Friday Favorites!

Most important friday favorite – I am not dead. I am just busy and have not had time to blog. Will be a better blogger from now on. Also, for those who have asked I am definitely still cooking. I have not fallen off the cooking wagon. I just seem to be making a lot of things I’ve already posted about so there’s been no need to take pics or blog about it. But this weekend I am back to trying new recipes. So expect an update and recipe next week!

This list is so spot on I can’t even tell you – especially #2 and #15. Actually, all of them. All of them are fierce NYC truths and deserve to be hated.

Friday Favorite and IMPORTANT – I am now writing for Used York City, a great online travel magazine, and my first article was posted today! Please check it out and share with your friends!

If you ever wondered what it costs to rent in San Francisco this average rent map will put it all in perspective. I thought SF was cheaper than NYC but apparently not really. Guess if I ever move back to the Bay Area I’ll find myself in Berkeley again (no complaints there).

And finally – because Empire Records will ALWAYS be important – I give you this. Sidenote – Warren is hella old now guys. Which basically means I’m old. Le sigh…

Bon week-end!

Music Monday – The Oscars

In honor of The Oscars last night, I give you the Top Five 2013 Oscar Music Moments

5. The banished orchestra – What the fuck Oscar producers? First you tell us this year’s Oscar theme is Movie Music and then you tell us that for no clear or comprehenisble reason that the orchestra and their conductor have been banished to some off site recording studio. Seriously?? Given this year’s theme don’t you think that maybe – JUST MAYBE – having a live orchestra might have been the way to go?

4. When Adele sang Skyfall and the bitch had a band – way to put your foot down Adele and insist on live musicians for your number. Too bad the sound guy fucked up and we could barely hear you over said band but hey – at least you got actual live musicians onstage during your performance.

3. Shirley Bassey singing Goldfinger – way to show us all how it’s done. Damn. I may never be able to sing but when I’m 76 I plan to rock some serious cleavage in a gold sequin dress at a karaoke bar in your honor.

2. The Les Miserables cast – because their performance was an excuse to hang the French flag all over the Oscar stage which made my heart swoon a little. Tee hee.

1. Jennifer Hudson – bitch threw down. Bitch threw down HARD. They should have handed her an Oscar just for that performance. Seriously, WOW. I’m still recovering.

Overall, a pretty decent Oscar show. But next time – bring the orchestra back. And book Tina and Amy for hosting duties – right now.

Friday Favorites!

Time for Friday Favorites! And away we go:

Headline of the Week – Woman Smother Boyfriend to Death With Her Chest - because that is obviously now possible.

I know I’m a food nerd but this article on quinoa, its popularity in the States, and the repercussions of that on a more global scale is quite interesting.

Jodie Foster’s rambling fairly incoherent Golden Globes speech in which she acknowledged she was gay – was I dreaming or didn’t she come out of her closet ages ago? Is this really news? Also, not sure if she was on the sauce (probably) but girl is a bit cray cray (in the sweetest way of course).

Other important Golden Globes item – Taylor Swift’s loser face. If you didn’t catch Taylor Swift’s loser bitch face when Adele beat her for Best Song at the Golden Globes you missed out. Girl needs to work on being a bit more gracious. This little blunder on her part further cements my own personal belief that she is in fact a bit of a prickly bitch and not the American sweetheart she likes to promote in all things media. That face is the face of someone who thinks she’s better than you. In other words – TEAM ADELE FOREVER.

In relation to Taylor Swift and in the BITCH PLEASE category (and the this is why I love Bradley Cooper FORVER category) – THIS

IMPORTANT – Baguette vending machines exist! WTF?! See #13 here. Now bring them to NYC! Or rather, just bring them to my apartment. Sidenote – the rest of the list is kinda disturbing…

I can’t even…

Bon weekend!

Friday Favorites!

I can’t think favorite things and not think Sound of Music – I mean, come on.

To further attempt to blog more and keep things varied around here, I give you a new weekly post – Friday Favorites. This will be a weekly list of my favorite things from the week and can be anything and everything, from actual news to personal news, from things that made me laugh, to random things that I just feel the need to share.  So away we go…

Friday Favorites!

In favorite random news of the week – Gerard Depardieu offered post of Cultural Minister of Siberia. I am at a loss for words…no, no I’m not, here’s  a word – seriously?! This is a man who drunkenly urinated in the cabin of a plane. IN. THE. CABIN. That’s who you want as your cultural representative? Well, okay then.

Oscar nominations! IMPORTANT – Bradley Cooper (swoon) is nominated and that’s ALL I CARE ABOUT.

Red Gravy Brooklyn Heights – the newest must try on my list of places to eat. Not necessarily because the menu looks delish (it does) but because it’s around the corner from my apartment and I am lazy.

