So many freaks, so little time

Wow, this morning's commute was a freakshow bonanza! On the train, I noticed a guy with a headband. You read correctly - he was wearing one of those thin plastic headbands that I used to have in every color as a little girl. You could even see the teeth tracks in his hair. To his credit, it was an understated brown. He was a normal enough looking guy, dressed well, nice shoes (such a key component for a man), so it was a bit off-putting and confusing.

There was also some woman sharing the elevator with me wearing absolutely the most absurd sunglasses I have ever seen. They were like giant white octagons, and just silly. She looked like Bootsy Collins.

I might need to go out at lunch - is it a full moon or something? Or perhaps it has something to do with the fact that my entire science education has been based on a lie, with the demotion of Pluto. Poor Pluto - didn't it have enough going against it anyway?

The perfect food?

I just snacked on some Honey Nut Cheerios. Here in Manhattan, a box of cereal will run you $4-6. I'm not kidding. So I only purchase cereal when it's on sale. A little tip, CVS and Rite Aid, yes drugstores, always have the best sales. I can snag 2 boxes for the price of one when they go on sale, with great frequency.

But I digress.

Back to the Cheerios. I think they could possibly be the perfect food. I'll eat HNC for meals, and a snack. Their flavor is just perfection. Occasionally I've digressed to Target brand, and there's something just a little off. I get to the point that I crave them. One love.

Quiz: What's the name of the HNC bee? I can't remember for the life of me. And I'm too lazy to google.

Twisty Delight

I love pretzels. LOVE THEM. Like, I could eat them every day, and often do. I've been a pretzel fan since elementary or junior high school, always bringing them in my lunch. In high school, they were my lunch. I just finished a bag of Rold Gold Tiny Twists as an afternoon snack. I have to say that Rold Gold Thins are my favorite, and I will often leave work to walk to the deli on the corner, just to buy the 99 cent bag of Thins. The salt is perfect, the pretzel crisp and crunchy. Just perfect. Substitues will not do. I'm a pretzel snob.

So to my delight this weekend, my boyfriend and I tried a new restaurant in my nighborhood, Wicker Park. Very delish, and am looking forward to going back. When they brought out the bread basket, I was delighted - they had this soft pretzel log in there! And to top it off, mustard butter, with whole mustard seeds! I was obsessed.

I want to try the Rold Gold Thins with homemade mustard butter now. Can you even imagine???? Although, the beauty of pretzels, is the simplicity - I love 'em alone, probably even more. I dare say they are the perfect snack.

Iced Coffee Done Right

I read a great piece in the NY Times yesterday about iced coffee, the drink you see in every New Yorker's fist from Memorial Day until Labor Day, that's just catching on in the rest of the country. And I'm not talking about a 600 calorie pseudo-milkshake from Starbucks. I'm talking cold coffee. On ice, and how you take it. The simplicity is the beauty, and while I still prefer hot coffee most days, I do enjoy the occasional iced coffee as an afternoon pick-me-up, or on the weekends. It's easier to drink and carry than a hot cup.

Even though I just discovered the joy of ice coffee only 3 years ago, after being a resister, I have to say what the writer said in this article is true: that NY iced coffee is generally a weak, watery concoction barely able to claim itself as iced coffee. The key, she says, it to brew it double strength, with coffee ice cubes. And it must be done at home. This woman is my new guru.

I am a one cup-drinker in the mornings, at home. I have a pod coffee maker that I love, but can't seem to find the pods anymore. So I've moved on to making coffee in my French Press the evening before and chilling it for a nice ice in the morning. It works well, and I like the consistency (little thicker, but not syrupy) than what I'd buy at say Dunkin' Donuts or my local cart vendor. But I made the coffee ice cubes yesterday. And it was that much better. Like, WOW.

Take heed - homemade iced coffee is the best you can get. Especially when you make the coffee cubes.

The pedosmile is the giveaway

So the latest photos of the dude who killed JonBenet - so creepy. I mean, these types of people are really just so obvious.

Recipe for Disaster

Ok, a while back, I blogged about some lame Rachael Ray recipe (at the very top there). But this new one from Ellie Krieger really takes the cake. So is she the braniac who came up with this?

Air Guitar is the New Black

If you know what's good for you, you'll come to discover all the joy that is AIR GUITAR tomorrow, Aug. 9.

