today’s smile is about the sun. we’ve been in a constant state of rain lately. this morning i woke up to pool in sunshine in my room. it was lovely, bright, warm, rejuvenating, unexpected!
it has made the day a nice easy ride. thank you sun for finally showing up the gloom!
BUFFALO WINGS! they are amazing. there’s a reason this place wins awards every year for the wings. i love the hot sauce with extra crispy wings.
soups: they are always lovely. tonite’s soup was bean and bacon. very tastie!
go and have a grand time! Both locations are great.
It’s crowded and a shock to the eyes, but I’m glad I went.
http://www.roco6x6.org/6x6x2010.php
Thousands and thousands of 6 inch by 6 inch cards cover the walls… all with some sort of art on it. Some were pictures, some quilt squares, some wood cutouts and others were 3D creations.
Like most art exhibits, some of the pieces I loved, others made me wonder if it was really art. I did notice that this exhibit had pieces from all age ranges, 5 yo to much, much older.
I saw two pieces that I adored and thought of purchasing. I still might. Each piece is part of a yearly fund-raiser for $20.00 or so, a bargain for a lot of the pieces that are still available!
Give it a look-see and a giggle. You just might find a treasure as well.
I’ve said many times I have food allergies and eating out is a challenge for me. NYC was no exception to that challenge!
My first food experience in NYC was with street meat. I asked the accented man if his hotdogs were kosher. He blinked at me and pointed to the name on his cart. I asked if there was milk or dairy in the hotdogs since I wasn’t sure he understood what I asked. Again, he pointed to the sign. I got a pretzel. It was by far the worst pretzel I’ve ever tasted. EVER! Do not get pretzels from the corner of 42nd and Broadway. I’ve had church wafers that taste better. Honestly horrid.
After the concert we quickly made our way to Port Authority wondering how we will get back to NJ. We had no idea about bus times and if they stopped running. We played it safe and ran back to NJ without a NYC dinner. I did bring some cold cuts and bread for a late nite sandwich. Not very exciting, but economical and tastie!
Saturday brought a nice continental breakfast at the hotel (Hyatt Place, pay in advance for deep discounts!) with a quick ride into NYC for the day.
For lunch, we stumbled on a goldmine! Grand Central Station (http://grandcentralterminal.com/index.cfm) has a food court that’s wonderful! Anything you can think of… Yep! It’s there. The prices don’t even make you cry for hours after you’ve eaten, only for 10 minutes or so. We had chili from the Manhattan Chili Company. It was wonderful! Chili with brown rice made a perfect filling meal for me that actually lasted till just past dinner time. B had chili with pasta. With over 15 kinda of chili to choose from, it was fun tasting and choosing experience. Our server was lovely and always ready with a warm smile. It was the best experience we had eating in NYC.
The worst eating experience, ‘cause there always is one on a trip like this, was at the MET (http://www.metmuseum.org/). Remember the pretzel I mentioned above? Yep. That was better than the $50 dinner we had at the MET. I had pasta and marinara sauce. No meat. Just penne and plan sauce with a fountain drink. My meal was about $20.00. B’s double cheeseburger and fried with an apple and drink helped put us to the $50.00 mark. I think we almost passed out when we looked at our food selections and the total cost of what was on out plate. You’d think we ate at a nice museum eatery, right? Nope. In the basement cafeteria the art is screwed into the walls.
One bite of our meals, and we were shocked. Maybe we expected too much, but an apple that costs over two dollars should not be mealy and tasteless. Pasta with a plan sauce should not need salt and pepper to make it flavorful as the pasta disintegrated on the fork.
With millions of visitors a year, they museum has a trapped market of eaters. No effort was put forth to present a good meal. With no food allowed, there are little to no choices. Not know the area around the MET to leave, get a bite and come back also lead to a poor experience.
Next time, not only will we start on the second floor of the MET and skip the HUGE collections of Egyptian and Greek art, but we’ll have a plan to get a good meal somewhere ELSE!
