A little bit of Sheri time

Sheri and I finally got the chance to hang out together this evening at a friend's barbecue. We have not seen each other for...I am not sure how long — a month? Sheri, when was the last time we saw one another?! So it was great to hang out in person, as opposed to our usual method of over the phone. I am too tired these days to talk so much on the phone, so most conversations I have are limited the big picture (How are you? How is work? How are you? you know, the sort of questions your great aunt, who is slightly senile, might ask you.), and we never get the chance to really talk about the seemingly pointless and random details that are actually the fun bits of conversation.

Let them eat cake

Helen and I met for lunch this afternoon at, of course, Le Pain Quotidien. I actually ordered something other than my usual ricotta and honey tartine — the mozzarella di bufala salad, and for dessert, I bought the most gigantic madeleine I have ever seen. It was more like a madeleine cupcake, than an actual madeleine. I ate half and shared the other half with Kenny.

How to bake madeleines (from Saveur magazine):
Heat oven to 375°. Grease two 12-mold madeleine pans containing 3"-long molds with 2 tsp. butter. Melt 6 tbsp. plus 1 tsp. butter in a pot over medium-low heat; let cool for 10 minutes. Whisk together 1 3⁄4 cups cake flour, 1 cup sugar, 1⁄2 tsp. baking soda, finely grated zest of 2 lemons, and a pinch of salt in a bowl; fold in 4 beaten eggs until smooth. Add butter; fold until just mixed. Divide batter between molds, filling each about three-fourths of the way. Bake, rotating once, until golden brown, 15–20 minutes. Remove cookies from molds; let cool slightly. Makes 2 dozen.

Wallpaper* City Guides

So, I broke down and bought the Wallpaper* City Guide (you can buy them, here) for Tokyo, where I am going next Saturday for business.

One, because I am just a sucker for any sort of nice travel guide — like cookbooks, I enjoy reading them like books as opposed to manuals on how to accomplish something.

And two, because I want to appear like I know all the cool spots in Tokyo, instead of the places that I really prefer — like the お茶漬け (ochazuke) place next to the Gap on Meiji Dori. This place is really simple and in a basement level restaurant space, yet I have gone there every time I have been to Tokyo, because I love it. This is NOT in the Wallpaper* City Guide. Neither is 無印良品 (MUJI), my other true love in Tokyo. But that is ok, because I already know where they are located. But now, I also can find the Prada Store and the Louis Vuitton Store near Roppongi Hills, in case I feel like buying a pair of shoes for $750.

So, as I was reading my new guide on the subway home from the bookstore, I missed my stop. I was supposed to get off at Canal Street and transfer to the Q train. Instead, I was so engrossed in reading about all the fabulous places where I could never afford to eat on my company's daily stipend, I ended up at Whitehall Street, which is the end of the line for the R train, before it falls into the East River. I looked up and the car was empty, except for me, and a guy with a skateboard. When I had to stand over him to look at the subway map, he asked where I was going and I told him that I missed my stop, that I was going to Brooklyn. He looked at me sympathetically and was like, "You don't go out there very much, huh?" I think he was implying, gee, what loser misses their own subway transfer? Um, I do. To which I replied, "Oh. I actually live in Brooklyn."

Destination: McNally Robinson Booksellers

photo by zetalab ©2007

I stopped by McNally Robinson Bookstore on my way home this evening, and I of course bought a few books. (It is my favorite bookstore in the entire city. Short of ABC books in Japan, I think its really one the best I have ever been in.) Haruki Murakami's newest book, After Dark — not sure how this one slipped by my radar, as it came out on May 8, and I only bought it yesterday. John Burdett's newest Bangkok murder mystery, Bangkok Haunts — at least this one only came out on June 5. I love his books! And then two other ones that seemed like they might be really promising: A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini — the author who wrote The Kite Runner, which I thought was really splendid. And lastly, a new author, Min Jin Lee, wrote a book called Free Food for Millionaries, which sounds like it might be good. And the NY Times just reviewed it here, today! Or well, tomorrow. They post the online stuff at midnight. So I am like six hours ahead of the Times!

