Tag Archives: date night

New York , for very obvious reasons, has been at the tippity top of my brain lately.  While I’ve of course been keeping my buttery fingers (ahem, lots of pie dough) as directly on the electronic pulse of the recovery after Sandy as possible, I’ve found myself also thinking back to where I’d be if I were where I was just over one year ago.

That is, most likely hunkering down for dinner in a kitchen that was surely turned into a veritable fish tank of sorts by one overflowing Hudson.

After mentally swimming out my front door and up Eighth Avenue (presumably to the nearest un-flooded wine shop), I’ve thought about how here, over five-thousand feet up in the clear blue sky, a flood is something that just isn’t on our radar.  Scary forest fires….yes….but the horror of watching the salty dregs of the East River rise up and totally comsume my corner bodega or favorite brunch spot?  

Not even a blip on my Colorado radar.

And that got me thinking about the other heres and theres; the funny little disparities between one very distinct place and one very different other.  You know…the things that one can only truly become ‘used to’ after ‘really’ living somewhere.  I thought back to a few weeks ago, when I was perched at an outdoor table at The Kitchen Next Door, enjoying a glass of Drydock Apricot Ale and chatting with a couple of friends in the sunshine, when two fire trucks went screaming by us on 11th Street.  I happily sipped my frosty mug of suds and adjusted the tone of my voice only slightly higher to continue on telling whatever (probably bad) joke or (definitely) side-stich inducing story about the World’s Cutest Pug I was wrapped up in at that moment.

Totally ignoring me, my tablemates made the kind of face you make when your husband unexpectedly presents your olfactory system with a jug of milk he suspects has gone off, and my girlfriend protectively covered her baby’s brand new ears.  My other friend, clearly alarmed, jumped up out of his seat with a start and yelled, really to no one in particular, “WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?!?”

I sat right where I was, feeling a bit confused whilst calmly drinking my beer and picking at the remnants of a plate of garlic smashers, whose deliciousness is much more deserving of screaming and yelling that a couple of lousy sirens and racing red engines.  (At least in my opinion.)

{but wait! there’s more…}

Somewhere in the course of these quick and short weeks, our sunshiny Summer days have been replaced with the still-sunshiny (albeit shorter) early days of Autumn.  The silvery lining to all of this is the advent of chilly mornings, piping hot cups of chai, and the expectation that adding bacon and cream to anything is not only perfectly acceptable, but absolutely advisable.

For when else but Fall does one get the sudden urge to jettison everything ‘fresh’ and ‘crunchy’ and ‘crisp’ in favor of those things that are soft, oozy, and lovely? I for one am not the champion of all things rich when my white skinny jeans are still in heavy rotation — oh no.  I want watermelon salads and cool gazpacho; avocado topped toasts and wedges of heirloom tomatoes.

But when the winds change, and those skinnies are swapped out for knee high boots and chunky knits, I suddenly find myself craving something more.  And ‘more‘ doesn’t necessarily equate to something totally unhealthy or excessively heavy.

(However I’m quite certain my weekend buffalo wing habit is taking me nowhere good.)

{but wait! there’s more…}