Borscht Friends

On the days when I can think of nothing to do and despise the idea of sitting in my apartment, I walk around. Sometimes all the way across Central Park, sometimes all across lower Manhattan, but always with no one particular venue in mind. It's days and nights like these when I make some of the best discoveries, too.

This past Sunday, I found myself frequenting some of my regular haunts (McNally Jackson on Prince Street, where I sat and drank a steamed milk with honey while perusing a stack of magazines I had previously never heard of) and began itch with sameness. You know, that itch where you simply cannot bear to do the things you always do and must do something different now.

So I wound my way from SoHo up through the East Village--which, granted, is not at all out of the box for me, but I was looking for something in particular. This something was food, but it had to cost less than ten dollars, and it had to be yummy, and it had to be open after 9pm on a Sunday. Come to think of it, the last part shouldn't have been too difficult because, come on, it's New York! But I'm on 2nd Avenue because 3rd turns into that "there's no possible good food in this area" no-man's land near Cooper Square/the Astor Place stop for the 6 train (there's a McDonald's nearby). I considered Pommes Frites, but decided it was too heavy for right now, and I wasn't in a junk food mood. And then I saw a little green awning floundering in the light Autumn breeze, and I remembered: ohhhhh, that place!

B&H is a tiny little nothing of a restaurant, as some of my favorite places are. I had remembered reading about it in New York magazine when I was looking for cheap but yummy (or at least consistent) restaurants to take friends who were visiting. For whatever reason, I never actually got in the door. But it was perfect for right now. The little, seafoam green space may have been a hallway for something at some point, it's so slim. It has a lunch counter, the wonderful old kind with the leather-topped, chrome stools stuck right into the floor; next to it are some two-person tables with one four-person table in the back. I sidle up to the counter and peer around at the laminated signs printed on neon paper: SPECIAL MACARONI AND CHEESE WITH SOUP $10 and KNISH: SPINACH, KASHA, POTATO. Near the ceiling, a black slate with those tack-on letters tells me some more of the restaurant's offerings. It is all vegetarian and kosher, two things I do not actively seek in a restaurant but am also not one to dismiss. The place serves Jewish soul food, and on that oddly warm-ish fall night, my Jew(ish) soul was craving a cold soup, preferably a borscht. For my goyim friends, this is a beet soup served with sour cream. And maybe a knish. "How much for a knish?" I asked the clearly not-Jewish gentleman behind the counter in a white apron. "Eh, if you get the borscht I give you knish and borscht for only $8 since you don't want the bread," he responds with a Spanish accent. But I wasn't that hungry, so I just stuck with the soup.

My bowl arrived, a plain white porcelain one with the fuchsia soup dripping over the side onto a plate. It was plonked down in front of me with a spoon. This particular borscht featured beet slivers, cream, dill and probably even some sugar since it was rather sweet. Each little spoonful was accompanied by a swipe of sour cream and made for a perfect little dinner on the go, for only $5. Wonderfully enough, everything on the menu is under $10, from blintzes to bagels to omelets. Sure, B&H may not look like much when you first walk in, but it's been there over 60 years so it's certainly doing something right. As I sat and ate my soup, I felt for a moment I was locked in the 1950s: a single gal at a lunch counter in the big city, the world at her feet. I could easily overdose on nostalgia, or I could just be excited by the fact that it's actually 50 years later and everything else is still true.

B&H
127 Second Ave., near St. Mark's Place
212-505-8065
(no website)

Last Night in Town

Forgive me, dear blog readers, for I have been remiss! It's great to be busy, but sometimes life just gets away from you for a bit. That being said, here's a story.

I had been blessed for a few months to have not one, but two fabulous Norwegian roommates! As I have said to other people before, most people don't even have one Norwegian roommate, but I have two!! SEP is a friend of CN's and now, of course, of mine too. I am sure we will have many divine adventures together, so you'll be seeing her name more often. Life in New York is certainly a struggle, for even the most successful people, but having a wonderful roommate--nay, a friend who lives with you and whose company you quite enjoy--makes life that much easier. So knock on wood!

