I need an intervention

The first step is admitting you have a problem. Well, something has gone terribly awry in my life, musically speaking. I used to consider myself to be a pretty hip person, scoffing at popular trends and gaily marching to the beat of my own drum. I was into indie stuff, played bluegrass on my guitar at home, went to shows of bands that wouldn't be caught dead on the radio.

This year, something has happened that has made me believe that I am in serious need of an intervention. I need to go to Top 40 Rehab.

It's absurd. I don't know what happened. I suddenly starting loving pop music and now it is destroying my life. I sing Katy Perry in the shower. When I clock in at work, I start singing, "I can see your Halo", a la Rihanna. Whilst mopping the store at night, I replace the lyrics of Taio Cruz' "Dynamite". With "I like to mop, mop, mop, mop. 'Cause all the dirt is on the top, top, top, top.." I find myself looking for chords of Kesha songs at home so that I can do my own acoustic renditions. When going to my local bar, people cringe if I go near the jukebox, because they know they will be subjected to at least 20 minutes of sheer Top 40 Hell.

I don't get it, but pop music makes me strangely happy. It's fun to dance to, has simple lyrics, and helps keep the energy up during a long shift. However I am pretty sure that Lady Gaga is eating my soul. I'm almost certain that there are subliminal messages in there that are telling me to shop at Sears and drink Starbucks coffee..

So please, friends, help me out. It's summer, so there are tons of shows happening. Take me with you. Send me suggestions for new music. I have a problem and I'm finally ready to get help.

I really need to buy a digital camera

Because y'all are so damn cute. More Capo pics!!

Caitlin and Amanda and their...friend! At Marc Vetri's Alex's Lemonade Stand Fundraiser.

Nelson and Kristen at the second Night Market! Before Armageddon struck! (It rained a little)

Hongry nommers at the Night Market! Go eat Roost's chicken NOW it was amazing!

Matt and I have been friends for almost ten years - now he's a bonafide part of the Capo family.

Ferris wheel on Broad Street?! It was crazy, PIFA Street Fair. Crazy and awesome.

This is Henry! He and his family just moved to Philadelphia and immediately fell in love with the Penn store. He was pretty excited about his chocolate & cherry cone. Yay love. Lookit those eyeballs. Someone's gonna be a heartbreaker.

Yay! More to come!! Send us your Capo pics if you have any!

xo,
Sarah

Gaaaaaaaaahhhh I'm so hungry.

I mean seriously. And there's this weird new pattern to my life: every Friday in the early afternoon I find myself powerful hungry and staring at my laptop screen, having been fruitlessly noodling around on the interwebs for several hours trying to find something--anything--to spark an idea for a brilliant blog post.

Blog post ideas I have so far discarded today:

--Things I might do this weekend: sleep, geek out on sports, Taste of Philadelphia, sleep.
--Things I probably won't do this weekend: clean the bathroom, write the Great American Novel.
--Things I definitely won't do this weekend: participate in a triathlon, fly to Paris, drink white zinfandel.

Lame, right? And how would I puff any of them into a couple hundred words, anyway? Thus here we are, me writing some weird meta-blog about (sorta not really, if you think about it) writing a blog post and listening to my stomach gurgle. Did you know you could spend over ONE HUNDRED DOLLARS on an ordinary cat box cover that DOESN'T EVEN ABSORB ODORS?! (The horror. The horror.)

So this is going well. Positively thrilling. For what it's worth, I'm certainly open to suggestions about what to do this weekend. Is Taste of Philadelphia worthy? They've got food trucks this year, and everyone knows that grilled meat in tube form is improved by at least 16 percent by exhaust fumes. And there's a beer garden! So it's a maybe. Incidentally, did you know that "Taste of Philadelphia" is actually a trademark registered by some folks that will ship Tastykakes and pretzels at egregiously marked-up prices? Must kinda irritate the food festival folk. (Oh right, forgot the inescapably irritating marketing: phood phestival pholk. Phish was doing it phirst!)

Maybe I should see a movie? I never saw The Hangover, so seeing the sequel first seems wrong. Super 8, maybe? For the record, the circumstances don't exist under which I'll go see Mr. Popper's Penguins. My Jim Carrey threshold is essentially non-existent.

Okay, blogs need multi-media!




Of course, seventy three and a half billion people have already watched this, which means that you've probably seen it. Is there a video on youtube that NO ONE has ever watched? Seems like there's probably a deep philosophical discussion to be had there, probably involving the Heisenberg uncertainty principle and the Leave Britney Alone guy.

...a few moments later...

