Quote(s) of the Week:
“Christina thinks life is grand.” 1:49pm
“Do we have to wait until Sunday afternoon to find out why?” 5:23pm
“Ha, ha, ha. No special reason, just kind of, well, dare I say it? Kind of happy.” 6:10pm
“Heck - when Happy comes along, we should just welcome it without question!” 8:21pm
~ Myself and Mia on Facebook Wall Wednesday February 4th
Happy Devil in the Cauliflower
It's a beautiful 46-degree sunny day out there, and instead of enjoying the near balmy weather, I am staring at a head of cauliflower and pondering the concept of happiness. You might wonder how the hell cauliflower relates to happiness. Rightfully so. Well, my friends, the happy devil is in the details.
And, on Wednesday night my new state of being was so apparent that LB looked at me and said, "You look happy." Indeed. I was enjoying a glass of Baker's bourbon following the advice of the very cute bartender at Nurse Bettie. EB and I had just come from a press preview of Confessions of a Shopaholic, which really made me laugh despite being a chic-flick. Incidentally, LB worked on the movie's design team, so EB and I anxiously awaited the credits to see his name scroll by in large white type.
Friday night I took my visiting friend JER to Flatiron Lounge on 19th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. The space is designed in art-deco fashion and evokes a sense of speakeasy, though no secret codes or alley wanderings are required to enter. The cocktail menu is extensive and creative with drinks ranging from fruity to dry. I continued my exploration of bourbon with a sour. The type of bourbon was unspecified, but for $13 a pop one hopes they use a good brand.
As JER and I sipped our drinks and crunched complimentary Japanese snack crackers, we discussed happiness--more specifically how we both came to find ourselves happy at this time in our lives. We have known each other since 1996, though there was a long period of time when we lost track of each other. We were reconnected a few years back by a mutual eccentric friend for whom we both worked back in the days of our early twenties. Crazy times in central California.
Back then my diet was slightly better than in college, but not much. My first major food discovery in California was the bagel. As a girl from Illinois, I thought bagels were chewy boring bread disks that came from the freezer section of the grocery store. When I had my first everything bagel with vegetable cream cheese, my tongue writhed in a little taste orgasm. How could I have gone 21 years without it?
Um, okay. Was that a little TMI? Well then, back to happiness.
JER’s theory is that one only needs to occasionally take pause and look around to find happiness through the beauty that lies all around us. This idea supports my own personal belief that one can find beauty anywhere--even in a head of cauliflower. Sure, it may seem like just another piece of produce, and a nubby one at that, but see how the light hits all the bumps and ridges and the shadows fall into the crevices? It’s actually quite pretty.
You may wish to know what brought me to staring at a head of cauliflower on this fine afternoon. (Or perhaps you don’t, but I am not concerned.) I have to photograph a head-sized piece of produce for a basic black-and-white photography class which I am taking at the School for the Visual Arts. The assignment is meant to be a study in light and shadow to prepare us for photographing a human head. The instructor used cabbage as an example. Cabbage is okay and all, but cauliflower really has something going on. The undulations of those nubby hills and the beautiful green striations of the leaf stems underneath... it's beauty called to me from the market shelf. So, I took it home to make it a star under the spotlight of my new photo lamp. It's beauty shall be emulsified into eternity, assuming of course, that I develop the film correctly.
After cocktails at the Flatiron Lounge, JER and I went to Pierre Loti, a wine bar on Irving Place which has a good selection and some delicious food items, including a beet and arugula salad and a smoked eggplant dip, which is fabulously garlicky. They also have a very nice cheese selection. We ordered a bottle of a white wine from Turkey called Kavaklidere Angora. Pierre Loti is always a nice place to sit and enjoy a few glasses of wine, though the menu is not recession friendly.
My enjoyment of good food and good bourbon continued on Saturday night at a party at my friend LP's. (Happy birthday to LP!) I tried Knob Creek once again and made a few Manhattan's. This time, I ate a lot and stretched my drinks over three hours. See? I'm learning. LP made some fabulous salsa and hummus. It's so hard to find good store bought hummus; they tend to lack tahini and contain too much lemon.
I can almost hear some of you wondering whether my state of happiness might be a side effect of the bourbon drinking. Technically, however, alcohol is a depressant, so the fact that I can remain happy and drink so much only means my state of happiness is truly genuine.
The bourbon exploration will therefore continue. I heard from two people this past week that Old Rip Van Winkle's Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve is a great bourbon (see Mia's previous comment). I haven't been able to obtain it yet, but will keep you posted!
By the way, for any of you fellow gastronomers who live in NYC or plan to visit, New York City Restaurant Week has been extended through February 27.
Stay tuned! More adventures and ponderings to continue next week!
