Food Trucks are in Fashion

 Sunday, the same aunt that lives in Brooklyn took me to the food truck rally at Prospect Park. I was so excited - I follow most of them on Twitter but they're all over the city and it's hard for me to get to them on my lunch break. There were about 15 trucks, two of which I had tried already (Bistro Truck and Cupcake Stop)

 First order of business was to try the lobster roll at Red Hook Lobster Pound . I liked the sandwich fully, except I would have liked the lobster to be chopped up more, isntead of 5 large pieces of lobster. Next stop was Wafels and Dinges where my Aunt got the mini-wafelini, sat under a tree and was in HEAVEN. Our friend Tony got the bbq pulled pork wafel which was great since we love pulled pork, but it got the wafel all soggy. If you don't mind soggy wafel, go for it! I got the bacon and syrup wafel, the bacon and syrup were baked in. It was fantastic. I love bacon. They were finished at that point, but I just HAD to get the CoolHaus Ice Cream Sandwich truck. Amanda and I were talking about it at my last visit and I'm sad that she was on vacation so she couldn't try it! I was wearing white pants (causing me to lean over in a distraught way to eat my chocolate ice cream which was melting seriously from the heat) but this was a necessity. I opted for the chocolate chip outer, with nutella toasted almond ice cream!! WOAH. I wish I had more time to enjoy it but it was melting all over my hands. It was a real hot day. Tony is convinced that gourmet food trucks are yupie food, so he took us to "The Hook" (red hook) where there are Latin American food trucks, and we got fried bananas (dolces!) and a pork tamale. It was like cornmeal with pork inside. Then I was stuffed. Aunt Pat and I then waited on this long line for quesadillas to take home (yes I had some oops) and talked about our family and how it would be great for her to write a memoir on them. I would love to read that and hope she does it. The Hook was packed full of people eating, playing soccer and going to the pool. The worst part about visiting my family in Brooklyn is leaving.

I'm Back on the Block

  Hey Dolls! Sorry I have been kept away from the blog since June! Well, we're smack in the middle of summer and it's a hot one today in New York. I'm so thankful today is a summer friday so I get out at 3pm. The week surprisingly flew by, as is summer - we have 5 weeks left until Labor Day and I haven't been to the beach once! My only beach days are the weekend, and this summer my weekends have been jam packed with events. Let's see...what have I been up to?

  I've been spending a lot of time in Brooklyn at my cousin Amanda's house. I have some family there and they all live in apartments next door to each other, so it's like a family version of Melrose Place. We often discuss having a reality show titled 'Court Street' about the day to day. It's so comical and with outside characters from the neighborhood, I think it would be a hit! No matter what we do, it's always so nice for the family to be together. We love food so we usually eat out a lot. Here are some places we eat: Dizzy's Diner in Park Slope, Francesco's of Brooklyn where we get delicious grandma pizza with mozzerella and prosciutto, Seersucker , 12th Street Bar and Grill , Osteria Il Paiolo by the waterfront in Williamsburg, Morris Truck and many other places.

