Allan Ells:  

Life The year I turned forty I bought some phrase books and went bike riding by myself for almost a month in Southern France and Italy. After I returned I met Allison, a former Peace Corps volunteer/desk officer who lived near me in Center City Philadelphia. We married in 1994, honeymooned in Northern Italy and Provence, and visited Italy again the next year. We have also twice traveled again to Italy, France and Belgium as a family. Our first daughter was born the following year and our second in 1998. At that point, our 150 year old Center City home was too small and too vertical to raise two small children so we moved to Swarthmore in the Philadelphia suburbs. A larger, "younger" (1909) house, trees, sidewalks, a small town center we could walk to and where I can catch a train to work. We both love cooking and food; we dine out alone and (used to)with the girls, who share our passion for ethnic cuisine and avoiding mediocre food, avoiding restaurant chains and "fast" food if at all possible. I am fairly physically active, swimming and such, so with some discipline and circumspect appetite, I am pretty much able to indulge my palate without sacrificing my (so far) good health. Our community is great for kids; it is one of the few I know of where grade school age kids can safely go places by themselves. But while we really enjoy Philly's urban life, our plan to move back to Philadelphia when our girls "left the nest" will not be realized, as Allison has come to develop a social group of friends here which would be hard to replace with a new group in a new neighborhood, given our age. I just retired from being a civil trial attorney for the state of Pennsylvania since the late eighties. As a Senior Deputy At...Expand for more