Tourism at Home

Each year my birthday gives us an excuse to explore new neighborhoods.  Two years ago we toured Red Hook (and good thing because just two months later the whole 'hood was ravaged by Sandy.)  Last year we spent the day in lower Manhattan.  This year we spent the day exploring our new borough - Queens.  Amazingly, it didn't just feel like a day of exploring NYC, or a "staycation" - there were times when we actually felt like we were in a foreign country.  I think that's one of the things I'm going to really like about living here.  (That, and the amazing views!)

Our day began with brunch, which is my favorite meal.  We jumped on the train and headed into Astoria to Sanford's.  Like so many restaurants in Queens, it was sleek and there was club music playing.  But we're willing to forgive that for a restaurant that serves brunch EVERY Day.  (And you should absolutely click on the link.  They have a CBS spot embedded in their website that is hilarious.  It's such a stereotype it could easily be mistaken for an SNL sketch.)  J had the Nutella S'mores waffles and scrambled eggs and I had the banana chocolate chip pancakes.  They weren't as fluffy as Clinton Street or as buttery as Luluc, but the flavor was good and they served real maple syrup.  I gave it my best, but ultimately, I was defeated by the huge portion.

From there we rode the 7 to the end of the line, Main Street Flushing.  Wow.  There was actually almost no English to be seen or heard.  Thousands of people flooded the sidewalks, jostling amidst storefronts with dumplings, fried food, and sweets.  Most of it was wrapped or batter-fried such that I couldn't identify what was inside.  One of the few English signs was labeled 'honey-glazed chicken fingers' with a picture of a chicken's actual finger, luckily, still full from my pancakes, I passed on the food samples.  I haven't been to China yet, and this experience made me both excited and a little intimidated to visit.  

After a short walk we arrived at our destination, the Queens Botanical Garden.  So often I forget to enjoy the beautiful parks and gardens here at home, though they are often a point of interest in foreign cities.  Thanks to J's great idea, we had an afternoon filled with my favorite things, a walk, plants and flowers, sunshine, and an opportunity to take some pictures.  

These are some of the roses from the rose garden.  I love how they all look and smell so different!

As we continued to wander, we saw a beautiful array of bright colors and amazing shapes.

But the highlight came just as we were leaving.  We stumbled upon baby olive trees.  One of my birthday presents was a piece of olive wood.  We fell in love with the silver-green beauty of olive leaves in Morocco, and they are what I'll be carrying in my bouquet for our wedding.  Olive trees have lots of symbolism regarding light, peace, and endurance.  Did you know that olive trees can live to be more than 1000 years old and still produce fruit?  

When we left the garden, we headed to Corona Park.  Unlike the gardens, this is truly an urban park.  There were kids playing sports, couples dancing, people reading, and locals enjoying the nice weather.  We wandered over to the US Open to see the hoopla, which was surprisingly quiet, and then stopped to admire the symbol of Queens, the whole world.

We left the park and headed to Coco Spa.  This is an authentic Chinese massage parlor where J indulged me in both a back and a foot massage.  Unlike western spas, this is not about being pampered, but is more medicinal.  It was a unique experience, sharing some elements with the German and Turkish bathhouses, some elements with western spas, and having some unique elements all its own.

Finally, we ended our night by melding a little bit of our old home with our new one.  We went to Milkflower in Astoria for some wood-fired pizza.  The aesthetic was definitely more Brooklyn than Queens, but the people were warm and friendly, as they've all been here so far.  And we ate the most delicious avocado toast appetizers.  The beautiful day ended with a beautiful night.  First, a spectacular sunset, and then a perfect walk home.

Thanks, J, for a great birthday and a terrific introduction to our new home!

NYC Birthday!

Yesterday was my birthday.  Usually, I reserve blog posts for stories of travel, but since my birthday involved a food tour of NYC, I figure this a good place to write about it.  (Especially since 1.  We've spent so much time traveling this summer that all we want in the world is to enjoy the comforts of home.
2.  We live in a place that is often a tourist destination, so it makes sense that sometimes we should be tourists here.)

Those of you who know me, know that birthdays are a BIG deal.  It's the one day a year that everyone who loves you gets to celebrate you.  I love celebrating other people's birthdays--throwing parties, baking treats, and buying gifts.  You may remember this, which was the same year as the infamous 5 surprise parties:

Some people I know don't care to be celebrated, others are overly concerned with which birthday they are celebrating.  I subscribe to my dad's theory that you're only as old as you act and feel.  (Incidentally, he proudly tells people his age after they guess, since they typically guess he's nearly 20 years younger than his date of birth indicates.  And he LOVES being ID'ed to use his senior citizen discount!)  The more birthdays I have, the better I feel and the more fun I have.  So yesterday, we celebrated youth, vigor, life, and love.  It was amazing.  This is my modern-day, techie-way of saying thank you to everyone involved.  Thanks, guys!  <3

The celebration began the day before.  J asked if I wanted a birthday breakfast game or to go out somewhere to eat.  I love eating out, but I can do that any time.  How often does one get to turn breakfast into a birthday game?  The rules were simple.  I was to create a list of ingredients that I wanted to eat.  J would decide how to use them and what the end products would be.  This was a challenge.  I sent him the following list:

some herb:  rosemary, mint, parsley
apples

ginger

grapefruit

eggs

tea

love

Later that night, I came home from a baking date with Z (nectarine and lavender crostata--the recipe from my new cookbook from J's Aunt R and Uncle J):

to find these on the kitchen table:

I often joke that we should celebrate birthday weekend. (Perhaps as a result of frequently spending my birthday as the new kid on the first day of school, or you know, celebrating during a hurricane with 6 days of no electricity.)  So J let me begin the celebration a little early.  In addition to the flowers, I got my first birthday present--a video from Boo (and with a little help from her Papa.)