Y'know, I've never actually watched the Leave Britney Alone thing. And now I have. Just seemed like one of those things we're all supposed to do at some point on the internet. It was...well hell, it is what it is, right? I mean, you've watched it already, I don't need to tell you. So...one more thing off my bucket list?

This might actually be the worst blog post ever. Unfocused, not particularly interesting, no real central theme. Thus it seems only appropriate that I end it abruptly.

BIRTHDAY HAPPY BIRTHDAY KAMALA!

To our illustrious graphic designer, ball buster and all around charmer. We love you!! Here's your Happy Birthday bear.

Quotables

They say why be original when someone else has already said it best. I wanted to share notable quotes about gelato with you today but unfortunately finding quotes about gelato proved to be impossible. That being said, I did manage to find tons of quotes about ice cream. For the purposes of this blog post, I will replace the word ice cream with gelato. So there.

We dare not trust our wit for making our house pleasant to our friend, so we buy (gelato). ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

(Gelato) is exquisite. What a pity it isn't illegal. ~Voltaire

Seize the moment. Remember all those women on the Titanic who waved off the (gelato) cart. ~Erma Bombeck

Without (gelato), there would be darkness and chaos. ~Don Kardong

Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals like (gelato). ~Sandra Boynton

I prefer to regard (gelato) as I would imagine the perfect woman: subtle, a little bittersweet, not blowsy and extrovert. Delicately made up, not highly rouged. Holding back, not exposing everything and, of course, with a flavor that lasts. ~Graham Ker

Adiós, Capogiro

Queen Anne Cherry and Pineapple Mint on my last Monday at Capogiro... So sweet!!

Honeysuckle!!!!

So that's my garden, or part of it, anyway. Lots of potted plant things hanging out trying to mask the bleak nature of cinder block walls. That crazy thing in the back with purple flowers is wisteria, which is so beautiful,and fragrant. I have a forsythia, a hops plant, rose bushes, rosemary, lavender, lilacs, hydrangea all going at full tilt...as well as two honeysuckle bushes.

The honeysuckle thing became this weird personal mission I had to fulfill. One of my favorite things in the world, when I lived in Delaware (and now when I drive through it), is that during certain times of the year - especially after a heavy rain - EVERYTHING, and I mean everything, smelled like the flowers. Wafting in your windows, music blaring, it's come to encapsulate some of the happiest, lightest moments of my life.

I'm not sure if it's one of those universal tugs of emotion, but interestingly, a lot of Capogiro's flavors put me in that kind of nostalgic haze. Honeysuckle, which we've got now and is LOVELY and light and floral and perfect (and a friend SWEARS by a scoop of it in a glass of prosecco), lavender, coming soon, and our cherry sorbetto. Summertime here you can get me talking about childhood and scent memory associations with barely a nudge. You'll say something as benign as "Hey! Honeysuckle!" and there I'll go, rambling about this song and driving with my Dad through the Valley and you'll be wishing you'd just kept quiet. Consider yourself warned!

Am I alone in this? Honeysuckle and rain? Summertime and cherry pits? Chime in, people!



Ps - Jay? Valley ride? I tried to find something on the internet machine to explain this, but I couldn't. Help me out!

Happy Dad Day Weekend

It's dad season this weekend which means, more precisely, bocce season. Probably the most zen sport where having a beer can help center a player's Ki.

Here's an abridged user-based wikipedia article on the broad topic of Zen!

Intensive group practice

Zen traditions include periods of intensive group

meditation in a monastery or a bocce court. While the daily

routine in the monastery may require monks and/or dads to meditate for several hours each day, during this intensive period they devote themselves almost exclusively to the practice of sitting meditation. The numerous 30–50 minute long meditation periods are interleaved with short rest breaks, gelato, beverage, and sometimes, short periods of work should be performed with the same mindfulness; nightly sleep is kept to a minimum: 5 hours or less. For a treat, the group may head to their local Capogiro for an affogato or cappuccino.

PepPeps in Naples are doing it right now!

Hip dads in Portland are doing it too!

My favorite location for bacce spectatorship is Bardascino Park located at 10th and Carpenter St.

Wild dads have also been spotted in Rittenhouse playing unregulated bocce.

So get out there sons and daughters! Route for those dads having a good time!

A Sidenote

It would seem that we here at Capoyunk are undeniably accident prone. But that will not deter from how adorable we are. Oh no. Like a clumsy kid with scraped knees and a missing front tooth laughing it up with rabarbaro sorbetto on a cone.