   On a recent visit, I took the F-train from Union Square to Carroll Street and picked up some vodka and Baked by Melissa ( I really enjoyed the July monthly -Fireworks) to take to my cousin. We had iced capuccinos, Francesco's pizza (Ashlan adores pizza and does a pizza chant) and then Amanda and I got ready to go to the 12th Street Bar and Grill to meet her friend Suzann for her birthday. Suzann is fabulous and knows the whole world so the place was packed with friends. It was nice to go out with my cousin. However, you know me and my love for meeting wackadoos - I wound up getting a marriage proposal from this old guy from the neighborhood, Frank, who was sicilian. He told me I was the only woman who ever understood his sense of humor and he needed to marry me although he wouldn't have more kids. Wackadoo. I introduced him to my cousin because aside from his abrupt proposal, he was saying things and making faces and being an all out lunatic and I knew someone had to see him to believe him. He was a very nice man but i'm sure he had too much to drink and is a crazy. I wound up telling him that Amanda and I were the same age, and we have boyfriends at home sharpening their knives waiting for us to come home. That scared him off! In the end, when he left, he shook my hand, told the bartender to give Amanda and I a drink on him, and said thanks for the company. I always seem to befriend these nuts but he turned out nice.
Next, I met this guy Mark who is friends with Suzann. he had sockless loafers on (love) and was tall and had a smooth voice with a great smile. In the dark he was hot. In the pictures next day, not so much. We talked about restaurants and other things, and he was a very good conversationalist, which I like. It also turns out that he used to live near me. He wanted to take me out next week, and he actually did call but we never wound up making plans. I met a whole bunch of other nuts that were there for the birthday, a fake professor and some of Amanda's friends from work who I really liked. Back at home, Keither and I hung out and listened to music and wound up going to bed at 7am!!! I haven't gone to bed with the sun since college.
  Saturday, we took my cousin's adorable daughter Ashlan to Prospect Park and I caught her follwing what this older boy did on the playground - she's already eyeing those boys! Amanda's husband Jason got dumplings from The Rickshaw Truck and his cousin Keith and I got AMAZING grilled cheese from the Morris Truck. It was so hot out and we were chugging water by the gallon. We got home and chose a place to eat, and decided on Il Paiolo. I got a margarita with Pappardelle al Cioccolato al Ragu di Cinghiale e Verdure - chocolate pappardelle pasta with wild boar ragu and vegetables. I also got prosciutto and melon as an appetizer and had some of Keith's Lobster Gnocchi in tomato sauce. We were stuffed. Ashlan leads a cool life - she dresses like us and eats what we eat. Williamsburg is a very happening place, especially on a summer Saturday at dusk. To my surprise, this girl Dana who I used to work with passes by the window with her boyfriend!! She lives on LI like me. I shot out and called her name and we had a joyous reunion. When we got back to the apartment, we all tried to watch Despicable Me (I want the little girl with the brown eyes and brown hair!!) but I fell asleep.
  Sunday, my whole Brooklyn family came to Long Island for brunch at Riverbay . There were 12 of us. Then everyone came back to our house for dessert and chit chat. Our neighbor Jerry and his two daughters and wife came over and the guys started drinking scotch and smoking cigars. The sun was perfect, and everyone had a great time with numerous laughs.

White Pants = Start of Summer

So now that summer is here, I wear my white pants. I love white jeans, white pants, white in the summer. Having Memorial Day off and a 4-day work week makes me think (makes everyone think) that we should have 3-day weekends al the time. What day would be best, no Fridays or Mondays? I think we are all much more productive during the week and show up bright-eyed and rested on Monday. Or will it be Tuesday?

I've been rollerblading in the school parking lot by my house everyday for about 30 minutes. I feel SO good after, and I actually look forward to it. Along with eating less, and making smart meal choices (I am always less hungry in the summer anyway) I have noticed a significant change in my body, energy, and mood. The past few weeks have been great. I'm making more train friends, more office building friends, and I have nothing to complain about!

On Friday, Kay and I got sandwiches/sushi from Garden of Eden on 14th and ate them in Union Square Park on the steps. I bought a jar of nutella also and I'm embarassed to say the whole thing was gone by Saturday night. It's just so delicious. I've noticed myself getting some freckles and a little bit of color from sitting/walking around outside. That's usually how you get the best sun. Kay and I sat in the sun on Friday and watched all the USQ park crazies doing their thing. There was a zumba/cha cha class behind us with young women dressed in black pants and white tank tops- we thought it might be a flash mob! Then this short, scrawny guy in a huge basketball jersey was carrying the BIGGEST boom box I have ever seen. I don't know how he carried it. The greenmarket was packed and the flowers are gorgeous, the food and herbs smell so good. It makes you want to cook.

