

What came next is the reason this young restaurant will always be near and dear in our hearts: Xiǎolóngbāo (pictured at the top of the story). More commonly known as soup dumpling (the restaurant calls them “juicy buns”), it’s a Shanghai specialty where the broth is inside the dumpling, or more accurately bun. The traditional Shanghai dumpling has pork with the broth. We prefer the pork and crabmeat buns. To make them, the broth is chilled into a gelatin form. Then the filling and broth is placed inside the skin. The skin is made of unleavened flour that is somewhat translucent. It has to be strong enough to hold the liquid inside when it cooks but thin enough to allow the person eating it to easily get at the juicy goodness inside. The buns are steamed, which melts the gelatin into soup, and served in bamboo baskets.

Eating them requires some skill and but the results are worth it. You have to remember that the broth inside is hot so burning oneself is a possibility. It’s a good idea to let them sit for a minute or two when they arrive. They are served with a vinegar-ginger sauce and soup spoons. One way to properly eat the buns, is to place some of the sauce on the soup spoon, place the dumpling onto the spoon and either with chopsticks or teeth cut a tiny hole into the bun. You can allow the broth to run into the spoon and mix with the sauce or just suck the broth out of the bun. Once the broth is gone, just eat the bun and remaining filling as one would normally eat a dumpling. We’re stretching this a bit, but dumplings (even though these are technically buns) symbolize wealth for the coming year. I’ll add that it will never be bad luck to eat these juicy little buns. I took pictures of Maria properly and safely eating a soup dumpling.

With our financial well being in good shape, it was now time to nurture our health. Noodles mean long life so our final dish was seafood pan fried noodles. Shrimp, scallops, squid, a buttery tasting white fish, baby bok choy, carrots, snow peas and bamboo shoots in a clear sauce. Like everything we’ve eaten, despite the crowds, it was fresh, favorable and hot. Service was attentive and personable.

We thought we ordered enough food to have leftovers for the night. But we ate everything then looked at each other in shock. Then we walked home.

Sakura Mandarin, 1038 Race St., Philadelphia.

Snow Figures in Rittenhouse Square

2010-02-14T07:29:00.001-08:00

Within a six-day period, more than 44 inches of snow fell on Philadelphia in two separate storms. With winter just past its halfway point, the city has already recorded more than 70 inches of snow, an all-time record. Most of the snow fell on three occasions. The most recent was Feb. 10-11 when 15.8 inches fell. On Feb. 5-6, 28.5 inches of the white stuff was recorded. This followed a freakish December snowstorm that dropped 23.2 inches on the city.

I’m not a fan of winter but the first two storms were actually enjoyable. The snow was light and fluffy, easy to move. They were followed by relatively warm weather and lots of sunshine so there was quick, sustained melt. Local businesses were open and stocked. It was an excuse to hunker down and enjoy the unusual events while eating comfort food. The third storm though put an end to the enjoyment. It was a heavy wet snow that covered what was left from the prior storm. It was hardened by cold temperatures and cloudy days. This is more typical of the type of snowstorms in the Philadelphia area.

Maria flirting with a snowman on a park bench

Frankly I’m sick of it and was totally through taking pictures the storm or its aftermath. That was until Friday when Maria and I strolled past Rittenhouse Square, the center of daily activity in center city Philadelphia and saw the snow figures. Rabbits, cats on the snow covered grass. Human figures sitting on park benches. There were also traditional snowmen and figures unrecognizable. Some of the figures were well formed while others were in various stages of melt. I don’t know how long they’ve been up or whether they were the result of children, adults, or both. But they were imaginative, clever and fun. It brought a smile on our faces and made an otherwise dreary winter day more enjoyable.

Snow covers all but the head of a frog sculpture

The Giant Colon

2010-02-12T12:52:00.000-08:00

It lies in a serpentine position inside a glass case like a creature from an unknown place or something that could only be dreamed up in ancient mythology, like an Ouroboros. Or a giant snake that lived in the depths of the sea or that spent its life burrowed into the deep earth. Its brown skin is paper thin. If stretched out, it measures more than eight feet in length and has a circumference of 27 inches.

It is a human colon, one of the highlights of a trip to the Mütter Museum, which collects and displays anatomy and human medical anomalies and provides an historical context for medical tools and procedures used over the past 150 years. It’s a ghoulish, educational and intriguing collection.
The museum’s exhibits include: The plaster cast of the torso of the world-famous Siamese Twins, Chang & Eng, and their conjoined livers; a cancerous growth removed from President Grover Cleveland; and books that are bound by human skin. Unfortunately, the museum has an extremely strict no pictures and video policy, so most of images are from either the Mütter Museum Web site or other Web sites.

The abnormalities of the human skeletal system are the focus of the tallest skeleton on display in North America, a seven-foot-six-inch person from Kentucky; alongside a three-foot-six-inch dwarf. One notices immediately the oversized, protruding rib cage of the tall skeleton, a common occurrence among unusually large persons.

Famed Austrian anatomist, Joseph Hyrtl, donated a collection of 139 skulls that depict the physical variations among ethnic groups (pictured from Mütter Museum Web site).

Then there’s the “Soap Lady,” an exhumed body taken to the museum because her body had changed to adipocere, a wax-like organic substance formed by the fat in animal tissue—such as body fat in corpses when buried in a cool, moist environment. In its formation, putrefaction is replaced by a permanent firm cast of fatty tissues, internal organs and the face. Her preserved body is one of the museum’s most popular exhibits. She is believed to be more than 130 years old and is constantly being x-rayed as new imaging technology becomes available to determine, among other things: her age, when she died, and (believe it or not) how she lost her teeth at a young age.

The colon was removed from a man who didn’t quite make it to his 30th birthday and who used his medical condition to earn a living a sideshow performer in Philadelphia, billed at different times as the “Balloon Man” and the “Human Windbag.” He died, not surprisingly, of severe constipation. His colon contained more than 40 pounds of feces at the time of his death. There are pictures of him inside the museum naked with his protruding abdomen and a record of a visit to Hahnemann Hospital, which he was diagnosed as having constipation, and released. He was reported to go up to a month without a bowel movement and suffering severe pain.

Photos of "Balloon Man" and his giant colon at the top of the page are are from http://www.aliveandwellcoloncare.com

The museum is housed inside the College of Physicians of Philadelphia. Founded in 1787, it is the oldest professional medical organization in the country. The College of Physicians of Philadelphia is not an academic organization, as the name suggests, but a not-for-profit educational and cultural institution dedicated to advancing the cause of health, and upholding the ideals and heritage of medicine.

The two-story museum itself isn’t very large, but it is filled to the rim with well-organized collections of medical tools, preserved human remains, and models of human remains. About 2,000 objects extracted from people's throats are stored in file draws. There are human and animal fetuses, sliced sections of a human head (pictured from the Mutter Museum Web site), and several exhibits and artifacts of conjoined twins.

Just outside the building, there’s an attractive, quiet medical garden—which contains more than fifty kinds of herbs with detailed explanations of their historical medicinal value and their value in contemporary medical therapy.

The Mütter Museum, 19 South 22nd Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19103.

Philadelphia Launches Ambitious International Arts Festival

2010-02-08T01:56:00.000-08:00

The City of Philadelphia announced plans to host an international arts festival next year throughout the city that will include music, dance, fashion, fine arts, poetry and cuisine.

Representatives of the newly formed Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts held a press conference February 2 announcing the event but provided few details on the more than 100 local and international performances (including unusual collaborations) it plans to host during the three-week extravaganza, from April 7 to May 1, 2011.

Instead the organization released its logo, a cube balancing on its point (pictured above), along with a performance of Stravinsky's L'Histoire du Soldat in a mash-up collaboration with two local DJs, Dave P and DJ Statik (shown below). Coverage of the press conference can be found here.

