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Daughter of the King

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Daughter of the King

Tag Archives: entertainment

No Makeup Saturday

16 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by lbcarizona in Uncategorized

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alex trebec, beauty, entertainment, fashion, female, friends, hair, life, makeup, style, women

I wish it were Monday. No make-up Monday has such a ring to it. And Mondays are a nice excuse for anything. You know, people have heart attacks on Mondays more than any other day. Alex Trebec knows this for sure.

The point is, today’s a day to get ready the regular way. Jeans-n-boots, my favorite t shirt, with pencil sketches of the band Cream on the front. New gray jacket from H&M, mustard seed necklace, wedding and engagement bands. My hair styles are simple, but there are lots of them. I never like to wear my hair the same way. All my friends know that I’m the best nonprofessional hairstylist they know. I don’t know how it happens; but it does.

And then only lotion on my winter-chapped face. Out the door. You see, I’m often caught in the white lie that I don’t wear any makeup. Ever. And, to be fair, no one ever actually calls me out on this, but I know that when I say it, it’s only a half-truth. I wear exponentially less makeup than everyone I know. Except my girlfriends, Sarah and Charissa, they really don’t wear any. Not in the half-truth way. They may not even own any; you’d never know, pretty faces. Even my little sister, ten years my junior, (parental-style digression diverted) wears more makeup than I do.

For so many reasons, one of the primary being that I like sleep far too much to spend so much morning in front of the mirror, I don’t invest in all the accoutrements that the female population create a market for. Some cover up, a bronzer that has lasted me 6 years and sometimes a touch of nude eye color. The end. But today, the end is the beginning. None.

The circles under my eyes that have puffed up from crying for my best friend, for my girlfriends all 800 miles away, for enduring change and working too much, they stay gray and deep. The pimple that just mysteriously appeared on my right cheek is red from my rubbing it, and it stays red. Bummer for anyone who has to look at it. My eyelids are sort of veiny, I noticed the other day. And today, they remain such. My skin is a little flush in the winter, unevenly so. And tonight it remains.

I’m dressed and ready. I have my bag, my water bottle and a book for the train. I am makeupless and don’t feel self-conscious. Here I come, world. Look at me.

Things I Do: Watch TV

06 Tuesday Mar 2012

Posted by lbcarizona in Uncategorized

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Christina Applegate, comedy, drama, entertainment, hobbies, life, love, Mulder, Mya Rudolph, relationships, Scully, television, The X-Files, travel, tv, Up All Night, Will Arnett

The last time I watched a television series, I was in high school. I watched The X-Files alone every Sunday night because none of my friends were remotely interested in the Fox drama. Clearly–I was so brilliant to understand the paranormal investigations and subtle humor, and they were so remedial to find the expertly designed one-hour drama uninteresting–clearly.

And so, with pride, I asked my secretary (Mom) to hold my phone calls, and make no plans (my schedule was pretty open at 9pm on a school night) during the airing of The X-Files. I watched for maybe four seasons, keeping track of the character development, noticing the ways Mulder was always, unbelievably, right, yet Scully’s skeptical and logical opinions were necessary and balancing for Mulder and for the show. I was definitely obsessed

I’ve never been, not now, not since, much of a television junkie. I don’t often get caught in front of the TV for hours, or mesmerized with a channel, watching show after show. No Oscar watch-parties for me, no DVR recordings, and a lot of HBO-based conversations that I’ve faked my way through.  I just can’t think of a time since The X-Files when I planned any part of my life around a television show.

On the plane ride home from our honeymoon, my husband and I had pretty much exhausted our onboard resources. We’d finished our books, read the in-flight magazines, finished a crossword puzzle, nibbled on the snacks I’d packed and listened to our ipods. The television was showing 30Rock, which my husband thinks is very funny so we plugged our headphones into the armrests. Afterwards, a new-ish show came on with Christina Applegate, Will Arnett, and Mya Rudolph; lots of names we knew, and a catchy roll of opening credits which kept us plugged in until the landing powered us down. I laughed aloud on the plane, embarrassingly, watching this young couple try to be cool parents.