Saturday my neighbor Jessica had her babyshower at an Italian restaurant in my town. Her and her husband, and her mother moved away a few years ago but are still very much involved with their friends on LI. She's having a boy named Carter in August, and the theme was Owls. We had a delicious owl cake - yellow cake with blue and red fondant and a huge rice krispies model of an owl at the top. It always seems though, that party rooms for these kinds of events are always too small for the amount of people invited.

Sunday my parents went to a Gritalian wedding (Greek and Italian) at a Marina in the Bronx so I intensely spring cleaned my room while listening to tunes and eating Texas toast. I de-cluttered a little and dusted. I even cleaned my mini-blinds. It was not as annoying as I expected. The wedding was crazy with tons of courses, fresh mozzarella being made at the cocktail hour, fireworks, delicious food and tons of pastries. They had fun and it lasted all night.

I was rested and ready for Monday, surprisingly!!

Flying Kites for Lung Cancer

Memorial Day weekend was so relaxing. Summer Fridays started at the office, meaning we get out at 3pm each Friday of the summer until Labor Day. But since it was a holiday weekend, we got out at 1pm!! The LIRR/Penn Station was packed with commuters headed home to Long Island, and vacationers taking the train to JFK, the Hamptons, Montauk, and Jones Beach. It was a fight to the death to get a seat, which there weren't many of due to the huge suitcases and duffel bags people brought on with them. I luckily got a seat. 

I rollerbladed for a little after getting my car washed and then went to bed early. Saturday morning I drove to Southampton and went to a big lunch my boss was hosting at her house. Her family has a charity called Uniting Against Lung Cancer and later that day, hundreds of people were expected to show up at Cooper's Beach to fly a kite for the cause. Since everyone migrated to the Hamptons Thursday and Friday, my ride out was just under an hour, an hour of the same long, sceneless road. Upon entering the Hamptons, a fog started to set in, and there was haze everywhere. The beach was windy and hazy, but people started to show up. The kite fly started at 4pm and ran until 6pm. WHEM, a radio station out there, broadcast from the beach and had games and contests. There were free water bottles and Tate's cookies, which surprisingly, I only had one of. My hair was flying all over the place and it was a little cool but it was nice to be able to celebrate the start of summer. We had a great turn out and raised a ton of money for the organization!

Here are some pictures of me and the event-volunteers taken by Lifetime Photography.

 

Madison Square Eats!!

  My friend and Tridelt sister Kay and I went to to Mad Sq Eats today for lunch. It's located in the square adjacent to the park on the west side of Broadway and 23rd Street. It was such a sunny New York thing to do and I feel like we should have been in the midst of filming a romantic comedy. On the way there shed waved to a bike riding Statue of Liberty. Our first stop was Asia Dog where Kay got the vihn dog, and I got the pulled pork sammy. We both love our hot dogs, but the ones I deemed safe to try were already sold out. Perhaps I will have to go back! It was so nice to get out for lunch and talk with a girlfriend, since we're all so busy usually lunch is just done solo. After our delicious lunch at a coveted table, Kay was sweet and got cannolis from Stuffed Artisan Cannoli for her office and I got a blackberry mint ice pop from People's Pops. The man who worked at People's Pops complimented me on my pink cotton dress and it made me so happy! I like when people make you feel good :) The cannolis reminded me of ones I read about in Kelsey's Italiano Blog, although those were in Italy. Hey, this booth was near Eataly...

  It was a great way to spend the day before summer's kick-off weekend.

It also appears that not only do I have the three musketeers (Ramish, Tony and Manuel) downstairs, but Alice and Connie (from 201) and now a new friend Seth from 204. We met in the hallway today and he's from Long Island also! Yay for new office building friends.