See for yourself:
http://www.readpenguin.com/ToAirInviteAnime.html

Wildlife in the Hudson

It's not everyday you see a manatee swimming in the Hudson River. I think you might have a better chance of seeing a body (not that I'd want to, but I bet it's true). Hope he stays safe and gets out OK. And let's hope he doesn't taint the rest of his buddies in Florida with the Hudson stank, courtesy of the most heavily trafficked waterway in the U.S.

Mother Nature is One Cranky Biyatch

Isn't kind of interesting to think that at this time last year, we'd had no days over 100 degrees, yet had already had like 12 hurricanes.

Now, we've had 3 days over 100, and only 3 hurricanes. Even though the heat sucks, it's less damaging, so I'll take that over a hurricane, but still. Is Father Time having trouble getting it up? Is that why Mother Nature is such a hateful bitch this year?

Dessert of the Gods

I just had one of the best desserts of my life - Banoffee at The Spotted Pig in the West Village here in NY.

Crumbly shortbread cookie-like crust, layered with bananas and caramel, topped with pillowy whipped cream and chocolate shavings. Seriously....I will dream about this.

I think the only other thing that beats this is the Nutella Chocolate Cake at Deborah, also in the West Village.

I suppose I am so jealous of Funbag's blog that I am trying to channel her with my food longings here.

Happy 25th, MTV!

MTV has reached their Quarterlife Crisis! Congrats!

Ah, remember the days when videos were actually MTV's innovative thing....with Downtown Julie Brown, and Remote Control, and Yo! MTV Raps.

Well, you have to give them credit for the empire and brand they've built from such humble beginnings. Raise a glass - I want my MTV!

Walk the Sunshine

While listening to Johnny Cash this morning on my iPod, "Walk the Line" happened to stick in my head all morning, even after I had stopped listening. No problem, it's a great song, an American classic if you will. However, as the song kept replaying in the noggin, it was meshed with another classic tune, "You are My Sunshine."

The two are quite similar. While Johnny Cash is clearly a brilliant American musical master, and "Walk the Line" a fantastic classic song, it closely resembles "You are My Sunshine" in it's simplicity. I'm just sayin....

Bacon for president!

I stumbled across this website www.readexpress.com for actual work, and i saw on the home page that it linked to this blog.

Kismet, indeed!

Since I'm a reader and all...

It's been requested of me to start writing about good books. Me and books go together like peanut butter and jelly, hence my career in publishing. I am always in the middle of at least two, possibly more (generally, a hardcover for home and a paperback for the train). I also am always giving suggestions, but I think because I just give so darn many, people forget. And let's face it, it often goes in one ear and out the other unless it's in writing.

So, now begins a new feature where I will discuss good books. I'll start with one I just finished, because it's been far too long since I finished a really good one. I'll go back and discuss some of my old favorites as well, but right now I'd like to discuss Heat by Bill Buford.

I was lucky enough to snag a copy of this book at the New Yorker Magazine's Spring Books Party at Housing Works here in Manhattan. I therefore got the book for half-price, and the proceeds went to a good cause (Housing Works).

Heat was the book I was excited to crack on my beyond-wonderful vacation in Northern Michigan, because I remembered reading a profile in the New Yorker Mag, years ago, about Mario Batali, and found it fascinating. The best part of this profile was that the writer, Buford (the former fiction editor at the mag) had apprenticed in Batali's famous kitchen at Babbo (his famous restaurant) and it just stuck in my head.

I was thrilled to find Buford had written a book about his extensive time interning (or externing in culinary lingo) in Batali's kitchen (hitting every station, from lowly prep to pasta and grill). But not only was I rewarded with an interesting behind-the-scenes narrative of what goes on in a three-star kitchen, but also the insight into Batali, such a fascinating guy with an interesting background, and a culinary master and innovator.

Buford also went to Italy (a country I adore and would kill to spend any extensive amount of time in) to learn the ancient art of pasta making, and butchery from a Dante-quoting infamous butcher in Tuscany.

If you are an avid Food Network watcher as I am, or just enjoy reading about food because you can learn so damn much, you should pick up this book. I learned a lot, and felt myself lusting after Buford's ability to spend so much time in Italy over the course of this book, but also for deconstructing the myth of a mythic man and his kitchen.

