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August 28, 2005
Food and other disappointments
I'm not a huge fan of cheese but when Adam and I were in Italy, I had a really good dish called cacio e pepe in Rome which is pasta (usually spaghetti or linguine) tossed with cheese and pepper that is intense on the cheese so I've wanted to try the restaurant named after this dish for a while. Adam and I finally went there on Friday--I probably a mistake in not ordering the dish that I went to the restaurant for but it's hard for me to resist a dish with truffles and I ended up ordering a different pasta dish instead. It was ok but overpriced I thought but when I saw strawberry tart with chocolate fondue on the menu, there was no way I could resist ordering this. The "fondue" turned out to be thin lines of decorative chocolate sauce and the tart wasn't even that good.
On Saturday I decided I wanted something light for lunch and I decided steamed chicken dumplings from Sammy's would be perfect. I had always liked their dumplings though it had been a while since I'd eaten there. When the dumplings came out, I was disappointed--instead of the standard dumplings I was used to, I was served these dim-sum like dumplings in translucent wrappers. I thought I'd be able to make up for the disppointment by getting some cream puffs from this place but, unfortunately, their West Village branch hasn't opened yet.
Today, Adam and I finally went to see Broken Flowers. I had looked forward to seeing the movie because it had gotten good reviews, I like Bill Murray's recent melancholy characters, I'm a big fan of Julie Delpy, and I generally like Jim Jarmusch's films but Adam and I were both a little disappointed by this film. It was a little too slow and too loose-endish. Not one of Jarmusch's stronger films in my opinion though I guess it would be tough to top Down by Law (a must for any Roberto Benigni fan).
Posted by Jennifer at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)
August 25, 2005
Back to school
Unfortunately, I have a tendency to procrastinate and my thesis is probably one of the most flagrant examples of this. I started my thesis over five years ago and stopped working on it about a year later. People would bug me about it and the thought of finishing my thesis lay dormant until recently when I finally decided I wanted to finish my thesis and finally get my master's degree. It took me a long time to get to this point and I'm still wondering if I'll be able to do it because, even though I've started contacting my old contacts so I can get the contacts I need to continue research for my thesis, I've had absolutely no luck actually talking to these people on the phone.
As if the process needed to be more difficult, I took a couple of hours off from work to go to school to submit the required readmission form and to register today and I ended having to run back and forth between two buildings like a maniac in order to get all the signatures I needed on my readmit form and was reintroduced to the lovely experience of school bureaucracy in progress. When I got to the bursar's office at 10:30 there was only one window open and a substantial line that moved at about a rate of one person per ten minutes because this just seems to be one of the givens of a bursar's office. After I finally made it to the window, I had to go to the financial aid office, then the admissions office, then the registrar's office all because the readmission form required signatures from each office. By the time I made it to the permanent registrar's office, the temporary registrar's office which processes the registration forms had closed for a daily break they take between 11:30 and 1. I was so stressed by that point--first off because it took me two hours just to get this form signed and second off because it seemed so ludicrous that two essential offices (the temporary registrar's office and the bursar's office) would be closed for an hour and a half in the middle of the day the week before school starts. Only my university would do this.
One interesting thing that I noticed while at the bursar's though was that a woman in front of me had brought $7,500 in cash to pay the balance of her daughter's tuition. She was obviously not from this country (I think she was from Spain) but still?! You couldn't pay me to walk around with that amount of cash in Brooklyn (of course, not that I would have that kind of cash anyway).
Posted by Jennifer at 09:25 PM | Comments (0)
August 24, 2005
Cooking
Inspired in part by the dinner party, the leftover berries that Adam had bought for the fondue, and the loss of my lunchtime haunt, I've been doing quite a bit of cooking this week. It started with a feta cheese pasta salad on Sunday night since I had bought feta cheese from Zabar's the weekend prior. Then I got the idea to bake blueberry muffins and made tuna pasta salad as a possible lunch for work. The blueberry muffins are good but not great in part because I didn't put enough sugar and because I put in too much wheat flour (I like to be healthy when I cook). The tuna pasta salad was a disappointment--I love good tuna pasta salad but I've never been able to make it in a way that resembles the tuna pasta salad I've had at this former restaurant in Williamsburg or at the salad bar at Whole Foods. Motivated by the leftover strawberries, today I made strawberry shortcake which earned positive reviews from Adam. I like cooking (sometimes) but I think I'd be inclined to cook more if we had a dishwashing machine.
Posted by Jennifer at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)
August 21, 2005
Long Island
Adam and I had offered to do something with his uncle and aunt's nieces who they've been taking care of so we went to their house yesterday. Having spent the majority of my adult life in New York City, I forget what it's like living in the suburbs sometimes. Adam's uncle and aunt live in a pretty large house with a backyard large enough to accomodate a pool, a large trampoline, and enough lawn for their three dogs to run around. After hanging out at their house for a while, we went bowling (another thing I associate with the suburbs). Adam's grandfather was in town so we went for dinner with most of Adam's family afterwards. When I was told we were eating at a Chinese buffet, I groaned, but it actually turned out to be really good. They had a large variety of food including a ton of Chinese food of course, but also sushi and even some Korean food. It also turned out to be next to the lab where I had my first job. It was a summer job that entailed a two and a half hour commute for me each way--I had to take a bus to the Long Island Rail Road station, the train, and then another bus in L.I.--fortunately, I've never had to replicate this experience.
