Rocking the Suburbs

Long ago in a lifetime far far away I owned a car. It was a cute used 97 black Jetta that I did not name because I am not the car naming type. I did, however, place a small sticker on the rear window proclaiming, “I am a fucking genius” because I am the arrogant geek type; also the tempting fate type who worried from time to time about the irony of someone spotting that sticker among the mangled wreckage of my cute car and (slightly less cute) blood soaked body. Luckily, I avoided that chagrined fate, but just barely. As everyone knows, cars are killing machines. But when you’re living in the Silicon Valley they are a necessary evil without which one could not attend concerts with the cool kids in San Francisco or, you know, get to work. All the same I mostly hated my car.

The worst part about owning a car is the constant fear that it will break down and cost at least $700 to fix (at the time $700 was basically all of the money I could muster if I sold my computer equipment and every single pair of shoes in my closet). The Jetta was theoretically reliable and really didn’t break down hardly at all but you wouldn’t know that from the status of the check engine light. That little bitch was blaring orange and angry for at least 50% of the time that I owned the car. It would snap on at the first sign of reduced tire pressure, the second you were due for an oil change or any time the car got a little chilly. It goes without saying (though I didn’t realize this until months after purchasing the vehicle) that the Jetta is a product made exclusively for bitchy high maintenance sorority girls and it seems the car itself was programmed to adopt the personality of its target customer. I think once or twice the check engine light came on specifically to request that I pour a little Smirnoff Ice on the engine block.

(A brief aside. Expert advice from my genius mechanic brother whose phone would ring every time I saw a flicker of orange on my dash: “For year and years people went without a check engine light and everything was mostly fine. If you don’t hear a noise or have problems driving stop calling me. Its fine.”)

The second worst thing about owning a car is having to park the beast. I suppose this is mostly a non-issue in the country and suburbs but in the San Francisco Bay Area it is a nightmare. You drive around and around the same blocks only to eventually find a spot and then spend 30-40 minutes cursing yourself for proving the “women can’t parallel park” theory thus personally setting back feminism about 75 years. Then, you get out of the car and walk up and down the street 4 times reading every little bit of signage looking for any indication that this is actually a legal spot which is near impossible to believe because certainly if it were legal someone would have parked here already. The rest of the evening is divided equally between the following thoughts, “Gee I wonder if my car has been towed yet,” and “Golly, I imagine my stereo has certainly been stolen by now.”

When I decided to move to New York City I shed a tear as I waved goodbye to uncrowded beaches and fresh produce in February and friends and family but was practically gleeful as I bid bon voyage to the world of cars. I greeted the subway with a grin and have been happily riding all over creation for a mere $2.25 ever since. People in NY complain endlessly about the subway (“not enough trains at 2am.” “crazy expectation that I ride a shuttle bus instead of a train.” “$2.25! That’s insane! I could buy half a bagel for that!” ) but this is mostly because complaining is fun and because, frankly, New Yorkers have no idea how good they have it. I would consider the subway a crazy gift from god even at $5 a ride (but don’t tell that to the MTA).

My one fear about going carless was lost car trip opportunities but I figured that with the amount of money I’d save by not paying for a car or insurance or repairs or parking tickets I could certainly afford to rent a car to drive out of the city from time to time but obviously this rarely ever actually happens. I’m just too cheap. Could I afford the occasional weekend car rental? Sure. But do I really need to spend that money? Couldn’t I just have Fresh Direct deliver my case of $7 wine and vat of nonfat greek yogurt and spend the weekend making Pinot Noir smoothies instead of breathing in the great outdoors? After all, that plan is cheaper AND I don’t have to worry about convincing my boyfriend, Geoff, to be my designated driver. So I mostly stay carless but on the happy occasion when a Chevy Aveo or some other subpar approximation of an automobile should happen upon my curb it is blissful in ways that non New Yorkers should rightfully giggle over.

Just a few weeks ago Geoff was suddenly in possession of a company car for 12 whole hours. He immediately contacted me with the happy news that we could go to Target (!!) or Ikea (!!!) or EVEN a real fucking grocery store (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). Glee. Visions of 5 foot wide aisles and bins full to the brim with bulk oatmeal danced in my head. We hightailed it to Fairway which is about 2 miles from our house but somehow also about 8000 miles from a subway station. We bought lots of heavy things that we possibly did not need because we had A CAR, so why not?

Even here in Gotham a car is freedom. You can go anywhere, carry anything. At the jangle of keys my mind reels with the possibility of adventure; and yet the only adventure I come up with is a trip to Target. This is obviously a sort of sad commentary on my own imagination. I blame a childhood of unfulfilled dreams of hanging out at the mall just like every other kid in America.

I grew up in one of the smallest places one can live and moved to the largest and somehow the one place where Bishop California and New York City intersect is in the lack of access to big box stores. As a guilty liberal I of course enjoy snobbishly sauntering down Park Slope’s 5th Avenue (dodging baby carriages all the way) to do my shopping in a myriad of tiny independently owned stores but there is still some magic to the idea of buying milk and goulashes and potting soil all under one roof. The bounty of it all is undeniably appealing even if it’s carbon footprint and forced march towards homogeny should make me turn up my nose. (That last sentence is the pinnacle of hoity-toity blogging, I should quit right now either in embarrassment or because I will never be able to top this moment.).

The suburbs have been maligned to a point where by now we all know that we’re supposed to hate them. And I do! Mostly! I hate getting stuck on the median of some crappy frontage road somewhere between the Hampton Inn that my company stuck me at and the shopping center where my only access to dinner lives simply because suburban road planners never seem to considered the possibility that I would want to walk between two establishments located within 500 feet of one another. I hate that my eventual dinner will certainly be smothered in cheese-food and available unchanged from Mobile Alabama to Enfield Connecticut to Farmers Branch Texas. I hate the repetitive “Home Depot, Walmart, Panera Bread, Best Buy, Home Depot, Walmart....” pattern of the freeway off ramps from town to town to town. But oh, secretly, I love the excess. What can I say? Deep down beyond the part of me that’s a small town daughter of hippies and way past the part that’s a New Yorker, down there, I am still an American. Bring on the super sized vat of butter substitute.

Strangely enough for all my excitement over pushing a gigantic cart through a gigantic store full of so much stuff I often come out almost empty handed. I am forever standing outside of Costco with only three items (toilet paper, black beans and dry pasta) in my rented trunk because really, how could I ever eat my way through a dozen boxes of Mac and Cheese? And in the mean time where would I store them? And even standing in front of a shelf full of low prices I’m still often too cheap to make many purchases, it’s like I stand there thinking, “Oh sure, $5 is probably a good deal for a headband with a huge silk flower glued to it but think how great it would be if headbands were FREE!” And then I go home.

The big box stores, for all of their excess, never seem to stock what I’m looking for. And so at the end of every visit there is a panic moment when I wonder if there is something I missed, something I need, because who knows when I’ll have a car again. So I muse about if I need towels, after all, they’re a fabulous deal, and towels don’t go bad, perhaps I should have a few in reserve? Not to get too melancholy here but one has to wonder what exactly I’m shopping for. If not headbands or towels or Mac and Cheese then must I assume that I’m living the big American cliche -- forever looking to fill a hole unfillable by wheels of cheese or 12 packs of socks?

The truth about the subway is that it goes almost everywhere. Almost. And almost is really everywhere you need to go. It goes to all of the cool concert venues and to offices and playgrounds and beaches and farmers markets and to my house. But every time I reach the end of the line and stare off into the distance or sneak a look at Google Maps and realize just how small my little New York City world is the American in me, car hater or not, yearns for the open road. The truth about the open road, these days at least, is that it mostly goes to places you don’t need at all.

The Bedbugs Are Coming! The Bedbugs Are Coming!