While it will be a citywide event, the official host is the Kimmel Center, the city’s performing arts center that serves as the home of eight city performance arts organizations, including The Philadelphia Orchestra, Chamber Orchestra of Philadelphia, and Peter Nero and the Philly Pops.

Collaboration, creativity and innovation are the themes of the festival. While the full PIFA program will be announced April 7, exactly one year before the start of the festival, organizers did release some program highlights, including the first-ever major collaboration between The Philadelphia Orchestra and the Pennsylvania Ballet; and Philadelphia-based hip hop band, The Roots, in concert with a French chanteuse to be announced.

The inspiration for the event is the Paris arts explosion from 1910-1920—a period of time that reshaped and redefined art through collaborations of talented artists from all over the world in all genres of artistic expression. This movement helped to define and interpret art for the rest of the 20th Century.

The festival director is Edward Cambron, a 20-year Philadelphia Orchestra Association veteran. The program will be guided by artistic producer Barbara Silverstein. The festival idea originally was hatched by Kimmel Center president and chief executive Anne Ewers about three years ago.

The festival is being financed with the help of a $10 million grant from the late Leonore Annenberg.

I’ll have the Half-Smoke ‘All the Way’

2010-02-02T07:01:00.000-08:00

It’s a Washington, D.C. institution that has nothing to do with monuments, museums or government buildings. It has fed the stomachs and souls of the folks in the nation’s capital and from around the world for more than 50 years. It’s Ben’s Chili Bowl.

It’s a place as friendly and unpretentious as it gets despite its amazing success, which we noticed as soon as we walked up from the Metro stop at 2: 30 p.m. and looked across the street at the line of people outside of the small white building whose façade was covered with yellow and red signage. Bill Cosby thrust Ben’s into the national spotlight in 1985 when he held a press conference there to celebrate his number one show. In 2004, Ben’s received the Gallo of Sonoma “America's Classics” Restaurant Award from the James Beard Foundation. The place has been spotlighted by every news, travel and food show imaginable.
(Photo from Ben's Chili Bowl Web site.)

The line weaved inside the building (a former silent movie theater) that looked every bit its 100 years of age but it moved fast with loud, friendly workers shouting encouragement. Ben's is proud of it's African-American roots and on its walls are pictures of black entertainers and leaders of the Civil Rights movement who are customers. A sign near the door proclaims "We Love Our Customers. You Are The Best." The menu is above the grill behind the counter. Other signs above the counter direct customers about food and service: "Our Sandwiches Are Made to Order," "Tipping is Permitted For Good Service, and "All Sandwiches Wrapped In Aluminum Foil To Preserve Heat And Freshness."
At Ben’s the line leads to a cashier where you order first then head for a table in the back where you are served your food, unless you skip the line and head for the white, Formica counter in front of the food station, which we did.

There, a large smiling man with a beard and long-braided hair tied back wearing a cook’s white shirt loudly referred to me as “Mr. Tony” and my wife as “Mrs. Tony,” took our order and then quickly moved, and I swear, disappeared, into the swarm of cooks, servers and cashiers working behind the counter.

Our server/cook in the center.

I had the half-smoke “all the way” (pictured above) and Maria ordered the chili dog. A half-smoke is unique to the Washington D.C. area. It is essentially a plumper version of a hot dog with a little more spice and smoke flavor. All the way, means it comes with mustard, onions and chili. Maria’s chili dog looked sad by comparison.

The half-smoke tasted like it looked: meat covered in meat sauce with lots of spice and hints of mustard and onion. There’s nothing subtle about the flavor. It’s good, hearty, fun food, which was perfect to sooth our hunger and feed our souls on a cold late December day.

Ben’s Chile Bowl, 1213 U St., N.W., Washington D.C. Across from the U Street/African American Civil War Memorial/Cardozo Metro stop, (Green Line).

Read All About It

2010-01-31T07:04:00.000-08:00

A story I wrote about a weekly Blues Jam in a Stockholm club appears on The City Traveler Web site.

EagleBank Bowl was 30 Years in the Making for the Temple Football Program

2010-01-27T19:23:00.000-08:00

For those of us who are fans of the Temple University football program our lives for the past 20 years have been mired in a web of frustration, doom, despair, hopelessness, shock, heartbreak and depression.

We know the agony of defeat better than anyone. The regular beatings and lopsided loses the football team took were one thing. But over the years Temple has lost games in spectacular fashion in ways no one could anticipate—from opponents completing last-second “Hail Mary” passes for touchdowns, to Temple turnovers with seconds left in the game that either killed final drives near the end zone or became winning scores for the opponent. Missed extra points, field goals, you name it it’s been done.

Not this year. Five years after head coach Al Golden (left) took over the struggling program things changed. After losing the first two games of the season (the first loss, again, in spectacular fashion), Temple won the next nine games before losing their finale. The 9-3 record earned them a bid to the Dec. 29 EagleBank Bowl in Washington, D.C., against a big-conference marquee opponent, UCLA.

It certainly wasn’t the most prestigious bowl game. First, the game was held in aging, even decrepit RFK stadium, which used to serve as the home of the Washington Redskins. Second, it was in D.C. as opposed to some sunny location in the west or south. But it was close enough to Philly to allow an estimated 20,000 Temple fans to attend the game, understandably far outnumbering the team from the West Coast. Philly and the World were among those fans using the game as an excuse to stay through the New Year in our favorite local city.

To top it off Washington was hit by serious cold spell. At the 4:30 p.m. Tuesday afternoon kickoff it was about 30 degrees. By the end of the game it was below 20 degrees and it felt colder.

Despite these inconveniences, the atmosphere at the game was electric. By opening kickoff the place the Temple side of the stands was wild and by the end of the second half when Temple took a 21-7 lead, the building was shaking. But the joy ended there. UCLA was able to kick a field goal on the last play of the second quarter and in the second half its defense totally shut down the Temple offense. UCLA came back to win the game 30-21.

Lead photo: Temple players celebrate after a completion to tight end Steve Maneri for the first touchdown of the game. Below, is a video of Matt Brown scoring a touchdown in the second quarter. The muffled noises you hear are the sounds of people clapping with their gloves on.

There was disappointment but there was joy. Temple’s first bowl game in 30 years was a success. The fans came and they participated with their energy and their cash, which made EagleBank Bowl officials happy. The total turnout wasn’t as strong as hoped, again because of it being held on a week night and the difficulty of many UCLA fans making the trip from the West Coast, but Temple and its fans held up its end.

Washington, a very tourist-friendly city, and the bowl game sponsors were excellent hosts, which have us looking forward to next year.

Frank Gehry’s Bilbao in Cleveland

2010-01-19T12:56:00.000-08:00

From the Peter B. Lewis Building Web site.

Driving through the Case Western Reserve University campus in Cleveland the day after Christmas, we pass manicured lawns, bare trees and traditional brick and stone buildings. Sure signs that we have entered a serious place of higher learning. Then it appears. Twisted metal formed in a weave-like basket pattern that both rise out of the building and fall all around it in layers. Red brick walls and windows bend and curve as they fold into the building’s metallic shell. The structural elements move in ways that seem impossible, or at least eerie, as if the building has a life of its own. It is the architectural equivalent of a searing electric guitar solo in the middle of a chamber concert recital.

This is the work of Frank Gehry, the famed architect whose style is among the most recognizable in the world today. The Peter B. Lewis Building is the headquarters of Case Western’s Weatherhead School of Management. The five-story, 150,000-square-foot building is a smaller version of his most acclaimed works, the Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, and the Walt Disney Concert Hall in Los Angeles.

Since we happened upon the building during the holidays it was closed and we couldn’t get inside. But based on photographs from the school’s Web site, the theme of the curved elements are also in use inside, only with the use of softer materials, such as wood.

On its Web site, Weatherhead describes the $61.7 million building as reflecting the “spirit” of its “innovative approach” to business education. “It redefines the way a business school should look, just as Weatherhead redefines the way management education should be taught.”

