Girls Weekend in Pittsburgh
For the past ten years or so, my sisters, Jane and Jennifer, and I meet somewhere to spend a girls’ weekend together. Before she passed away, our mom joined us too. We’ve been to New York City, the Culinary Institute of America in upstate New York, the beach in Delaware, my cottage in Maine, and Atlanta. Last year, we joined forces with our aunt and cousins who have their own girls’ weekend, and the seven of us spent a fun-filled weekend in Reading, Pennsylvania. This year’s destination was Pittsburgh.
Late Friday morning, our three flights from Boston, Philadelphia, and Baltimore arrived on time, within ten minutes of each other. We picked up the car and headed into the city for our weekend adventure. First stop, we checked into our hotel, right downtown. Next stop, lunch!
We went to Primanti Brothers for classic Pittsburgh sandwiches. We picked turkey and chicken, piled high with French fries and cole slaw. After lunch, we wandered through the Strip District. There were vendors with tables full of Steelers merchandise. Plus, there were all kinds of ethnic markets: Asian, Italian, Middle Eastern, candy shops, bakeries, kitchen stores. We browsed for a couple of hours.
We were trying to take Segway tour. Jane and I recently Segwayed in our respective home cities. Jennifer wanted to try. However, they didn’t answer the phone, and when we went to their booth at Station Square, it was unattended. Instead, we took a ride up the Monongahela Incline and admired the view from Mt. Washington.
Before dinner, we went back to our hotel room and played the requisite games and awarded prizes to the winners. Our mother taught us to play games, very competitively. When we were a foursome, we loved to play Taboo (Jane’s team always won). With three people, it doesn’t work as well, so we play a lot of Bananagrams. Also, we play very competitive Spit (a card game).
For dinner, we went to Lidia’s of Pittsburgh, owned by Lidia Bastianich of PBS cooking show fame. The room was vibrant and colorful and showed promise. We loved the salads we ordered to start, but our entrees and desserts were nothing special. Because we all love to eat delicious food, we were a little disappointed. For consolation, we went back to our room and played more games before we went to sleep.
Saturday, the sun was shining. We called Segway one more time, but opted for a morning duck boat tour instead. Our driver Jim and tour guide Karen gave us an entertaining and informative ride through the streets of Pittsburgh, with a cruise on one of the three rivers that meet in Pittsburgh. There are restaurants at the top of the nearby Duquesne incline, so we took another ride to the top of Mt. Washington to dine with a spectacular view of the city.
Our afternoon’s entertainment was a visit to the Andy Warhol Museum. It was the opening day for a Marilyn Monroe exhibit. There were hundreds of photographs of her plus, of course, Andy Warhol’s classic Marilyn Monroe silkscreen prints. We enjoyed two floors of Marilyn photos and the Campbell Soup Can collection. There were a few rooms of Andy Warhol’s video art. Overall, we decided he was one strange dude: creative, but strange.
From the museum, we walked to the Cultural District of Pittsburgh to see if we could find an interesting performance to attend Saturday night. We settled on a student production of Phantom of the Opera at the Byham Theater. We snuck in dinner at a nearby restaurant Six Penn Kitchen. The restaurant features local food, sourced from around Pittsburgh. Dinner was a hit! We all had bowls of the spicy sweet potato and chipotle soup. Jennifer and I shared the pumpkin gnocchi and Arctic char with bacon and Brussels sprout hash. Jane enjoyed the trout taco. Unfortunately, we didn’t have room for dessert.
Phantom was awesome. The students in the lead roles were impressive. They all had strong voices that delivered the familiar music. The program indicated the orchestra was made up of many students in grades 6 – 12, but they sounded professional to us. It was an enjoyable evening.
Sunday morning, we went to Shadyside to have brunch at Pamela’s. We had read they served the best breakfast in Pittsburgh. The wait was long, but our omelets were delicious. The hash browns were also tasty. The pancakes were amazing. After breakfast, we did a little browsing and shopping. Our final stop before the airport was a return visit to the Strip District.
Overall, we made the most of the city of Pittsburgh. We found the people, both the natives and the other tourists, to be very friendly. We got tips on things to do and places to eat from people we met on the street. Everyone was chatty! As usual, we packed in the activities and had a great time. I wonder where we’ll go next year.
Jennifer, Betsy (me), and Jane
French Fridays with Dorie: Hachis Parmentier
Hachis Parmentier is the French version of Shepherd’s Pie. It’s a meat mixture topped with mashed potatoes and baked. I made this last week because I got the recipes mixed up. It doesn’t really matter when I made it though. It was a big hit… Howard gave it 5 forks out of 5. I think it’s my favorite recipe that I’ve made so far from Around My French Table.
I made the Quick Hachis Parmentier from the Bonne Idee in the sidebar. The main reason is that we mainly eat from our meat CSA (read this post about our recent visit to Chestnut Farms), so what I have available is based on what’s in the freezer. I had plenty of delicious ground beef and hot Italian sausage, but no beef chuck, so I went with the quicker recipe.
I know that Dorie explained that this recipe traditionally doesn’t have any vegetables, I felt like I needed some. Instead of the suggested garlic, I diced a carrot, a stalk of celery, and an onion (the vegetables in the bouillion recipe) and sautéed them in the skillet before adding the ground beef. I went a little heavy on the tomato paste because I had frozen the rest of the last can I opened in tablespoon-sized scoops, so I added one of those. Along with a generous handful of chopped fresh parsley, I also sprinkled the meat mixture with some dried thyme for good measure.
Aunt Sarah's Potato Ricer
The potatoes were a revelation. At our house, we prefer our mashed potatoes lumpy rather than smooth. My usual tool is an old-fashioned potato masher, however, being a hoarder of kitchen gadgets, I did have a potato ricer on hand. I’d never used it before. It was Howard’s Aunt Sarah’s, and I’m sure it’s older than me. It was cool how the potatoes looked like rice as I pressed them through the ricer. The tool is aptly named.
I didn’t have cream or whole milk, but I did have half-and-half and 2% milk. Half-and-half is half cream and half milk, after all, so I used the half-and-half for all the cream and half the milk, and then used only half the milk. The potatoes were so smooth and creamy. The trip through the ricer changed the texture completely from my usual lumps. While I won’t give up lumpy mashed potatoes for everyday, this way of making smooth ones is worth repeating for a special-occasion side dish.
For the topping, I used Gruyere and the Parmesan. I baked it an extra five minutes or so to get the top brown enough.
One more thing… The recipe says it makes 4 generous servings. I don’t think I could have eaten one quarter of the dish in one sitting. We actually had it for four different meals, so that’s more like 8 servings.
A Plateful of Happiness 