There’s a classic sci fi movie from back when movies came only in 2 colors called Them. In this flick sent straight out of my nightmares giant ant aliens land on earth and begin seeking revenge for all of the delicious picnics that their earthling brothers and sisters were never invited to. They rampage buildings, eat people and (I think) fashion giant magnifying glasses to give all 8 year old boys a taste of their own medicine. It’s some scary shit. Anyway, everyone in New York City is now basically living through this cinematic nightmare in real live living color. In the Broadway version of this little masterpiece the part of the giant alien ants is being played by Cimex lectularius aka the devil’s insect minion aka the common bedbug.

For those of you not living in the NYC let me catch you up on what’s going down. Basically bedbugs be raping everybody up in here. They’re in our movie theaters, our tourist traps, our douche-y clothing stores our fanciest pantie palaces, nothing is sacred. So far (as far as I know) they have yet to infiltrate Casa de Babble probably mostly because I am freaking the fuck out all of the time. I give furniture and mattresses left on the street a 5 foot berth, I get my nose right up against hotel sheet and stare down the thread count looking for little black or red dots. I pretty much will not go to the movies anymore and I spend every taxi ride thinking about the colonies likely lurking beneath the Naugahyde.

It used to be that my evening routine went something like this: start to fall asleep in front of tivoed episodes of Toddlers in Tiaras (sweet dreams!), drag myself up off of the couch, brush teeth, wash face, say my bet hedging prayers, run through a few OCD games to lull my mind to sleep and Zzzzz. But now somewhere between OCD and snoozeville I’ve inserted 45 minutes of fun called “OH MY FUCKING GOD IS THAT A BED BUG ON MY ANKLE?” Turns out that when you lie completely still mentally scanning your skin for signs of creepy crawlies it is very easy for every spare thread/dead skin cell/air molecule to feel like the stab of bug fangs.

Worse then this is how my home has been turned into a battle ground. My enemy? Each and every bug-sized bit sticking to my bare feet, caught behind my ear or glued to the sweaty back of my knee. Each stray breadcrumb, missing ball of earwax or lonely grain of salt is suddenly a potential threat. Saturday night I had to get up from watching Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince to turn on a light and examine a small black flotsam of suspicion for signs of buginess. It came away still unidentified but too misshapen and flat to be a bug. I remain on guard. Before bed last night, while peering over my shoulder and into a full length mirror to examine my back for bites, I noticed that I have enough moles back there to warrant a visit to dermatologist, unfortunately I can’t make an appointment because what if the doc finds a bedbug bite somewhere on my person? Certainly the embarrassment alone is scarier than skin cancer.

I know that if an infestation breaks out in my house life is pretty much over.

Like other species of bloodsucking vampires, bedbugs are basically immortal. They can go a year without feeding. They can withstand temperatures down to -26 F and up to 115. They are resistant to pretty much all legal pesticides. Luckily, they do not sparkle in the sunlight or have exceptionally well tussled hair or the future of the human species would be doomed.

So here’s what happens when all of your worst nightmares come true and you spot a fat little blood filled insect wobbling across your pillow. First you freak out and cry a lot. Then you call every exterminator in the city who will tell you two things:

1. Bedbugs are basically impossible to get rid of.
2. They will happily charge you thousands of dollars and try their best

So of course you give them all of your money. Then you find out that you have to throw away everything you own because it is actually owned by bedbugs (possession being at least 9/10th of Mother Nature’s law). Eventually you have to come out to friends and family about your infestation and understandably they all disown you rather than risk catching your gross bedbugs. You should probably get a therapist to deal with this traumatic life experience but you have no money and realistically there ain’t no shrink willing to risk bedbugs taking over his couch. So, basically then you commit suicide. The end.

Long time readers of this blog will remember that I make one exception in my greenie hippy rules for living and that my friends is for bug killin’. And in the case of the bedbug I am pretty much willing to get cancer if it will rid my fair city of this nightmare. You heard me right folks: It’s time to bring back the DDT. Back in the 40s they DDT bombed the bedbugs almost out of existence which raised morale in the country just enough to motivate us to take on the Nazis. Then the pesticide went and killed a bunch of bald eagles and I couldn't much blame the hippies for getting it banned until now. Obviously these are dire circumstances.

Baring the (I suppose unlikely) re-legalization of DDT we’re all getting “The Bugz” (might as well give them a hip name in preparation, “Nah honey that ain’t herpes, I gotz The Bugz!”) So maybe the thing to do is look on the bright side -- bedbugs can’t be all bad, right? Firstly there’s the obvious weight loss benefit -- they say "a pint’s a pound the world round" regardless of if the pint ends up in a blood bank or a bedbug tummy. Then there’s the mystical bloodsucker angle, given the love-fest this country is having with vampires you’d think a real life bloodsucking creature could get a little respect. Lastly there’s the orgy factor -- regardless of your own personal studdliness a colony of bedbugs is surely the highest number of individuals that have ever been in your bed at one time. Own it hot stuff; You’re having a menage-a-google every night. Though given the following video of bedbug sex perhaps the orgy wouldn’t be as awesome as I originally thought.

On the Inadequacies of Sending and Receiving Mail in NYC (aka Please Mister Postman, seriously, PLEASE)

One of the burdens of living in New York City is the responsibility one feels to comfort non NYC dwellers who insist that I live in a very very scary place. On a recent trip to the heartland it occurred to me that even worse then living in New York City (where at least they have all of those fabulous musicals) is living in Brooklyn. Inside the city limits of the Big Apple, Brooklyn means baby carriages, composting and jamming with your band but everywhere else it means the mob, knife fights and really annoying accents. And as I discovered in May while visiting an old folks home in Wisconsin, no one's grandma wants them living in a dump like that. My own Grandma and Grandpa along with all of their senior friends feared the crime, the grime, the subway, etc -- but strangely no one ever seems to bring up the truly horrifying things like the supermarkets and the mail. If only they knew.

When I moved to New York almost five years ago the first challenge was figuring out my address. It seemed that somehow I was living in as many as 4 different cities at one time. I thought I had moved to Astoria, but my mail came to Long Island City. And somehow I also lived in Queens. And also in New York City. This confusion stems primarily from the borough system which totally makes sense *in theory* but in actuality still confuses me even after almost 5 years in the city. Basically, it seems that in order to make all of the boroughs (Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, The Bronx and Staten Island) part of one big megacity this weird borough thing had to be invented. It turns out that my mail would be delivered to me if addressed to any the 4 places listed above. I assume that the postal system hates New York City for this selfish deviation from the "works for everyone else" system and that the pains I detail in the coming paragraphs are the direct result of retaliation from postal employees. Honestly, I can hardly blame them.

Once I got settled in I had a few letters to send a few bills to pay. I stuck these in the mail box outside of my house on my way to work -- there was no flag to put up but I figured the mail carrier probably knew the deal, "oh, new envelopes with uncanceled stamps, this is outgoing!" Yet every night I would come home to a mail box stuffed with delivery menus, new bills, 5 copies of the Victoria's Secret catalog (Obama should look into putting those mofos on the finding Bin Laudin task force they can track down anyone) and all of the outgoing mail that I'd left in the box that morning. Curious. I quickly concluded that I had a lazy bastard for a mailman and resolved to schlep all of my outgoing mail to the office until some Saturday when I could confront the man in blue at my door. Luckily my chance never came because I soon found out that in New York City mail carriers do not pick up outgoing mail. So actually ALL mail carriers in New York City are lazy bastards. At least I wasn't being singled out. Much Googling has been spent trying to get to the bottom of how it came to be that NYC mailmen won't pick up the netflix return envelope and my rent check all to no avail. I did discover that mailmen also don't pick up in Canada so I have to assume that this is just one more way that the liberals in NYC are trying to turn us all commie. Normally I drink the blue koolaid and support all efforts to bring the socialism but here I must protest, Canada obviously knows nothing about how badly I need to avoid walking 3 blocks to the mailbox (you'd think a country that is normally covered in snow could relate).