Tramezzini - The Elegant Snack

Tramezzini are classy. Everyone knows that we have bangin' panini at Capogiro, but they sometimes overlook these little guys. Tramezzini are a popular snack in Italy, and are found at various neighborhood bars and cafes. They are small sandwiches with the crusts removed. They typically contain only a few choice ingredients, and go perfectly with an afternoon espresso or glass of wine. At 20th Street, we have three different options of tramezzini, each equally delicious. Come try one for yourself, we have a tramezzino with imported tuna and hard boiled egg, fresh mozzarella and tomato, and goat cheese with sliced cucumber and roasted red pepper (my personal favorite). Here's a fun pic of tramezzini in their natural habitat.. Nom.

3 out of 4 Capogiro-ans agree

So I've got a crazy update, Capogiro-ans. After 4+ years behind the bar, I'm moving on... No, I'm not dying. Thankfully! Although that one summer I got hit by a car, I almost did... I just got a new job. And while I will honestly miss the awesome daily interactions and happy times I've had with so many regulars and baristi alike, I'm excited for my new 9-5 big boy job and will be checking out this blog often to keep up-to-date with the goings on of Philadelphia's premier coffee/dessert establishment. Wow, it's just hitting me now that I won't be able to sample everything a million times all day long anymore...

Well, as luck would have it, on one of my last days before the big move, we have Lemon Yogurt! Now, I don't know if you know about how much we love Lemon Yogurt 'round these ways, but I can tell you that 3 out of 4 Capogiro-ans will claim it as their favorite flavor. Those today being Me, Sarah, and John. Michelle sticks to Bacio, another amazing flavor, of course, but not the rich, sweet then tangy mouthful of NOM that Lemon Yogurt is, at least not in my opinion. But as it stands now, we live in a democracy, and I will have to let Michelle be wrong on her own.

However, we could just mix the 2 in a Piccolo?! Ok, problem solved. Everyone wins!

I'll be around for another week, so you have some time to get your fill of me, but you needs to get in here today and get some of this Lemon Yogurt!

Great Chefs Event 2011

So tonight is the Great Chef Event at the Navy Shipyard at the end of Broad Street here in Philly. It is a pretty amazing event that benefits Alex's Lemonade Stand which "fights childhood cancer one cup at a time." Years ago when we lived on the Main Line, I remember these stands popping up. Alex lived on the Main Line. Her story is amazing. Marc Vetri met this family and was moved by their story. He created this event to raise money for this foundation.

We have created three Alex's Lemonade Stand Sorbetti flavors. Lemonade, Basil Lemonade and Vodka Lemonade. Come and eat amazing food and cool off with some frozen lemonade.

I was listening to NPR the other day and how giving actually releases a hormone that makes you feel good. How awesome is that? It is a selfish thing. So be selfish tonight. Want to eat good food, meet amazing chefs, and feel good about giving? Do it.... Do it now....

Because the easy ones all got taken this week...

So summer and all its funk-nasty, sweat-stained, gritty-forehead, ozone-hacking misery showed up a wee-bit early. Everyone's already kvetching. And I'm beating my head against my desk trying to come up with ideas for a blog post, because Ezra beat me to the air conditioning post, Tandy beat me to the Beer Week post, and Dawne beat me to the strawberry gelato post. It's bloody miserable outside, we've got a ton of stuff going on behind the scenes, and a little reggae on a hot humid day sounds like just the thing.

This one? This one's for my mom. And your mom. And you, if you are a mom. But it's almost entirely for my mom. Play it loud. And put it on repeat.



Have a great weekend everybody. Eat more gelato!

Air Conditioning Rulez

God air conditioning is awesome. Can you think of a better use of incredibly toxic chemicals than to cool down masses of smelly, sticky humans?

Natural air conditioning is also awesome. When the sky opens up for a massive summer thunderstorm I go pretty Ahab, and want to take on the storm head on and just run through the streets. Something about rain (especially heavy rain in a city) and it suddenly smelling like nature and trees instead of chinese food dumpster and weird sewer stench is a pretty beautiful anomaly.

It's Beer Tastic!

This is beer.


This is beer.
This is beer.

(Actually, his name is Hambone, but this is him after drinking some beer.) It's BEER WEEK in Philly, and everyone should be happy. At Capogiro, we are once again rolling out some awesome beer gelato flavors, such as Rogue's Chocolate Stout, Lancaster's Strawberry Wheat, Dark Horse's Tres Blueberry Stout (my personal fave), Dogfish Head's Raison D'etre, Voodoo Love Child, and Kasteel Rouge. Some amazing beers this year, folks, and we'll be rotating them for the rest of the week. Come on down.

Mom's Advice

I spent most of the day yesterday with my mom. Eight to ten years ago, we both would have found that amount of time with each other unbearable. A combination of college, and now living in separate neighborhoods, have made spending time with each other a much more prized part of my life.
We spent the first half of yesterday outside in the front yard working on the garden and resting. We were sitting on the porch with the dog, talking about our respective gardens, and we came to the topic of strawberries.