And, simply, this is the way it goes now. Up All Night is our show. We don’t have need for a cable package because we can watch Up All Night on the internet (for now) without any illegal activity (thankfully). Wouldja loogit that…we have a TV show.

(a) Eyw, we have “a show” or (b) Yay, we have “a show!”  (not sure which to choose)

My adult self has never had a show, but I think I’m happy to have this one. It’s about a couple roughly our age, in roughly our stage of life, having hilarious arguments not unlike some that we’ve had, feeling things I know I’ve felt and laughing about it in the end, because they are oh-so-in-love, also, like us. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Embarrassingly, we also have The X-Files, because my sweet thinking-about-me husband purchased the first season on DVD and has been enduring it with me. It’s so nineteen-nineties, of course, but I still like the plots and the Mulder-is-always-rightness of it, just like I did a decade and a half ago.

We have two shows. (Woot?!) I value them. I will make time for TV. Wow—the things you thought you’d never say.

One Love In A City I Don’t [PDT]

02 Wednesday Feb 2011

Posted by lbcarizona in Uncategorized

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alcohol, bar, Brad Alan Dennison, cocktail lounge, Crif Dogs, dining, East Village, entertainment, hot dogs, life, Manhattan, new york, New York City, NYC, PDT, Please Don't Tell, Prohibition, restaurant, review, speakeasy, telephone booth, the Big Apple, travel, Yesterdog

I don’t have a favorite city, I don’t think. I’ve not been to more than a handful of cities big enough to blink at. But on the list of candidates, you’ll find New York City like you’ll find a contact lens in a swimming pool. As you may remember, I had a few choice words for the notorious Big Apple last time I visited. We’re on speaking terms now, as the East Village offered up an enticing new venue that fit my flavor, but, even still, we try to keep a safe distance.

The business card for my new hotspot is cut from a thick black cardstock. The only writing is in a metallic red, a wayward border on both sides. The logo on the back says PDT with a snake head. The other side, “Please Don’t Tell” with a phone number beneath.

I’ve read reviews that call it pretentious. Folks get mad that they have to call and call back to reserve their spot. We were in the subway when 3 o’clock came and went. Underground without a signal. At this point, PDT was still a surprise for me. It was Brad’s plan; I wasn’t privy to the details, just tugged on his sleeve at eleven minutes after three.

The unknowing was gnawing at my curiosity. We ran up at Columbus Circle to make the call. The reservation line had only been open for minutes and every spot was filled until 11 o’clock at night. Eleven was too late for us, but the only answer was yes.

Call back, claim the reso.

Maybe pretentious is not the word. I find it wise how this mystery place put itself in the business of weeding out those who aren’t persistent.

Just before eleven, we left the train and came around the corner of St. Marks.

Crif Dogs mustn’t be the surprise, I thought to myself, as we walked down a couple steps into the storefront. There were stainless steel countertops, paper hats on the employees, arcade games while you wait and a gaggle of people swarming a wooden accordion door in the corner. It seemed a little like Yesterdog. Popular, unassuming. Still, I wondered about the crowd in the corner. So we waited, I, anxiously.

Inside the accordion door was a phone booth. Room for barely two and a sign that read, Dial 1. A woman answered, tersely. I told her Dennison, at eleven. There were no other doors in the phone booth. The door I’d pushed open and three walls was all. Still, the woman from the phone appeared behind the wall opposite the folding door and invited us into a low-ceilinged room, exposed brick, lights down low.

This was PDT.

It’s an underground cocktail lounge, serving specialty hotdogs from the joint next door, whence we came. With a look from the Prohibition era and a feel that’s the same, we walked covertly through a wall, into 1923, part of the elite in this underground society, two among a small crowd, doers and dolls, talking presumably of business and banking and world affairs.

Everywhere I look, folks are calling PDT one of New York’s hottest speakeasies, surely referring to the borrowed style that we’ve taken from the Prohibition era into the 21st century.

