Sweet Blog O'Mine

Category: Fun

  • Good Thing I Stayed in Friday


    Siberia Signage

    Because Saturday started early  with a gym date — spin and yoga with Kim — and then on to our "first Saturdays" brunch with the girls.  We get together for brunch on the first Saturday of each month (this was our third month), drink bloody marys, catch up, talk about boys, laugh our heads off, then head out for more of the same.  Yesterday we drank umpteen bottles of champagne at the Pink Pony after a delicious brunch at Essex and laughed so hard that a neighboring customer kept coming over to check in on us and see what was so funny. 

    After our 5 1/2 hour brunch, I had to take a nap before meeting Mark for his friend Rob’s birthday pub crawl.  Although we didn’t arrive in time for a drink at the Holland Bar, we were able to spend quality time at Siberia (where I found this awesome sign), Rudy’s, and Smith’s.  It made me look forward to John’s East Village Dive Bar Crawl, which I know is coming up sometime soon. 

    Today I slept late, cleaned house, did some laundry, and made a pot of black &   white chili from American Favorites for the super bowl.  I think I’m heading up to Augie & Lauren’s to watch, and in addition to the chili will be bringing this great-looking jalepeno popcorn my brother gave me as part of a gourmet gift bag.

    All in all, a great weekend.

  • Yee-haw!


    Yee-haw!

    Just another Thursday night at Otto (for the record, meant to post this Friday morning).  Just be thankful I didn’t snap a picture of Nic doing his somewhat terrifying "sad cowboy clown" face . . .

  • Vodka, Caviar, and Cheesy Costumes, Take 2

    147_4767_r1Ah, the Old Russian New Year.  The decadence, the debauchery, and don’t forget — the vodka.  Plenty of it. 

    Many thanks to Bryn for organizing, Seth for inviting me (and timing his visit so perfectly), and Max and Marianne for being such wonderful company (and a special shout-out to Marianne for being the first to ask me to dance!).  You can find the pictures here.  And if you want to relive the fun from two years ago, you can do that too.

  • And the Winner is . . .

    Jackass #2, who held a steady lead during the entire voting process.  Thanks to all who voted and commented.  Feel free to share your own jackass stories as well!  I’m hoping 2006 will stay jackass-free, but provided there are contestants, the Sweet Blog o’ Mine Jackass of the Year contest will be back next December.

  • The Recap

    While you’re all still voting (I’ll keep the poll open until midnight, Eastern Standard time, this Friday), I figured I should (finally) give a recap of New Year’s Eve festivities and the aftermath.  I had a few party invitations which were all, unfortunately, way too far apart for comfortable party hopping, so I did the logical thing — brought the party to me.  I ended up having a fairly last-minute small dinner party for six: me, John B., the Lovely Miss Katie, Mark, and his two friends who were in from out of town, Holly and Jenny.  I wanted to be slightly decadent for the occasion, but without making myself too nuts in the kitchen — the menu ended up being seafood-based:  shrimp cocktail with zingy, spicy cocktail sauce from Whole Foods, seared scallops with chives and basil oil, steamed lobsters, green beans with caramelized onions, truffled mashed Yukon Gold potatoes, an arugula and radicchio salad with toasted pine nuts and pomegranate that we skipped entirely, so as to leave room for our poached pears with pear-chocolate sauce.  All in all, an elegant, yet completely sloppy meal (lobster shells were a-flyin’.  Most of us stayed around until midnight, then people went their separate ways.  I ended up at Cru, meeting Augie, Lauren, Alvin, and their crew, who generously shared a glass of ’86 Penfolds Grange Hermitage and a few sips each of ’86 and ’75 d’Yquem.  Not a bad way to round out the evening. 

    The next day was Lauren and Augie’s second annual New Year’s Day gathering to eat mac and cheese, watch the Big Leibowski and drink white Russians.  All was fine and good until the white Russians caught up with me (they were small, but potent as hell), and forced me to take a nap.  I had an hour in mind — my body decided it would be three.  I woke up around 10:45 pm and couldn’t fall asleep until about 3 am.  I spent a great deal of that time watching "Talk Sex with Sue," a call-in sex show on Oxygen featuring a Canadian grandmotherly woman in her sixties.  If you haven’t watched it, you should, if only to admire her no-nonsense, yet healthy and sex-positive approach to her callers questions, which are all over the map.

    To top off the three-day weekend, Tamara and I went to dinner at Babbo to say hello to Ken, one of the bartenders there, who we had met out at Bar Carrera last week (and then joined for karaoke at Sing Sing).  We dined at the bar, befriended a lovely couple from Malibu who invited us to come out to drink wine and go biking with them sometime (woo hoo!), and had the pleasure of sitting next to Elvis Mitchell and Quentin Tarantino for a while (they were talking about the Simpsons episodes that included Pulp Fiction and Reservoir Dogs references).  We also ate and drank fabulously — the highlight for me was definitely the goose liver ravioli with brown butter and balsamic.  Sheer heaven.  After that, I was ready to face the work week.

