Entry tags:
- bagels: bagels and schmear,
- bakeries: frenchette,
- bookstores: green apple books,
- bookstores: rizzoli,
- bookstores: the ripped bodice,
- bookstores: the strand,
- cafes: bird and branch,
- cafes: serendipity,
- farmers markets: union square nyc,
- groceries: eataly,
- ice cream: l'arte del gelato,
- museums: the whitney,
- parks: lighthouse park,
- parks: little island,
- parks: madison square,
- restaurants: bessou,
- restaurants: don's bogam,
- restaurants: fuji east,
- restaurants: olmsted,
- restaurants: poke to the max,
- restaurants: sagaponack,
- restaurants: studio bar,
- the bear and bunny show,
- travel: nyc,
- urbanism: bike life,
- urbanism: walkability
this city swells up like a symphony
Before all of this, we were in New York the week before last, with the classic Northeastern fall temperatures to match. The weather was utterly glorious - brisk sweater weather in the morning admonishing me for not wanting to drag the bulk of a jacket cross-country (and feeling unwarrantedly smug that I still had some Northeastern weather tolerance cred as other people scuttled around me in full-length puffers, come on, you're behaving like Bay Area kids ;) ), warming up to shirtsleeves weather perfect for a late lunch in the sun, and then gently cooling off for cozy patio dinners. Not quite fall yet by foliage standards - the trees in the city were only just starting to turn, still in that late-summer slightly yellowing green phase, but I did spot at least a couple of patches of crimson in my rambles.
Out on the first flight of the morning on Tuesday, too early for BART, hoping something besides Ritual Coffee would be open for breakfast; I needed something more substantial than a coffee drink and a croissant. And lo, SFO delivered: I rounded the corner and at 5:30 am, Green Apple Books was lit up like a beacon. I ended up picking up Kate Stayman-London's Fang Fiction, devoured it on the flight; love letter to fandom, it's a rec from me here :) And two doors down, Poke to the Max had opened at 5 am, so I had musubi for breakfast while![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
hyounpark got actual poke.
The flight was fine, but I miss the ease of getting off the train at Penn Station and already being in the heart of things rather than getting off the plane at whichever airport and still being stuck out in the suburbs 60-90 minutes away from wherever we were going. Hoofing it to whatever they're calling the east 20s these days (Rose Hill? NoMad? Upper Gramercy?) from JFK takes a bit of effort, AirTrain to the E to the 6, but it's still faster and less annoying than dealing with rideshare. Feeling the embrace of the city, flowing into it from the start.
And then we were HUNGRY, and near Koreatown, so KBBQ for dinner it was. We landed at Don's Bogam, watched our meats get grilled to perfection, and actually had vegetables too, thank you banchan culture. Said meats: 프라임 생갈비 (galbi, short ribs), and then 와인생 삼겹살 (samgyeopsal, pork belly, marinated in Cabernet Sauvignon. A wine marinade being outside the usual Korean meat grilling tradition intrigued us enough we had to try it). Delicious, indulgent, happy belated anniversary, us.
Wednesday morning, we had to make up for missing our usual Tuesday morning jog, so we trotted down to Madison Square Park and did a few laps, motivated by getting to pause and watch the puppies in the dog park. It was in the low 40s, about 10-15 degrees cooler than it usually is when I exercise, so we skipped the usual five minute warmup walk in favor of jogging down to the park fast enough to stay warm, and apparently that was enough for me to break all my Strava records, hahaha.
And almost all of my previous bests were from the Mermaid Run I did back in September. As shown, I would do even better on my Friday morning efforts, acclimating to the cooler temperatures. And it felt good. Physically, mentally, emotionally. Is this what they mean by those mythical endorphins?
hyounpark: "I told you you were going to PR!"
Me: "Sure, but there were puppies *and* pastries, I need this density of motivation back home."
But he was definitely right about the temperatures helping; I wasn't conscious of making any concerted effort or anything, I just felt like I was running more comfortably, and on average I dropped 2 minutes per kilometer off previous efforts. I guess this means I'm going to be seeking out more races where it's going to be 40F and brisk :)
After that, grabbed an almond pastry from Eataly on the corner, and then we cleaned up and trotted over to the Meatpacking District, where we met up with old friend Andrew B(org) for breakfast and art. (Yes, old friends, *yet another* Andrew B in my life, LOLOL.) A viennois at Frenchette, an eclair upstairs at the Studio Bar, and in between, wandering through the Alvin Ailey exhibit at the Whitney, tracing what influenced him and how he continues to influence artists of all stripes ongoing; recognizing Mickalene Thomas' work among the artists exhibited from having seen her exhibit at the Broad earlier this summer (I never got around to talking about seeing family in LA then, did I? To rectify!).
