Just for the Record...

I hate summer! I hate the heat. I hate the humidity. I hate the thunderstorms. I despise the bugs. I hate shorts. I hate open-toed shoes (even though I wear them for fashions' sake). I hate the drafts from the air conditioners and I hate the beach even more. I hate that my shows are in re-runs (thank God for baseball on tv...). I almost cried today when I got a fall catalogue in the mail; sigh --- rich browns, olive greens, suede, leather. Fall, you cannot come soon enough!!! I can't wait for your crisp, cool days; your colorful and crunchy leaves; the smell from fireplaces wafting through the air; the anticipation of the holidays; beautiful coats and even more beautiful boots; I can't wait!

Restaurant Week 2007

Restaurant Week is an annual event in New York where some of the more upscale restaurants (those that have the $$$-$$$$ markings next to their names in directories...) offer up a three-course prix fixe menu - each restaurants develops their own menu, but the Restaurant Week folks decide on the price, so every restaurant costs the same. It's a great chance to check out a restaurant that you might otherwise not consider due to the matter of budget. The Prix Fixe is still not cheap (this year, the dinner was set for $35.00), but a good deal relative to the prices on the a la carte menu.

In New York, these 'moderate to expensive' restaurants abound, each one known just as much for their decor and ambiance as their food. It takes awhile to go through the list of participating restaurants and deciding on which has earned the merits to deserve your patronage. This year, my friend and I decided on a place called Calle Ocho, which serves Latin American foods. It's always hard to fully critique a restaurant during restaurant week because it's usually a bit crazier and your choices in food are more limited. To start, the restaurant was much bigger than it looks from the outside; the space kept opening up into room after room after room, all spacious, with high ceilings and skylights above. The service was a little confused (i.e., our server gave us our dessert menus before we even received our entrees), but they were very nice. We started off with drinks: I loved my white sangria, but my friend's left her wondering if they brought her the right drink! The appetizers fell into that 'good, but nothing to write home about' category. I had a shrimp and oyster seviche; they skimped so much on the seafood that I felt like I was eating salsa. For the main course, we both got the pulled pork dish: there was a mound of what looked like mashed potatoes, but were probably more like sweet turnip - whatever it was, it was delicious. That was topped with garlicky spinach, and then crowned with the pulled pork. I thoroughly enjoyed the meal; the flavors melded together wonderfully. For dessert, my friend had a decadent peanut butter cheesecake while I had baked nectarine slices with lime cake soaked in Argentinian cream. I didn't enjoy the texture of the soaked cake, but the nectarines were good. Overall, the food here was good - not spectacular but a nice surprise. Would I pay full price? Probably not. But that's the joy of restaurant week - to try out a new place guilt-free not just to decide whether you'd eat there again, but to enjoy the moment and to make a memory.

My Wonderful Morning

Here are the events that jumpstarted my morning:

1) got up, showered, dressed; as I headed out the door, the skies opened up and soaked me, as I ran to my car.
2) pulled out of my driveway and directly onto the shoulder of the road due to zero visibility from the rain
3) sat on the shoulder, in front of my building, for 20 minutes (panicking over the thunder and lightening, and watching the street flood)
4) forced to pull out on the road because the shoulder was flooding past my tires
5) got as far as the intersection (about 300 feet) where I was forced to make a u-turn due to road being flooded
6) headed up the other way, only to be stopped at THAT intersection because of flooding. Made yet another u-turn, parked in front of my apartment
7) got out of my car (by now, it turned into a drizzle), ran into my apartment, changed into dry clothes, hung out for 20 minutes.
8) convinced the rain finished, headed out again, only to be met with a deluge after stepping out the door. Clothing soaked once more.
9) ran back to my car to rescue it from the flooding streets; noted that both intersections were still closed
10) parked car safely under shelter of garage, ran in the pouring rain back to my front door.
11) changed into outfit #3 for the day; and it was only 8:30 at this point!
12) turned on computer, wrote this blog, will veg out here until the rain stops and/or I can get off my block! And all this to get to my completely optional 'summer job'.....

For those of you on the road, drive safely and be careful.

Farm Fresh Fruits and Veggies

Since moving to Long Island, I've been trying to find a farmer's market that's nearby and that's open long enough to accommodate my 'sleep-in' Saturdays. In New York, farmers markets were a little easier to find, with lots of farmers coming from Upstate NY, NJ, PA, and even MA to sell their produce. Of course, these markets had the major downfall that the traffic of the city was whirling past them, and I always wondered to myself whether the city pollution negated the purity of the produce.

