Monday, January 14, 2008

Heavenly Brooklyn Eats.

Adam and I enjoyed a really wonderful weekend, and now I'm back at work looking back on it all. I thought I would get some of this down before the morning really starts. So, Friday after work Adam met me in Greenwich (I drank a very good raspberry stout in a nearby bar while I waited for his arrival) and ate some delicious Greek food. We got home and I sort of crashed because of a killer headache. The next morning we got up and ate a delicious breakfast of two eggs over easy, a chunk of La Vache Qui Rie cheese (otherwise known to Americans as Laughing Cow cheese), and a slice of fresh French bread with proscuttio on it. Mmmm. Then we struck out on a Brooklyn walk suggested by Time Out New York called "The Other 5th Avenue." Basically, you start out near us on Brooklyn's own 5th avenue and walk about 6 miles to the end of it at the southwestern tip of Brooklyn. We didn't quite get that far, (we only walked about 3.5 miles of it) but it was really a GREAT trip.

You start out in prime Park Slope, one of the nicest neighborhoods Brooklyn has to offer. Boutiques, dozens of restaurants and bars line the streets offering basically any food or goods you could ask for. We stopped for brunch at a Peruvian restaurant where, for a mere $9.95, we ate the most amazing food in the universe. (Aside from home-cooked meals, of course.) With this deal, you got bottomless coffee or tea, a cocktail of your choice and a meal. Adam chose tea, a passionfruit and champagne cocktail, and a pita sandwich with turkey and avocado, topped with a fried egg. I chose a mojito, and roasted chicken with saffron rice and black beans, a small salad and fried plantains. Now, it doesn't sound like much, but this food was so delicious that it made me cry. It really, really did. I started getting all choked up eating this wonderous chicken, and began professing my undying love and appreciation to Adam whilst sniffling and chewing in complete ecstacy. I kid you not. It was really good. You can see some pics of it on our photosite.

We walked some more and saw lots of fascinating things, until we reached the Greenwood Cemetery, possibly the largest cemetery in creation. You may thing, ew, why would you want to go to a cemetery? But seriously, this place is amazing. Created in 1838, its rolling hills and wooded glades take up over 470 acres in southern Brooklyn. Its every nook is covered with huge statuary, mausoleums, and other amazing structures that you have to see to believe. Adam and I actually want to go back and explore the place more, its really a wonderful place to get away from the noise of the city and be lost among the trees and winding stone paths. Pictures are also available of this.

We made our way home after that, and took only a quick stop to feed the cats before leaving again for Hell's Kitchen to meet Charles for dinner. We ended up noshing on some Ethiopian fare, which, if you've never had it before, comes in an enormous plate for the entire table, and the bits of food you order are placed on top of a sourdough tasting bread called Injera. You need no utensils, because you use the flat Injera (they give you lots of extra) to scoop up the food and eat it. Very spicy and tasty. After that, we had some cupcakes at Amy's Bakery nearby, where I got a crazy sugar high and started talking about the dangers of being run over by bikers and crushed by elevator doors. Lots of fun. We also visited Charles' apartment, and he took us up on the roof to admire the view of midtown Manhattan.

Sunday was much more laid back, full of running at the gym, food buying and cooking, cleaning house and writing theses. A really, really nice weekend. And next weekend we're getting a visit from none other than The Ben, The Nat and The Dave! Get ready y'all!

Wednesday, January 9, 2008

Two Etudes

Okay, so as you know I've been practicing cello for about 4 weeks now, with a week skipped for the holidays. My Mom requested a video presentation of how I'm doing so far, so last night I did just that and posted it on YouTube. Now, keep in mind, it is by no means fantastic. It's sorta out of tune and awkward, but I'm damn pleased with being able to play something even resembling a song after only 4 weeks. Check it out!

Meech On Cello.

Monday, January 7, 2008

Hello, 2008.

It is truly amazing and somewhat disturbing how quickly time passes. And how smoothly two people can trade in one life for another, wildly different one without feeling strange and alien in it. On our way to the small New Year's Eve gathering that we attended in the Lower East Side, Adam asked me, "Can you believe that we live here now?"

I looked around me, at the motley crew of people walking along the streets, at the cracked sidewalk, at the spotted bananas being sold out of a cart in front of racks holding Brooklyn t-shirts and Yankee caps, at the green globes in front of us that heralded the entrance to the subway, looked at them with a certain familiar fondness, and said, "Yes. No." I breathed the cold night air. I felt the road under my feet as I walked. "Yes."

It's weird. You change your life in a big way like that, and you end up changing yourself in a big way, too. But you don't really feel it until it's already done. There are things I take as normal now that probably would have made me screw up my face in disgust/horror/confusion/annoyance back then, and things that I have now that make me so happy that I can't really imagine not having it anymore. Perspectives, standards, expectations...sometimes they're as constant as the wind.

The holidays were fun, relaxing, and reflective, in a way. This would be our first year starting out as New Yorkers. Back when we were thinking about moving here, rolling it around experimentally in our mouths to see how it tasted, we figured, well, if it doesn't work out after a year, we can always come back. If you don't like the taste, you can spit it out, no problem, no harm done. At least you gave it a shot. This was our fallback. This made things less scary, less permanent. But now...we got a taste of New York and in a show of complete reckless abandon, we swallowed. We let New York in. And now it's part of us. And that is both totally comforting and scary as hell. We're going to have a home here, give birth here, raise kids here, make memories here, lots of them. How crazy and impossible and wonderful, isn't it? That's New York for you.

So here's the play-by-play of our holiday break, hijinks and all.