I wandered up the Hudson after that - across to Little Island, new since the pandemic, Pier 54 revamped into a public park. Hiked up to the top and stared out across the river, tap-danced on the chimes and spun the optical illusion wheels. Grabbed a late lunch at Pier 57 (crunchy onigiri from Bessou, a Sparrow (lemon soda with a shot of espresso) from Bird and Branch) and ate it on the rooftop while looking back at the Little Island I'd just hiked up. Made my way back crosstown again through Chelsea Market, gelato in hand.
After a quick stop back at the hotel to grab a warmer sweater, there were far too many book events to choose from for my Wednesday night, oh shucksy darn. I went with Julia Turshen at Rizzoli, and yes, being four blocks away from my hotel after a long day of walking all over lower Manhattan helped, but I'm still sad I missed Amal El-Mohtar at the Ripped Bodice and I need to pick up her latest when it comes out (The River Has Roots), *and* Daniel Lavery with Helen Rosner at Books are Magic, all at the same time! Glorious abundance!
I dashed off a few quick notes about things I wanted to remember - she talked about about cookbooks as both dependably safe happy endings and queer spaces (which made me think about the mainstream rise of romance novels and bookstores); about her charts as a way of queering cooking (and whether there was an inherently queer bagel, because rainbow bagels ~look~ different but does that really change it, and does queering something automatically imply change?); about a Filipino restaurant near her house in upstate New York that clearly I must now go visit. (Look, if we can find a Filipino market in COOKESVILLE, TENNESSEE, of course I'm down to try a Filipino restaurant in the Hudson Valley!)
After the meatfest of the previous night, I opted for seafood and veg tapas a few blocks down at Sagaponack: oysters dressed with yuzu kosho and dill, the pumpkin soup, gambas al ajillo. Walked back to the hotel through the park I'd run laps through that morning, tired feet, full belly, new cookbook in hand.
Thursday, I took the 6 up to 59th St, then walked uphill to the Roosevelt Island Tramway. I'd forgotten Serendipity3 was up here! Though far too early for it to be open. Remembering the peanut butter frozen hot chocolate and crepes with Ingrid (🔒), the salted caramel frozen hot chocolate with Melissa (🔒) from forever ago.
Roosevelt Island is interesting - tons of tall apartment buildings intermixed with suburban parkland, and some ground-level commercial, mostly food-focused markets and restaurants. There's the tramway over from the Upper East Side, the F stops there now as well, and there are regular shuttle buses up and down the island itself. But also a gigantic carpark by the Roosevelt Island Bridge into Queens, and a surprising number of cars being driven along the two-mile-long island. I walked up the East Channel side through Northtown to Lighthouse Park, through the Nellie Bly memorial, watching the ferries along the way; back down the East River side, past the elementary school, cheerful voices piercing the corridors between buildings.
I ate peanut-avocado and mango-salmon takeout sushi on the docks while waiting for the Astoria ferry, then cruised down the East River, hair whipping in the wind. Disembarked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where I stumbled across the Flushing Avenue SIDEWALK-LEVEL SEPARATED BIKE INFRASTRUCTURE, directly across from Propel Bikes, which had the brand-spanking-new Riese and Müller Carrie parked outside. Of course I wanted to take it for a test ride! Alas, I did, indeed, prove to be about an inch too short in the inseam for it in my regular old flats. Maybe if I had something like Hokas I could have made it work, heh. Still, the woman I spoke with (whose name I failed to get, augh, thank you for the great discussion!) was a very similar height to me, and petite people of New York (read: too short to ride CitiBike), if you're looking at e-bikes and cargo bikes, I would happily recommend Propel Bikes as a good place to start. I borrowed the Tern NBD and rode off in the direction of the Manhattan Bridge, but got a bit nervous when the safer bike infra vanished just before I got to Dumbo, so turned around and headed up towards Williamsburg instead. Saw so many other people on bikes - families coming home from school, bike messengers, a teacher with their class.