CN departed for the Motherland this past Wednesday, and to celebrate we had one last night out. What was funny was that I thought we were just going for ice cream, so 10 minutes before we were supposed to leave, I threw on a pair of jeans and went to wash my face, only to see CN curling her hair in the bathroom. "My, you're getting awfully dressed up just for ice cream!" I laughed. "What?" she said. "We're going out! It's my last night!" Ohhhhh. Insta-fashion challenge accepted! I changed into something more fabulous and threw on a fur.

We made our way down to Serendipity 3, the restaurant famed for its frozen hot chocolate. Despite the chill currently in the air, CN had read about the treat in a book I had called "The Best of New York" and decided she wanted to go before she left. I skipped dinner because I wanted to have one little restaurant's famed desserts instead. So not only did we have the frozen hot chocolate, which tastes exactly as it sounds, but I also had a Drugstore Sundae, with three scoops of vanilla ice cream, hot fudge, and whipped cream. Trust me, friends, it may sound simple, but that is what a hot fudge sundae is supposed to taste like. Thick, almost pudding-like hot fudge--none of this chocolate syrup nonsense--and homemade whipped cream that was fluffy and cloud-like. I ate all of the ice cream, since the hot fudge was too rich to eat just by itself.

Our next stop was The Randolph, at the suggestion of CN's gentleman friend. I say this last fact because it was very much a man-bar, but not in the obnoxious frat boy way. This was the bar of a man who read GQ but didn't wear a suit all the time, who wore loafers or wingtips without socks and had a groomed mess of facial hair. Leather couches, walls of dark-paneled wood and, interestingly enough, only artisan cocktails--no Red Bull and Vodka up in this joint. We drank a bunch of wine and talked about nothing, as we are wont to often do. Having been on medication and without alcohol for a while, my one glass of Malbec left me muttering absurdities as we took a cab to our next destination at around 2 am. Because having a next destination at 2 am is one of the great things about New York.

It turned out to be Le Baron, where everyone (except me, comically enough) wears black or white or flannel and looks like they just left an art gallery in Brooklyn. The club is sandwiched between a series of Chinese funeral homes at the intersection to two streets I've never heard of in a sort-of Chinatown-ish area. Dear lord, these hip places are just in the most absurd locations, aren't they? I'm having a Stefon moment just thinking about it. Having the velvet ropes lifted for us, we entered into a dark space filled with false smoke from a machine nearby. On the tiny dance floor, the DJ was killer (Franco V who, surprisingly, was not a guido), though--lots of old school tracks mixed with fresh ones, like Snoop Dogg next to Hall and Oates next to Springsteen next to The Ting Tings. At 3:30, SEP and I decided to call it a night and we drunkenly talked about our exes and how unhappy they made us on the way home. While SEP smoked a cigarette on our fire escape, I checked my email, because that's what I do at 4am. CN called me and asked me what that drink was that we had almost a year ago, when I took her to "that Jewish place? Something creamy?" she half-slurred. It was an egg cream, I said. I will miss her.

Rockin' in the Free World?

I had heard about the Global Citizen Festival peripherally; that is, I vaguely remember someone posting about it on Facebook. There was some kind of lottery, something, free music, a park? But it wasn’t until HL told me about it that I actually listened.

The Global Citizen Festival arose from The Global Poverty Project, dedicated to ending poverty around the globe within this generation. It turned out to be the “largest syndicated charity concert online and in broadcast TV history,” drawing 60,000 people to Central Park’s Great Lawn. The show, completely on the free, included none other than K’Naan, Band of Horses, The Black Keys, Foo Fighters, and Neil Young with Crazy Horse. HL had entered the lottery to win tickets, got two, and invited me.

At 11:30am on Saturday, September 29, I went to buy snacks. I didn’t know how long we’d be in line, how crazy expensive food would be, if we’d even be able to move from our spots to get any. I knew 60,000 tickets had been given out, so I didn’t really want to be at war with that many people for a stupid sandwich. So Baked Ruffles and Pirates’ Booty it was. The gates were set to open at 2pm, so HL and I arrived at noon (well, she did—I got there at 12:15 because the crosstown bus is sometimes a bitch) and waited outside Central Park. We snacked, we talked, we tried not to listen to obnoxious teenagers standing in line with us. And, finally, the line moved and in we went.