I did it. I ate פלאפל from a cart!

Ok, so this is roboppy's sandwich, not mine. I forgot to take a photo of mine. But my falafel sandwich looked this delcious, just without the wicker basket. (photo by roboppy, 2006)

I finally ate from a street cart vendor, the one on 26th ad 11th Avenue. I bought a $3 falafel sandwich (No tomatoes! No sauce!) And it was so freaking delicious, and filling, and cheap. There was a ton of falafel stuffed into a really soft and warm pita. And it was very messy and I got bits of falafel in my clear Mac keyboard at work. So now, I will be able to watch the bits of trapped falafel sprout mold spores.

Because I did not get Hepatitis A, B or C, or develop food poisoning I plan on eating at the falafel cart every day from now on. Or, I could make my own and bring my lunch to work, which might be even cheaper than $3. Check out this recipe, for making homemade falafel.

Fruit of the week: little cherries

This week, our CSA Farm Collective sent Kenny home with a quart of fresh cherries. I am loving the fruit aspect of the weekly food pick-up, because I never eat fun fruit — I am usually finding myself eating the most banal fruits, like granny smith apples. Fresh blueberries, well, I do buy those. But otherwise, its basically apples all year round. Boring. So, I am really excited by the quart of something red and berry-like, every week. Instead of making the cherries into something cool like Tiny Cherry and Almond Tea Cakes, I decided that I would just eat them every morning for breakfast. Otherwise, I would have to take their pits out, which would necessitate me purchasing a cherry-pitting gadget from Sur La Table. (If you are feeling more inspired than I am, you can buy one here.) I do not need any more anythings, so I thought that just eating them straight from the paper quart box would require the least amount of effort, energy, and money.

I also think that they word "cherries" is so cute looking. Perhaps because it is not far from its French counterpart, cherise.

Happy Birthday to my blog!

So today is the first anniversary of My Happiness Project. When I started this blog a year ago, I was in a crabby state of mind, and needed something to snap me out of my whiny, self-induced, depressive state of dreariness. We were being forced to move out of the most amazing duplex townhouse apartment we will probably ever live in (amazing, despite the bouts of no heat and the rat incident), so that we could move to a very small garden apartment with no kitchen drawers, and also, no heat. But we gained the coolest neighbors and friends, Kate and Doug. And in that very small apartment, I developed my love for Grey's Anatomy. We then moved again, to our new apartment, which has a washing machine and a dryer. So this year has been quite an eventful one for me.

I am trying to reflect on where I started when I began this blog and where I am now, and if the journey has not only been moving from apartment to apartment, but also some other, higher plane of existence sort of thing, to get all new-agey. Like, am I more conscious of the the things that bring me happiness in my life? Do I focus more on the good things, and less on the small stuff that can seem to big and huge and omnipotent, and yet really is a drop in the bucket? Um no, probably not. But yet, I have found myself appreciating things I perhaps I would not have noticed before. Like the way the moonlight makes shadows on the wall right above my pillow each night, of my jade plants on the window sill. And for that, I am a happier person.

So will I continue to post every day? Sigh. I have really sucked at this over the past three months due to my job eating into all of my web-surfing time — after reading 200+ emails a day, the last thing I feel like doing most nights is even looking at my MacBook. But I will try. It might not be every day, but it will be frequently. I will also look into how to set it up so that there are RSS feeds, so you can get and update when I post a new post. If anyone knows how I can do this, please share the knowledge.

And I am going to start working on the grocery store book, as well. That is my next project, and I might do a blog that accompanies it. I am not sure (more time! more work!), but I will let you all know when I know.

