it's (finally) sunny in new york city

we've been experiencing some major june gloom here in our fair city. rainy forecasts for days on end, with a peek at some sun, and then back to rain again. wash, rinse, repeat. it's hard to get motivated to leave the house when it's raining all the time. i think all of new york is feeling a bit down--people have been going about their business easily enough, but the city really comes alive in the summertime, and we've needed some sun to shake us out of some winter doldrums that were particularly bad this year.

one of the best things about summer is eating outside, so i've been especially missing sidewalk dining. last night, we ate dinner at the totally delicious pacifico, and sat outside on the patio. the weather had been threatening a storm all night, but we lucked out, and without rain, it was the perfect temperature for al fresco dining. i like pacifico for the range of non-red-meat choices beyond just rice and beans (i've had everything seafood on the menu, and think the grilled salmon is best), and s gets the same fajitas every time--the man can't get enough of their pineapple salsa! i do think the service isn't great, but the margaritas more than make up for it, so no complaints from us.

today, finally, it's gorgeous. we've got the back door thrown open, and i can see clouds hovering over governor's island. s and i are nesting, still putting everything together in the new place, but the plan today is to run our errands in the sunshine.

garlic and sapphires

i've been trying to eat like ruth reichl recently. my book club last read "garlic and sapphires: a critic's life in disguise" about her tenure as the chief restuarant critic for the new york times in the 1990s, and the thing that struck me most about her writing was the way she described experiencing food. each bite was a search to taste each distinct flavor, to search out the components to understand the whole. her relationship to food is complex and pleasurable, as much about the science of the cook as the artistry of the chef. so when i say i've been trying to eat like ruth reichl, i don't mean that i've been heading out to le cirque in a bright red wig, i mean i've been trying to deepen my understanding of what i choose to taste.

with that in mind, i closed my eyes with each new bite at centro vinoteca, where aa, mk and i went to celebrate restaurant week. we started with piccolini, and i appreciated the brightness of the lemon aioli on my shrimp and chickpea fritter and the richness of the truffled deviled egg. the creaminess of sunchokes contrasted nicely with the texture of the chanterelles and walnuts in aa's soup, and i am sure mk enjoyed her upscale blt bruschettas. but it was the entree that really taught me to taste like a critic. kabocha squash ravioli in brown butter with walnuts and vincotto tastes at once familiar (ah, squash ravioli, you think to yourself, i know this one) and unusual (oh perhaps i was too hasty, you realize), the vincotto and brown butter lending a thick sweetness, the walnuts adding a crunch. kabocha squash has some of the richness of butternut, but a more unusual finish. i know i looked silly, sitting there with my eyes closed, exploring each new taste, but it was worth it. (the desserts are skip-able. my chocolate cake was nothing to blog about. my dirty martini, however, was spot on.) i look forward to going back to centro vinoteca, to taste new tastes again. thank you, ruth reichl.

top ten

i've been out of town for the holidays in d.c., but i head back to my beloveds (ny and the boy) tomorrow, just in time for new year's eve. in honor of the end of this year and the start of the next, i would like to present my top 10 list of things that happened this year. some are specific, and some are more general, and all are previously referenced in this here blog (which means you can go back and read more!) and everything meant something to me, whether meaningful or just fun. now we've had plenty of ado. and so . . .

10. i enjoyed all that restaurant week had to offer. i love a fancy night out to dinner and drinks, and restaurant week is a great way to experience places i might not normally be able to afford. i've marked my calendar for this year, too.

9. i heard a lot of new music. from hearing friends play downtown, to the mars volta at terminal five, to eric bibb on governor's island, to fred sherry plays zorn, we had a lot of great auditory experiences this year. i look forward to discovering more new music in 2009.

8. i watched men battle to eat the most hot dogs at coney island. i know it may sound strange that this was one of my favorite things, but the contest was hilarious, coney island was as weird and wonderful as i had expected, and the day was all-around perfect. i will always remember my view from the top of the wonder wheel.

7. there were some great celebrity sightings this year, including christian bale, tony danza and the johns (hodgeman and oliver) of comedy central fame. i promise i'm not a rubbernecker, but come one--there's something kind of cool about seeing someone famous right next to you.

6. i went to a number of museums, and saw courbet at the met, miro at moma, and the next generation at the whitney biennial. there's a lot of art in this city, and i aim to see more in 2009.

5. s and i enjoyed "spring awakening" and my mom and i were enthralled with "gypsy", among other shows. i saw some fabulous theater, and even got an autograph from miss patti lupone.

4. we got to see a game in the soon-to-be-old yankee stadium. all team loyalties aside, there was something special about going to a game in the same stadium my grandfather had visited. as new york grows and changes, the opportunity for that gets smaller and smaller (my g'pa lived here in the 20s through the 50s--this is a different city.) plus i am a huge nerd for baseball, so it was a great time for me. we'll see if i can convince s to go again this spring.