We were sent on a long, winding expedition through the park, I think traveling something like 16 blocks north of where we were once we got inside. Slow walker that I am, HL reached out her scarf to me and said, “Don’t let go!” as she yanked on the scarf and hurried me along the path with her. We were among some of the first hundreds to arrive and found ourselves a snug little spot up against the barricades, in perfect view of the center of the massive stage, a massive reproduction of the Global Poverty Project logo. There were some not-so-great things about the way the concert was set-up, but I’ll ignore those here because, well, I got to see five pretty awesome acts for free.

While I have great respect for the concert’s vision, the way the information about poverty was presented was a little counterintuitive. That is, we were simply a captive audience: I’m willing to venture that most of us just wanted to hear the music. I’m basing this on the fact that multiple times throughout the evening groups of people shouted “MORE MUSIC” and the name of the band slated to appear after each informational video. This is not to say that I think the cause is stupid and I certainly do not mean to appear ungrateful, but I am saying it’s important to know one’s audience. It is, however, very exciting to know all of the work that’s being done to end poverty by all of these fantastic celebrities, supermodels and musicians. I am glad they all have the time and money to spare for such a worthy cause. Unfortunately right now in my life I am not in such a place, but I assure you as soon as I do I will donate some extra dollars to a worthy cause.

That being said, let’s talk tuneage. Way to go, Band of Horses! I would definitely buy your album, and it was awesome to hear everyone sing along to “Great Salt Lake.” And a surprise appearance by John Legend, singing John Lennon’s “Imagine” with just a piano. The Black Keys? Killin’ it. BABY I’M HOWLIN’ FOR YOU (da da dad a da…). Dan Auerbach, why are you so sexy? You’re like an indie blues rock James Dean. Please and thank you. I didn’t remember you being that sexy when I saw you in Pittsburgh (also for free, incidentally). Foo Fighters, on point as always. Thanks for playing the hits! That girl three rows behind me screaming “WOOOOOOOO” was a little much, but you’re worth it, Dave Grohl. He said this was the last time they’d be performing for a while?!?! Sad days! I remember when I saw them in concert with Weezer in 2005 (side note: I’m old). Never realized how uplifting many Foo Fighters songs are! “Times Like These” indeed. Actually, it was hearing that song that finally incited my desire to purchase a Global Citzen Festival t-shirt. I wanted to look back and be able to show my kids or godchildren this cool thing I went to—as if someone would show me now their Live Aid t-shirt from the 1980s. Except I think people had to pay for those tickets? Whether I thought it was the most awesome concert ever or not, it was nonetheless historical, and it’s cool to know you’re a part of history.

A lot of people cleared out before Neil Young played last with Crazy Horse. After that, all at once a bunch of dudes over 50 simultaneously began to smell like weed and rock out. Curious. I didn’t really understand why until the end of the “Walk Like a Giant on the Land” song where it…didn’t actually end and was just a series of thrusts on the guitar and drum executed simultaneously for god literally knows how long. At one point I fell to my knees and just started laughing, holding on to HL’s leg. Since when was Neil Young and Crazy Horse a jam band? Even so, he can shred a guitar like nobody’s business, even though he is older than…lots of things. Until I heard “Giants,” though, I was all about getting some Neil Young records and just listening to him shred melodically while I worked. He didn’t play “Heart of Gold,” I imagine because he’s Neil Young and he just does whatever the hell he wants and he’s not getting paid anyway—I’ve been told Dylan does the same in concert. He finished with “Rockin’ in the Free World,” accompanied by Auerbach and Grohl on guitar, everyone shredding and being awesome (forgive me, I am a tad tired from standing for 10+ hours and my vocabulary is slightly lacking). It was cool, I got what they were trying to do, I don’t really know if they succeeded, but I got to hear some sweet tunes for free, so it wasn’t by any means a loss. It made curling up on my couch and falling asleep that much easier, knowing I didn’t have to be anything other than a pair of ears and eyes. And I am always happy to hear and see some good rock and roll.

