Sorry everyone for taking a brief hiatus from Social Media Land, but I have been overwhelmed as of late with interacting via SM for work and personally. Normally, me being a social butterfly and all, I enjoy this immensely! Not saying I haven’t enjoyed it; just needed a break to interact with my family and friends in person. You see sometimes my wonderful husband likes to see me w/o my nose in the computer and I like to see him w/o his hands on the xbox controller. Since our anniversary was coming up – July 25th – we were trying to figure out what to do to celebrate. He has to work the actual day of our anniversary. Instead we decided to celebrate the weekend before and my son went to Nonna’s (Grandma’s) house for his very first sleepover!
We thought it prudent to stay fairly close to home since our son is only 8 months and there could be a potential meltdown that would call us home early. We started researching shows, events, etc that were going on in Philly for the weekend at Visit Philly and stumbled upon a show playing at the Wilma Theater entitled “Life in a Marital Institution: 20 years of monogamy in one terrifying hour”. It’s a comedic one man show by James Braly based on his life. We love comedy and it’s our anniversary – perfect! Then I saw that the Bastille Day Re-enactment was on the same day! It was settled, a day in Philly followed by a night of sleep with no baby crying. Sounds like a party to me! Only issue was we were going to be down in Philly for dinner and I wasn’t sure of where we could go to eat that was gluten free friendly.
Enter my twitter friend Michael who has a blog called GFPhilly. His site is a great compilation of all things gluten free in the southeastern PA region. I went on the Eastern State Penitentiary site and then the Wilma Theater site to see which restaurants they listed that were close by. I wrote them all down and then did a comparison with GFPhilly’s restaurants list. I narrowed it down to 4 choices, 2 at each location. We were all set! Let the fun begin!
After dropping our son, Xavier off to his Nonna, I drove home to meet my husband, Ricky. We were supposed to go get his hair cut down in the Northeast, but were running behind schedule. I was a mess…I didn’t have anything completely ready…I looked a sight because I spent all my time getting Xavier ready and not myself! Needless to say, Ricky had to cancel his hair appointment due to a meltdown by yours truly. Finally we got everything together and hit the road. We arrived with 30 mins to spare before the re-enactment started at the Eastern State Penitentiary. We wandered around the “French themed” market they had set up, looking at all the different things people were wearing, selling and more. About 2 blocks up we saw a restaurant called Fare. This was one of the restaurants I had on my list! We asked for a takeout menu so we could see what they had and if there was anything we liked or not. We headed back to claim a space in front of the entrance and stood there reading the menu which started our mouths watering.Having never attended a re-enactment of Bastille Day in all of the 16 years that’s it’s been in existence, we had no idea what to expect. But we weren’t disappointed! Who wouldn’t love a storming of the garrison ala Monty Python complete with super soakers, a working guillotine and a hail storm of TastyKakes thrown over the wall as Marie Antoinette hollers “Let them eat TastyKake”?! Ricky, being rather tall, caught quite a few but gave them away since only he could eat them. When are you getting some gluten free options TastyKake? Hmmm?
Apparently standing in the hot sun watching a re-enactment makes you hungry…or maybe it was just reading the menu, but Fare won in our restaurant choices! We headed there directly after and it did NOT disappoint! The food was delicious, the service was great and there was only 1 item on the menu that they couldn’t make gluten free!!! Here’s the menu so you can take a gander yourself. We had a salad with mixed greens and veggies, white miso dressing, pepitas and currants for an appetizer. Then for our entrees, we had grilled cumin crusted pork tenderloin and duck confit. I felt like a complete glutton like Marie Antoinette by the time we were done J Note: next year – I’ll dressing up and I’ll be eating at Fare again!
Once we finished we headed over to the Wilma Theater for the show. I’m not a huge fan of one man shows, not knocking them, just not my favorite generally…James Braly caught your attention from the first word and didn’t let go until the very last! It was brilliant and disturbing and hilarious…and surprisingly profound… We enjoyed ourselves and if you’re ever wondering whether Ricky liked a show, movie or whatnot…just wait and if he quotes lines the next few days, he enjoyed it J This time we were both quoting lines lol! It’s a shame it only ran for 5 days here in Philly because I definitely know of some people who would’ve enjoyed it. If you get the chance and it plays near you, go see it! You won’t be disappointed.
Finally the day did come to an end and we were looking forward to sleeping through the night for the first time in 8 months! Alas this was not meant to be…at least for mommy…she had a dream about her baby and had to get up and pump at 3:30 am! Oh well…a few miles north apparently a certain baby boy was awake and refusing to sleep at the same time! Overall Xavier did really well for his first sleepover, but by morning he went on hunger strike and refused to eat until we got there and I finally nursed him at noon. *Shaking my head* Boy is he stubborn…wonder where he gets that from? Hmmm… It was a great anniversary and I didn’t faint this year! Yay me!
(For those of you who did not follow my pregnancy blog, I passed out in a diner last year when we went out for breakfast J)