Cleveland’s Heritage and Culture is on Display Daily in the West Side Market

2010-01-14T15:06:00.000-08:00

Cleveland’s West Side Market is more than a place for area residents to buy good food. It is part of the city’s identity and history. It reflects the ethnic fabric of the region and serves as a meeting place for friends, families and visitors looking for an authentic experience in the city by the lake.

The 45,000 square-foot yellow brick complex on West 25th and Lorain streets is a stunning piece of architecture, designed by the firm of Hubbell & Benes in 1912. The exterior includes a 137-foot copper roofed clock tower that can be seen for miles, cementing the building’s landmark status, and tall vaulted windows at each end let in plenty of sunlight.

While the outside is nice, the action is inside the main building. Below a magnificent 44-foot vaulted tile ceiling are approximately 100 stands selling meats, dairy, bread, poultry, seafood, cheese and anything else imaginable. The vendors truly represent the ethnic diversity of the Cleveland area. The strongest influence is of German, Polish and Eastern European descent. Butchers display all types of smoked and raw sausages; perogies and sauerkraut are readily available; and one doesn't have to look hard to find Hungarian kuchens.

Other ethnic purveyors do not get a short thrift here as homemade pastas share space with Mexican and Cambodian take-out vendors, and traditional Middle Eastern fare. While tradition runs strong, there’s a nod to the way people eat today. Several stalls serve artisan products such as fresh baked breads, cheese, and locally roasted coffee. For example, one stall, Reilly’s, places a modern twist to traditional Irish comfort food. The business produces refined versions of meat pies, Cornish pasties, sausage rolls and traditional Irish pastries.

There’s a restaurant in the building, West Side Market Café, but the only dining area for those using take take-out stands is bench seating on the second floor overlooking the action.

Outside of the main building is a partially exposed produce arcade (again with a vaulted tile ceiling) that wraps around the side and the rear of the main building. It holds approximately 80 stalls. Here, the food isn’t as exciting. It obviously all comes from the same distribution center and is similar to what appears on supermarket shelves. But the environment is far from a sterile supermarket experience.

While the current building has been in place since 1912, the idea of a market on West 25th and Lorain was planned in 1840 when two city residents, Josiah Barber and Richard Lord, donated a tract of land with the stipulation that it would be a public market site. Through the years other residents gifted land in the same area that allowed the market to expand.

Today, the market is accessible by rail and bus. A large, free parking lot across the street makes it easy for drivers to fill up their cars.

Below are more images of the market:

Cleveland's West Side Market is on 26th and Lorain streets. It's open on Mondays and Wednesdays from 7 a.m. to 4 p.m., and on Fridays and Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m.

Starting the New Year Right

2010-01-07T16:30:00.000-08:00

Philly and the World has been slow getting started this new year and I apologize. I am planning stories on visits to Cleveland and Washington, D.C. during the holidays. In the meantime, since it’s never too late to begin the new year in good form, I will share this immensely popular 76-minute speech titled, Last Lecture: Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams, by Carnegie Mellon University Professor Randy Pausch (Oct. 23, 1960 - July 25, 2008).

Pausch’s story and his lecture are quite well known by now. He was diagnosed with a terminal pancreatic cancer on Sept. 19, 2006, an underwent Whipple procedure (pancreaticoduodenectomy) on the same day, which was unsuccessful in halting the spread of the disease. He was told in August 2007 that he would have three to six months of good health.

In addition to the lecture, he co-authored the book, The Last Lecture. Below is the uplifting, entertaining and inspiring lecture he gave on Sept. 18, 2007.

I would like to thank freelance writer Cathleen McCarthy of The City Traveler for turning me onto this.

Happy Holidays

2009-12-23T17:05:00.000-08:00

Philly and the World wishes you and your loved ones a spectacular holiday season and a healthy and prosperous new year and decade. This picture was taken Dec. 31, 2006, in the French Quarter, New Orleans.

During the same trip a high school marching band appeared across from Jackson Square on New Year's Day and played several songs before marching on.

The White Before Christmas

2009-12-21T15:01:00.000-08:00

A blizzard on Dec. 19 and 20, 2009, dropped 23.2 inches of snow in Philadelphia. It was the largest snowfall amount on record in the month of December and the second largest of all time. During the heart of the storm Saturday afternoon, I went out for about an hour and took some snapshots in my Fairmount neighborhood. Businesses remained opened and people were out on foot enjoying the day.

The photo in the center is taken from the steps of the Philadelphia Museum of Art and it is a typical view of the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. On the left and below are pictures I took during the storm.

The Washington Monument on Eakins Oval (top) with the Philadelphia Museum of Art in the background. The Philadelphia Museum of Art's Raymond G. Perelman Building, blurred by dampness on my camera lens.

Meredith Street (top) and 25th Street.

Fairmount Avenue (top) and Perot Street (center and below).

Maria, wearing what she calls her, Julie Christie hat outside of Oliver's Antiques (top). The lovely ladies at Zorba's Greek restaurant. The Garden Fresh produce store.

Children and dogs playing in the snow.

Eastern State Penitentiary looking more ominous than usual.

The Sunsets of Barbados

2009-12-20T08:10:00.000-08:00

Videos of three sunsets from Worthing Beach between Nov. 22 and Dec. 3.

More sunsets of Barbados can be found on the Philly and the World YouTube page.

The final sunset. Taken from the plane as it left Barbados.

The New Gateway to Barbados

2009-12-19T07:41:00.000-08:00

For the nine years Philly and the World has been visiting Barbados, Grantley Adams International Airport (BGI) has been under different states of construction. It’s just the way things are done in the Caribbean. The renovation is yet to be finished, as jetways are planned. And like the airport, its official Web site is still a work in progress.

Grab a Banks beer beneath a tent canopy and flying fish before heading into the departures terminal.

But much of the work to the main structures is finished. You can argue with the time it took to renovate the the main gateway to the island nation, but one would find it difficult to argue with the results. The redesigned airport manages to enhance its status as a major Caribbean hub while maintaining its small, more humane scale that defines most airports in the region. (Above is the ticketing area.)

The tent, concrete and steel-beam structure brings the tropical Barbados weather into much of the building. It is most evident in the airy departures area, where beneath large canopies (and an additional concrete roof as you continue inside); travelers can get their tickets, grab a seat, shop, get a beer, and chat with family and friends without ever feeling like you’re indoors. Maria swears that bird sounds are piped through the terminal’s speaker system. I didn’t notice it. For those driving to the airport, the parking lot is steps away from the terminal.

Two views of the of the public area of the airport. Notice the kit-like material on the ceiling.

You are not actually inside the departures building until you get to customs. Once past customs, the new terminal includes a modern food court, shops that sell local and brand-name products (that are sold in nearly all airports), and a small bar. The actual waiting area is a large single-story horizontal room. Large window walls and a concrete and tent roof allow plenty of sunlight and provide a front row seat of the arriving planes, which taxi just outside the building, and a view of the passengers headed to the arrivals terminal.

The departures waiting area (left) and the food court.

As mentioned, there are no jetways. Planes load and unload on the tarmac in front of the departures building, allowing those of us who are leaving to have one last shot of Caribbean sunshine before boarding. I hope they never build the jetways. The arrivals hall is in a separate building next door, which used to house arrivals and departures. The extra space was desperately needed, as most of the North American and European flights arrive at the same time. According to some people, it can still take up to two hours to get processed, although this hasn’t happened to us.

Two views of the shops inside the departures terminal.

More than 20 passenger airlines and four cargo airlines use Grantley, making it one of the busier airports in the Caribbean. Now it’s also one of its most user-friendly and attractive gateways.

Arriving passengers from a Virgin Atlantic flight.

A water element on the way to the plane.

Our chariot awaits.