After leaving the museum, we stopped for a bite at a BBQ place recommended by someone from the hotel. Dallas BBQ (http://dallasbbq.com/) was busy! We had to wait almost 45 minutes to get a table. Everything smelled good and the smiles of those around us were reassuring.
We sat at a table near the kitchen making the area louder than the rest of the place, which was unbelievably loud!
Our meal was fairly simple: baby back ribs and a 2 lb spare rib with fries and drinks. The food came before the drinks. The baby back ribs had bone chips and the 2 lb spare rib was one huge bone out of a Flintstones cartoon with a small chunk of meat contained in a huge layer of fat. The sauce on the ribs was ok at best and the drinks came in a plastic goblet which looked bigger than it actually was.
I believe Dallas BBQ is a place with amazing mixed drinks with “non-essential” food to help the alcohol consumption. The drink menu was quite extensive and exciting. Most tables around us were young adults having a few “pops” for the evening which told us exactly why the place was so loud.
Sunday brought a new take on food, thank goodness!
After our hotel brunch, we traveled to Greenwich Village for a walking tour. Public bathrooms are very far apart in this section of the city leading us to a McD’s and Starbucks. These places are just like every other part of the world. Nothing unique or interesting… but they do have fairly clean bathrooms.
Boredom set is after a few blocks of walking and the draw to Lombardi’s (http://www.firstpizza.com/) was HUGE! We finished our walk to Little Italy and had Pizza at the first pizza place in the world!
The pie was good. The sauce had some spice and played well with the fresh basil and pepperoni. Personally, I felt the pie was missing buffalo wings. For me, “pizza and wings” are one word. My pickiness aside, though, it was an interesting experience that I would not mind trying again!
The one thing to remember – they only take cash. Period. No cards, no checks, no bartering – just cold, hard cash.
Our way back NJ lead us back to Grand Central Station. Here we picked up a chicken sandwich at Chirping Chicken to take for the drive.
I didn’t eat my wrap until later that evening and enjoyed every bite of it!
What I learned: Eating in NYC is more complicated than their transportation system. Finding local advice does not always lead to a wonderful dinner experience. What you stumble upon can bring an unexpected delight and a good story to share.
I’m a planner. I need an idea of where I’m going, how things work and several backup plans before I’m happy going someplace new.
NYC was a nightmare for me!
I bought a book to start with and read it cover to cover. It was the most boring travel book on the planet (Eyewitness Travel New York City guide) but full of information on every monument, museum, park and building in the Manhattan area with some good maps.
Since that wasn’t enough for me, I borrowed books and poured over them cover to cover and searched in internet like a fiend. I didn’t gleam any new information, just more confusion.
My confusion started with the transportation system thru the city and to/from NJ. I couldn’t wrap my head around it. What’s with all the numbers and the letters? How long is a block and how far is it when you’re walking? Is it realistic to plan seeing a place in upper Manhattan and then dinner in Harlem? Or see the World Trade area and then hit the MET? What was realistic and how do you do it? Now toss in buses and I was over the top in confused!
Or so I thought. I did what I don’t like to do – I let it go and waited till we got there.
When we got there and actually started using the transpiration systems in NYC, it was CAKE!
It seems you can go anywhere within an hour, I seem to have to wait for the next train every time. Instead of getting all the red lights when drive I got to watch the train leave when I entered the terminal. yes, it was frustrating, but it also gave me a chance to map out the next destination and see any new things!
I figured out it’s all about the color of the line, not so much the numbers/letters. The numbers and letters come into play if you are leaving Manhattan. They indicate the end stops on that particular line. Why I missed this tidbit of fact before is beyond me! It’s a very simple system and kinda fun to travel. There’s usually someone playing music, interesting languages to listen to and fantastic people watching opportunities.
The bus into NJ from out hotel was an easy in and out of Port Authority and a short walk to Grand Central leaving me to fall in love with Times Square! What an amazing area!
Grand Central has a wonderful food court. I had the chili one day and took a chicken sandwich with my for the drive home. I highly recommend venturing down there to have a snack or lunch. It was a great experience and the prices didn’t make my eyes pop out of my head too much… just a little.