After that, I made my way across Brooklyn towards Park Slope as the sun began to set; destination: The Ripped Bodice. After work on a Thursday? The happening, welcoming place to be. I browsed through every shelf, and had multiple conversations with different people talking about the books we were reading. I WANT THIS IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD. (I am especially grumpy about this because El Cerrito is losing its only bookstore at the end of the year, the Barnes and Noble in the Plaza, and while I'm glad Pegasus isn't far away and is at least open until 8 pm now, the cameraderie and community in The Ripped Bodice Brooklyn felt special. Some of that the product of being planted in an area with high population density and foot traffic and low car usage/ownership, yes; some of that being the specific focus of said bookstore.) Of course I couldn't walk out of there without a sparkly pink bag and another book to read over dinner (Sarah Chamberlain's The Slowest Burn).
A 20-minute walk back up the hill brought me past the infamous Park Slope Food Coop for the very first time, somehow, and then into the garden at Olmsted. The Koji grilled scallops and froyo with whipped lavender honey were excellent, but the carrot crepe? Perfection. Embodied the transition between summer and fall on the Northeast in a single plate. Roasted carrots providing the hearty sweetness and warmth of the harvest; raw shaved carrots a contrasting brisk autumn breeze. Sunflower seeds crunching like fallen leaves underfoot. Peppery nasturtiums and littleneck clams a reminder of the summer slipping away. And the coziest buttery sauce undergirding everything like hot apple cider; I chased it into every crevice of the plate with my spoon. All of this topping an earthy-yet-ethereal buckwheat crepe. I could not chef's kiss it more. And these are the people who made me like peas a few summers back, ROFL! Their back patio feels like a faerie wonderland of seasonal food every time I eat there; thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
kazulrw for the long-ago recommendation 🙂
(So many things I regret not slotting in here at the time, slowly tucking them in from the archives elsewhere. Like how not having written about LA this summer means I missed writing about getting to The Ripped Bodice in LA, on Jackie's recommendation; an interesting contrast to its sister shop simply because of how very much the built environment around each one differs. As for Olmsted and peas, for reference when I get around to June 2019: snap pea sashimi - snap peas wrapped in fluke wrapped in thinly shaved lemon slices; duck two ways (grilled and in larb); strawberries and cream with rhubarb sorbet and meringue.)
And then Friday morning, squeezed in one more record-breaking jog - a similar set of laps around the park, and then down Broadway to Union Square. Replaced my Strand tote that had succumbed to time, and then tucked in some apple and pear cider donuts, tiny TSA-safe tipples of whiskey from the farmers' market; finally made it to Li-Lac Chocolates as well per the insistence of another friend. Final stop: grabbing a proper bagel from Bagels & Schmear near my hotel on our way out of the city; I love you, New York, there's never enough time.
Out on the first flight of the morning on Tuesday, too early for BART, hoping something besides Ritual Coffee would be open for breakfast; I needed something more substantial than a coffee drink and a croissant. And lo, SFO delivered: I rounded the corner and at 5:30 am, Green Apple Books was lit up like a beacon. I ended up picking up Kate Stayman-London's Fang Fiction, devoured it on the flight; love letter to fandom, it's a rec from me here :) And two doors down, Poke to the Max had opened at 5 am, so I had musubi for breakfast while
hyounpark got actual poke. The flight was fine, but I miss the ease of getting off the train at Penn Station and already being in the heart of things rather than getting off the plane at whichever airport and still being stuck out in the suburbs 60-90 minutes away from wherever we were going. Hoofing it to whatever they're calling the east 20s these days (Rose Hill? NoMad? Upper Gramercy?) from JFK takes a bit of effort, AirTrain to the E to the 6, but it's still faster and less annoying than dealing with rideshare. Feeling the embrace of the city, flowing into it from the start.
And then we were HUNGRY, and near Koreatown, so KBBQ for dinner it was. We landed at Don's Bogam, watched our meats get grilled to perfection, and actually had vegetables too, thank you banchan culture. Said meats: 프라임 생갈비 (galbi, short ribs), and then 와인생 삼겹살 (samgyeopsal, pork belly, marinated in Cabernet Sauvignon. A wine marinade being outside the usual Korean meat grilling tradition intrigued us enough we had to try it). Delicious, indulgent, happy belated anniversary, us.
