Scenes from my weekend

My folks were in town Friday and Saturday, and we managed to pack a lot in despite the dreadful snow storm. We dined at Otto, Frankies 570, Eataly's Birreria, and Craftbar; they bounced back and forth between their midtown hotel, Park Slope (us), Astoria (my brother), and several neighborhoods in between.





Black-bottom oatmeal pie from Four & Twenty Blackbirds, a gruesome window on Bleeker Street, a score from my local Target (on sale!), seen on Court Street yesterday, and prosecco from Eataly's Birreria.

(Not So) Recent Loves - Makeup Edition

Inspired by Jill's post, I got to thinking about the beauty products of my youth. One of my earliest memories was painting "eyeshadow" (actually nailpolish) onto my brother's lids and watching the ensuing freak-out by the grown-ups present. My obsession with makeup began in earnest when I was 8 or 9; many a summer vacation was spent gawking at the magical array of cosmetics in Lake City, Michigan's little drug store.

Sadly, I only have my photographic memory to rely upon, as these were the late 80s and the internet wasn't around yet to document every lovely color and packaging innovation (remember the Cover Girl nail polish bottle that tipped on its edge?). Here are a few blasts from the past that I could find images of:

1. I loved my Caboodles makeup case (mine was pale pink and lilac), but the true novelty was the company's soap dish - a large, colorful cube that opened up to reveal a perforated tray. A globe-shaped scrubber brush rested in the top.
2. Remember Maybelline Shine Free cosmetics? I had one of those little eye shadow compacts (the color was a hideous metallic denim blue).
3. Buf Puf's marketing totally did the trick - I was a sucker for their advertising.
4. Perfume was discouraged in my household, but I coveted Debbie Gibson's Electric Youth from afar and tried to get my hands on every ex-cla'ma-tion magazine scent strip I could.
5. You'd better believe I owned a tube of Pepto-Bismol pink Zinka.
6. I far preferred Maybelline's Kissing Koolers to their cousin, Kissing Potion.

Honorable mention goes to Max Factor's blue facial mask (it dried from dark blue to light) and Clarion's state-of-the-art touch-screen computer system.

Cheeses of France Pop-Up Shop

For one day only, the space on Mulberry Street that hosted Park Here (remember that? fun times) was home to a cheese pop-up shop (be still my heart!). The Cheeses of France Marketing Council took over Openhouse Gallery this past Saturday, and our visit happened to coincide perfectly with lunch. (There were so many free samples that I walked out stuffed.)

The prices were astounding: we ended up with five large chunks of fromage (including Comte, a favorite of mine, and Mimolette,a favorite of the cheese mites) for only $26.

Scenes from my weekend

This weekend I found a new contender for city's best French toast (at Northern Spy Food Co.), wandered around in Nolita and Soho, met up with a fellow blogger for coffee, shoe-shopped, tended to my still-sick husband, had the namesake cocktail at Goat Town, and ran. How was your weekend?

Fill-in-the-blank Friday

1. Nothing says fall like a chilly run with leaves crunching beneath my feet. (Such a welcome change from sweltering summer runs.)

2. My favorite autumnal tradition is the first Starbucks gingerbread latte of the season (in a holiday cup no less)!
3. My favorite fall treat is anything involving pumpkin (last year's recipe roundup can be found here).

4. Fall makes me think of my years as a teacher because autumn was synonymous with dread back then!

5. Autumn free-form word association, go! Leaves, apple picking (below), pumpkins, politics, boots, marathons.
6. My go-to outfit in the fall is skinny pants, boots, leather jacket, and a scarf. (The is also my go-to outfit in the spring.)

7. My favorite fall holiday is Halloween. Thanksgiving stresses me out: the travel, the gluttony, the incessant yammering about turkey.Two years ago I dressed as the Morton's Salt Girl. My props came in handy: the "salt" (a repurposed Quaker Oats cylinder) was my purse; my umbrella protected me from rain that night!

Find the fill-in-the-blank Friday questions every week on the little things we do and play along why don't you?

Sephora's Sensorium

Usha and I meet regularly after work on Thursdays for dinner, but last night, we mixed it up. We rendezvoused at Crispo (because I happened to remember they have splits of prosecco there for $10 a bottle) and then headed to Sephora's "Sensorium" on 14th Street (right around the corner from their new Meatpacking store). After walking through a small exhibit, we bellied up to the "fragrance bar" to experience scents without the influence of advertising or bottle design.




We smelled dozens of fragrances and I was somewhat horrified to learn that my favorite of the bunch was Jennifer Aniston's new perfume. While I like the idea of blindly sampling scents, I'm no fool: I know that the bulk of their pricetag comes from marketing. If the fragrance industry is going to funnel so much money into endorsement deals, packaging design, and PR, out of spite for these practices I'm not going to buy a new perfume on smell alone.

