First Friday in NYC

The next morning, Friday the 13th, I met up with my best friend Andrea. She is also interning here this summer at Alice + Olivia! She is engaged to a wonderful young man and was wedding dress shopping. I met her up at Carolina Herrara where every dress she put on was more beautiful than the one before it... After a few short hours my camera memory was full and our bellies were empty... we met up with Brett and headed to Freddy's. I had crab cakes and tuna tartare ... pretty good but nothing special- after all, I worked for Chef Joe Richardson. Crab cakes and tuna are among his many specialties! I get back home around 5 or 6 in the afternoon and decide my foot is really, really not good. My roommate Vicky aka Mother Nature incarnate, wrapped my ankle and called her sister for doctor recommendations. A short while later I had made an appointment to get it checked out. I stayed in and Vicky fed me a delicious meal made entirely from veggies from the garden. We hung out and I decided it was time to get a real nights sleep. The weekend was rainy, which was a bummer but it made me feel better about being a bum. Its obviously not my style to lay around... ever... but with a fractured heel... the rain allowed me not to feel guilty about resting it. I enjoyed a few street eats- Whimpy's in Harlem- soooooo gooood! I also ducked out in between the rain to explore and drop of some resumes. Finally, when Andrea got back from DC on Sunday, we went to dinner with Philip and Corey (new, fab friends) and wandered the area known as Hell's Kitchen. This really is the city that never sleeps. Sunday and midnight there are just as many people trotting around Manhattan as there are on a Friday night. Vastly different from the comforts of my former sleepy town of Tallahassee on a Sunday night... both great places, just wildly different. 
I was once asked in an interview if I could describe myself in one word, what word would it be? My answer was adaptable. I am a highly adaptable person as in I can hold a convo with Giacomo Busino in Geneve, Suisse about the political landscape of the world and the intricacies of the international media as easily as I can win my fantasy football league and and comfortably sit at the Palace Saloon (don't judge me) but the point is that I may have given myself far too much credit... Monday came and at 2:34 pm I left Manhattan Orthopedic with tears in my eyes and no umbrella-- oh and I was in an air cast. I'm not taking a cab. I live in NYC now and I've got to get used to walking, no matter how bad it hurts. I told myself this for about 7 blocks when I finally decided that my stubborn, self pity would leave me nowhere but worse off. The next few days were spent in a series of emotional highs and lows- and the lows were, for the first time in my life,  defeating my adaptive energy. Sooo, Tuesday rolls around and I'm wearing one of Andrea's beautiful dresses and the left cowboy boot of my dreams... its time to feel better. I did my hair and make-up and I did what always makes me feel better. I feasted. 

                             MOMOFUKU Sake... Yes. 
MOMOFUKU had no idea what appetites Mike, Miles, Arturo & I had. Initially we were going to try the new ssäm duck, but there was pretty much no way we were going to wait the 2 hours to sit. So we trotted over to Noodle Bar which is where Mike works. Arriving with a handle of Jameson to give the kitchen was the best thing I'd done in NY yet... we ate everything on the menu, and then some. 
Among the many unique flavors I had: Batchoy, Kimchi Stew, the world famous Pork Buns, charred octopus, but my absolute favorite... the oyster buns. holy cow. SO GOOD.

After this epic feast we went to the Blind Tiger for some more great beers- the most notable was the one bought as a joke, the Hebrew Celebration, JEWbilation Cask. Whoa. No comment. Miles described it as petrulli oil meets stale Guinness. 

                                   ^JEWbilation @ the Blind Tiger
I know I have a lot of blogging to do catch up on but in the meantime things are going perfect. Finally everything seems good! I ditched the boot, am making friends, have an interview on Thursday, and plans to attend a BBQ in Astoria at Frankie's place (Sous Chef at NOBU, should be delectable) on Monday. All in all, the power positive thinking helped me out of this week long rut. I must mention though that it was not my positive thinking; I must thank my Mom, sister, Andrea, friends back home and in Tally, Laura Hose.... all spoke to me, and brought me back to Zen.