I didn’t take any buses when I was traveling in Manhattan so I still have one aspect of NYC travel to experience. I hope it’s as easy as the bus into NYC, which had schedules at the front on the bus, drivers with a wealth of information and let us pay cash when we got on. I’m assuming I would have needed a pass or ticket to board in NYC, but where do you get those? How much are they? More questions that I will find answers to next time!
If you have any travel tips to make my next trip to NYC easier, please let me know
Weddings are a wonderful thing. They celebrate a union, a new beginning in life that will take the soon to be husband and wife a happily ever after…
But the process to get to the wedding is not as easy as it may seem on the wedding day. The planning involved is quite extraordinary!
My sister is planning a wedding. Wedding dress shopping was fairly easy, but frustrating. If you’re not a size 4 or 6, many of the sample dresses do not fit. When you get to people sizes, the size they tell you the dress is, runs extra small… so you end up getting many sizes higher than you would expect! It can hurt your soul to hear the numbers they toss at you…
A stylist pulls several dresses for you to try on and you hope she pulls “The One” for you. These dresses range in sizes and most do not zip in the back of a normal person. You have to imagine what they will look like… imagine the detailing, what the back might look like and how the front of the dress will fit.
The faith you put in these people who you pay hundreds, some times thousands of dollars to for your amazing dress is hard. You expect them to measure you correctly, look at the charts provided by the manufacture and then order the correct dress with the correct dimensions so when the dress arrives little to no alterations are needed!
The most important expectation, though, is having the dress show up about the day they estimate and have the alterations completed before the “Big Day.”
I can’t say all this happened very well for my sister. It’s a shame. She was gracious, excited and very happy when she picked out this perfectly lovely dress. It was stunning on her! I can’t even start to say how beautiful the dress looked in her. It was breath-taking, truly.
So when my sister calls several weeks after at the estimated time of delivery to see if the dress had shown up yet, she was laughed at… told not to call, they will call her.
The lady answering the phone was rude, and not professional, leaving a doubt about the dress arriving on time.
A month later, my sister called again, since it was now just shy of two months before the wedding date. Before the dress was ordered it was promised to be in well before the wedding date! “We’ll call you when it’s ready. You don’t call us.” At this point, panic set in and questions are asked about if the dress will be in on time and if not, when can be done. Again, her call was rudely brushed off.
About an hour later, my sister received a voice mail message stating that they were so pleased and excited to tell her that her dress had just arrived. To me, this sounds rotten. It gives a feeling that the dress had been there and until my sister called, they hadn’t checked.
If this was the only offence, I’m not sure I would be typing this right now… because what comes next is the absolute worst.
We arrived for the first trying on of the dress! I could not wait to see this dress on my sister. Like I said above, it’s stunning on her!! Except it’s a size too small. Yep. They ordered it too small. They took the measurements and didn’t look at them to order the dress. Or, if they did, not all the measurements were taken into account.
What got me the most is my sister had lost weight between her ordering and now!
It was heartbreaking to see my sister’s face when it didn’t fit. The stylist told us that it was okay since there’s 3 inches on fabric in the seams and it can be taken out and will fit properly for the wedding! That was great news.
We went back a few weeks later to meet with the seamstress. My sister tried on the dress again waiting to see how much the dress had to be taken out. We were then told the dress can not be let out. The beading was in a band around the waist and nothing can be done unless we got a new band. The seamstress also said (and showed us) that there was far less than 3 inches of fabric around the seams.
Every reassurance we were given for the smaller dress being okay went out the window. We were left with a “what now” crisis that was not very palatable. Ideas were asked and a lot of confusion and frustrations was expressed.
We ask the owner about the band issue and were told she could order extra beaded banding but that it would be an extra cost – $150.00 a yard. I think the three of us there had our eyes pop out of our head… that’s a lot of money for beads on fabric! Then the seamstress asked if we could order extra fabric and the owner said yes, but it would be an extra expense. After a long discussion and some arguing, the owner agreed to pay for a portion of the tailoring costs.