I really adore getting packages (queue, "I've got a package you might like little lady..."), so much so that I might occasionally order something online just to have the thrill of looking forward to receiving a package in the mail. This small joy has almost been beaten out of me by the mail system in NYC. I've determined that if you ask for something to be delivered to your house there is really only a 1 in 3 chance that you'll ever receive it. This statistic varies little from mail system to mail system. USPS, UPS, FEDEx, they're all equally f-ed up.

Typically, this is how things go down. I place an order for say a really cute dress by Penguin that I've somehow managed to score for $40 and then I begin obsessively reloading the order info page until I crash online store. Eventually the web services team is called in, stability is restored and my order goes from "processing" to "shipped." And then I start praying that the package will actually show up at my house -- oddly, god rarely intervenes on my behalf.

Things that might happen in place of coming home to the joy of ripping open cardboard:

• Your mailman may decide that he doesn't feel like carrying a package all the way to your door so instead he'll just leave a "we were here but you weren't home" note the gist of which is "haul your ass down to the central processing center if you ever want to see that beautiful necklace you ordered off of Etsy." Note that actually being home when the mailman stops by to drop off this note will in no way ensure that you avoid this outcome.


• Your mailman may decide for no apparent reason that the same stoop that he happily left packages on just last week is suddenly VERY UNSAFE (perhaps my grandma called him) and that he could not possibly leave packages here where the gangsters might pounce on them (gangsters love nothing more than an Amazon box full of trashy vampire liturature! Except heroin.). No amount of pleading notes left for the mailman saying "seriously, it's COOL! Leave the package right here!" will be at all effective and again your presence will be requested in central processing land (Do you think the subway goes there? No, it does not.)


• Your mailman may decide to not even attempt delivery but to instead just claim he tried to deliver the package but that you said "please, no, do not bring it to my house, I would love to travel down to central processing and pick it up myself, i love a good walk through the projects."
  

The irony that I can get someone to bring a Vietnamese sandwich or an order of ceviche to my house at 1am but Amazon.com is beyond my reach is not lost on me.

The US Postal service recently raised the price of a first class stamp for about the 13th time this week and I can only assume that all of these extra funds will be directed to the vast pool of resources that they dedicate to coming up with new ways to screw NYC and as I said before -- I get it. But Please Mister Postman, Mister Fedex, Mrs. UPS -- do not continue to punish the good citizens of NYC for the selfish decisions of our forfathers, they had no idea that they were thwarting an organization that would go on to pretty much patent the act of going crazy and shooting all of your coworkers.

Adventures in Dining Part 2

part 1 is back here

Despite my fears of being Gordon Ramsey-ed I returned to the domain of A Razor a Shiny Knife the next afternoon to assist with dinner prep -- this time without G who (wisely, perhaps) choose to spend his Saturday at his job where they pay him in money rather than at an empty condo in Williamsburg where compensation is offered in the form of eye rolls and deep sighs of disapproval. Oh, and really yummy food.

When I arrived at 3:45pm lunch service was still in full swing. I felt lucky to secure a job drying dishes which I was 75% sure I could execute well enough to at least fly below the radar of our host. Dish drying proved to be a wonderful job because in addition to avoiding commentary on my screw ups it also afforded me the opportunity to make a good buddy in my dish drying companion, Paul. Even better lunch was still being served and occasionally someone would come by with an extra plate of food for us to nosh on (oh crispy fried soft shell crabs and raw asparagus salad with poached egg how I have loved you).

After a few hours on dish duty I started to feel the rhythm of the kitchen and, perhaps because I paid my newbie dues with the dish rag, the rest of the kitchen staff/paying guests suddenly seemed nicer. Eventually I grew brave enough to venture back onto the line to tackle the peaches destined for dessert. When G arrived at 6:30 (in theory only 30mins from the sweet reward of our yummy 8 course meal) he was put to work chopping strawberries. I was also put on marshmallow making duty which ended in marshmallow syrup which we tried in vain to turn into frozen marshmallow candy. Somehow despite the obvious failure of this dish I manage to escape any chef wrath. I was feeling much more like part of a team.

We sat down late for dinner at 8:45 (posted dinner time was 7pm) and because of a somewhat OCD need to pull off this whole affair in exactly 24 hours we were asked to forgive the rushed serving of the courses. I appreciate a good attempt at doing the crazy obsessive thing just for its own crazy obsessive sake (see: my color coded closet, my rearranging of card piles every 3 minutes when playing Settlers of Catan, and my entire life) but even I felt a little peeved that the foodies who lunch got to lounge around for hours while I was being asked to scarf my tasty morsels at a starved puppy pace.

The food however, could not be argued with. It was well worth being chastised for my subpar vacuuming skills, worth drying a mountain of dishes and even worth being rushed through. Below, a play by play of exactly why I will not have lost any weight this week despite running probably like 8 miles (note: a lot. do not argue. I am the next Flo Jo, I pretty much just need to work on the nails).

First the amuse -- a rye bread flavored pana cotta with salmon roe and pickled mustard seeds.

The host expressed some concern that this might be a failed attempt at deliciousnesss but it was surprisingly successful -- creamy, salty, a little crunch on the end. And on top of that look how pretty it is!

Foie gras mouse featured a cucumber coulis and strawberries ala Mr. G

Just look at the sweet slicing on those babies! I think i might be the only foodie who can't quite get behind the foie gras love. I mean it's good, rich, creamy, fatty but I often find it just a little too overwhelming and... (dare I say it?) somehow still bland. This dish was no real exception though the the strawberries and cucumber did admirably balance out the richness and make foie gras feel much more summery than I would have thought possible.

Fresh pasta with lobster and meyer lemon.

Certainly the most simple of the dishes on offer but the combo of the lemon peel and lobster was really great. Shellfish + lemon is obviously no great culinary leap but I was still shocked and just how great these ingredients complimented each other.

Short ribs with morel mushroom and garlic scapes

I got 4 curly little garlic scapes in my recent CSA delivery and this dish certainly inspired me to experiment with them -- the delicate flavor avoided overpowering the meat and mushroom with garlic and made this dish (which might have seemed a little boring) exciting and beautiful.

Chawan Mushi with bacon broth.

This was the one menu item that I had to Google but Wikipedia's description of "egg custard" did nothing to prepare me for the awesomeness of pork belly+eggs+cream -- SO GOOD! As the person who declared the death of bacon months ago I would like to use this broth as evidence of how bacon should be used -- it was flavorful, smokey and meaty and DELICATE. The dish didn't come out and whomp you over the head all "LOOK! BACON IS HERE! EVERYONE LOVES BACON!!!" but instead stood in the corner waiting for the ladies to come to him, and come I did. (Dirty.).

Whipped truffle potatoes with smoked egg yolk.

This was divine though G made a good point that it was mostly just because everything tastes great with truffle oil. It is probably true that if the potatoes had been sawdust and the egg yolk a yellow bouncy ball I still would have swooned.

Flourless chocolate cake with cherries.

This was the only course that left me shrugging my solders. I'm not a fan of flourless chocolate cake -- in fact, I basically think it's the bacon of the pastry world and is only served by lazy chef's looking to appeal to the most base palettes. Everyone loves chocolate, the richer the better, right? No need to try harder. This cake was really no better or worse then your average fudgey fair. That said, in the words of Bill Cosby, "Dad is great! Give us the chocolate cake!" I shrugged my solders at an empty plate.

Compressed peaches with cocoa butter enrobed peach pudding.

