Chelsea

So I've had the last 4 Saturdays off from Williams-Sonoma for various family visits and other activities. One of those Saturdays in the middle I just wasn't scheduled so I decided to turn it into an explore New York day. I'm gonna have to have those more often. My friend Sabrina recently moved to NYC so she wanted to join in on the exploring. We decided to pick an area and spend the afternoon there. This week's destination: Chelsea.

We checked out a street market, wandered through the Historical District, and walked almost the entire length of the Highline. The sun was shining and it was a beautiful day. It was finally t-shirt and sandal weather (the weather has since reverted back to cold windy-ness but it was nice for a day). We spent all afternoon just exploring and enjoying the beautiful weather! Here are a few pictures from our exploring adventure:

When we were walking to the subway we got sucked into this pack of people doing a march against violence. Good thing it was for a good cause!

 

Our adventure of the day was giving ourselves a tour of an old church and the grounds. We'd read online it was one of the things you should see in Chelsea, so as we were walking by we decided to try and take a look. We rang the buzzer on the gate like the sign said, and another woman walked up just after us and did the same. Security came out and let us in, so we wandered around the gardens and the buildings and looked at the intricate carving and detailing. The interior of the church was beautiful. After awhile as we went to leave a group of ladies were trying to get into the grounds- and we overheard security tell them it was not open to the public on weekends. Oops. I guess they must have though we were with the other woman, but nobody ever asked- they just let us in without any questions! I guess we looked religious enough. I'm glad we got to accidentally sneak in, it was a fun adventure for our exploration day!

Beautiful spring blossoms.

 

 

The pictures above are of the Highline, which I think is a really cool "new" addition to NYC. It was an old elevated railroad track running through Chelsea. Not too long ago it was going to be torn down (because what purpose is there to old railroad tracks other than places for shady meetings right?), to create space to build more buildings (if I wasn't an architect I'd say something like "because Manhattan really needs more buildings" but I need to have a job ;). Any.way. A group of people got together and decided to turn it into a park. I think they did a fantastic job. It is now an elevated park that runs from near the West Village up to about 34th street. At the bottom of it you can look out and see the Statue of Liberty in the distance, and at the top you're almost level with the Empire State Building. Not only is a park a great idea in the middle of all the buildings, but they kept portions of the old railroad tracks and integrated them into the landscaping. And they continued to make it awesome by using that design concept to then create seating areas, pavilions, "city viewing" spots, etc. I call it a success!

Statue of Liberty off in the distance.

 

We took a break from the Highline to hop over to the Chelsea Market, which is a food market in the old Nabisco factory. Which also happens to be where the Oreo was invented. Yes New York is awesome. Just in case you were doubting that.





Mmm. Look at all those spices!

It was a really fun day. We finished it off with a birthday party for some friends and then exhaustedly made our way home completely worn out from our exploring. Hopefully I'll have another free Saturday afternoon soon so we can tackle another part of NYC!

Angel Food Deliciousness

April's Iron Chef event ingredient was egg. I don't like eggs very much so that was a tough one for me. Why would I want to make a bunch of egg dishes that I eat when I have to for breakfast but will not voluntarily eat or make for dinner haha. Plus there was a catch with that nights event and the catch was this- my friend who was hosting the event didn't have gas at her apartment- meaning anything you brought had to be served at room temperature or reheated in a microwave, no stove or oven use. (They do usually have gas but a pipe had burst in January, yes January and they hadn't had gas since then. Ridiculous! The good news is they finally  have it again, and threw a delicious Cinco de Mayo party to celebrate it last week.) Being stumped by all this, I turned to my brilliant mother for advice. She's probably getting tired of having to give me food ideas for the last 25 years but she better get used to it because I'm sure I will still continue to do it forever!

After some thought (like 2 min, seriously how does she come up with these things?) she recommended an Angel Food cake from scratch. Unfortunately she'd never made one from scratch herself so she didn't have a recipe or any advice but I googled it (don't know what I would do without google!) and found a recipe with some instructions and decided to give it a shot! My friend Sabrina pitched in and helped me get the cake started before she had to leave town.

Whipping those egg whites!

It takes A LOT of eggs to make Angel Food cake.

The last thing you want to do when you've just baked a cake... flip it upside down to cool. But it must be done!

On the bright side I got to hang out here while it was cooling. Not so bad, eh?

Yum.

Attempt #1 at homemade Angel Food cake was not too bad. It tasted good, but was definitely not as tall and fluffy as it was supposed to be. I'm pretty sure I overbeat the egg whites to stiffer peaks than the soft peaks they were supposed to be- I'm used to beating egg whites with a hand mixer and it went a little faster in the stand mixer than I was expecting... Next time will be better. So now it's my challenge, attempt it again and see if we can improve! It was still delicious piled with fresh strawberries and whipped cream. Yum :) And as for the Iron Chef, there were a lot of delicious options beyond breakfast foods. Well done girls. This month: coconut. Any brilliant suggestions?

Thieves

I never thought I'd say the following words in NYC, but... A squirrel stole my lunch. That's right. A squirrel. Thieving rodents.