After many hilarious viewings, I was warned to set an alarm before bed because I had a surprise coffee date coming the next morning at 9:30.

Even though she had awesome plans of her own, my dear friend Z made sure she could say "happy birthday" in person.  She arrived with an iced coffee with soy milk to ensure that I'd be alert enough to enjoy birthday morning.  She also made sure the  celebration would continue beyond just the one day with these:

I'm a lucky girl to have such good friends (including everyone who called and sent messages and gifts on FB).  I have such good neighbors too.  Sweet J, from upstairs, made sure to leave a card taped to my door so that I'd find it when I returned home from my day of celebrating.  My dad sent some cards, and even Boo got me a card!  (You can guess which one came from her.)

And then there was breakfast...

a cold ginger apple soup, honey grapefruit bruleé with fresh mint, Turkish tea-poached eggs on toasted brioche, homemade bubbly orange juice-soda--DELICIOUS!

As if this wasn't enough, of course there were also presents.  Boo insisted on going first.  (She loves chasing the ribbons on presents!)  In true kitten fashion, her present involved birds.  She gave me these super-cute owl earrings, which are not only so much fun, but also my school mascot.  She let J go next.  All summer I've made poor J stop at every junk jewelry store, every pharmacy, and every H&M or Hema we saw in Europe on a crazy quest for barrettes.  (I did finally find several that I liked.)  To add to my collection, J gave me an awesome knit barrette.  Then, after breakfast (because we're responsible adults) he gave me dessert - a vanilla, rooibos chocolate bar.  It's amazing, and I shared.  To fuel my continued love of baking, and my new quest to make it both more beautiful (my desserts always TASTE good, they're just not always so, um, professional looking) and more healthy (STOP publishing articles about how bad sugar is, Internet Scientists!), J gave me two new baking cookbooks:

J led me to the closet to show me my clothing options for the evening.  He had some surprises planned and would clue me in only to the level of formality.  But before we dressed for dinner, he took me to a neighborhood boutique to pick out two beautiful picture frames for the photos he had printed as part of my present.  One now resides in our bedroom...the other is slated to go to my office, although at the moment it's on our living room side table and I kind of love it there...

My clues: we're taking one train.  Nice, but casual.  What's your favorite dessert?  (For the record, the answer is chocolate mousse.)

On we went... F train to W. 4th.  Our first destination, in keeping with another of my philosophies, that one should eat dessert first, was to Buvette.  

It is an homage both to our trip to Paris, where they have a second location, as well as to our recent trip to Belgium, land of delicious chocolate and chocolate mousse.  Buvette didn't disappoint!

Next, since we still had some time before our next mystery reservation, we decided to grab a pre-dinner cocktail.  We wandered through the West Village, stopping in Jo Malone to enjoy the delicious smells (and to gather some free birthday samples!), and then on to Fedora, a literary themed bar.  J had the Pocketful of Steinbeck and I had License to Dill.  They were both delicious.

For dinner, we made our way over to Pure Food and Wine.  Anyone who has ever shared a meal with me, or gone for ice cream, knows 1)  I have incredible food envy.  I want to taste what everyone else has.  And, 2)  I LOVE samples.  I sample every ice cream flavor available, unless the people behind the counter or behind me in line get frustrated and then I do my best to make a decision.  (Which is a much easier task if I can select more than one flavor AND have bites of what my friends have ordered.  Seriously, I've even ordered hand-packed pints with multiple flavors in them.)  So you can imagine my joy when J suggested that we order the 5 course tasting menu.  (Which is really 7 courses if you count the amuse-bouche and the intermezzo.)  But wait, it gets better.  When we inquired about said chef's choice tasting menu (since Pure is raw and vegan, we had no worries about getting something we wouldn't like or couldn't eat), we learned that it would be 3 savory courses, a soup course, and a FULL SIZE DESSERT.  And that we would each get different dishes except for the soup, so we would actually get to taste 9 things from the menu!  Pure's birthday present to me!  :)

The entire meal was innovative and fantastic.  It's a special occasion place, but definitely one to which we'll return.  (Probably in late fall or winter since their menu changes seasonally.)

Even though our meal took 3 hours, we weren't finished yet.  (Though at that point, J did promise that we were done eating for the night.)  We walked over to the McKittrick Hotel where we had a reservation at Gallow Green.

It's an awesome English Garden on the rooftop.

Some day, we'll go back to participate in Sleep No More (hahaha, how appropriate!).

As the clock neared midnight, marking the official end of my birthday, J and I headed home, and he proffered one final gift.  Remember how I said I like to celebrate birthday weekend?  Maybe I underestimated a tad.  Sometimes I like to celebrate birthday week, or even birthday month.  (Some teachers refer to August as the Sunday of summer vacation, a rather dreary moniker.  I prefer to think of it as birthday month.  Far more celebratory!)  Due to all of our travel, we hadn't actually done much anticipatory celebrating, so J is extending my birthday into September.  My last gift is tickets for September 20 to see these guys:

 at this place:

WOOHOO!!!!

(If you still don't know who they are, listen here.)