The seamstress came up with a solution. I hope it works well! My sister deserves to have the dress of her dreams! As of now, it’s been a rocky start…
Tonight we meet with the seamstress for a second time. I know she’ll have something spectacular for my sister. I have no doubt about it.
As for the wrong size, confusion and frustration, I hope it doesn’t lead to a sour feeling towards the dress, much less the experience. No one wants their wedding to be difficult and hard. No one deserves that.
It starts out with a cold rain and a steady breeze. Seems I missed the nice weather last year and got hit well this year for my first St. Patty’s Day Parade!
The weather didn’t take a thing from it! It was a good time…
We started off with a hot drink from Java’s by Eastman Theater. It was crowded, but nice. I had a hot apple cider, which I’ve found to be lovelier than hot chocolate lately! It has a lovely cider after tone with a slight apple juice flavor that cider misses.
Anyway, the parade was LONG. I have so many pics I can’t show them all…
Some of the highlights were the roller derby girls! Rachel was marching… it was great to see her smile! If you’ve never been, you should go! It’s a great time!
There were dancers galore! I’ve never seen so many cold and unhappy little kids! But they were all troopers! And the older kids who were dancing, WOW! They were amazing!
The best, though, were the drum corps and the bag pipes! I could not believe how many there were. And the firemen, the police, the park people, the armed forces, and so on… lots of crazy rugby players and happy drunk people!
My biggest problems were with those who were watching the parade. Not that they were drunk or disorderly, I didn’t see any of that, really. My problem was with those with kids who stood to far out in the street making it hard for those behind to see… Yep. Those few that are in ALL of my pictures. When asked to move back repeatedly, they called us names under their breath and acted like we were telling them mean horrid things.
All we wanted was to take a pic of the parade without their kids in the middle of the picture… or the dad’s back side.
It took a while to get warm after the parade, but it was fun! I can’t wait for a warmer year to go see it again!
The Apple Tree in is BEAUTIFUL! you walk in and you expect to see a couple in the corner celebrating their many years together, or a marriage proposal being asked in the glow of the fireplace.
http://www.appletreeinn.us/index.htm
What I’m saying is the place is stunning. It’s dark and mysterious and romantic.
Here is where I hit my first snag. how do you read a menu then it’s dark outside (no light thru the windows) there’s only ONE hanging lamp on a dimmer to illuminate the whole room, you’re stuck in a corner turned away from the fireplace, which is gas and not giving out much light or warmth, and the tea light on the table is the only source of light? You pass the tea light around to everyone… that’s how.
But it doesn’t matter if you can read the menu. There are only 8 entrees. Just 8. And there’s one starch of the day (mashed potatoes) and one vegetable of the day (butternut squash). One. Just one.
This is where the evening started its interesting twist.
Seems when I mentioned that I was allergic to eggs and dairy and then asked what I could eat on the menu, I was asking the wrong question. I should have asked: where would you recommend we go eat?
My Dad, always looking out for me, told me that if they didn’t have anything I could eat there, we could go elsewhere. The waitress then stated if we wanted to, that would be fine. I didn’t take the hint. Nope! My not wanting to “cause a scene”, and “I’m there for the people, and not the food”, came into play and we stayed.
I asked the waitress to talk to the chef and see what I could eat. Seems they had soup (beef vegetable), salad and apple sauce for me. I was ok to go. We ordered, dad and I got the pork medallions, B and mom got the beef tips. We all ordered soup.
We were brought a bread basket that seemed to go over well with the rest at the table. The muffins and different fresh breads smelled lovely!
The four of us started talking about how odd the menu was and how strange in a day with such diverse allergies that there are places who do not have options for those like me.
At this point it occurred to me that my dad and B don’t like butternut squash and won’t touch it. I got the server and asked if they could have apple sauce, too, and she didn’t like that at all! She seemed offended that I would ask that and went to change the order.
This was the first appearance of the chef from the kitchen to walk by and see who we were. I have a feeling the waitress was not happy with our table making the chef curious on who the nasty people in her dinning room were.