When the ban on alcohol lasted over a decade, these sometimes literally-underground establishments appeared in rundown or sloppy buildings in order to detract attention from those opposed. Inside, illegal alcohol flowed liberally into the morning hours and men and women of the higher walks of society canoodled to their heart’s delight. The decoration was lavish and fancy, leather booths, ornate moldings, and marble counters and floors. Our speakeasies today tend to keep with the theme of secrecy, unassuming entrances and extravagant insides.

PDT, I reckon, fits the bill. They’re known for their cocktails. The waiter, in his sweater vest, slips us a leather-bound menu. Six pages of well-crafted paragraph-long descriptions of the going-ons behind the corner-bar. Everything is handmade back there. The concoctions are original and creative. I wish I’d committed to memory what we’d ordered. I didn’t, but we weren’t disappointed. One was fruity, with a pretty little clove floating around in it. One, a Witch’s Brew of some sort and tasted like cider. Another was chocolate-y and had a raw egg in it. That was the novelty, and Brad’s favorite.

The hot dogs, of course, were a surprise and the world’s greatest anomaly. Everything about this place was undercover, high society, elitist-seeming and fancy. Even the bathroom walls were covered in vain pieces of tiny mirrors. Yet we boldly, chuckling, ordered deep-fried hot dogs, fries and tater tots smothered in cheese and bacon. The food was served on plastic plates, in tin foil. It was so tasty that we switched dogs and ordered again.

Away with shadows and shades of high society, in with hot dogs together with fancy drinks. Away with obvious and open, flashy lights and newspaper ads, in with underground and word-of-mouth. Thank you for a gem in this city that I don’t love.

Another Bite

14 Friday Jan 2011

Posted by lbcarizona in Uncategorized

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airplane, anticipation, cycle, cyclic, decision, destiny, dice, downtown, entertainment, fate, flying, future, gambling, LaGuardia, life, Manhattan, New York City, NYC, relationship, repetition, restaurant, roll, tourist, travel, vacation, winter, year

I’ve only ever been to New York City once. One winter weekend, a handful of dice, shaken and tossed, landing haphazardly on the street corners all over Manhattan, jaywalking, jaywaiting, boarding the ferry in the cold.

I left LaGuardia a little cynical. Loved the people, of course, my dear friends, no doubt. Could have taken the city minus a whole handful of unlikes, maybe in a smaller chunks; maybe without the something sour in my mouth.

This world is cyclic, as much as I try to dodge the around-again.  Took twelve months for another go-round, to gamble big-city style with confidence. 

Adrenaline courses through my veins, poisoning my somber moments, deafening my silences, pulling insistently at the corners of my mouth.  I’m on a plane back to the Big Apple, to take another bite.  For another roll of the dice, bouncing on the green felt of island and ocean.  To play my cards in piano bars, write my fate idiomically on  Manhattan marquees, close my eyes, snake eyes, and cross the streets at stoplights. 

Another bite.  Roll again.  Okay, New York, here I come.

We Try

27 Friday Aug 2010

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Chicago, dining out, disciple-making, downtown, entertainment, food, industry, retaurant, server, service, waiter, waiting tables, Waitress

We wait tables, asleep in these no-slip soles. Slinging schnitzels in front of folks expecting too much, pouring floats for children with clumsy fingers. We linger, we rush. We sit for just a spell. They yell. We hide behind slow-drip coffee and our souls slowly drip, coffee. In this industry, we go crazy. We get angry. We laugh at jokes we’d never make, live comfortably in a world we didn’t create. Disappointment sucks us dry. But yet we try. We follow and lead, then we only follow and forget to lead. It’s not easy, you see, but we try.