Fabulous Fried Chicken at a Fish Market in Barbados

2009-12-16T13:58:00.000-08:00

Oistins in Barbados is known as a fishing village. It has the country’s best known fish market, which is the site of the Friday night Fish Fry, an all night outdoor party. However, just across the street from the market nestled among a small group of stores that have seen better days is Granny’s, which serves what many believe is the best fried chicken on the island. I haven’t tried them all but after going to Granny’s for a few years I’m not going to argue.

I never met Granny but I think I’m in love with her. The restaurant isn’t much look at—neon lights, white walls, tile floor—but it is clean and bright as full-size windows bring in lots of sunlight. It’s cafeteria style steam table service. You get your tray, walk past the food that sits behind glass and tell smiling women behind the counter what you want. The food is served in Styrofoam containers. You eat on Formica tables and padded metal chairs scattered about outside.

The restaurant serves a full menu of Bajan food, including the national dishes of Cou-cou (made of cornmeal and okra) and flying fish (which actually has wings and can glide above water to avoid larger predator fish).

But it’s the fried chicken that makes Granny an annual trip for me and Maria. Its skin crackles with crispiness. The flour is well spiced. The meat is moist. It is simple food with texture and flavor done incredibly well. It’s how I imagine fried chicken should taste. And the place doesn’t discriminate. The entire bird is fried—including gizzards, livers and necks. Our sides on this trip were a creamy, comforting macaroni pie (a Caribbean version of baked macaroni and cheese) and a crisp, light coleslaw, perfect for a hot afternoon. I’m hungry.

Oistins Fish Market

2009-12-08T10:40:00.000-08:00

It’s easy to buy fresh fish in Barbados and the most popular place to go is the open-air Oistins Fish Market.

Oistins is a fishing town on the southernmost part of this island nation. Each day small boats return from the Caribbean Sea and nearby Atlantic Ocean with dolphin, blue marlin, swordfish, kingfish, barracuda, tuna and flying fish (which are now primarily fished in Tobago, 120 nautical miles southwest of Barbados). They are sold to the fish mongers in the market and then, weighed, sliced and sold to locals and tourists.

If you’re lucky you can come down when there are large catches of what is called a lobster, but are actually large marine crayfish. As far as I’m concern, it doesn’t matter because the sweet meat from the creatures are every bit as succulent as lobster.

The market is known more for its Friday Fish Fry, a weekly outdoor party attended by locals and tourists that starts at 6 p.m. and goes into the next morning. But every day the fish market is open selling the freshest of what is available that day.

A fish monger skillfully weighs and cuts blue marlin:

How to Carve a Pineapple

2009-12-04T06:55:00.001-08:00

At the Sea Foam Haciendas in Barbados we call her Edith. Her real name is pronounced E-dith-shan, spelling unknown. She is 88 years old has been picking fruit and vegetables and bringing them to tourists and locals on Worthing Beach for more than 40 years.

Tall and thin in her colorful house dresses, she has a weathered face from someone who has spent her life outdoors and her smile proudly shows her few remaining teeth. She also has the good health of someone who works hard and eats what she sells. She carries her daily harvest in a hand-woven basket on her head with the ease of someone half her age. She also enjoys the beer someone at Sea Foam gives her each day.

(Photo above by Derek Lepper of Derek Lepper Photography)

Her daily harvest includes bananas, big brown avocados, oranges and tomatoes. But what she is known for is pineapples. Before Maria and I knew her name, we used to call her the Pineapple Lady. It’s not so much the quality of the pineapples she sells (although they are fresh and delicious) but it’s her trademark trimming and carving of the fruit. With a small knife that looks almost as old as she is, trims the sides of the fruit and then sets to carving the fruit in lines to create a flower-like pattern. It takes her just a few minutes to complete the job. It not only looks attractive enough to use as a centerpiece for a table but it makes it easy to eat.

Edith told us Tuesday in her staccato-like voice and Bajan dialect, she will be retiring soon. Maybe when she reaches 90. One certainly cannot blame her considering the physical nature of her work. But when she does retire she will be missed.

Below is a video of her plying her signature design to a pineapple:

In the News

2009-12-03T07:15:00.000-08:00

A story I wrote about the design and materials used for the championship rings of the Los Angeles Lakers appears in The Roskin Gem News Report.

A Room With A View

2009-12-02T05:01:00.000-08:00

At the Sea Foam Haciendas in Barbados all the beds are single and are placed side-by-side, which makes it challenging for couples. The sounds of the traffic outside and the music from Mojo’s (a bar and restaurant that caters to white folks who want to experience Rastafarian culture) across the street make it difficult to sleep. Air conditioning is only in the bedrooms. The furnishings are mostly dated and the walls are largely bare. And the wireless Internet is unreliable.

We love it.

The view of the Caribbean from our room.

We love it because it sits on the beach. We love it because day and night we have a view of the sea and the sound of the surf. We love listening to the tree frogs at night and watch the birds by day. We love that the beach is steps away from our first-floor apartment. We love the turquoise waters of the Caribbean. And, of course, we love the sunsets.

There are many reasons why we love the Sea Foam Haciendas, but really what we love the most are the people who come each year at the same time we do and have been coming here long before we knew this place existed.

There’s Derek and Monique who live outside of Vancouver, Canada. Derek, a world-class photographer who specializes in architecture images and Monique, a veteran flight attendant, have become close enough friends that we have visited their home the past three years. Then there’s Jerry and Phillip of Washington, D.C., cousins who are both retired men and travel the world together, tell terrific stories and host an annual Thanksgiving dinner with turkey, ham and all the fixings. There’s The Ontario Six (Roger, Jan, Chris, Elaine, Ann and Kathy) who are the most organized and amicable group of travelers I’ve ever seen. There’s David and Jackie (brother and sister) from the U.K. who are absolutely happy to spend their days on the beach and their nights in their apartment. And there’s the Jacksons, also from the Vancouver area. Three generations of a family in two units who are, by far, the most active members of this temporary community.

We’re the new kids on the block. We have been staying here since 2002. Some of the others have been making their annual trek here since the place opened more than 30 years ago. We’re also among the youngest of this group.

Conversations take place on the beach, while bobbing in the warm Caribbean water, and in each other’s apartment. They are always interesting as we catch up on what has happened the past year and how the events of the world have affected our lives. Since the apartments have full kitchens (and let’s face it, you don’t go to the Caribbean for the restaurants), dinner parties are the norm.

The Sea Foam rests comfortably on Worthing Beach—a small strip of sand with natural borders on each side. It fits well among the private homes and small rental properties, and may have the best spot on this lovely beach.

Image by Derek Lepper of Derek Lepper Photography.

The complex consists of two buildings, each with six identical apartments on three floors. The first was built in 1977 and the second two years later. Although I say they are identical, there are endless discussions over the minute differences of each unit and their location. The main bedroom and bathroom are in the rear facing the noisy street. There’s a hallway that goes past a second bedroom and then there’s the kitchen, dining and living room cooled by a ceiling fan. A sliding door leads to the private patio for each apartment. In front, since we are on the first floor, there is a common patio with tables, chairs, a bar and a grill shaded by Casuarina and Sea Grape trees and is also source of many dinners and casual talk. The building is resilient inside and out. A strong concrete structure keeps the sea at bay. Tile flooring inside and out is also impervious to the elements. And the furnishings? While they may not be the most attractive they are as resilient and comfortable as the structure.

There are places to go and things to do and see while in Barbados (and over the eight years Maria and I have been coming here, we’ve seen a lot), but for most of us the Sea Foam is the place to be. We buy our food, our rum, and our beer and stay mostly put. It’s too comfortable, too relaxing, to perfect of a beach and island experience.

Even the trees are happy at Sea Foam.

Caffe’ Mingo: A Slice of Life in Florence

2009-11-18T11:00:00.000-08:00

It’s July in Florence and it’s hotter than Dante’s Inferno. Tourists are everywhere. They queue outside the narrow courtyard of the Uffizi Gallery an hour before the museum opens. They swarm all of the well-known landmarks of this city. They crowd the shops.

