NEWLOVE

i woke up at noon SHITSHITFUCKSHIT and panicked because i was meeting kristen and lauren in soho at sanctuary T for lunch at 1:15pm.  thank god i made it there in time.  whew!  close call.

my turkey club was good but we sat there for almost an hour with no food before the waitress came up to us and admitted a screw up with the system and could she please take our orders again?  ugh!

i spent the rest of the day down there shopping until going to the meatpacking district to have a drink with kristen, her boyfriend shawn and 3 other couples.  then i met up with gregg and ian, my favorite upper west side inn-keepers.

we went to a delicious african dinner at merkato 55 on gansevoort.  great food, awful service.  but we had fun anyways.

then we went and flirted with the genius bar nerds with the cutest blue eyes at the 24-hour mac store before catching a cab home.

while ian stayed home from work today atoning for his sins, i had a lovely stroll through central park before meeting dana to shop for a new winter coat for her.

i had to wrestle her to the ground a little bit because even though she already owns 2 nice winter coats in black and white, she was looking for ANOTHER BLACK COAT.  i was trying to get her to buy something more colorful.

our first love of the day was at burberry, but she wasn’t really looking to spend $700 and i don’t blame her, even though it was beautiful.

then there was a more reasonable dkny for $235 minus 15% off by using her bloomies card.

but the dkny coat was too blue-red for her coloring, so we kept looking.

she wasn’t wild about this $500 one from marc -

she wasn’t wild about this $400 juicy -

she fell in love with a purple coat that was fun and looked great on her but i thought too trendy for it’s $550 pricetag.

there were a couple of coats in shops down lexington & 5th ave. for $500 and under, but we didn’t even get that far…
 

but she ended up with a beautiful coat for a fantastic price, like this one, but in tomato red!!  it looks fantastic on her!

when we were done coat shopping, we went purse shopping and got so hungry we gave up.  (PS - the juice bar on the 7th floor of bloomies at lex & 59th has DELICIOUS coffee flavored fro-yo.  OMG.)

i met up with leigh and katie and had happy hour beers and gross fried food at a place called maggie’s on 47th and madison before getting driven home by leigh (OMG who in NYC has a car!?!)

i travel. it’s what i do. because i sure as hell don’t have a good answer for “what do you want to be when you grow up?”

usually, i’m pretty excited to embark upon a new adventure. but this trip is different. i go to new york tomorrow, then paris on saturday. yes, yes, sure - PARIS!! right?!?! i know. but i’m kind of bummed to not be taking the stupid snoring machine with me. i know, i know - i’ll probably get some sleep for once… but i really would love to have company on this trip and be able to share all my old haunts.

josh was going to come. jannone even considered it. yunmi was supposed to come but she bailed. TYPICAL! (i still love you, girl.)

so, in order to spoil brad before i left and to really (hopefully) make him miss me, i did the DISHES! twice! in one day!! shut up, i think i’m about to pass out. menial labor, ugh. brad, i hope you’re happy when my crusty dish pan hands chafe you the next time i touch you.

also, i cooked him a delicious meal. i made him go to the market and asked him to buy asparagus and pork chops. he totally wasn’t on board with the pork chops and we had to have a lengthy discussion about fat content and pork is the other white meat and blah blah blah. finally, i think he gave up and just decided to shut me up by doing it my way.

i hadn’t intended to make anything special or out of the ordinary (hence the pork chops) but had a stroke of genius when i started the prep work. i salted and peppered the meat and fried it in the pan which i was serving with brown rice and asparagus. kind of boring, right?! so i took 2 tblsp butter, 1/4 honey and a little cinnamon and fried it up in a separate pan to which i added 2 pealed and chopped fuji apples, a few handfulls of pistacios, walnuts, peanuts and cashews and a couple of orange rinds which i cooked long enough for the apples and nuts to soften just a bit. then i mixed the sweet sauce into the rice and steamed asparagus and laid the chops on top.

i’ve never eaten this or tried cooking this before and to my delight, it was delicious.

you’d better miss me brad! have fun snoring away without annoying anyone!

a friend was bandly injured in a bike vrs. car accident about 2 weeks ago so i decided to bake him some banana bread and pop by for a visit.  unfortunately, i came sort of unannounced and no one was home - because he’d been readmitted for internal bleeding.  YIKES.

i started with rena’s mom’s recipe and added my own flourishes, like allspice and white chocolate chips.  sometimes i add shaved almonds and/or coconut.  sometimes i add cinnamon.  it just depends on how i’m feeling.  if you’d like me to forward you the original recipe, just send me an email.  i don’t really follow recipes so much - i just sort of make it up as i go along.  but to new bakers, a recipe is a good place to start!

butter:

sugar:

vanilla:

the rest of the dry goods:

sift and add:

add milk:

and bananas (i pulled these out of the freezer, hence the brown peel):

add your extras:

grease and flower pan:

pop in oven at 375º (can be lower or higher depending on oven type) for around 45 minutes:

and voila!:

let cool and serve, or wrap and take as a gift!:

g. charles wright (known as “gene” in some circles) wrote an article about a month ago about a pot luck dinner where there were 12 gay men, the stupid snoring machine, and me.  FUN.  (no really!  i even think brad enjoyed it.)  i made frikadeller, josh made fish, hiko & jacob brought amazing desserts, “gene” brought empanadas or some shit, and cliff made a pretty incredible chicken dish.  nathan is our resident model and he did a preview show of some of our “sweatshop” creations.  there will be a fashion show of the entire collection by christmas, we hope.

breakfast in bed isn’t that exciting since i started macrobiotics 2 months ago. for those of you not familiar with macrobiotics, i like to explain it as “vegan with a vengeance.” everything has to be organic and locally grown - you know, like nature intended before the existence of railroads and ships and what not to bring you yumminess from all four corners of the world whether it’s in season or not.

the stupid snoring machine still eats all the meat and dairy he wants but he brings me organic oatmeal with fresh berries every morning before we hit the gym. aw…

once again. i hate cilantro. it takes like soap. it is a foul disgusting trick to play on my taste buds and i don’t appreciate it - especially when i have no other options!

i’m not sure if you got the memo but apparently, mochi is pretty fattening. who knew?! so the marketing savvy people over at the kowloon dairy have come up with a new product to save the day…

they also have the worst idea i can think of in a dessert.

madhavi made me eat durian in singapore at raffles hotel and i almost spit it out all over the waiter’s shoes. (but i’m polite, so no, i didn’t spew but i quickly swallowed and drank some juice.) they always say durian doesn’t taste as bad as it smells. unfortunately the durian i ate was in an ice-cream sunday so it was partially frozen, thereby dampering what is popularly referred to as the “stink effect.” so i figured if it doesn’t taste as bad as it smells and it didn’t smell too bad, it should taste pretty good.

well, it didn’t really taste like much at first but all of a sudden i could have sworn i was eating rotten carrots, old coffee grounds and dirt. DIRT people. and i don’t know how she did it, but that bitch madhavi must’ve taken an acting class or two because she sat very calmly and straight faced in front of me during the whole procedure until i had discovered the true heinousness of this “fruit.” only then did she burst out laughing and pointing. she knew damn well what she was doing.

all i have to say is, revenge is a bitch. watch your back, my friend.