Philadelphia History Teacher Vacation Without The History

This is Andy. I don't post enough. Amanda tells me to, and then she does it before I get a chance. So now I am posting. I should be more active. Ok, enough of that.

I'm a teacher. I teach high school. U.S. History. One of the districts near me was awarded this amazing grant that basically allows the district to bring in college professors and authors to the district to give us lectures and other professional development opportunities. And I get paid to go. It is amazing. Every summer, we go on a group trip somewhere. I didn't go last year, but they went to New Mexico. This year we all went to Philadelphia and surrounding areas. I took a bunch of pictures of historical stuff which I won't bore you with...or maybe just a little. But we went to some pretty cool places in both New Jersey and Philadelphia as far as food( and drink!) go. So here we go!

This is meant to be ironic. Or hilarious. But you'd have to know about Ben Franklin and his religious views to get it.

In any event, history is whack.

In Philly we went to a place called Monk's Cafe which is a Belgian Beer Bar. I had Braised Veal Cheeks. And an amazing Double IPA from Stoudts, which I think is Pennslyvania based. Both were fantastic!

We were in the land of the Fresh Prince as well.

Also went to an amazing ice cream joint that a colleague of mine wanted to go to called The Franklin Fountain. I just had a simple ice cream cone, but he had a giant sundae called The Franklin Mint. The pictures didn't come out well, but I wanted to give the place its due, because it was amazing.

When in Philly, you get cheesesteaks. We went to:

And I'm not going to lie, it wasn't amazing. Maybe that isn't the right thing to say, but it is greasy meat with greasy onions covered in cheese whiz. It kind of sucks, but I'm happy to say I did the deed.

I'm sure I would feel different if I was drunk at 2 in the morning, but I was hot with a bunch of teachers trying to catch a tour bus. The exciting thing was that Food Network was filming there and at Geno's. A new show with Michael Symon and Marc Summer. They asked us to stay for the taping but we had to catch the aforementioned bus so yet again I miss my opportunity to ask if I can get slimed or tell him that I will take the physical challenge. Curse my luck.

Lastly we went to Princeton, New Jersey. Our bus broke down outside the university, so we did what good students do and went to a bar. This is noteworthy because they had Dogfish Head IPA on tap( I don't recall if it was the 60 min or 90 min).

I love Dogfish Head.

Great IPA if you like it.

And that was that. I want more time to explore the amazing food of Philly, but alas this was on tax payer money so we had to stick with history hotspots which are decidedly not food oriented.