memorial day memories
[Disclaimer: There is nothing funny about this post. If you came to be entertained, please check back another time.]
It's been two weeks since I returned from the sweaty city of New York and I haven't stolen a moment to update the blog with tales of cupcake-laden debauchery until now! I've been a very naughty (read: busy) girl. Enough is enough. Let me tell you a tale of Memorial Day.
The boyfriend and I arrived at the crack of dawn on Friday morning and were very generously met at the airport by my friend Ed who dropped us off in Brooklyn at the apartment of our friend Molly, redheaded siren of quick wit and resilient liver. So, while Molly, worker bee that she is, had to spend the day in the office, the bleary-eyed boyfriend and I slept until past noon and headed into the city to pay a quick visit to the newly re-designed and unexpectedly packed for a Friday night at 5:30pm MoMA. One of the reasons I love New York is that people care about art. On the first eve of a long weekend, the museum was crowded with tourists and city folk alike. The art and the patrons were mesmerizing. I only recently learned that museum admission is FREE on Fridays after 4pm (we snuck in using our friend's membership.) This made me feel a tad sheepish. A tad.
After our stop at the MoMa, we met with our friend and kind chauffeur Ed at Aki where we dined on (among other delectable items) tuna mille-feuille: layered slices of fuji apple, avocado and ahi tuna drizzled with a white wine vinaigrette. As we left the restaurant, a woman stopped us to ask about the mille-feuille appetizer. The conversation veered left and right and was surprisingly pleasant. I had long held on to the notion that New Yorkers were strained and indifferent. Perhaps 9/11 has instilled the community with a new sense of camraderie. Or maybe she was in a rare good mood because she got free admission to the Museum of Modern Art.
I'm sad to report that I was not able to eat my way through Manhattan as I had planned. From Aki, we walked to the famed Magnolia Bakery. It was around 10pm and the line was around the corner. FOR CUPCAKES! The boys and I bought a big box of cupcakes and met our friends in SoHo, first at a bar named Bouche and then at ACE named after the subway lines A, C and E. It was there that the innocent looking vanilla cupcake I made out with at Bouche decided to give me, um, let's say "a kick in the pants." I had planned on going to Sugar Sweet Sunshine but never made it there due to my freshly learned response of nausea upon visual confirmation of cupcakes. Psychologists call it "taste aversion" but it's really more like a cruel joke between my carbohydrate desires and my mild intolerance of lactose. It doesn't happen all the time but of all the times it had to happen, it happened on the first day of my gastronomic expedition and it lasted the entire trip.
For the rest of the weekend, food became something of an annoyance. I did make a noble effort to proceed with the same moxie I had on our first day only my enjoyment of our many meals both carefully planned and spontaneously assembled was dampened by a loss of appetite and frequent trips to the restroom. Normally, a belly (of pork), lettuce and tomato sandwich at Saturday brunch would have made me get down on one knee and propose to it. The one I had, although delicious, was so poorly timed that it may have turned me off of bacon forever. A fate worse than death. A spotted dick dessert at a British pub has made custard my enemy. When dinner at Lupa finally rolled around, the nausea had faded but I was exhausted from teetering on the verge of vomiting all day. So I was half-asleep during the meal but actually enjoying bites of food. They served a delectable pickled beet appetizer with pistachio butter which perked me up. I followed it with peppered skate wing on broccoli and a sharp lemon sorbetto. The evening wound down at Vaughn where friends new and old sat around a small table and chatted away scotch on the rocks and beers.
