Alice in Wonderland

And like a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow,
there is a Starbucks right when you walk through the doors!

Every morning, I usually take the 2/3 train to work. This involves me walking around a large construction site on the corner of Hanson Place and Flatbush Avneue because the construction has rerouted foot traffic. The walk is mildy annoying and awkward as it involves walking around backing up construction vehicles, fruit vendors, Daily News sellers, and the coffee cart guy, all jockeying for sidewalk space. And at night, the walk is desolate and creepy with lots of spots for up-to-no-gooders to lurk. For awhile now, I had noticed that when I walked into Atlantic Station, there was a doorway at the far wall, going into the office building above the station. I wondered if it might go through to Hanson Place, since I saw a really random assortment of people walking through the doors. So every morning I would think to myself that I should check it out the next morning, and then the next morning I would forget until it was too late.

But today was the day, folks. I remembered about the short cut, before I walked around the long way! I opened the doors to Two Hanson Place and walked in like I belonged there. And lo and behold, there was a secret passage way to Atlantic Station. Well, it was not really very secret. But I was so excited. Seriously, I might have well have been jumping up and down. That's how excited I was. I felt like I had discovered a whole new world. (And then I wondered why the MTA signage is so lousy that it took me two years to figure out this short cut.) My morning commute to the subway has been magically transformed. And this new way shaves at least five minutes off my walk to the train.

I am really trying

I don't have a double chin in this picture,
it's just how my head is attached to my neck.

My yoga teacher told us the other week that it is impossible to be depressed (or cranky, irritable and a bitch) if your arms are above your head. Apparently, it has something to do with opening your chest and giving more space for the oxygen to swirl around in there and help your heart breathe. I also think that the being less crabby might have something to do with the St. John's Wort I just cocktailed with a handful of pink M&Ms.

I heart packages wrapped with string

My creative director's wedding gift arrived today — I ordered a set of Karin Eriksson's bowls from design*sponge. I actually have no idea what they look like for real, since they arrived so cutely wrapped that I could not bear to cut the pink string to open it. However, I am sure that they are as nice as the picture, as I have complete faith in Grace (at design*sponge).

100 x 100

all photos are by Michael Wolf

This morning, my neighbor Kate sent me this link to Michael Wolf's photographs of 100 different people, each in their 100 square foot room, in Hong Kong's oldest public housing estate, the Shek Kip Mei Estate (石硤尾廉租屋邨). (Wolf's work incindentally, reminds me of a book that Kenny and I bought a while ago — City of Darkness — about the "walled city," or Hak Nam, in Kowloon.)

I am fascinated by how other people live, and what sort of artifacts they surround themselves with in their homes. As I looked at each of these 100 images, I felt quietly moved. There is something very touching about looking at someone's worldly belongings: their multiple daily calenders, bunkbeds, gloves pinned to hangers and appliances.

I would try to write something intellectual about Michael's work, but I am too tired; I am also really bad at writing critical discourse unless I am being graded; and lastly, because I found the following paragraph which summed up what I would say, if I was way more eloquent.

In a diverse array of photographic projects Michael Wolf explores the complex cultural identities of China and Hong Kong, where he has lived since 1995. Wolf delves into subjects such as the formal and improvisational aesthetics of Hong Kong's architectural forms, the often-overlooked human presence at the heart of international industry, and the idiosyncratic ways city-dwellers shape their surroundings in an "organic metropolis." Throughout these interrelated series Wolf draws into question notions of public and private space, anonymity and individuality, history and modern development. Attuned to the cultural and economic undercurrents of his adopted home, Wolf remains humanely attentive to the personal details as well.

If you happen to live in Hong Kong, hopefully you caught the exhibit at the Goethe-Institut in Wanchai. Unfortunately, it just closed on November 21.

Stuffing for dinner

Stuffing as a main course.
With a side of sauteed brussels sprouts with chestnuts.

Since I had a whole ziplock bag full of wrecked cornbread muffin parts (see my posting on Thursday), I decided that I ought to make some cornbread stuffing for dinner, so it would not go to waste. I cracked open my How to Cook Everything, again, and found Mark's favorite bread stuffing recipe that I then tweaked to the maximum amount allowed (by my standards of recipe adulteration):

1. I substituted cornbread for regular bread, for starters.
2. Used chicken sausage instead of pork.
3. Added the pine nuts and sage despite the addition of the sausage (which the recipe said not to do).
4. I also added one chopped granny smith apple (which was not called for in any of the stuffing recipes).
5. And then I baked it at 400 degrees for about 20 minutes, instead of for 45 minutes stuffed inside of a turkey and baked at whatever temperature you bake a turkey.