So thank you everyone for reading my blog and for being the incentive to keep writing every day. Because although these things have all brought me pleasure, it has also been quite a pleasure to read everyone's comments, (or almost everyones, I hate those spam comments) and know that people look forward to reading what has made me happy.

love,
Aimee

Manu Chao, Brooklyn-style

Kenny and I had tickets to watch Manu Chao in Prospect Park, this evening. I was in New Jersey, and left by 3:30pm to make sure that I arrived home in time to make it to the park by 6:30, because this year, I was not going to miss Manu Chao. (last year, I had tickets, but had to work late and missed the concert.) We get all ready (I matched my clogs and bag to the flowers in my dress) and walk over to Prospect Park — instead of driving, which is bad for the environment, and completely unnecessary since we only live about a mile and half from the band shell area in the park. So we walk over there, and its really hot. Like sweat is trickling down my arms kind of hot. And when we get there, we have to wait in line to get into the band shell, and they look in my bag, and my Nikon D40 sort of stops them in their tracks.

"No professional cameras, allowed."

"But this is not professional! No professional would use this, its an entry level camera! Really!"

We were denied entry. All because "Manu said no big cameras." Jeez. And the kind guy who denied us the final time, suggested that I go to the nearby post office and check it into a lock box. Huh? Obviously he is from another country, because nothing like that even exists in Brooklyn. There are no nearby post offices that are open at 6:30pm on a Tuesday night, with lockers. He also suggested we go stick it in our car. Oh. But we walked, because I was insistent that it was stupid to drive our car. And since it was so freaking hot and sweat was raining from our bodies, and being that it was 6:30pm, we knew there was no way that we could walk the mile and a half back home, drop off the camera, and drive out, find a legal parking spot and get back in time for the show to start, which was supposed to happen in like 3 minutes.

So instead we wandered around trying to see if we could sneak my bag in, but Manu Chao is sort of bizarre and fenced off the entire performance area with that tennis type of fencing. People were climbing pine trees to see over the top of the fence. Seriously. So Kenny sold our tickets, made a little profit, and we settled onto the grass in a rather dejected state of mind. Especially since we had no picnic basket. Or a blanket.

See the crazy fencing?
The guys in the yellow shirts were the fence police.

All of the other people who had to be content
listening to Manu Chao, without actually seeing him.

I was so jealous of this guy's picnic basket.
Look, there are even little plates buckled in!

As we walked home, we saw my name spray painted onto a porta-john.

But then he played ALL of my favorite songs, and it was pretty amazing to be laying on the grass listening to Manu Chao as the sun was setting. Perhaps next year will be my year to actually see him live.

Street Dawgs

Sammy's Halal in Jackson Heights.
(All photos by Ben Stechschulte)

Sammy's Halal in Jackson Heights.

Hakim Elnagar across from the Port Authority.

Tonight I came home from work at like 10pm, and I needed to unwind a bit before doing some more work. I decided to read last week's New York Magazine, which was at the top of my leaning tower of periodicals. I randomly opened it and started reading about New York City's pushcarts, and I was completely fascinated. I secretly fantasize about eating at the chicken and rice kebab cart on the corner of 26th and 11th Avenue, like every day. The cart smells like some delicious yumminess on four wheels and it is really hard to walk by without making a purchase. Anyway, I have never eaten there, because then when I contract hepatitis A, Kenny will have every right to lecture me on the evils of eating crap off the street, instead of lovingly bringing me a glass of water in bed with a bendy straw. So, I have to content myself with reading about the top 20 best food carts in the city, the day in the life of a kebab man, and all my questions about food cart hygiene have been answered, here... Except for the question about what does the vendor do with his cart and all of the food stuff when he has to go to the bathroom? Does someone watch it for him? Surely, he has to pee at some point. Does he pull down a little shade with a Be Back in 10 Minutes sign?

I have decided that some of the food carts sound way to tasty to pass up, and besides which, I have already had my hepatitis A shot anyway. Is anyone down for a trip to Queens and eat an arepa, a tamale, or a taco off the street?

Destination: Madison Square Park

photo by Harris Graber. I took pictures, but I cannot find my camera. It is lost in the apartment, somewhere.