A sad story about a conservationist for a park in California who ended up committing suicide after battling with her pro-cattle grazing supervisor.
Posted by Jennifer at 08:22 PM | Comments (0)
August 20, 2005
Dinner Party
Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures but Adam and I had a dinner party last night. It was fun--we had mini hot dogs and mini knishes, sangria, paella, and chocolate fondue. I was nervous because I'd never made paella before and the bottom of one of the pots I cooked it in got burnt and I was worried the whole batch of paella in that pot would taste burnt but, luckily, it didn't. It was a good party but, of course, Adam's mom mailed us a package with food and videos of Adam when he was younger which we didn't recieve until today and would've made the party doubly fun! (one of the video segments includes Adam's ballet performance of Thriller when he was 5).
On Thursday, we went to see Puffy Ami Yumi. It was a good show--we don't listen to their music much but their live shows are pretty enjoyable. I noticed the concert was more crowded than the concert we attended last year, probably because Cartoon Network started airing a show on them shortly after their last tour. What was cool was that they performed a cover of Green Day's "Basket Case" at the show.
Posted by Jennifer at 01:36 PM | Comments (1)
August 16, 2005
A State of Mind
There are several subjects that I have a particular interest in and North Korea is one of them, particularly after seeing some of the video clips on this site and the photographs of the Mass Games that were published in the New York Times Magazine last year. So when I heard this movie was playing at the Film Forum, I knew I wanted to see it. Unfortunately, the film was only shown at the theater for a week and today was the last day, because it was one of the best documentaries I've ever seen. The film follows two young schoolgirls as they train for the Mass Games, providing a fascinating glimpse into North Korea in the process. The amount of training and preparation that goes into the Mass Games, the devotion and reverence of North Koreans toward Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il, the totalitarian nature of the North Korean government, and hatred of the American government is unbelievable, yet it's hard not to watch the film without a sense of awe when you see the Mass Games. After the movie, Adam and I went to this restaurant which was surprisingly good. It also made me worried that the paella that I plan on making at our dinner party on Friday won't be anywhere near as good as the paella I had tonight. By the way, for those of you who read Daily Candy like I do, Puff & Pao sounds much better than it is. Stick with Beard Papa.
Posted by Jennifer at 11:46 PM | Comments (0)
August 07, 2005
Birdwatching and Mitsuwa Plaza
I love birds so when I heard about this, I thought why not? It was a nice boat ride, but I was a little disappointed--the bird-watching was mostly confined to riding around North and South Brother Islands and seeing a limited variety of birds from a distance. The birdwatching in Florida is a lot better. But, I did manage to get a few good shots along the way:
They're kind of hard to see in the photo, but the birds on the mini island are cormorants.
North Brother Island which has an interesting history--once home to a hospital for people with highly contagious diseases (including Typhoid Mary), the island was abandoned in the 1950s and has since become ideal bird habitat.
Today, I went to Mitsuwa Marketplace. I thought it would be nice to go there after having gone to Japan and I was happy to find they had one of my favorite Japanese drinks:
I've since found alternatives at the Union Square farmer's market and gourmet supermarkets but when we returned from Japan, I loved this beverage so much, I searched in vain online and at that Japanese supermarket on East 7th St for it so I'm glad they carry it at Mitsuwa. I also indulged in my other favorite Japanese edibles, ramen and onigiri (Japanese rice balls).
Unfortunately, Mitsuwa isn't that big but the bus ride to Mitsuwa, which is located in Edgewater, NJ, is actually enjoyable. The views of the Manhattan skyline from Edgewater are among the best I've seen.
Posted by Jennifer at 04:51 PM | Comments (0)
August 03, 2005
Lunch spot
Every week for close to three years, I've gone to the same place to get my lunch. While I didn't go there every day, I got the majority of my lunches from there. I generally ordered the same thing so all I'd have to do was call and give my name and they'd have my order ready by the time I got there. So imagine my dismay when I called today only to find out their line had been disconnected. I knew that was a bad sign but I had to walk there just to make sure it wasn't just a phone issue or electricity issue.
I can't tell what happened exactly--the only signed posted is a sign that directs the mailman where to place their mail and when I peeked inside I noticed only that the outdoor tables had been moved inside the restaurant. I'm pretty bummed--my regular lunch spot is the only restaurant I've found with reasonably good and non-expensive food (unfortunately, there aren't that many lunch options within reasonable walking distance from my job). Adam suggested I started bringing lunch but I don't like salads or sandwiches and other options require too much work. Why does finding good food in certain areas have to be so challenging? :(
Posted by Jennifer at 09:46 PM | Comments (0)