Iconic Fashion

I wish there was more of this elegance in the world.

reblogged from Bourbon and Pearls: An evening gown from Madame Grès in 1954

Wild Subway Ride

We're all wearing dresses and sandals, and soon white pants will make an appearance (at least for those who haven't already broken the no white before Memorial Day rule). You all know how much I love cupcakes and how I travel on my lunch break to different cupcake shops around the city. There is one I knew about but was reminded by from my LIRR-friend Bert's food blog (Phoodographs and Finds), called Little Cupcake Bakeshop. There are two locations, one in Brooklyn and the other in SoHo.

Since it's so nice out, I decided to go there on my lunch break, Prince Street on the N or R Train.
SoHo seems to always be crowded no matter what, but going west from the subway stop, it was more shady and tree-lined, and not so congested - really cute. I passed two restaurants I would love to try soon, one is called Soho Park and the other, right across the street, is called Delicatessan. They're casual chic restaurants with doors opening out to sidewalk patios, and both were hoppin'! I get on the 6 train at Union Square- it's weird they have moving plates on the floor because the trains are at a tilt, and there's a HUGE "mind the gap" worthy hole between the train and the platform. When the train stops the plates shoot under the train so people can get on and off! - and it says it's going to the Brooklyn Bridge...I know there are more stops before that so I thought I was ok. Turns out the train flew past all the other stops and ended up at the Brooklyn Bridge stop. Luckily Broadway and the R was just a short block away from there and so I made it to Soho, and walked to the cupcake shop!! The girl was lovely, we had a conversation about how she is sick of wearing sweats to work, I'm sick of wearing jeans to work, and we are both glad it's time for dresses!

I decided on a blue velvet cupcake since it was one I have never tried before. Its a mix of blueberry and cream cheese frosting, kind of like eating a smurf! It was PERFECT. Soft, full of flavor, the icing was the perfect consistency, and that was a great flavor too - not too creamcheesey. And I made it back to the office on time. Snaps!

(Enjoy some summer tunes- my friend Katie and I love this song: Corrs- Summer Sunshine)



Gold!! ....and other things

   As much as I have tried to fight it, not only have I become a coffee girl, I've become a Starbucks coffee girl. It's a relatively new thing, within the past year or so, that I have used a sweet iced coffee to cool me down, to save me from the doldrums, from falling asleep. I've embarassingly enough, gotten to know all of the workers in the Starbucks by my office in Union Square, one of three! In November I registered a Starbucks card and since then, it's been a total competition with myself to get those 30 stars. A few weeks ago, I hit gold!!!! I'm almost to my first free drink. Yesterday I came home and my gold card was waiting in the mail. It's so pretty and it has my name printed on it. Maybe we should write a press release at work about me claiming this awesome "piece of real estate" haha.

  Yesterday was so humid and my shoes were literally sticking to my feet, and it was terribly painful. I have to find a a cheap, pretty pair of those convenient roll up flats they sell for women. I went to the record store during lunch again, where the A/C was full blast...aahhh :) I looked through their $2 bins and found mostly old Barbara Streisand, Diana Ross and unheard of bands, but I hit gold again when I was at the end...the debut album by Boston. I originally heard about them through the CW show Supernatural, because Sam and Dean love to listen to this type of music on the road to their ghost hunts. For $2, it was so worth it, and Peace of Mind/More Than a Feeling never sounded better than they did on the turnstile. I love browsing the record store, it makes me feel like i'm in the Vinyl Crocodile from American Dreams.

  On the way back to the office, the Sabras hummus truck was there handing out free hummus samples with bags of Stacy's Barely Naked chips. YUM. The perfect combo of salt, texture and crunch was a nice afternoon surprise snack. Paired with my iced coffee of course. I also walked past this crazy woman on a bike with a basket full of junk yelling "don't raise a fist, be a species-ist".On the subway ride home, this man in a suit rambled on about how he lives in the subway and the MTA gave him this suit so he can preach to the riders about his careers. Then someone gave him money. I wonder if these people wake up and decide to be a crazy ranter, or its spontaneous.

