Big Apple

John and I are fundamentally lazy about certain things. One of them is unloading photos from the camera.
We just now got around to unloading about 18 months' worth of photos from the camera, the entire run of photos from the moment we got the camera brand new.
So I have finally organized the photos into albums on iPhoto.
Here's a run-down of our trip to New York in April 2008. John had never been to New York before, but instead of doing the typical touristy things, we did a lot of eating.
At right is my dinner from the famous Carnegie Deli. This was one of the least expensive sandwiches on the menu, just a plain corned beef sandwich. I ate, at most, a third of it. The rest, sadly, went to waste.

One morning we went to the farmers market in Union Square, which has great produce, artisanal cheeses and breads, fresh flowers, grass-fed beef, seafood, free-range eggs...in short, everything an organic cook would need, ever. I can't imagine anyone in New York shopping for veggies at Safeway when they've got places like Fairway or the Union Square farmers market. In this photo, John and I took a break from sampling the wares and just enjoyed the sun.

Clearly, we had to visit some cheese shops while we were in New York, so we visited two branches of Murray's Cheeses, the main store in the West Village, the other in Grand Central Station. Grand Central is one of the most beautiful spaces in New York; the ceiling is painted with a mural in blue that makes the whole space feel airy and light.









One night we went out late, nearly midnight, to get hot dogs at Grey's Papaya. We had the Recession Special: two dogs and a papaya smoothie. John still talks about those hot dogs; I think that was his favorite meal in New York, even better than the pasta tasting menu at Babbo (which was a three-hour meal, with three desserts). On the way to Grey's Papaya, we walked past the new New York Times building. The building was partially blocked off by a security barrier to keep would-be daredevils from trying to scale the side of the building; just before we got to New York, a man had managed to make it to the top of the building, some 56 floors high. The building has horizontal bars across one side, all the way to the top, that keep the temperature inside the building even.

Instead of taking a ferry to Ellis Island, which would have meant a trip of several hours, we opted to take the Staten Island Ferry, which was free and takes us right past the Statue of Liberty. After we were dropped back off at the ferry terminal in Lower Manhattan, we wandered around Wall Street, which was pretty deserted since it was a weekend.









We also met up with our friend Lou and his girlfriend Patty for pizza in Brooklyn at a restaurant just under the Brooklyn Bridge. Our first thought was to walk across the bridge from the Manhattan side and end at the restaurant, where we would have lunch, but Lou convinced us walking across a wooden bridge was only for those without a fear of heights. So we took a cab instead. The pizza place was clearly popular; we waited in line for two hours for a table. The pizza was indeed excellent.

On our last night in New York, we took a long walk to Rockefeller Center and down Fifth Avenue looking at store windows. I don't think we saw one piece of clothing we could afford. But I loved seeing so much activity downtown so late at night. The energy of the place is incomparable.