While I want to say that this was the best thing ever since I contributed heavily to its production I cannot. It was fine. I suspect that like every contestant on Top Chef (and myself it would seem) the powers that be at A Razor a Shiny Knife could due with some lessons in pastry arts. I'd like to see one of their next events focused entirely on kicking some dessert ass.

I'm full again just writing that. Full and wishing I had a little bowl of pork pudding to slurp on.

I'd also like to say that in addition to the amazing food the dinner companionship was top notch -- I sat across from a hilarious navy dude who offered to give G and I a tour of his sub next time we're visiting G's parents in Groton CT and next to my friend from the night before who, like me and G, was well rested and ready to eat. I also sat across from a vegetarian who I was alternately amused by (seriously, why would you come to this?) and pitied (did your friend not tell you that this meal would totally have a lot of meat?). When one of the pro chefs (a man from Columbia) found out about the veggie in our midst he came by to inquire about her dietary limitations in an effort to accommodate, "You are a vegetarian?" "yeah, I eat fish though, and veggies." "What about beef?" Awesome.

You can view a time lapse video of the entire event here-- some highlight include "wow, Brianna you look kind of fat in the dress," "Geoff get your hands out of your pockets!" and "I want to put that in my mouth over and over again forever."

Adventures in Dining Part 1

As our latest and great cute couple surprise date I decide to surprise G with a night of cooking his own food in hopes that he would be inspired to drag his ass home from work one night and whip me up some veal sous vide and a nice rambutan mouse. Also because he LOVES cooking, this gift was not at all the Brianna form of giving your girlfriend lingerie.

I had been stalking the events of A Razor A Shiny Knife for a few months. The group, referred to as either an under ground restaurant or a private dinner club, specializes in bring to life crazy cooking ideas in a magical poof of yumminess. I had long been on the look out for an event when no previous engagement prevented us from taking in an evening of gluttony and finally, a few weeks ago, the calendar gods came together and we were signed up for the club's 24 hour cooking extravaganza (the dinner only because (1) we're not yet rich and (2) I feared that 3 meals of 8 courses each could lead to acute stomach explosion syndrome). The details I received were as follows: Show up any time after 10pm on Friday the 19th to help cook, show up at 7pm the night of the 20th to partake in the deliciousness.

We arrived at the secret location (a yet to be inhabitable building of condos deep in artsy Williamsburg and complete with a 45 foot waterfall in the lobby, day glow plastic chandeliers in every hallway and a broken elevator which afforded us the luxury of pretending that climbing 5 flights of stairs totally made up for eating a dish composed entirely of pork belly, cream, eggs and bacon broth) in our best khakis and linen to a sea of hipsters all, "oh hi, yes I did just get back from yachting, is that a tattoo of a boat on your shoulder, right next to the one of bar code? We have so much in common!" There were about 10 people suited up in aprons chopping, boiling and mixing and it was impossible to determine who among us was a pro chef and who, like us, was just paying hundreds of dollars to play dress up. Even though it was only 10:05 everyone was hard at work and not speaking to us which left us feeling, as G said, "like we were being snubbed by the caterers." Noting this obvious problem was a huge mistake on his part as it turned me into the pout-master for a good 20mins which we spent on the balcony all "ok so what should we do? can we leave? will we look lame? can we just grab something at random and start chopping?" In moments like this I think a little direction goes a long way and I felt tempted to offer the crew of a Razor a Shiny Knife my keen project management skills -- what more they could accomplish if only someone had made a spreadsheet.

Finally we were put to work making what the host of the evening (a man of totally indeterminate age sporting a very magnum PI mustache who either had an amazing memory for names or just couldn't forget me, the girl who was sure to ruin his event with her ham handed attempts at playing chef) described as "pickle pops" which made it sound like these would be some kind of frozen vinegar treat (Yum?) but turned out to just be vacuum sealed bags of pickled veggies. Our mission was to use this massive vacuum sealer to divide 20 plastic bags into 4 evenly sized pickle pockets. I had some past experience with vacuum sealing because my father bought one of those home food preservation contraptions at Costco years ago and proceeded to demo it's abilities to every dinner guest to walk through the front door. The minute the ladies ran off to, I dunno, powder their noses (note: this has never happened in my house, my mother is strictly anti powder, in fact "powder their noses" is just a euphemism for "drink scads of tequila") my dad would be dragging the boys off to a small corner of the kitchen to just seal random crap. But the machine at Friday's event was nothing like my dad's entertainment model. The beast was at a 2 foot power cube that G mused might be able to create actual black holes. Lucky for the entire Milky Way G and I would be doing no actual vacuuming -- just sealing.

Immediately we broke the machine. In a moment of panic as we moved the top down to begin the first seal one of us (I shall not name names but I think we all know who) announced that the line on one bag wasn't straight so I flung the lid back up which stopped the vacuuming by freaking out the beast. No longer would he suck air. Luckily, with some random mashing of buttons, I was able to save the day. So we're sealing. Bags are getting put into two piles: "oh shit, hide that one in the back" and "these should theoretically be usable." when Magnum comes by to check on us. "Things are going ok, you know, not perfect yet but we're working on it!" I quip. To which he replies, "we're looking for perfect." People, it was like I was on Top Chef and Coliccio packed my knives FOR ME.

The pickles were, thankfully, on the lunch menu so we could avoid the uncomfortable moment when someone at the table wrinkled their nose all, "my bags are not even, my entire meal has been ruined!" One assumes that this was quickly followed with, "yeah some blond J Crew freaks with zero ink totally fucked those up, last time I let the WASPs in."

As the evening progressed we slowly realized that almost all of the people who we originally took for super intimidating professional chefs were actually just ambitious foodies like ourselves. We managed to make a few friends all of whom seemed nice and nonjudgey if, a little eccentric. One girl (who I love) even leaned over in the middle of butchering a whole pig belly to conspicuously ask if we were crazy enough to consider staying up all night to cook and then sighed happily when we announced that we liked sleep way too much for that silliness (which begs this Sophie's Choice of a question, "if forced to choose between food and sleep where would a lazy glutton like myself stand (or, more accurately, lie down)?).

I suspect the open secret of A Razor, A Shiny Knife is that none of their meals are executable without a ton of help from their guests because there seemed to be only 4 or 5 pros in our midst. The good news is that there was no babying of the guests -- everything from slicing strawberries to flash freezing puddings was available for experimentation. This opportunity to play with nitrous oxide and learn how to make butter from scratch is, for me, half the fun of the event but I do have to warn future participants that one should arrive armed with a good amount of cooking knowledge and a suit of body armor protecting any thin skinned egos. I often felt a little bad for G, who I do put on carrot chopping duty in our home kitchen but who generally focuses his food knowledge on tasting over preparing. The impromptu learning opportunities at the event were not designed for amateurs. Among my friends I have a fairly solid "good cook" reputation but even I often felt far far out of my league, especially during the first hour or so when direction was at a minimum.

That said, ultimately the evening turned out to be fun. And when we got home at 1:30am our preview of the next evening's dinner had both of us salivating in our sleep. More on that in my next update (soon, by Thursday for sure...) until then a picture of our first course -- our amuse to amuse you.

Hickory, Dickory, Crap.

I accidentally acquired a chinchilla about 5 years ago when a friend asked me to watch him while she was on vacation and then refused to take him back. He's a cute little guy and we have a symbiotic relationship that is based entirely on me giving him banana chips and craisins and him giving me big puppy eyes that send the message "more craisins please!". Chinchillas are generally pretty solitary dudes and so I thought Mr. Grumps preferred the bachelor life free of chinchilla ladies who, one assumes, will not shut up about how you never clean up your cage (human ladies have also been known to bitch about this). However, recent events seem to indicate that I have misjudged Grump-n-stuff, in his old age he seems to be inviting friends over to party down at his place.