The next food book on my plate is The Ominvore's Dilemma by Michael Pollan, but I need a little palate cleanse, excuse the pun. I'm going to read The Memory Keeper's Daughter by Kim Edwards first, which is shaping up to be this year's Kite Runner or The Secret Life of Bees.

Enjoy!

Bring on the triple digits

Oh dear, it's going to be 100 degrees tomorrow. Do you know what happened the last time it was 100 in NYC? The blackout of 2004. Thus insued one of the most enjoyable nights of my life in New York, drinking in the middle of 47th st., hot, sweaty, and so like the other millions of hot stranded New Yorkers that day. To see Billy Joel's "Miami 2017" come to life (" I see the lights go out on Broadway") for a non-scary (ie: 9/11-type reason) was unlike anything I could ever experience again, in the best way possible.

Cool gadget if you don't have access to a campfire

Granted it's still early (and hot and humid again today, although coupled with a decent breeze, unlike the soupy air yesterday) but I'm still wrapping my head around this super-cool gadget. It is totally awesome or totally irrelevant? Must let the coffee sink in and rethink in an hour.

Who needs fire, or even the mess of a microwave, when you can stick a marshmallow in the tines and roast away!

Ken Lay, Good Christian

Whoever the reverand is who did the ceremony, you'd think God would have already struck him down for comparing Ken Lay to Jesus. What an insult to Jesus!

Ken Lay is a scumbag who destroyed thousands of people's lives, took the easy way out and dodged a bullet byt "dying." Never has that term been so loosely used.

Wowza

This hot, sticky, hazy morning, just as I got off the train at Bleecker St., my usual stop, an interesting sight took my mind off my mile-long walk to my office, in which I would sweat profusely, thanks to the 90% humidity and 80 degree weather.

At the corner of Houston and Broadway, the major intersection of Soho, on a nasty, dirty corner was a man cleaning up around the trashcan that he had just emptied. This was a city worker and not the purpose of my observation, but a key note to it: he was cleaning up the spillage from this nasty overflowing garbage can in the heart of one of the busiest intersections in Manhattan.

Not 2 feet away from him was this dude: He was wearing yellow rubber wading pants (wtf?), and was shirtless and shoeless. He looked blissful to be standing watching the cleaning guy sweep nasty bits of crud and lord knows what into his sweepy can, with liquid dribbling everywhere (coffee, water, juice, bodily fluids, etc.), a mere 2 feet from his bare soles.

No wonder I had a nightmare the other night about being barefoot with my feet encased in crud. I would have to take acid to the soles of my feet to ever feel clean enough after standing on that corner barefoot.

So my question: What do you think he was on?

Calling All Squatters

Ok, bitches, listen up: if you're one of thos annoying, disgusting seat pee-ers, you need to pay close attention.

First, you're peeing on the seat because you're squatting, and you're squatting because you're afraid of pee on the seat. This is a chicken-or-egg scenario. You pee on the seat because you squat, which begins a vicious cycle. Use TP as a barrier if you're that afraid. But for the love of all things holy, stop squatting - you're just funking it up for the next girl!

Second, this is for nesters: HOW MUCH TP DO YOU NEED TO PROTECT YOUR STINKY BUM?? I go into my office restroom, and the toilets are often clogged, which causes overflow, which is dirtier than anything you'd find on the seat. Why are they clogged? Someone could have docked a giant freighter, perhaps aircraft carrier-size, but odds are, their nesting materials sank it in the end. I also love those people who you can hear the roll going round and round - they must go through half a roll doing god knows what.

Third, any funk that's on your ass region is probably nastier than anything that can survive on a toilet seat, especially in an office building. All bets are off in a public park, or a place where lord knows what happens on that seat, but come on, in a 9-5 office building where you know your co-workers, simmer down.

Fourth, ladies, puh-LEESE: Plastic hygiene containers do not belong IN the toilet. Those go in the trashcan. I'm sick of being surprised with a pastic white tube floating around in the water that will never go down. Have an iota of respect for the cleaning person who has to fish that out.

I am repeatedly apalled at the level of bathroom inetiquette in my company's stalls. I feel like I work with a bunch of 3rd graders who never learned the proper way to pee, etc.

When it comes to public toilets, get your shit together...literally.

Countdown

I am jittery in anticipation of my impending vacation. Sitting on a beach for 5 days...and I'm not even a beach person.

I expect to eat, drink, and be merry. And hopefully not burn to a crisp.