Despite all of the recipe diversions, Kenny thought it was pretty good (which means it was way better than "decent"). Although, I just now thought of how some celery would have added a nice overall crunchiness to it. So, I would give my Cornbread and Chicken Sausage Stuffing a really nice, solid B+.

One Girl Cookies

In case you cannot find the bakery, the sign says it all.

Pumpkins in the window.

Check out both the fat pumpkin cookies on the left,
and the spiky frosted cupcakes.

The gelato corner, where they sell Il Laboratorio del Gelato.

After lunching today at Bar Tabac on Smith Street we headed around the corner on Dean Street to One Girl Cookies, for an after lunch treat of the cutest, girl-named, bite-sized cookies. Although, despite the name, I have no idea who can have just one girl — I had three: a Danielle, a Juliette and, I think, a Maria.

Svenska!

Green. Clogs. From Sweden.
Seriously, what's not to love?
My feet are smiling.

Three times a charm

Today, we had Thanksgiving dinner at the Prinskys' house, and I was asked to make the cornbread. Knowing that everyone at the table was going to be rather particular about their food, I was a little stressed about bringing dud cornbread. So I decided to make two different types — a savory bread using jalenpeños and corn, and a sweet one with sugar. I vowed to totally follow the recipe to the letter, using the proper measuring cups for both liquid and dry measures, and to actually do everything in the right order, without ANY substitutions. This involved slogging through the freezing rain to three different delis this morning, in order to find buttermilk, mind you.

So the first batch was going to be the sweet cornbread, baked as mini muffins. I melted butter to grease the pan (as instructed) using my basting brush, which I had to dig out of a box on the top shelf of the cupboard. The muffins came out looking and smelling lovely. Until I went to release them from the muffin pan, and none of them would come out. I had to perform surgery and almost all of the muffins tops popped off. It was a big, freaking disaster. I was getting really cranky and started to hate the idea of Thanksgiving. And at this point, bread number two was in the oven, and I began to have doubts. What if the corn and jalepeño combo was gross? The Prinskys don't hold back if something tastes lousy — the edamame hummus debacle was still fresh in my mind. And so ok, I did not follow the second recipe exactly as it was printed in my How to Cook Everything cookbook. I added some extra things, and then baked it as a loaf, instead of as a square thing, and left it in the oven for an additional 15 minutes. All of which caused me to get cold feet. I decided that I needed to bake a third cornbread to replace the headless mini muffin casualities that were littering the kitchen counter.

Of course, at this point, I did not have enough buttermilk and had to substitute some heavy cream to make the full 1-1/2 cup of liquid. And I had lost all faith in the melted butter to grease the pan thing. So I ditched the idea of muffins altogether, and opted for a square pan. And I laid down parchment paper in the pan, instead of messing around with any anti-stick grease. Additionally, I adjusted the baking time to 30 minutes instead of 17 minutes, and the redo cornbread turned out perfectly. Thankfully.

And everyone actually liked it. Mr. Prinsky even mentioned something about me making it again next year! Which made me really feel good, and I completely forgot all about the fact that I had been hating Thanksgiving, only five hours before.

A pompom makes everything nicer

Joni, I finished your hat this afternoon!

Everyone Needs a Chris

Lani and Chris came to visit me this week on their way to Jersey for Thanksgiving. Somehow, we got around to the fact that there were some large holes in my in our wall, from where I had tried to put up my Eames-Hang-It-All, and failed, miserabley. Since our new drill had just arrived from Amazon, I brought it home so that we could potentially hang the coatrack five months after I purchased it. Chris soon determined that my "mollys" were for drywall, and since we have plaster walls, we had to switch to "wall anchors." And I had no idea that I did not have drywall. Watching Chris neatly implant the first anchor, Kenny and I stood there with our jaws dropping, incredibly impressed with how EASY Chris made it look. It took like 10 minutes, total, to hang the coat rack!

So then we put away the tools and stood around admiring the coat rack for awhile, and then we decided to hang the pictures we had leaning against the walls. I unpacked the tools, again, and Lani and Chris went to town and hung the pictures with such teamwork. It was extremely impressive. The trick is to lick your finger and make a smudge exactly where the nail goes!

And if that was not enough, we then moved on to our big apple picture — the one Kenny and I bought on our honeymoon in Japan and schelpped back on the plane — which the framers on Atlantic Avenue had essentially wrecked, by mounting it on acidic foam core. Anyway, Chris unscrewed the frame, tightened everything and literally in like five minutes, the picture's frame was all snug and humpty dumptied back together again. It is like we have a whole new living room!