Rosh Hashanah Drunken Potluck

As a young Manhattanite trapped in a South Floridian's body, some of my first exposure to New York was from Friends, only one of the greatest television shows of all time. I watch reruns of it like it's my job now, but that's beside the point. One of the episodes I remembered strongly this week was "The One Where Underdog Gets Away," where all of the Friends for whatever reason miss out on their family's annual Thanksgivings for the first time and wind up eating together.

While I haven't missed spending "the big holidays" with my family, sometimes the little ones slip by. For me personally, these are a lot of the Jewish holidays that, really, I didn't celebrate all that much growing up anyway. After I left home, these became the kinds of holidays I only celebrated if someone else was putting together a dinner or something for them. Luckily, though, since I have known JE and L, they have been kind enough to invite me to their annual Rosh Hashanah Drunken Potluck, which was this past Monday.

I don't mind the hour-or-so trek to their apartment because it's always filled with their warmth and kindness, cool people, and deliiiiiiicious food. Creatively decorated with old French posters, vinyl records, a stolen ottoman, and books books books, I envy the way JE and L have decorated their home so it truly looks like a home (sometimes I wonder if my own space is too spare-looking). A gold, hookah-style ashtray sits on their coffee table and people smoke cigarettes or not cigarettes. Blondie is playing on the turntable, and JE walks over to change the record. "Anyone mind some Sam Cooke?" she says, gesturing with a cigarette in her hands. She changes the record and bobs about the apartment, dancing and shaking her tailfeathers. I am sure, many moons down the road, if you ask me what my favorite memory of JE is, this is what I will say.

In the kitchen, people congregate around the square table, currently outfitted with a variety of challah breads, desserts, and dining paraphernalia. JE and L have two roast chickens in the oven--I marvel at their ingenuity because, well, I think being able to roast a chicken is quite ingenious (a friend of mine once noted that all of the things I make have three ingredients or less...we are what we are). Not to mention the spinach kugel and stuffing they've made and the sweet kugel another guest has made. It occurs to me that I am far from ever being a proper Jewish wife, given that I didn't even know the food associated with the holiday until I got there ("Is this the one where I bring chocolate covered matzoh?" I asked my mother when deciding what to bring. "Oy. No, idiot, that's Passover," she said).

While the chickens are chickening, people who normally might not know each other make conversation, and not begrudgingly because everyone is interesting. People work in publishing, people work in visual design in department stores, people are writers and artists in this little evening's little slice of bohemia. It's often easy to make friends with your friends' friends because they obviously have good taste!

When the buzzer goes off, JE and L assemble all of the foodage and we line up to dine, buffet-style. We have paper plates and plastic forks and mugs for drinks and I like it so much better than having to sit up straight at a dinner table and answer questions about who I'm seeing and whether or not they're Jewish. The chicken is juicy and tangy, the kugels are thick and filling, and the stuffing is lip-smacking. We drink Manischewitz, that oh-so-sugary and medicinal kosher wine (Grape flavored), from mugs and then listen to the Grease soundtrack, everyone singing along.

This may not be an experience that's necessarily unique to New York, but it is unique to my New York. As I've said many times, everyone's experience of the city is different--there is no one way to show people this city. There are often moments like these, though, that I just want to bottle and hold on to forever. Maybe one day, years from now when we're all living in apartments we've actually bought with our publishing royalties, we will look back and say, "Hey, remember the Rosh Hashanah Drunken Potlucks at JE and L's old apartment?" as we stare out onto the city from their penthouse, nothing above us but sky.

The Last Days of Disco*

*And by disco I mean summer.

Those near and dear to me know it takes me nine years to put photos online, so you all now will have to forgive me for posting these photos from the end of summer now that we are fully entrenched in fall.

Harlem Day

In Which I Learn You Can Take Pictures at the Met

The Incredible Miss Peppermint

Hula in the Park

Who are all the tall, skinny people?

