Snow. New York City, 1/27/11, 2:19AM.

In about 6 hours, I will hate the snow.

But right now, nothing is more beautiful.

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August 2nd sensibilities

It’s August now, and so palpably not July.  It’s not quite the end of summer, but I wistfully sense the dwindling of those carefree, floaty, distinctly-summer celebrations.  The big music festivals are over, Hamptons share houses are down to their last few weekends, and drinking wine out of colored plastic cups in Central Park is starting to feel like an endangered pastime… no longer are we safely cushioned between two seasons.  Okay, maybe it’s a bit early to be feeling nostalgic, but I tend to get ahead of myself.  My old boss would call it “managing expectations.”

Suitably, on this lovely second day of August, I am feeling a blend of late-summer-lazy and crisp-autumn-academia:

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My New York

One of the first photos I took with my Canon Rebel XS, and it remains a favorite.  It’s a picture that makes me love New York in the pit of my stomach – the near-hidden basement pottery studio, the random vine of Christmas lights snaking around the railing, the glow of light in the distance, the painted brick wall, the gritty, gray sidewalk lit up by the yellow bike with steely wheels…even the black trash bags that I initially saw as an obstruction, but now embrace as an authentic element of the city’s sidewalks.  It captures the feeling of turning onto a street that you may have walked a thousand times, but for whatever reason, suddenly feels new and uncharted.  I sense that this is a picture I would want to avoid looking at if I ever had to leave New York…

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Cafe Noir at 3 am is a wonderful thing

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Green & Black’s – No, it’s not

I am a chocolate lover,  I really am.  Dark/semi-sweet/milk/caramel-laced/cookie-embedded…even the non-technical variety of white.  It’s simple, really – a melty nub of silky smooth chocolate on your tongue can satiate to your very core.  And when I close my eyes and imagine this, I see milky brown hues, fluid, organic ripples, and soft, muted, neutral shades.

What I don’t see is green and black, and when I see Green & Black’s written on the wrapper of a fine bar of chocolate, my brain starts to cramp from the disconnect.  “Green” and “black” are rigid.  They’re harsh and sharp.  There are no shared tones across green and black and chocolate.  It’s an uncomfortable thought and it makes me enjoy the chocolate less.

I read the story on the website…I get it.  Appreciate the thinking, even.  But I don’t like it- chocolate is such an experiential food, and you don’t want to tamper with that by throwing in seemingly random words of a clashing color palate.  That’s like hanging up a Jackson Pollack next to a Monet.  Or wearing a mink coat over a Gore-Tex sweatshirt.  Wrong, just wrong.

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Rain. New York City, 7/26/09.

In an outrageously out-of-character moment, I loved the rain so much today.  It came down violently and thunderously at around 6pm, and covered the streets in dimpled sheets of glass.  It pounded against the top of my AC unit and swept across my window, loosening specks of black grime that left gray dribbles sliding across the pane.  Across the street at the Chelsea Hotel, someone was taking full advantage, sweeping the grit off her balcony and unleashing a wall of water that poured through the iron-wrought railing and flowed onto the sidewalk.  Lightening illuminated the sky even with the sun still peeking out through the clouds above, and the thunder would crack and resolve into a rolling rumble that seemed to ripple the streams of water that flowed over the streets.  The sky was a marbled hue of slate, navy, dusty cerulean and dove gray.  It was relentless and consuming and so thoroughly cleansing, it was like someone gave New York City a good hard shake of the shoulders.

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Coffee Break

With lousy news comes excellent coffee, because what better way is there to deal? When I find myself in the deepest pits of work-related pessimism, I like to escape to Joe’s at Grand Central and immerse myself in a rich, dark, robust Americano Misto that is topped with a light frothy foam that is branded with an adorably optimistic heart, all created from the hands of my friendly, artistic neighborhood barista. Amazing how coffee and hearts help to put things in perspective.

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The muffin that didn’t deliver

So, I’ve been pretty positive in my blog thus far (save for one passionate expression of disgust). In fact, for those of you who remember Alec Baldwin’s guest appearance on Friends, at one point I feared I was starting to sound like Parker. The truth is that not everything is wine and roses, and it was never my plan to only talk about the good-tasting.

This evening, as I was scrolling through some of the working photos/posts I have in queue, I came across this muffin photo – unviewed, ignored, and evoking feelings of mild irritation from the lackluster impact it left on me when I ate it for breakfast almost 2 months ago. I haven’t had any desire to write about it because there wasn’t anything great to say – and then it dawned on me that I had adopted some strange, unintentional pattern of optimism in my posts. I made the decision right there to feature more objective evaluations moving forward – and I’d begin with Le Pain Quotidien’s Blueberry Muffin.