There I was, volunteering at Jackie Robinson Park in Harlem (yes, I know who Jackie Robinson is- my dad was skeptical but I at least have some sports knowledge) with my ward for New York Cares Day. We were busy scraping and painting the benches so I set my grocery sack by the rest of our supplies to wait for lunch time. After a few hours we decided it was lunch time so I headed back to grab my lunch from the supply pile. On my way a couple people from the ward hollered to me that we had leftover food from breakfast which I declined because I had lunch. Or so I thought.

Upon arriving back to the supply pile I discovered a hole in my bag. And a hole in my sandwich bag with my peanut butter and honey sandwich half eaten. And my tortilla chips completely gone- bag and all. Apparently squirrels are not into eating healthy, they just prefer junk food (can't say I blame them there).

Now you know, in NY you don't just have to watch out for human thieves you have to watch out for squirrels too. Go figure.

Scraping off the old paint and getting ready for the fresh new coat!

Spring... Where'd ya go? I miss you so...

Spring came to NYC. Unfortunately then it left again :( BUT on the days that it was here I made sure to take advantage of it by eating lunch outside at the park. Along with about a billion other people. I'm pretty sure everyone within walking distance of the park was at the park eating their lunch on the day it reached 80- yes 80- degrees.

 



Today was cold again. Yuck. I'm ready for spring- real spring... with warm weather, capris, sandals, and lunch at the park every day- and most importantly NO JACKET!!! Yeah, I'm ready.

Easter Ham and Conference Crepes

I decided to put our living room/kitchen to good use and invite people over for Easter and General Conference. I think we can call both weekends a success!

First up, Easter. Easter means ham. I've never made a ham and I wasn't sure if I wanted to try. But I figured I might as well learn sooner rather than later so I gave it a shot! Since there were only going to be three of us I didn't need to get a big ham (which is practically all the stores sell), so I went looking for a small piece. When I could only find giant hams I was tempted to ask them where the piglets were ;) Just kidding, I wouldn't want to eat a piglet. Just a small portion of a large full-grown ham. I don't think they would have appreciated that question. Luckily I found what I was looking for, and since the small ones don't come with a glaze I made my own.

The small portion of a large ham. Studded with cloves and ready for the homemade honey glaze!

I let the ham sit in the glaze overnight and it turned out surprisingly good if I do say so myself. In addition to the ham I also made my Aunt Marilyn's potato casserole and homemade rolls, and green beans (you have to have a vegetable!). My friend Veronica is a pastry chef at Bouchon Bakery and she brought us delicious brownies, a chocolate bunny, and truffles. Yum. It was a fun night, and a great Easter.

The surprisingly delicious ham.

Homemade rolls. Yum.

Pretty flowers for Easter. So excited for Spring!

Scripture study in the park at one of my favorite reading spots :)

For conference I continued the fun from my college days (girls of 305!) with conference crepes. We had lots of yummy toppings for the crepes, plus my mom's poppyseed bread (one of my favorites).

Poppyseed bread.

Yum. And aren't they pretty?

Nutella, peanut butter, strawberries, sugar... Does it get any better?

 

 

In between sessions we went for a walk in Central Park. I love NYC. I mean how great is that- two spiritually uplifting conference sessions and a walk in the best park ever? Pretty fantastic!

 

 

My roommate Suzanne on the right, and my friend Veronica in the middle.

 

I'd say we did a pretty good job of taking care of all that food ;)

 



Empty shelves and lines out the door

Only in NYC do you have lines out the grocery store doors...

 



That line goes past the Bank of America and wraps around the corner. Small grocery stores. Monday night (always the worst for grocery shopping here). Nice weather. And unfortunately this next picture all contribute to long lines:

This is the grocery store around the corner. It's closing... and the shelves are all becoming empty :(

Although I do most of my grocery shopping at TJ's it was nice to have the grocery store right around the corner for last minute items. Hopefully something good goes in- rumor has it there will be another drugstore. We already have a billion of those around here so I'm hoping for something else. Until then I'll enjoy the close-out sales- I've been stocking up on spices at half price :)

Sometimes I do miss my car...

Seating in my apartment is limited, and since I was having people over for brunch on Sunday we needed a few more chairs. So I took a trip to Target in Brooklyn to get some inexpensive folding chairs. Getting there wasn't a problem... But it would have been very nice to have a car on the way back. Bet you've never hauled a couple of chairs on the subway from Brooklyn to the Upper West Side! Well, I have. Luckily the chairs are very light and not bulky, and the first train I was on from Brooklyn to Times Square was practically empty so I parked my chairs and my groceries (did I mention I also had a full Trader Joe's bag to carry?) and read my Architect magazine until I transferred trains and it wasn't bad at all. Once I transferred to the local train it was packed and I was very squished. Not so fun. In the end, I made it home with the chairs and the groceries all in one piece. Not even a broken egg.

Two chairs and my groceries. On the subway.

 

4 lbs of strawberries. Yum. And they smelled delicious (and made my cubicle smell good)!

Apparently in Brooklyn they don't "throw" pillows, they "toss" them.