Amore

Love is in the air. Or something, but not really. It isn't spring time its fall time, as the constantly shedding trees of Washington Square have made very clear to me. I'm dying to go out there and make a leaf pile but the lawns are currently closed due to seeding. I don't really understand why they've decided to seed the lawns now given that its only a matter of time before the grass quickly recedes back into the ground under the icy grip of impending snow.

Anyways, back to the love, or the lack thereof. How the holidays procure so much joy from us during such an unforgiving season baffles me, I'm beginning to think its a hoax. The temperature doesn't stop me from eating ice cream though. In California, when I was younger, we'd go to a yogurt place called Golden Spoon (http://www.goldenspoon.com), but only when it was forty degrees or below and raining sheets. Why? Why lower our internal temperature as the weather proceeded to do the same? No lines, no wait... same prices...but whatever. Im finding that I've begun to continue that tradition here.

This last week for a class I've been working on a group project. After our first meeting we stopped by sundaes and cones a sweet and delicious and not that expensive treat. After six hours of auditioning and recording it was gelato we indulged in, a little expensive and entirely worth it: Amorino (http://www.amorino.com/en/). Hell, we deserved it. I've been once before and while it was good I wasn't about to spend six bucks on the tablespoon of gelatto I'd originally gotten again any time soon. But as the flavor of the month shot up I found it harder and harder for myself to resist, and I'm actually sticking to my measly budget now! In case your wondering, thats why my posts have dwindled to once a week if I'm lucky. Their flavor of the month is, I'm not going to pretend like I know what the italian name for it is, but it was some sort of mascarpone (a sweet italian cream cheese kind of spread; good for desserts) and fig cocktail of perfection. So good; all of their flavors are.  They've arranged it so that when they style your ice cream into a flower on a cone, every petal can be a different flavor, which sounds great in theory but all the flavors melt together and though they still taste good the impact of each individual ice cream is lost. My suggestion: get one to two flavors max, and definitely get the mascarpone (before its too late!)
p.s. thanks to spencer for being such a fab model

Francophone Interests...

Daylight savings time, the preliminary to winter and depression. It's coming, we know it is. For now the orange and red and golden leaves glimmer under the dusky afternoon sun but soon there will be no leaves and no dusk, only the the darkening of our sensibilities under the luminous grey clouds.

What I need is a vitamin lamp - I'm not actually sure if thats what its called but I know there is such a thing and it provides you with sun vitamins: i.e vitamin d. Or I just need to drink more milk or something high in vitamin-ey goodness. or I just need to drink more wine. I'm thinking my best bet is with the wine unfortunately its expensive and illegal...for me at least. I wonder if there is an injection you can get to give you wrinkles so you'll look older, wiser, and less susceptible to being carded. For now I'm guessing either no this does not exist or it does and its more expensive then any illegally purchased wine I've invested in. For now I think I'll stick with wine samples. On saturday I fruitfully tasted several really delicious wines, the first a bubbly non carbonated twice fermented concoction that tasted uncannily like champagne, the second a flatter version but the flavors all the same, and the third a heavily alcoholic syrupy fluid, good for pouring over five ingredient vanilla bean ice cream, as the lady at the booth pointed out. I smiled and nodded dropping a dollar in the tip jar before scurrying away, in fear of being asked for my ID, down into the subway.

That morning I'd left my dorm with the intention of spending a day in central park, maybe stopping by Ladurée for a minute or two to buy a couple macaroons. What it turned into was a mad dash up and down ten blocks and an hour and half wait for five macaroons; and it was completely worth it. As the store pulled  up into view I ferocioulsy joined the line that was curving down the block, just behind a little dog in a fur collared leather jacket and a perplexing group of french people, who snarked repartee back and forth like no one could understand what they were saying. It wasn't so much what they were saying that offended me, rather that they had the audacity to come to New York just to visit Ladurée. Didn't they have their own in the motherland? Hadn't they always?

Once inside the store, I illegally snapped some photos - my second crime of the day - inciting a series of snapshots from behind me and the eventual overhead shouting of the man at the cash register demanding we not take photos. Once at the front of the line, my inner turmoil of whether or not I should have bought a six set of macaroons just to get the cute box or go for the significantly cheaper option of five macaroons without a box came to a climax and I walked away with five extra bucks and no cute box. With a meeting quickly approaching I didn't have time to relax in the park or even taste a macaroon and an hour later, sitting in the library I took a bite into the delicate, crumbling texture of a raspberry macaroon. It dissolved under the heat of my tongue and the tiny little seeds of the raspberry jam tantalized the grooves of the roof of my mouth. I proceeded to eat a caramel macaroon, which was a little to thick and sweet - not enough contrast of flavors - and a pistachio macaroon which was needless to say, perfection. Oh so nobly I sacrificed my two other macaroons to my colleagues, so for now I cannot know the the wonders of the two other flavors I purchased. woe. is. me.

Two Bros ( and whatever I can recall eating in the last week)

Happy Christmas, as the brits say. Halloween has been over in my mind since Saturday even though it just happened two nights ago. I spent my Saturday watching Elf and listening to the bells of a nearby church or bell tower or notre dame or whatever lying in my bed with a platter of Suzy's finest chinese to keep me company. To my dismay, I was dragged out that evening and it was then that I experienced my first bitter cold NYC evening. After about an hour of a so-so swing dancing event,  my roommate and I detoured to 30 rock at midnight to break into SNL. Little did we know, there was no show that evening and as we arrived in the freezing cold, my gloves soaked through due to excessively throwing snowballs at taxis, we found ourselves locked out of the building on the glorious pavement just in front of the famous ice skating rink.

Oh to be a New Yorker. Not that I felt like one that night. No, as I raved manically in front of monuments and demanded my roommate take extraneous amounts of photos of me with my arms outstretched and my hair lightly dusted with snow-none of which turned out very good I might add- I felt like a full fledged tourist. Our pitstop at the Mcdonalds across from Times Square only confirmed this.

I must say though, I do miss Mcdonalds. Back home I had it once a week at least, usually more. It was odd to walk in and see that new cuisines had joined their smorgasbord of delicacies. This is something I would have known and discussed in California. I began to wonder what it was I even spoke of anymore, what had my life become? I had to restrain myself from indulging and bought only a coffee.

It was all I could afford. In fact its all I've been able to afford for weeks. Where i've been drawing my food funds from I cannot say, as I painfully checked my bank statements to find I had negative one dollar in savings little more than a week ago. Of course it was that same day a friend of my suggested we all go to a restaurant before our study session. While I wanted to propose instead going to a dining hall, I inevitably ended up at this restaurant.

Two Bro's on St. Marks. A reasonable looking pizza shop. As we approached the entrance an A rating flashed my eyes and I pretty much knew it was going to be out of my price range. Walking in, the pizza man slammed his fist on the dough and looked up at a startled me asking what I'd have. I told him just cheese and an ironed out pizza was handed to me. My teeth bared, I waited for the price. 2 dollars! for a slice of cheese that is. That's a slice of veggie which is 2.50 or something. Still a bargain, especially considering the A rating. It's good to know poor people can eat vermin free meals too. Check it out the pizza, it's good.