In Memoriam: purple beanie (and a day in Providence)
I found this purple beanie under the bed in the first flat I moved into in Edinburgh. I washed it, and wore it every winter for years. It's big, and stretchy, and after I dreaded my hair it still fit unlike the rest of my hats. It has plenty of space at the back so when I put my hair up it fits over the top.
I lost it in Providence, RI, last Saturday. It fell out of my coat pocket somewhere downtown.
We had a good run.
It costs $11.50 to get to Providence from Boston on the MBTA commuter rail, and takes about an hour. Amtrak is faster, but costs more.
The weather was gloomy and the city was very quiet. We found an African drum festival in a bar and hung out there for 45 minutes or so.
Food
We walked to The Grange vegetarian restaurant for lunch. Lunch was after 3pm so they just had the bar menu. We ate peanut fried cauliflower, fries, and seitan tacos. It was all delicious and greasy and satisfying. Then we moved to their 'lounge' area for tea, a scone and a muffin, and a couple of hours of hacking. It was cosy and we sat on a swing seat. We packed up when the restaurant started to get really busy for dinner, around 6pm.
We walked back through downtown, to Vinya Test Kitchen, a month-old fancypants raw vegan place. There were only two other people in there. The food was delectable. We shared a starter (tree nut cheese tasting board), main (spinach pie with fancy mushrooms, pea tendrils, and a pecan flax crust) and dessert (pumpkin macademia cheesecake with hazelnut apricot crust) between two of us. And drank a tangy apple and lemon juice, and a bitter, thick orange and rhubarb juice. The waitress commended us for "eating so slowly and mindfully" and we didn't mention that we'd had a fairly big lunch only a couple of hours prior. I recommend trying this place on a full stomach though, as it really did enable us to savour each bite which had been so lovingly prepared (as raw food always is). Our total was a bit under $60 in the end.
We chatted with the chef, Sam Bonanno, for quite some time after the meal. She told us about her raw food experiences in Boston and the rest of the world. Definitely check this place out if you're in Providence and love fine food.
Firewater
We went to check out the Firewater, which happens something like every weekend over the summer. The canal is filled with floating things which are lit on fire. There's stalls and food and stuff. It was pretty nice. We also found a Breast Cancer festival.
We took the last MBTA train back to Boston at 10pm. The ticket booths were closed and they wouldn't take card on the train and the ticket app wouldn't install on my version of Android. But the staff left us alone in the end and we got a free ride.