I took the red eye from the
Orange County
airport to Newark
as it was a direct flight. Upon arriving
at Newark
airport I took the AirTrain to Newark Penn Station and then the train to NYC
Penn Station which takes about one hour and costs $12.50. I stayed at Park79 hotel (www.park79.com) on the upper west side which is
reasonably priced, quiet and 10 minutes from central park and the subway
stations. After checking in and storing
my suitcase I walked down Columbus
Avenue to Muffins Café. There are only four tables but by the time
your bran muffin and coffee are ready there is a place to sit.
I took a walk around the
Jacqueline Kennedy reservoir in central park amidst snow flurries and rather
cold weather and then walked down to the New York Public Library on Fifth
Avenue/42nd Street. Built in
1911 and declared a national monument in 1965, this beautiful Beaux-Arts Building
contains a most impressive main reading room.
It has long oak tables lit by elegant bronze lamps with 52 foot tall
ceilings filled with murals of vast skies.
A quick walk over to the Morgan Library to view its vast art treasures
collected by J. P. Morgan’s father and donated to the public in 1924.
Lunch at the little owl (www.thelittleowlnyc.com), a cute
restaurant in Greenwich village . I had a delicious sunflower sprout salad with
golden beets and shaved parmesan ending with a flourless chocolate cake with
espresso gelato.
Later in the afternoon I
took the subway to the Brooklyn
Museum as it is open late
on Thursday nights. The most impression
exhibition was “Gravity and Grace: monumental works by El Anatsui”. Born in Ghana , Anatsui creates enormous
metal wall works using bottle caps.
Dinner nearby at Battersby (www.battersbybrooklyn.com),
a small, funky restaurant just recently opened.
Brooklyn has become quite a food
mecca. I dined at the counter as there
are very few tables and enjoyed an absolutely delicious 5 course meal. Celery root chestnut soup was the “amuse”
followed by hamachi with green ginger and yuzu, pork tortellini with crisp
artichoke chips, kale, lobster and sweetbreads with fingerling potatoes, wild
Scottish salmon with artichoke puree, thin slices and hearts, orange sorbet
with pomegranate granite to cleanse my palate and little triangles of black
forest cake with cherries for dessert.
The food was outstanding, not terribly expensive and the setting was so
comfortable and casual – I had a wonderful time!!!
The following morning it
was actually snowing!!! The streets and
buildings were covered in a layer of snow and it continued until the early
evening. I had brought enough warm clothes
along so it was quite lovely and only 32 degrees – not terribly cold. After breakfast I walked to MOMA (www.moma.org) to see “Inventing Abstraction,
1910 – 1925” which highlighted some of the works of Vasily Kandinsky, Piet
Mondrian and Robert Delaunay among others and was very interesting. New
York City is used to the snow and by the time I left,
the streets had been salted and walking was easy. Lunch at Del Posto (www.delposto.com), one of Mario Batali’s
restaurants on Tenth Avenue . In elegant surroundings I chose the prix fixe
menu which started with several delicious little “amuse” served on a cake
stand, i.e. potato leek soup, lentil croquette in lemon sauce and tuna tartar wrapped
in a thin daikon slice. First course was
a beautiful vegetable salad with raw, pickled and cooked miniature vegetables
with creamy rubiola cheese. Second
course were porcini mushroom and chestnut filled ravioli with creamy chestnut
sauce. Dessert was huckleberry sorbet,
puree and berries on crisp cookies with cream.
A cheese grater box filled with tiny petits fours was the perfect
ending.
Afterwards I visited the Whitney Museum which is open late on Fridays and
you can pay whatever you want after 6 p.m. - a great deal. I viewed some of the Georgia O’keeffe’s and Hopper’s
paintings and then went downstairs to watch a video of the Calder Circus,
something I have been wanting to see for ages.
He crafted miniature circus lions, seals, trapeze artists, etc. out of
wire, cork, string, etc. and in the video pulls strings, activates levers and
turn cranks as he manipulates his miniature performers – it is awesome!!
Dinner at Boulud Sud (www.bouludsud.com) near the Lincoln Center .