3. i've had some "only in new york" experiences, including seeing paul simon perform at "revenge of the book eaters" and crashing a vampire weekend after-party with some delightful new friends. for me, this is why i moved here, why i stay here--i don't always love the challenges, but i do enjoy the rewards.

2. i made a lot of new friends, like mk, aa, my neighbor, ls, and others, and got to reconnect with other people, including jay and zp. for me, it is the people that make the place, and i am thankful to have such wonderful people in my life here in the city.

1. we moved into our own apartment. we'd been in progressive co-habitation since college, and of course we lived with the boys in boyland when i first arrived, but this was the biggest step we've taken towards saying "you are the one i will be with for good." and it feels good; it feels great. even when things are not so perfect, there is no one in the world i would rather buy towels with, wake up to in the morning, cook dinner for on the weekends, share a tiny apartment with. in a year that often felt like growing pains, this was the easiest, best and most rewarding step towards adulthood.

thanks for following me down memory lane. what did you love about 2008? (oh, and if one thing you loved about 2008 was this business, magical new york, fear not: my new year's resolution is to blog more. yay!)

thank you, mood

my mother visited this week, in town for some work meetings and some nyc-touristing fun. we packed a lot into tuesday (i know, this is a much-belated post), so bear with me!

we started by heading down to brooklyn heights and walking along the promenade. i think brooklyn heights is one of the city's prettiest neighborhoods, and the view of lower manhattan is an unusual one (and something you of course cannot see when you are in the city.) we meandered down to brooklyn bridge and fulton ferry state parks, and through DUMBO, window-shopping and coveting (well, for me at least) bridge-view properties.

s met us at the morgan library to explore "drawing babar", an exhibition of the paintings and processes that created babar, the be-suited elephant my sister and i grew up with. the morgan is a beautiful space, especially now that they've completed a beautiful renzo piano-led renovation. the exhibition was really wonderful. jean du brunhoff created the story, and his son laurent continued the tradition. they both had very different processes. jean would sketch and re-sketch, in pencil, moving the text and pictures around the page up until the final draft. laurent, on the other hand, would paint huge swathes of color across the page leaving space for his text. it was a great exhibit, and if you grew up with babar, i highly recommend it.


fabrics galore!

we walked west and headed to mood, the fabric store of project runway fame (well, for us, at least. i'm sure FIT design students know it for their own reasons.) my mother used to sew us halloween costumes and christmas dresses, so it made her happy to peruse the organzas and satins.

my mother is a long-time fan of patti lupone, and gave me the recording of "evita" at an impressionable age, so i have long time as well. so i knew that it would be special for us to see patti in "gypsy" on broadway. we had a wonderful dinner at nizza, a new restaurant on 9th ave. it was delicious, and it is always nice to discover a new place to dine in the theater district. we had center-mezzanine seats at the st. james theater (thanks again to tdf), so we had a great view of the stage. unfortunately, laura benanti wasn't performing that evening, but the understudy to louise did very well. patti lupone, of course, was the highlight of the performance, putting her heart into every word. she has an incredible voice, not even always a beautiful voice, but so full of character and experience. i had chills during her final number, and we lept to our feet with everyone else for the standing ovation at the end of the show. she is a real treasure. when we were leaving, my mother noticed that people were waiting for the actors, so we decided to wait and see patti. we thanked her for her wonderful performance, and while usually i am too embarrassed to do this, we got her autograph, which was very exciting.

wednesday my mother had meetings all day, but we were able to meet up for coffee and shoe-shopping before i put her in a cab to the train station. ccome back soon mama! we've got so much more to do! i love having visitors. who else wants to come see new york?

walking on water

i know i am acting like i've just discovered the camera recently, and in part i have rediscovered the camera (thanks due to the wonderful cams i got for christmas), but it's also partially because i have been doing things, you know, like having fun, recently. and then documenting said things in pictures.

yesterday s had to work in the morning, so we had saturday night date night. we've been itching to do more things off the "us map" (not u.s. as in united states, or even as in us weekly, of trashy mag glory, but us as in we) i made back in february, so we met yesterday afternoon at the base of the brooklyn bridge. (actually, tragically, we met in city hall park, and then mistakenly walked south down broadway to the staten island ferry and along the water back up to city hall park and to the base of the bridge.) the brooklyn bridge has a wooden walkway suspended above the traffic, with state-park-style placards along the way, mapping out old new york and the physics of bridges. i walked across the brooklyn bridge when i still attended nyu on the instructions of my father, and it was a pleasant, educational stroll. it's apparently much more popular on hot saturdays in june, and we had to hustle to keep up with the flow of walking traffic, but we still managed to stop in the middle, tourist-style, to take pictures and admire the view. (i took the above photo looking up at one of the piers, or whatever that's called. i obviously don't remember the info i read.)