Wednesday morning, we had to make up for missing our usual Tuesday morning jog, so we trotted down to Madison Square Park and did a few laps, motivated by getting to pause and watch the puppies in the dog park. It was in the low 40s, about 10-15 degrees cooler than it usually is when I exercise, so we skipped the usual five minute warmup walk in favor of jogging down to the park fast enough to stay warm, and apparently that was enough for me to break all my Strava records, hahaha.
| Previous Best | 10/16 | 10/18 | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 400m | 2:59 | 2:14 | 2:03 |
| 1/2 mile | 6:45 | 5:36 | 5:02 |
| 1km | 8:20 | 7:18 | 6:44 |
| 1 mile | 14:07 | 12:48 | 12:17 |
| 2 miles | 29:39 | 28:37 | 26:58 |
And almost all of my previous bests were from the Mermaid Run I did back in September. As shown, I would do even better on my Friday morning efforts, acclimating to the cooler temperatures. And it felt good. Physically, mentally, emotionally. Is this what they mean by those mythical endorphins?
hyounpark: "I told you you were going to PR!"Me: "Sure, but there were puppies *and* pastries, I need this density of motivation back home."
But he was definitely right about the temperatures helping; I wasn't conscious of making any concerted effort or anything, I just felt like I was running more comfortably, and on average I dropped 2 minutes per kilometer off previous efforts. I guess this means I'm going to be seeking out more races where it's going to be 40F and brisk :)
After that, grabbed an almond pastry from Eataly on the corner, and then we cleaned up and trotted over to the Meatpacking District, where we met up with old friend Andrew B(org) for breakfast and art. (Yes, old friends, *yet another* Andrew B in my life, LOLOL.) A viennois at Frenchette, an eclair upstairs at the Studio Bar, and in between, wandering through the Alvin Ailey exhibit at the Whitney, tracing what influenced him and how he continues to influence artists of all stripes ongoing; recognizing Mickalene Thomas' work among the artists exhibited from having seen her exhibit at the Broad earlier this summer (I never got around to talking about seeing family in LA then, did I? To rectify!).
I wandered up the Hudson after that - across to Little Island, new since the pandemic, Pier 54 revamped into a public park. Hiked up to the top and stared out across the river, tap-danced on the chimes and spun the optical illusion wheels. Grabbed a late lunch at Pier 57 (crunchy onigiri from Bessou, a Sparrow (lemon soda with a shot of espresso) from Bird and Branch) and ate it on the rooftop while looking back at the Little Island I'd just hiked up. Made my way back crosstown again through Chelsea Market, gelato in hand.
After a quick stop back at the hotel to grab a warmer sweater, there were far too many book events to choose from for my Wednesday night, oh shucksy darn. I went with Julia Turshen at Rizzoli, and yes, being four blocks away from my hotel after a long day of walking all over lower Manhattan helped, but I'm still sad I missed Amal El-Mohtar at the Ripped Bodice and I need to pick up her latest when it comes out (The River Has Roots), *and* Daniel Lavery with Helen Rosner at Books are Magic, all at the same time! Glorious abundance!
I dashed off a few quick notes about things I wanted to remember - she talked about about cookbooks as both dependably safe happy endings and queer spaces (which made me think about the mainstream rise of romance novels and bookstores); about her charts as a way of queering cooking (and whether there was an inherently queer bagel, because rainbow bagels ~look~ different but does that really change it, and does queering something automatically imply change?); about a Filipino restaurant near her house in upstate New York that clearly I must now go visit. (Look, if we can find a Filipino market in COOKESVILLE, TENNESSEE, of course I'm down to try a Filipino restaurant in the Hudson Valley!)
After the meatfest of the previous night, I opted for seafood and veg tapas a few blocks down at Sagaponack: oysters dressed with yuzu kosho and dill, the pumpkin soup, gambas al ajillo. Walked back to the hotel through the park I'd run laps through that morning, tired feet, full belly, new cookbook in hand.
Thursday, I took the 6 up to 59th St, then walked uphill to the Roosevelt Island Tramway. I'd forgotten Serendipity3 was up here! Though far too early for it to be open. Remembering the peanut butter frozen hot chocolate and crepes with Ingrid (🔒), the salted caramel frozen hot chocolate with Melissa (🔒) from forever ago.
