First snow of the year

Ok I know it's pretty wussy but we finally had some snow hit the ground the week. I'd hardly call it a blizzard but am sure it is a sign of things to come.

Chilly NYC

In keeping with traditions of living on the Northside I conducted a little science experiment this week. Those that remember my blog from the UK may recall this one from The Lex Lounge. It's been getting rather fresh to say the least. On Wednesday night I left a glass of water on the outside of the windowsill. Result the next morning......a giant frozen ice block. There have been a few flutta's (Thanks for the new word Tracy) so far but nothing major. It's expected to snow this coming weekend which will be exciting.

Here's proof it's getting chilly over here

Opps and look what the cat dragged in. I wonder if they have red eye reduction for dogs. 

Bow Wow

Oh dear. Look what the cat dragged in. Picking the bad boy up tomorrow. This should be fun seeing I've never had a dog before. Name TBC.

Clam Broth House

Back in June when my parents were here we went on a bit of a wander over to the New Jersey side of the Hudson to get some views back of Manhattan at sunset. After wandering for awhile we ended up in this town called Hoboken. It was getting late and we had not eaten dinner and ended up at this place called the Clam Broth House (CBH). To be honest it looked a little tacky inside and was not exactly busy. Clam chowder is something that I had really taken a liking to over this way and so I thought is would be good to be a bit rebellious and try something different. All hesitations were quickly left behind when they bought out our entrees which was a Lobster Bisque. Words cannot describe the taste sensation that was packed into this pumpkin soup looking concoction. Sensational. I think everyone was blown away by it.


So anyway last night Tracy and me headed over to CBH to get another fix. I was suffering the affects of sun stroke after walking from 14th St. up to Grant's Mausoleum at 120th St. For those non locals that equals a freakin long way. I did not want that to come between me and the Lobster B. I was slightly torn though between the Lobster and their oyster selection so I did what any American would do and order both. It was poetry for my tongue. Just as good as the last time. 


It's actually a piece of cake to get there The PATH train on 6th Ave drops you off at their doorstep. The other great thing is New York prices are left at the hudson. Three course meal and drinks.........70 bucks. Bargain.

The Joys of Fresh Direct

Well I don't want to sound like to much of a salesperson but I've become quite addicted to the online supermarket Fresh Direct. It seems everyone in New York has their shopping delivered so several months ago I thought I'd try it out. There's been no looking back. 


I was initially a bit skeptical about the quality of the food but have had no problems at all. Best of all it is delivered chilled and this includes the beer. 


Lately Tracy and me have been smashing down meat and three veg for dinner. Good for you but but it does get slightly boring. I was randomly surfing on Fresh Direct and found their recipe section. The cool thing about this is all the ingredients are broken down and ready to order with the single click of a button. The week before I went to Vegas I thought I would give it a whirl and what a gourmet week it was. Some pic's of the results below. One thing to note for next time is this America and the land of the giant portions. The recipes were for two American adults or four people from the rest of the world.

Swordfish with thyme scented asparagus

This one was delicious. There was a honey and orange sauce and the asparagus was cooked in clam juice. Sounds weird but was sensational.

Balsamic poached chicken with roast asparagus and potatoes

Bet you cannot guess what our fav veg is this month.

Mexican Meatballs with home made Guacamole.

Delicious.

Although this one did not come from Fresh Direct it was probably the most fun I've had so far cooking and that was making fettuccine with LBB. It was also sensational.

NYC Summer 2010 - The Deck

Howdy. So it has been a while since I have posted a blog. Its been an absolutely manic summer with lots and lots of visitors. I thought I'd post a few of the random highlights from July to September. The first is of probably my favorite spot in New York, our deck. Well it's really just a fire escape but 'The Deck' as we call it sounds a bit more exotic. Outdoor space with your apartment in Manhattan is a luxury reserved for anyone with a surname of Rockefeller. 


Being on the bottom floor of the fire escape has the advantage as it's bigger than the other floors. This is because the ladder is on the outside leaving more floor space. We've bought a couple of little folding chairs and have spent many an afternoon sitting out there having a sneaky beer or two. Anyway here are a few of the highlights from the Balcony.


Visitors
It's a custom to drag visitors out onto The Deck.

Mum and Dad

The Sydney Crew

Ange

Louisa

Macqyver Vs. The Deck
While you don't quite need to be a Russian gymnast, you still need to be pretty flexible to get out on The Deck. As NYC is the city of convenience I decided to do a little bit of tinkering to avoid having to get up to let food delivery guys in when ordering delivery out on The Deck. The resulting pulley system was an instant winner has had many a pedestrian admirer when in action.

Old mate loading up the Pizza.

Almost there

Result.....and I did not even move from my chair.