once off the bridge and back safely in the bk, we headed to brooklyn bridge-fulton ferry state park to look for some dinner. we forewent the block-long line at grimaldis (some other time, i suppose) and had dessert first at the brooklyn ice cream factory, some of the best 'cream i've ever tasted. (super rich though; i couldn't finish my one scoop, and s, usually a champ, was bested by his two-scoop cone.) we ate overlooking the water with a view back at manhattan and the bridge we'd just crossed.

for dinner we trekked to smith street for pacifico and drank margaritas under the lights strung up on the porch. we were both pretty tired from the day (s had worked, i had run errands, we both had gotten lost and found our way back to brooklyn again), but we had a lovely dinner. we got home in time to watch the wire (we're total addicts) and fall asleep before work today. a miraculous date night indeed.

downunder

i know we put it to a vote, but we didn't get to go into the city this weekend for fun galore, because we are now important grown-ups who have to do things like shop for housewares and pack and watch episodes of "the wire." but we did have a lovely weekend.

we spent saturday afternoon walking around dumbo, exploring the many new and beautiful furniture shops and clothing boutiques that have taken over the former industrial neighborhood. while i had heard all sorts of things about dumbo, i had never actually been, and i totally fell in love. it is like a pretend new york, all old buildings turned into beautiful lofts, with cobbled streets and beautiful people, full of resturants and chic stores, with a view of the manhattan skyline to boot. we saw multiple weddings and a fashion photo shoot, so you know i'm sold. (another neighborhood to add to our "when we make it big, we'll live there" list--here's looking at you, west village.) we started with shopping along front street (pictured above), including a stop at the dreamy design store prague kolektiv and then wandered through brooklyn bridge park. the park was holding 125th birthday celebrations for the beloved bridge (you don't look a day over 124!) and while we were late for the music and too early for the movie, we did enjoy a stroll through the park. lovely, right?

sunday s had to work so i packed and did crosswords (a real lady of leisure, no?) today we had brunch with our couple friends, my owf and her boy (this is a goal of mine, couple friends. we sort-of had them in college, but i love couple friends and we've never gotten any great ones off the ground, but aa and p seem to make a great match) at cafe luluc, a super cute spot in carroll gardens. (can we just talk about how much i love the french tradition of eggs served with fries? it surprised me the first time, but then i was like "hello, genius." there are few things i like more than french fries. those french, they really get me, you know?) aa and p have lived in boerum hill for five years now, so they are like our sage old friends, full of "have you seen this?" and "oh, you have to go there!" i feel like a little kid when they get started, but it really is wonderful to have friends who are so happy to play tour guide.

the rest of the afternoon pre-s-on-a-train-to-work was spent packing (dear goodness, how did we fit so much into so little space?) and then napping. for me, that is. it is very suddenly summer here in our fair city, and my best defense, beyond ac (which we will not install until we move into the new apartment), is a nap. seriously, i am a southern belle, aren't i, napping away the afternoon. now i am sitting here, sweating in front of the fan, getting ready to do a crossword or two. it's back to work tomorrow, and then a busy week (we are having our gala on wednesday, which should make for exciting posting) capped off by our big move. i promise words and pictures later.

on vacation in my own backyard

i had a lovely long weekend with my parents. i really like my parents, in large part because they are my parents, and in large part they are also my really nice, smart, interesting friends who don't let me pay for my own cupcakes. we have a lot in common, aside from being related, and i really like talking to them. and i would write that even if they didn't read this.

friday we took them to clemens for incredible fresh tex-mex and my dad bought a mexican wrestlers mask from the proprietors. then we took the subway (it was weird for me to picture my parents on the subway; they don't strike me as train people, so it was funny to ride with them) up to bryant park, where their lovely hotel was. we walked a square up to fao schwartz (everyone loves giant toys!) and along the park to my office, and then down 9th avenue to a delicious little italian place. then back to bryant park and to bed for us all.

saturday we brought them terrace bagels (i am a really good daughter) in the city, and all trekked to various museums, my dad to the met for the jasper johns gray show, my mom, s and i to the guggenheim for the incredible cai guo qiang show. it was a really intricate installation, with site-specific work about the intersection of cai's ancient chinese heritage, modern chinese upbringing and current new york life. it is the kind of show best experienced in person (so that you can walk among the wolves or take the yak canoe through the built river), and really a once in a lifetime opportunity, since some of the pieces were created specifically for this space. it was a lot to think about, and we talked about it the rest of the weekend. after an adventure (two closed subway stations and a bus!) we headed down to the village and the deliciousness that is john's pizzeria. once on bleecker it is difficult, of course, to not go to magnolia for some buttercream love, and my kind pa stood in line while we cooed over marc jacobs. (in retrospect, i should have tried something on. i probably could have gotten the sweet gift of good design.) i then walked us back up to the flatiron (with a stop to buy cushier socks and shoes) to fishs eddy, where we all admired the cheeky dinnerware. my mother and i, always the avant-garde pair, saw a really great new play at nyu, "i have loved strangers" (by anne washburn.) it was set in ancient new york, and various plotlines about a corrupt king, true and false prophets, and revolutionaries were intricately woven together. (a post-modern apocalypse play is a great follow up to an installation about controlled violence and painting with gunpowder. and cupcakes.) we cabbed uptown (i think i walked them out) and met s in the hotel bar for a drink.