The fact that my crib was a new trendy hang out first became evident a couple of weeks ago when I turned on the kitchen light and *thought* I saw a scurrying in the corner. I chose to deal with this potential situation in the same way I deal with the very slow drain in my bathroom and how bad my hair looks most mornings: ignore it in hopes that it'll go away. No such luck. On the 19th when G and I returned from our preChristmas Christmas celebration we were greeted by a special holiday gift from my apparently very appreciative house guest(s). Mouse turds. On my couch. Now I know that admitting this discovery likely means that none of my human friends will ever come over to my house again but honestly I'm not that troubled by the presence of a mouse (or, heaven forbid, mice) my general feeling is "hell, this beats bugs." Which isn't to say that I want them to feel welcome.

Soon after cleaning the poops off of my furniture G caught sight of the poop maker crawling swiftly up the side of the chinchilla cage. And what was the chinchilla doing while his abode was turned into a jungle gym? Chilling in the corner all nonchalant and "oh, hey little dude, how's it going?" Obviously I had to have a little chat with Grump-a-roonie. I let him hang at my place, rent free I might add, and he goes and invites over a bunch of other rodents to mooch off the free grub? Talk about not earning your banana chips. But once the lecture was over I had to stop stalling and actually confront the mouse situation. We moved the chinchilla cage away from the wall and discovered two things: 1. A huge gap between the floor and the base board known as The Transcontinental Mouse Highway and 2. The world's largest collection of mouse turdlettes. Again, I know everyone now thinks I live in squalor but remember this: I haven't seen a waterbug in over a year.

There was much talk of mousetraps but despite the stirring of mice it was mere nights before Christmas and I was on my way to California for 7 days the next morning. Ultimately I decided that I would rather come home to a mouse infested house then a dead and possibly rotting corpse. Instead we stuffed all of my excess brillo pads into the mouth of the mouse hole, pushed the cage back against the wall and went to brunch.

Special note to Amy: So now you know that I let you come over and feed Grumpzilla while a mouse scurried about. Sorry, I realize this is especially cruel given your painful history of mice infesting your room in college but I couldn't let Grumpers starve so I figured what you didn't know... and look, you lived through it! Don't you feel stronger?

It took less than 12 hours back in the NYC to discover that The Rodent Boom Boom Room was still in operation. As we sat lounging on the couch bemoaning the passing of days spent lounging on the couch the little mouse invader again scaled the chinchilla cage. This time we were on to the bugger. G saw him on top of the cage but did not spy him climbing down and with a cursory review of the covered box that I keep on top of the chinchilla cage (and full of chinchilla food) found a mouse sized hole gnawed into the back corner. Figuring the mouse was trapped I told G to flip the box over so the hole was on top and the mouse was (hopefully) trapped inside (you'll note that despite my lack of mouse shame I am still unwilling to touch the box that the mouse is inside of, this is how I retain my girl status). We stuck a book on top of the hole and I sent G to release his catch out into the cold outside far far away from my house. He had barely gotten down the stairs when I heard the screams.

Apparently up until that morning my boyfriend didn't know that mice could crawl up walls and his little heart (and lazy little feet) wanted to double check that the mouse was in the box before he ventured down the street. So he removed the book from the hole and his curiosity was rewarded with a face full of mouse. Were this a cartoon or a snippet or America's "Funniest" Home Videos here is where we'd cut to the "Mouse: 1 Humans: 0" scoreboard panel. If you, like me, are holding out hope that a mouse can't possibly be brazen or smart enough to climb back upstairs and return to the scene of his capture you would, sadly, be wrong.

So we resorted to traps. I went into the drugstore with the intention of buying some hippy-ass no kill traps but apparently much like organic food and shops selling hipster knick knacks Astoria isn't ready for letting their mice run free. So in an attempt to further alienate myself from everyone I know ("She has mice in her house and she kills them! dirty and evil! let's string 'er up!") I bought your standard "put cheese here and watch mice die a gruesome death" traps. Now, every morning I wake up and steal myself to peak inside of the box in hopes and fear of finding a mouse corpse. But, despite my best efforts, my homicide record is still clean. Of course this means that my house is infested with some super smart race of mice that is untrappable, next thing you know they'll raise an army of waterbugs and I'll be forced to live on the street.

This Was Supposed to Be a Home Depot Rant But I Mostly Just Ramble

When folks contemplate life in the big city they think of vaguely offensive art instillations and great Ethiopian food and bars that stay open all night. They do not think about the day when an itchy green thumb will leave them with a burning desire to go to Home Depot. Despite the general lack of space for big box stores there are actually multiple Home Depots in the greater New York City area including one on 23rd St in Manhattan where the door men wear company themed three piece suits complete with a bright orange stripe down the side of each pant leg -- this was my father's favorite thing about New York during his one, and likely only, visit. My trip, however, was to the Home Depot on Northern Blvd in Queens where the large parking lot and numerous car dealerships within spitting distance could lead one to mistake the city for the suburbs. But make no mistake, this incarnation of the big orange building supply store is nothing if not New York City gruff. I walked to the Home Depot which took about 30 minutes and is certainly something that I would not have done if I resided in the suburbs since the roadways would be sidewalkless. Score one for urban living.

When I arrived at Home Depot there were no carts in sight. I hiked around the parking lot, peaked behind the decking display and walked through the front doors trying to look all "hey, I need a cart, someone point me to the cart section." all in vain and eventually was reduced to talking to a Home Depot employee. She directed me back out to the parking lot where I was forced to stalk customers coming out of the exit doors. I rejected the first abandoned cart because it had no back and I could not picture myself successfully pushing this peninsula of a vehicle down the store aisles without ending up buried under a tumbling pile of plants, fertilizer and terracotta at my first hard stop. I spied a cart without any obvious bodily harm in a distant corner of the lot and managed to seize it before another desperate shopper pounced. It turned out this cart was also broken -- Home Depot clearly does not value its Queen's customer base-- but only in the child seat section and even if I had brought a toddler with me I'd have surly traded it for a cart by now anyway. I entered the store.

After stocking up on red yellow and orange dahlias, daisies and ranunculuses(who loves a theme? I do! I do!) I headed indoors for the more practical needs -- pots and soil. The far wall of the Garden Center that clearly once had potting soil stacked up to the ceiling was completely empty, apparently the whole of New York City is gaga for gardening -- either that or someone had a lot of bodies to bury. Since I'm currently reading In Defense of Food and have learned that modern produce has fewer nutrients than produce from my mother's childhood (Seriously? Fuck you, apples.) likely at least partially due to the chemicals in modern fertilizers so I was totally prepared to spend vast quantities of money on organic soil but staring at the empty wall and contemplating a midweek return to the hell of Home Depot I would have gladly compromised on straight nitrogen and horse poop -- alas, no luck. You're likely thinking that surely some other, less evil, closer to home, retail business must be willing to sell me vast quantities of potting soil but you would be very very wrong. My best back up for Home Depot is buying my soil in 2lb quantities from the florist near home at a cost of 8 billion dollars. Home Depot was also out of window boxes, small plastic planters and drainage dishes. Awesome.

When I arrived at the register the jade plant that I had hoped to brighten up my living room with was pricetagless. Rather then burden herself with a price check the salesgirl told me to go back to the plant section on the other side of the store and find a plant with a label. I love a scavenger hunt, really, but I usually prefer that winning be rewarded with a better prize than "the opportunity to give a huge corporation $3 for a tiny plant." I located the jade plants and, behaving as is I were on The Amazing Race shoved aside other shoppers and dug through the display rejecting all of the 5 unmarked plants, I may have also whispered "train? choochoo? andale!" under my breath, it's all a little fuzzy now. Anyway I finally found a plant that was ready to buy and sprinted up to the checkout again pushing past other shoppers giving me the stink eye for cutting in line. $129 later I was exiting the store to throngs of shoppers looking to lay hands on my cart. Circle of Life, bitches.

