Philly: Part 2

The day after Monkey's defense, we hit the streets for some serious shopping. The weather was gorgeous, about 75 degrees. Everyone was dressed for summer.

After several hours, we found ourselves with a nice stash of booty. For myself, I got a pair of shorts, three shirts, and some undergarments. Not bad not bad. Though I didn't see anything at Anthropologie I wanted, we did stumble across the cutest softest stuff animals, so we bought two for my cousins in Taiwan. I should have bought a bunny for myself. Oh wait, I'm 28...


After all that walking, we stopped at a gelato store for a nice treat. I got Irish Creme coffee and chocolate hazelnut.


My mom got Thai coconut milk and my sister got grapefruit campari.


There was some serious gelato eating.


I mean, no nonsense gelato eating.


That night we ordered pizza (Ferret came over to partake) and hung out. My mom did a lot of chatting on Skype with our relatives in Taiwan. At some point, Monkey bounced into action and baked up some banana bread which we enjoyed with vanilla ice cream. Mmmm.


On Friday, we ran some errands and went grocery shopping at TJ's. That night, we went over to Ferret's to cook up an early Mother's day feast. Since he only lives a block away, it was easy to transport all our groceries over.


The Menu: baked shrimp scampi with angel hair pasta, french potato salad, green beans with candied walnuts, and chocolate pudding with whipped cream. The original plan was to make tiramisu but alas, we could not find ladyfingers and TJ's did not carry marscapone (I've since confirmed the TJ's in UTC carries this - Philly you suck).

As it turns out, dinner was a success! The candied walnuts on the green beans were so addicting. If someone set a big bowl of these in front of me, you can bet your horses it'd be empty in the blink of an eye.


The shrimp scampi was quite tasty and went well with the angel hair which really held the sauce. I didn't broil it at the end (optional). Next time, I will definitely try this since it felt unnatural to have un-crispy panko.


The french potato salad was also a hit with my taste buds. The dressing, the roquefort cheese, the perfectly cooked tators, everything was perfect!


And of course I've blogged about the chocolate pudding before. Mmm pudding.


Thanks for hosting Ferret! Note:I think this is Ferret's first appearance on this site. Doesn't he look like Harry Potter (not from the movie, but from the book covers)?? Apparently, the Penn librarians refer to him as such.


On Saturday, I was off to the airport to return to SD. I wish I could have stayed longer. I really can't wait till Monkey moves back to the west coast and we can do this more often. Till next time Tony.


Till next time.


Many more pictures from the trip can be found here