Roosevelt Island is interesting - tons of tall apartment buildings intermixed with suburban parkland, and some ground-level commercial, mostly food-focused markets and restaurants. There's the tramway over from the Upper East Side, the F stops there now as well, and there are regular shuttle buses up and down the island itself. But also a gigantic carpark by the Roosevelt Island Bridge into Queens, and a surprising number of cars being driven along the two-mile-long island. I walked up the East Channel side through Northtown to Lighthouse Park, through the Nellie Bly memorial, watching the ferries along the way; back down the East River side, past the elementary school, cheerful voices piercing the corridors between buildings.
I ate peanut-avocado and mango-salmon takeout sushi on the docks while waiting for the Astoria ferry, then cruised down the East River, hair whipping in the wind. Disembarked at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, where I stumbled across the Flushing Avenue SIDEWALK-LEVEL SEPARATED BIKE INFRASTRUCTURE, directly across from Propel Bikes, which had the brand-spanking-new Riese and Müller Carrie parked outside. Of course I wanted to take it for a test ride! Alas, I did, indeed, prove to be about an inch too short in the inseam for it in my regular old flats. Maybe if I had something like Hokas I could have made it work, heh. Still, the woman I spoke with (whose name I failed to get, augh, thank you for the great discussion!) was a very similar height to me, and petite people of New York (read: too short to ride CitiBike), if you're looking at e-bikes and cargo bikes, I would happily recommend Propel Bikes as a good place to start. I borrowed the Tern NBD and rode off in the direction of the Manhattan Bridge, but got a bit nervous when the safer bike infra vanished just before I got to Dumbo, so turned around and headed up towards Williamsburg instead. Saw so many other people on bikes - families coming home from school, bike messengers, a teacher with their class.
After that, I made my way across Brooklyn towards Park Slope as the sun began to set; destination: The Ripped Bodice. After work on a Thursday? The happening, welcoming place to be. I browsed through every shelf, and had multiple conversations with different people talking about the books we were reading. I WANT THIS IN MY NEIGHBORHOOD. (I am especially grumpy about this because El Cerrito is losing its only bookstore at the end of the year, the Barnes and Noble in the Plaza, and while I'm glad Pegasus isn't far away and is at least open until 8 pm now, the cameraderie and community in The Ripped Bodice Brooklyn felt special. Some of that the product of being planted in an area with high population density and foot traffic and low car usage/ownership, yes; some of that being the specific focus of said bookstore.) Of course I couldn't walk out of there without a sparkly pink bag and another book to read over dinner (Sarah Chamberlain's The Slowest Burn).
A 20-minute walk back up the hill brought me past the infamous Park Slope Food Coop for the very first time, somehow, and then into the garden at Olmsted. The Koji grilled scallops and froyo with whipped lavender honey were excellent, but the carrot crepe? Perfection. Embodied the transition between summer and fall on the Northeast in a single plate. Roasted carrots providing the hearty sweetness and warmth of the harvest; raw shaved carrots a contrasting brisk autumn breeze. Sunflower seeds crunching like fallen leaves underfoot. Peppery nasturtiums and littleneck clams a reminder of the summer slipping away. And the coziest buttery sauce undergirding everything like hot apple cider; I chased it into every crevice of the plate with my spoon. All of this topping an earthy-yet-ethereal buckwheat crepe. I could not chef's kiss it more. And these are the people who made me like peas a few summers back, ROFL! Their back patio feels like a faerie wonderland of seasonal food every time I eat there; thanks to
kazulrw for the long-ago recommendation 🙂(So many things I regret not slotting in here at the time, slowly tucking them in from the archives elsewhere. Like how not having written about LA this summer means I missed writing about getting to The Ripped Bodice in LA, on Jackie's recommendation; an interesting contrast to its sister shop simply because of how very much the built environment around each one differs. As for Olmsted and peas, for reference when I get around to June 2019: snap pea sashimi - snap peas wrapped in fluke wrapped in thinly shaved lemon slices; duck two ways (grilled and in larb); strawberries and cream with rhubarb sorbet and meringue.)
And then Friday morning, squeezed in one more record-breaking jog - a similar set of laps around the park, and then down Broadway to Union Square. Replaced my Strand tote that had succumbed to time, and then tucked in some apple and pear cider donuts, tiny TSA-safe tipples of whiskey from the farmers' market; finally made it to Li-Lac Chocolates as well per the insistence of another friend. Final stop: grabbing a proper bagel from Bagels & Schmear near my hotel on our way out of the city; I love you, New York, there's never enough time.
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