Sunday, July 27, 2014

Philaldelphia

Terry's dad had the kids for the weekend a couple of weeks ago. It was our only chance. We cashed in a bunch of miles and booked a room downtown, right by Reading Terminal Market, henceforth known as RTM. We packed an overnight bag and threw all the ice packs in the cooler. We knew what a weekend in Philly meant - food!

We drove up first thing Saturday morning. Went to RTM and bought as much Lancaster county-grown steak as we thought we could eat in 3 weeks. Managed an early check-in. Moved the car, went to lunch at Vietnam and bought a soft pretzel at RTM on our way back to the hotel. I'd totally forgotten what a pretzel could taste like. Took a nap, went back for another pretzel on our way to Italian Market. Wandered around, popping into stores, buying fresh mozzarella in marinade and duck prosciutto and blueberries. Wishing we'd brought 2 coolers. One more stop by RTM - we had thought we'd find cannoli in Italian Market but hadn't.  Back to the hotel to get ready for dinner. Mmmm Malik's. We were worried it wouldn't be as good as we remembered. We were the only patrons in the entire restaurant and it took an hour to get our food. But - worth it! And we drove by our old Philly house for the first time since we moved. The tree we planted is gone, whether it died a natural death or not is up for grabs.

Sunday morning we ate the desserts we hadn't finished Saturday.  Yet again to RTM, this time for beef ribs as we hadn't managed to fit that into our calorie budget. We finished our trip with New York style pizza. Then on to Terry's sister's house, which is conveniently right between our house and Terry's dad's. We met up, had an early dinner and took possession of the children. And got to taste some treats we'd bought at RTM to bring over - the cinnamon rolls really weren't anything to write home about, which was surprising, but the pecan rolls were absolutely delicious.

I hadn't realized how much I missed Philly. When we were there last year I didn't feel like this, but then I was also going through stress at dealing with Alex's medical issues and sadness at leaving Piter so abruptly. This time we left with heavy hearts and a heavy cooler of delicious reminders.

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