But even in the most touristed areas of the city there is another Florence. A place where people work and live; where they meet in the evenings to discuss the day’s events; and where they share the secrets of this great city. It’s not so much knowing that this other place exists. Of course it does. It’s that it exists right under our noses, yet it’s easy to miss.

Maria and I were fortunate to be staying at a bed and breakfast in the Piazza San Martino. The plaza is about the size of a postage stamp, yet life flows around it like the river of tourists that are led by their guides below my window to where it is believed that Dante once lived. While many of the tourist haunts are minutes away by foot in all directions—including the Uffizi, the adjacent Piazza della Signoria, and Dante di casa—San Martino is bustling in other ways. There’s a very active courthouse that’s open six days per week, one of the city’s oldest restaurants, and of course, the requisite historical sites (including the Torre Della Castagna, an ancient tower built in the 10th Century, and the tiny chapel of the Compagnia dei Buonomini, where Dante may have been married and which also served as a refuge for once wealthy households who lost everything because of political alliances).

The centerpiece of this activity was the Caffe’ Mingo. In the morning it serves espressos and pastries to the attorneys, judges and other court officials before they go to work. In the afternoon it serves hungry tourists. In the evening it becomes a place for locals to have drinks and talk. It’s also the time for the staff and a few neighbors to have their evening meal, which they do in style. The café has a tiny inside space but the main activity is outside in the center of the square. Three people operate the space, Nino, the owner, Daniela, who looks like a body builder, and Amanda. Maria and I spent our time there in the mornings and evenings during our five-day stay in Florence and left them alone during their busy lunch times.

Tourists having lunch at Caffe' Mingo. Daniela, standing, is taking their orders.

While Nino may be the boss and Daniela may be built like an Ox, it’s Amanda, a Filipino native, who runs the place. Petite, wiry, fast and loud, she seems to know everyone who passes on the piazza, from the sanitation workers and delivery men to the owners of the local businesses. She calls them all by name loudly, standing on her toes as she waves with a smile a mile wide.

Another view of the lunchtime crowd.

The first evening I sat there drinking wine and enjoying a meal and taking some notes, Amanda treated me to a glass of limoncello and she discounted the meal a bit. Between the three of them I never ended up paying full-price for anything. Amanda only said she could tell I was a good person.

The next evening when Maria arrived from visiting her family in Amsterdam, she was obviously tired from her trip. We were going to split a bowl of pasta with pesto and a salad. She looked at my wife, shook her head as if something wasn’t right, and said that she was going to make Maria pasta with ragu and that it was on the house. Again we finished our meal with a complementary limoncello. Maria attacked it as if she hadn’t been fed all day. Amanda absolutely refused all tips.

On our final night, we had dinner at the restaurant in the piazza, Trattoria del Pennello, one of Florence's oldest restaurants, and finished our night with Proseco at the cafe while the staff and neighbors were having their meal. Nino, a gelato addict, had bought some for dessert for the staff. He gave us some to have with our drinks. We chatted through the night in broken English and awful Italian.

They didn’t treat us as customers. They treated us like friends and for that we’ll never forget them.

Historically, the Piazza San Martino was a place that served the poor. On Sunday mornings this tradition continues as poor residents of the city come for free meals. The food is handed out from this white car and devoured quickly before the cafe opens, which on Sunday is later than other days. Nino cleans the remains before opening, which makes him unhappy. There's nothing like listening to someone curse out loud to no one in Italian.

The Best Coffee to Ever Come Out of a Civet’s Ass

2009-11-11T08:13:00.000-08:00

This is one of those times when I wonder, who was the first person to think that this was a good idea?

While visiting Maria’s family in Jakarta, Indonesia, this past June, her aunt and uncle (Lisa and Han) were kind enough to make the one hour drive through unbearable traffic to a west Jakarta shopping mall so I could taste the rarest and most expensive coffee in the world: Kopi Luwak.

Kopi means coffee in Indonesia and Luwak is the local name for the Asian Palm Civet, a member of the Viverridae family, although they are often casually referred to as tree cats or weasels.

The coffee is produced when the civet eats whole coffee berries, which contain the fruit and seed. The proteins in the animal’s digestive juices break down the fruit’s outer layer and the more acidic portion of the beans inside, which gives coffee its bitterness. The bean passes through the animal’s system and is defected whole, still covered in some of its outer layers. Some lucky fellow collects the beans, and washes and dries them. The combination of the digestive juices of the animal and its ability to pick the ripest berries are said to be the source of its unique flavor. The beans are then given a light roast, which helps the coffee maintain its flavor.

This brew is the Holy Grail of serious coffee drinkers and those into exotic foods and beverages. It has appeared in several television shows (including Oprah) and is the source of many well-written stories. It even played a key supporting role in the movie, “The Bucket List,” starring Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman. Here is Freeman’s character, Carter Chambers, explaining to Edward Cole (Nicholson), a Kopi Luwak connoisseur, the coffee’s unusual source:

Here is another video with a more scientific, although a bit dramatized, explanation:

In the mall restaurant named after the coffee, I enjoyed a cup of the brew, which cost about $20. I can attest to the coffee’s lack of bitterness. It was the smoothest coffee I ever tasted. However, I did not experience the complexity of flavor that is exulted in its many descriptions. The restaurant also sells a less expensive blended version of the coffee, which was bitter and otherwise tasteless. While I was happy to have this once-in-a-lifetime experience, I chose not to buy any to bring to back with me. I still prefer Philadelphia’s La Colombe.

The author with his eyes in shadows but still smiling after his Kopi Luwak experience.

Read All About It

2009-11-08T09:14:00.000-08:00

A roundup of my visit to three Stockholm museum s can be seen on The City Traveler Web site.

A Joyous Finale for a Philadelphia Institution

2009-11-07T00:40:00.000-08:00

It’s the end for a Philadelphia institution that was much loved by everyone who lives in the region: The Spectrum. The arena is to be razed (possibly by implosion on New Year’s Eve) to make way for a hotel and entertainment mall.

The facility, completed in 1967, is best known as the home of the Philadelphia Flyers hockey team and the 76ers basketball team. However, it also hosted circuses, ice shows, boxing and wrestling and just about any other event that could be crammed into the building, which held anywhere from 17,000 to 20,000 persons depending on the performance. It was in constant use.

While I have attended many wonderful sports events at the arena, what I remember most are the concerts, particularly during the ‘70s and ‘80s when live music ruled. I don’t know how many concerts I attended (could be in the hundreds) but I have seen everything from the Allman Brothers to Frank Zappa. The short list also includes Willie Nelson, Emerson Lake & Palmer, Cat Stevens, Grateful Dead, Muddy Waters, Yes, Rick Wakeman, Neil Young, Crosby Stills and Nash, the Electric Light Orchestra, Edgar Winters, Leon Russell, Jethro Tull, Pink Floyd, Eric Clapton, Bruce Springsteen and Bob Dylan. I’m taken aback with the breadth of music I experienced.

The first show I ever attended there was a 1973 charity concert by AM radio station WFIL (remember rock ‘n’ roll AM radio?). There were only a few thousand people to see a bill that included: Billy Preston, Lou Reed, Slade, Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show and a new band from California called The Eagles.

During the past year, a number of acts known for their many and memorial performances at the arena returned for a final shows. Among them were Neil Young, the Grateful Dead (which played the Spectrum 53 times, more than any other musical act) and Bruce Springsteen. On Oct. 23, Philadelphia area musicians The Hooters, Todd Rundgren and Hall & Oates headlined a concert titled "Last Call."

