The Ole' Switcheroo

Due to no time lately, and lack of popularity, I'm switching my blog to tumblr. I won't have to type as much so everything is simpler, and there's only a few people looking at this anyway (thank you dad :p).

But, as a parting gift, I'll leave with a few photos.
Brunch:

Dinner:




Ah, parting is such sweet sorrow.


See ya on Tumblr, I guess!

Pillow Fight Day!

Last night we went to a great French restaurant called Les Halles. It's hard to find a bad restaurant in New York City, but this one really was great. Some French places just serve Americanized French dishes, but they had classic dishes like Boudin, Cassoulet, and Saucisse Alsacienne, which is what I ordered.


And today was that day of the year where everyone gets together for a HUGE pillow fight in Union Square. And huge it was...

I did not fight with a pillow, but when I went in on the action I had to keep the ole elbows out. Someone actually apologized to me because they couldn't see that I didn't have a pillow. But I got whacked in the head more than once without apology.

My mom, Elsa, Elsa's mother, and I went to Pinkberry afterwards, a much needed treat after all that pillow-ing.

(I got chocolate with Cinnamon streusel, cheesecake, chocolate, and mixed nuts)

We're going out tonight again because it's Elsa's birthday, and her last day in town. There'll be an update tomorrow.

AMAZING WEATHER

The last few days in New York had been rainy, cold, and just down-right miserable. But sort of yesterday, and definitely today the weather is beautiful! Hopefully it will stay this way the whole weekend like it's supposed to.

Elsa and her mother are in town, and so is my mom, so we're wining and dining all over the place. Today we had lunch at Soho Park on Prince and Crosby.

I had a helluva burger and fries, and we all shared some of their red-onion onion rings.


We also went to the American Indian Museum, which was pretty neat. After seeing all that handicraft I really want to make some of my own. I usually hate going in that area of town though, because everyone is either a business person (though they don't bother me too much) or a tourist. I hate everything about tourists, and I hate being a tourist, but the museum was pretty interesting, as I said, and the weather was just perfect, as I said.

But still, pictures like this:

taken with blinding flash, on the subway, in front of some building, next to a homeless person, in crocs/an I <3 NY tee/an NYPD baseball cap/those huge white shoes tourists ALWAYS wear, make me die a little inside.

Happy Pesach!

I'm trying as best as I can to observe Passover, which is kind of hard, but I'm doing okay I think (I did the matzah, maror, and said Pesach, so I've got my 3 obligations filled). I'm mostly eating lots of fruits and vegetables.

So usually while I have something starchy or carby in my dinner, I just had steak and mushrooms with a little salad for dinner. But boy was it delish!

And for a closer look at the Yummm:

MET day

I went to the MET today with my pal, Dan, to choose two pieces to compare for an art history paper. I think it was a little easier to find similar subjects this time because it's on European art.
I chose a piece by Jean Honore Fragonard (a pretty famous Rococo painter) called "A Shaded Avenue,"

and a piece by Pieter Bruegel the Elder (LOVE him!) from his series on the four seasons called "The Harvesters"

What I love about both of them is that they could include such detail at a small scale. The Fragonard is physically a smaller scale (about 6x10" maybe), and the Bruegel is fairly larger, but they still have a lot of information. To highlight this I circled a little house way in the background, some sailboats in the background, and a bird in a tree in the foreground.



You can look up at the original to try and find these little details, almost like an I Spy.

After the museum I got some food to go (Penne with mozzarella and roasted peppers, yum!).

Megadupersandwich of the day pt III

Veggie Burger+Goat Cheese+Lettuce+Grilled Mushrooms=YUM

It's basic math, people.

Followup on the Illustrator Project

look how happy he is!

Lunch Today: Fish Fry

Fish Fries always seem so sentimental. My family never traditionally had a Friday fish fry like some families I know did. BUT I did work for a restaurant that had a special Friday menu with a Friday fish fry. That was one of my favorite parts about working there on a Friday night-at the end of the long night working I could drive home and eat some Lake Perch with potato pancakes in the parking lot of the church across the street.

So today for lunch I made Lake Perch with cheesy skin-on mashed potatoes (just like the mashed potato casserole the restaurant/inn would serve) and a mini salad.


The inn and my family (when we did the recipe) would make a beer-battered perch, but since I can't get that on my own quite yet, I found another recipe that worked out just great.