  • M.I.A.

    All of a sudden I realized that it’s been a week since my last post — I guess I needed a break.  Either that, or I had to recover from all my walking during the transit strike.  Either way, I’m back.

    The past week has been a blur of fun, food and festivities, from Christmas Eve roast beef with my mom and Stephen, to Christmas brunch at Fran’s, to a huge family dinner at Pampano last night.  And, oh yeah, my 35th birthday was in there somewhere (or as my friend Gary called it, my half 70th birthday.  Thanks, Gary — just remember that you’re older than I am).  I still have some mixed feelings about turning 35, and the egg-freezing conversation that my cousins and I had on Christmas just added to the mix, but overall, I’m feeling pretty good.  I started the day with a training session, and ended it surrounded by good friends.  I received birthday wishes (and flowers — thanks Dad and Joan!) from friends via phone, text message, and email — thank you all so much for a perfect birthday. 

    And now that the year is winding down, it’s time for a few things — I’m going to try to pull some of my favorite photos from the year (although I didn’t make calendars this time around), and, of course, you get the choose the Sweet Blog o’ Mine Jackass of the Year.  Stories begin soon.

  • 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! 

  • That Boy . . .

    Jakejust can’t keep a secret.  I was on the subway today, peering over someone’s shoulder at the cover of Details magazine, where my boy Jake Gyllenhaal is peering at me.  On the cover of the magazine it says something like "Jake Gyllenhaal, trying to deny that he’s in love."  Isn’t that just the cutest thing?  We’ve tried so hard to keep it under wraps, but you heard it here first, folks.  Jake and I are in love.  No matter that he’s 10 years my junior.  "It’s like an Ashton/Demi thing," says Jake.  He’s so wise for his age.  Sigh.

    Ah yes, back to reality.  Now, where was I?  Thanksgiving. 

    Well, although Jake and I are, in reality, not all schmoopy in love, I do in fact have many other things for which to be thankful this year:  easy Thanksgiving Eve travel (despite last minute changes in plans), waking up to snow flurries on Thanksgiving day, two kinds of cranberry sauce, pumpkin cheesecake, reuniting with long-lost camp friends, family trips to the gym, lobster rolls with lots of butter (and no mayo), barbecue, Lucy, turkey hash, dim sum, naps, Rent, and a homemade turkey pot pie in the freezer.  Thanks to all for a great weekend.

  • The Weekend Wrapup

    After the Vendys and a whirlwind of a week, I stayed in Friday night.  I must have been exhausted because I slept for 12 hours.  Saturday I went to the gym, visited the Dosa cart, then headed up to Westchester to spend the afternoon with a group of my high school friends and their kids.  It’s quite overwhelming as the one single, childless person the group, but it was great to see everyone.  The kids I had met before had gotten huge!  I’ve got to tell you though, there’s nothing like spending an afternoon with your friends who are married and/or have kids to make you realize that there’s absolutely no rush to get there.  All in due time. 

    I came back to the city to spend a mellow night with my cousin Sara, who’s a sophomore at Barnard.  We went to see Shopgirl (my advice is to wait for the DVD), then had a late night snack at Village Yokocho.  Every time I go there I remember how much I love it.  Late night yakitori, dumplings, and other Japanese small plate dishes.  Mmmm.  After that, I finally took my friend Brian up on his offer to come over and sing karaoke at his apartment.  Brian, who I met through my work at Gothamist (he represents cookbook authors and was with me the night I was out with the author of The Vodka Cookbook), was recently featured in an article in the NYT real estate section — he’s got a karaoke stage in his apartment.  So Sara and I headed over and sang until the wee hours of the night.  Can’t wait until next time.

    Today I had a delicious brunch at Augie & Lauren’s and had about two minutes to breathe before heading out to Brooklyn for Katie’s mom’s beer stew.  Stuffed, I spent some time cleaning my apartment tonight, gave myself a quick mani/pedi, and am heading upstairs to give Augie a little blog tutorial.  After that it’s a good night’s sleep before my last session of boot camp.  Woo hoo!

  • Whatcha Doin’ Tonight?

    2005_08_food_vendy.jpgIf you don’t have plans, support the Street Vendor Project of the Urban Justice Center (run by my friend Sean) and taste the wares of some of the city’s favorite street food vendors at the Vendy Awards. There will be an open bar of wine and beer, and the finalists will be selling their food (at their usual street-level prices) to guests in attendance. A team of esteemed judges (including yours truly) will determine the winner. After the honors are bestowed, DJ Diallo Internationale will spin world music into the night.$35 tickets available online or at the door. 7-10:30 pm, 27 East 4th Street in Manhattan.