Armed with way more flowers than one could carry I needed a ride home and since my one friend with a car was busy I was going to have to get this ride home from a complete stranger. I'll pause here for a moment while my country kin take a time out to wonder if I have any good stuff that they could lay claim to after my death. This being New York City I figured, correctly, that just outside of the exit (beyond the cart hungry hordes) would be 3 or 4 guys standing around asking people if they needed a ride home. My driver today was a large Hispanic man who could definitely kill me with his bare hands if he wanted to but I wasn't concerned until we got his car -- a White Ford Windstar minivan with a "Te Amo Jesus" license plate frame. Legit car services do not drive anything other than black town cars with ripped interior upholstery and 3x4 inch flags from African countries hanging from the rear view mirror. So even though my driver seemed like a nice enough guy (despite repeatedly calling me "baby") I sketched out a brief contingency plan involving a tumble out the side door to the relative safety of the asphalt should things take a turn for the worst. Luckily it never came to that, I arrived home both alive and without any road burns.

And now? My flowers and seeds and herbs are stuffed into their containers and we'd all be ready for spring if it weren't for the dreary weather that has, of course, taken over the city. At least I have an excuse to tromp around in my cute rain boots.

The South Rises Again

A month ago when a friend invited me to the Drive-By Truckers concert I thought, "I like you, I like music, there will probably be a bar at the venue and I'm generally pro doing things -- Sure!" I had only vaguely heard of the band and had exactly one of their songs in my music collection obtained years ago as part of an elaborate online song recommendation game that one is apt to get involved in when one is unemployed and generally starved for excitement (and when one has such a liberal definition of exciting things to do that "downloading new music" somehow makes the cut). I am a big believer in concert prepartying so to properly prepare for the impending live music event I purchased a DBT cd (Southern Rock Opera) and added them as a station on Pandora. I did a lot of listening but I wasn't really sold on the band -- they seemed ok, rocky, fun, etc but as far as I could tell very few of their songs were about girls dumping them and the crippling depression that followed so I was understandably skeptical about my ability to fall in love. On the plus side the album tells one long story about Lynard Skynard and life in the south and I do love a good theme. (so much so that I preceded the concert with a southern meal at the Delta Grill where I had fried okra and jambalaya and bourbon and ginger ale -- probably the best preparty concert prep ever).

Perhaps it was the thematic alcohol consumption talking but the live show was so amazing that despite all preshow indications to the contrary I totally want to sleep with everyone in the band (even the woman, even though she sort of has a thematic but not so attractive mullet). The band is somehow capable of pulling off without irony rock and roll moves that should be hilarious, especially to a cynical, dance challenged, emotionally walled off girl like me. They're doing the face to face, crotches close together, leaning way back guitar rocking last seen at a Guns N Roses concert in 1998. They're picking up the mike stands and spinning them over their heads and playing their guitars on their knees. At one point a band member walks around the stage pouring Jack Daniels whiskey down the throats of the other band members while they play their instruments. I really should have been laughing and rolling my eyes but instead I was kind of rocking out in my own little awkward half dancing while leaning against the wall because I am too cool/embarrassed to move any body part except for my hips way.

It wasn't just the band that left me wishing for a 40 of PBR, a belly shirt and my very own double wide -- their fans are pretty convincing in their own right. The 55 year old bearded redneck in front of me was entertaining enough in his jumping up and down fist pumping glory that I could have been happy watching just him for 2 hours. Least you think this fellow stood out let me assure you that at least half of the audience appeared to have been imported from 1973 rural Alabama -- I was lost in a sea of full beards, flannel shirts, leather jackets and well worn Wranglers. Every set ended not only with a cacophony of applause but also a sea of cell phone tributes (sadly even in Hicksvillle circa 1970 this seems to have replaced the lighter homage) and devil horns held high. This was a very devil horn friendly crowd. I had to wonder where in New York City these folks hang out during daylight hours, or what neighborhood they live in -- is there a high rise full of time traveling hillbillies with a garage full of Harleys hidden somewhere in the city? I ultimately decided that it might be best that I stay in the dark about the secret biker hangouts since I have no hope of keeping up with their drinking even if they'd let my irony stained ass inside.

The highlight of the show for me was the song "Hell No I Ain't Happy" probably because it is the most cynical song on their roster. Trucker's lead singer Patterson Hood (seriously, awesome southern name there buddy, way to stay on theme) throws his arms out in crucification stance and belts out the title line and like any good singer the message is so much more than the words. "No, I'm not happy and you are an idiot for thinking I might be and double an idiot for thinking life can ever be rolled up into a ridiculous label like 'happy.' Fuck you." And yet through all of that Hood was pretty fucking happy. And so were the seas of angry looking bastards surrounding me. And so was I.

Stuff this White Person Would Like if Given the Chance

Saturday night I was out with friends of friends having just consumed a whole pig when the subject of where I lived came up. As is typical among the young urban elite the shock of hearing that people reside off of the island of Manhattan was too much for them and a long uncomfortable silence ensued. If only the answer to "what neighborhood do you live in?" had been decidedly Brooklyn based I could have justified my existence under the guise of hippsterism or possibly even extremely early family planning but the scourge of Queens leaves one with very little to turn to save reasonable rent and a love for a spacious living room. Don't get me wrong, I happen to like Astoria a fair bit mostly because its relatively quiet residential streets make it possible to lie to my country girl heart about exactly where we are living but I suspect it would be a much easier place to justify if the much promised gentrification that people have been yakking about for years would hurry up and get here already.

I have lived in Astoria for three and a half years and I feel that I have done my part to gentrify the shit out of this place. In addition to hiring a cleaning lady and paying for laundry service on a regular basis I am also white in the nondescript way that makes it all but impossible to determine the culinary specialties of my mother (she makes a mean salad). I exclusively purchase my caffeinated beverages from the independently owned and wittily named cafe on my block. I joined the local CSA in an effort to send the message that, "YES! Queens residence are finally too good for grocery store vegetation!" and hopefully encourage the opening of a Whole Foods. I even started a blog about the neighborhood in an effort to court the young tech money. All to no avail; the blocks around my house are still home to only greasy Chinese and $.99 stores. I know on some level I'm supposed to fear gentrification for the way it will embolden my land lord (though realistically I can't imagine him being emboldened into much beyond a cocktail before 2pm while taking in a round of 18 in Delray Beach) but really how much will my rent go up if we got a book store up in here? Everyone thinks gentrification is all Starbucks and Panera Bread pushing out the local flavor, they forget that white washing these streets would also mean higher quality brunch options for all.

For almost two and a half years the building next to the Ditmars train stop has stood empty save the char and ash the were left over after a particularly extra crispy fire broke out in an Italian restaurant. I'll admit that a month or so ago when I saw construction workers laying down plywood and tile I got my hopes up. A pilates studio? A bar with a disproportionate number of blue drinks on the menu? A kitschy boutique selling overpriced novelty salt and pepper shakers in the shape of gnomes next to notebooks made from 60s era junior high school sex education manuals? My heart swooned.

The new neighborhood entrepreneurs did not consult me before setting up shop but if they had I could have provided them with a long list of things that Astoria already has too many of. Dentist offices (particularly overly fancy ones decorated with flat screen tvs). Banks that are not Bank of America and which charge roughly $75 for every ATM transaction. Cafes where smoking laws do not apply. Stores specializing in knit tube tops. Sad hallway sized bodegas selling printer cartridge refills. My 2 block walk from home to the subway already takes me past a Famous Footwear and a Foot Locker and yet on Friday what should I see taking up residence in the former shell of the burned out pizzeria but a Payless Shoe Source (You could pay more, but not in Queens.)!

