According to FAA regulations, planes cannot take off if there are more than two types of precipation falling. Well, what else is there besides rain and snow? As it turned out, on that day, Chicago was blessed with "freezing rain, freezing snow, freezing fog, and freezing pellets." (Don't ask me what the difference between hail and freezing pellets is.) Eventually, the intensity of the storm slackened enough that we were able to board. At that point, we needed to de-ice the plane, but after that was completed, they announced that 3 types of precipitation were now falling. Two hours of cat-and-mouse plane-de-icing and watching the storm later, we finally took off.
I'll be the first to admit that I have unusual tastes, but rice pudding has always been one of my favorite desserts. From the cinnamon rice pudding at Cedar's to Tibetan tsampa, you can't go wrong with a silky concoction of pudding, warm in the winter or studded with fruit and nuts in the summer. Enter Rice to Riches, a Nolita spot offering rice pudding and nothing else. With futuristic curved spoons and neon-colored bowls, rice pudding has never been sexier. We opted to try the cranberry-apple and gingerbread flavors, but there were dozens more options. The price is a bit of a turn-off, but if you are a rice pudding fan, it's worth a visit to see what new heights rice pudding can take you.
The Museum of Sex is comprised of two floors of a narrow building in Chelsea, barely noticeable for harried pedestrians below. The bland exterior conceals plenty of titillating material inside though. At the moment, the featured exhibit is about the sex lives of animals. Other sections of the museum discuss the history and medicalization of sexuality, and the depiction of sex in cinema. Having taken Desire senior year, much of this was old material for me, but it's still fun to spend an afternoon ogling hentai and humping ducks in the name of scientific inquiry.
Needless to say, Megan and I decided to tell her dad that we'd spent the afternoon at the Met.
On the LIRR to Ronkonkoma, we hit a bit of a bump in the road. Literally, the train was cruising along and we felt the bump of an impact. Megan asked, "Wait, did we hit a car?" I replied, "No way, we barely felt that...it must have been a clod of snow, or maybe a tree trunk." The train slowed to a stop and they announced, "We have just hit a vehicle. Please be patient while EMS and the police are called to the scene."
Of course, my first reaction was to comment, "Ugh, I hope no one died so we aren't sitting here forever." That elicited a dirty look from the woman across the aisle. At any rate, the car had been unoccupied when we hit it. In fact, we heard from a passing EMT that people had been pushing the car over the tracks when the train showed up. Talk about bad timing.
Since we are terrible people, Megan and I were sort of hoping that Channel 12 would show up and we'd get our 5 minutes of fame. Plus, I texted Matt with news of the train crash, and he responded with, "LOL pics or it didn't happen." Unfortunately, there was NO media coverage of the crash, not even a brief blurb on Newsday. So, I guess it didn't happen.
The Ferris holiday party promised to be a rollicking good time; last year, Darlene had infamously become so drunk, she got stuck in between the coffee table and the couch. At 6 pm, we started slinging back the drinks and gorging on hor d'oeuvres. It's been a while since I've had bacon, but that was a glorious night of bacon-wrapped everything and things on toothpicks. By 8 pm, the house was full and I was doing tequila rose shots with people twice my age. Megan's dad came over to ask what I thought of the party, and I said, "Why is this crazier than any of the parties we threw in college??"
I began chatting with Uncle Steve, who was trying to figure out the name of another woman without asking her. Since I was obviously new, I volunteered to do some reconnaissance and find out her name. Unfortunately, my terrible memory for names combined with a few drinks meant this mission was doomed to failure. I casually waltzed over and introduced myself, then excitedly came back and announced, "Her name's Loretta!" Uncle Steve said, "No way, that's definitely not it." We sent someone else to go ask, and the woman said, "Oh, I'm Christine." As a result, Uncle Steve called me "Loretta" the rest of the night, and I jokingly began calling him Richard. Collectively, we sat around and ribbed Megan's dad for the rest of the night. Uncle Steve/Richard: "See that man over there by the stairs? How many months pregnant do you think he is??"
