Monthly Archives: July 2012

An Evening on the Hudson

29 Sunday Jul 2012

Posted by in Brooklyn

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Living in Brooklyn, it is easy to forget how close we actually live to the water. The fresh and the salty kind. I go about my daily routine through the city and rarely brush up against a coastline. But last summer, Charlie and I kept reminding each other that we should treat ourselves to a sail on the Hudson River. So, a few weeks ago, we took an evening cruise on the Adirondack Schooner and watched the sun slowly set over the city. With all of the unbearable heat we’ve been enduring, it was nice to escape the confines of the concrete jungle and feel the wind ruffle our hair. And it helps to have a crew on board to pour the wine with a liberal hand.

There she is, ready for a night on the Hudson.

I think it’s always good to get an outside perspective on your city every now and again. When I’m walking along the sidewalks, weaving in and out of buildings and pedestrians and taxicabs, I tend to forget what this place actually looks like.

Our crew, raising the sails and preparing to refill our vino.

 

For the record, Charlie and I were never very good at taking pictures. After a long day pounding the pavement, we’d come home and collapse on the couch, lamenting how we’d forgotten the camera yet again. But this little blog has inspired us to try and document all of our adventures, from the ordinary to the extravagant. Now, I don’t claim to wield a camera with expert hands, but at least we’ll have evidence of all our times together. I was starting to get worried we’d look back one day and say to each other: “Remember that one time..? Grab the photo album. Oh…wait a minute.”

Phew. Let’s hope we nipped that bad habit in the bud.

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Food Frenzy

24 Tuesday Jul 2012

Posted by in Restaurants, Style, Travel

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Okay, one last post about Los Angeles and I promise I will move on to a new topic. Can you tell that lengthy vacations are few and far between for me?

As I may have mentioned a few times before, Charlie and I have a tendency to eat and drink our way through most excursions. On our drive, I spent most of my time in the passenger’s seat squinting at the iPad, searching for ways to avoid fast food joints and arrive at some greasy, roadside haunt that would presumably be filled with locals. Typically, these establishments were no better than your average McDonald’s, but somehow the hunt seemed to justify the calorie count.

But I was really excited to reach LA, birthplace of the food truck. We’ve discovered some great carts and trucks in New York (quesadillas from Calexico are a weekly indulgence) and were excited to find a few new names to add to our list of favorites.  Well, it turns out that on the first Friday of every month, LA’s food trucks make their way over to Abbot Kinney Boulevard in Venice for a monthly food festival of sorts. The trucks stake out their spots in the early afternoon and keep serving food well into the night. And if you thought that you had seen every possible incarnation of food on wheels, think again. I’m pretty sure a new truck is born every minute. Here are a few of the trucks that caught our eyes.

In addition to good food, I love a good play on words.

I have to admit, the weather in California was much cooler than I had expected. I thought everyone ran around this state in cut-offs and midriff baring tank tops?? I ended up wearing a sweater more often than I’d like to admit. But enough of the weather. It was pretty hard work being a tourist and snapping all these photos, so we took a well-deserved break to try ice cream on a stick. Ice cream is always good, no matter the temperature outside.

What is this new style of potato, you ask? Well, it is a spud cut in a spiral shape, stretched out like a slinky, and impaled on a stick. Oh, and fried to a nice, golden hue.

And this last truck takes the cake, in my book.

Sometimes, I think owning a food truck would be grand. But the potential impact on my waistline is enough to steer me off that career path.

A Roadster’s Paradise

18 Wednesday Jul 2012

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It might sound a little strange, considering I just mentioned that I drove 3,000 miles from Brooklyn to Los Angeles, but I actually don’t really like driving. People usually screw up their faces when I tell them this and say: “Really?!” Because, I know, it is the American dream to get their first car and feel the freedom that a long, empty stretch of highway brings on a sunny afternoon. Windows down, hair blowing, music blaring. Amber waves of grain rustling as the car passes by.

Don’t get me wrong, I loved our road trip. I’ve never had so much fun on a road trip and, in fact, didn’t know it was possible to enjoy 12 hours of sedentary driving for 5 days straight. But it is the routine of daily driving that I absolutely loathe. To me, autonomy is not behind the wheel, speeding across pavement every day just to go to work. Or the grocery store. Or the bookstore. And I really hate when my hair is blowing all around me.