Today, Lara and I met in Madison Square Park at noon (not realizing that the Gay Pride Parade was going right by this spot, all afternoon), so tat we could spend the afternoon knitting stuffed turtles (get the free pattern, here) and then lunch at Shake Shack. We were able to find a free park bench and proceeded to spend the following three hours knitting — or rather, Lara spent the time knitting. I spent the time untangling my yarn from quite possibly the largest snarly, knotted mess in the entire history of knitting. All because I was too impatient to wait for the folks at Purl to wind my yarn into a ball on their yarn-balling machine. However, there was something sort of soothing about slowly creating a ball of yarn out of string (theory) chaos.

After I could no longer stand the untangling, and my stomach was eating itself for lunch, we put away our knitting stuff and waited on line for lunch at Shake Shack. I vacillated between the Arnold Palmer (1/2 lemonade, 1/2 iced tea) or a vanilla shake, and finally opted for the Arnold Palmer (more refreshing) and a chicken + apple bratwurst, which was surprisingly delicious.

Dear Sarah, I love you.

Paris je t'aime

Tonight, we went to go see the movie Paris je t'aime at BAM, with Dana and Dan. Dana and I both got our own paper bag of candy (mine was a mix of M&Ms, Reese's Pieces, Skittles and Swedish Fish) and settled in. It was great night. Until I got violently ill after about the 50th Reese's Piece, or about halfway through the movie. We had to leave and take a car service home — it was a close call.

Dish of the Day: Strawberry Spaghetti

Tonight, Kenny picked up our delivery of produce from the Prospect Heights Community Agriculture thing, where we signed up to get bi-weekly produce from Farmer Ted's farm in upstate New York. Last week, the farm was unfortunately hit by a freak hailstorm leaving us with only lettuces, chives and fingerling potatoes. (I guess the storm wiped out all of the peas and beans, which really saddened me out.) And a big container of the smallest, cutest little strawberries:


Since we have a weird assortment of foodstuffs in our fridge (potato chips, two apples, some yellowed mache, and a few molding cheeses amongst other things), I sized up our bounty, and determined that we would be having spaghetti with fresh strawberries for dinner, as I had remembered tearing out a recipe for that from New York magazine earlier this week. I would definitely make this dish again — its something you could feed a child, and also serve to dinner guests. It is simple, yet sophisticated tasting. I think it could use a really nice rose and perhaps a salad of some sliced pears, fresh cheese and French Boudin Blanc (white sausage). Unfortunately, none of that came in our CSA food shipment, so we just ate a dinner of strawberry spaghetti this time.

You can find the recipe here. Or if you are too lazy to click, I have posted it below:

Sfoglia’s Spaghetti with Strawberries

1 pound good-quality dried spaghetti (like Setaro)
4 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, plus more for finishing
1 pound ripe strawberries, cleaned and halved
2 tablespoons good aged (eight-year-old) balsamic vinegar
1 cup San Marzano tomato purée
4 ounces reserved pasta water
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Cook the pasta in rapidly boiling salted water until al dente. (1) In a large sauté pan, warm the olive oil and half of the strawberries over medium heat. Cook until the strawberries start to release juice. Add balsamic and reduce by half. (2) Add tomato purée, the rest of the strawberries, and the reserved pasta water, and reduce by half again until the sauce thickens. Season to taste. (3) Toss with spaghetti. Finish with olive oil and black pepper.

The longest day

June 21 is the summer solstice and officially the start of summer. Known as Midsommar in Sweden, it is a day of great celebration of all things light and clean. I had planned on going to a yoga class this evening to celebrate my own sense of lightness, but instead I spent 2.75 hours driving back from New Jersey, and arrived home in a crabby mood. And then the sun immediately went away and it began to rain. So, I have like 4 hours before I go to bed, and I need to find my light again.

Here is my list of what I plan to do to find it:

1. Finish some stuff for work so I don't have to do it tomorrow, so I can take a summer Friday
   
2. Make the bed
3. Clean off all of the surfaces in our house that have stuff piled on them, and actually put the stuff away
   
4. Do that load of laundry that has by laying on my bedroom floor for four days
5. Put away the laundry that has been drying on the rack for four days
6. Try out the shower in the guest bathroom
7. Light the candle Chloe gave me for my birthday that smells like the color green
8. Use my Kiehl's rare earth mud mask
9. Practice yoga

Although, not necessarily in any particular order.

