Category: Ruminations

Doug loves his Tee-PJ nightshirt, or as he likes to call it, his manatee.  He ordered it from one of those ads in the back of the New Yorker.  (I'm more of a tropical print muumuu girl myself.)  Now they send us the catalog in the mail. 

I'm sure you're not at all surprised to know that the manatees come in XXXL for ladies and men who are up to 300 lbs.

But ever heard of the diabetic sock?  I had to put the Ben & Jerry's back in the freezer when I saw this.  You know there's an epidemic when you can order illness-related clothing from a mail-order catalog. 

This post was going to be about how hearing the Mr. Softee trucks for the first time in months filled my heart with joy.  Yay Mr. Softee, harbinger of warm weather!  Skippity-doo-dah!  Puppies!  Rainbows! 

But while I was trying to take a picture of one of many Mr. Softee trucks in the hood (I know how you people like your visual aides), I realized that the custard puller had his body halfway out the window and was yelling something at me.  I tried to filter out the blasting Mr. Softee song and focus on what he was saying.

MR. SOFTEE: Look, miss, I'm trying to be nice -- how would you like it if I broke your camera?

ME: What?

MR. SOFTEE: Stop taking a picture.  Looks like you're trying to take a picture of my permit.  I might think you're a snitch.

ME: I'm not taking a picture of your truck anymore, alright?  I was just trying to get a picture of a Mr. Softee truck. 

MR. SOFTEE: Why don't you try taking a picture up in Harlem or Washington Heights, see what happens.

ME: You know what?

I turned around and walked away, totally flummoxed.  All my feelings of good will towards Mr. Softee disintegrated, only to be replaced by seething anger with the ice cream man.  I was also really annoyed with myself for not having a snappier comeback than, "You know what?". 

Then I thought, okay, I just got threatened by the ice cream man, who must be a criminal if he's so worried about snitches.  That presumed criminal goes around selling a disgusting hybrid of shaving cream and Cool Whip that A.) is not quite frozen and B.) does not melt.  Two servings of said gloop could instead buy chemical free tubs of Haagen-Dazs at any bodega, and yet trusting young children fork their money over by the handful to the criminal for chemical gloop, lured by the piper's song.  And that piper's song will be playing for the next six months, everyday til sundown, right outside the office windows, right outside my living room window, and All.  Over.  NYC.

So you know what?  I fucking hate that song.  And I fucking hate Mr. Softee.

Yeah, watch for our children so they don't wind up at the bottom of the East River.

I was supposed to meet a certain person (who will go unnamed because he's very sorry he slept in) at World Tong for dim sum today at noon.  At 12:20ish, I got a froggy voiced call telling me he wouldn't make it, so I figured I'd just have some me time with the dumplings.

There are always plenty of single old Chinese biddies and middle aged Chinese bachelors with their newspapers enjoying yum cha on their own.  But I'm here to tell you that it's not for us amateurs.  I tried in vain to flag down cart pushers who didn't really acknowledge my single presence. Sometimes they called out the names of all the dishes they had in Chinese (which I look like I should understand but I don't).  I was crammed in between two parties, clean chopsticks coming dangerously close to my gnawed beef rib bones, my neighbor's open newspaper dipping a corner into the spout of my teapot.   I tried to put my hardcover novel up to my nose but I was distracted by the bumper carts trying to maneuver their way through the skinny restaurant lanes.  Grandpa next to me tried to get out of his seat and knocked his nose against the front cover of my book.  I gave up after thirty minutes and only two dishes. 

But then it occurred to me -- I had been sitting with two different families and not a single person had uttered a peep.  Everyone at that table may as well have been eating alone.  Isn't that depressing?  I don't know about them but it sure ruined my appetite.

Put your contacts in BEFORE you cut up the jalapeno, crybaby.

While I was out of town, Adam Kuban of Slice sent me an email inviting me to his pizza party.  I figured it would be 12-15 of his friends going out to some secret joint in the outer boroughs so I said, sure, I'll go.  But the follow-up e-mail had some fancy link to PayPal.  I thought, what did I get myself into?

Turns out the party was being thrown by Adam and Gothamist for a 100+ of their closest friends.  I asked Adam if I was going to know anyone there besides him.  He said he only knew about 25 people, but no, I wasn't going to know anyone else there.  He also said that Bill from Soundbites had reserved tickets but had not yet purchased them.  After a tiny bit of cajoling, I got Bill to hand over his money.  We made plans to meet up at Greenpoint Tavern across the street before braving the masses.

So I have to admit that I was afraid to go alone because I thought the party would be populated by pot-bellied, square, shut-in bloggers.  I was pleasantly surprised to discover that Slice has quite a young and attractive readership.   Even better, I ran into enough people I internet-know, reassuring my flash mob lemming brain that it was okay for me to be there.  Chatted with Martha, the adorable Janice (our second tipsy run-in at a party), and met a slew of people I'd seen on the internet but never properly met.  It was all a lot more fun and a lot less junior high-awkward than I expected a blogger party to be.