Multi-purpose

We don't have a microwave in our office, and I hate to drink cold water straight from the deli fridge. So today I put my Volvic on the radiator at 10am, and by 12pm, it was perfect drinking temperature — warm, but not hot. And whenever it gets cold again, I can just pop it back on the radiator to rest, and voilá!

Green Pea Flavored Soda

Just in time for Thanksgiving (if you felt like drinking your side dishes, instead of eating them), Kenny sent me the following article about Jones Soda's new pea flavor, this morning:

SEATTLE, Nov 20 (Reuters) - After introducing the world to new soda flavors like fish taco and salmon, Seattle specialty beverage maker Jones Soda Co. is offering a new flavor: Green pea.

Green pea, along with other unusual sodas such as turkey and gravy, dinner roll, sweet potato and antacid flavor, will be part of the company's $10 to $15 "holiday pack" of bottled drinks available nationwide.

Peter van Stolk, chief executive of Jones Soda, said on Monday the collection of strange-flavored sodas usually sell out quickly, even though he can not stomach the drinks. Past flavors included broccoli casserole, corn on the cob and Brussel sprout.

"Why people buy it is beyond me. I can't drink a bottle of this stuff," said van Stolk.

Jones Soda, which sells traditional sodas along side more exotic flavors like fufu berry and green apple, first introduced the holiday soda pack in 2003, gaining notoriety for its turkey and gravy flavor soda.

"We have the market share leader in turkey-flavored beverages," said van Stolk. "We know we can't compete with Coke or Pepsi by playing their game, but we know they're not going to come out with a turkey flavor or antacid flavor."

Asked if there were any flavors that were off limits, van Stolk said he put his foot down when it came to curried chicken flavor.

"Fish taco was just nasty and we tried curried chicken. That was just wrong," he said.

The best part about Jones Soda, other than the fact that they make a green pea soda, is that that the label on each different flavor of their soda features a photo submitted by one their customers. Which I think is just so cool. So, if you want to submit a photo, you can click here.

a quiet moment

I talked with my dad tonight and it was really good to hear his voice.

Telling secrets at Tung yi Fung

Tonight, I met Kenny and my in-laws in Flushing for my mother, father and sister-in-laws' birthdays dinner — which means that yes, we have a bunch of Scorpios in our family. We went to a place off of Main Street called Tung Yi Fung...and I ate so much — tonight there was a particularly good combination of dishes. Thankfully, I planned ahead and wore my baggy corduroys today.

However, in addition to the good food, the best part of the whole meal (and really was the highpoint of my entire day) was when my nieces started hollering my name as soon as they saw me. Then they both wanted to sit on my lap and Allison sat next to me at dinner – we sang some songs, took some pictures, whispered secrets to one another (Allison whispered to me that she calls Emily "Buster."). I love them both so much.

In case you were wondering, the menu was as follows:

Jellyfish
Bubbling tofu and enoki mushrooms in a hot crock
Green pea shoots with some sort of crab-by custard
Peking duck wth shrimp chips
Duck sauteed with red peppers and celery
Whole fish with scallions
Baby lambchops
Sauteed lobster with black beans and minced pork
Roasted quail, hacked into pieces

Tord on Target

Saturday night shopping at Target.

I went to Target this evening to return some curtains, and noticed that Target had already set up their holidays decorations, despite it not not even being Thanksgiving, yet. As I walked underneath the very familiar looking banners, I thought that the panels looked awfully close to the Tyvek® laser cut panels that are synonymous with the work of Tord Boontje. Which would make sense, since he designed them, and a whole lot of other things for Target this holiday season. (Check out his super cute wineglasses, here.) he also created their instore decorations, and art directed their tv commercials. I love the idea of designers moving seamlessly between mediums — I can't wait to see the commercials.

The following is an excerpt of an interview with him talking about his collaboration with Target, from Moco Loco:

And what about Target today... they've worked with object designers before for house branded collections, Michael Graves and Philippe Starck were two, and the results were mitigated. How is your collection different?
We have created not only a collection of 35 products across different product areas, tableware, party and decorating items, consumables and lighting, also this is the first time that Target has partnered with a designer to make a total Christmas season look. Besides the products, we have made store decorations for all 1,500 stores, the graphics for all catalogues and collaborated on the art-direction of the TV commercials. Target is a mass market chain, where mass produced items are sold, even compared to my experiences with other manufacturers that were industrial, this is a much larger scale. An estimated 100 million people will come in contact with these designs in the limited period that they will exist, from November 1st to just after New Year. For me this is also a nice idea, that there is a kind of limited edition build into the concept of the collection.