The finer diner

Tonight, Dane and I went to Lincoln Center's Midsummer Night Swing, for the Charanga Soleil Cuban Salsa night. I got quite excited and even broke out my Michael Kors Leg Shine with the gold flecks in it, at my desk at work. Unfortunately, all of the guys at the event were beyond creepy — let me paint a picture of a man wearing a sarong, a safari hat, white sweat socks and carrying an Apple store bag, and who was like 72 years old. OR the man with the waxed blond mustache wearing a bandana like a pirate? He also must have been at least 70 years old. Either way, we decided to leave halfway through and get dinner — and we ended up at the Brooklyn Diner on 57th Street.

Dana had the 15" hot dog (home made sauerkraut! and frizzled onion rings!), and I had the pulled chicken sandwich. Plus, we both had a diet root beer. Its not called the finer diner for nothing.

Salsa for lunch

Today was a pretty stressful day for me. The second really stressful day I have had since I started my new job, which really is not that new anymore, I guess. And when you amortize it over the past few months, it works out to be some small little percentage of lousy-day-ness, like .001% or something. But regardless, the day did not start off all that great, save for the sublime sugarless blueberry scone that I bought for breakfast at Whole Foods. It sort of went all down hill from the scone, and by lunchtime I was in tears. In fact, I sort of ended a phone conversation rather abruptly (before I flat out cried openly), so that I could go to a rather impromptu private salsa lesson with Walter, my salsa teacher. Which, I must say, was the best thing I could have ever done. I was still sniffling as I strapped on my dancing shoes, but by the time Walter found me, I was all like toe-tapping, Ms. Let's-get-to business-and-start-salsa-ing.

Drink of the Day: the Kalimoxto

Tonight at dinner, Kenny and I were drinking some wine that we were given as a housewarming gift. A rosé that tasted pretty much like Robitusson cough syrup. Why we continued to drink it, I am not sure — although being too lazy to get up and actually throw it away is probably the reason. So we were drinking it rather morosely, until I suggested that we add some Diet (caffeine-free) Coke to it. And instantly, it went from this medicinal syrup to a rather yummy fruit punch. In fact, it tasted like sangria. Little did we know, that of course, this drink already exists. I really think that nothing is ever new, these days. In fact, its a popular Basque-country drink in Spain, at least according to Matt Armendariz (check out the link to his blog, Matt Bites, here), who is pictured above. He had a link about the Kalimoxto on his site (read the link here), likening it to a glorified wine cooler.

Move over Bartles and James...

Place of the Day: Eastern Europe, stateside

I bought a neopolitan giant ice cream sandwich —
and ate it in about three bites.

Brighton Beach in all its glory.

I liked this guy's entire orange outfit.

In case you want to go here, this is where I was.

I spent Father's Day at Brighton Beach. My dad is in Seattle these days, but his family is from Brooklyn, and there is definitely some Russian and Polish (and Romanian!) blood in me from the Sealfons and Liebowitzes on my father's side of the family. So technically, I was surrounded by people who could potentially be related to me. Long lost cousins, perhaps. Well, maybe I am not related to the guys who were listening to their boombox super loud as they alternated between Hot 97, Caliente Calle 105.7 and some crazy 80s station. This, paired with the family behind me who were insane, to put it kindly, provided me with an afternoon of lively entertainment. Oh, and I also ate a fried dough thing full of cabbage.

June is national pea month

My weekly pea shot...

I came home from Whole Foods and saw a huge bowl of peas on the counter. At first, I thought that Kenny had gone to the roof and picked the peas in my garden. But then I realized that there was no way my five flower boxes would have created 3 pounds of peas. Instead, Kenny bought them for me at the Prospect Park farmer's market. I love June for this very reason: shelling peas are only $2 a pound, and that is on the pricey side. I think you can get them for even cheaper at roadstands in New Jersey.