So now what? Obviously my dreams of a nice farmer's market and a cute gellato shop are floundering and on top of stocking up on heirloom tomatoes and green tea ice cream via Fresh Direct I also need to find a new way to justify my neighborhood choice. Can I get get away with a claim that I'm "keeping it real" by choosing to live with the "true New Yorkers"?

Drinking Vodka with Fame

Yesterday I discovered that it is very difficult to make “I’m going out for vodka” sound like anything other than “I have a serious drinking problem.” However, I assure everyone that if I had a real drinking problem that last sentence would have been followed by a favorable review of cough syrup as an emergency go to cocktail option and possibly some table dancing so I think we’re safe for now. And in my defense this vodka was fancy, and as we all know fancy = totally not a sign that you’re a boozer. This is all to say that inspired by a shared love for homemade beverages my friend Jason and I paid a visit to the Russian Vodka Room last night with a yen for sampling their reportedly very yummy infused vodkas.

The evening started with me going to the wrong Russian themed vodka emporium. It turns out that in an impressive move aimed at confusing tourists and locals alike the Russian Samovar is located directly across the street from the Russian Vodka Room and boasts a much larger sign proclaiming them the super duper kings of all things vodka. I do not actually know who rules the vodka-verse because I eventually figured out (thanks mostly to Jason’s instructions that our destination was located on the north side of the street) that the red awning’s grandiose claims aside, this was not where I was meant to get inebriated at this moment (but surly will be a place of future drinking even though Jason told me they have a mandatory coat check which seems crazy annoying).

Despite my brief foray into location confusion I still arrived at the designated bar well before my friend because in my typical crazy obsessed about time fashion I had left myself a good 20 minute buffer to ensure that I would not be late. It is times like this when my obsessive planning leads to still being on time despite a few bumps in the road that validate my crazy. So I took a seat at the bar and pulled out my book only to be immediately interrupted by the effeminate older man on my right. He had questions about email. About if I liked email better then the phone (“Yes, with email it is much more easily ignore the parts of the conversation that you don’t find interesting.”). About if I was a writer (“Ummm sort of? I write things but ‘writer’ seems to imply that I don’t suck which would be somewhat inaccurate”). About if I thought technology was ruining society (“I work for a software company and I’m just glad to be a part of the end times.”). He was not interested in letting me read my book. Or in ever ending our increasingly more and more boring conversation. Thankfully Jason strolled in at about 7:32 thus saving me from death by inebriated gay man and restoring my faith in other people’s abilities to arrive on time for events, of course he’s also a project manager so I probably shouldn’t use him as a yardstick for your average person.

So anyway, the vodka was great. I sampled the apple pomegranate and the peach apricot both of which were flavorful enough to make one quickly forget that she is drinking straight alcohol sans mixer and that she might want to focus on sipping. The peach apricot seemed to be the real winner as the fruit flavor was much more prominent but it’s possible that this opinion was overly influenced by the fact that I had the peach apricot combo second and thus was already well on my way to easily being able to enjoy booze that comes from a plastic jug. Jason went for the savory vodka experience and ordered the garlic pepper and dill followed by the horseradish. The GPD has the unfortunately aroma of pickle juice which was a bit of a turn off even for a girl who considers a bowl full of baby dills a reasonable dinner option. Smell aside GPD totally delivered in the flavor department -- the garlic taste was mellow with a pepper punch at the end, I can’t say I tasted any dill but I also didn’t miss it. As Jason had made the somewhat dubious decision to come to the vodka room with an empty stomach (As a much more well prepared drinker I choose to preparty with a can of soup) he ordered some home fries with mushrooms which I ate roughly half of because I cannot resist the lure of starch+fat. Despite my inability to stop picking at the plate of food as home fries go these were only so-so. The mushrooms were a nice touch as was the side of sour cream for dipping but these flourishes were overshadowed by the lack of a crispy outer coating on the potatoes themselves.

Mid our first fancy-glassed shot of fermented potato juice Jason alerted me to the presence of a celebrity in our midst. Evil scary Ben/Henry from Lost has just entered the bar! This was wonderful news because I knew it would afford me the opportunity to perpetuate the myth that living in New York City means constantly hobnobbing with the A-list. EB/H sat down at the end of the bar at least 10 feet from Jason and I which allowed us to talk about him at our leisure while maintaining the illusion of totally cool New Yorkers who are so used to hanging out with celebs that we can continue to drink our booze all casual like and openly glare at the tourist who decided to take a photo WITH FLASH of our very famous friend who is just trying to enjoy a quite night of boozing it up in a taxi-friendly city where he will not have to worry about living up to the Lost cast member stereotype of getting pulled over for a DUI.

You can consider this my official recommendation of the Russian Vodka Room. I cannot promise that visiting this joint will give you the opportunity to chill with TV stars if you’re not already a very hip New Yorker like myself but I can promise potent alcohol with just enough flavoring to make getting drunk enough that you *think* you see a few celebrities very easy to accomplish. And, as I always say, if you can’t have the real thing delusion is a handy substitute.

Random aside: while trying to avoid staring at the famous man Jason and I stumbled upon a very important linguistics question: What is the difference between an orchard and a grove? keep in mind that I'm pretty sure it goes "apple orchard" "olive grove" "pear orchard" "citrus grove." Please help, I already looked for answers on ye olde internet and have been let down (see here).

Airing it Out

On the years when I am good Santa (cleverly disguised as my mother) brings me new underwear. If, like this past year, I’m super good and Santa is able to make the four hour journey to the mall I get a box filled with new extreme low rise panties from Victoria’s Secret because these are the only underwear on the planet that are cute and fun and comfy and do not stick out over the top of my pants most of which sit casually on my hips because the world does not make pants that fit both my hips and my waist at the same time. When I opened this gift a couple of weeks ago I pulled out a bevy of boyshorts in blue and pink and gray and one pair in red tartan with “take my photo” scrawled in cursive across the butt. Always a fan of ass graffiti I was thrilled that Mama Clause had finally seen the message baring potential of my rear end. Sadly when I offered kudos for this huge fashion leap she demurred, claiming that Papa Clause had rushed her out of the store and had she seen that “ridiculous” message there is no way she’d have ever purchased the underwear. I think it’s sad that mom has yet to embrace her inner J-Lo.

The cruel trick of owning cute underwear is that unlike the smart gray sweater I also got for Christmas or the sexy gold shoes I bought in September or the awesome “Math: Get Sum!” button that my friend Joe gave me last spring I rarely get to show it off due to a distinct lack of pantsless opportunities in my life. This is especially disappointing when the panties in question use my behind as a billboard. A billboard with no one to read it is a sad and lonely piece of marketing. But luckily, on Saturday my personal mobile messaging system was given an opportunity to communicate with the outside world thanks to Improv Everywhere’s No Pants 2K8.

No Pants Day has been taking place on the New York City subway every January for the past 7 years but this was my ass’s first time to get out and mingle. Not content to mingle alone we roped Kajal and the pooper (aka her fetus who is so far having a no pants life) into attending with us. 900 other people (most of whom you’ll be shocked to hear were far far geekier than Kajal and I) joined us so in addition to our cute boyshorts the subway was packed full of boxers, bikinis and tighty whities.

The plan was for us to break into groups of 25 or so and spread out over the train cars. Once we boarded the subway people would begin taking off their pants in even smaller groups (starting with one guy at the first stop), get off the subway and wait for the next train. My nerves kicked in as soon as the doors closed on the stop before we were set to bare our asses especially since Kajal and I were the first girls in our car to stand and drop trow. No Pants day was a bit of a sausage fest and Kajal and I had speculated while waiting to board the train that this was because boxers were much less revealing than women’s panties but as I sat on the subway with a depantsed man standing in front of me I quickly realized that going pantsless with penis was much more dangerous than standing around in my underwear. I am thankful to not have to worry about any of my bits falling out. I couldn’t chicken out now so off the pants came and frankly, once you get them off, the rest is easy.

