Sweet Blog O'Mine

Author: Laren

  • On My New Commute . . .

    • I stopped to say hi to Rick at the Greenmarket in "condiment alley," where he told me that he met someone I know while DJing in his silk pajamas at a bar in the East Village last weekend (does this ring any bells to anyone?).
    • I noticed some very beautiful buildings on 19th between Irving and Third, several with mosaic tiles and a few with NY Public library-esque mini-lions (or other creatures) out front.
    • I fell even more deeply in love with my now-antique iPod (and its shuffle function).

    I’ve decided that "An Open Letter to NYC" by the Beastie Boys is the perfect song to hear on your walk to work
    on a crisp sunny day during the transit strike.  Other favorite parts of my commuting soundrack included "Rapture" by Blondie and "All in a Day" by Joe Strummer and the Mescalaros.  I’m sure if I were more of a techno-dork I could figure out how to link to clips of each of those songs . . . any hints from the dorks experts out there?

    And by the way, I have kept up with my gym regimen on top of my walking to and from work for the past two days, so I’m a bit pooped at the moment.  Off to bed for me.

  • Steeerike!

    Well, I’m about to head off on my 50 minute walk to work — hey, I’ll just bundle up in my Nordic finest and consider it part of my fitness regimen! (There’s a transit strike in NYC, for those of you who aren’t from this neck of the woods).

  • Dem Bones

    At one point, I was convinced that ribs were the perfect food for a first date.  Why?  Well, if I can’t get messy eating with someone, they’re probably not the right person for me.  Every time I eat ribs I think about this, whether I’m on a date or not.  This weekend’s ribs were at Blue Smoke, with Mark, Nicole, Ward, and Rob (who was oddly excited about the prospect of being mentioned on a blog).  Before the actual rib-gnawing began, I introduced the group to Blue Smoke’s fantastic sidecars (thanks as always to John B. for introducing them to me), and then the carnage began. 

    Saturday included a trip to the gym with Katie (which included Ali’s torture devices), some holiday shopping, and dinner with the girls from the beach house at Lima’s Peruvian Taste (which was somewhat hit or miss — skip the sangria, it’s way too sweet).  Katie and I had thought that we were in for a relatively mellow evening, but no.  We ended up at Lisa’s holiday soiree, followed by a requisite stop at Otto, and finished out with general ridiculousness at Automatic Slim’s.

    Yesterday, I spent the day enjoying the hospitality of others.  Between GirlyNYC‘s afternoon get-together and Augie‘s experiments in breadbaking, I enjoyed stellar company, interesting conversation, and excellent food all day before falling into bed early. 

    This is shaping up to be another crazy busy week — between the holiday events and social plans I’ll be sneaking in the rest of my holiday shopping, making toffee, and taking care of the holiday tipping.  I’m thinking of it as the storm before the calm — I’ll be on vacation next week.  Can’t wait! 

  • The Big One

    As I mentioned earlier, I’m giving myself a little jump start on my New Year’s resolutions.  I have also bought myself an early birthday present.  Since I’m approaching a milestone birthday, I have taken some drastic measures to ensure that I hit the second half of my thirties in top condition:  I started with boot camp, and more recently, I’ve kicked it into high gear at the gym since I re-joined NYSC a few weeks ago.  Last week was the coup de grace — I purchased a 20 pack of personal training sessions, two of which I completed last week.

    Ali, my trainer, is huge.  HUGE.  I truly believe that he could eat me for a light snack and still be hungry.  His manner, however, is firm but fair.  He’s pushy, but in a good way, and even laughs at my self-deprecating humor ("no really, there are muscles under that squishy stuff." "I know.  I see them trying to come out.").  Muscles that I never knew existed are sore from last weeks two workouts, and he has given me homework over the weekend.  I have instructions to do cardio, but not just hopping on the elliptical trainer for a while, no sir.  Ali prefers other, more torturous cardio devices, like the stair-stepper with actual stairs, and my arch-nemesis, the Versa-Climber.  I really think he might be out to kill me.

    Tomorrow, spin and yoga, and more of the same next week.  Look out 35 — I’m comin’ to get ya.

  • Homecoming

    The word started spreading yesterday.  "He’s out of Iraq."  "Is he in New York?" "Not sure, but he’s definitely not in Iraq anymore."  Then later: "I have good info that Dave is back." "Really?"  "Heard from the doctor himself." 

    Whew. 

    As you may recall, my friend David was shipped off to Iraq at the end of August.  Last night, he strolled into Otto, a little thinner, but all in one piece.  I can barely express what a relief it was to see him in person and give him a hug, and even something as simple as sharing a bottle of wine with him again felt incredibly special.  Welcome home, David!

  • Cookin’

    In the comments of my last post, Kris asked if I cook supremely.  I’m not sure I cook supremely (you’ll have to ask people who have tasted my cooking — any comments from the peanut gallery?), but I do cook.  In fact, every time I cook I realize that I don’t cook as often as I’d like to.  Why?  Well, first of all, my kitchen is on the small side.  Not bad for a New York apartment, but certainly not spacious.  I like cooking and eating with friends, and although I can just about squeeze in one other person to chop something while I’m at the stove, I can’t really cook with someone.  In my dream kitchen I’ll have a big island where friends can sip wine, nibble, and chop things while I’m doing the same.  Now, I just have people sit in chairs near the kitchen so I don’t feel left out.  Second, it’s really not that easy to cook for one.  Yes, you can cook a large amount and end up with leftovers for lunch and whatnot, which is a good thing (although I have recently met someone who doesn’t eat leftovers.  At all.  I find this very odd.), but sometimes I just end up with a little too much for one meal, but not quite enough for two.  Tonight I made simple steamed mussels with white wine, garlic, and chili flakes — it would have been a perfect meal for two with a salad.  It was too much for just me, and I didn’t really think the leftovers would keep in this case, so I threw them out.  Such a shame. 