sunday they made it to brooklyn on their own, and we walked park slope, stopping in to cutesy shops and spending lots of time at brooklyn superhero supply. after a gourmet market lunch, i sent them off and spent the afternoon looking for apartments (we are still future-homeless.) it was a full weekend, but a grand one, and now i am looking forward to the next one. i plan to sleep in.

let the right one in

for future reference, when i say "i don't like scary movies, and i get scared really easily", a movie about a vampire and a little boy who fall in love is still likely to scare me, despite all the love stuff. especially if set in 1980s sweden.

tonight mk, aa and i went to a screening of "let the right one in," a very sweet swedish film about oskar, a loner who is ostracized by his peers but befriended by a strange girl who lives next door. when eli and her father move in, people in the town start dying mysterious violent deaths, and oskar soon realized that eli is a vampire (with a heart of gold), and his only friend. i really liked it. it was incredibly atmospheric and the acting was superb, especially by the two children, and i was on the edge of my seat most of the film. it was interesting, too, where the film found its heros (in an outcast and a monster) who were the most human characters of all. the film was picked up by magnolia pictures, and will be released soon in the us, and i definitely recommend it.

we waited around to say hi to aa's movie exec boyfriend (thanks for the tickets!) and i looked in vain for famous people, and then we decided to look for food. i remembered the dessert truck was quite near us, so we shared a chocolate bread pudding with creme anglaise (oh my goodness, so delicious) sitting on a washington square stoop. then we came home to brooklyn and had drinks and cheese at sample, which was cute though not necessarily my style. (i am not a huge wine and cheese person, and while my drink was good, it was tiny.) plus it was a little on the warm side, and it's not hot enough outside yet to be too hot indoors. anyways, very cute, and i appreciated that they suggested it because of my well-known love of vintage maps. (which were wonderful.) mk and i cabbed home (no way was i walking as possible vampire prey) and now i need to clean before my parents arrive tomorrow. till next time.

oh, and because i know a few people read this, i'd love some feedback. what are you doing this weekend?

florent!

dear florent,

we love you. i love the vintage maps that make up your menus and wall decoration. i love the friendly, well-dressed gay waiters. i love the louisiana crab cakes and kir royales. i love the cobblestones i teetered over in the heels i am not used to wearing on a date with my delightful boyfriend. i love the t-shirts you sell (especially the marie antionette.) i love the florent timeline on the board.

s loves "the best burger [he] has ever had in the city."

we love you. please don't close.

love, m and s

date night

i know you're totally sick of me talking about what i've gotten to eat recently, but restaurant week ends tonight, so bear with me.

i love my boyfriend. a lot. (so much so that i teared up on the train last night as i headed down to meet him, thinking about how much i love him.) but he works crazy hours and i have a weird weekend, so i don't get to see him as much as i might want to, so i was extra excited when we made plans to go out to dinner at the mercer kitchen last night to celebrate our three year anniversary (technically on monday, but i have a feeling we'll make it through the weekend.) i left work early and stood on the street waiting for him. it still makes me smile to see him walking towards me, makes me smile even larger to see his smile when he sees me. he's a handsome boy, my boy, and we looked good last night. maybe like we even belong in some fancy soho restaurant. mercer kitchen feels special (even without tablecloths, as s teased me.) we sat downstairs, below ground, in a cozy dining room with bricked walls and mirrors and candles and soft conversation and single lillies in vases and wonderful cucumber-mint martinis. we toasted our three years together with speeches and smiles. for dinner (i know you're reading for the food, not the love) we forewent the restaurant week menu and both had the butternut squash soup with black trumpet mushrooms. they bring you a plate with a bowl on it with tiny green onions and mushrooms and cubed squash in still-life and then they pour the pureed soup into your bowl table-side from a silver samovar. soup never felt so special! (also: absurdly delicious. oh my gosh. two great soups this week.) s was a major fan of his roasted chicken and mashed potatoes ("almost as good as grandma's", he pronounced, high-praise from a boy who often talks about his grandma's mashed potatoes) and i enjoyed my thin italian pizza. it was a lovely dinner.