And are there plans for more Tord Boontje-Target collaborations?
We will see…

And if that was not enough, for all of us New Yorkers, he has also created a lighting display in Union Square, called Bright Nights – Target in the Park (Which just further reinforced my feelings that aside from the crowded stores and long lines, the holiday season in New York is really pretty awesome.):

As a special celebration of our collaboration with Target, we have created an interactive lighting installation in New York’s Union Square.

Beginning December 4, Target and celebrated designer Tord Boontje will transform the footpath in Union Square Park into an incredible world of holiday imagery. By using the most sophisticated technology, Boontje's signature animals and iconic designs will actually interact with visitors playing, running, spinning and even floating away, creating a virtual petting zoo. Since these behaviors will not be repetitive or pre-designed, guests can invent new games to play within the environment each time they visit Bright Nights.

This amazing sensory experience will be enhanced by the infectious, electronic soundtrack of Goldfrapp the British recording duo quickly becoming an international sensation.

Bright Nights is designed by Studio Tord Boontje in collaboration with Andrew Allenson from pickledonion.com.

Bright Nights is FREE and open to the public from Monday, December 4 Tuesday, December 26. It is open every day from 4:00 11:00 p.m.

Look what the postman brought!

I was having a pretty (choose one: low key/blah/same old same old/lame/creatively lacking) Friday. My lunchdate canceled on me. And I did not forsee anything special happening on today's horizon, unless you count watching the Grey's Anatomy repeat on tv since I missed last night's episode.

And then, lo and behold, out of nowhere, my postman arrived. And he brought me a small package from Lara (thank you!!), bearing the cutest toe socks from Japan, via upstate New York.

note:
I have amazing friends — first cupcakes, and now socks! This has been such a fun week!

Now, seriously, I must have at least 50 pairs of toe socks — the majority purchased on a mad sock buying binge in MUJI, a few years ago in Tokyo. But my MUJI socks all are gray, black or beige, and my Lara socks are so cheerful. And now, I can feel all of this positive energy coming from my feet.

I have happy feet.

I heart lunchtime

Joni F.'s hat-to-be.

Lentils and rice, with a chicken cucumber salad.
Ask Kenny for the recipe.

Most days, I am looking forward to eating lunch by about, well 10am. Sometimes I will email my friends the special soups of the day, at 'wichcraft. In case they are already hungry, too. Although I abide by some sort of unspoken rule that I cannot actually eat lunch until 12pm — otherwise, its still breakfast — because basically I would feel pathetic breaking into my lunch will the people around me are still eating doughnuts.

Today is a Thursday. This means knitting with my co-workers during our lunchtime. Since I had eaten a triple decker peanut butter sandwich on whole grain bread (from 'wichcraft, of course) for breakfast at like 11am, I was not hungry at noon. So, I actually knit my entire lunchtime. I was quite excited to knit this particular thing because it is a hat for my friend Joni F, for Hanukkah. I started knitting it on the subway this morning, and continued knitting as I walked up the steps to leave the station, and then as I walked down Sixth Avenue, to work. Yes, I looked like on of those huge nerds you see walking down the street, reading. Which I have done, on occasion, as well. Anyway, I was looking forward to knitting again, at lunchtime.

When I did finally take my lunch, I ate at my desk. Which means I got a lentil mashed into my keyboard; but I jimmied it out with my napkin, don't worry. The lentils were dinner that Kenny made a few nights ago, and they are still delicious three days later.

Semapedia your world

My friend Chloe just sent me the link to her friend's Semapedia website, where you can make your own printed semacode tags that link back to Wikipedia definitions. You create the semacodes using their template, and then then stick the semacode tags on actual things around you in your environment (things that have a Wikipedia definition). And then using the downloadable semacode reader (from the website) you can read the tags, via your cellphone, as you stumble across them, which immediately accesses the Wikipedia definition of the thing.

Here is an example:

Taken at 4:22 PM on November 10, 2006 -
cameraphone upload by ShoZu

And then you can click on the Semapedia map and find the location. The above image is located right here. And then here is the Wikipedia definition of the LA Times.
I love it! It totally connects you to your environment in an entirely new way. I am not sure if I really need to know the definition of Microsoft or the LA Times, but I think the really cool element of the project is seeing how people choose to define those things for themselves. How I define Issac Hayes might be completely different than that a person living in the middle of the US.
Now, I only wish that Semapedia had the semacode reader software for Treo 650s.

Thank you Eitan! Thank you Juliana!

Notice the green label, because I love green...
it only gets better.

At this point, I started jumping up and down. Seriously.

A closer view of how freaking scrumptious these cupcakes look.