For some reason (probably just scheduling), Pearl Jam (which according to the Spectrum's historical listing of concerts, only played the venue once) was given the honor of being the last band to perform at the legendary arena, on Oct. 27, 28, 30, 31 (Halloween). From what I read (here and here) and the videos I’ve seen, the management couldn’t have chosen a better act to close the building. Over the four nights, the band performed 103 different songs, exhausting their own catalog of songs and playing covers that included The Who’s “Baba O'Riley,” Divo’s “Whip It” and Neil Young’s “Rockin’ in the Free World.” The final show was a marathon event of more than 3 hours and 40 minutes in which the band played 41 songs. The set included one of the band’s first hits “Alive,” which lead singer Eddie Vedder said in honor of the closing of the Spectrum they will never play again.

Below are four videos from the Pearl Jam shows, three from the final night on Oct. 31 and one from the Oct. 30 show.

The Who's Baba O'Riley from the Oct. 30 show:

Divo's "Whip It":

Neil Young "Rockin in the Free World":

"Yellow Ledbetter," with a "The Star-Spangled Banner" guitar solo ending, the last song played at the Spectrum.

The Perfect Caffe Latte

2009-11-03T09:39:00.000-08:00

I’ve always had a tremendous amount of respect for those who’ve become successful by doing one thing very well. La Colombe Torrefaction makes coffee and arguably does it better than anyone else in the country.

There are many places to get the Philadelphia-based company’s artisanal coffee blends and chances are you may have had it in other coffee shops, markets and in many of the finest restaurants in the country—including, La-Bec Fin, Daniel and Le Bernardin. My favorite place to enjoy the full flavor and richness of this wonderful product is by ordering a caffe latte in its original retail location just off Rittenhouse Square.

High ceilings and large windows allow plenty of sunlight inside. A simple layout of chairs and tables allow folks to mingle or relax and provide something that is rare in a retail environment of any kind: space. Behind the mahogany bar, skilled baristas prepare drinks with precision, efficiency and artistic flare. Housed in Italian hand-made Fima Deruta cups and saucers, the caffe latte is the perfect blend of warm milk and espresso. Its silky texture and rich, mild flavor warms the soul. It also is consistent, so no matter who is behind the bar, the results, even with its high standards, are the same.

The coffee bar is located in the city’s swankiest neighborhood, a half-block from its most popular park, and a quick stroll from its business district. This results in a true mix of office workers, creative folks, students, those who toil in the leisure arts (unemployed), and workers from the small businesses in the neighborhood. It’s a great place to people watch, read or meet others without the corporate pressures to buy more or move along that are part of the environment of chain coffee houses. In fact, its owners, Todd Carmichael and Jean-Philippe Iberti, are open about the fact that their primary focus is producing great coffee, even if it turns off consumers. For example, the cafe serves a limited number of coffee drinks and serves them all in a single size. The only other things customers can purchase are a small selection of French pastries, excellent French hot chocolate and coffee beans to go, which they will grind for you.

The company specializes in blending coffee. With few exceptions (such as a blend made only of beans from Africa), it has offered four blends since its beginning nearly 15 years ago: Corsica, dark roast; Phocea, medium dark roast; Nizza, medium roast, used for Espresso; and Monte Carlo, decaffeinated. At home we mainly use Corsica and Nizza.

It’s hard to believe that 25 years ago there were only a handful of places to get good coffee in the U.S. Then along came Starbucks, which educated Americans on the wonders of European coffee. But the company, along with other chains that followed, became more interested in world domination than in producing good coffee in a quality environment. Many independent coffee houses fall short because the owners and their staff often lack the experience and skill to make a quality product or create the proper experience.

By sticking to what it does best, La Colombe gets it right.

Phils in Phive

2009-10-27T16:34:00.000-07:00

The World Series between the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Yankees begins Wednesday. Meanwhile, the trash talking between the fans in each city started the moment the Yankees clinched the American East title Sunday night.

In typical New York Post fashion, the tabloid placed an image on its front page that combined stupidity, childishness and homophobia. It Photoshopped, poorly, Phillies centerfielder Shane Victorino in a dress and called the team “Frillies.” I guess it was an attack on the manliness of the team that led the National League in home runs. New Yorkers in general are already talking like the victory has already been decided as if its legacy makes it a foregone conclusion.

Here's a picture of Victorino holding something that the Yankees haven't been near for years.

Of course the game will be played on the field and it has the potential to be an epic battle. While watching some of the series between the Yankees and the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim (a team that can’t seem to decide where it resides) I did not see great baseball, particularly by the Angels. I saw teams that the Phillies should be able to beat rather handily.

Apparently, Phillies shortstop Jimmy Rollins agrees. He told Jay Leno Tuesday night that the Phillies will win in five games. Rollins has made a number of predictions about the Phillies during the past three years that all came true, including winning the World Series last year. I’m certainly not going to argue with him. The only thing that may dampen what should be a true "fall classic" is the damp weather predicted for much of the week.

The Windows of Florence

2009-10-26T16:01:00.000-07:00

Photographs of the windows in the Piazza San Martino taken in July 2009. It is best known as the neighborhood where the 13th Century poet Dante Alighieri was born and spent a great deal of his life.

Philadelphia Philanthropist’s Diamond Ring Fetches $7.7M

2009-10-23T07:30:00.000-07:00

A 32 carat diamond ring owned by billionaire philanthropist Leonore Annenberg sold for $7.7 million at action Wednesday at Christie’s, New York to an unidentified buyer, according to news reports.

Annenberg purchased the square emerald-cut diamond for her 90th birthday. The ring was offered for sale by Annenberg's estate. She died in March at the age of 91.

The ring is designed by Manhattan jeweler David Webb. It is flanked by two pear-shaped diamonds, one of them 1.61 carats and the other 1.51 carats.

“The Annenberg Diamond … combines the best of the 4 C’s: top color, perfect clarity, ideal cut, and excellent weight. And if you add to this the impeccable provenance of the Annenberg name, you have one of the finest gems to appear on the market for many years,” François Curiel, chairman of Christie’s Europe and International Head of Jewels, said in a statement prior to the auction.

Annenberg, served as chairwoman and president of the Annenberg Foundation and was the U.S. chief of protocol during the Reagan administration. Her husband, Walter H. Annenberg, was a prominent newspaper publisher, broadcaster, diplomat, and philanthropist. He died in 2002 at the age of 94.

The Annenbergs lived in the suburban Philadelphia community of Wynnewood. Several of Walter Annenberg’s businesses were located in the area, including the newspapers, The Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, and TV Guide, which he founded in 1952.

More information is available on Christie’s Web site.

The Doors of Florence

2009-10-22T08:16:00.001-07:00

Photographs of the doors in the Piazza San Martino, the tiny square best known as the neighborhood where the great 13th Century poet Dante Alighieri was born and spent a great deal of his life.

The doorway to Torre Della Castagna, built in the 13th Century and used for a variety of purposes over the years.

The entrance to the Trattoria del Pennello, one of Florence's oldest restaurants.

The doorway to the tiny chapel of Compagnia dei Buonomini di. Founded in 1441, it consisted of twelve men—the Buonomini—with the mission to help “i poveri verghognosi,” wealthy families that had fallen on hard times. People were down to their last pennies lit a candle at their door. This is expressed as “essere ridotti al lumicino”—“to be reduced to a candle.”

The entrance to a modern day courthouse.

Life in the ‘Fast Lane,’ if Only for a Moment

2009-10-18T10:53:00.000-07:00

Journalist and entrepreneur Tyler Brûlé has become an international cultural icon. In the mid-1990s he created Wallpaper, a groundbreaking international style and fashion magazine, which he sold to Time Warner. More recently he founded Monocle, an international magazine that covers international affairs, culture and design for wealthy, cosmopolitan readers. He also owns design agency Winkreative and writes a weekly column in the Financial Times called "The Fast Lane."

Whether jetting to Japan for all-night Karaoke sessions, traveling by train from Zurich to Milan, or moving his entire magazine operation to the Spanish island of Mallorca for the summer holiday, Brûlé lives a life (at least in his writings) that is of constant movement surrounded by creative people, high-design and luxury.

