Pittsburgh Bits & Bites tour: Brookline

 Dear Husband and I finally found a chance to use a Pittsburgh Bits & Bites gift certificate My Awesome Parents had given us for Christmas 2019 when another couple offered to go on a tour of the Brookline neighborhood of Pittsburgh with us. Named for the town in Massachusetts, it lies south of the Monongahela River, 8 miles due west of us in Munhall. The land was taken from the Native Americans living there by land grants after George Washington had some military victories in the 18th century. In the 19th century an incline made it easier to get to the jobs in the city, and then the Liberty Avenue tunnel opened in 1924 to ease travel. At its height, 30,000 people lived there. Lots of steel workers then lost their jobs with the mill closures in the 1970s, and today there are about 15,000. Brookline's motto is "Charm, Character, Convenience." We walked up and down Brookline Boulevard and enjoyed some of the businesses there in sunny early fall weather.

First stop was Pitaland, a Middle Eastern bakery and cafe founded by Lebanese immigrants 50 years ago, when they came for a 3-month honeymoon and got stuck in the United States when civil war broke out back home. Uncle Joe (pictured) grew the business into a local supplier of pita, and his wife, whom we met, still works in the kitchen making both traditional and new products for the cafe and grocery store. The oven gets 1000F inside, so the dough only passes through for 3-4 seconds before cooling on this mobile track and being packaged by hand. It was fascinating to watch the flat discs pop up into spheres under the extreme heat. They're shortly going to replace it with a larger oven to meet the demand. We tried fresh pita with hummus, and I bought some humus and tahini for home.

This is Engine House 57, built in 1908. It has beautiful architectural details. The tower on the left is not for watching for fires or ringing bells but for hanging the fire hoses, back when they were made of cotton and rotted if put away while still wet!

Next stop was the original Las Palmas location, where we each got one, super filling taco.

In the alleyway behind La Palmas, our guide, Emma, showed us the mural that local high school students painted to cover anti-immigrant graffiti from 2016.

The Party Cake Shop is an old standard which closed but then re-opened the weekend prior, which is why there wasn't much stock on the shelves yet. We were there to pick up burnt almond torte cupcakes. I learned that this staple Pittsburgh dessert was apparently the winner in a competition in the 1970s to use up surplus almond stock. They also claim to have the longest sprinkle ("Jimmie") according to the Guinness Book of World Records. And get a load of the stained-glass art on the walls!

We stopped in the local Carnegie Library of Pittsburgh--"free to the people"--and DH rented a couple of DVDs for TV shows that aren't available from our branch. Then it was on to Sal's Barber Shop, a time capsule of sports memorabilia and antique hair cutting paraphernalia, like ceramic shaving cream mugs. It's received a historical designation; he's just waiting for the plaque to arrive, although I'm not sure where he'll hang it!

"Little Sal" now runs what his father, "Big Sal" had started in 1947. After hearing stories about him cutting celebrities' hair when he worked in Los Angeles, we took over the back deck of 802 Bean Company, which served us coffee, tea, lemonade while we chatted, looked at old advertisements for housing kits from Sears & Roebuck, and enjoyed the view.

Then it was a hot slice of cheese pizza from Antonio's Pizzeria, which offers standard, vegan, gluten-free, and keto options. In addition to pinball machines, this poem by local legend Rachel Ann Bovier was hanging on the wall, "Antonio's":

Whatever you order

Pizza or Salad

Gonna take you back

To a wonderful ballad

That'll have you humming

Like a bird that sings

Because of the taste

That their menu brings

No comparison

To any other place

Because they put

A smile on your face

Thank you Antonio's

For being the one

Who has the best pizza

Under the sun

We ended the tour at Scoops Brookline, part of a local ice cream chain, where DH chose Banana Cream Pie, and I opted for Cider Mill, a cinnamon-apple seasonal flavor with donut chunks. Next time I want to try the triple chocolate Pittsburgh Pot Holes!

"Busy but good"

"Busy but good." This is how I have been answering the question, "How are you?" from friends and patients. In the last month since rotating off of two weeks of hospital service, I have done a lot of work and had a breast cancer workup (benign), but I also made time for relaxation, connection, and creativity.

I flew to Charlotte to visit my grandmother and managed to finish editing chapter 6 of my book manuscript, which is now 80% complete. The whole thing is due to the press by the end of the calendar year.

I also found time to see a movie in an actual cinema (Coraline); go to a baseball game and a picnic with work colleagues; attend a Labor Day cook-out; volunteer at the church lawn sale; host a friend from out of town for a weekend that included glass blowing and standup comedy (separate post coming); and host a small dinner party of my own for some of the new, young female faculty.

These 4 photos are from Robin Hill: A cultural and environmental center. Dear Husband and I attended an utterly delightful Thai lunch party and ate so much delicious food that I needed a short walk before sitting in the car to drive home. I found this green oasis 5 minutes from our hostess. We had to dodge the wedding party trying to take photographs in the gazebo, I wasn't wearing the right shoes, and neither of us had a head covering or bug spray (ticks!), but we walked doooown the East Beech Trail and back uuuup the Access Road for a 20-minute jaunt in the humidity that was just enough.

Last night we participated in a "happening" at the Garfield Community Farm. Above is their labyrinth. Below, DH played keyboard for the musical part of the evening, which was dedicated to "thin places" and fairies. It doubled as a birthday party for the woman standing in the center, so there was cake, too!

