Wednesday night in Greenwich

My friend Gabriela has an apartment in Greenwich with her boyfriend and one roommate. They invited me to join them for a low-key evening and Todd was out of town- how could I refuse? We took the Metro North train, 40 minutes from NYC and had dinner at a Peruvian restaurant in Portchester, NY. The Portchester station is a 5-minute walk from their apartment, so we had to walk across the border to get there. Here we are at the restaurant and then me GOING INTO CONNECTICUT!

Miss you all! T minus 8 days and seriously counting!!

Bike Adventure and Cheese!

Just when I thought I might have run out of creative titles! Tuesday was a beautiful day, so I decided to take a bike ride on the greenway that runs along the Hudson. I went out just after lunch and hit the greenway about 45th Street. The trail was great, there was a nice breeze and the scenery was amazing! Before I knew it, I was seeing signs for 181st Street and the Cloisters. I've been wanting to go to the Cloisters, so I continued on the path, trying to find a way to cross over the highway. I never did find the entrance to the Cloisters, but I did find myself upwards of 200th Street in a tense neighborhood. I felt out of place and was exhausted! When I locked up my bike to go get a water in a small store, I came out to find my back tire was completely flat! Luckily, after walking my bike for a short while, I did find a subway station, hopped on the train and took a very long ride home. After getting cleaned up and relaxing a bit, Todd and I went out for a great date night. We had dinner at Artisanal, New York's "temple to cheese." This place has over 200 cheeses, lots of great wines to pair with them, and a fantastic bistro menu. Todd and I each ordered a "flight" of 3 cheeses with wine. From there, we went to the Campbell Apartment, an old timey bar located in Grand Central Terminal. It's actually an old apartment with 1920s style architecture, classic cocktails and flapper waitresses. We finished the evening off with a carraige ride through Central Park. Our horse, Junior, and guide, Tom, took us on a beautiful tour on a fantastic night!

The attached photos show a piece of driftwood art, the George Washington Bridge up close, some interesting structure on the side of the highway and lastly, Todd and I with our mouths full at dinner.

Is it mid-August already?

I've been really slack about writing in the blog, but it's mostly because I have not spent much time in front of the computer. Todd's been finishing the edits on his book and working night and day and I'm happy to say, for his sake, that he is DONE! I, on the other hand, have been working 12-14 hour days in the pastry kitchen on my externship and being really LAZY on my days off. It's been a very extreme lifestyle...I'll be finished by mid-week next week and then we are heading home. Today I spent the day with two friends from my pastry classes (Marie, who I have not seen since graduation, and Gabriela, who I'm happy to be hanging out with almost daily!). We had breakfast at Clinton Street Baking Company and then spent the rest of the day walking the lower half of the island (of Manhattan, that is). From Clinton Street, we walked down through the Lower East Side (LES) to the South Street Seaport and then Tribeca. We went to Century 21 (discount department store and generally the most chaotic place imagineable) and managed to extricate ourselves before dinnertime. Todd and I just took advantage of the beautiful weather tonight and the new charcoal grills down in the courtyard by having a picnic out by the river. We've still been enjoying NYC, been out to a few new places. Last Wednesday, Todd was in cahoots with my friends here to plan a secret "going-away" party for me, which was held at Johnny Utah's, a new bar/restaurant in Rockafeller Center that I've really been wanting to go to. It's the only place in Manhattan with a mechanical bull and yes siree, I rode it! Twice! And, I did stay on for at least 8 seconds... It was great. All I need now is a pair of chaps. :) I can't wait to see all of you in NC... I'm going to try to bring a camera in to work this week to snap a few shots of the desserts I'm making. They really are extraordinary. The first pic here is of me playing with my "cocktail condiments" served at Pegu Club, the second is today at Clinton Street, then the Manhattan Bridge, and South Street Seaport (note the splash)...Have a great week!

Baking with Todd

Todd and I took a baking class together at the school this morning, called Best Ever Breakfast Baking. We had such a good time and made some delicious breakfast treats - cheddar cheese biscuits, cinnamon raisin pecan sticky buns, chocolate chocolate chunk scones and bacon scallion skillet cornbread. As always, the instructor was great and we met some really nice people. We boxed up our leftover treats and gave them to the staff here at the apartment building. It's rainy here today so it was the perfect way to spend the day.

Some Important Lists

Well, with less than a month left in NYC, I decided to make a list of the things that I miss most about NC and CAN'T WAIT to get back to. And... this is in the order that makes the best sense to me at this minute.
1. Family/Friends/Dogs
2. Our Home
3. Fewer expenses!
4. Real Grocery Stores
5. All of my kitchen tools, spices and cooking space
6. Trees, Grass, Nature
7. Our garden
8. My Car (blessing or not?)
9. The less-than-$10-cocktail
10. The mall
11. Good old southern hospitality
12. Durham city water
13. Foster's market
14. Our high-pressure shower head
15. Karaoke machine!
16. Biking in relative safety
17. Washer/Dryer in the house!
18. A YARD!
19. Target
20. Tarheel fans
21. The ice cream maker

And, here is a list of the things I'll hate to leave behind:

