The G20 Summit is coming to Pittsburgh!

Wow!

The G20 Summit is coming to Pittsburgh? Weird, yet for publicity's sake, appropriate. Look, here's a city that pulled itself out of smog and into health care and technology. And, we have a surprising focus on Green building and design here. That's a hot topic.

And to have our president and all those other leaders come here is just awesome. I admit it, I still love the big O. I mean, who doesn't? And pitting him vs Hothead and Dimwit last November didn't make him look any worse.

In spite of all that, I still think we have a great opportunity to speak out for change: Change we can believe in!

At this point, I'm planning my brief, yet poignant, sign to hold outside the Convention Center.

These are very rough drafts, so if you'd like to help me edit, have at it!

How about something like this:

"Mr. President, I went back to school like you told me to. Now I owe $400 a month and I don't have heathcare."

"Mr. President, my parents were laid off 5 years ago, and they still only have part time jobs and no health care. My mom has diabetes and my dad has heart disease."

"Mr. President, I have a graduate degree. Where's my healthare?"

"I pay my taxes but I don't have healthcare."

"Mr. Sarkozy, I don't have health insurance. Know any single French men? Ability to speak English is optional."

It's all about the Penguins!

I still need a Satan jersey.

Yeah Pens! Here we go again to the Stanley Cup. Woo! I forgot what team we’re playing, but really, does it matter?

Now… where to watch the game?

There’s always Primanti’s, although strangely this East Ender doesn’t have one within a close distance. (Oakland doesn’t count. Drunk undergraduates are no friends of Ms. Pittsburgh.) I’ve been invited to go watch the game at Primanti’s in Cranberry, but...Cranberry? That’s like driving to watch a Pens game in New Braunfels. You folks don’t even know where that is. It’s that far. Like Cranberry.

East End folks tend to gravitate toward the Sharp Edge in Friendship/‘Sliberty. 87c drafts when Sid the Kid gets a goal! Plenty of beers and bites but it’s hard to see a TV there. On the plus side, it’s a grill and not just a bar. Friends with kids can bring them, if they must.

Another restaurant/bar is D’s in Regent Square. But D’s is out. It’s always hard to get a seat, and during a game it’s virtually impossible. And the service….well….maybe they need to hire more servers?

Cappy’s in Shadyside was surprisingly un-crowded when I visited it for a Pens/Canes game. But Shadyside’s a weekend urban mecca, so it might be a lot harder to get a seat in teeny tiny Cappy’s for Saturday night’s game.

Silky’s in Squirrel Hill (the grill-- not the strip club in the Rox) now they know how to stock a place with TVs. Compared to Sharp Edge, beer selection is mediocre, but the food is good and cheap. It was very crowded during the playoffs, but early birds can get seats. And every seat is a good TV watching seat! Another plus for me is the proximity to my abode, which makes stumbling home after a game all the easier.

Go Pens!

Ms. Pgh visits... The Maridon Museum

It’s a weird location for such a treasure, in a modern structure made from two converted homes on a residential street of Butler. Just a short drive from downtown Pittsburgh, the Maridon Museum features works of Chinese and Japanese art from the personal collection of Mary Hulton Phillips. Although the late Ms. Phillips never actually visited Asia, she had a passion for collecting not only Chinese and Japanese art, but also the European art influenced by it.

When I visited on a recent Sunday, I found the collection of carved ivory and jade sculptures particularly impressive. I also enjoyed the varying designs of the dozens of snuff bottles. And, if you smile and ask nicely you might get a personal tour of the collection of samurai dolls, which is housed in a temperature- and humidity-controlled room in the back.

The building, although tiny, is lovely. The collection is impeccable. Even the gift shop has the unique museum items you’d expect, but they are incredibly inexpensive. The Sunday clerk told me that Ms. Phillips personally selected every item in the shop, specifically stating that they were not to be sold for profit. My friend J surprised me with a beautiful silver ring that features a green amber stone in a uniquely modern setting.

xox

ms. pgh

...and cooking

As much as I love Pgh, and lord knows I do, sometimes I wonder why, oh why, I live in a place where it has trouble hitting 60 degrees at the END OF MAY?

It's particularly difficult because I've developed a craving for cobbler. Not just any old cobbler, but my mama's straight-from-the Southwest peach cobbler. This cobbler is unlike any other. It requires peaches so ripe that you smell their sweet scent from another room, so ripe that they would rot if you waited one more day.

But I live in Pittsburgh, and peaches won't be ripe until July or so.

So tonight I tried to make do. I made a strawberry cobbler. My first ever, and I used frozen strawberries from Trader Joe's, which in retrospect might not have been the best idea since they were very moist when cooking.

Here's how it looked. Interestingly, the strawberries sank as soon as I took it out of the oven. Peaches don't do that.

Here's a close-up.

How did the strawberry cobbler taste? It was surprisingly good! With peach cobbler, the sweetness of very ripe peaches combines with the sweetness of the sugar to coat your tongue and your senses with a sweet-gasm of happiness. With strawberries, the cobbler has a tinge of tartness that surprises the palate. I'm afraid to imagine that I could eat a lot more of strawberry cobbler at one sitting than peach cobbler, because it's not so very sweet.

*Transplanted Texan's Peach Cobbler

1 1/2 c. flour

1 1/2 c. sugar

1 t. baking powder

1 egg

dash cinnamon (optional)

splash vanilla (optional)

3 or 4 very ripe peaches, peeled and sliced into bite size chunks (for strawberry cobbler, I used 2 pkgs Trader Joe's frozen organic strawberries)

a couple T of melted butter

Preheat oven to 350. Sift together dry ingredients in a large mixing bowl. Add egg and mix well. (I mix by hand, using a whisk.) It will be lumpy. That is ok. Add vanilla, if using. Place peaches on the bottom of a 9x13 glass baking dish. Place peaches close together, in one layer, so that you have a peach in every bite. Pour contents of mixing bowl evenly across peaches. Drizzle melted butter evenly across contents of baking dish. Bake until the crust is golden brown, about 20 or 30 minutes. I never really time it, actually. Look for a brownish crust.

Now, to eat this like a true Texan, you have to put a big slab o' cobbler, warm or cold, into a bowl and drown it in milk. Treat it like your cereal, and you'll love it a whole lot more. :)

*all ingredients natural/organic/cage-free, etc. unless impossible to find like that in a Pittsburgh grocery store

And we're back!

Yes, yes, it’s been a long time since the Ms. Pittsburgh blog has been updated. I’m sorry, really. Honest.

Here are some recent events:

Ms. Pittsburgh and friend Eve joined the jogging masses on Mother’s Day in Pittsburgh’s Race for the Cure. It was a scenic hustle through Schenley Park and Squirrel Hill on a lovely spring morning.

This was our first race ever. Unfortunately we didn’t run fast enough to find the cure for cancer, but we’re working on it.

Eve and I both began running around Christmastime of 08. We’re both…well...in our 30s, and this running thing is very new to us.

But, as Eve said, our goal was to finish the race without falling to the ground and twitching. Mission accomplished!