Temporium

How is that for a cool name for a pop-up store. The Mt. Pleasant Temporium is a temporary, pop-up retailer coming to Mt. Pleasant St. NW from February 18 – March 13.  The Temporium features handmade goods for sale from 30 local, independent crafters and artists, as well as special events—autobiographical and theatrical storytelling, crafting, trunk shows, and live music. After Temporium closes, Nana will open in the same space – Nana is a shop in Washington, DC inspired by all things vintage, modern, handmade & ethically made.

I love this kind of stuff – long time readers may remember me raving about going to the Brooklyn Flea Market when it first started and we were living in Brooklyn nearby.  I love seeing the display of people’s creativity along with the community element of local venues. 

I also rarely do anything on Friday nights because either I get stuck at work late, or I work out or go to yoga, or I come home too tired (and usually too late, see get stuck at work)  to do anything other than cook dinner with my husband.  We have also given up making any sorts of social plans on Fridays after we had to cancel on friends at the last minute a couple of times on account of work.

But enough of that, last night however, my husband emailed me the link to Temporium and I wrote back eeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhhhh to show excitement and he thought I wrote ehhhhhhhh, but once we cleared up the communication problem, I jumped on the fact that everyone at my job seemed intent to leave and enjoy the amazingly spring-like weather outside and husband and I took the mile plus walk to Mount Pleasant.  This was Temporium’s opening night, so as you can tell, it was super crowded.  We stayed for a bit to soak in the atmosphere and look at the beautiful items.  Here were some of my favorites:

Owls:

Vintage blenders repurposed as lamps:

Cute pug cards.  There were many beautiful prints and cards and lots of jewelry.

To add to the community feel there was a tree of ideas where people were invited to submit ideas for Mount Pleasant and Washington DC:

All the contributing artists had their own frames:

It was a very cool experience but there was such a crowd we did not stay for long.  So we went in search of dinner.  In Mount Pleasant/Columbia Heights, my best two options for gluten-free vegan eats are Pete’s Apizza and Sticky Fingers.  I had never had the gluten-free savory options at Stick Fingers except for brunch, so really wanted to try those.  So my husband and I decided we would picnic in the large plaza near the Columbia Heights metro (it was still warm enough to sit outside). I got Sticky Fingers and he got some Peruvian chicken.  We were both totally happy.  At Sticky Fingers I was deciding between a black bean quesadilla or the ranch wrap (both on brown rice tortillas).  I decided to venture outside my comfort zone and get the ranch wrap:

I understood that the “chicken” in the wrap was tofu, but actually it turned out to be a processed soy product (maybe soy curls, which I had been curious about until I realized how processed they were).  So I was disappointed by that, but the ranch dressing and avocado and overall feel of the wrap was delicious. I would get this wrap again but ask for plain tempeh or tofu instead.  To go with the wrap I got tomato soup, which was outstanding:

And what is that you see lurking in the shadows with a pink top?

I was in a splurge-y mood.  As you may know, I avoid cane sugar strenuously, but once in a while I will have an item with evaporated cane juice.  I find it does not hit me the way sugar generally does, and I think that is especially the case with Sticky Fingers products.  Their cupcakes are not toothachingly sweet, plus the gluten-free cake part has bean flours (I think fava and maybe a bit of chickpea flour) so the fiber and protein content balances out some of the sugar.The combination of bean flours and evaporated cane juice means that I can, very occasionally, indulge (this was only the second time I had had a cupcake there).  Had they just had their chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting, I would have passed as that is the one I have had. But raspberry frosting on chocolate was one I had not tried, and that is one of my favorite flavor combinations ever, so I got it.  The frosting clearly had real fruit in it as it was deliciously raspberry-ish, and the cake base is wonderful. You would not know it is gluten-free. 

Eating gluten-free at Sticky Fingers is easy – the items are well marked and people could answer my questions.  I do worry about cross contamination seeing as it is a bakery, but I have not had any problems eating there.  The biggest surprise last night was finding out the minestrone was not gluten-free but the tomato soup was.  All in all my dinner was quite indulgent but very delicious.

Eating tasty indulgent food al fresco was lovely last night, and a perfect topping to a fun evening visiting Temporium.  You should check both out – Sticky Fingers is within a 10 minute walk of Temporium.

Oh, and if you are like us, you can go to Target after and pick up paper towels.  I used to think date nights needed to be just date-like, but I am also all about avoiding unnecessary additional trips to do errands, and Target is a block from Sticky Fingers.

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