One of the conversations the Sensorium prompted between Usha and me was about the transportative power of scent. Petite Cherie reminds me of college; Kiehls Coriander is what I wore my first year of teaching middle school. Calypso St. Barth Mimosa conjures up memories of visiting New York City, because I bought it during a trip here back in 2002. When Shawn and I separated and I moved out, I only had room to take one fragrance - a tiny Juicy Couture roll-on - and I rarely wear it now because it reminds me of sad times. Do certain fragrances take you back to a specific time or place in your life?

Store Front Walking Tour

One of my first memories of living in Manhattan: when browsing books at St. Marks Bookshop, Shawn pointed to a massive tome entitled Store Front: the Disappearing Face of New York and exclaimed “THIS is the book I was telling you about. I want it so badly!” We stood there, flipping through the unwrapped display copy, taking in the photographs of businesses we hadn’t yet encountered because we were so new to the city.

For a while, every time we were in a bookstore, Shawn would visit Store Front in the same way that I always spray the tester of Chloe fragrance at Sephora. Store Front no doubt piqued Shawn's interest in photography (something he picked up only after moving to New York) and influenced his aesthetic: he is drawn to the same facades James and Karla Murray documented in their book, including Block Pharmacy, Moishe's, and Mars Bar. The first time James and Karla commented on one of Shawn’s pictures on Flickr, he was beside himself with excitement.

As luck would have it, a few days before James and Karla’s first-ever walking tour, I happened to notice mention of it in Time Out New York. There was still space available when I called the Lower East Side History Project, so our plans for Sunday afternoon were set. Shawn packed his Hasselblad; I took the D90.
For almost three hours, we learned the most fascinating things about the East Village. We had no idea, for example, that neon signs were so temperamental and expensive to maintain, or that that the recent prohibition of hanging meats in windows drove at least one butcher out of business. James and Karla got to know many of store owners whose shops they were documenting; they relayed the tales of their struggles with landlords, crime, and asinine Department of Health regulations to us on Sunday. More than half of the stores they shot have since closed.

Also remarkable to hear about was the process of photographing each storefront (James and Karla shot film, not digital, and the images are composites – amazing when you consider that Photoshop was in its infancy at the time and therefore not something they utilized).

For a few hours on Sunday, listening to these esteemed photographers, we might as well have been those starry-eyed kids in St. Marks Bookshop. We were experiencing an only-in-New-York moment, walking around East Village with the artists who, as Shawn asserts, produced the most important book about NYC in the last quarter-century.

Touring Murray's Cheese Caves

We've always wanted to take a class at our favorite cheese shop, so when Murray's announced discounted tours of their cheese caves, I wasted no time in signing us up. After reading the controversial Times piece on affinage (the practice of ripening cheese), I was more curious than ever to see what all of the fuss was about.

Little did I know when I registered us that our $15-a-person fee would include a glass of cava and a tasting of several cave-aged cheeses in Murray's classroom. Forget the caves: we were thrilled to finally be in the windowed space overlooking the entire store, with curious shoppers gazing up at us as we enjoyed our cheese and wine. How many times had we been to Murray's and jealously noted what fun the "students" in the classroom were having? I now know: it truly is as much fun as it looks from below.

The caves themselves were a series of walk-in refrigerators, each kept at a different temperature and humidity level for the types of cheese they contained. It was fascinating to hear about the interns who brush off the cheese mites and brine the washed-rind cheeses with a foot-shaped scrubber. Because we weren't allowed to bring any belongings with us into the caves (in fact, we had to don hairnets, shoe covers, and lab coats), I don't have any shots from that part of class. You'll just have to take a tour yourself!As for the cheese we tasted, I have two new favorites: Little Big Apple, a bloomy, triple cream cheese wrapped in apple tree leaves from Brooklyn, and Epoisses, a washed-rind cheese that wasn't nearly as stinky as I had feared (I think that has a lot to do with how Murray's cares for it).

Scenes from my weekend

We did our fair share of eating (at Dirt Candy, Barboncino, and Peels) and drinking (at Angel's Share and Spasso) this weekend, not to mention running (twice on Saturday! we're badass) and napping. These shots aren't of any of those pursuits.

And of course there was our tour of the cheese caves at Murray's and our walk through the East Village with the astonishingly talented and kind James and Karla Murray. Posts about both of those activities later this week...

How was your weekend?

Brides White Hot Style Shop

As I was walking down Broome Street in Soho yesterday on my way to meet Shawn in Greenwich Village, I passed the Brides White Hot Style Shop pop-up. The sweet event volunteers out front convinced me to check it out despite the fact that I'm already married. There were mini cupcakes being passed on trays, hair and makeup trials, dress try-ons, and goody bags. As you can see, I spent the bulk of my time there near the cakes.

Today is the last day of the event, so if you happen to be in Soho and have a hankering for mini cupcakes, scoot on over to 477 Broome. (Admission is free.)