Buy your Roots Picnic tickets | Things to Do

It’s difficult to be outside these days — anyone else have a case of winter blues? — but the good news is that warmer weather is expected in the coming week, and February is nearly over. How are you staying warm? Let me know!

This week’s lineup:

— Rosa Cartagena (@_RosaCartagena, Email me at [email protected])

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The quintessential Philadelphia music fest released its 2025 lineup this week with heavy hitters including Meek Mill, Lenny Kravitz, GloRilla, D’Angelo (performing with The Roots), Miguel, Tems, Kaytranada, and so many more heading to the Mann Center for two days, from May 31 through June 1.

Tickets go on sale Friday (presale available now). Here’s everything you need to know.

🎭 Chilling reality: It’s the final weekend to see the funny and timely play Quixotic Professor Qiu from InterAct Theatre Company. The satirical work, based on true stories, follows an immigrant professor wrongfully accused of international espionage.

🍿 Grab the popcorn: Have you seen all the Oscar nominees for best picture yet? Me neither. But there’s nothing like frigid weather to send me to the movies, and this weekend the Philadelphia Film Society will screen all the contenders, from Anora to Nickel Boys.

🔪 Shop like a chef: If you’re on a home cooking kick or you simply want to upgrade your kitchen tools, we rounded up the best spots to find high-quality dishes, knives, produce, meat, and more — all approved by Philly chefs.

🏀 Sports drama: There’s a different reason to cheer on sports icons on Broad Street again as the Wilma Theater just opened The Half-God of Rainfall, an epic poem/play about a superhuman basketball star that combines Greek and Yoruba mythologies.

🍕 Absolutely legit: Inquirer food critic Craig LaBan visited Johnny’s Pizza, the small but mighty restaurant serving delicious pizza and cheesesteaks in Bryn Mawr.

📅 My calendar picks: Philly Home and Garden Show, Gallery Groove, Flavors of Carnevale

This week’s recommendation comes from my coworker Peter Dobrin, the Inquirer’s classical music critic:

See Leonidas Kavakos and Fabio Luisi play with the Philadelphia Orchestra at Marian Anderson Hall on Feb. 21-23. Kavakos’ abundant muscle and polish are promising qualities for the shimmer and heroism of the Korngold Violin Concerto. And with Luisi on the podium and Brahms’ Symphony No. 4 on the program, listeners can look forward to a warm, extended late-Romantic embrace. The concert opens with Bent Sørensen’s Evening Land, which, at its premiere by the New York Philharmonic in 2017, was described by the New York Times as a “stirring work” with melody everywhere.

🍴 Incoming: The buzzy restaurant company Wonder plans to open 10 food halls and delivery hubs in the Philadelphia region. Here’s what we know so far.

⚾ Batter up: Phillies season will soon be upon us (yay Spring!) and they just announced this year’s theme nights for home games, from Pride to Star Wars to Margaritaville.

🌊 Setting sail: Next year could see a floating classroom arrive on the Delaware River, a $7.5 million effort to create an events venue that could host educational and cultural programming in a “magical garden” space.

😋 Send me sweets: We took a trip to look behind the scenes of Hank’s Cinnamon Buns, a microbakery that delivers cinnamon buns straight to your door.

Pop music critic Dan DeLuca and breaks down the best upcoming shows.

🎸 Thursday: Max Collins — who will be playing bass with Fountains of Wayne in the late Adam Schlesinger’s place in shows this summer — leads his main band, Eve 6, into Underground Arts on Thursday, with Titus Andronicus. And Mdou Moctar, the trance-blues guitar hero from Niger whose Funeral for Justice was one of 2024′s best, plays a full-band acoustic show at the First Unitarian Church that same night.

🎹 Friday: Shinjoo Cho, a bandoneon player — that’s a concertina-like button instrument associated with Argentinian tango music — celebrates the release of her album Abriendo Y Cerrando at the Maas Building in Northern Liberties.

🎸 Saturday: Rod Stewart turned 80 in January and is going on a 2025 tour that he’s calling “One Last Time,” which will bring him to the Mann Center in July. But before he hits the road in earnest, he’s doing a show at the Hard Rock in Atlantic City.

🎤 Multiple dates: Elvis Costello is doing a short tour of intimate rooms with longtime pianist Steve Nieve. It kicked off Wednesday in Easton, Pa., and will hit Red Bank in central Jersey on Friday before arriving at the Grand Opera House in Wilmington on Saturday. Expect reimagining from throughout his catalog, and since it’s February, hopefully the duo’s stellar version of Rodgers and Hart’s “My Funny Valentine” will make an appearance on the set list.

Read more music picks.

How many Philly transplants hail from New York? A new report shows that Philadelphia is the number one spot in the country where New Yorkers are looking to buy homes, beating out Chicago, Los Angeles, and Miami and resurfacing the city’s controversial nickname as the sixth borough. As a girl from Jersey City — a legitimate contender for that title given its proximity and absurdly high rents — I can tell you that Philadelphia is something entirely different. But that doesn’t change the fact that many folks are swapping MetroCards for Amtrak points and learning the not-so-secret fact that Philly is an often-overlooked gem. Even forever New Yorker Fran Lebowitz once told me that she loves Philadelphia and if she were younger, she might’ve considered moving here. Annoyingly this New York to Philly trend (which isn’t all that new) also makes it harder for Philadelphians to find housing, underscoring a major issue in the region. What do you think about these newcomers? Let me know!

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This week I’ve been trying to take advantage of the cold weather and do some self-care. How do you unwind? I’d love some recs.