As Kajal and I waited on the platform for the next train she pulled out her lotion and began applying it to her eczema. I cannot articulate how hot it is to see a pantsless pregnant lady applying cream to her dry skin. I had to fight the men off in order to preserve her marriage. The pooper and his daddy better thank me for keeping their family intact.

A couple of observations on the state of underwear in America:

1. There were a number of girls trying to rock boxers which was obviously some serious cheating and also not anywhere near as cute as my boyshorts and knee highs combo. Knee highs were surprisingly popular for the women in attendance -- one assumes that, like me, the other girls still like to save their ankles for their husband’s eyes only. Who says we live in an amoral society?
2. If the boxer clad men I spied are any indication of status quo then the boys I date have super good taste in underwear. Today I saw way too many cartoon character themed pairs of boxers. SpongeBob on your junk or Oscar the Grouch on your ass is not hot. I also saw an entire group of boys who had chosen to pull their boxers up into an impromptu thong-like contraption that frankly may have burnt my eyes out of my skull.

It is somewhat shocking how boring sitting on the subway in your underwear can be, especially when there is little to no reaction to your half naked booty. I know New Yorkers are jaded and nonplused but I think I witnessed a new plane of blasé. After 2 stops of pantless mass transit a father and his 10 year old son boarded the train which caused me to internally start freaking out about the possibility that the father might be seriously upset that his child was seeing me in all my naked thighed glory. I need not have worried. The ten year old didn’t even comment on the almost nudity around him! I assure you that if, at 10, I had so much as glimpsed panties in public I would still be talking about it today. But I grew up in the backwoods where people still pretend clothing is not in any way removable.

Our sojourn took us via the 6 train from City Hall up to 96^th street and back down to Union Square. We were instructed to pretend that we didn’t know any of the other pantsless freaks and if approached make crazy claims like, “Yeah, I forgot my pants, it’s a little cold” but short of a few catcalls no one talked to me(except for Kajal who I can’t just sit next to and not chat with, be realistic.). I believe there was some no pants after partying in Union Square but by then Kajal was both starving (having not eaten in over 20 minutes which I believe is the longest she can go without throwing sustenance at the parasite) and suffering from the effects of having a fetus kick her bladder for 2 hours. So we had our own post party at Veselka where the other patrons (whether they knew it or not) were disappointed that the two girl at the back table chose to wear pants to dinner.

This Reporter Smells Something Fishy and it's Not Just the Anchovies.

I know that my normal writing is less hard hitting ground breaking journalism and more wry commentary on tragedies that befall me spiced up with food porn but today that changes. Today, right here, I will be breaking one of the biggest New York food related stories (and possibly the single biggest New York food story to not involve vermin). You’ll probably want to set your Mai Tai down and get out a pipe and smoking jacket so you at least look the part of a true news reader rather than a slobby blog reader.

Three years living in New York City have made me extremely judgmental of slow walkers. I have also developed the hilarious habit of forgetting that public transportation is a myth in all other cities and that it is totally appropriate to drive across the street because seriously no one outside of New York even knows how to walk. But I have not yet become a pizza snob so when in Las Vegas last Saturday my family invited me out for pizza I happily agreed. After all I love anything smothered in cheese and Dad was paying. Here’s a free cooking tip: the best way to improve a dish is to make it free.

When mom told me that we were going to a place called “Grimaldi’s” a little bell went off in my head., “… that sounds familiar.” In the car on the way to dinner I spent at least 10 minutes on thoughts like, “Is that the name of a baseball player?” “Did I ever date a boy named Grimaldi?” “Does having this mental conversation at 29 years old constitute early onset Alzheimer’s?” until I shouted out, “Hey! The famous pizza place near work is named Grimaldi’s! Mom, we went there.” And then my mom started in on, “Oh, I bet this is the same place, it’s probably a chain.” But OF COURSE she is wrong because I am an incredibly cool foodie and I do not eat at chains. And seriously the supposed best pizza place in New York is not a chain. GEEEEEEEEEEZ MOM.

Um. Actually. Fuck. I hate it when my mom is right.

The Grimaldi’s of the west (with locations in Vegas, Dallas and all over Arizona but notably, NOT in New York) is New York themed. The walls covered with subway signs and pictures of the city with a heavy and disturbing focus on the Brooklyn Bridge. The waitress flair involved a lot of (relatively big) apples. It screamed “chain!” I was certain (despite my mother’s pleas to the contrary) that this overly clean, match-y, boring restaurant was of no relation to the tightly packed, demure pizza joint of Dumbo fame. But then I read the “history” section of their menu which starts with “The pizza that made the Brooklyn Bridge famous.” Curious…

Patsy Grimaldi learned the trade from his Uncle Patsy Lancieri, who trained with the man credited with opening the first pizzeria in America in 1905. Lancieri opened Patsy’s Pizzeria in East Harlem in 1931, where Grimaldi started learning the art of coal brick oven pizza at the tender age of 10.

And curiouser.

The menu at Grimaldi’s:The New Dough (see here) is also strangely similar to the NYC joint with the exception that it is sponsored by no less than 4 brand name products (China Mist Tea, Lavazza Coffee, Carmelina Brands (exclusive Grimaldi’s supplier of tomatoes) and Hormel Foods (not exactly sure what they’re bringing to the party since Spam does not appear to be on the menu…)). You order plain pizzas and pay extra for toppings, the toppings options are pretty much the same though I think the west coast might have more variety (Does Dumbo’s Grimaldi’s offer anchovies or ham?). West Coast Gs also offers an Oreo cheesecake which I cannot imagine would be sanctioned in NYC.

The pizza itself was good – I suspect surprisingly good for a pizza served in Las Vegas. I also suspect that someone more New York-y than myself could tell you about 8000 things that were wrong with it but rather than focus on the negative I decided to continue my main December focus of eating a lot of food. I had 4 slices. The crust was thin, the layer of cheese not too thick, the sun dried tomatoes flavorful, I really can’t complain.

It was fast becoming clear that someone in the Grimaldi’s family was raking in some sweet licensing cash. And part of me thinks, “good for you guys!” But the more cynical part who sometimes also considers bands less cool if they, you know, sell any records is certain this is a sign that Grimaldi’s has sold out and will soon start sucking. I think the natural flow in situations like this is, “good restaurant -> open chain -> start serving frozen tater tots -> vermin infestation -> closure” So you know, consider this a warning.

The biggest difference (outside of décor) between Grimaldi’s NYC and Grimaldi’s:The Cash Cow is the friendliness of the wait staff. For those of you who have never been to Grimaldi’s NYC might I just say that customer service has been sacrificed in favor of creating a stereotypical New York experience in the form of having waiters yell at you. It’s a bold choice. In Vegas the have gone with the more traditional “waitress is nice because she works for tips and recognizing that kissing your ass is the fastest path to money.” Another notable difference is that in Dumbo I have never seen a pizza dropped on the floor but in Vegas I saw this happen no less than 3 times in 45 minutes. Leave it to Vegas to work in dinner entertainment.

I just took a gander at the Dumbo Grimaldi’s website and the (much snazzier though still rather crappy) Southwestern Grimaldi’s Pizza Chain website and my suspicions that these entities are related has been confirmed. In fact the NYC Grimaldi’s site links to the knock off site. And Wikipedia also notes the relationship. You may not have cared about this news but you can’t deny that I broke this story. Or at least that I wrote the longest diatribe about it. I’ll watch for my press pass in the mail.

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Third Party Resources

Do you know where to find the best New York pizza around? Even if you suddenly find out that the Las Vegas pizza you love is related to your New York pizza place by a chain restaurant, you can still check out the yellow pages for some worthwhile pizza joints.