and this is how i know we are perfect for each other: we decided to skip dessert to make it home in time to see the season premiere of lost. it took forevs, between the r train and its bajillion stops on the way to the f (though we got to hear the sweet sounds of the subtations! i love them! and they gave s fist pounds for his girlfriend! who gave them a dollar.) we were invited to various viewing parties, but my wicked cold (thanks, workday fever) kept us in, which led to some last-minute panic. the hd projector, for all its magic, is not attached to any kind of television cable, so we had to take camp's tv out of another roommate's room and using RABBIT EARS (which had to be adjusted and foiled and ohmyGOSH this is 2008 and we have an hd projector and we are watching tv with rabbit ears), we were able to get our picture. and s got dessert in the end (i had prepared these little gems for the occasion, albeit with a few changes.) it was a wonderful night.

i still have the cold, however, and have already sneezed on my blanket, my hands, and my sweatshirt. don't worry, i washed all of them.

a little local flavor

here i am with another update on the restaurant week front: delish. to the max. tonight i went out with mk (my bwf) and a (my owf) to mesa grill, which is a bobby flay take on southwest tex mex. i love a prix fixe dinner--i would never order an appetizer and an entree and a dessert, but tonight i got to try all sorts of deliciousness. mk and i started with a black bean soup that was not too thick but not too soupy, with different salsa toppings, a little spicy and a lot good. (a had a fry fread--i love! taquito which looked great.) my entree was a chile relleno stuffed with goat cheese and acorn squash with a roasted fig sauce. so good, although a little rich. mk had chicken and mashed potaotes (with a southwest twist) and a had some mango salsa'd fish with a risotto. dessert was the best sweet thing i have eaten in a long time: crunchy vanilla profiteroles. a puff pastry with vanilla bean ice cream and crunchy vanilla caramel and a spicy mexican chocolate sauce. ohmiGOSH so amazing. i would eat it again right now. it's a good thing we live so far away. dinner was made even better by the conversation. i really really like the girls i work with; they are truly fantastic women, funny and smart and really great. i just feel so lucky to have found friends in the workplace who i like so much outside of the workplace. we talked about work and men and books and theatre and the dentist, and it was just a lot of fun to have such a great evening.

now i am home, a little sleepy thanks to 1991's best margarita. but i do want to relay these two fantastic overheards.

friday night we went out for some tv-watching treats and the corner store opposite the local bar was open. after selecting ginger ale (and ok, some ice cream, it's my weakness) we were getting ready to pay when these brooklyn neighborhood guys came in, drunk and loud and having a good time. they were friendly with the guy behind the counter (mohammed called "mo") and were yelling at each other and at mo, especially "joey cheeseburgers" who loves, you guessed it, cheeseburgers. and who was really upset that they were all out of cheeseburgers. then this enormous guy in a coat with a fur collar came in, and they started shouting about the godfather, and that the godfather was here and "hey yuppies, don't be afraid of the godfather" (which sounded like "gawdfahthah".) though we were the only people in the store, it did not occur to me until stephen said later, that we were the godfather-fearing yuppies in question. what, i don't look like a girl from the neighborhood?

also overheard this weekend in windsor terrace (in my building, no less.)
guy: so this is my friend dave huspah (some last name that sounds like chutzpah), but we just call him chutzpah.
girl: what's chutzpah?
guy: you know, chutzpah. it's yiddish.
girl: oh, yiddish, is that like british but not really?
guy: seriously? (she doesn't say anything.) no, yiddish is the language spoken by eastern european jews (he gives a very intellectual explanation of yiddish and its origins, which i didn't catch all of.)
girl: oh, so you're jewish? welcome!
she then proceeds to tell a long story about a jewish friend who celebrated chanukah (which she pronounced like the chan in "change") and found a cracker and got $200 and "made out like a bandit". which then devolved in a story about make-out bandits (who are, i guess, those who will make out with anyone.) ah, the things overheard.

holy two posts-a-day, batman!

i just wanted to rave over aspen. totally delicious food (i liked my goat cheese and arugula salad, i loved my trout tacos, i preferred the pumpkin flan to my so-so cupcakes) and a really gorgeous, romantic interior. i especially like the stands of birch (real or fake? who knows) outside the windows. a must to go back to, for sure.

tonight: italian dinner (stuffed shells and caesar salad) and a movie. probably some laundry, too. we're back to our usual cool selves.

a me weekend

since i have discovered that i have at least one reader who is not related to me/a dear friend/in love with me, i will try to be better at updation. (and the rest of you: feel free to pipe up at any time.)

i had a perfectly me new york weekend. if you haven't guessed by now, i am not fancy. we don't go out to the hottest clubs, and i never know about amazing restaurants, and i will probably never go to a premier of anything, try as i might to finagle my way into friendship with a famous person or something. to me, a weekend should be fun, and rejuvenating, and a good way to start a new week. (a weekstart, perhaps? how about it, gregorian calendar, are we due for a change in terminology?) it includes food and drink and laughter and good company. maybe a new sight or spot. so this weekend was just right.