After a time, our soup came… at least for three of us. Dad got a salad with some kind of white salad dressing. He wouldn’t even tough the plate. When we brought this to the attention of the waitress, she was PISSED! She gave my dad the look of death! Yep… I thought we were going to leave right then and there! But dad didn’t see it. So she brought him soup (which had mushrooms in it… something both dad and B don’t like. But the lighting was so dim you couldn’t see them to pick them out.)
The chef made another trip out of her kitchen and lingered to look at our table…
Once the soup was done, the waitress brought a salad for me which had the best raspberry dressing on it that I’ve had in a long time. It was a good salad. Fresh greens and the lovely dressing… this was the best part of the meal for me. The small side salad.
We ended up waiting a long time for dinner. I’d say after I finished my salad it took a good 1/2 hour to see dinner. Everyone else was fed WAY before we were, and remember it’s a small place… 4 tables were there, and two had already eaten.
When the dinner came, it was interesting. The pork medallions were BBQ’d pork tenderloin. They were very small slices. I got 5 of those tiny slices on my plate with a small bowl of apple sauce with enough cinnamon on it to kill a large dog.
My dad, who also got the pork, had the mashed potatoes with the apple sauce. Needless to say, dad left hungry. There wasn’t much there for the $16 price tag.
My mom and B got the beef tips. They didn’t get potatoes. Their plates had a small bowl of their veggie (mom had the butternut squash, B the apple sauce) and a small mound of egg noodles with gravy and small bits of beef. On B’s plate, there were about 8 small bits of beef, less than a ¼ pound with lots of gravy over about 1 ½ cups of noodles. I assume mom’s was the same.
Since mom was the only one to have the butternut squash, her face said all when she had a spoonful. The veg wasn’t just butternut… it had sautéed onions and other things mixed in as well. She set it aside and told me I wasn’t missing a thing while making the “this is horrid” face.
After we ate, dad needed the bathroom. Seems there was only one and it was occupied most of the nite by the three kids who were with one of the three other tables. These kids spent the hole meal in and out of the bathroom… it impossible for anyone else to get in there if they needed it. Good thing dad’s dad. He finally used an alternate location…
At this point of the dinner, dad’s coupon seemed to be not worth it. The dinner does make a good story, but not a lovely one.
On our wat out of the restaurant, mom said “thanks for putting up with us” and the respond we got was “no problem”. I giggled the whole way to the car!! No problem my left foot! If it wasn’t a problem, it would have been a more enjoyable nite for everyone! It was definitely a problem. So much so my dad and mom are waiting for this blog to tell everyone that the coupon was not worth it!
SO, if after reading this, you want to go yourself… I have a coupon for you. Let me know and it’s all yours! I’m not going back.
my parents have a lovely little dog, Cody. he’s a sweetie, but he loves to interact with the neighborhood skunk…
so i got this call tonite asking what we did last time. yes, we and last time. mom and dad went on a day trip and left me with skunk dog. it must have happened just as they were leaving. lucky me!
Cody seemed to think smelling the rump of said skunk was a wonderfully good idea. the dog is lucky to be alive! and i can’t stop giggling about it… i can’t imagine it smelled good and was worth the torment the pup went thru afterwords! haha!
so the question was posed, what works to get the skunk smell out…
i imagine the stinky dog is now in the house, so the house is starting to collect odor as well. lucky mom and dad! (still giggling…)
my first try with Cody was a fresh tomato crushed on top of his head. yep. i cut the globe in half and used his head as a juicer. Cody just looked at me like i was nuts, licked his cheek and put up with it. but it didn’t work.
i ransacked the house to see what was around, and i didn’t find much… so i just washed him several more times with dog shampoo and called my sister. i think she laughed frist, cause it is rather funny… and told me about some skunk out kinda thing. she went and bought it, and by then, mom and dad were home to take over the battle!
so tonite, when pet stores are closed, my poor dad is left looking for options… i sent him to the local Wegman’s, since they have everything… even skunk stuff, i hope! i pray they had some for him.
i’ve since done some looking on the web and there’s a lot of opinions on the matter. eHow says use hydrogen peroxide. i’d never do that to a pet! if it gets in the eyes, ears, nose, it can cause horrid pain and if bad enough, a trip to the vet with a skunked dog.