    Regardless, I really do want to cook more and eat out less — just one resolution that I’m trying to start a little early.  I’ve also gotten a fantastic coffee mug so that I can bring coffee to work in the morning — resolution number two.  Stay tuned for the next one — it’s a doozy.

  • Go Team!

    Earlier this week, I went out to dinner with my Gothamist Food team to D’Or Ahn, which recently opened in a sleek, narrow, and yet comfortable space  in Chelsea.  As I was sitting down to write about it, I read Youngna’s post, and, to be honest, she described it perfectly, even down to Frank Bruni’s criticism of Lannie Ahn, who couldn’t have been sweeter to us.  Thanks again to my wonderful, amazing, and inspiring team, without whom Gothamist Food wouldn’t survive: Martha, Youngna, Joe, Tamara, and Vittles Vamp (who, sadly, couldn’t join us for dinner).

  • Reason Number 574

    that I’ll never really grow up:  I had planned for a quiet night tonight.  And in my book, it was, indeed, a quiet night.  I ended up going up to Strawberry Fields after work to reflect on the 25th anniversary of John Lennon’s death.  I can’t believe it has been that long — I remember hearing about it on the news as a kid back in D.C.  I had returned home when Nathan called — he is a huge Beatles fan — he has built a huge model of John Lennon’s self-portrait (out of Lego, naturally), and today he received an email from Yoko Ono, extending her praise and thanks for his work.  Pretty amazing.  Anyway, I digress.  I spent some time at home, cleaning up my apartment, sorting through my never ending piles of mail.  I changed into my pajamas and was still puttering around when Augie called from upstairs (he and Lauren live in my building).  He and Rob had just returned from a wine tasting and I he insisted I come up and try the leftovers — no matter that I was in my pajamas.  I went up for about an hour, sipping wine and chatting with Augie, Lauren and Rob, and then headed down to bed. 

    But the thing that went through my mind as I walked down the stairs in my pajamas, was: it’s just like being back in a dorm.  Of course, I meant just the good parts — the padding around in pajamas, impromptu gatherings with friends, and being within a few floors of some of your closest friends.  If only it could stay that way forever  . . .  Well, I’ll enjoy it for as long as I can!

  • Shapin’ Up

    I used to be in much better shape than I am now.  Merely a few short years ago, I participated in several long distance bike rides, and training for these rides meant not only spending a majority of my weekends on a bike, but also going to spinning and weight training classes before work every day.  Even after the cycling season was over, I’d keep up with the spinning and weight training, and I even became quite flexible by doing yoga at least once a week.  At that time, I belonged to New York Sports Club.  It’s nothing fancy, but it’s everywhere.  Near work, near home, near wherever you have dinner plans — there’s a NYSC.  About a year ago, I gave up NYSC for the convenience of the gym in my building.  Granted, it’s amazing to have that convenience on a cold winter’s day when bundling up to go to the gym just a few blocks away seems like an insurmountable obstacle, but in reality, I just don’t push myself as hard as I do in the classes at NYSC.  Since I re-joined on Friday evening, I went to a spin class before brunch at Five Points with the girls on Saturday, I went to Vinyasa Yoga on Sunday before some holiday shopping and my one meal of the day (brunner?) at Babbo (more on that soon — it was my first visit), and went to a body sculpting class during lunchtime today.  Tomorrow is spinning again, either before work or during lunch.  I’m a little tired, and I already know that my shoulders will be sore tomorrow, but I feel good.   For me, the classes really help me to motivate.  Although I worked out often in my gym downstairs, I didn’t work out hard, which is what I need.  So — who’s up for a spin?

  • Feed Me!

    If you read this blog on any even semi-regular basis, you know that I love food.  Not only does it make me happy in many ways and serve as a focus for many of my social gatherings, but it also saves many of those in my life from exposure to some major crankiness.  Reading this article in the New York Times yesterday made me think of so many instances in my life when just having a snack made all the difference between being bitchy, cranky, and snappy and being my rather pleasant, normal self.  I firmly believe that it is always helpful to carry a "cranky snack" around if you suffer from the same affliction — I often tuck away small baggies of nuts or easily packable fruit leather — nibbling on a few almonds can return sanity when it has slipped away due to hunger. 

    When Nathan and I moved in together*, we went to Ikea to shop for a dining table.  It was clear very quickly that we had two completely different ideas about what we were looking for: I wanted a table that could expand to fit more people for all the dinner parties we were going to have; he wanted something as cheap as possible.  If it wasn’t for the Ikea cafeteria and their Swedish meatballs, we probably wouldn’t have made it through that shopping trip (he gets rather cranky when he gets hungry), let alone through well over a year of living together.

    Come to think of it, I’m kind of hungry now .  .  .

    * John B. was kind enough to point out that I made it sound like Nathan and I are currently living together.  We’re not.  That was right after law school — 1997.  We’re still friends, though!