Movie Log: February 2010

28 Sunday Feb 2010

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Brick, comedy, Dekker, drama, Eckhart, entertainment, film, Levitt, movies, rating, review, Russell, suspense, Thank You For Smoking, Thr3e, thriller, Waitress

Thank You For Smoking.
Nick Naylor, the lobbyist for Big Tobacco, is as real of a dude as you can find. He has a messy family, a son who he loves and who looks up to him, and he’s juggling every bit of life that the rest of us face. Frankly, it’s hard to hate him, even with the swanky way he runs his mouth. I fancy Naylor; I don’t love him like they want me to, but I’m cool with his character. The movie makes every anti-smoker in the film out to be a dope: a senator unskilled with words, a reporter with low morale and no future, an old sick man who will do anything for money. It’s a mighty wimpy move for a movie that’s trying to be crafty and clever (and periodically succeeds). I didn’t buy that foil for a second. But I do appreciate the end, where Naylor chooses not to return to the Tobacco Company after being fired. Instead, he creates his own business strategy company. Now, just like his meetings with the firearms man and the alcohol lady (these 3 reps compare death tolls over burgers), the company isn’t upstanding or anything – he teaches other company leaders how to talk their way through the ins and outs of business. But the thing I recognize in the movie’s resolution is that everyone has gifts and talents and all this poor guy is trying to do in life is use his! He can reason his way out of a coconut with a spoon and it’s hard to find a valuable place in society for his skill. He knows what he’s good at and he doesn’t want to settle; he wants to use his giftedness. So in the end, he does – and that’s what I respect about him. I guess, if we want to, we can pull anything out of a half-decent movie, though, right?

Thr3e.
Based on the book by Ted Dekker, this thriller surprised me from the get-go. The opening scene is intense and it doesn’t really let up from there. My heart was jumping throughout, and I could not have guessed the final twist if I’d had a hundred guesses. A seminary student is targeted by a “Riddle Killer” and partners with an old friend and an off-duty cop who has a personal connection to the killer to try and figure out why he’s being targeted. He has to uncover painful childhood memories to try and get to the bottom of this mess, all the while living in fear of the next attack. This is certainly a movie that you’ll want to watch twice, after you learn the true nature of the Riddle Killer at the end of the story. What a fantastic dialogue about the forces of evil in and around us.

Waitress.
With this film, I start to form a strong feeling that the lead actor in a film can really drive the movie, even if it lacks in plot or craft areas. Keri Russell plays a sweet Southern waitress who bakes expert pies in a rural diner. Frustrating, even infuriating, to any viewer, she stays almost passively in an abusive relationship to a controlling husband. When she finds out that she’s pregnant, she ends up in an affair with her doctor who, of course, treats her the way we want to see her treated. The most fabulous scene in the film is one where the doctor comes over and she teaches him to bake a pie. The scene is overwhelmingly sensuous, obliterating the throw-away sexually bent scenes throughout. The questions of honesty, responsibility, friendship, and self-esteem that the movie raises are powerful. They are cleverly quilted into this unique tapestry on Southern culture, but for me the course that it ran was missing an elusive something to ring true.

Brick.
This is a puzzle piece movie. To my surprise, Joseph Gordon Levitt (formerly of the classic sitcom, 3rd Rock from the Sun and the wildly popular Shakespeare remake 10 Things I Hate About You) plays a captivating, dominant lead role as a high school senior intensely determined to solve the twisted mystery behind the death of his ex-girlfriend after she calls him in a panic months after their break-up. The beginning was choppy and somewhat confusing. At first, I thought there were too many characters to keep track of, and the girl in question was dead before I was able to figure anything out, so I felt behind. But there was a point early in the film where Levitt’s character, Brendan, meets with his information-rich buddy, Brain, to debrief and plot their course for solving this mystery. In that scene, they catch up the viewer and everyone leaves that scene on the same page. I enjoyed the use of first person camera shots; when Brendan was getting punched, the camera would go black as he hit the pavement and when he opened his eyes the scene would be blurry because he lost his glasses. We couldn’t see clearly until he put his glasses on. Brilliant. Putting the puzzle pieces together throughout the film was intriguing until the very last scene. Each of the character had depth and dishonesty, no one was trustworthy. Just when you think a character was telling the story the way it actually went down, a detail was revealed to prove him a liar. This movie leaves you ripe with speculative conversation as the end credits roll. I love it like that.