While vacationing in Europe this past summer, I had a brief opportunity to experience the Tyler Brûlé lifestyle. After spending a day at the Montreux Jazz Festival I went to Geneva for a day of sightseeing before taking a flight to Florence, where I would meet my wife, Maria, in a couple days after her visit with family members in Holland.

Brûlé is big on regional airlines that are able to provide a better level of service, efficiency and reliability in short-haul flights than the larger airlines. I was traveling on Baboo, a Brûlé-approved airline based in Geneva. Its five planes provide service to 19 destinations in Europe. After picking up the July issue of Monocle, I headed over to the well-designed and heavily branded Baboo waiting area, where I dozed off while sitting on a low, red-leather couch.

Boarding was quick and easy and before I knew it I was in the air with a commanding view of the Swiss Alps. The Dash 8 wasn't full, so I had two comfortable leather seats to myself, which led me to again descend into a restful slumber.

Even though the flight was just over an hour, the crew offered small ham and soft cheese sandwiches on flat bread, tiny skewers of marinated vegetables, and strawberry yogurt for dessert. It wasn’t an elaborate offering but it was appropriate for the size of the propeller-powered aircraft and the short length of the flight. The service throughout the flight was well prepared and well executed.

Before I knew it the plane landed in the shabby Florence airport (I thought it was recently renovated). After a long wait in the customs line inside the dimly lit processing area, I was finally and thankfully able to leave the airport.

In the darkness outside the airport I walked past the line of taxis, across the parking lot and onto the lonely bus stand, waiting for the local bus to take me into town—leaving the fast lane behind.

A Park with a Purpose

2009-10-14T06:38:00.000-07:00

One of the best kept secrets in Philadelphia is Fitler Square, a park so small and unnoticed that it doesn’t even appear on Google maps.

Less than the size of a full city block, the park on Pine St. between 23rd and 24th streets serves as the centerpiece of the Fitler Square neighborhood, one of the best neighborhoods in the city (and also a best-kept secret). It's a quiet place with brick walkways, leafy plants and trees, and plenty of comfortable benches. There’s a fountain in the middle and several attractive animal sculptures, all of which fit the park’s small dimensions. It’s a clean and comfortable respite that is just a few blocks south of the much more active Rittenhouse Square. Despite its center city location tourists as well as many city residents don’t know of its existence.

The park serves as the stage for a weekly farmer’s market, and annual occasions—such Halloween and Easter events. There’s even a Christmas tree lighting ceremony.

Fitler Square was created in 1896 and named after Edwin H. Fitler, mayor of Philadelphia from 1887 to 1891. Its success is a testament to the Fitler Square Improvement Association, which raises money and works with the city’s parks and recreation department for its maintenance. I’m sure Mr. Fitler would be proud to see that a space named after him has served the community so well.

More images follow:

Grizzly by Eric Berg

The Ram by Gerd Hesness

Turtles by Eric Berg

First Look at Barnes Foundation Philadelphia Home

2009-10-09T09:31:00.000-07:00

The residents of the Philadelphia region and the international art community got their first glimpse of what the new Barnes Foundation home will look like. The design by New York-based architects Tod Williams and Billie Tsien did nothing to quell the long-brewing controversy of moving the foundation from its home in the upscale, suburban Merion neighborhood to downtown Philadelphia. But it did provide the first clear picture of how the new building will meld an institution that historically had a singular vision with a modern plan that will open its galleries to the world.

The plans for the 200,000-square-foot site on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway between 20th and 21st Streets, which can be seen here and here, were approved by the Philadelphia Art Commission in a unanimous vote on Oct. 7 (videos of the hearing can be found here). Construction could begin as early as November. The museum costs are estimated at $200 million, with much of the funding raised by local philanthropic organizations.

About 100 persons crammed into the Art Commission's meeting room to view the proposal. Here is a portion of the Oct. 7 presentation by the architects that I took with my video camera (Unfortunately, my position in the room didn't allow me to capture the architectural images and the crowd around me made it difficult for me to keep my camera still):

Not surprisingly, those against the move, hated the renderings, while those for the move found them inspiring. There appeared to be widespread concern over the building’s entrance, which doesn’t face the Parkway, and the open-surface parking lot.

One reason I was there was to hopefully capture some of the outrageous rhetoric among those who oppose the move. However, Moe Brooker of Moore College of Art and Design, who chaired the meeting, clamped down on the public comment, limiting the approximate 16 speakers to two minutes and limiting remarks to the building’s design, which after all was the sole responsibility of the commission.

A couple of the speakers illustrate the range of emotion caused by the move, follows:

About 90 percent of the hearing, including 14 of the 16 comments, can be found here.

In addition, here are links to reviews of the new design in The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times.

A brief, rudimentary description of the Barnes Foundation Controversy
The Barnes Foundation seems to have been surrounded by controversy ever since Albert C. Barnes first created the foundation in 1922 as an “educational art institute” on a large piece of property that would eventually become his home. After his death, the already uneasy relations between the foundation and its neighbors erupted in the 1990s when the foundation attempted to break the will of its founder by increasing the public viewing of the famed private collection in order to raise much-needed funds.

Barnes, an inventor, amassed a fortune from his development of the antiseptic drug Argyrol. In 1910, he began collecting art, amassing a collection that is considered to be one of the most valuable private collections in the world. It is particularly strong in the Impressionist and Modernist masters.

The son of butcher who grew up in a middle class household in Philadelphia, Barnes dedicated the foundation to the teaching of art to the underprivileged working class. He gave administration control of the foundation to Lincoln University, an historically black college. He also had a personal view of how art should be displayed and taught and dedicated his foundation to teaching his personal philosophy. In addition, the collection was open only two days per week and those wishing to see it had to do so in writing, and many in high social standing were rejected.

His approach to teaching the working and lower classes, including African-Americans; housing the Foundation in the upscale neighborhood; and his unique views about art, created an antagonistic relationship with art critics and historians as well as his neighbors. By most accounts, Barnes was more than willing to fuel this hostility.

Barnes, who died in 1951, set in his will a number of strict guidelines that included:

*Limiting public admission to two days a week;

*Prohibiting the lending of works in the collection, touring the collection, and presenting touring exhibitions; and

*Keeping the Barnes in its Merion location.

However, maintaining the foundation proved difficult. Funds were insufficient to meet expenses. The restrictions in allowing people to view the art made it difficult to raise funds. Attempts to keep the museum open for more days or longer hours drew hostile protests from the neighbors and the devotees of the Barnes Foundation who wanted the will to be honored at all costs. A 1999 audit revealed that the Barnes Foundation was nearly bankrupt.

In 2004, the foundation won a two-year court battle to break the will. Two years after that, the foundation announced that it raised $150 million for the relocation of the Barnes to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway. Since then, it has raised another $50 million.

Somewhat ironically, the neighbors who were against any attempts by the Barnes Foundation to open the museum to more people are also vehemently opposed to moving the museum. An organization called “Friends of the Barnes” was formed that is fighting the move in the courts and public forums. So far they’ve lost all their battles.

Some of the speakers at the Art Commission hearing said that Barnes would be rolling over in his grave to learn what has happened to his Foundation. I think that maybe he would be dancing in his grave to see that the move has frustrated many of the same people he spent half his life antagonizing.

An Urban Oasis

2009-10-05T16:29:00.000-07:00

Strollers, joggers and bike riders pass by on a sandy road. Just beyond the path, children play on a well-kept lawn by the side of a narrow and shallow creek. The pines and broad leaf trees are in full bloom. It’s a rustic setting that is far removed from urban distractions, yet I am in the city of Philadelphia. It’s Labor Day and I, along with my wife, Maria, and her sister Lucy, are enjoying lunch on the front porch of the Valley Green Inn.

The white-painted building with the shingled roof was first built as an inn on what was a stagecoach path during the 1850s. Today, it is a restaurant and banquet hall in what is now called the Wissahickon Valley. The Wissahickon Creek runs past the front of the building. The inn operates under the joint care of the Friends of the Wissahickon (a volunteer organization) and Philadelphia’s Fairmount Park Commission, yet is a privately run business.

