Illustration by Andrew Hamm
Mom Says
Illustration by Andrew Hamm
Broken Glass Tip
Broken glass on the ground? CLEAN IT UP WITH A PIECE OF BREAD! I heard about this trick awhile ago and only remembered to use to recently and, well, it's genius. Remember this!
“Beauty is the beginning of a terror we can hardly bear.”
The Mindy Project - Returns (!) Tonight on FOX
So happy it's back. But also - I'm gonna call it here and now that Tamra (Xosha Roquemore) is gonna be stellar this season. Woman's fantastic.
Murray's Cheese Bar in NYC
This place is nuts. Just nuts.
Look at this mayhem!
THIS is what they let you do to your burger. THIS! What the hell? And I didn't even LEARN that little fact until just now - otherwise I, for sure, would've ordered it had I have known in advance. Cheese selections for the burger include Rarebit Cheddar Sauce, Three Cheese Fondue, Double Creme Brie, Fontina and Creamy Blue Cheese. Doing this to a burger is almost... sordid - and I love it.
Buffalo Cheese Curds = Wisconsin Cheddar curds, Black River Blue Cheese dressing & celery
These are the babies we continuously kept ordering. Three separate times. They're outrageously good. We also ordered the Queso Fundido ("Mexico's answer to fondue: 3 melty goat cheeses with Chorizo, tomato, jalapeno & torilla chips"), which was much too small, but equally glorious. And finally I ordered some burrata, which was a little too salty for my liking - but also, I'm extremely biased because the best burrata I've had in North America is at The Smith, so few places compare.
Burrata aside, this place is fantastic. Just look at the menu. I swear the next time I go I'll be able to get past just ordering a million starters.
Juice of the Day - Creamy Pear
Why is this glass half empty? 'CAUSE I DRANK HALF OF IT IN IMPATIENCE before I found my camera.
I just tried this juice for the first time today and you need to make it yourself. It's fucking unreal and delicious.
Creamy Pear Recipe
- 3 pears
- 4 watermelon slices
- Handful of mint (if you want mint for free, I will mail you some. It's growing all up on the garden in my yard. Makes the air smell minty as fuck. Too minty.)
I got the recipe from The Big Book of Juices - and it's an especially good juice book 'cause the recipes usually have 1 - 4 ingredients per recipe (not like other, lesser books that have a million ingredients per recipe and contain such ingredients that are usually a billion dollars at the grocery store). They also have photos alongside most of the juices, which, of course, I enjoy. I did add more watermelon to this recipe since, well, using more watermelon gives you hella juice and I was thirsty.
This is also the first pear juice I've tried and if you've somehow got no Peardrax around your house - then, pal, this is the juice for you.
(Sidenote: Almost every single time I'm juicing, for at least a moment, I think of that episode of The Simpsons where Homer gets really buff by eating Powersauce bars. With every apple that goes into my juicer I think about "unleashing the awesome power of apples." Anyway, that has nothing to do with anything. Go juice.)
Woody Allen at The Carlyle Hotel
Note: This post will only please you if you have ever given a shit about Woody Allen's mousey little face.
From September 9th until December 16, 2013, Woody Allen & The Eddy Davis New Orleans Jazz Band will play at The Carlyle Café every Monday night at 8:45pm.
Does that seem insane to you? It shouldn't because he's been doing it every autumn for years now. Is this something you should go to? Heavens, yes.
This was something that I'd wanted to see in New York for eons. Why did it take me so long to finally go? Well, because of money. Anytime I'd come into a little bit of cash, I usually tend to throw that away on beautiful steaks and/or frivolous items that I'll never need.
And then one beautiful day, my boyfriend Nathan told me that he was taking me to see the Wood as my Christmas present. (Also note: I had never mentioned to Nathan how much of a dream this was of mine. So when I lunged at him and asked, "How could you possibly know that this would be the best gift of all time!? I never mentioned it before! How could you know!?" - he responded with, "You talk about this man a LOT.")
So we finally went one lovely December evening in 2012 and since it started at 8:45pm, I wanted to get there for 3:00pm. Seriously. We were getting bar seats, and those are first-come, first-served so I really wanted to make sure we were there as soon as possible. We, of course, were the first ones there - but people did start to trickle in by 4:00pm. So... if you're intending on sitting at the bar? Get there when I did.
Anyway, the wait was fine and even a little fun since I was anticipating the evening so much (also, we saw Mick Jagger walk through the lobby, which was something), we ate dinner at the bar which was ridiculously good, of course - and the show? Man. Perfect. The music was good and it was the neatest thing in the world to see that man bust out a clarinet. He seemed to enjoy the hell out of it, too. Definitely something I'll remember for the rest of my life. I love that man. (That above photo of him is so blurry and not-good because I didn't take a lot of photos since it was just so nice to actually be there.)
Anyway, this isn't even a great story to read or anything - I get that. But if you've ever had any doubts about going to see this, please just do it. Or talk about this man endlessly to your better half until they take you to go see him.
The tickets are $195 per person for a real fancy/good table, $145 per person if you want to sit at a table and $100 per person + $25 drink min if you want to sit at the bar (which is extremely limited seating). Go here for more information on online reservations.
“If you have a window in your washroom, take a shower at sunset. Best part of the day.”
Blue Cheese Lollipops
Sometimes I do things so that you don't have to. Let that be known here.
I’m quite sure there isn’t a cheese on this planet that I wouldn’t try. And among the top cheeses that I frequent – blue cheese ranks high. An opportunity presented itself recently where I was offered to sample this blue cheese lollipop.
Does that sound gross? I didn’t think it did. And honestly, only the first and last licks were the most atrocious ones. The inbetween licks however? Actually not completely terrible. They really turned into and tasted like a normal piece of candy for the moments when you weren’t thinking that you were basically sucking on a piece of cheese.(Sidenote: have you ever sucked on a fantastic piece of cheese? Try it. You might be really into it.)
The biggest problem with this treat is the after-breath. I tried to convince my dear friend Jenn to taste one (if only to smell her breath afterward), but she insisted on passing. All she had to say was that I smelled horrid after tasting the ‘pop. And that was only after maybe five licks. I shudder to think what I would’ve smelled like if I’d devoured the whole thing. All in all, are these more gross than appetizing? For sure. Are they fun, though? Bigtime. (They would absolutely kill at a party.) And I'm sure there are some rubes out there who are gonna fake-love the hell out of these just because they're campy. Or possibly some real maniacs who actually enjoy them. Either way, good on you!
After the first taste
After holding the final lick inside for much too long
I also tried their Absinthe flavoured lollipop and was disappointed, since it only tasted like black licorice. I understand that Absinthe does have that flavour, but was saddened at it not having any sort of alcoholic element. If you’re gonna have an Absinthe-flavoured ANYthing, then there needs to be alcohol involved. (Can you even get liquor into a candied treat? I think you can. Though my only example would be rum balls and rum balls are just filth.)
They’re available online at Lollyphile and they cost $10 for four of them.
Stay - Rihanna
Totally realize I'm at least a year late on this (maybe even more), but wow. What a good song. I feel like she's really channelling her inner Adele here.