i would recommend nature’s skunk odor remover first. see if that helps. i think that’s what my sister bought. also keep an eye on the pup for a few weeks. it’s said that the skunk spray can explode red blood cells… this site tells more:
http://www.terrierman.com/skunk.htm
so i guess this is one of my first reviews for things that don’t work. tomatoes do not make the skunk stink go away. it just turns the dog red. (gigglesnort)
some days it’s hard to find something to eat… i have to be creative and there are days when i would just like to relax and eat what everyone else is eating. birthday cake, pizza party, tastie things brought into work…
but i’m allergic to dairy, eggs, shellfish and pineapple. yes. it’s a dairy allergy, not just an intolerance. intolerance does not affect the breathing… my allergy does.
anyway. i have been a tad blue lately so i did the one thing that i miss… baking. my kitchen is my lab and as i have been sulking, i haven’t spent quality time in it. this means i spend several hours a day cooking normal dinner, lunch and such, but not creating. tonite i created: chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin cookies (thanks JD for the help) and some peanut butter dog treats.
i’ve attached the recipes and my notes for those who have the same food problems i do… i know how nice it is to have a cookie when you want it. i know it’s even better when you don’t have to make that cookie yourself, but in case you’re not near a health food store, try these.
as for sources, i scour the web, have a few good cookbooks, and fiddle till i get something i like. that means each batch is an experiment… and i’ll try to let you know where i’ve gone wrong and what i’ve improved.
i do get a lot of my SOPs from VegWeb.com. i highly recommend this site as it had a feedback area and you can get a sense of the recipe that way.
chocolate chip cookies!
1 cup softened margarine – i use willow run. this makes flatter cookies. to make them “puffier” sub in part of the margarine for crisco.
3/4 cup white sugar, 3/4 brown sugar
1 teaspoon vanilla
2 eggs equivalent of substitute – i use egg replacer. i haven’t tried to make my own, it’s in a box.
2 1/4 cups flour
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
2 cups chocolate chips
always, always cream you fats and sugars first. make them as fluffy as you can get them and you’ll find it makes a difference. then add the vanilla and the egg replacer, mix. now add the baking soda and salt with a cup of flour. mix well. add the rest of the flour till it’s just mixed, then add the chips. mix till ships are just incorporated. over mixing will make tough cookies.
over at 350°F – cookie cooking time will be about 15 minutes. i have learned that they taste better, chewier when they are “undercooked” so take them out of the over the minute they start turning brown! don’t do what i do and wait till you can smell them… they are over done at that point.
i’ve also made chocolate chocolate chip cookies with this recipe… i’ve added 1/2 cup of cocoa powder and 1/4 cup of chocolate soy milk to the above recipe. very tastie! highly recommend it.
Pumpkin cookies.
i tried this one for the first time… and it’s ok. the pumpkin flavor is not very strong…
http://vegweb.com/index.php?topic=6672.0
they are ok cookies. i did 1/2 the batch without chocolate chips, and the other 1/2 with. the pumpkin flavor could be stronger… so i’ll work on that next time.
peanut butter dog treats
my last set of cookies have been demanded by Casey, my parent’s dog. and i mean DEMANDED! she loved them so much, she bumps the cabinet door open and pokes the bag with her nose. when they are gone, she opens the door, turns around and barks at me. she wants more… so tonite i baked her some tonite.
2 cups whole wheat flour
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 cup chunky peanut butter
1 cup milk (non-fat)
mix milk and peanut butter together. do this with a spoon at first or your kitchen will have milk all over your kitchen walls since the peanut butter does not mix well at first. trust me on this one!
once the peanut butter is mixed will with the milk, add in the flour and baking powder. i’d add the flour in step-wise since the dough gets bulky.
i make little balls of dough and pointer finger print them… but the dough can also be used for cut-outs. i’m not that adventurous!
i cook them in a 375°F oven for about 20 minutes. i cook these till they are firm and cake-like.
if they are not all going to be eaten quickly, put some in the freezer. these cookies will mold and sour. there are no preservatives in it…
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