All posts tagged: friends

Back in the Bay

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Twin Peaks? Been there, done that. Bernal Heights is a big deal.  A lot (a LOT) has happened in the last month, since my post about an Event-Full Weekend has been sitting out alone, in the cold of the internet world. I turned in a Master’s thesis. Part of the ceiling in the apartment where I was staying collapsed. I hit my knee so hard on a grate that popped up from nowhere in the street that I Googled, “How to know when you’ve fractured your patella.” There’s also been a lot of packing, and moving, and re-packing. I’ve learned in the last month that just 48 hours of a getaway with good friends perks me up the week before and the week after, and gives me good mojo to keep up with the sometimes crushing pace of life in NYC. On that note, a few weeks ago, I went westward. I went back to San Francisco. Given that I was staying with my best friend Siena, who is like no other (except, perhaps, myself) when it …

Taking a Breather from the Concrete Jungle

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Roaming through the cobblestone streets of Old San Juan, Puerto Rico. At a rooftop party recently (how New York of me, I know), I found myself with the perfect (well, nothing’s perfect) analogy to describe how I occasionally feel after a month of living and working in New York City: it’s the same feeling I get when I have that second cup of coffee in the afternoon that I didn’t really need and I feel my pulse racing when I really don’t need it to be. It’s that shot of espresso plus that ingenious fight-or-flight response that has kept us humans alive for so long that keeps many a New Yorker on their toes (and dashing across enormous intersections for dear life), but that also is just utterly exhausting once the adrenaline wears off. Although my (temporary) home in Fort Greene, Brooklyn has been a welcome escape from the craziness of Manhattan, I’ve also looked a little further beyond the walls of the concrete jungle in the last few weeks to just catch my breath …

A Few New Edible Discoveries

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They say that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. It is also my favorite meal. By far. I mean… just look at this spread from Reynard at the Wythe Hotel in Williamsburg. So I’m coming up on my one month anniversary with New York City. How will I celebrate, I hear you asking through the internet void? Probably with an iced coffee and some kind of pastry involving berries, if I had to guess. I’ve made quite a few food-related finds (shocker!) since returning to the homeland from Europe, so I thought I would take a few moments to share some of this newfound knowledge with the world. Please prepare yourself for an eclectic list that very much reflects the personal tastes of someone who is a self-professed probiotic aficionada (is there even a feminine version of that word?). 1. Dimes Restaurant, Chinatown An intimate, most vegetable-forward restaurant with surprisingly large portions. Hello, leftovers. Expect to find organic wines, lots of avocado (see above), and candles. Doesn’t take reservations, so if you want a table …

Food, Friends and Firenze

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Whoever led the re-design of the Mercato Centrale Firenze is just a genius. Seriously. I have yet to see visual projects like this one in Italy. Perhaps I am thinking like Food Communication Masters student! Gasp! Last weekend, I headed down to Firenze on the sleek and speedy Freciarossa train to see the female members of the Laub clan, friends from California who happened to converge in my current country of residence for a week and invited me down for the weekend. Robin knows what’s going on, so obviously her pre-trip research (and multi-page printed itinerary) led us to some good spots. On Saturday morning, we took a 40 minute walk to a bakery called Pasticceria Giorgio. Now, I must say, I love walking probably more than the next person and my Supergas were ready for duty, but we were mostly in residential neighborhoods during the jaunt which made me a little but unsure of the final destination. Let me tell you, this place was the real deal. No Trip Advisor stickers, no English spoken (this …

It’s a Pizza Party

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Photo stolen/downloaded from Francesca’s FB page. If you are a lucky soul and can read Italian, check out her blog. Amongst our class of of 24 gastronomes-to-be, we have a few bakers. Francesca is one of them and she was crazy/gracious enough to prepare enough portions of dough to go around and then invite us into her charming attic-esque apartment for some DIY pizza. I myself composed quite a delicious arugula/red onion/feta one atop some perfect multigrain crust baked with rosemary. There are no photos of that because I ate it in about 2 seconds. Is it just me or do I write a lot about pizza on this blog…? Anyways, this lovely gathering reminded me of quite a few pizza parties back home…where I will be in one week for holiday vacation. Not really sure how one month has passed already since I arrived in Bra. Last night we went indoor oven style, but I definitely soaked up my fair share of vitamin D outside at school while waiting for the bus. In fact, I pretty much sat and stared …