On Sunday, the boyfriend and I ventured to the East Village where we randomly stopped in on a bakery/ panini shop and told his friend to meet us there. The friend showed and I sat listlessly as they talked of college days and new jobs. I was still in the throes of food-hate. I nibbled the boyfriend's proscuitto and mozzarella panini which was incredibly delicious but I just couldn't eat all that much. Another friend of theirs joined the table and I excused myself to go to Herald Square for some solitary girlie time. I shamelessly went shopping at one of my favorite stores in New York, Daffy's. Daffy's is like Loehmann's but eons better and a lot cheaper. It was air conditioned heaven. I thought I had allowed enough time to adequately evaluate each item in the store before having to meet up with the boyfriend but it took multiple calls from him to get me to leave the store and hop a train to SoHo (our meeting spot.) We took the train back to Brooklyn and had dinner at Peter Luger's with Molly and Ed. When we sat down at the table, the waiter essentially told us how much steak we wanted: "steak for four, medium rare, creamed spinach and potato hash on the side." We also got bacon as an appetizer. I was relieved when I ate the entire slab of bacon without fear. The bacon and the steak were delicious. The porterhouse was fatty and juicy and apparently, chosen by wizened Italian ladies who work exclusively for Peter Luger's. They go to the meat market before it opens to other restaurant buyers and they stamp the cuts they deem worthy of the Luger grill. That's some pull, if you ask me. We finished the meal with Ferrara's cheesecake which was fluffy and awesome. One could understand why they call it New York cheesecake.
From Luger's we went to The Levee in Williamsburg, a divey bar which allowed pets (our friend brought his golden retreiver Marley) and had bowls of cheese puffs on the counter. There, Molly commandeered the Harley Davidson pinball machine. I can't say I know a lot of about pinball games or that I had ever really evaluated one but, this one was quite amusing. When you ended a level, there was a "magic" number that you had to match in order to proceed or receive another credit for another go-round. Fate was revealed on an orange LED display that showed a zoom-in on the lower back of a biker babe upon which the "magic" number was tattooed. Someone pinch me! We played darts and photo hunt which yielded the most amusing story of our entire trip. I know, you've suffered through eight paragraphs of food drivel but now, it will soon all be worth it. Molly and I took to the photo hunt machine to play naughty naked lady photo hunt. For those who do not know the glorious game of photo hunt, imagine if you will, a touch screen with two photos side by side. The goal is to tap the screen where there are differences between the photos; five differences per pair. Sometimes it's a missing railing on the staircase, sometimes it's a gloved vs. ungloved hand clutching a breast, etc. etc. There is a time limit that speeds up if you just start molesting the screen without accuracy. So there we were, Molly and I, scanning the 80s-cheese nudie photos of women with teased hair reclining on zebra print sofas when behind us appeared an older gentleman stylishly sporting red warm-up gear. He was shorter than the two of us. By way of introduction he said "I love that game" and "I know that machine very well." He seemed cheerful enough. As we continued to play and pick out the discrepancies of green thongs and blue thongs, with every correct pick he let out a restrained yet victorious "Yes." I tried to block him out and Molly later told me that I missed his instructions to us: "Touch it."
Our final day in the city was the most classic New York day. We took the train to 57th street and grabbed bagels from Pick-A-Bagel and headed to Central Park. We watched cyclists yell at pedestrians, pedestrians discuss horse-drawn carriages and a crazy old man riding his be-streamered bike with a tinny sounding cassette deck playing these monstrous classical Russian overtures. From the park, we took a train to the Village to visit Jacques Torres' Chocolate Haven. We picked up treats to bring back to LA and had a frozen hot chocolate which was perfect for the heat. I neglected to mention that for the entire duration of the trip, the weather was sunny and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature was perfect for New Yorkers but sweltering for one particular Angeleno who had been misled by the weatherman to believe that it would be 70 degrees. I had no choice but to buy a dress to combat the steam. We walked to SoHo and the boyfriend sat through a marathon H&M session wherein I asked two sales people for help finding a specific dress after trying unsuccessfully to locate it myself. I found it and after paying for it, immediately stripped in a corner of the men's section and put it on. My skin had never been so grateful.
Our departure was drawing near and to finish off the day, we went to Prospect Park for a barbeque with a few friends. These people did not skimp. Burgers were shaped with raw beef and chopped onions, the cheese for them carved from a block of cheedar. Cobs of corn were roasted. Potatoes were wrapped in foil and baked. Marley was let off his leash and coaxed into the small pond. As he shook off the water, little Puerto Rican children gathered around and shrieked with delight. I was lucky enough to get a photo. We left the park and headed to the airport. As we taxied on the runway, it began to rain. It was as if New York was bidding us a tearful goodbye. See you again soon, NY.