I chose the Mediterranean Mezze which was composed of herb falafel, Meyer
lemon hummus, babaganoush and lavash bread and also ordered the organic
farrotto with wild mushrooms – both were delicious. Dessert was a thin sliver of light chocolate
“cake” with tangerine sorbet. I leisurely
walked back to the hotel as the snow melted around my feet…
Saturday morning I walked
down Seventh Avenue to the Fashion Institute
of Technology (www.fitnyc.edu/museum)
to see the “shoe obsession” exhibit. The
exhibition featured over 150 examples of the most extraordinary shoe styles of
the twenty-first century, using the new concepts, constructions and materials
by top end designers such as Manolo Blahnik and Christian Louboutin. The heels were at least 5 to 6-inches high
and so much fun to see!! Lunch at the
Spotted Pig (www.thespottedpig.com)
in West Village .
It is an adorable little two story house filled with pig memorabilia and
great food!! I had a ricotta cheese and
prosciutto tart topped with arugula and the flourless chocolate cake and
vanilla cream for dessert. I spent the
rest of the afternoon at the Frick Collection on E. 70th Street where a free
audio guide introduces you to some incredible art….
Dinner at Mas la grillade
(www.maslagrillade.com) was more
casual than Mas Farmhouse where I have eaten in the past. The flavor of the food comes from the wood it
is grilled over. I ordered a grilled
beet and Asian pear salad with goat cheese and candied pecans and followed with
grilled scallops with fennel and cauliflower.
The scallops had a rich smoky flavor but were only complimented with
some anchovy butter. Dessert was the
star – a luscious lemon tart with huckleberry puree!!!
Sunday morning I spent at
the Metropolitan Museum of Art to see the “Impressionism, fashion and
modernity” exhibition which presented a revealing look at the role of fashions
in the works of the impressionists. Also
on display were period costumes, accessories, etc. shown in the paintings. Lunch at Tavern (www.gramercytavern.com) , the casual
side of Gramercy Tavern, was a warm Brussels sprouts salad with goat cheese,
parsnip crisps and pickled red onions and chocolate pudding with salted caramel
sauce for dessert.
Afterwards I walked up to
Grand Central Station where I took the train to Tarrytown and a taxi to Blue
Hills at Stone Barnes (www.bluehillfarm.com)
where I had the most imaginative and
delicious meal of my trip. I got there
early and wandered through the greenhouse and out to the barns where the sheep,
pigs and chickens are raised. Dining is in
a large “barn” but it has an elegant feel and you know you are in for a
treat. It would takes pages and pages to
describe all the courses I had so I will just mention a few of them, i.e.
little “kale” tree in a planter, scissors to cut off the leaves and a warm dip
to dip them in; an artist’s “palate” filled with little sauces and topped with
crisp chicarones to dip in them; mini “beet” burger; a marrow bone filled with
delicious marrow topped with caviar; a large wooden turntable topped with
shredded vegetables, micro greens, watermelon molasses and shrimp to put in
thin radish “taco” shells; mini brioche with Swiss chard marmalade; enormous
piece of slate topped with spinach sprigs, underneath a thick vinaigrette and
underneath that a large square composed of bread crumbs, hazelnuts, finely
diced egg, parmesan cheese – the idea is the take a spinach leaf and drag it
through the vinaigrette into the bread crumb mixture to make a “salad”; whole
perfectly cooked codfish head, chopsticks to pull out the delicious cheek
“meat” and spinach leaves salted and lightly dressed to eat it with; slow
roasted thick cabbage slice topped with prosciutto and served with apple puree;
roast large parsnip served on a trolley and sliced as it if were a piece of
beef, served with creamed spinach; chocolate brioche and little cookies. I spent 4 hours dining and it was really
fun!!!
In the morning I visited
the “Our Global Kitchen” exhibition at the American Museum
of Natural History which featured the growing, trading, transporting, cooking
and eating of different food from all over the world. Lunch at Gotham Bar and Grill (www.gothambarandgrill.com) was a
roasted cauliflower salad with lentils, golden raisins and grapes, pumpkin
ravioli with mushrooms and leeks and warm chocolate cake with chocolate
shavings. The Train from Penn station took
me back to the Newark airport where I caught the
6:30 p.m. flight to Orange
County which landed
instead at LAX because of a fog bank.
After a taxi ride to the Orange
County airport where
there was not a taxi to be found a wonderful friend picked me up at 12 midnight
and brought me home as another great trip came to an end…