friday my bwf (best work friend) mk and i decided to meet for lunch. she only lives a few blocks away, so we met in the middle at the adorable 12th street bar and grill. it was pouring rain and the lightning made me jump once or twice on the walk over, so we got a cozy little table in the bar area and i watched it rain outside as we ate our delicious food. (sidenote: i love rain in new york. it is one of my most favorite things in the whole world. i love the way it smells when it rains on city sidewalks, i love the swish of tires on rainy streets, i like the way it narrows your neighborhood to the locals venturing out on errands. i love the way it brings people together, crowded under awnings, exchanging those "i can't believe this" looks and smiles. s once downloaded 30 minutes of rain sounds to fall asleep to, and i thought he was totally crazy until i listened to it one night when i was home alone, and i had the best sleep. rain on the roof is the coziest. anyways.) mk and i talked for three hours, about work and careers and boys and friends. it was great; i feel really lucky to have found someone i like so much so quickly, and through this job that i have. it felt so grown up, having lunch and talking forever about work and life. am i too much in awe of being an adult? somehow i feel so lucky to be living this life that while not perfect, is really what i always planned for myself (job, relationship, new york city.) after we realized we had sat there for a little too long, we went and got our nails done. i got scarlett o'hara painted on my toes, and i haven't been able to stop looking at them. i feel like a whole different lady. friday night boyland watched "the departed" in hd. a movie night? i'm in heaven.

saturday brought terrace bagels and project runway and the promise of a day in the city. i wanted a little museum time, but by the time we got moving and into the city (and had completed our errands), it was a little late. we wandered around the village, getting hungrier and hungrier, until s suggested we go out to dinner. i should note that my boy's two favorite foods are bagels and pizza. we picked the right city. we also like to think of ourselves as pizza connoisseurs. (though he wil eat dominos in a pinch, which is pretty much sacrilege.) we picked john's pizzeria, a legendary brick-oven spot (i would link you but their website is temporarily disabled.) i have witnessed people standing outside in freezing temperatures just to get a table, and boy is it worth it. a thin crust, fresh cheese, delicious veggies . . . i tried to take a picture for my blog (i am now one of those people, i am afraid), but it turned out a little dark. (the waiter asked if we wanted our picture taken with the pizza, and i said no. i think he thought we were tourists; i thought it might have been worse to say "i'm no tourist, i'm a blogger!" and refrained.) the place has crazy atmosphere, and little space to move around, but the food is worth it. i loved it; there were families, and hip young things, and slow old things, and it felt like a neighborhood joint that gets known, but still welcomes the whole neighborhood. which i guess is a new york thing.

we finished up the afternoon with gelato (mk said: "it sounds like you went to rome!") which is pictured in glorious technicolor above. mouthwatering andean blackberry, in all its pinky glory. i stayed in last night, as i was fighting a cold, and worked a long-ish day today. and now i am home, am fed and watered, and am looking forward to a little 30 rock on the big screen. it doesn't get much better.

in praise of bagels and roommates

you always hear about the famous bagels of new york, but somehow the bagels i had been occasionally eating were not satisfying my new york bagel cravings. (tasteless doughy circles with a smush of cream cheese were not what my little stomach desired.) i have heard the russ and daughters hype, but the LES can be a bit of a trek when you are hungry for brunch on a cold december morning. and so when my roommates discussed their devotion to terrace bagels, i was unconvinced. but today, after a delightful evening last night of wine and games (both on the table and the screen), all six of us piled on the sweatshirts and headed out into the morning. i don't know why there isn't more hype about terrace bagels. i mean, i know the new york times mentioned them in six bagels worth the wait, but i feel like this place is a secret, and one only a block and a half from our house. about.com mentions long lines on the weekend; we were there around 11 am, and waited only a minute or two in each line. (you stand in one line to order, another line to pay at the cash register which an older man pecks at heavily with one finger.) i got my usual, a plain bagel toasted with cream cheese and tomato (when done poorly, gross, when done well, delicious!) and it was fantastic. crunchy on the outside, doughy and chewy on the inside, real cream cheese slightly melty from the heat of toasting, fresh tomatoes with an actual tomato taste. this place is indeed worth it, thanks new york times.

i should also note, in the ongoing saga of brooklyn vs. manhattan, that boyland is better than i ever thought possible. my roommates are great, they cook and clean (in addition to the video games) and watch project runway and silly tv with me and are appreciative of my baked goods. they are very good company, and they seem to enjoy mine as well. for awhile, s was working crazy hours and i only ever saw him at 3am, and so it was nice to get to come home to my other boyfriends. we are going to stay, at least until may when the lease runs out, and then who knows. it's sort of like college all over again, but with better paying jobs.

so come to brooklyn. we'll watch "the office" and i'll buy you a bagel.