The inside is divided into small dining areas and a bar area. There’s also a banquet room and a takeout window selling hot dogs, ice cream and other treats.

While the rooms inside are cozy, the seats of choice on this cloudy, cool, comfortable day are outside on the expansive porch. We all ordered sandwiches which were all good, but could have used a bit more flavor. However, the day wasn’t about food. It was about relaxing. The setting that is at the same time alive with people and nature while serene couldn’t have been better.

By the time we were finished our meals we were practically melting. We moved to sit on a park bench by the creek and watched as a family, with children and a dog in tow, walk out on a rocky creek bed to feed and otherwise annoy a flock of ducks minding their own business to our right. After awhile the ducks had enough and the entire group flew past us and joined another flock of ducks about 10 yards to our left. The dog then repeatedly burrowed its face into the creek bed as if chasing something under the ground.

Around us children continued playing while their parents talked among themselves. The path, now behind us, remained active, and the front porch of the restaurant was filled with contented diners. Time passed slowly. I don’t think there’s a better way to spend a holiday.

A Class Organization

2009-10-01T09:02:00.001-07:00

Class is a word that gets thrown around far too often in sports terminology. But if any organization personifies the word in its true form, it would have to be the Philadelphia Phillies. The defending World Series Champions beat the Houston Astros 10-3 Wednesday (Sept. 30) to earn its third consecutive National League East Title.

They were lots of ways the “Phightin’ Phils” showed its class last night. It included paying its respects publicly to Harry Kalas, the longtime voice of the Phillies who died suddenly early this season; and by its pitchers, a close-knit group by all accounts, taking a moment to return to the bullpen to salute one another. But the way its class was best expressed was by Phillies manager Charlie Manuel’s decision to have Brad Lidge throw the last out. The fans went wild, along with the players in the dugout and the bullpen.

In 2008, Lidge, the designated closer for the Phillies, had a perfect 45 saves, including throwing the last pitch in the World Series to beat Tampa Bay Rays. This year, the story has been far different. Lidge blew 11 saves, a Major League Baseball record and his earn run average is 7.34, among the highest in the majors. After many chances, he finally lost his position as the team’s closer.

Players after the game in interviews described the move as a respectful gesture toward someone who has meant so much to the organization. Some observers also saw a show of confidence by Manuel and the organization. During the playoff run, the team will need Lidge at some point if they are going to repeat as champions.

Last night’s display wasn’t just a one-time occurrence. It’s the hallmark of an organization from the top down. Dave Montgomery, its president is committed the Phillies to be a fan friendly organization. For example, when the Phillies built its new ballpark (Citizens Bank Park opened in 2004), it made it a true democratic venue to watch a ballgame. Fans, no matter where their seats are located, have access to the entire park, which is rare in modern ballparks. Those with standing room tickets can watch the game in most areas of the ballpark. Behind the lower section there are long metals tables for these fans to buy a hot dog and beer and stand and have a high-priced view of the game.

Whatever happens in the playoffs, through its play and through its involvement with fans and the greater Philadelphia community, the Phillies have already earned a place in the hearts and minds of residents.

Polishing an Urban Gem

2009-09-29T11:48:00.000-07:00

According to the Financial Times, the Italian city of Bologna is embarking in a much-needed $37 billion, 15-year urban renewal project. The heart of the project will be a new railroad station designed by Japanese architect, Arata Isozuki.

My wife, Maria, and I visited the city for the first time this past July. Our intention was to enjoy the culinary aspects of the city. After all, it is birthplace of Bolognese sauce, tortellini, and Mortadella, the original baloney. We did eat very well. However, we also fell in love with the city’s small scale, its humanely urban pace, the fewer tourists than other cities in the area, its affordability, its red brick and stone buildings, and its porticos, which provide shelter from the rain and the hot summer sun.

In fact, because of its central location and it’s a transportation hub, we think Bologna would serve as an ideal home base when visiting the Emilia Romagna region as well as Venice to the northeast, Verona and the lake region to the north, and Florence to the south.

The city also serves as an education hub with the world’s oldest university in the Western world, the University of Bologna and the city boasts one of the highest per capita income in Italy.

But the city needs to improve its infrastructure, and if it all goes as planned—proposed projects include a subway, new roadways, and buildings—the challenge, as the FT story notes, is whether it will be able to modernize the 2,500-year-old city while retaining its character.

More photos can be found below:

A Farm in the 'Hood

2009-09-28T14:28:00.000-07:00

It is a most unlikely place to build a farm, in the middle of a struggling Philadelphia neighborhood at a location that once housed a steel plant. But since 1998, Greensgrow Farms has not only survived the lean early years but has thrived as a community center and a pioneer in the urban farm movement in Philadelphia.

Mary Seton Corboy and Tom Sereduk started Greensgrow as a hydroponic farm operation in the Kensington neighborhood selling lettuce and then tomatoes to local restaurants. Hydroponic farming essentially means growing plants in a nutrient solution without soil. Today, the operation grows a variety of vegetables on raised beds of organic soil. In addition to the farm operation, Greensgrow now has nursery, a farm stand that includes produce and fruit from local, family-run farms, and a Community Supported Agriculture center, or CSA, which generally supplies households with locally grown food through the growing season for an upfront cost. The farm even makes its own honey. Sereduk left the business a few years ago but is still active on the farm, my wife and I chatted with him during a visit a couple weeks ago.

On our most recent visit a few days ago, the food stand was a colorful display combining the end of the summer’s harvest with new fall items. Radishes, beets and multi-colored carrots shared a section of the stand with Bok Choy, Swiss chard, and broccoli rabe. Purple cabbage shared another section with red and green long peppers. Meanwhile, heirloom tomatoes were set beside a display of squashes and Indian corn. The cashier’s hut was already set for fall with a pumpkin and hay display, and even though it is late in the season, the nursery seemed to be in full bloom.

We bought spinach and arugula grown on the farm, locally grown Bok Choy, and fresh strawberries (yes strawberries in September) from Linvilla Orchards in Media, Pa., grown from a strain that seems to remain active in the fall months. We also purchased some of those colorful carrots. In addition, picked up some of the best tasting bacon we ever had from Country Time Farm, a small, family-run hog farm in Berks County, Pa., and a young chicken (less than three pounds) from Griggstown Quail Farm, in Princeton, N.J.On Saturday, Oct. 3, the farm will host its first Fall Festival.

Unfortunately, the fall season means that Greensgrow will soon be packing up for the winter. Thanksgiving Eve is its last day of operation for the season.

Greensgrow Farms, 2501 E. Cumberland St., Philadelphia, PA 19125

Pictures of the nursery are below:

‘Classic’ Swedish Coffee

2009-09-26T07:00:00.000-07:00

I sadly discovered there are very few Swedish products for sale in the duty-free area of Stockholm-Arlanda Airport.

Becoming a bit desperate to find something to bring home to my wife and use the rest of my Swedish krona, I stumbled upon a little section of authentic Swedish food products at a newsstand. Among the items was something called Classic coffee by the Arvid Nordquist company.

It turned out to be an excellent find. The brown, white and gold wrapping revealed a medium-brew coffee with hints of nuts and chocolate, or as the package describes as “French nougat.” It has a balanced, mild flavor. Unfortunately, it isn’t sold outside of the Nordic and Baltic regions.

I also purchased three boxes of milk chocolate covered macadamia nuts on sale with the name “Sweden” on the front of the box along with a picturesque Nordic winter scene. They turned out to be made in Australia. While disappointing, it didn’t make them any less delicious.

Arvid Nordquist Classic coffee, Arvid Nordquist H.A.B | Ekensbergsvägen 117, 171 25 Solna | Tel.08 - 799 18 00 | info@arvidnordquist.se