Movie Log: January 2010

16 Tuesday Feb 2010

Posted by lbcarizona in Uncategorized

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Away We Go, Christian Bale, Collision, Dave Eggers, entertainment, film, flicks, John Krasinski, Johnny Depp, Madison Dirks, Maya Rudolph, movies, Public Enemies, review, Sam Mendes

Away We Go.

A drama about a couple ready to settle down and start a life and a family together.  The plot has them travelling all over trying to find a suitable place to root down and do life.  And it’s not just the geography of things that gets crazy.  Montreal and Madison are, in themselves, places with plusses and minuses – sure.  But in each place the couple (played by John Krasinski and Maya Rudolph – an explosive, dynamic pair) knows friends or family and explores the nature of this connection on their own beliefs and preferences.  The results of their journey are a number of laughable incidents, endearing moments, perfectly crafted characters, and brilliant questions about the “what” of family, love and life.  Sam Mendes climbs my list of favorite directors with this title, which also sports a screenplay co-written by Dave Eggers, one of my resident faves. 

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Public Enemies.

I may not have typically rushed out to the theater for this film, but I did because my friend Madison snagged a supporting role (and gave a smashing performance, as expected).  Since, I’ve watched it twice more on blu-ray (ooh-la-la) with friends and though it’s out of my standard genre, I really do have the likes for the finer details of this film.  The film follows one of the nation’s most notorious gangsters, John Dillinger, and the FBI agents with the heavy task of catching America’s Most Wanted Criminal.  I find Johnny Depp (Dillinger) most captivating in the villian-you-hate-to-love role (think: Sweeney Todd, Pirates of the Caribbean, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Blow) and even though I’ve faced many naysayers, I adore Christian Bale (FBI agent, Melvin Purvis) in controlled, composed, hero-roles.  The boundaries of the law are bent a time or two, shattered most of the time, but always with this sense of philosophical after-thought for the viewer.  I could become addicted to the theological after-thought.  The swirling “what is right’s” are driven by the love we are falling into for Dillinger, a convicted felon, and by our adoration of his woman who we find innocent and sweet.  Rights and wrongs are clouded when it comes to conclusions, but this tension inflates the film, filling it with succulent moments of life, death, despair, decision. 

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Collision.

Oddly, I cannot remember how I found out about this movie.  There had to be a source because I would have never come across it without direction.  It was a PBS special that aired on television in 2009 and I was able to rent the DVD from the library this month.  It was especially long (3 hours!) and the pacing certainly suffered, but the plot was shockingly engaging.  I’m sold by a true story and this was.  The plot built around the lives of those involved in a major car accident on the A-12 highway in England.  The webbing and braiding of these stories becomes increasingly complex and the film progressively reveals more details about each of the drivers and the life that brought them to the A-12 on that day and at that very time.  What should open and close as a car crash spirals into a mysterious investigation.  To top it off, the commanding officer had a personal investment in various details of the mystery, raising moral and ethical questions along the way.  I tired of the made-for-tv pace more than once, but my curiosity in the storyline pushed me to the end, where conclusions were reached and judgements were made.  Case closed.

Book Log: January 2010

10 Wednesday Feb 2010

Posted by lbcarizona in Uncategorized

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book, book club, Brouwer, Bryson, CS Lewis, Damrosch, Diamant, entertainment, fiction, Henderson, january, literature, nonfiction, Plaut, review

[Dear Mister Miller, You were my inspiration to launch this section of my blog. My 7 1/2 readers can thank you if they feel so inclined.]

