Sandwich week!

Thursday we hit up sandwich week on the northside. We caught wind of this amazing feat on PBS, a Rick Sebak special of course. He did a show on last year's event and we knew we had to hit it again. The idea - restaurants from the northside all make amazing sandwiches for a competition to name the king (or queen) of the sammich. Two of our favorite restaurants were there :)

 

How often do you get to hang out in an elks lodge? :)

The winner was the modern cafe (never been there) but my three favorites were the James Street Gastropub and Speakeasy (pulled pork sliders with jicama and apple slaw), Max's Allegheny Tavern (corned beef with a sweet and sour red cabbage and Swiss cheese) and Penn Brewery (bacon burger (literally half bacon and beef) with grilled onions and mustard).  

I hadn't had bread in at least a month, so this was a huge treat!

Veggie babies

Conning soon to a kitchen near you. 

Pepper babies (in several sweet varietals - green, red, and purple),

Itty bitty Pattypan squash is flowering, and

Tomatoes of many sizes shapes and colors,

We've already started digging into the basil and dill. 

Leafy lettuce picking is ongoing!

I love the tastes of summer!

Saturday grilling

Tried our hand at grilling pizza. 

Semi successful enough to try again. 

M&D note the fancy pants steeler flipper  :)

Six degrees of Pittsburgh

Belated happy Father's Day to all the fathers out their in the blog land. 

We had a nice weekend - David's parents came over on Sunday for a delicious dinner (including Palko polish pound cake and farmer's market strawberries) and I had a nice call with my dad after my parents got back from a day out in the city with my brother ad grandma. 

Before that.... The weekend started out beautiful. I left work fairly close to on time on Friday and was able to score a nap before we met up with some friends for the Greek food festival at the local Greek Orthodox Church. In true 6 degrees of Pittsburgh fashion, the only free table wound up being one where we accidentally sat next to my friends mom's former coworker of 30 years.  The weather was beautiful for sitting outside and the food was delicious as always (pastitsio, tiropita, Greek salad, and green beans yanni followed by some loukamaddes, oh my). 

Saturday was another beautiful day. Daisy and I took a nice walk in the Mission hills area in the morning, David smoked some chicken wings, and we were headed to a cookout/graduation party (6 degrees of Pittsburgh part 2: graduate is the daughter of his former coworker and is the best friend if one of my coworkers daughters) when this happened:

A flatbed tractor trailer made the mistake of wandering into our lane when we were in his blind spot. No major damage to the passenger side, although we were very close to being smushed. He didn't even feel himself crunching us (or hear the horn wen we realized what was about to happen) he only pulled over because he saw all the smoke from his tires burning up on us. The corolla no longer has a mirror or door handles on the drivers side, and the doors and rear panels are pretty banged up. There is a nice tear all the way through the sheet metal a couple of inches from the gas cap too. Luckily we were not physically harmed, but it made for some excitement. We'll see if the car is salvageable or not later this week. Meanwhile we will function as a one car family for a while. Thank goodness for public transportation :)

6 degrees of Pittsburgh part 3: David received an email Sunday morning from a woman on pastoral council, telling him about the accident she was behind on Saturday and how when they were able to get around it she noticed it looked a lot like him...Because it was!

After the grad party we did finish out our plans and wet back down to the arts festival to see the Airborne Toxic Event play the main stage. It was a great show - I really enjoy their sound. Plus it's always fun to sit outside and chill under the stars and get to listen to a concert and people watch. 

Ever exploring

We had a nice relaxing weekend that included some exploring around town. I enjoy how you can always find new things to see around the city and burbs.  

We started out with a trip to the Three Rivers Arts Festival Saturday afternoon  It was a crazy day downtown - art, jazz, pride weekend, and beautiful weather. We parked downtown and mixed up the Three Rivers Heritage Trail along the Allegheny. The Golden Triangle side could still use a little cleanup and love, but provides great views of the North Shore. We moseyed around the bed at the point to provide me with my first viewing of the fountain! The point has been under construction/rehabilitation my entire three years here, so it was pretty exciting for me :)

We wandered around the art fair, supporting a few local crafters who had some cool work. 

After the Arts Festival we headed over to the north side and picked up Saturday Evening Mass at a newer (yet not modern) church in Deutchtown. We finished up with dinner at The Park House - a neat little bar in Deutchtown. we grabbed a grouping a while back and wanted to use it. This place was cool- an old rowhouse style place on E Ohio street, with an awesome vintage decor.  The bar was original, with gorgeous tin ceiling and amazing woodwork throughout. They had an impressive craft beer selection on draft  (I had the 21stAmendment  Hell or High Watermelon and David had the Anderson Valley Summer Solstice and the Rogue Double  Chocolate Stout) and the food was Middle Eastern/Mediterranean themed with rave reviews online.I thoroughly enjoyed my falafel and potato letkes while David had an amazing smelling chicken sandwich. 

While on the North Side we wandered over to Allegheny Center to pick up a missing geocache near the Children's Museum. For all my potential out of town visitors, this looks like a cool museum. Check out the artwork outside! 

They had some other cool public artwork in the area - can you find David?? Ask him about this one and his days at the Water Authority!

We also got to see the first free Public Library in the US. Thanks Andrew C!

The night ended with our neighbors graduation party!!!  That was just a Saturday. 

Kept it a little quiet on Sunday with yoga for me, grocery shopping, smoking a pork shoulder and some chicken wings for David, and some yard/garden work for us. Soon the pups will have a completes gate on the deck so they can hang with us out there at night, and the local deer are now blockaded out of our vegetable garden. They definitely ate our first tomatoes of the year before we could pick them and while working the other day we went to put some brush behind the garage and David had a staring contest with one for a good couple of minutes.  I ended the weekend with some quality hammock time :) 

One year later

Tea roses from our wedding are going to town out front!