Fashion Week takes over parts of New York in a big way--for seven days, anyone remotely related to the business of fashion eschews all forms of their “regular” work and clomps back and forth in high heels or wingtips to show after show after show. I have the pleasure of being a part of this biannual event, though I am often photographing and hanging out backstage, so my clomping is often limited to my motorcycle boots which, at times, I like better.

For the layman, Fashion Week just sort of appears, but to those involved, we see it coming far in advance, be it in the emails we get from PR companies, the construction of the tents at Lincoln Center or, my new favorite way, seeing the models slinking about town in the middle of the day going to and from castings. Every time I see one I think to myself, ‘Ah yes, the rare beast steps forth from its natural habitat and emerges into the wild in search of food,’ though in this case when we say food we are of course referring to modeling gigs.

They are tall and slender, all of them; their faces are angular and of unusually precise symmetry. Females wear shorts and flats, carrying in their canvas tote bags the sky-high heels in which they will strut once they get to a casting. Faces absent of the makeup that will be caked upon them come Fashion Week, hair natural and free of the products that will be teased into them, their skinny jeans only slightly touch their protruding hipbones, their shorts reveal legs longer than I am tall. Men have sunken eyes, white t-shirts, and Ray-Bans; some wear Doc Martens or cowboy boots; their skin, like their female counterparts, is spotless. As irony would have it, they all do in fact look rather wild, untamed and unleashed into the daytime amongst the rest of New York’s creatures of all shapes and sizes.

I imagine the average New Yorker not employed in the fashion industry would not often have the occasion to see a lone model walking in the subway, mostly because these castings to or from which they are heading happen in the middle of the day. While bankers are office bound, safely tucked away in their suits, and PR girls wiggling about in their pencil skirts, the models stalk the land looking for their next opportunity to pounce upon. They are almost safer this way, free from the men who will grab their arms and try to buy them drinks, from street photographers snapping beams of lights in their faces as they take pictures. I don’t know if the average person would even know who they are or what they do, but might instead wonder, ‘Who is this tall, skinny person? I didn’t even know such creatures existed!’ or something perhaps less eloquent.

Backstage they are just human—they text, they listen to music, they (yes!) read books, they laugh with each other and they make annoyed faces when a hairstylist is somehow still fluffing their hair even though they’ve probably fluffed all there is to fluff and at this point are just being anal retentive. Girls sit passively while manicurists paint their nails in shades they might never normally consider wearing, brushes simultaneously thwapped against their faces making color appear where there was once none. And the men are sometimes even more beautiful than the women because they wear no makeup at all (most of the time, anyway, depending on what weird-ass designer decides to put blue eyeshadow on their male models).

The fashion industry gets a lot of flack for their use of these persons, their bones lacking less than the ‘normal’ amount of body fat of a person who might actually buy the clothes. Models aren’t “real” by whoever’s standards. And, to be fair, when I see models, part of me wants to sigh, ‘Ugh, not more of these people. Why don’t they just eat a fucking donut?’ but that part is outweighed by the sheer appreciation of seeing someone so unusual walking across (or under) the streets of New York. Hey, these people are people too, you know? They look pretty real to me.

Next Time, Flirt With The Cops

I will preface this story by admitting to the following:

1) Yes, it was perhaps dumb of me to not be aware of open container laws in New York. We are, unfortunately, not living in Paris after all.

2) I am occasionally completely oblivious to the power of being female.

Now we begin.

This past Saturday was a warm but slightly cloudy day at Brighton Beach, where I met up with my ladies, EH and TDS, both of whom I hadn’t seen in some months. EH is usually off being an awesome med student, and TDS was finishing school and being all theatre-y this summer. But we managed to convene for a day of leisure and booze at the beach. Yes, we would imbibe wine—red, because it didn’t need to be refrigerated—and sit in the sand and sun and surf and it would be glorious lady time.

No sooner had we opened our bottle of wine and sipped from our tiny, clear tumblers, roll up two police officers in their police officer golf cart. “Hi ladies,” they said. “You’re drinking wine, right?”