We got there about 7:10 p.m. and the pizzas were already flying out of the wood-fired oven.  Gorgeous margheritas with pliable mozz; pie with hunks of fennel-studded sausage and tomato sauce; prosciutto and asparagus; gorgonzola; mixed mushroom; and of course, the star attraction, white pie with truffle shavings, truffle oil, ricotta, mozz, and a little fresh rosemary.  Crusts were blistery and thin, crisp but properly chewy without too many carbon potholes. 

picture borrowed from Slice

The characteristic that sets Fornino's pies apart from the rest is the divine cheese -- tender, milky, stringy mozz that practically dripped off the pies.  I wish I could do a report on the mozz making demonstration, but my new friend whom I am now dubbing Hot Kate and I had made a pact early in the evening to make sure we got our $26.06's worth of all you can inhale pie, wine, and beer.  By the time Chef Michael Ayoub got around to melting curd, she and I had moved to the liquid portion of dinner.  We were probably 4 juice glasses of pinot grigio in, chucking crusts on tables, dancing with the bartender to the Smiths and New Order, clinking glasses and chugging like a couple of frat boys.  I kept asking Bill if we were embarrassing him which he denied, though not very emphatically.

picture of me and Hot Kate borrowed from Martha

Apologies to the Fornino staff for being the last group to trickle out of the place.  I did manage to talk Hot Kate out of continuing the evening with karaoke at Capone's (more pizza!).  When I'm pretty drunk, I take a cab home -- I figure my rent is cheap enough that I can afford to take cabs home once a week and still have a lower cost of living than most folks in NY.  But when I'm really drunk, I wind up on the subway because my alcohol addled brain thinks, "Oh, I'll be fiiiiiine on the thubway where's that metrocard wutt wutt?"  Last night I closed my eyes when the N was going over the bridge.  When I opened them, the train doors opened out onto 59th St. -- three stops past my stop.  I stumbled out of the car, went up and over, and had to wait another 15 minutes for a Manhattan bound train to take me home.  I should get a placard to wear on the subway that says "Wake Me at 36th St." 

I stopped at the gas station on the walk home for a can of Chef Boyardee (sorry Chef Ayoub!), a pint of coffee Haagen-Dazs and a gallon of Poland Spring, which is pretty much the only reason I was able to get out of bed this morning.

Adam, Gothamist and Fornino, cheers to you for throwing such a fabulous party!  This hangover is dedicated to you.

Gothamist-Slice Pizza Party flickr tag photos
My Flickr pizza party set

A conversation with my co-worker Jason:

JASON:  If I had a party and someone showed up with Two Buck Chuck, I would send them back to the wine store.

GANDA:  Would you really?

JASON: Maybe not...

GANDA: Two Buck Chuck is like 40s for yuppies.   Or hippies.

Haggis.  Tried it today for the first time at a St. Patrick's Day party (yes, I know it's Scottish, don't send me letters, people).  How to describe haggis...the thing looks like a large, sweaty beige football.  Out of its gaping, steaming slit, you scoop out the innards (which taste like livery oatmeal) and spread on sturdy wholemeal crackers.  I don't think I'll be trying it again, unless the cracker it comes on is attached to the fingers of Stuart Murdoch or Ewan McGregor or some other hot Scot. 

I came across this recipe, which you're probably better off not reading if you ever plan on eating the haggis.  Should you care to know the haggis first hand for April's NY Tartan Week, our USDA approved haggis came from Kearney's in NJ. 

And how many drams down was Robert Burns, Bard of Scotland, when he wrote Address to a Haggis? 

A haiku to sum up my trip:

Polyamory
The Helmand's good Afghani
Charm City well-named.

I've got a project coming up that is going to be absorbing all my time, so coverage is going to slow down here for a few weeks.  Maybe I can find someone to guest blog.  Gotta go, KIT, TTYL, xoxo.

Actually, I was interviewed for this article on dinner whores too.  I gave Mandy Stadtmiller some choice quotes -- I'm not sure why she didn't use them. Some amuse-bouches from our interview for you:

"Look, it's just a numbers game.  You don't want to get so drunk that you pass out in your panna cotta, but you do want to be drunk enough that you don't bother fighting back when he starts feeling you up in the cab."

"Nobu?  Please.  The only way we're even discussing the 'backdoor draft' is if we go to Masa or Per Se."

"I mean, I don't mind Balthazar, but that goddamned bathroom attendant makes it so much harder to purge a four course meal, you know what I mean?"

"My worst date was when this guy came out of his bedroom wearing a life-size Spongebob outfit, asked me to peg him with a cucumber while he yelled 'Mrs. Doubtfire!'  And then we went to Bungalow 8 and he ordered me a bottle of Veuve instead of Cristal.  In front of all of my friends!"

"It's only because we live in New York.  I mean, I was doing the same sh*t in La Puente for a Nogales Burger 2-fer-1 special and fries with 1000 Island dressing."

Link via Gawker

I just woke up from a dream in which I ordered a bottle of champagne at a really lovely restaurant.  It was so sunshine-y and yummy that I had to find out what it was, but when I looked on the menu, I realized it was $320.  With a very heavy heart, I had to call the waitress over and send it back. 

What the hell does that mean?  And why can't I even have good champagne IN MY DREAMS?