1. My new friends in NYC
2. Great restaurants/bakeries
3. The subway!!!
4. Lots of going out options
5. Being able to walk anywhere
6. Gym in my building
7. Views of the NY skyline, especially at night
8. real pizzerias
9. Thick Brooklyn accents
10. Great Adventure
11. Rodeo Bar
12. Free daily newspapers

Finally, here is a list of the things I will NOT miss about New York:
1. Smells in the subway station
2. BAD customer service
3. Expensive dinners and drinks
4. "Bottle service"
5. Yeah, yeah, yeah
6. Carrying bags of groceries home
7. Crazy drivers

I might update this again, but for now, it's pretty complete. I think... :)

More Cape Cod Pics

I should have probably uploaded these to an official photo-sharing site! Oh well! These are three more whale pics and then a picture of the little lobster shack where I had my favorite Cape Cod meal (fish and chips!) and lastly Todd with a little dog named Stella who was hanging out at her owner's store. How cute!

Weekend in Cape Cod

I had a long weekend off last week (Friday through Monday), so Todd took 2 days off work and we went away to Cape Cod. We stayed in Provincetown, a charming town at the tip of the cape. We had reservations at a quaint little inn and tickets to go whale watching on Saturday morning. We left NYC early-ish on Friday morning, caught the train to Greenwich, CT, where we picked up my friend Gabriela's car. Thanks to her, we actually were able to do this trip without having to rent! Yay! It took us a solid 5 hours drive from Greenwich and we arrived in P-town around 5:30 pm. We checked in and set out for some dinner and to check the place out. We had a nice seafood (the fish is so fresh!) dinner at a restaurant called BUBELAH'S (I thought of you, Evie). Excellent and we ate outside, which I always love. Now, for those of you who don't know, Provincetown is probably the USA's largest drag queen community, especially for such a TINY town. The queens were out, even before dark, riding around on their bicycles, tossing their feather boas about. We managed to resist the drag show on Friday night, settling instead for just walking around town and early night to bed. We got up for breakfast on Saturday, then headed out to the pier to catch our whale-watching boat. The whale trip was amazing! We saw over 20-30 whales, mostly humpbacks, but we did also see a Fin Whale and some Mincke Whales. The humpbacks are HUGE, and they get so close to the boat. Many of you might already know this, but humpback whales do not have any teeth at all, they feed using filters on their mouths called "baleens." Basically, they just open their huge mouths (the size of a large hottub or small swimming pool), let a bunch of water and other stuff in, then close their mouths and push the sea water out through the small holes in the baleen, which are large enough to let water get out, but fish and small eels and plankton get stuck in and become food. Since they are such huge animals (80 feet or so for full grown), the obviously must eat a lot. And, since they breathe air, they have to come up quite often. This all means that we had a VERY successful whale watching trip. It took us about an hour's trip out into the ocean, then we watched for about an hour, then an hour back. It was one of the more incredible experiences of my life and I LOVED it! When we got back, we had lunch at this place on the dock, then went back to the inn for A NAP. Does anyone out there know ME to take a nap? Well, I did. And it was great. We napped for a few hours, then out on the town. We ended up bypassing the "Naked Boys Singing" show for one that was a little more family friendly, the lovely Cashetta (America's only drag queen musician). She was pretty good and we had a fun time. When in Rome, right? On Sunday, we did a little historical sightseeing and climbed the Pilgrim Monument and went to the museum. Did you know that the pilgrims actually arrived FIRST in Provincetown? The climb was great exercise, just enough to get us ready for our next nap. I know it's hard to believe, but I did take another nap! WOW! Sunday night we drove into Wellfleet (a slightly larger town about 20 minutes inland) for dinner at Moby Dick's and then the drive-in movies! We saw Ratatouille - great, fun movie and it was very cool to go to my first drive in (that I remember, anyway). We had to get up pretty early on Monday to get the car back and we spent almost all day on the road - it was rainy and yukky.
Back to work on T/W/Th at the restaurant. I will fill you all in on the details later, but know that I am learning a lot and definitely being challenged! Hope you all had a wonderful week and weekend!

I can't keep silent!

It's been a hectic few days since I started my externship in full swing. I have been working long hours and not taking any pictures, but I do have a few pieces of random news bits and a few photos.

1. The other night, Todd and I went to dinner in the East Village (to a place called Candela Candela - don't ever go there), but the point of this story is that we were walking down the road and saw a motorcycle get sideswiped by a cab. It was terrible! Tires squealing, people flying in all directions. The cabbie was trying to pull to the curb, I guess to pick someone up, and failed to see that there was a motorcycle behind him to his right, and just knocked them right off. Knocked the bike to the ground. I ran over there, wishing I was driving an ambulance, because all the EMT training in the world doesn't help when you need an ambulance. Thankfully, both of the people on the motorcycle were fine, although I'm sure a bit bruised and scared and the cab driver was stunned. He sat in his car and couldn't even move to get out. I think he was terrified. Hopefully he will drive a little more carefully.

2. The other Heidi ("TOH") had her baby!!! Isaac Edward Bell was born on July 11th, just one day before yours truly. He's adorable. I'm going to post his picture here. He is a beautiful, perfect little baby.