That, my friends, is a divine pumpkin cupcake.

That goofy smile represents the most intense sugar high.

Here I am still high from the excitement, the rush of sugar in my brain, and the overwhelming amazement and delight that Eitan brought me cupcakes from LA, on a plane!

Eitan bought me a dozen Sprinkles Cupcakes last night from the Sprinkles Cupcakes boutique in Californina, brought them back on this morning's red-eye and Juliana brought them to me at my office just an hour ago!!! Ok, let's take a moment to comprehend that. Eitan brought me cupcakes from LA! I am so freaking lucky and I feel so unbelieveabley special to have such amazing friends in my life.

I am now experiencing what could be called "cupcake love," which loosely translates to love for my friends induced by a particularly good cupcake. (Like a safer, more caloric, version of doing Ecstasy, I would imagine.) I am feeling love for all of my friends and family, with some extra special love going to Eitan and Juliana.

And let me tell you, the pumpkin cupcake with cinnamon cream cheese frosting was the best I have ever had. I still have like 10 left, so please stop by my office if you would like one. I have so many to share!

The perfect cupcake

I came to work this morning and found an email from Sheri with photos of these spectacular cupcakes from Sprinkles Cupcakes, in Beverly Hills, CA. (I have read about them before, and never got around to checking out their website. Shame on me.) I am convinced that they must be baked by a designer, for designers. These are the cupcakes that I dream about at night, whenever I dream about cupcakes! I mean really, the flavor for the month of November is Pumpkin! My favorite! And with other flavors like lemon coconut, ginger lemon, and banana (based on the days of the week), how could you choose wrongly? So fantasizing about perfectly designed cupcakes on a Monday morning, is almost as good as arriving to a desk full of them. And since they do not deliver (this is sad), and I do not live in LA, we are going to have to resort to begging Helen to bring us all back at least two dozen the next time she goes home. Or perhaps, this could be the very thing to convince me that I want to move to sunny California. Sprinkles Cupcakes and In-and-Out Burger...mmmm.

Yo, check it.

This weekend I decided to check off a bunch of stuff on my list of things that I had been putting off to another day. Today was that "another day." First of all, I had to address a scary pile of sweaters that I am convinced is multiplying like little bunnies, and is therefore crammed every which way onto the sweater shelf. That led to cleaning the closet, which led to vacuuming the apartment, and on it went. One thing led to another, and now, here it is — 10pm on Sunday night. I am exhausted (I am really, really tired), but I am feeling like I finally am starting the week ahead ahead of the game. And...I even have my lunch all packed for tomorrow, waiting in the fridge.

Wild and crazy party people

I took a yoga class this morning from the guy speaking.

It is a rare Saturday night when Kenny and I actually leave our home to do more than have dinner at some place close by in Fort Greene. But tonight we went out. I put on a cute shirt (and then had to stick on a sweater and a blazer to stay warm) and silver shoes, found a hand bag that I have not used for at least a year, and put on some lip gloss.

First we went to the Iyengar Institute for their membership drive event. They were screening a video of the Light on Life performance that they had performed last year at the City Center in honor of B.K.S. Iyengar. (For photos of the event, click here, and then on the Light on Life link.) I had seen the video last December when some people from the Institure came to Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia to perform at the annual company meeting. I was so inspired, I decided right then that I wanted to start practicing Iyengar yoga. I wanted to Kenny to see how amazing the performance was, so he could understand why I was so inspired. It did not disappoint even watching it the second time around. And we all sat on bolsters with perfect yoga posture, nibbling on fat apricots and spiced almonds, drinking chai, while watching the video.

Those are carmelized onions on my burger.
It looks gross, but tasted good.

From there, we headed into Williamsburg, so we could meet my cousin Ross and his wife Laura for dinner at DuMont Burger on Bedford Avenue. I had the DuMont Burger with carmelized onions and gruyere — it was a mighty fine burger. No Peter Luger burger, but it was juicy and came on a fat brioche bun with some really good pickles on the side. I even had a beer, to celebrate the fact that we were not in our house on a Saturday night. The beer was similar to a Guiness, but with a pumpkin aftertaste.

Then the four of us headed to Pete's Candy Store on Lorimer Street, to hear The Great Unknowns — my cousin's childhood friend was the drummer. The music was really good and something akin to what you would hear on the Grey's Anatomy soundtrack. Basically rock (is this still a genre these days?) that made you feel a little depressed, but in a happy sort of way. If that makes sense. By that point, I was turning into a pumpkin, so after they all had one more drink, Kenny and I came home. And that was our great night on the town. Sounds quite tame (and perhaps lame), I know. But it was actually a really great evening.