My Carbon Footprint

After being told that we are not going to be able to bring Poland Spring or any other PET bottles into our new office (I guess we will have to use glass drinking glasses and fill them up at the water cooler), I decided that I ought to buy a nalgene waterbottle, and just fill it up every morning from the Brita dispenser in our fridge at home. It saves money, and it is one less water bottle that will get thrown into a landfill. Plus, it will help wean me off of Diet Coke, which I rarely drank before I began working at Johnson + Johnson, and now I drink a 20oz sized one every day.

I went to Whole Foods and bought myself a green waterbottle, and I bought a light blue one for Kenny. I am really excited about having a permanent water bottle. Honestly, it is like my carbon footprint went down a whole shoe size.

Test driving the glasses

Today, I woke up and decided that I was going to wear my new glasses. It was finally time. I have not had the prescription lenses put in yet, which meant that I was going to have to wear my contacts, and then wear my glasses on top of the contacts. But this way, I could actually look in the mirror and see what I looked like with and without the glasses on. You know, before I invest another $500 in the thick lenses that I require in order to actually see anything.

I planned my entire outift around the new frames and my eye color, wearing plush green corduroys with a blue check shirt (with kelly green silk knots in the French cuffs) and a vintage Vera scarf in shades of blue and green. I was color coordinated within an inch of my life. In fact, it was a little scary. People were sort of staring at my glasses a little too intently, like, "Is she wearing glasses with a GREEN stripe on them? To match her GREEN pants?!" It was the first thing everyone kept saying, "Wow, new glasses, huh?" But, frankly, the weird staring aside, I am totally in love with these frames. Everytime I looked to the side, my world was sort of tinted kelly green, which just really delighted me... So this week, I am going to mail them off to some place that makes lenses for less.

Some Thoughts on Being Green

More from this week's New York Magazine, you can read the article here:

Evelyn, a 34-year-old researcher based in Williamsburg, briefly dated a guy who would drive his SUV from bar to bar every night: “The combo of toxic emissions and potential drunk driving was a pretty giant turnoff.” But that doesn’t mean she’s looking for a sensitive, unwashed guy. “If I saw one of those freaking crystal deodorant rocks in a guy’s bathroom, I would be out of there. Because while I want all my men to be environmentally conscious, I would never fuck a hippie.”

“I can’t stand water wasters, so the post-sex cleaning can be a real turn-on or turnoff,” says Deborah, a Chelsea 28-year-old in public relations. “If the guy keeps the water running while he brushes his teeth, or takes a really, really long shower, I become less and less excited.”

Greg, a 30-year-old writer, sets the bar a little lower: “I wouldn’t date anyone who denied that global warming was happening.”

Learning to See, intensely

A classic Tufte case study.
In Beautiful Evidence, Edward Tufte remakes a crude graph that first appears in Carl Sagan’s The Dragons of Eden. In the original, bunched-up labels mislead the reader, making inappropriate visual connections (the Tyrannosaurus looks too close to the gorilla, for example), and the heavy frame dominates the composition. In the redesign, those busy little lines connecting data points to words are gone, and the frame and grid recede. In their place, the facts come to the fore, and lightness is allowed in (as is a bit of restrained whimsy, in the form of Babar).

For many seasons, I dutifully read Time Out New York, as a way to keep abreast of all that city had to offer. And even though the magazine was just a step above the Village Voice, I continued to renew my subscription. That is, until New York Magazine did a complete overhaul of their design a few years ago, and I quickly switched over my subscription. See ya later, TONY. Yes, it's all about nicely designed content. Which is why, to my absolute and utter delight, I was so pleased to read an article about Edward Tufte in this week's issue. For those of you unfamiliar with who he is, he can be described:

as a graphic designer, but that’s not exactly right. His field is almost sui generis, containing bits and pieces of art direction, data-crunching, economics, historical research, and plain old expository writing. It’s often labeled “information architecture,” or “analytic design.” Tufte himself describes it many ways, but one is drawn from a classic piece of science writing: “escaping Flatland,” or using paper’s two dimensions to convey several more. Another, more acidic description: “getting design out of fashion and out of the hands of Microsoft.”