By the end of the night, everyone was feeling festive and probably a menace on the roads. Hence, it was time to move the party to a local dive bar: Cutty's. Once there, through a series of unfortunate circumstances, Megan's dad, Gike (Megan's brother) and several of his friends got entangled in a bar brawl. Ah yes, the night isn't complete unless someone gets thrown to the ground. Luckily, they left before the police arrived, so aside from a few minor bruises, no damage was done.
The soup dumpling (小龍包) is a specialty of Shanghai, and it's fairly uncommon on menus in the US. Even less often are the dumplings made well. Fortunately, Alex introduced me to Joe's Shanghai in Chinatown, where the lighting is colorful, the tofu is spicy, and the soup dumplings are scalding hot. As is common in busy Chinese restaurants, we shared a table with two other parties, and got to ogle their food before ours arrived. The soup dumplings (8 for $4.95) did not fail to impress, as a bit of gentle pressure from the teeth resulted in a gush of flavorful broth from the dumpling.
For good measure, we later tried the midtown branch of Joe's Shanghai. Alas, the prices were higher and the food not as good. I was disappointed to find the dumplings rather tepid in temperature. However, as you might expect, the restaurant was decorated much more tastefully (the neon lights were gone) and we had a table to ourselves.
Next up, the Flushing location.
Though I am not a member, the Cornell Club is a familiar place to me because the marching band traditionally gets free dinner and showers here after the Columbia game. From what I could recall, the food was mediocre, but heck, after a long day of playing and parading down 5th Avenue, I wasn't about to complain.
On the other hand, Rhea is a current member, so she invited me to lunch at the Cayuga Room. The decor is sort of reminiscent of Banfi's (before the remodeling into Taverna Banfi), with lots of wood, paintings of scenes from Ithaca, and understated old-school elegance. The menu also seemed fairly conservative, with nothing that particularly caught my eye, however buried under the section "Dieter's Corner" was a $28 prix fixe menu. For the life of me, I can't understand why restaurants place calorie counts on menus; it was entirely distracting and the interspersed numbers made the menu difficult to read. Still, this was a pretty good deal for the location, so I opted for the shrimp gazpacho, salmon with saffron orzo, and chef's dessert trio (dark chocolate bark, berry shooter and whole almonds). The food was well-executed, a vast improvement from band banquets, and I particularly liked the dessert combination as a light cap to the meal. Rhea also had a coupon for a free bottle of wine, so we nursed that through the meal. Somehow, we managed to be the first guests to arrive and the last to leave, much to the chagrin of the waitstaff.
In a sign of how far we've come since graduation, Viki, Judy and I got together for afternoon tea on the Upper East Side. Alice's Tea Cup is a whimsical tea shop modeled after Alice in Wonderland, with all manner of butterflies, bright colors and curlicue writing on the walls. They serve scones with cream and preserves, in the classic English fashion, along with soup and sandwich options. But the true star of the show is the tea list, with over 100 varieties of tea and herbal infusions. I opted for the Trafalgar Square blend, which was purported to taste like a peppermint patty. As I sipped my tea, pinky extended, I felt ready to take on tea with the Queen next summer in London.
Clearly, karaoke the weekend before in Chicago wasn't enough, so when Jie suggested hitting a karaoke place in the city, I said, "I'll bring my diva and my throat lozenges." After an excellent squid ink pasta at Da Rosina, we trekked over to Japanese-run Karaoke Duet 48, where they were holding a small closet-sized room for us. Like the previous place, this karaoke joint had lots of quirky charm, with "My Neighbor Totoro" playing in the background and binders of Chinese and Japanese song titles. I thought the song selection last weekend was quite good, but this place offered even more esoteric options. Namely, I was really excited to see:
- Wicked, "Popular"
- High School Musical, "Breaking Free"
- A Chorus Line, "One"
- Estelle ft Kanye West, "American Boy"
- Puccini, "Nessun Dorma"
Expenditures: $165.50
Muchos gracias to everyone who bought me dinner and let me crash on their couch :P
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