I had been assigned to the kitchen detail to cut up fresh tomatoes, eggplant, and jalapenos. There were also herbs plucked from the garden (sweet basil, holy basil, rosemary). Another couple handled the dough; then I assembled the pizzas that were baked in this oven by J. Unfortunately, I suffered from the capsaicin in my left hand for several hours afterward that soap/water, alcohol wipes, Crisco, and aloe vera couldn't help, only time. 

Finally, this evening DH and I were invited to a "friend-raising" event for the Bach Choir of Pittsburgh. It was held at the home of a friend on Grandview Avenue, the street that runs along the crest of Mount Washington and overlooks Downtown and the Rivers. Here we are on the uppermost deck. We had a lovely time meeting new people and are excited about the upcoming season.

"That's so Pittsburgh": I coined this phrase as a label for blogposts when we first moved to the city 8 years ago. One of the things I have learned about the Steel City is that it is a site of so many juxtapositions: gritty industrial jobs and gleaming financial buildings, latchkey kids who ate our leftover pizza and previously unknown connections when circulating in high society. I sometimes joke that I can't wait to be retired, so I can have more time to things like attend lectures and exhibits and concerts. But I don't want to wait for that kind of delayed gratification, so I try to celebrate the fact that we are lucky enough to live in a place that has more to do than any one person can: house concerts, Broadway, museums of every size, and a rotating cast of restaurants. DH and I try to use our time and privilege to enjoy a fraction of these opportunities when we can, especially when they bring us closer to friends and to each other.

Anniversary trip to Cleveland, part 2 of 2

Click here if you missed Part 1 of our trip. 

After completing our visit to the Cleveland Botanical Garden (nee Garden Center) with lunch, Dear Husband and I walked over to the Cleveland Museum of Art, which is free! (As it should be: CMA is the 4th richest art museum in the country.) It's had multiple building configurations since its founding in 1913; currently the original building has newer wings that enclose a light-filled courtyard with a lofty glass atrium. Apparently it stands in as the SHIELD headquarters in the Marvel University movies.

In the atrium are two intriguing statues, an installation called "Strata" by Native American artist Rose B. Simpson (b. 1983).

We were too late to join the 1pm docent-led tour, so I decided to focus on one corner of the second floor, beginning with the Tiffany glass and Faberge objects and ending with the armor.

To the left: marble column looking up to a beautiful glass dome. To the right: marble statue of Terpsichore, Muse of lyric poetry and dancing.

To the left: a Tiffany stained-glass window that used to be in someone's parlor. To the right and below: Faberge. Kudos to the Museum for turning otherwise wasted space on the flanks of this entrance hall into mini galleries.

They have several artifacts from Jewish history scattered around the museum, such as these beautiful silver pieces.

To the left: This wealthy woman has an extravagant outfit and what is likely her own real face; Peter Paul Rubens had the "radical" idea to represent the sitter him- or herself and not just the trappings of their station (often the conspicuous consumption of the nouveau riche). To the right: a nautilus shell goblet made possible by Dutch trading and imperialism that reminded me of the Grünes Gewölbe in Dresden. Below: an amount and variety of foodstuffs that only the best tables could provide.

To the left: Meissen porcelain! To the right: the most ridiculous thing we saw: a silver soup tureen with a lobster climbing over a fish for a handle. Below: a couple making beautiful music together.

We rested our sore dogs and tired lower backs on the benches in front of these enormous paintings of Apollo and the Muses by Charles Meynier (1768-1832) from 1798-1800. To the right (above) is Clio, the Muse of History. She clearly cares less about her raiment than about her writing; we tried to decipher the various relics in the shadows and debated why she has wings. ("The wings of history," as per Walter Benjamin on Paul Klee's Angelus Novus?) My favorite, composition-wise, was the one of the left, of Erato, Muse of Lyric Poetry. Apparently someone had painted a modesty veil over cupid, probably in the late 1800s. All told, it took conservators 5 years to restore the 5 paintings after they were discovered moldering in a Swiss castle.

It was...sobering to look at the evolution of metal armor and to see the hundreds or thousands of hours and finesse in the handiwork that went into protecting men and animals from each other.

Our last stop was an immersive video display about a Korean silk screen, Seven Jeweled Mountain. It was told like a fantastical travelogue, and indeed some of the mystery stems from the fact that the mountain range exists in what is now North Korea, so it is as unreachable as a peak in a fairy tale.

After a couple of hours to cool off and rest in our hotel room, we took the bus to Playhouse Square, where we ate dinner at a diner, Yours Truly. Then we joined the crowds streaming toward Progressive aka Jacobs Field for the Baltimore Orioles at Cleveland Guardians, the two best teams in the American League East. Alas, the O's were outmatched, as the hometown pitcher had a great outing, beating us 10-3. However, the rain and thunderstorms that had been forecast earlier in the week largely held off, and we only retreated up under the awning for an inning or so before regaining our seats in a delightful cross breeze behind home plate.

A talkative Lyft driver got us back to the hotel, where we promptly fell into bed to catch the end of Simone Biles's floor routine before an early morning drive back to Pittsburgh in time to make it to work by mid-morning. Happy 19th anniversary, DH!