Christmas in Pittsburgh
Our flight to PA was shockingly unremarkable (aside from the fact that Adam and I got up at 3:30 in the morning). I expected delays and long lines and was pleasantly surprised by a painless check-in and a prompt and comfortable flight on JetBlue. I was singing their praises by the time we landed. (Tune in for our less fortunate trip back to New York...) Mom and Pop Corpora were waiting for us in the airport and we were whisked back to the house in their environmentally-friendly Prius, where we passed out for a couple hours rest. That night we shared a lovely dinner with Aunt Cheryl and Uncle Denny, as well as Grandma Rihn, Lorraine and Joe. Afterwards, Adam, Grandma, Dad and I drove up to Zelienople to see Aunt Diane and Uncle Bill. While Uncle Bill and Adam discussed mutual funds and stock investments, the rest of us drank white wine and ate crackers and hummus.

Christmas Eve was quite relaxing, and we ended the day by attending mass at North American Martyrs Church. It was a very nice service, and the priest, Father Tom (former trucker and football lover) and his father came to dinner to eat Mom's seven fishes (which were: tuna dip, fried calamari, fried smeltz, shrimp cakes, bakala salad, crab raviolis, and baked salmon). Father Tom greeted me with his usual "Shalom! Mazel tov!" and the night began. Everything was delicious. Mom laughed at me when I started snooping around the gifts.

Perhaps the most memorable part of the day was when I made soup. I decided it would be nice for me to contribute to the food so I thought I would make one of my favorite soups, Spinach Marscapone Soup. It's a mild, delicious and warming soup, and quite green. Easy to make, too. Not too many ingredients. All was going well until the final step...blending. I poured the softened veggie mix into the blender, put my hand on top and switched the knob to ON. Now, usually, switching the machine to ON does not actually cause it to start blending, that happens when you push MIX or STIR and so on. Well, this blender had different ideas.

It exploded, pretty much. I yelped as hot spinach erupted out of the blender onto my hair, face, pajamas, feet, eyeglasses, and, worst of all, all over a large portion of the kitchen. I spluttered and gasped and was positively mortified. Here I was, trying to prove my culinary prowess, and suddenly I am covered in spinach. Mom took it all in stride and helped me mop up the place, and went to give that blender the what-for...after which the blender maliciously exploded all over her, too. And the kitchen. Again.

At this point, I started to giggle. It was sort of funny, after all. What better soup to explode all over the kitchen than a green one? We mopped it up again, tried it again with drastically less soup, and it was fine. It actually turned out to be pretty delicious, after all. Thank goodness. That night, Dad and I built a mighty fire in the fireplace which I happily roasted myself beside. Mmm.

Christmas morning! We all woke up around 9 and waited for Lorraine and Joe to arrive in their pajamas. They came in at 10 on the dot, and we started opening gifts. I got a gorgeous hand-knit neckerchief from South Africa (Dad just went there on business a couple months ago) and stuff to start my first bonsai garden! Two books about raising bonsai, a set of professional Japanese tools, a little ornamental man, and money for my first tree. I read a lot of the books already and am planning to purchase one in spring, to avoid the tricky dormancy season. Adam was led on a clever scavenger hunt around the house until he found his gift, an acoustic guitar! He was thrilled. Now we both have a new instrument to learn.

So, it was great. The family visited throughout the day. The next night we went with Devi and her cousin Narsa (sister and cousin of Adam's old friend and neighbor Jayaram) to Lorraine and Joe's apartment for a little holiday bash. Narsa's awesome Dad gave me a book from Strand, and told us how much he missed living in New York. It turned out to be an incredible book, I'll need to write about it in the book blog. Anyway, Lorraine and Joe's was fun, full of an incredible variety of people. And that was pretty much our trip.

Coming home was quite a hairy process. First of all, our plane was about 30 minutes late. That turned into 45 minutes late. When we boarded the plane, we taxied around a bit until the pilot said, "Bad news everyone, we're not going to take off for another HOUR." Gaahhhh.....happily, it was only actually another 20 minutes before we took off. We got to New York and then circled around it for about 30 minutes, finally landing at 9:30. We managed to get out of the airport with our luggage around 10:00, then took the airtrain to the subway...hoping to be home around 11. Boy, didn't we think ourselves lucky when the subway was making local stops? There we were, standing in front of the doors as the train stopped at our station, having visions of home, and...the doors didn't open. The train left. So did all of my hopes and dreams. Sigh. We ended up walking from the next stop over, about 5 or 6 blocks, until we got home and our arms fell off. They really did. But at least we were home.

Relaxation and New Year's
This is a super-long post. Oh, well. At least I'm thorough. So Adam and I supremely enjoyed the following days, lazing about and doing stuff we liked. I managed to start my thesis (gasp!) and I'm currently at 8 pages, which to me is virtually a miracle. We shopped and ate stuff and started running at the gym. Fantastically wonderful things, all. New Year's was to be spent in the company of Vicki, Gwen and friends on the Lower East Side, starting at an Italian ristorante and then to a British-styled bar called the Telephone Bar. It was a lovely evening. We all wore silly hats and drank a lot of wine. I had a really great Belgian white ale that everyone else hated. We made honky sounds on noisemakers. We counted down to the New Year with a ka-zillion other people. I got a photo of the last second of 2007. Check it, and all the other new photos out on our photosite. Happy New Year everyone.

Everything else has been lovely since then. I made some great food this weekend, including a brilliantly good Indian Carrot Soup. It may be my new favorite. Oh, and I have my very first callous on my finger. I am truly a musician now.

Send some love!