Blue York City Building

http://elianatomas.blogspot.com/

Thought this photo I found on the blog (link above) was the epitome of "blue york city!"

Rumors

To all of you out there: I'm a Gleek.

The show that everyone has been watching for two seasons has finally seeped into my TV schedule. I caught the Glee season two marathon on Oxygen this Saturday, and I was hooked. I DVR-ed the whole second half of season two becasue I was in the city all day. The show is perfect. There's something about it that gives you a feeling you can't describe. I can't wait to watch the first season (what is a good place to do that?) and first half of season two.

One of the episodes I really enjoyed was the one where they sang Fleetwood Mac. I'm not what you would call a "fan" of the band, but everytime their songs come on, I get happy. I love the dusty sound of music from the seventies. Kristin Chenowith, of course, is amazing in the show and did a great job performing "Dreams", but I especially enjoyed Quinn and Finn singing "I Don't Want To Know". So much that I listened to the song on repeat throughout my commute yesterday!! What a Fleek. (Fleetwood Geek).

Since I dusted off my parent's old record player a few months ago, I decided to search for the Rumors album, which was the album featured in that episode of Glee. The crackle of vinyl is amazing. That is where the songs sound best. Yesterday during lunch I came upon this awesome record store called Secondhand Rose Records on 12th and Broadway. It's 2 blocks from my office so you can be sure I will be back many times. It's a narrow store that is filled with shelves of records, crates of records stacked on top of each other, and a very fun, knowledgeable store keeper. He found a few copies for me ranging from $25 to $40, but I saved the more expensive, dust cover clad copies for the real collectors. I loved looking through all of the baskets of 45's and 33's, wondering who owned these records and the life they lived before they came to sit in this store.

After almost forgetting the album on the train due to a distraction by a converstaion with a fine as wine older man and a chef, I played the record all night. If only my family would break into random song like the kids on Glee.

Happy "End of the World Day".....

 That's great it starts with an earthquake...

R.E.M's- End of the World as we Know It

Reader, Reader

Since I commute to Manhattan each day for work, I have an hour each way to catch up on my reading. I have always loved to read, and in college, I didn't have much time for outside reading. But now I devour about 2-3 books a week, which is fabulous!! I rent them from the library or share them with friends so I don't have to spend $20 on each story.

Summer is coming and everyone is looking for that great beach read. I've read tons of them and they are all very similar- some kind of love story in the Hamptons involving some sort of designer item of clothing. Yawn.

Here are two of my picks, and also my favorite two books in my life so far!
1. Summer Sisters by Judy Blume - a story about love, friends, and choices made during summers on Martha's  Vineyard.


2. Lucia Lucia by Adriana Trigiani - a story about family, love and New York based in the 50's.

Let me know whatyou think!

Share your favorite books with me :)

Cupcake Friday

In honor of a rainy friday in the city, I decided to treat myself to Baked By Melissa! .  It's this cupcake shop which has an assortment of cupcakes such as red velvet, tye-dye, S'mores, mint, chocolate pancake, etc, plus a cupcake of the month. These cupcakes are the size of a quarter, which is the perfect size. Lately, I have been venturing all over Union Square and the Village testing out cupcakes and talking about them all with my twitter friend, @uhlisuhann . I have yet to try Sprinkles, the LA based cupcakery which recently arrived in Midtown Manhattan.

I got the tye-dye, red velvet, and my favorite, S'mores. They were gone in four bites! Yum.

This comes after getting yummy pizza at Little Italy pizzeria on University Boulevard, where I could watch New Yorkers and see the rain through the open front. I started reading the third installment of the Hunger Games, Mockingjay. Have any of you read the books?

My First Post!

I run across so many beautiful, interesting and heartwarming blogs every so often and I always wanted to try to create my own. I think once I get the hang of it, hopefully it will be as lovely as all of yours! :)