3. I went to a graduation party for a friend of mine from school (Angela). Here she is with her dad at his restaurant. Although the party was a graduation, and it was held at an Italian restaurant, guess what the theme was?? Yes, LUAU! We had great fun!





4. I also got to visit with my college roommate and dear friend Cheryl on Monday. We had the most wonderful time and here are some pictures of her sweet little kids. I love them and they love me!!!

Birthday FUN Stuff

I just wanted to post a picture of the beautiful cake that my friends at PPD got for my birthday and, while I'm at it, a few of the fun gifts I got!! The cake was a chocolate praline from Financier (a GREAT bakery down by Wall Street - one of my 2 favorites). As you can see, we are working our way through it!! The next picture is of this snuggly, wonderful stuffed (but not too much) animal that my friend Gabriela got me. It's just the greatest thing to snuggle, except for Todd. It's unbelievably soft and (this is the best part) it is made with very little stuffing so that you can kind of just flop it around and wrap it around you. I slept in this morning (big time - see karaoke/dancing pictures from last night) and the elephant was a comfort. :) The next is of an old map Todd got for me (possibly dated 1890) - as many of you know, I LOVE MAPS! This one officially starts my collection. Next is the very OUTRAGEOUS cake server from Pylones that Todd also got me (he is a good husband) - not only is it a cake server (!!), but it's in the shape of a dog and it has DAISIES on it. My very own Daisy dog cake server. It works great (see picture #1). Last, the picture of the plates and glasses that my friend Ana got for me - how well do my new friends know me???

Graduation #2

I spent all of last weekend and most of this past week at this very computer, finishing my business plan and putting together my PowerPoint presentation. I made menus, design books, layout plans, etc. I took time out on Monday and Wednesday for the first 2 days of my externship at the restaurant. I spent all day (7-7) each day working and then came home to work on my school stuff. It came together very nicely and my business plan was presented on Thursday afternoon, with graduation that evening. It feels great to finally be DONE! Now, I just have to get through the next 6 weeks of my externship and I will be ready to enter the working world, get some experience and think more about opening my bakery/cafe. The plans look great! After graduation, Todd took me out to dinner for my birthday to a place called Picholine. The food and service were wonderful and my dinner date (TODD) was incredible. What a great husband I have! He woke me up on Thursday morning with birthday cake for breakfast (the way I like to start every birthday) and my wonderful friends at home arranged for ANOTHER cake that he picked up in the afternoon. I have 2 favorite bakeries in NYC and Todd's cake was from one of them and the other cake was from my other favorite. YUM! Gotta start a serious sugar detox tomorrow. :) I got some wonderful cards, messages and emails throughout the day. It really is the VERY BEST thing to have great friends and family. Please know as you are reading this that I think I am one of the luckiest people EVER to have you all in my life.

The first picture posted is of some of our class at graduation, the second is me with my graduation flower and (look closely) the FANTASTIC necklace Todd gave me for my birthday, Todd and Ron, our group at the bar and then Anastasia and I singing karaoke. Enjoy!

Guest Post from Todd: Heidi's Graduation from Pastry

This past Friday Heidi had her graduation from the pastry program. All of the seniors were introduced and awarded a chef's hat, a letter of recognition, and a book on cakes. The graduates will be "official" once they complete their externships. There's always one more hoop to jump through, isn't there?!



All of the seniors had their "Sugar Showpieces" on display. Heidi's Sugar Showpiece is pictured here. It is Heidi's interpretation of "Summer in New York" (the theme selected by the class), a 3-D image of the NY skyline and summer-themed bouncy things like fireworks, hot dogs, baseballs, flip-flops, and a bikini-top! Where's the bikini bottom?! It was very nicely done and a great execution of the theme. Way to go, Heidi! And I thought I was Heidi's "Sugar Showpiece." All of the students work was excellent. It was neat to see what everyone did for their final project. The visitors also had the chance to sample some of the class's handmade chocolates. I liked the green tea frogs! That was a real treat! And probably not all that bad for me.

Heidi, congratulations, on your graduation from the pastry program. We (me and your entire fan club) are so proud of you!

After graduation, Heidi and I had dinner with Gabriela and Josh at Tribeca Grill before retiring for the evening. We were all tired. I'm pretty sure that Heidi fell asleep on the subway with her head on my shoulder. She does that a lot and I like it. That is one of the things I will miss about our time in New York.

Happy 4th of July!

It was nice having the day off today, but I did spend most of it in front of the computer. Still working (HARD) on my business plan. I spent a lot of time on the menu and the design element, including a proposed layout (like a blueprint) and plan to put together a design portfolio with samples of furniture, paints, tiles, wood and decorative items that work well with my concept. I took a few hours break this afternoon to go into the city with Todd. We went down to Wall Street for another street fair. This one was pretty good! I tried to take Todd to Financier (one of my favorite bakeries), but they were closed (again)...We had dinner in and just went out to the waterfront to watch the fireworks display. It was a little rainy, but the SHOW WENT ON! Hope you all had a great 4th of July!