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Chef, Witbier, Trails, Pizza

This was a busy busy weekend with a wide variety of adventure. Fortunately, Sunday night has been pretty calm so I’ve been able to wind down.

Saturday morning started relatively early with a trip to the restaurant Savona in Gulph Mills, PA. The purpose was for my Christmas present from Erin; cooking lessons with head chef Andrew Masciangelo. We spent several hours in the kitchen with a small group (mostly folks our age) walking through recipes prepared by the chef which would eventually become our lunch. It was fun watching a chef so closely and honestly it reiterated a point I’ve often felt: cooking is not that hard if you can follow directions. We had four items for lunch. 1) A crimini mushroom puree soup with a drizzle of hand-whipped cream, deep-fried mushroom slivers and fresh herb spätzle. 2) A risotto with fennel puree, topped with three large scallops and surrounded by scallop jus. 3) A molten chocolate cake with a dollop of vanilla bean ice cream and berry compote. 4) A glass of 2007 Sycamore Chardonnay and 2006 Sycamore Cabernet. It was a really fun experience and afterwords I got a tour of the Villanova campus.

On Saturday evening Erin had a bunch of friends from college over for drinks before heading out to dinner. This was exciting to me because I had the opportunity to conduct a beer tasting. I decided the most accessible style would be the Belgian white or Witbier. There were 11 people ranking the beers and the results were pretty interesting. One beer stood far above the rest while the remaining four were within 2 points of each other. From best to least: Unibroue Blanche de Chambly, Allagash White, St. Bernardus Wit tied with Hoegaarden and Blue Moon. It seemed like everyone had a good time and enjoyed the results as much as I did.

In an effort to keep exercise a priority through the winter months we headed up to Reading, PA for a 7.2 mile trail race on Sunday morning. It was our first trail race and we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into. It took us quite a bit longer than we expected to finish. Part of the problem was the 600 people in our way on a course that took us on single track trails around the hills surrounding Reading. You had to experience it to understand it. We spent a considerable amount of time speed-hiking as opposed to running but it was a good workout nonetheless. The final challenge of the course was climbing up an embankment that required you to climb on all fours. Spaten lagers after the race were a enjoyable recovery drink. Even better, my parents came out to see us run. They’ve always been such good supporters of my athletic endeavors and it made me very happy to see them cheering us on.

In an effort to wind down, Sunday afternoon and evening were spent not doing very much at all. We did one final adventurous event as we tried a new pizza place in the Manayunk/Roxborough area. It was Alex’s at 400 Leverington Ave in Roxborough at the recommendation of the chef at Savona. The pizza was think crust with cheese first, sauce on top. It was pretty basic but nice. Would I order it again, probably not, but I’m glad I tried it.

It really was an action-packed weekend and I’m quite pleased I was able to experience so much.