Some of the Action
The street I live on is a bit of a thoroughfare between the West Village and the Meatpacking District. There is never any shortage of action during both the day and night. Here is a bit of a selection of some of the views.

Deck By Day

Deck By Night

Happy July 4th

I'd love to say I was outside celebrating but it is so damn hot over here this week. Thank goodness for the joys of aircon and cable. No relief this coming week either......

Bromance Does NYC

Had the first of many visitors this week with the arrival of the Sydney crew. Hoodie, PJ and Tim flew in from Rome to come hang out in the Big Apple for a week. It was quite exciting as it was finally a chance to do some really cheesy tourist things around the city. It was a jam-packed week with lots of laughs and lots of beers. Anyway here goes.

Friday 28 May
Met at 2A down on Avenue A. It’s my favorite watering hole in the East Village. Everyone was pretty stoked to get a beer on as it had been several months. From there it was a hike through the Lower East Side to Freemans for a bite to eat. This place really reminds me of Melbourne as it’s a cool restaurant located down the end of an alley. Pretty freaky inside with all the stuffed game heads.

Saturday 29 May
Met the lads for brunch down at 7A. This is a cool 24 hour café on Avenue A. They serve the best hamburgers in NYC. From here we headed up to East 9th to the Neighborhood Barbers. This is an old school local place to get a buzz and a shave. We were all looking rather feral so had the old fella’s bust out their razors and work their magic.

Next stop was the Brooklyn Bridge. Went for a quiet walk over it with about 15,000 other tourists. Headed down into Dumbo and explored the area. Headed back early afternoon for some chill time then it was time for the mighty Bon.

Caught a bus from Manhattan to the New Meadowlands Arena to go see Bon Jovi. The arena had just opened that week and this was his second concert. We all had an absolute ball and the crowd went ballistic. Highlights were the fireworks off the stadium near the end and closing out with Livin on a Prayer.

Sunday 30 May
Net up for some recovery Brunch. This time it was over to Five Point in Nolita. It’s on Great Jones St so thought it should be pretty good. What a cracka of a place. They have a wood fired pizza oven and cook eggs in it. Delicious. Caught a train up to the Bronx and headed to Yankee Stadium to watch a game between the Yankees and Cleveland. Sat out in the bleaches and got nuked in the sun. We had plans to smash down a few beers but at 10 bucks a pop we ended up having a pretty quiet one.

After the game we headed down to Chelsea to the German Bier Garden under the High Line. This was pumping as it was a long weekend and everyone was getting a good Sunday session on. In the mayhem we managed to find a table and stayed there for a while. We started getting a bit puckish so jumped in a cab and headed down to Chinatown. I think everyone had the munchies on and we went a bit overboard on ordering but it was fun anyway.

Monday 31 May
Headed down to the 48th Street pier and got on the Circle Line to do a tour round Manhattan. I really enjoyed this and the commentary was excellent. Only problem was the last hour was pretty boring. The captain should have put it in overdrive to get us back.

Once we docked we headed over to the USS Iwo Jima. This was in town as part of Fleet Week, which is when all the ships come to NYC for Memorial Day. Thought it was a great opportunity to view an active Marine Expeditionary Force aircraft carrier. It was a slightly painful start with a 2-hour wait. PJ took it upon himself to become crowd control for all the wankers who were trying to queue jump. It was worth the wait though. The ship was amazing and you could crawl over everything. Got inside an Abrams tank and up close with heaps of other hardware. Outside of the British War Museum it was probably the best military geek experience I had had. Tracy was in her element with all the buffed Marines.

Everyone was pretty tired after a massive weekend so ended up being a fairly quiet night spent smashing down taco’s at La Lucha down in the East Village. A cracking weekend overall.

So I have a slight case of typers’ fatigue so going to expedite the rest of the week.

Tuesday Night – Headed to Peter Lugers in Brooklyn. This is a cracking steakhouse. Got the prime aged bad boy for 4, which was a meat fest if I have ever seen one. Sensational. Oh and we also moved into our new pad in the West Village today. Woohoo.

Wednesday Night – Rock on. Went up the top of the Rockafella Centre. This was awesome with great night views of Manhattan.

Thursday Night. Tracy had some friends arrive in town so we chucked a bit of a house warming. It has been filthy hot and humid over here so it was not long before we headed to the pub. My new local is called Tavern on Jane and it is a cracking little gastro pub on Jane and 8th.  Was good to get into some aircon.

I saw PJ and Tim off on Friday. Was a little sad as we ad had such a great week. Hoodie is hanging around another week, which is cool. Then it’s a week off and the parentals get here.