Beer Batter Recipe:
1egg
1 cup warm stale beer
1 1/8 tsp baking powder
1 cup flour
1tsp salt
¾ tsp pepper
1 tsp garlic salt
fish filets
cooking oil
1. Mix all ingredients except fish.
2. Wash and pat dry fish with paper towel
3. Heat 2 inches of cooking oil in pan over moderate high heat.
4. Dip fish pieces in batter, fry in oil, turning as necessary.

The "non-alcoholic" recipe:
1 tbsp. vinegar
1/2 c. water
1/2 c. milk
1 c. all-purpose flour
1 tbsp. baking powder
1/2 tsp. salt
Fish fillets
And the directions are the same.

Breakfast Today: Heart Pancakes

Another recipe from the .zip cookbook my parents sent me.


Martha Stewart eat your heart out...

literally.

2 Eggs
1 Cup of milk
1 tsp. vanilla extract (optional)
1 Tbsp. sugar
1 cup+4 Tbsp. flour
1 tsp. baking powder
Chocolate chips or other filling (optional)
Mix and pour on hot griddle. Flip. Eat.

Megadupersandwich of the day pt II

IIIIIIIIt's grilled cheese time!

they're saying, "oiuaweasdfkafd"

BLANKET FORRRRRT!!

So that same night Molly and I pretended it was her birthday, we were so stuffed we had to take the subway home those four or five blocks, and we got all sleepy and took naps. This was also because we went to a BLANKET FORT PARTYYYY in Brooklyn.

First, I must say, getting there kind of sucked. We had to take the L to 8th ave, then wait forever for an A train. Then the ride on the A train took about an hour. We folded paper and spaced out mostly. Also the place was kind of sketchy when we got there. Just a little. A guy who actually lives in the apartment where it was held said there's a toy factory downstairs. But more on him later. Now pictures.



We didn't really talk to anyone that interesting and it was a little awkward until we spread out my furry blanket and found some face paint.


Then we used the facepaint in our journals to make little drawings. Molly did some awesome ones!



There were people who set up a twister mat right next to our blanket and random people just started joining in. I spun the spinner for a little while. After a while though, around maybe 3 am, we started to get hungry. And so with two girls from NYU we had just met, we made the tater tots of some guy who lived there.




At about 4 am we decided it was a good idea to go home. And so did a few other people I guess, who were a little partied-out.

The Drawing Center; Molly's "Birthday" at the Chat n Chew

For my drawing class (which I'm beginning to absolutely adore, thanks to my awesome professor) I had to go to the gallery "The Drawing Center" in SoHo to see the show on Iannis Xenakis. The man is crazy. Crazy awesome. His processes of composing were basically mathematical drawings, and his architecture then followed suit and imitate the shapes in his drawings. The show is going on until mid-April, and unfortunately I couldn't snag a photo, but I did sneakily take one from the outside of the other building across the street that had a smaller collection of drawings, which were also incredible.


After that excursion, I went with Molly to the Chat n Chew (my ole favorite) because she had never been. We previously had made a list of things we wanted to do, and visiting the Chat n Chew was one of them, so we went. Thinking we'd get free dessert out of it, I told our waitress it was Molly's birthday, though they didn't give us any free dessert, all they did was stick a candle in the one we ordered. But boy was it delicious!



Aaaaaaand...thanks to this little guy that I drew on my plate with ketchup:

I have an idea of what I want to do for my final project in drawing class! Yay!

Megadupersandwich of the day

don't tell me you've never put bananas AND cornflakes on your peanutbutter and jelly sandwich...


there's nothing like a new jar of raspberry jam just waiting to be nommed

MMMM cake!

We finally cut it!




(and ate it) Special thanks to Paula Deen and Kat Koo.

Our Third Weekendly Cooking/Baking Party!

It's starting to become a tradition! This one mostly started because Molly's neighbor had a birthday yesterday, so we were gonna bake. But neither of us had dinner yet, so we made our own burgers (turkey for me, chicken fiesta for her) and fries. Also we used that free bread that I acquired on my last trip to Brooklyn for burger buns, even though it was really crumbly on the inside and crusty on the outside.


My glorious burger:

Molly can take all credit for the delish fries


I tried to make a ketchup smiley, but this accidental face is much better, and more appropriate

We then started our baking, but first had to go to Associated Grocery for some ingredients. We only needed an 8oz can of crushed pineapple, but got a 20oz because we forgot. Pinapple fail.

Molly helped us out by drawing and overseeing

While Sam mixed in all the ingredients and I took photos



Sadly, we ended up finishing the cake (frosted and all) at about 1 am, so we didn't actually get to eat it, and now it's sitting in the fridge. Maybe we'll eat it tonight?