Needless to say, most designers have heard of Tufte and have used his books at multiple points in their careers for inspiration, validation that they are not crazy (as here is someone who must be even more crazy than they are), or for pure visual pleasure. I personally am in love with his chart depicting the weather for the entire country of Japan, in his book, The Visual Display of Quantitative Information. For me, this guy is right up there with John Maeda on my list of beloved designers. And New York Magazine is so freaking hip that they obviously can appreciate the Tufte love, too.

I heart my Dansko clogs

Today I decided to wear my Dansko clogs. These have been in semi-retirement since the advent of my two pairs of frog-green Sven clogs; and my other black clogs from Sweden are infinitely more stylish. However, my Danskos are my favorite shoes. And when I don't wear them one day and slip my feet into them the next day, its like my feet exclaim, "Thank you!," I swear. Seriously. I heard them once.

Kenny hates the Danskos, claiming that they are ugly (i.e. these are not sexy, pointy toed shoes). And I have to admit, they are getting a little shabby. The plastic heel cup snapped into pieces and fell out one day. And the toes are all scuffed up and scratched from riding my bike while wearing them. But this morning, I wanted to wear my Danskos again (they are out of retirement!), and I decided to polish them, so that they would look hot. To me, at least.

Place of worship: the grocery store

La Serranita: Buenos Aires, Argentina

Some types of tsukemono: Takashimaya, Tokyo, Japan

Mon petit choux: Paris, France

Detergent: Paris, France

Seaweed for Sale: Namdaemun Market, Seoul, Korea

Maize Dulce: Dispensa Supermercado,
Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

As it is almost time for my blog to turn one (June 28!), I am wondering if it's time to find a new project.

As many of you will note, I have recently become quite bad about posting my happy thing on a daily basis, partly because my (new enough, still) job causes me to spend lots of time checking emails which has, sadly, completely killed my enthusiasm for spending even more time online internet surfing and blog reading when I come home at night.

A project that I have been considering for a few years now is the creation of a book featuring grocery stores from all over the world. I love going to the grocery store, in fact, I wrote an entire essay about my love of wandering the grocery store aisles as a form of stress relief. Whenever I travel, I always check out the grocery store, where ever I am. It seems to fit neatly into my obsession with food, my fascination with packaging, and with my love for documenting different cultural paradigms.

What sparked this idea to finally get off the ground was a few different things. One, the guilt I feel for not posting to the blog on a daily basis anymore. And two, an article I read this morning in this month's issue of Saveur Magazine by Francine Prose, equating grocery shopping with spirituality. (It has fellowship, community, faith, hope and compassion in every store visit. And it has a bracing purity that's an antidote to guilt — for many, its just like going to church.) After reading the article I felt validated that there was someone else out there who could relate to my feelings with regards to grocery stores and food markets and they awe that they hold for me. Which then translated to the fact that if I took the time to create an entire book of photographed grocery stores, maybe at least two people would buy it — my mom and perhaps, Francine Prose.

So this is where I start the planning for my next project, which I still have to name. Any ideas would be welcome.

Butterflies in Bklyn

The other day, as I rode my bike past the Navy Yard, I spotted a piece of art bolted to a parking sign by an intrepid artist. I was bummed out that I did not have my camera, and that thought sort of consumed me as I rode over the Manhattan Bridge — why the days I forget my camera, there is always such good stuff to take photos of! However, as I was walking down Dean Street this morning, I spied another piece of art bolted to a street sign. And honestly, I just love the ingenuity behind it...those street signs are just waiting for things to be bolted to them. Otherwise, there would not bolt holes all the way down to the sidewalk. So why not use them as a way to hang art on the street? It's like the street suddenly has become your living room. Well, sort of.

Homecomings

I love going on vacation, because usually, it is so nice to come back home again.

Do I look relaxed?

My teeth look like I have an underbite in this photo, but I don't. I think its a combination of all of the caffiene coupled with the fact that I could not figure out why my pictures kept coming out blurry. (The result of my camera being in my air-conidtioned room, and then bringing it outisde, where its 86ºF and super humid. The lens was all fogged up.)