Danger in the Shadows Dee Henderson     Danger in the Shadows (O'Malley Series) by Dee Henderson: Book Cover
My first endeavor into the Christian fiction genre was this thriller about a gal who had a traumatic childhood experience and is trying to live her writer life with danger still looming over her. The backstory was unveiled with wonderful pacing, and I was drawn in by the details of the FBI-based plot. I thought I’d just abhor the love story I saw budding between the protagonist and a famous athlete who met in a chance elevator crisis, but I quite enjoyed his diligent and honorable pursuit of her. The details were engaging, the emotions of the characters were transferred to me, the reader, and though the end was happy (as expected) there are more books in the series!

The Red Tent Anita Diamant     The Red Tent by Anita Diamant: Book Cover
Recommended by a friend who was curious about the true Bible facts in this Biblical fiction work, I picked up The Red Tent, excited to discuss the story from the book of Genesis. Early on in my reading, I adopted a cold attitude towards the narrative. I found many details that were quite liberal in the “spaces” they filled between the Biblical truths of Jacob, his wives, and their children. As I continued, my composure softened; I realized that the novel wasn’t trying to rewrite the Genesis narrative but rather tell a fictional story rooted in that historical time period from the female point of view. I came to appreciate the rich cultural details and even some of the suggestions that pose legitimate Bible questions (were Dinah and Joseph childhood friends, since they were close in age?). It’s encouraged me to engage more with the historical fiction genre.

The Four Loves C.S. Lewis     The Four Loves by C.S. Lewis: Book Cover
I began this book over the summer, trying to learn how to best love various friends who were geographically far from me. C.S. Lewis always proves to be a difficult and head-y read. It’s a book I learned intense information from, but I need to read it slowly and methodically to understand the rich concepts that Lewis is suggesting. He presents a great distinction between the loves: affection, friendship, eros, and charity, and makes the connections to practical living obvious.

Service Included Phoebe Damrosch     Service Included by Phoebe Damrosch: Book Cover
All the waiter books I’ve read are all basically the same – it’s the story of someone else living the life I also and already live (yet she’s making a yearly salary from her words, and I still scoop dollar bills off the tables). It’s tough. There are an endless amount of stories from waiting tables, but eventually it all tends to sound the same. This read was engaging, interesting to me because it was set in a dining room much finer than the one in which I work. I liked reading about 10,000 dollar bottles of wine and the sommelier who sold them. A good read, but nothing marking it as a standout from the rest.

I’m a Stranger Here Myself Bill Bryson     I'm a Stranger Here Myself by Bill Bryson: Book Cover
A collection of very brief articles by an American who’s lived the better part of his adult life in England and has returned with his British wife and family to the United States. His fresh eye to all things American and his light, satirical voice had me laughing aloud throughout. This is a wonderful piecemeal read; great for traveling and situations where interruptions are frequent.

Hack Melissa Plaut     Hack by Melissa Plaut: Book Cover
A memoir of sorts about a degree-holding young gal who hates the office life and in her quest to be a real adult, decides to get her “hack license” and start driving taxicabs in New York City. The front end of the book is more impressive than the back half. Maybe it’s like waiting tables – the stories are endless, but after a while they’re all just stories and they lose their luster. She tells about passenger after passenger – some stiff her, most ask her about being a chick cab driver, some are angry, she gets tickets, crashes into other cars, sees a woman stuck under a truck, waits in traffic, and gets the finger all the time. But she’s a cab driver, not a writer, and it shows. Maybe I should drive a cab, for a change of pace? This book wasn’t convincing enough.

Out of the Shadows Sigmund Brouwer     Out of the Shadows #1 by Sigmund Brouwer: Book Cover
Another Christian fiction attempt, this one not as thrilling as the last. Brouwer does well as creating anticipation, but saves all that matters for the last few pages. The ending suffers. The suspense is dragged out too long. In Henderson’s book, I wanted to read the pages in between the “now” and the “big surprise”. But in Brouwer’s novel, I often wanted to skip pages ahead to see what he was making me wait two more chapters for. This author also writes young adult sports novels and an adult western series – maybe those are worth a peek.