Pic's to come

Why I love NY - Part One

One of the things I have noticed about NYC is that there are so many things to do. Any day or night of the week there are random things happening all over NYC. When I used to live in London my flat mate subscribed to Timeout. I never really understood why but this was because I never really looked at it. I picked it up over here one day and can now understand why. It contains so much info on what is happening and has heaps of ideas of things to do each week in NYC. 

A couple of weeks ago I had a free Sunday and decided to put it to the test. Ended up being an awesome day. Started off just round the corner at a funky little cafe for some brunch. From here I headed to midtown to check out the Affordable Art Fair. This was basically an art show containing a large collection of different artists who were selling pieces for less than 10 clicks. I guess it says something about NYC when affordable ='s 10 grand or less. I should have smelt a rat when they were stinging you 20 bucks to get in.

From the art show I jumped on the subway and headed over to Brooklyn with Tracy. This was the first time I had been to Williamsburg. It seems everyone you meet in New York aged between 28 and 35 live in Williamsburg. I was heading over there as I'd grabbed a flyer earlier in the day for a record fair. Was quite an interesting trip and got a some decent jazz vinyl to add to the collection. Smashed down some Pizza from Apizza in the E.Village and was home about 10. 

Brunch @ Gourmet on Ave A.

Interesting Piece at the AAF

 

 Some of the Cache

Lomo Pana Stitches From France

(Click Images to make them larger)

The Eiffel Tower - April 2010

Rue Denoyez Shutters, Belleville, Paris - April 2010

Provence, France - April 2010

Le Lavendou, France - April 2010

Exit Through The Gift Shop

Over the past couple of years I have become quite interested in street art. Less so the tagging and old school graffiti but more along the lines of stencils, stickups and other more politically orientated pieces. I was therefore looking forward to getting along to the new art-doco "Exit Through The Gift Shop." I was pretty stoked as being an ARThouse film it was only on at one or two cinemas in New York, one of which was just round the corner from me on Houston St. 

The story is primarily about a guy called Thierry Guetta a.k.a Mr Brainwash (MBW). MBW is a French guy living in LA with a habit of repeating the same sentence several times. Back in the 80's he started carrying a video camera everywhere and filming random events. While back visiting family in France he discovered that his cousin was the famous Parisian street artist known as Space Invader. Through a series of events MBW began focusing his camera work on the growing street art scene in various places around the world. This all culminated in a chance encounter with the most famous street artist today, Banksy. 

Some Space Invader from my recent trip to Paris

 

The first two-thirds of the film was really good. There was some great footage of some of the most famous street artists around and it was great to see how MBW's interest in street art evolved. The highlights were various interviews with Banksy. The humour in much of his art was evident when being interviewed in person. 

I left the cinema feeling a little frustrated however. I was not sure if it was the fact that I sat in the front row and was in dire need to get a neck massage. I think it was more the last third and watching Thierry become MBW. By becoming MBW, he assumes the role of 'artist' but is he really that or merely someone with deep pockets and the ability hire people to bring his visions to reality? 

Through the later part of the movie I felt the vibe that everything he did was really designed and executed by someone else and MBW came along and splattered a bit of paint on it. I don't want to take away from the fact that he has obviously had an important role in the production of an end product but the whole concept does not gel that well me with. I think in the end those that buy into the hype are really having the piss taken out of them.

Footnote

I thought the poster put on top of the movie advertising poster above was quite funny.

Summer Almost

I'm currently up in Toronto, Canada and the weather has been pretty good although a touch on the chilly side. Anyway I just had a quick look at the weather forecast for New York this weekend and was shocked to see it's going to hit 30 degrees this Saturday. Awesome.

I think Tracy's marathon effort has rubbed off on me. I stopped by a sports store after work and bought a pair of sneakers. Now I just need to use them but we'll deal with that next week. I was struggling to find anything to watch on the crap Canadian TV and ended up on some random shopping channel trying to flog off a fitness program called P90X. I ended up googling it and there were all these hits on people who had done the 90 day program and their results. I ended up on You Tube where lots of people had filmed their progress. I have no idea what possesses someone to film themselves flexing their muscles like body builders then editing it into a film clip with music by AC/DC. Then again some people might wonder why someone would write a blog entry about it. I must be bored.

Barcelona, Spain

Where did the last three weeks go? It feels like an eternity since I was in New York. Iím now sitting back chilling on the couch thinking about the awesome couple of weeks I had cruising around. The final stage of the trip was Barcelona. We made it to the hotel at about 1am after a fairly epic trip. It should not have been so epic but the rail strike and volcano ash was proving to put a real strain on public transport in France. Had a lazy 3.5 days to kill and rather than go day by day I thought I would run through some of my favorite things about Barcelona.