For more photos, click here.
It's been two weeks since I returned from the sweaty city of New York and I haven't stolen a moment to update the blog with tales of cupcake-laden debauchery until now! I've been a very naughty (read: busy) girl. Enough is enough. Let me tell you a tale of Memorial Day.
The boyfriend and I arrived at the crack of dawn on Friday morning and were very generously met at the airport by my friend Ed who dropped us off in Brooklyn at the apartment of our friend Molly, redheaded siren of quick wit and resilient liver. So, while Molly, worker bee that she is, had to spend the day in the office, the bleary-eyed boyfriend and I slept until past noon and headed into the city to pay a quick visit to the newly re-designed and unexpectedly packed for a Friday night at 5:30pm MoMA. One of the reasons I love New York is that people care about art. On the first eve of a long weekend, the museum was crowded with tourists and city folk alike. The art and the patrons were mesmerizing. I only recently learned that museum admission is FREE on Fridays after 4pm (we snuck in using our friend's membership.) This made me feel a tad sheepish. A tad.
After our stop at the MoMa, we met with our friend and kind chauffeur Ed at Aki where we dined on (among other delectable items) tuna mille-feuille: layered slices of fuji apple, avocado and ahi tuna drizzled with a white wine vinaigrette. As we left the restaurant, a woman stopped us to ask about the mille-feuille appetizer. The conversation veered left and right and was surprisingly pleasant. I had long held on to the notion that New Yorkers were strained and indifferent. Perhaps 9/11 has instilled the community with a new sense of camraderie. Or maybe she was in a rare good mood because she got free admission to the Museum of Modern Art.
I'm sad to report that I was not able to eat my way through Manhattan as I had planned. From Aki, we walked to the famed Magnolia Bakery. It was around 10pm and the line was around the corner. FOR CUPCAKES! The boys and I bought a big box of cupcakes and met our friends in SoHo, first at a bar named Bouche and then at ACE named after the subway lines A, C and E. It was there that the innocent looking vanilla cupcake I made out with at Bouche decided to give me, um, let's say "a kick in the pants." I had planned on going to Sugar Sweet Sunshine but never made it there due to my freshly learned response of nausea upon visual confirmation of cupcakes. Psychologists call it "taste aversion" but it's really more like a cruel joke between my carbohydrate desires and my mild intolerance of lactose. It doesn't happen all the time but of all the times it had to happen, it happened on the first day of my gastronomic expedition and it lasted the entire trip.
For the rest of the weekend, food became something of an annoyance. I did make a noble effort to proceed with the same moxie I had on our first day only my enjoyment of our many meals both carefully planned and spontaneously assembled was dampened by a loss of appetite and frequent trips to the restroom. Normally, a belly (of pork), lettuce and tomato sandwich at Saturday brunch would have made me get down on one knee and propose to it. The one I had, although delicious, was so poorly timed that it may have turned me off of bacon forever. A fate worse than death. A spotted dick dessert at a British pub has made custard my enemy. When dinner at Lupa finally rolled around, the nausea had faded but I was exhausted from teetering on the verge of vomiting all day. So I was half-asleep during the meal but actually enjoying bites of food. They served a delectable pickled beet appetizer with pistachio butter which perked me up. I followed it with peppered skate wing on broccoli and a sharp lemon sorbetto. The evening wound down at Vaughn where friends new and old sat around a small table and chatted away scotch on the rocks and beers.