THIS COMMERCIAL –  Oh Stephen…Stephen, Stephen, Stephen. Just go back to playing the fifth Beatle. You were really good at that. In fact, you should just be him ALL THE TIME.

Restaurant Week!! Also known as the only time of year I can afford to pay for a meal at expensive restaurants by myself.

Random apartment news – we’re buying a fire pit for the backyard! No joke. This whole winter thing is really annoying when you have a backyard you want to use. Solution? FIRE PIT! Who wants to come over?

The MOST important news of the week 

Bon weekend!

Top Five Things Christmas Taught Me This Year

5. Kids are smart and always looking for clues about Santa even to their detriment. Case in point, five year old kid at the Duane Reade on Christmas Eve saw her dad buying scotch tape and without missing a beat said, “Hey…what do YOU need scotch tape for? You don’t wrap the presents…DO YOU?” The Dad set her back on the Santa track but it was a close call. Those crazy kids are always watching so be careful.

4. Staying in one’s pajamas all day is not only the best thing ever but actually required on Christmas day. Anyone who tells you otherwise is clearly lying.

3. All grown men are still little boys at heart. Case in point – of all the presents I got Erik this year, the one he was most excited about was a 100 piece Star Wars puzzle I bought for $5.

2. A Christmas Story is a boy’s movie. I never thought it was funny when I was little and then I realized after watching it with Erik this year that the reason I didn’t get it is because I’m just too much of a girl. But it is in fact a great little movie and worth a watch once a year.

1. Nothing ages you like Trivial Pursuit – if you’re ever wondering whether or not you’re a grown up, play the latest version of Trivial Pursuit. You will discover that unlike when you were younger, you now know most of the answers and remember all the references, cultural, political and otherwise from years past because you’re OLD. Your parents weren’t actually that smart, they’d just been around longer than you. Now it’s your turn and you can actually win the game now. Congratulations!

A French Weekend in Brooklyn

God Bless Brooklyn. Beyond the many amazing neighborhoods and lovely people, there are a variety of cultural events to go to every weekend. This weekend Walls and Bridges is back presenting all things French and therefore all things fantastic. Here’s the info from their website:

“Walls and Bridges, the Franco/American arts and ideas festival, is returning to New York Oct 19 – 28 for its third season.  The festival brings together French and American performers, artists, philosophers, and writers who otherwise only encounter each other remotely.  There are 14 events over 10 days, bringing the total of Walls & Bridges events in NYC over 2011 to nearly 50.

Over the course of next weekend, Walls and Bridges will present five events at The Invisible Dog in Cobble Hill and all but one are free.

On Saturday we have:

• A Tale of Two Chefs: a pop-up restaurant featuring Mathieu Rostaing Tayard (“one of Europe’s most exciting young chefs”-WSJ) paired with Brian Leth of Vinegar Hill House. The two will mix styles and prepare a $20 haute-cuisine lunch box that’ll be served up with discussion of who and what influenced their cooking in surprising ways. $20
• Screening Identities with Danny Glover and Malian filmmaker Mathia Diawara in discussion about African and African-American filmmaking  FREE
• Playing with Cinema: an exploration of French cinema through live representationin a set of performances pairing American choreographers and theater companies with famous scenes from French films by Godard, Tati, Melville and Demy. Performances by Migues Gutierrez, The National Theater of the United States of America, Annie-B Parson, & Dan SaferFREE
• Stranger Strangers: 4 French performance acts premiere in NYC, including digital juggling, a group that wears realistic pig costumes to explore our fascination/abhorrence with pigs,a performance of Professor Bad Trip, and a performer with an unhealthy obsession with Derek JarmanFREE (my pick of the weekend)

On Sunday we have just one show:

• Please Kill Me, the rock musical based on the lauded book of the same title by Legs McNeil, which used hundreds of hours of interviews to present the punk days of NYC, featuring the Velvet Underground, the Ramones, The New York Dolls and more. The show received raves in France, including from La Monde, and will be performed here for one night only.  In English.  FREE”

All these events are efinitely worth going to if you’re in Brooklyn and have the time. I of course will do my best to get to at least one event this weekend, and let’s be honest, the Tale of Two Chefs is calling my name.