Gothic Quarter

An amazing part of the city which is really a rabbit warren of alley ways and streets. It is a great spot to go and get lost in. There are plenty of touristy areas but it is great to wander down empty streets and see what small shops or cafes you can find.

The Food Markets

Barcelona has several excellent markets throughout the CBD. They have an amazing selection of cured meats, cheeses, fruit, veggies and seafood. Around the outside they have food stalls which prepare their food from the fresh produce of the market. A real foodies heaven and a great place for lunch.

Food and Wine

Ok you probably get the picture that I don't mind a bite to eat or a nice drop of vino. Well Barcelona is well suited for that. It is really starting to get a reputation with the fancy smancy contemporary gastro tapas restaurants but my vote is on the smaller more traditional places. Itís also quite fun ordering from the menu when you have no idea what it is that you are ordering. There is also copious amounts of one of my fav wine drops which is Rioja. This is a red which comes from a certain region of Spain and I think is really delicious.

Oh ok and Gaudi

Went to the usual sites like the gardens and the church (which is still under construction). It will really be magnificent when it is finished although looking at the plans I doubt it will be in my lifetime. There are also plenty of other cool galleries around the place. I checked out a couple including one which had a special section on books as art. I found this quite interesting as it is something that I had never really considered.

Saint Jordi Day

The other thing that we managed to randomly run into was Saint Jordi day on April 23. This is an annual day where the people celebrate by the men giving women roses and women giving men books. Everyone was out on the street getting into it and it was quite cool.

Provence, France

Having spent an amazing week in Paris it was time to get on the train and head down to Avignon for a week in Provence. We had hired a car and the plan was to head to Gordes and take it from there. Getting away from Paris was almost a bit of a disaster. The SNCF were on strike and not selling tickets. The train was flooded with people and left an hour late. The conductor never came through so a free trip for us. After collecting the car we headed east for about 45 minutes and arrived at Gordes late in the day. It was quite smoggy but I was to learn this was the ash from the volcano in Iceland which hung around the region for the week. Anyway this is how I spent my week in Provence:




Friday


Ended up finding an excellent little hotel down in the Valley under Gordes. It was great to wake up to a nice sunny day and a view of the village. The meal there was without a doubt the best one I had had since being in France. We revved the car up and headed up to Gordes to have a Captain Cook. Gordes is a very old town perched high up on a mountain with an excellent view out over the valley. From here we cut a big lap around the valley visiting other towns including Joucas, Roussillion and Bonnieux. Had some delicious jambon and fromage crepes in Roussillion. Have to admit I was a bit village on mountainsided out by the end of it but still had a great time.

Gordes

Roussillion

Saturday


Continued to head east towards the Gorges Du Verdon. We were planning to follow a drive suggested in the 1991 guide book I picked up in an Op Shop in the UK. Made a random stop in a little town called Niozelles. There was basically nothing but a café but it was great fun to sit out in the sun and hang with locals. From there we headed to a town called Sainte Croix Du Verdon. This is on the lake and was pretty quiet but would be pumping in summer when everyone comes to go to the beach. Apparently the lake is Marseilles drinking water so maybe drink bottled water during summer. Got an excellent room with a great view over the lake that night.

Niozelles

Sainte Croix Du Verdon

Sunday


D-Day. That’s drive day. Nav set a course for the northern route through the Gorges Du Verdan. These are some amazing canyons up in the mountains of Provence. Here I was thinking Provence was rolling fields of vineyards and the next thing I know where 1500 meters up with snow visible on the mountains. I ended up driving like a grandpa down the mountain. Tracy was giving me crap that my knuckles had gone white as I was holding the steering wheel so tightly. Have to admit I was nervous driving on the other side of the road on hairpin turns 1000 meter’s up with no barricade. Stopped in at Castellan for lunch where there was this church built way up on the mountain and then onto Le Lavandou on the Cote D’Azur.

Monday


After the stress of yesterday I needed a day to chill out. What a perfect place we found to do this. We were staying just out of a town called Le Lavandou at the beach before it. Not sure of the name but the street was called Boulevard des Baleines. Had a room a couple of meters from the water. Combined with great weather it was a very chilled day at the beach. Shame the water was so cold as it looked so inviting.

Tuesday


Were going to head to some villages in the Pyrenees for the night but slept in so decided to hit Perpignan where we had to drop the car off. After some uming and ahhing we decided to head straight to Barcelona a day early. This should have been an easy trip but the train strike was causing chaos. Floated round the train station for 5 hours (joy) listening to pompous Brits and finally made it to Barcelona at 1am.


My initial thought of Provence was blown away after traveling round a tiny part of it for a week. I had these visions of rolling hills and had no idea of the diversity of landscape. The beach, mountains, dry valleys and fields of lavender all provide a fantastic contrast to a really beautiful part of the world.