Anyways, with some research, I found three that were within 10 miles of my apartment. The first is only open Tuesday afternoons so I'm not holding much stock in making regular pit stops there (not to mention it's held in the parking lot of a hospital, which just seems a little unnatural to me). The second is in Port Washington, right on the water, but the hours of operation are rather undefined. The third is an actual farm that sells its own produce. The upside is that there's absolutely no transportation involved (saving our air from truck pollutants - then again, my car did have to travel to get to the farm!) and, well, food doesn't get much fresher than straight from the farm! The downside is that the selection is limited to what that one particular farm happens to have grown and harvested that week.

I arrived at this adorable cottage, surrounded by acres of farm land, owned by Young's Farm. It was hard to believe that 5 miles down the road, I was staring at my rearview mirror, at the reflection of the Manhattan Skyline. The air was fresh and smelled of that distinct combination of dirt and freshly mowed grass. Inside, I filled up my basket with tomatoes, scallions, garlic, fresh mint, zucchini, and famous Long Island corn. I also bought a pint of the largest and sweetest blueberries that I've ever seen. Of course I couldn't help but buy a mini carrot cake loaf from the bakery next door (Youngs Farms' fresh fruit pies are a wonderous blend of the freshest fruits and the most delicious pie crusts and crumb toppings; I went with the carrot loaf because of its mini size). The produce was delicious; the garlic was fresh and potent, as were the scallions. It's amazing how much more flavor these fresh ingredients have versus their counterparts that ripened in a boat or truck, and have been sitting on the supermarket shelves for a few weeks. I'm hooked now!

Review: Broken English

In her film, "Broken English," director Zoe R. Cassavetes creates a story so real that the viewer questions whether they are sitting in a cinema or whether they are watching the lives of their friends - or themselves - unfold on the big screen. Parker Posey plays Nora Wilder, a slightly neurotic, slightly quirky 30-something-year-old single woman in New York City who has an unending stream of bad dates. True to the woes of a single woman, Nora is surrounded by well-intentioned relatives who constantly ask after her love life, as well as a best friend, played brilliantly by Drea deMatteo (Sopranos), who from afar is in the picture-perfect marriage. Enter Julien (played by Melvil Poupaud, my newest crush), a frenchman in New York for a brief visit, who does his best to woo the insecure Nora.

There are several elements that set this movie apart from a typical romantic comedy. The humor is subtle and true to life, the type that goes over the heads of some audience members but elicits a laugh from others. At one point, Nora is confronted with relatives giving her the stereotypical love advice; my friend and I found it amusing as we are in the same predicament as Nora, and have been in her awkward situation countless times. Yet the scene was constructed in such a subtle way that the few laughs from the crowd were not staged in the least bit. The same goes for her string of bad dates; the humor is in the reality of the situation, not cliched scripting. This movie was not 'Hollywood' - there was no magic, no phantom music playing to create the romance for the star-crossed lovers. The characters had to figure out their feelings on their own - by searching within themselves, by distancing themselves from their everyday lives, by challenging their own comforts and routines.

My only fault with the movie is the imbalance of character development between Nora and Julien. One leaves knowing Nora, and feeling a bit of Nora in themselves, whereas Julien remains a bit of a mystery. But, as in real life, Nora and Julien stumble through gray areas - feelings here are not cut and dry or easily recognizable. They make bad decisions. They are real people, up there, on the big screen. They leave you wondering. They leave you sighing; fulfilled yet wanting to know more.

Don't see this movie if you need action, fast-paced scenes, or laugh-out-loud moments. If you like to talk, analyze, pick apart, and relate your own life to film, then Broken English will not disappoint.

God Bless America...

And a special thank you and blessing to our troops for keeping America and our freedoms safe.

If You're Going to San Francisco....

I've known for over a month where my brother will be sent for his volunteer teaching position, but it is now finalized and I am now allowed shout it out to the world... He's going to San Francisco!!

I was a little worried about his placement, considering that one of his friends will be in one of those states where farm animals outnumber people (Wisconsin or Iowa I think?), and another got placed in a non-descript state on the eastern seaboard that can be a boring weekend visit for New Yorkers like me. I'm very happy that I have a good place to vacation to now! I can't wait to see the bridge, the houses, the cable car, Chinatown, the redwood forests, oh, and the wine valleys, and....

They flew him out to check out his new home last week, and he absolutely loved it. He had a great time in the city (he already went to a SF Giants game) and he liked his new residence. He will even have a cook in his house, a little Italian lady from Brooklyn! He'll leave for good at the end of July.