It's a gorgeous view regardless, but it's even better when it's from a boat on the Manhattan Cocktail Classic Three Hour Tour. Well done, Tippling Point! Photo credit may or may not be Ray Raymond, who is a great deal taller than I am and took some great pics with my camera.
Sorry for the crickets around here, but am enjoying/recovering from the MCC — today's agenda includes Bar Myth Busters, the Official Bar, Into the Mystic, Tequila at Mayahuel, and the Dizzy Fizz Tastemaker's Punch.
#drop10beforetri Sure, the first few pounds were easy, but I knew this dropping 10 pounds thing was not going to be a straight line downwards. I know myself pretty well, and there's one thing for sure — I LOVE FOOD. LOVE. FOOD. This doesn't mean I eat a ton of junk, but it does mean that it is hard for me to pass up tasty, well-made food, even though I know it's caloric. Eating at work or home is easy for me to do in a healthy fashion, but at Eleven Madison Park? I tried, to a point, ordering a salad and the asparagus veloute, but lord knows how much butter and/or cream was in that soup, and then I got the cheese plate, which pretty much used up my points for that day but DAMN IT WAS GOOD CHEESE! And then last night, at the Employees Only cordial launch party, I could only ignore the truffled grilled cheese the first four times it passed by but then I had one. A tiny square of gooey goodness that I couldn't pass up. And frankly, I'm glad I ate it, because it was tasty. Considering how much food waltzed by me last night, I did pretty well, but I did have a snack when I got home. This is tough stuff for me.
So, the scale has reflected my eating for the past two weeks. Since the last update, I gained 0.4 last week and 0.4 again, so a gain of less than one pound in two weeks — not dreadful — but I'd like to get the scale to head back down again. With a trip to Phoenix and the Manhattan Cocktail Classic coming up, should be a disaster cinch.
Drinks and dinner with the beach house ladies, including several out-of-towners, breakfast with Lisa, farmers market, long and windy run, dinner w/Mom & Stephen at the bar at 11 Madison Park, cocktails with Jenn & Emilia at Louis 649, brunch with Sara and Arlan at Sweet Afton, lazy Sunday with laundry, catching up on the DVR, mail sorting, and the Sunday times.
And overall, feeling constantly amazed and blessed about the friends I have in my life. A good weekend, indeed.
There are plenty of things about getting older that I am learning to live with gracefully — grey hair, the emergence of wrinkles (I think of them as advanced laugh lines), and the ungodly amount of thought I put into my daily fiber intake. But shouldn't there be some sort of cosmic balance that ensures that, because of those things, I now no longer have to deal with zits?!? Who do I talk to about getting this fixed?
To add to the list of Things I Will Apparently Never Learn: If you are sick, it is best to take it easy and get plenty of rest, otherwise you will be sick three times longer than you would have if you just took it easy and got plenty of rest. Sigh.
I'm proud to be part of the Serious Eats team — we won a James Beard award last night for best food blog! Woo hoo!
Last year I missed the Derby for reasons I won’t bother getting into, but this year I am all over the juleps. My go-to julep can be found at Blue Smoke, and they make great ones at Eleven Madison Park (at least during the Big Apple BBQ Block Party). I usually drink juleps w/my good friend Rob, who is currently living in London, so I will be sure to drink at least one in his honor — I’ll be at Rye House for their Derby Party (after a bike ride and a run, of course).
The following julep recipe comes from Wild Turkey Bourbon Master Distiller Jimmy Russell. He’s been in the industry for 56 years and has refined his recipe over the years to come up with his version of the perfect mint julep — make a few and drink them regardless of whether or not you actually watch the race!
THE 56 JULEP
2.5 oz. Wild Turkey 101
3 sprigs of mint (six to eight mature-sized leaves)
1.5 teaspoons brown sugar
.5 cup crushed ice
In a traditional silver julep cup or double old fashioned glass, muddle two sprigs of mint with the brown sugar and one ounce of Wild Turkey 101 for a few minutes, crushing the mint leaves with a spoon. Add the crushed ice, the remaining bourbon, and garnish with sprig of mint.
In other julep fun, watch Jason Littrell make a mint julep in this video.
Please stop sending me emails with that damn red exclamation point !. If it's that important, CALL ME — I get hundreds of email per day and no stupid red exclamation point is going to make me read your email first or drop what I'm in the middle of doing to handle whatever it is you're asking me to do.
Thanks for listening. Carry on.
As some of you know, I am a performer. Okay, maybe not for a living or anything, but I was involved in theatre and singing for, well, as long as I can remember, really. Chorus, stage band, musicals, a cappella, bands, cabaret shows — a constant parade of belting it out in front of an audience, from my youngest years to just after law school. Since then, it's been a little tougher to find a way to find performance opportunities. In NYC, either you do it professionally, or you do it catch as catch can. For me, when I'm jonesing for a taste of the stage, it generally means one thing — karaoke. Lucky for my, the city is filled with karaoke bars of every flavor, from private rooms to dive bars where you can sing to your heart's delight. Of course, given my nature, I prefer the more public venues to the private rooms, and I've recently discovered (thanks to @NYCBaby) the joy of live band karaoke, where you get up and sing with a live rock band backing you up. One good dose of "Goodbye to You" with Bunnie England & the New Originals (which I got in last Thursday) and my inner diva is rejuvenated for at least a few weeks (plus that particular song has the added bonus of getting rid of those clingy bits of ex-boyfriend remnants that stick around beyond their welcome). That said, I'm still hitting this up on Sunday, because hey — no one is going to nourish my inner diva except for me!
