2002-09-04 - 1:34 p.m.

On the internal soundtrack: "Southern Cross", Crosby, Stills, & Nash

So, the house is ours. Woohoo.

We met the geezer's agent at closing. She's really nice, and funny. We weren't going to mention our distaste for the geezer, but she said, right off the bat, that the geezer was "difficult. Really difficult. He's a really tough negotiator. I can't tell you how many deals he just threw away."

I was surprised at this. I thought there had only been one or two other offers. I asked, "What made him accept ours?" and she said, "Me crying." Good lord. That poor woman. And she really didn't look like the weepy type. I'm just happy that it's all over for her.

After closing, we went up to Chestnut Hill (in Northeast Philadelphia) to talk to a potential carpet-layer and hardwood-refinisher. Their carpet selection was next to nothing, so we decided to just have the hardwood guy come down for an estimate this week.

Since there was no carpet-perusing to be done, we were left with 45 minutes before The Melting Pot opened and we could eat dinner.

Ooooh. We had the cheddar cheese fondue and the Pacific Rim and it was all so, so good. I'm drooling just thinking about it. The meats were all marinaded differently (teriyaki, rosemary, peppercorn, and one with an orange-y marinade) and are served with various yummy sauces. They make the cheese fondue right there at your table, with beer, shredded cheddar and a little swiss, GARLIC (to your own personal taste), and a little bit of worcestershire. I'm going to have to make my own.

There was one little bit that marred the experience for me, though.

The waiter made us about two cups of cheese sauce, of which I ate maybe a quarter cup. I wanted to take the rest home, but the waiter got sort of whiny and said, "Well, we don't really have anything to put it in." I tried to good-naturedly argue about it -- "Do you have a styrofoam cup?" -- but he really seemed like there was no way he could do it.

Later, after I'd said a sad farewell to 1.75 cups of wonderful cheese sauce that was going straight into the garbage, the manager came by. Asked how everything was going. We said it was wonderful, and I lamented the inability to take the cheese sauce home.

The manager said, "Oh, you can take it home if you want. We'll find something."

When I heard this, I was pissed. It was too late to recover my sauce. I am still pissed. I don't like spending a lot of money for food and being forced to waste it because I have a smaller stomach than the average American. (In general, I am the Doggy Bag Queen). I'd assumed there was really nothing we could do about it.

On the walk back to the car, I was bitching to Poindexter about it.

"I can't believe that damn waiter wouldn't let me take it home. What the hell. Is he just stupid? I mean, if I were the waiter, I would have wracked my brains to think of a way to make it portable for the customer. But the manager seemed to think it was a perfectly reasonable request! Maybe the waiter is just sticking to the script, can't think outside the box. The manager can, though. Oh, wait ... that's WHY HE'S THE MANAGER."

Sigh.

Y'know, I am just crazy enough to bring tupperware with me if I ever go there again. And I'll spoon the sauce into the Tupperware myself. Stupid waiter.

I can't believe I'm still mad about this. Ha.

Another fun thing happened while we were walking around before dinner. Proof that I need to get out more.

I've been looking, for a while, for good biscotti. I like biscotti, in theory (the whole dip-in-your-coffee thing) but there's a lot of crappy biscotti out there. Oddly enough, my favorite so far has been a brand I can only find on Amtrak trains. I've tried five or six other kinds (including homemade bakery biscotti) and haven't found any I like. It was getting annoying.

Well, we were walking north/east on Germantown Avenue, and we smelled something like chocolate chip cookies. It was mouth-wateringly good. On our way back down, we smelled it again. It was just astonishingly good. There were two men working on landscaping near the sidewalk, so I asked them, "What is that? Is it cookies?"

The one man smiled happily and said, "It's biscawtt'!" I had a little trouble understanding him (why do people leave off the ends of Italian words? Biscott', manicott', mozzarell'?), so Poindexter mispronounced it for me with an American accent. "It's biscotti," he said. "Oh, wow, it smells so good! Where is it?" And the man smiled some more -- he seemed tickled by the whole thing -- and beckoned me to the back of the building he was working in front of, the Women's Exchange.

In the back was a kitchen, with the window open, and inside was a pretty girl about my age, making biscotti. I told her how heavenly it smelled, and asked her if we could buy any, and she said the Exchange was closed for the summer, but she'd GIVE ME SOME SAMPLES. She filled up a bag, sealed it, and handed it over, chatting all the while about the Women's Exchange. I asked her for more information about it and her biscotti, and she handed me a scrolled paper with her business card tucked in the ribbon. I again offered to pay, and she shook her head, and said, "Just come back!" I said I would.

On our way out, we thanked the landscapers and offered them some biscotti, which they politely declined. I'd imagine they've had some of their own already. :)

Her name is Gilda (pronounced "Jilda") Ann Doganiero. The scrolled papers turned out to be a couple of articles about her and her biscotti. She used to be a pastry chef at Le Bec-Fin (one of the top restaurants in the country) and the Four Seasons here in Philadelphia, and left to open her own business.

One of the articles says, "The exchange sells Gilda's biscotti ... along with its regular assortment of prepared foods. It's a handy and happy pairing, since curious customers are attracted by the aroma of baking biscotti."

The biscotti is WONDERFUL. It's light and airy and full of flavor, and has glaze of sugar on top (her trademark). My search for biscotti is over. We were able to sample the chocolate hazelnut and almond anise varieties (see the full list here), and I'm dying to try the cherry pistachio and vanilla bean as well.

So, like I said, I need to get out more. This sort of thing doesn't happen unless you go out wandering in new places now and then. Chestnut Hill is a 20-minute train ride from Center City, so it might as well be on the moon, but I'm glad I went.

Besides the biscotti, Chestnut Hill is incredibly cute. Cute, cute, cute, without feeling quite as overdone as, say, Carmel. If you like antique shops, small yards covered with flowers, cobblestone streets, and friendly people, Chestnut Hill is the place to go.

I had the most amazing dream about my father's parents last night. (Don't worry, I'm not going to bore you with a confusing long-winded plot.)

I was back in college, and they had come to visit. They were younger and healthier than I'd ever seen them, and seemed extremely happy. I was confused, because they were supposed to be dead, but decided to just go with it because it was wonderful to see them.

My MIL calls these sorts of dreams "visits" from the dear departed. I don't know what they are, but it feels really, really good to have them. Now that I think of it, this is the first time I've seen them together in a dream since my grandmother died. Immediately after my grandfather died I'd see him in dreams, but he was alone and still looked sick. It was much better to see them together and happy.

Funny how odd tidbits of real life work their way into my dreams. My grandparents drove up in a little red car, which I now realize was the same car Jamie Lee Curtis's character drives in "True Lies", which we saw on TV last night.

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