lovely weekend

i had an utterly delightful, mostly new york kind of weekend.

friday i had brunch with some ladies from work, and we went to boerum hill food company. i had an omelette with cheddar and mushrooms, potatoes and toast with raspberry jam. also, delicious chai. we sat at a big round table with a mosaiced top, and looked out the window, and told stories about our love lives and work lives, and it was delightful. also, we cooed over other people's babies. i really like these women. after brunch, m went home and a and i continued on to target. i have to confess, i love target, probably too much, and i was bemoaning a lack of target here in new york at work the other day and they were like "but there is a target! in brooklyn! we will go!" and go we did. i had pie baking plans, so i bought a pie dish, whisks, a zester, pastry brushes and snowman teaspoons and measuring cups (from that great dollar section! ah target, be still my little mid-western heart). i also bought two pairs of work shoes, mascara and a sewing kit. does a shopping trip get any girlier? i think not.

apres-target, i came home and went to the grocery. as i said before, i had pie plans. i baked the most delicious pie i have ever tasted, spiced apple pear pie with apples and pears i purchased at the farmers market that happens every thursday by where i work. this pie, i swear. i know this is not magical-pie.blogspot.com, but i served it to seven different boys, and i think every single one of them wanted to marry either me or the pie. it's delicious. anyways, i spent friday night baking and then some of the boy's bandmates came over and we drank beer and watched trapped in the closet.

today was a sleep-in kind of morning, and then s and i were off to the village to meet some old friends for lunch. (side note: i wish we had more couple friends. s has this friend from childhood who recently got engaged to a lovely girl, and they live in boston now, and every time we get together with them i really enjoy it.) it made me feel like such a grown-up, meeting friends for lunch at the cute, cozy, delicious french roast, drinking my english breakfast tea, talking about jobs and weddings and the price of condos. after a nice lunch, we walked around the west village (with the obligatory tour stop at magnolia bakery. this is totally magical-magnolia bakery.blogspot.com, have you noticed?) and then came home. i scored a vintage subway map during our wanderings, much to the chagrin of my dear s, who had been planning on buying me one for christmas. i have been thinking about vintage maps ever since a wonderful trip to the transit museum (which deserves its own post later.) we trained home and hung out with the roommates and i fell asleep on r's bed (that vera wang mattress will get you every time.) i woke up at 8 pm in time for dinner and illegally downloaded project runway (i gotta have my fashion reality tv!) and now it's time for bed.

curly's and corduroy

my sister has been in town for the weekend, but i had to work today so we met up for dinner in the city. (she is staying with a friend with the most incredible name i have ever heard, but for anonymity's sake, suffice it to say, it is amazing.) sissy and i are both vegetarians, and i love fake meat (more than i ever loved real meat), so i took her to curly's vegetarian lunch (for dinner.) curly's is probably one of my most favorite dining spots in nyc. it is tiny (maybe ten two-person tables and one that could seat five or six) and they give you placemats to color that then get displayed on the walls and our waiter sang and danced around the restaurant and the owner came and talked to us after dinner, asking if it was worth the wait. it was, it always is, the food is really fresh and simple but well-planned and delicious. they don't use any meat, and almost every item can be made vegan (i even saw someone order vegan sopapilla.) i've taken non-vegetarians there as well, and it's always a crowd pleaser.

side note: if you didn't already go to the website, you should. they have a list of famous vegetarians with quotations. did you know russell simmons is a vegetarian? i just love him. he's like the sweet, gentle rap mogul. i mean, vegetarian, spoken word advocate, argyle designer, lisper. he's adorable.

also, this evening curly's gave me another excellent overheard:

hipster girl: so that club she got turned away from? it was for not having on two pieces of corduroy clothing. (male companion mumbles somthing indistinct.) you know what kind of club that is? a club full of poorly-dressed people.

tour guiding no.1

though i am not a native new yorker, and in fact lived there only one year before departing to the midwest before making my triumphal return this past summer, somehow i get saddled playing the role of tour guide every time i meet up with someone in the city. i shouldn't say saddled, i like showing people my favorite spots, but as i am not from new york, nor do i know new york very very well, coupled with the fact that i am not a great navigator (and often remember places as being "around the corner from that one place"), i am not a natural choice for tour guide. but it is a role i have found myself playing a few times in the past few months, and one i will play again and again as time goes by and i get to know my city better.

so i am starting a series of posts, tour guiding posts, about the different areas i know and love in nyc. first in the series is union square/the village (i admit it, i went to nyu. but it wasn't like that! i was the poor one!), the area i once knew best and still like to walk around in.

