Ein wenig von Deutschland!

On the corner of Second Avenue and 2nd Street, while jumping Michelle's car because she left her car lights on while we brunched at Double Crown, I spotted this construction barrier painted like the national flag of Germany. And it made me think of my friend Markus.

The Incredible Edible Egg...on Canal Street

I was crossing the street where Canal Street, Baxter Street and Walker Street all come together in Chinatown, and saw this carton for a case of eggs, laying on the street for the garbage pick up. It seemed like a throw back to the 1960's, and it delighted me that this had no been redesigned into something super lame or incredibly banal.

A little fika-time

This afternoon, I felt the urgent need to

have a quick break for a cookie and some tea.

My mom

My dad was scanning in his old slides (!) from the 1960's and he sent me this one of my mom, while she was still in college. First of all, it is always so strange to see your parents in their life before you even existed. And second of all, I was blown away by how beautiful my mom is in this photograph. She must have been about 21 years old at the time the picture was taken, and I wonder what she was thinking, with her whole life ahead of her at that moment.

Brown Rice Family at BLVD

Despite the foot or more of snow, Joel and I went to go see the Brown Rice Family play at BLVD tonight. I had sort of thought that no one would want to leave their house since the weather was so crappy, but it was really nice to see that there was a great turn out...the place was moderately packed, in a good sort of way. It was sort of a short set, only an hour or so, but the band played well and I liked that they had new songs.

Afterwards, we went to get ramen at Minca Ramen Factory — my most favorite ramen spot in the city because they have whole wheat ramen noodles, and give extra bean sprouts if you ask for it. The snow totally made it a ramen sort of night.

Giant Snowflakes

It started snowing today while I was at work, and I spent some time staring out the window, marveling at how large the snowflakes actually were. They were huge.

Sunrise over Montego Bay, part 2

I have deliberately kept the curtains open slightly at night to allow me to awaken naturally with the sunrise each morning. For me, this is the always the best way to wake up (although not everyone seems to agree with me on this one), and makes me feel much more connected to the day at hand. I wish that I lived here, and therefore, on a more equatorial time clock with 12 hours of day light and 12 hours of night time. I think that life would feel much more centered.

Sunrise over Montego Bay

I woke up this morning at 6:30am, to the sound of the waves crashing against the shore and the cars zipping down the main highway towards Montego Bay. What woke up me up though, was the sun rise, as the light came through my curtains. As someone who is chronically vitamin D deficient, as well chronically crabby pretty much all winter long from a lack of sunshine, I cannot think of a more delightful and natural way to awaken. I went out on to the balcony and spent about ten minutes watching the sun climb higher into the morning sky, all the while thinking how grateful I was for everything in my life.

With a cherry (or two) on top

For my mom's 65th birthday, we went to Montego Bay, Jamaica for a long weekend of rest and relaxation, and some bonding mom-daughter time. When we arrived, the first room that they gave us was directly overlooking the lanai, which was crammed full of obnoxious and drunken people, playing poker. So we requested a room change. While we waited for our new room, that hopefully did not overlook the lanai, my mom had a strawberry margarita and I had a fresh pineapple juice with two cherries.

Cherith's birthday baked good extravaganza

the whole team, except for Lara who was in NJ

happy Cherith!

the spread of baked goods

super delicious pistachio brioche

Lilies, part 5

Happy Valentine's Day!

In honor of Valentine's Day, Lara came over today and we made four types of holiday cookies: sugar cookie jam sandwiches, chocolate cookies with pink sugar, sugar cookie hearts with pink frosting, and gingerbread cookies completely covered with pink and white sprinkles. I made the sugar cookie and gingerbread doughs in the morning (all are Martha Stewart recipes), and had it ready to go so that we could spend the majority of our time rolling out, baking and decorating...which is the most interesting part anyway. Despite being terribly jetlagged, I think we did a great job personally (I particularly loved Lara's sprinkle-ness on the gingerbread cookies, and I could have eaten all of the sugar cookies plain, in one sitting), and it was a really nice way to celebrate Valentine's Day.

:) or :(

Thankfully, there was no inspection results posted because I am not sure what I would have done if I had to eat at restaurant that had a frowny face from the Food + Drug Administration in Shanghai.