“Yeah,” I said, my voice weighted with attitude and an inherent distrust of the authorities.

“Are you from here?” they asked, smiling.

“Here?” I said, raising an eyebrow.

“Yeah, the five boroughs,” said the one behind the wheel, leaning forward and giving me attitude right back. “Sometimes we get visitors drinking on the beach.”

“Well, I’m not from here, but I live here,” I said. Which is clearly not something I would have said if I thought I was doing something wrong.

“Oh, you’re just taking the out,” said the one behind the wheel, as if I was lying.

“Uh, I’ll show you my ID. I’m not from here.” I whipped out my Florida driver’s license when cops asked for all of them.

“We weren’t going to give you a ticket,” they said. “Now we have to.” They took our licenses and wheeled their stupid little cart around to the back of our towels. I sat and looked at them.

“Is there a problem, miss?”

“Uh, yeah, I’d love to know what you’re doing with our IDs.”

“We have to call in and see if there are any warrants for your arrest.” The three of us girls laughed, as if we three were somehow wild bandits who, after escaping all of the possible crimes we had yet to be captured for, had decided to finally get caught by the law by having a goddamned glass or four of Montepulciano on the beach. “And then we’re going to give you a ticket.”

“I don’t understand,” I said. “You just said you weren’t going to. Why can’t you not do that?”

He explained something about doing us a courtesy by only giving us a $25 citation because technically we were in the NYC Parks Administration jurisdiction and not NYPD territory. Normally tickets would be $150. Rather intelligently, EH chimed in, “Wouldn’t it be more of a courtesy to not give us the ticket at all, like you said you weren’t going to?” But they had already beeped into headquarters or whatever the crap they did and it wasn’t possible anymore. Meanwhile, I was wondering where they were this past week when that crazed shooter opened fire at the Empire State Building. It’s a rough life being a Brighton Beach cop, strolling around the beach in your golf cart all day, wearing shorts, and confiscating alcohol.

“Look,” I said. “I really don’t understand. I’m just trying to have a good time out here with my girls, we never get to see each other, we’re not hurting anyone, and we really didn’t know this was an issue.” I wanted to say, we all have college degrees, we’re not so dumb to so blatantly violate the law like that, but I didn’t want to take the chance and offend them into giving us the $150 tickets.

“We understand, Miss M,”—my skin crawled; I hate it when people I am clearly displeased with call me by my name. I much prefer “ma’am” or “miss” coming from jerks I can’t be bothered with.—“so we’re not going to confiscate your wine. You can keep drinking it. If another officer comes, just politely show them the ticket and they won’t bother you.” What the fuck? JUST DON’T GIVE ME THE TICKET, ASSHOLE.

Pubic Consumption

But they did. And thankfully it didn’t go on our permanent records, it’s just a citation for—as so beautifully, incorrectly printed on the back of the ticket—“pubic consumption.” The cops drove away in their stupid little cart. I felt bad for how small their penises probably were.

This all happened, of course, while we were surrounded by people drinking beer directly from bottles. I should have lied about where I was from, I said.

“I think he wanted you to flirt with him,” EH said.

“He what?”

“The one in the driver’s seat, the cute one.”

Christ. So if I had just giggled and pushed my boobs together the three of us would be $25 richer? This really didn’t even occur to me.

“You gave the cop attitude and you didn’t flirt with him?” my mother said. “You got what you deserved. Stop with the feminist bullshit because it’s only going to get you tickets. Welcome to the real world.” Because, really, why else would two fit cops roll up to three pretty girls (not to toot our own horns, just being real) when there was a beach full of flabby older folks also drinking from open containers all around them?

To be fair, the feminist angle didn’t even register at the time—it was more of the ‘get out of my face, cop’ angle that I was pursuing and, apparently, it was not a good color on me.

New life lesson: acknowledge you are an object and get yourself out of anything with your boobs and your smile. Three cheers for feminism, a woman’s rising place in the world, career goals, and a sense of general decorum. Also, no drinking on the beach. Well, at least not from so blatant a container.