“Christina thinks life is grand.” 1:49pm
“Do we have to wait until Sunday afternoon to find out why?” 5:23pm
“Ha, ha, ha. No special reason, just kind of, well, dare I say it? Kind of happy.” 6:10pm
“Heck - when Happy comes along, we should just welcome it without question!” 8:21pm
~ Myself and Mia on Facebook Wall Wednesday February 4th
Happy Devil in the Cauliflower
It's a beautiful 46-degree sunny day out there, and instead of enjoying the near balmy weather, I am staring at a head of cauliflower and pondering the concept of happiness. You might wonder how the hell cauliflower relates to happiness. Rightfully so. Well, my friends, the happy devil is in the details.
And, on Wednesday night my new state of being was so apparent that LB looked at me and said, "You look happy." Indeed. I was enjoying a glass of Baker's bourbon following the advice of the very cute bartender at Nurse Bettie. EB and I had just come from a press preview of Confessions of a Shopaholic, which really made me laugh despite being a chic-flick. Incidentally, LB worked on the movie's design team, so EB and I anxiously awaited the credits to see his name scroll by in large white type.
Friday night I took my visiting friend JER to Flatiron Lounge on 19th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues. The space is designed in art-deco fashion and evokes a sense of speakeasy, though no secret codes or alley wanderings are required to enter. The cocktail menu is extensive and creative with drinks ranging from fruity to dry. I continued my exploration of bourbon with a sour. The type of bourbon was unspecified, but for $13 a pop one hopes they use a good brand.
As JER and I sipped our drinks and crunched complimentary Japanese snack crackers, we discussed happiness--more specifically how we both came to find ourselves happy at this time in our lives. We have known each other since 1996, though there was a long period of time when we lost track of each other. We were reconnected a few years back by a mutual eccentric friend for whom we both worked back in the days of our early twenties. Crazy times in central California.
Back then my diet was slightly better than in college, but not much. My first major food discovery in California was the bagel. As a girl from Illinois, I thought bagels were chewy boring bread disks that came from the freezer section of the grocery store. When I had my first everything bagel with vegetable cream cheese, my tongue writhed in a little taste orgasm. How could I have gone 21 years without it?
Um, okay. Was that a little TMI? Well then, back to happiness.
JER’s theory is that one only needs to occasionally take pause and look around to find happiness through the beauty that lies all around us. This idea supports my own personal belief that one can find beauty anywhere--even in a head of cauliflower. Sure, it may seem like just another piece of produce, and a nubby one at that, but see how the light hits all the bumps and ridges and the shadows fall into the crevices? It’s actually quite pretty.
You may wish to know what brought me to staring at a head of cauliflower on this fine afternoon. (Or perhaps you don’t, but I am not concerned.) I have to photograph a head-sized piece of produce for a basic black-and-white photography class which I am taking at the School for the Visual Arts. The assignment is meant to be a study in light and shadow to prepare us for photographing a human head. The instructor used cabbage as an example. Cabbage is okay and all, but cauliflower really has something going on. The undulations of those nubby hills and the beautiful green striations of the leaf stems underneath... it's beauty called to me from the market shelf. So, I took it home to make it a star under the spotlight of my new photo lamp. It's beauty shall be emulsified into eternity, assuming of course, that I develop the film correctly.
After cocktails at the Flatiron Lounge, JER and I went to Pierre Loti, a wine bar on Irving Place which has a good selection and some delicious food items, including a beet and arugula salad and a smoked eggplant dip, which is fabulously garlicky. They also have a very nice cheese selection. We ordered a bottle of a white wine from Turkey called Kavaklidere Angora. Pierre Loti is always a nice place to sit and enjoy a few glasses of wine, though the menu is not recession friendly.
My enjoyment of good food and good bourbon continued on Saturday night at a party at my friend LP's. (Happy birthday to LP!) I tried Knob Creek once again and made a few Manhattan's. This time, I ate a lot and stretched my drinks over three hours. See? I'm learning. LP made some fabulous salsa and hummus. It's so hard to find good store bought hummus; they tend to lack tahini and contain too much lemon.
I can almost hear some of you wondering whether my state of happiness might be a side effect of the bourbon drinking. Technically, however, alcohol is a depressant, so the fact that I can remain happy and drink so much only means my state of happiness is truly genuine.
The bourbon exploration will therefore continue. I heard from two people this past week that Old Rip Van Winkle's Pappy Van Winkle Family Reserve is a great bourbon (see Mia's previous comment). I haven't been able to obtain it yet, but will keep you posted!
By the way, for any of you fellow gastronomers who live in NYC or plan to visit, New York City Restaurant Week has been extended through February 27.
Stay tuned! More adventures and ponderings to continue next week!
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