On Sunday, the boyfriend and I ventured to the East Village where we randomly stopped in on a bakery/ panini shop and told his friend to meet us there. The friend showed and I sat listlessly as they talked of college days and new jobs. I was still in the throes of food-hate. I nibbled the boyfriend's proscuitto and mozzarella panini which was incredibly delicious but I just couldn't eat all that much. Another friend of theirs joined the table and I excused myself to go to Herald Square for some solitary girlie time. I shamelessly went shopping at one of my favorite stores in New York, Daffy's. Daffy's is like Loehmann's but eons better and a lot cheaper. It was air conditioned heaven. I thought I had allowed enough time to adequately evaluate each item in the store before having to meet up with the boyfriend but it took multiple calls from him to get me to leave the store and hop a train to SoHo (our meeting spot.) We took the train back to Brooklyn and had dinner at Peter Luger's with Molly and Ed. When we sat down at the table, the waiter essentially told us how much steak we wanted: "steak for four, medium rare, creamed spinach and potato hash on the side." We also got bacon as an appetizer. I was relieved when I ate the entire slab of bacon without fear. The bacon and the steak were delicious. The porterhouse was fatty and juicy and apparently, chosen by wizened Italian ladies who work exclusively for Peter Luger's. They go to the meat market before it opens to other restaurant buyers and they stamp the cuts they deem worthy of the Luger grill. That's some pull, if you ask me. We finished the meal with Ferrara's cheesecake which was fluffy and awesome. One could understand why they call it New York cheesecake.
From Luger's we went to The Levee in Williamsburg, a divey bar which allowed pets (our friend brought his golden retreiver Marley) and had bowls of cheese puffs on the counter. There, Molly commandeered the Harley Davidson pinball machine. I can't say I know a lot of about pinball games or that I had ever really evaluated one but, this one was quite amusing. When you ended a level, there was a "magic" number that you had to match in order to proceed or receive another credit for another go-round. Fate was revealed on an orange LED display that showed a zoom-in on the lower back of a biker babe upon which the "magic" number was tattooed. Someone pinch me! We played darts and photo hunt which yielded the most amusing story of our entire trip. I know, you've suffered through eight paragraphs of food drivel but now, it will soon all be worth it. Molly and I took to the photo hunt machine to play naughty naked lady photo hunt. For those who do not know the glorious game of photo hunt, imagine if you will, a touch screen with two photos side by side. The goal is to tap the screen where there are differences between the photos; five differences per pair. Sometimes it's a missing railing on the staircase, sometimes it's a gloved vs. ungloved hand clutching a breast, etc. etc. There is a time limit that speeds up if you just start molesting the screen without accuracy. So there we were, Molly and I, scanning the 80s-cheese nudie photos of women with teased hair reclining on zebra print sofas when behind us appeared an older gentleman stylishly sporting red warm-up gear. He was shorter than the two of us. By way of introduction he said "I love that game" and "I know that machine very well." He seemed cheerful enough. As we continued to play and pick out the discrepancies of green thongs and blue thongs, with every correct pick he let out a restrained yet victorious "Yes." I tried to block him out and Molly later told me that I missed his instructions to us: "Touch it."
Our final day in the city was the most classic New York day. We took the train to 57th street and grabbed bagels from Pick-A-Bagel and headed to Central Park. We watched cyclists yell at pedestrians, pedestrians discuss horse-drawn carriages and a crazy old man riding his be-streamered bike with a tinny sounding cassette deck playing these monstrous classical Russian overtures. From the park, we took a train to the Village to visit Jacques Torres' Chocolate Haven. We picked up treats to bring back to LA and had a frozen hot chocolate which was perfect for the heat. I neglected to mention that for the entire duration of the trip, the weather was sunny and 90 degrees Fahrenheit. The temperature was perfect for New Yorkers but sweltering for one particular Angeleno who had been misled by the weatherman to believe that it would be 70 degrees. I had no choice but to buy a dress to combat the steam. We walked to SoHo and the boyfriend sat through a marathon H&M session wherein I asked two sales people for help finding a specific dress after trying unsuccessfully to locate it myself. I found it and after paying for it, immediately stripped in a corner of the men's section and put it on. My skin had never been so grateful.
Our departure was drawing near and to finish off the day, we went to Prospect Park for a barbeque with a few friends. These people did not skimp. Burgers were shaped with raw beef and chopped onions, the cheese for them carved from a block of cheedar. Cobs of corn were roasted. Potatoes were wrapped in foil and baked. Marley was let off his leash and coaxed into the small pond. As he shook off the water, little Puerto Rican children gathered around and shrieked with delight. I was lucky enough to get a photo. We left the park and headed to the airport. As we taxied on the runway, it began to rain. It was as if New York was bidding us a tearful goodbye. See you again soon, NY.
For more photos, click here.
posted by Katie at 5:45 PM
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