REVIEW: New York Eats

09 Tuesday Feb 2010

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breakfast, dining, dinner, downtown, East Coast, entertainment, lunch, Manhattan, New York City, NYC, restaurant, review, tourist, travel, vacation

I ate at a number of wonderful places (most of which were recommended to me by my various hosts) during my time in New York City, the best of which I will elaborate upon here.

Ukranian Cafe: Veselka [East Village]
My situation with this café was unique in a thousand ways. Let’s just say that to start things off I walked in around lunchtime (to eat breakfast), soaked from head to toe, sans umbrella in the sporadic downpour, wearing my Pittsburgh Penguins jersey on the day the Pens would play the New York Rangers inside historic Madison Square Garden. I was wearing my scarf as a babushka to cover my hair and most of my face, trying to stay halfway put-together since I wouldn’t be going anywhere resembling “home” until the middle of the night. Table for one, please.

I ordered breakfast and coffee with soy milk. I love it when restaurants have soy milk.

The French toast was made from challah bread, which I knew as the traditional Jewish braided bread that was to represent the manna that fell from heaven in the Old Testament. I had no idea that this type of baking also had Ukrainian roots, but I later found that the Jewish influence in the Ukraine, dating back to the 18th century, had made it a part of cultural wedding ceremonies and holidays. Hm. Anyway, it had a light, fluffy texture and a subtle, sweet taste. Served with a link of kielbasa, it made a delightful and filling breakfast.

I stayed through the better part of lunchtime, reading books and magazines I had brought and eventually became hungry again. I had read online about this restaurant’s specialty in pierogies and thought I’d try them before I left to visit a number of bookstores (including the largest in the nation). Two meat, one spinach and cheese, and one potato pierogies left me very full and satisfied. The pierogies were soft and stuffed with tasty filling. Wonderful food and service at this quaint little café in East Village.

American Bar/Café: Fanelli Café [Soho]
I recognized the Soho neighborhood, only by name, because I had a friend who’d moved to New York and said he loved this area. It was where all the famous people milled about, and he was after a bit of fame himself, so his affinity didn’t surprise me. But it didn’t take me but a few blocks of wandering about in Soho to find that our tastes didn’t agree.

True, I enjoyed my ninety-second misfit tour in the Prada store and my ensuing interaction with the pair of employees who were liberally twirling, spinning, dancing across the wooden floors in their tailored suits and high heels, getting paid by the hour. And I enjoyed the Evolution store for its museum-like quality of displayed animal carcasses. But other than that, Soho doesn’t have anything I need.  Generally, it’s entitled and I am not.

There was, however, a bustling little pub that called itself a café where we stopped for lunch. It was reasonably priced for the likes of this neighborhood and I was whisked away by the feeling that everything inside the doors was in fast-forward. I very much relished this feeling for the short time we were inside.  I never felt rushed, only comfortable, but nothing ever stopped moving or slowed down.  My chili over rice was warm, filling, not-too-spicy. And ordering chili was a risk for me, unnatural, but I was living on the edge, New York City-style, so why not, right?

Fanelli Café is a bit of gem in this Soho high society. I support this corner bar.  In Soho, we call them cafe’s.

Greek Dinner: Uncle Nick’s [Hell’s Kitchen]
Times Square, where we were seeing Memphis on Broadway, was spilling over with gawking visitors, so we chose dinner a few blocks west in Hell’s Kitchen. The Greek restaurant had exposed brick walls and an open kitchen, a style that I love, especially for ethnically authentic eateries.

Eating anything non-American is always a bit of a challenge, because after ordering an entire meal, there’s the chance you won’t like it. But without taking the risk, you’ll eat hot dogs and hamburgers for the rest of time. I took some tips from my friends who had been here before and started narrowing down the menu to a few items I’d never heard of and one lamb dish that was my safety choice.

I ordered a dish with Greek sausage (so far, I’ve loved all types of sausage I’ve come across), some other meat with a very long name and something called “sweetbreads”, which I naturally thought was a sort of sweet bread. The dish was served with a white wine-based sauce and bit of cabbage. The sausage and the other meat were delicious beyond description. I mean, really. The tastes were explosive and rich, the meats were tender and juicy. It was a truly wonderful experience for the tastebuds.