This is why I live in a city like New York. I get the pleasure of riding a smelly, dirty, crowded subway every day. And I love it. The subway also indulges my need to multi-task, something that never works well when driving. Instead of staring at the line of cars moving slowly ahead of me, I get to stare at my book. All the countless subway rides I have taken the past few years have allowed me to finish many books and even a few issues of The New Yorker while I’m at it. For that reason alone, I consider the monthly subway pass worth every dollar they charge me. One hundred and four of those dollars, to be exact.

And it is because of this driving that I have a fond appreciation of Los Angeles, yet could never see myself living there. There is a highway to connect every corner of that sprawling city and Charlie and I spent a lot of time on it. But we had a great time exploring all the neighborhoods, especially Los Feliz, where we had an amazing brunch, and Santa Monica, where we shopped and walked along the beach. It was the perfect reward after our long drive and it felt so nice to savor the last few days of our vacation at a much slower pace.

Here are a few snaps from our adventures in LA.

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Most days – make that most every day! – I’ll go for a plain cup of jo. Just milk, please. But a vacation in LA felt like the appropriate time to sip a leisurely latte in a coffee shop.

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The sign in that last photo was a little disconcerting…

I love how different this city is from the one that I call home and I’m so happy that I finally got to explore it myself. (It seems to me that it is one of the few cities that New Yorkers feel they can make lofty generalizations about. Either LA is the NYC of the west or it is the most deplorable spot in the country. There never seems to be a middle ground!)

But, I will leave you to make you own judgements and with one more snapshot.

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This was taken in the gardens at the Getty Museum. Do you see all that SMOG hovering over the city in the distance? Unbelievable. It leaves a little lump in the back of my throat when I think about all the miles of gas we burned just to get here. It’s going to take a couple of mass transit rides to get rid of that guilt.

The Great American Road Trip

16 Monday Jul 2012

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I’m a big fan of a bucket list. And checking things off that bucket list brings such a sense of accomplishment. I have ongoing lists tucked in little corners of my apartment and living on my iPhone that continually get updated with new ideas and adventures. And sometimes, I even get to check things off those lists.

Last week, Charlie and I rented a sturdy silver Camry and drove from Brooklyn to Los Angeles. We’d been planning this road trip for the past few months, constantly debating over routes and pit stops. In the end, we made very few plans or arrangements in advance, opting instead to see where each day led us. And this spontaneity, I think, resulted in one of the best experiences I’ve had.

Charlie has taken some epic road trips in the past. (Oh, college years, where did you go?) Since this was my first cross-country drive, he assured me that these memories would stick with us. They’ll pop up when we least expect it, he said, and remind us of that one time we got a crazy idea stuck in our heads and decided to drive to Los Angeles. Here are some of the highlights of our trip.

One of our first stops was in Nashville. Although I really wanted to take a detour along the Appalachian Trail (another bucket list item; another trip altogether), we decided it was more feasible to make a stop in either Memphis or Nashville. To be honest, we were both craving some BBQ, so these seemed like the most obvious choices for a first-rate meal. What good vacation doesn’t revolve around food? Not one of ours, I’ve decided. Nashville was the closer of the two cities and a quick google search told me that Jack’s BBQ was THE place for ribs. 

Oh yeah, we were not disappointed. This pile of meat is not for the faint of heart.

And after a 12 hour drive, this sure hit the spot. Not pictured here are our beers. Those might have been the most well-deserved beers I’ve tasted on this side of the Mississippi.

We recommend Jack’s on Broadway if you ever find yourself in Nashville.

Then there was a lot more driving. And driving. And driving. And before we knew it, we hit Oklahoma!

And in Oklahoma, they aren’t kidding around with their highway tolls. I think we stopped every two miles to give that state more money. By the time we reached Texas, my purse was much lighter. Thanks, Oklahoma.

Once we reached New Mexico, that’s when the road started getting really interesting.

We found these dilapidated shacks along the highway in New Mexico. A woman and her two children were selling turquoise jewelry at the far end of this picture.

One of our highlights of the trip was our stop at the Grand Canyon. It’s amazing that after driving for 3 days on land so flat and unchanging, you could suddenly come across a canyon so deep and cavernous. It is such a stark contrast to see on a road trip like this!

This photo gives me a heart attack every time I look at it. When you let that boy out of Brooklyn, there’s no telling what he’ll do. I’m glad we don’t have any steep cliffs for him to scale back in the city.

Even shadows seem larger than life at the Grand Canyon.

After leaving the canyon, we set out on the last leg of our journey. Next, I’ll post about our time in Los Angeles!