Travel and Leisure Loves Brooklyn Heights

Brooklyn Heights Promenade photo by Josh Derr

Travel and Leisure recently gave a shout out to my neighborhood, the ever lovely Brooklyn Heights, as one of America’s Most Beautiful Neighborhoods in its latest issue and I of course had to share:

“The storied Brooklyn Bridge, an American beauty itself, sets its eastern granite foot in this neighborhood made beautiful by brownstones and regal prewar condos on leafy streets, some named for fruit. Generations of literati (Thomas Wolfe, Walt Whitman, Truman Capote) have flocked to Brooklyn Heights, and more than 600 houses date to before the Civil War—surpassing better-known areas in Philadelphia and D.C. Visitors’ most memorable snapshots of the Manhattan skyline are taken from its sunset-soaking waterfront esplanade” Travel and Leisure

Words really do not do it justice and if you find yourself in New York City I seriously suggest you take the train to Brooklyn Heights or walk over the Brooklyn Bridge (urban hiking!) and come see what all the fuss is about. To be honest, it’s quite likely you’ve already seen amazing glimpses of Brooklyn Heights in all the films set in NYC. More often than not, if a movie takes place in New York City, the gorgeous brownstones and tree lined streets where every New York film character seems to live is actually Brooklyn  Heights, not Manhattan.

For pics of Brooklyn Heights click here for my staycation blog from this summer.

Location of the Week – Toronto

Yep, you read that right. Last week I got more emails about Toronto than any other location. Who knew Toronto was so high on the list of sexy destinations? Having been to Toronto myself I can say with certainty that it is in fact an excellent city and well worth a visit.

Toronto is located in Southern Ontario on the northwestern shore of Lake Ontario and it is the largest city in Canada.

Fun facts about Toronto:

In the 1860′s Toronto was the largest alcohol distillation center in North America.

The CN Tower defines the Toronto skyline at a height of 553.33 meters (1,815 ft 5 in) and it is the tallest tower in the western hemisphere surpassing Chicago’s Willis Tower by 110 meters.

According to Forbes, Toronto is the tenth-most economically powerful city in the world.

The historic Distillery District, located on the eastern edge of downtown, is North America’s largest and best preserved collection of Victorian era industrial architecture.

The production of domestic and foreign film and television is a major local industry. All those movies that are supposed to take place in New York, are quite often filmed in Toronto.

The Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) is the third largest public transit system in North America after the New York City Transit Authority, and the Mexico City Metro.

I’ve personally been to Toronto a few times but have never been there long enough to actually explore it the way I should as a proper tourist. I can definitely attest that the music scene is great, the people are friendly, and the scenery is beautiful. Rumor has it that there’s also quite the food scene, so I definitely need to return to get the full Toronto experience, and soon.  Given the amount of emails I’m getting about it as a location for English and French language classes it certainly appeals to all nationalities as a great city to come to, so make sure to add it to your list of possible places to visit in the future.

Girl’s Night in Brighton

Last night I had an official girl’s night with my friend Stephanie and it was exactly what the doctor ordered.

It started with a proper trip to a British pub where I actually drank cider and (gasp!) enjoyed it. As I’ve made clear numerous times, cocktails are my drink of choice, but when in Brighton…so I gave it an honest go, and I must say it was delicious. I’m sure to actual beer and cider afficianados it’s nothing but a girly, fizzy drink much in line with a cocktail, but technically, it is cider, Kopparberg Mixed Fruit Cider to be exact. I’m not sure if I’ll be able to find it in the States but if I’m in a pub that can’t make what I would normally order, this cider will fit the bill just fine.

After drinks we moved on to a full on girl’s night in – dinner and a movie. But not just any movie. Dirty Dancing featuring my other “husband” Patrick Swayze to be exact – the ultimate swoon inducing movie that never gets old and that every girl I know can quote from memory. In case you weren’t aware Dirty Dancing, chocolate cake, and white wine do in fact make a perfect girl’s night in. If we’d braided each other’s hair and had a pillow fight the stereotype would have been complete. All in all, an excellent welcome to Brighton.

Today is work at the office like a grown up, tourist picture taking, and tapas and cocktails with friends and coworkers. Not too bad a schedule for a work trip and quite a welcome break from the hustle and bustle of Paris. Pictures to come!

Twisting the Night Away – An 80′s Movie Flashback

So in an effort to escape from the stress fueled posts so common this time of the semester I instead give you a serious 80′s flashback, 1987 to be exact.

Today on my way to class the song Twisting the Night Away came on my Ipod and I was immediately transported back to a little movie called Innerspace with the always funny Martin Short and the always SEXY Dennis Quaid.

If you haven’t seen the movie and are older than the age of 7, I wouldn’t recommend watching it. It’s a ridiculous plot but as it was a childhood staple I still love it. Let’s put it this way, Dennis Quaid’s character is minaturized in a machine and inserted into Martin Short’s character’s body. Yeah…unless you grew up with it, it’s so stupid. But this scene will always make me smile even in the midst of grown up stress.

So thanks to my Ipod and the 80′s for always keeping it simple and reminding me to keep pushing through and taking the time to be silly and smile.