Just wanted to share this gorgeous specimen with you — the English Muffin from Momofuku Milk bar: a homemade English Muffin with black pepper butter, a deep-fried soft poached egg, caramelized onions, pork belly, hoisin and pea shoots. Only available on Saturdays.
Inspired by my recent cocktail class, I set out this weekend on a shopping excursion to pick up some components to improve my home bar. Nothing major, just a few essentials — bitters, a bar spoon, some more glasses, and a key bottle or two. Everything got a good workout in honor of the Mad Men premier last night, where @cocktailspirit and @halw shook up some classic cocktails for the rest of us to enjoy. One such treat was the Park Avenue Cocktail (courtesy of John the Bastard):
The Park Avenue Cocktail
| 2 | oz gin | |
| ¾ | oz pineapple juice | |
| ¾ | oz sweet vermouth | |
| ⅓ | oz Grand Marnier (or orange curaçao) |
Shake and strain.
The one more piece of equipment I need to improve my home bar (and the rest of the home) is an air conditioner that cools more than my bedroom.
So last Friday, as I was slowly winding down my week at the beach, I received a few emails/calls from concerned friends to the effect of — have you heard that your building might be collapsing? Needless to say, this was somewhat disconcerting, to say the least, especially now that I am a homeowner. That said, when a friend asked if she could do anything or go to my apartment and get anything out, it really gave me pause. I had my computer with me, containing about 4 years worth of pictures. I was thinking that maybe she should grab the rest of my pictures and my old external hard drive (more pictures), perhaps my jewelry box, although I don't have much that is particularly valuable, perhaps my passport and Social Security card (both replaceable), but there really wasn't much else that came to mind.
Ultimately, despite scary news reports to the contrary, nothing fell, nothing collapsed. The bricks that were bulging are being fixed and there's now scaffolding around the building. Whew.
What would you rescue if you knew your building was about to collapse? Thanks again to those who were thinking of me!
*A nod to Ray Davies and the Kinks
As I said yesterday on my Facebook status update, I want to be the love child of Julia Child and Chrissie Hynde when I grow up. You can read about my love for Julia below. I got to see Chrissie and the Pretenders rocking out on Monday night at Summerstage. If I can rock that hard, sing that well, and look that good at age 57, I'll be thrilled.
After seeing Julie & Julia this weekend I was once again reminded how much I admire Julia Child and everything about the way she lived her life. Of course I then decided I wanted to write about one of my favorite Julia Child quotes and then realized that I already did. Fine. Then I'll give you my second favorite quote — her advice on how not to lose a husband: the "three F's." "Feed 'em, fuck 'em, and flatter 'em." And my third favorite: "Life itself is the proper binge." And finally, a bonus quote, when asked what her longevity was attributed to, she answered, "red meat and gin." Amen, Julia.
Lauren, Frank and I went off on another one of our adventures on Saturday when we took this rather circuitous bike route to City Island. We had a somewhat auspicious start, arriving on the West Side bike path just as the entire rescue forces of Manhattan had arrived to respond to the midair collision that had occurred moments before. Continuing up the path we witnessed a bike crash right in front of us. Next, Frank was nearly felled by an errant softball, and, for the coup de grace, I had my very first bike accident. First of all, I'm fine. There was no traffic involved. I was felled by this evil pothole (it's hard to tell quite how big it was — not sure how I missed it), and have some road rash on my left side and some very colorful bruises. After being tended to and cleaned off, I continued the rest of the ride, and we enjoyed heaping plates of seafood at Johnny's Reef, which tasted all the better for the 30 miles we had traveled to get it. You can find the pictures here.
Didn't take all that many pictures, but I captured some of the big meals including the grilled pizza experiment and the seafood extravaganza. You can find them all here.
My skin now gleams bronze.
I have gotten my fill of sleep.
Surrounded by friends,
While enjoying the taste of home-cooked banquets,
Watching the sun set alongside the lighthouse,
And listening to the pounding surf.
[PS, I am the lamest poet ever.]
Just returned from morning yoga at the Kismet Fire House on Fire Island. It was a fairly mellow yoga class, although every time the instructor gave a direction, she'd say something like "turn towards the lighthouse," "reach your arm towards the bay." But my absolute favorite direction was "point your front foot towards the beach and your left foot towards West Islip." Only on Fire Island.