I wish I could say that I have a killer tan and spent all day at the pool. Instead, after less than three hours, I basically melted. I had to shower and go out foraging for food — falafel to be exact. When I came back to the hotel, I thought I might lay out again, but after I ate almost a whole can of Loaded Baked Potato Pringles®, I was too stuffed. And I thought that the heat might react badly with a tummy full of disgusting, yet good potato crisps. From Taquitos:

Taste: These Pringles had a light orange powder that basically tasted like cheese, but there was also a hint of bacon, like you're eating a baked potato with cheese and bacon. I'm not sure if there was supposed to be any sour cream flavor on these crisps, but I couldn't taste any. The crisps also seemed to be thinner than normal Pringles, as they broke apart more easily in the mouth after a crunching in than I'm accustomed to from a normal Pringle. Overall these were good snacks, not the worst Pringles I've tasted.

Aroma: Sort of a potato-type smell.

I heart Coca Cola Light

For those of you who are avid Diet Coke fans, you will adore Coca Cola Light. Somehow, it is sweeter and much more like original coke, than the Diet Coke we have in the USA. Lately, Diet Coke's slightly bitter taste just makes me think of chemicals and how bad Coke actually is for me. However, Coca Cola Light changes all of that. I actually went to the grocery store and bought a giant 2L or so, sized bottle of it and now I am refilling my smaller 20oz bottle (in my hotel room, I know this is so tacky) so I can walk around Santo Domingo drinking Coca Cola Light, non-stop. However, the best flavor comes from Coco Cola Light when its in a glass bottle. Being that most places here recycle the glass bottles and get money on their return, the bodega owner was quite non-plussed when I tried to buy it for take-away. He charged me extra to keep the bottle, so it cost me 17 whole pesos — or about 50¢.

As the result, I am now so over-caffienated that my fingers are twitching and I could barely write postcards. But it tastes so good!

On shopping at the mall

No smoking nor no guns are allowed inside of the mall.

These looked like fun and also like they might also cause massive cavities.

Sazon and more Sazon!

We would never be allowed to stick naked women profiles on our Parmalat in the USA.

Yes, that is a keg of cooking oil. In the grocery store.
In case you want to fry a whole pig. Or something.

Today is rained right in the middle of the day. A terrific downpour; a real raining-sheets-of-water thunderstorm. I decided to nap during the worst of it, and then headed out for the mall once the rain had mostly stopped. This is the first time that I have ventured out of the Colonial Zone, into the suburbs of Santo Domingo. Wow — I even saw a McDonalds.

The mall and the grocery store were right near one another, so I went to the Nacional Super Mercado and then three different malls, one right after the other. The grocery store was fabulous, with all sorts of things that made me realize that I could quite possibly set up life here. You know, things like Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Nutella, whole wheat pasta and Cheerios. Life staples.

Notes:
- Crisco Oil bonus-packed with a package of Hershey's Kisses.
(The bag of kisses were taped to the bottle of oil with packing tape, making me think it was a promotion that this particular grocery store thought would be a great idea. I cannot imagine someone in Hershey's marketing department coming up with that combination. Oil and kisses?)

- The power went out in the mall, and no blinked an eyelash.
(In the US, there would have been all sorts of lawsuits from people stuck on the elevators and whatnot.) However, this kept me from going up to the third and fourth floors, because I did not feel like walking up the stairs, and the escalators did not come back on with the lights.

- Single serving sized sampled maxi pads in a box at the register. (When I tried to buy one for research for work, no one in the entire store knew how much they cost. In fact, they thought I opened a bag of maxi pads and wanted to buy only one. The fact that they thought this, and actually tried to find a price for me, blew my mind. Like, this is ok to actually do. When I pointed out that they had these maxi pads in a box by each register in the store, the store manager seemed baffled, like I put the boxes there my self. Finally, he came up with an arbitrary price — 6 pesos for one pad. Which is about 20¢.