I have been eating our strawberry sorbetto and gelato as if it were my only role at Capogiro. I sample the pan - for the good of the customer, of course - then I buy a cup (and by cup I mean pint) to take home with me. Strawberry season is too short to skip out on ANY opportunity to enjoy them. I don't have any serious food allergies, but over the past few weeks, I noticed a few tiny bumps popping up on the back of my hands. They don't hurt or itch or anything, and no one has noticed them without me pointing them out, so I haven't been terribly concerned. But a few weeks into strawberry season at Capogiro, I had more little bumps than I could ignore, so I tried to think of what I could be allergic to, or perhaps overindulging in. Mangoes? Milk? Tree nuts? Soy? Hand soap? Grouchy customers? I was fairly stumped.

While discussing our love of strawberries, my mom said that when she was little, she'd eat pint after pint of strawberries each week. Through the strawberry season, she'd consume so many that she'd break out in hives! Not serious, terrible-looking ones, but hives nonetheless. Did that stop her? Slow her consumption? Encourage her to search for other delicious berries to replace them with? Noooooooooo. She kept eating them, at the same rate, for as long as possible.

While I only have a few spotty spots on my hands, I have to say that I think the mystery has been solved! Strawberries are likely the cause of the little bumps! Solution? I don't think that word applies to the situation at hand. I don't want to stop eating strawberries. In fact, how could I possibly do that? I don't plan to and you can't make me. A week-long test with zero strawberry consumption just isn't something I care to attempt. I don't think I could actually survive that test anyways.

Anyways, I'm going to follow mom's advice and if you think you love strawberries as much as I do, you're welcome to follow it too: Strawberries are worth it. Eat 'em til you drop! The season is short, so make the absolute best of it :)

ACCIDENT PRONE SUMMER

I gotta say, my summer initiation this year has been quite physically painful...and pretty hilarious. These are my stories:

So a big part of summer in Philly is climbing on rooftops when you or someone you know lives on the top floor. On my specific rooftop, there is this secret little cave room I've been eye-ing up in curiosity for months now. Well, the weather broke and I worked up the guts to go inside the little goblin hole and do some cornball "urban exploration". I made my boyfriend go in first with his cellphone lit as a precaution in case there were those evil dudes from "The Descent" in there. When the coast was clear, I snuck in too after we pried open the seal to the window. There were some metal beams and weird scary brick walls, and a floor...

Well, the floor wasn't really a floor. It was drywall.

And I fell right through, arms flying and waving like a cartoon character, and BOOM. I'm on my bedroom floor.

My bruises are amazing. And my ceiling is now taped. And "falling through you're own bedroom ceiling" is now marked off of my bucket list.

Injury part two:

On my walk down Passyunk Ave. two afternoons ago, I had my head in the clouds looking at the little fountain farmers' market, and there was A DIP IN THE CEMENT. BOOM AGAIN. I twisted my ankle and scraped my knee on the ground while a little old man in what was probably a Toyota Corolla was speeding down Passyunk at 15 miles an hour was coming right for me. When a car is coming at you that slowly, falls seem pretty cinematic. And really, really embarrassing.

Anyway, I know now to anticipate at least one injury a week until September! Go Philly, go summer.

ARG, stoopid cabs!

Ok, I usually blog about things Capogiro related, but I'm peeved and am using this weekly post as a chance to vent. I usually take the bus to work, but today I woke up late from an lovely afternoon nap and chose to take a cab instead. It's freakin HOT today, so I was actually looking forward to a quick trip to work instead of waiting for two buses. I hailed one on Washington Ave., and hopped in. Dear God. The cab (with all vinyl interior) was hotter than the mouth of hell. I instinctively rolled down the window to avoid suffocating to death, and was barked at by the driver. "The AC is on!," he yelled. I could feel no such AC. In fact I could feel no motion to the air at all. It was like being in a bayou that smelled like feet. I kindly asked him to turn it off, as I could not feel anything in the back seat (because it was blocked by an inch and a half of plexiglass). He said, "whatever, you're still getting charged for it anyway). WHA--?

Apparently PPA has authorized an additional $1 surcharge for an air conditioning gas tax. This was approved last week, when it suddenly became summer in Philadelphia. I get it, AC causes the engine to use more gas. No problem. But what if the passenger is not benefiting from said AC, and would rather ride on the roof than have the windows shut. I know, ride a bike, walk, take the subway, fly on your unicorn, etc. Those would all be better options, yeah. But do they have AC? No. If I want to spend extra money to be taken to work in comfort and grace, I want the windows down so that I can hang my head out like a dog. No AC, fine, but don't gouge me, dude.