The sweetbreads, however, surprised us all! They were not, in fact, bread at all. They were a meat that had the texture and consistency of chicken with a thin breading. The taste seemed very mild, adopting the sauce that it was cooked in, something like pieces of cooked tofu. The sweetbreads were not impressive alongside the other meats, but to say the least, they were a very interesting addition to the dish.

Overall, the experience was delightful.  We were seated in a timely manner on a busy weekend evening.  The Greek staff was friendly and accommodating, answering my foolish American questions with kindness and patience.  And the food was well-prepared and authentic, as far as I knew.  Tasty, for sure!

Brunch: Good Enough to Eat [Upper West Side]
Confession: Breakfast is my most favorite meal of them all. I would eat it constantly if it was easily available and I didn’t anticipate having to regularly define my eating habits. I enjoy the food selection at breakfast and the quantity and creativity of the food offered. So when we walked into the brunch establishment with the white picket fence outside, exposed brick walls (can you tell I adore this quality?) and country bookshelves with antique china on the shelves, I was already impressed and hadn’t even decided on my food yet.

At this restaurant, they make a homemade strawberry butter. At all costs, this is worth it. They serve it with warm biscuits instead of toast and this is a fantastic idea. Approved.

If the strawberry butter wasn’t the main course, I also had a sort of skillet that was called a turkey hash on the menu. Diced potatoes, vegetables, and meat browned in a bit of oil and served on a plate, the flavors having blended together with some salt, pepper, and maybe an allspice. Party in my mouth. The strawberry butter gave a sweet intermission between bites of the turkey hash, but the saltiness and portion size of the skillet dish reached near-perfection on my breakfast score card. Cheers – this place really was good enough to eat.

Dear NYC

08 Monday Feb 2010

Posted by lbcarizona in Uncategorized

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

Chicago, downtown, East Coast, entertainment, Manhattan, New York City, NYC, tourist, travel, vacation

Dear New Yorker,

Staten Island Ferry, South Manhattan

Your city is much like mine on two bottles of five hour energy drink or an overdose of a GNC protein shake. Just a little too much of a relatively good thing.

Your grocery stores sport shockingly outrageous prices. Try the fruit stand on the corner.

Be warned: the world is probably not going to end tomorrow. Even if it does, walking in fast forward like you do will not solve anything. The place you are going will still be there when you get there. Slow down.

Remember: New York City will either take your money or your time. Maybe both. And sometimes, your freedom. This isn’t always bad, you just need to be prepared to give something up.

Cathedral, East Village

Attending a professional sporting event in on of the nation’s largest urban centers and cheering for the visiting team is a touch intimidating but quite rewarding.  GO PENS!

A creative establishment or an innovative apartment-owner uses the long, skinny renting space in a unique way and is fine. A regular restaurant or renter feels cramped.

Sure, the cellar doors on the sidewalks are intriguing, but the garbage bags piled high on the streets everyday long for a hideaway. Get alleys.

Redeemer Presbyterian Church, Pastor Tim Keller

No city is too big for a God this big.

Times Square, Daytime

Times Square is a circus. On Saturday night it’s a full-blown freak show and I love nothing about it. If that’s what we value in American entertainment, then send me off on a ship to somewhere.

The food is mostly good.  Culture is appreciated and enhanced here.

I’m no longer amazed by the rich and famous, not like I once was.  I’m quite satisfied and often astounded enough at the successes and talents of the ordinary and the under-appreciated.

Memphis, Schubert Alley

Broadway is not over-rated. It is wisely rated; ratings well-deserved. It is a unique niche of the arts community with so much to be said for it. My appreciation for all things art was deepened and intensified in my first Broadway experience: Memphis.

Try Chicago: it’s like a case-study of your city, with less of the things you hate and not without the urban detail you love. You will wait longer for the train, you can wear sweatpants in public, and famous folks are only every third block.

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