if you want to shop: first we will go to the strand for 18 miles of books. i love books, i love bookstores, and i think the strand is just a sight to see. plus last time i was tour guiding i couldn't remember how to get to the china town ice cream factory, and the strand has a whole section of new york tour books. perfect. then i will take you to my favorite paper store, kate's paperie. i live for birthdays, just so i can come to this store to pick out something unique and gorgeous and special. i'm a total nerd when it comes to cool paper products (i did grow up the child of designers) so i can spend hours in this store. but i wont make you stay that long with me. i'm big on wandering so we'll probably bum around the village, wandering into new places. i still want to find that poster store i used to love and now can't remember the location of. for unique boutiques (is that too cutesy?) we'll walk down bleecker street. i don't have any favorites yet (i'm too broke), but we were headed down bleecker anyway. because . . .

if you want a sweet treat: i will take you to magnolia bakery. i am not a sweets person for the most part (ok, i'll eat ice cream any day, but that's kind of it), and i am really not a cupcake person, but even i will walk a million blocks out of my way for these buttercream dreams. i take everyone here and they always love it. it's my goal to make everyone i know fat, one delicious, ridiculous cupcake at a time.

if you want some culture or history: you're out of luck. ha ha, just kidding! we'll start with union square, which was named for being the intersection, or union, of broadway and fourth. it opened in 1839 and was originally modeled on london squares, but unfortunately that was demolished in 1929 in order to build the subway, so the park we see today is totally different. like most manhattan parks, union square had to be reclaimed from drug dealers and deterioration, and now hosts a farmers market and playgrounds. i like to walk down 5th ave to washington square park, for the best view of the washington arch, modeled on l'arc de triomphe in paris. it was named for president washington and was a place for military celebrations, and is now where nyu celebrates its commencement. the park is a great place for people watching and performances, although it is also home to a lot of persistent pigeons, and there is very little on wings that i hate more than pigeons. there are a lot of sights to see, a lot of famous houses and squares and triangles and circles, so it might take us awhile.

so who wants to come visit me? i'll do more neighborhoods in the future.

serendipitous

i have been spending more time than i like to away from nyc, which is why i haven't posted my thoughts recently. so here are the compiled moments.

my mother gave me a membership to the met as a gift recently. i had an afternoon all to myself, and decided to go to the museum to see the things i usually skip in favor of visiting my favorites. side note: alas, these are disappearing. for the longest time i wanted to get married in the american wing garden. all practicality aside, this is now completely impossible, as it has been closed for awhile (a few years?) now, in order to completely re-do it all. it will never look the same again, and i will never get married in a tea length cream dress in front of a statue of pan. sigh. the modern galleries are also partially closed, though they should re-open soon. back to topic: i went to the greek and roman galleries. as an art history nerd, i love to see pieces in person that i have read about in texts, so it was incredible to see the kouros figure standing at attention in front of me and to step into reconstructed rooms decorated with roman frescoes. my favorite new find, however, was ancient greek and roman jewelry. fine filigreed necklaces, elaborate diadems, beautifully simple rings. (poor s. he can't afford the art deco engagement rings i drop hints about; now i covet greek emeralds?)

speaking of my dear s, we had a lovely day this past week. it was a new york day, in the most touristy way. we met up at columbus circle, and walked downtown to lunch at grand central station. i wanted to eat at central cafe, which looks as adorable as they come, but it was a little pricey for lunch. grand central, home to the most beautiful ceiling i've ever seen (how much would it cost to have that recreated in my house i wonder?), has a delightful lower level full of restaurants and cafes. we enjoyed stacked-high sandwiches at junior's and then took pictures of ourselves and the station. down the block we headed to the chrysler building to see the art deco lobby. it is truly amazing--a mural on the ceiling, impressive wood paneled elevator doors, and a handy little computer that lets you look up every business in the building. that's probably not a tourist feature, but we got a kick out of the financial organizations with utterly innocuous names. also, who knew that the chrysler building was the tallest building in the world for only one year? then something newer, taller, more exciting was put up. i miss the days of rampant technological advances observable with the naked eye. doesn't it seem like bigger used to be better? it's harder to get excited about something getting even smaller. (except for iPods.) post-chrysler, we walked uptown to e 60th to serendipity 3 for frozen hot chocolate. world-famous frozen hot chocolate, that is. it lived up to the hype. s downed his peanut butter frozen hot chocolate post-haste, and ate most of my plain-jane original. i must admit, there is a certain amount of cachet to desserting at andy warhol's favorite spot. dylan's candy bar, the hippest sweet shop i've ever been in, is just down the street. we perused the wares (it's better to go to a candy store when you're already full of sugar--i could appreciate all the color and whimsy with no desire to purchase anything.) we are excellent city wanderers, so we struck out down the street towards the park. the best public rest rooms near central park are at FAO scharwz. plus then you get to dance on the giant piano (i played hot cross buns with my toes) and try on the sorting hat in the harry potter store (come on, ravenclaw.) then we went to the adult toy store: the apple store. do i want a new iPod nano? yes, yes i do. minty green and adorable, please.

magical, indeed.