I was interested in this muffin from the start – I pass by Le Pain Quotidien pretty often and every time I would see those craggly, blueberry-studded mountain caps I was captivated. And to be fair, the rustic, sugar-crusted tops did have a pretty cool texture – but everything else fell flat. There was no life to the taste at all – the blueberries were just there, trapped in a dry batter, deceptively promising in their giant size…but they were deflated, un-punchy…kind of like poor, sagging, day-after-your-birthday balloons.

The crumb had a strange damp-stale texture. Though there was no crumbling – when I broke off chunks they held together fine – it was not moist in a way that yielded any sort of satisfaction. With the whole grains, I knew it was meant to be and taste of a “healthy” sort of muffin – which is fine, I am all for “healthy” – but it so lacked the fresh, sprightly taste that one expects from wholesome, healthy ingredients that I just found myself feeling annoyed at the thought of all the delicious muffins in this city that I could be eating instead. When it comes to baked goods, the opportunity cost can be high.

Though I was disappointed that they didn’t deliver, in my own sick way I was slightly relieved because the last thing I need is another baked good to get hooked on.

Le Pain Quotidien

124 7th Avenue (between 17th & 18th)

New York, NY 10011

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In temporary support of superficiality

I tried, I honestly tried to look past appearances. Rewind to about 1 month ago when I began craving the citrus taste of oranges out of nowhere – I remember standing in front of the display trying to establish selection criteria for a fruit that I didn’t have much buying experience with, and becoming increasingly disturbed by the mutant growth(s) at the base of the fruit. EWW. The disgusting lumpy balloon-ish sacs pushing up against the tough, dimpled skin of the orange…ugh, it was becoming too much to handle. (I actually have an issue with bulbous textures in general, undoubtedly related to my aversion to dots i.e., Shel Silverstein drawings).

Over the next few weeks, I tried my best to select the least mutant-like oranges I could find, but I couldn’t help feeling guilty about being so superficial. So when I found myself in front of the orange display yesterday evening, I became fueled by a sudden desire to disprove my theory and went for one that was truly cringe-worthy. I mean, I seriously averted my eyes and tried to focus instead on the seemingly “firm-but-with-a-nice-give” squeeze factor. I tried to convince myself that maybe this would be the best of the bunch – it would be shockingly sweet, with turgid pulp ready to burst open and release its juicy delightfulness. I was so excited for my shallow assumptions to be shattered…

I’m not going to go into the details of how horrifyingly disgusting this orange turned out to be. Let’s just say that those extra “growths” that you see in the picture probably indicate that this orange was way past its ripe stage. I felt tremendously relieved that in this case, judging a book by its cover wasn’t without merit. Turns out I wasn’t an unjustified asshole, after all.

P.S. I can’t get myself to make this post’s picture as large as they are in the others. Click on the the thumbnail, if you dare, for a closer look.

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Emotional eating…the good kind

So, I realize that this isn’t exactly a proud (or healthy) statement for many, but I really love emotional eating. Not the kind where you have a pint of ice cream melting away in your lap as ballads play in the background…no, I’m talking about the kind where you’ve been sick for 2 days and when you finally get your appetite back, the only thing that makes you feel better is food that reminds you of warm, happy times of the past. Ok, so maybe the ice cream scenario isn’t all that different, but this story ends with me feeling good about myself – not angry and fat.

I’ve spent the past 2 days in bed, getting up only to heat up some canned soup – which actually wasn’t that bad. In fact, warm soup was really the only thing that made my throat feel better. But 2 days of soup is boring, and so tonight, when I finally started to feel like I might be able to try some normal food, I knew I’d be ordering in from Kofoo, the tiny, hole-in-the-wall Korean place on 8th Avenue. Nothing would hit the spot better than some good, clean, tasty Korean food that could easily have been made from the hands of my mama.

One order of Bulgogi Kimbap is a hefty enough portion. You get 12 rolls: carrots, cucumber, daikon radish, egg, marinated beef (bulgogi) and sticky white rice, all tightly bound in a thin, shiny sheet of toasted gheem (aka nori/laver). Kimbap is great for people who like to get a little bit of everything in one bite…or people who are obsessed with making everything come out even…like me. You get neat, tasty little packages that so follow the rules of the nutrition pyramid: rice? check. veggies? check. meat? check. sparing oils? check (from the sesame oil that’s brushed on top of the gheem). ok, no dairy, but sorry, there ain’t alot of dairy in Korean food. Plus, they’re just pretty with all the colors blooming from the middle. They even subconsciously compel you to form the shape of a flower when you arrange them on a plate, look:

i think the eggs are smiling at me…

FYI, consider this a preview to upcoming posts on some seriously good Korean food – going home next week and I believe there is some kimchi being prepared as I type this.

 

KOFOO

334 8th Avenue (between 26th & 27th Streets)

New York, NY 10001

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