Days 332 - 335: One foot in front of the other, up the mountain (literally and figuratively)

Day 332 - Saturday, May 12
I was so incredibly grateful to have a lazy day off and make brunch, eat it al fresco, let the cats frolic in the yard, and watch some tv. Rest and peace are so key and I find myself cherishing my solitude these days.

Day 333 - Sunday, May 13
Assorted photos from a Sunday: a salted chocolate macaroon followed by a sunny solo hike in Griffith Park.

 Encouragement once you reach the top of the Bronson Canyon trailhead and join the Hollywood sign trail - 

 View from the top

 A locked-up heart:

And a little danger just in case you were jamming out to your headphones and weren't paying attention. Yep, rattlesnake!

Day 334 - Monday, May 14
Becoming - I have been thinking a lot about this lately. I've been reflecting on how poorly I do this, actually.

See, I'm good at being good at things. I was an excellent student my whole life, to the point of ridiculousness. I've been a great employee in most of my jobs. I was on varsity swimming, in three honors societies in high school, took 9 AP classes, was in the Honors program in college, was a member of the Search Retreat steering committee, speak multiple languages (some fluently, some decent enough just to order food and get directions without being hustled), have always had some kind of job...and in fact, I usually impress people with the amount of stuff I do. I am good at being good at things and I'm accustomed to people recognizing me as a good, smart, accomplished person; and this crazy perfection quest has been a way for me to cover some deep-seated insecurities and loneliness. Inside my head, I thought: "Instead of accepting myself and my flaws and my strengths, I will be so amazing and perfect that everyone else will have to notice and recognize and be in awe." Kids, don't try this at home. It doesn't work, and you're left with the same emptiness you started out trying to cover up.

I'm not good at becoming. I'm not good at patience (although to be fair, I also disclose this at the beginning of most relationships, professional or personal, so I am at least good at warning you). I'm not good at those awkward growing phases, I'm not good with sitting and waiting for the transformation to occur. I want to just be there already - like that obnoxious kid in the car on the road trip who keeps asking, "Are we there yet?" I can't accept the journey; I always look for the destination. This year has been incredibly emotionally difficult for so many reasons: separating from a person I planned to marry because the relationship was dysfunctional, hurtful, and disrespectful; moving from a city and a job that were both an uphill battle but I still felt like a loser for leaving New York, like I "didn't make it" and had to leave; starting a job that represents everything I went to grad school to avoid; living alone - being alone ALL. THE. TIME. The solitude fluctuates between comforting and nourishing to crushingly overwhelming and black. Even this blog, to a degree, has been a way of upholding this image of myself I keep trying to portray - look how valiantly I'm handling something so ugly. Look how well I'm taking this. Look how evolved I am. (Like most things, the blog offers both blessings and curses depending on your perspective.) This year, it's been my sabbatical year from life, is how I keep thinking of it. Because I don't want to admit this year of becoming; it doesn't fit with the rest of the perfection image I keep trying to paint myself as. Because I don't want to admit that I made some mistakes - because I got myself into some bad situations in love and in money from which I'm struggling to extricate myself. I wonder most days if I'll ever be whole - I can't say, will I ever be whole again because I don't think I ever was whole to begin with (and that lack of wholeness and loneliness drove some of those poor decisions). But will I ever be whole in my heart and recover from this terrible thing that happened to me (but I also recognize that I allowed it to happen despite knowing better), and will I ever be in the black again? I feel like I keep wallowing in the red.

So that's why I have come clean to you, dear (five) readers. Because I need humility. And patience - with others, with myself, with life, with the journey. I lay this out because I need accountability and I need to stop pretending, and that means admitting that I'm barely holding it together or failing at holding it together, some days. I need the reminder to just stop, breathe, slow down, trust myself, and learn to listen to that internal rhythm...the rhythm that says, breathe, my love, and rest. In the morning, we get another shot at trying again, and another day on the journey.

To that end, I say: I'm grateful for the journey in its complexity, in its lessons, in its blackness, in its light. And on tomorrow's journey, I will look for some levity...


Day 335 - Tuesday May 15, 2012
Praise be! I got an assistant and she started today and I don't feel like I'm drowning anymore at work I feel like I can take a breath now can't you tell?

Also, here's to finally trying Tacos Leo and some delicious al pastor.

Day 67: Malaysian food and Masters' friends

Tonight I had a lovely dinner at Nyonya, a Malaysian place in Chinatown. It was Nadia's going-away party - she's going to be spending at least the next year in Cairo. I got to eat completely delicious Malaysian food with a very dear friend (who happens to be one of the most brilliant thinkers and generous academics I've ever met!), and catch up with Melissa, Liam, Sarah M, Nadia K, and Tiffany, who I went to graduate school with at NYU in some form or another.

Things I will miss about New York: my NYU community and the incredible gastronomic delights of this city. Good thing airplanes come here and I can come gorge myself on food & friendship when I need to!

Day 39: Culinary Delights of the Purple Yam

Purple Yam is a restaurant in Ditmas Park, Brooklyn. It's on Cortelyou Road, off the Q. Mostly Filipino dishes, they also offer some really amazing Malaysian & Korean fusion dishes too.

I love discovering new and delicious food, and exploring new (to me, at least) parts of Brooklyn!

The food was delightfully yummy. Especially the yummy watermelon salad with jicama, romaine, and radish.



And I don't even feel guilty about the guava sorbet with Kalamansi meringue (not pictured, too delightful and cold to take the time to photograph) because I rode my bike there. All around win!

Toby's Public House: The Public of South Slope, Brooklyn

I biked past Toby's Public House on the way home from the Y the other day - I know, how stereotypically Brooklyn am I? Stay with me, though, because it's really exciting to find great places in the South Slope and Sunset Park. There are quite a few new places cropping up, rendering the gentrification visible.

So I tried Toby's Public House, which is altogether charming. It's a very New York/East Coast style bar, with exposed brick, brass fittings on the bar with the mirrored mantle, and lots of long wooden tables. Above the bar, individual biersteins with numbers written on the bottoms in grease-pencil hang on hooks, reachable with the bartenders hook. This is a place for locals, which, if you didn't get that from the biersteins, you would have figured it out when the bartender and the waitresses knew many of the patrons by name. The whole place had a very intimate vibe, from the open space to the open kitchen area where you can watch the cooks preparing your pizza and tossing it into the coal oven in the corner.

We ate and drank - justified by the fact that we have to really sample this place, right?

The manicotti appetizer:

I didn't manage to get pictures of the other courses because they disappeared so quickly: the arugula & parmesan salad, the coal oven Del Macellaio pizza, and tiramisu. All delicious: especially the pizza and the tiramisu, oh the tiramisu!

Highly recommend, & can't wait to go back.
Check out their website and menu here.
6th Ave @ 21st Street, South Slope, Bklyn, NY

Restaurant Review: Eclipse Restaurant, Sunset Park

Tonight, we tried a new Mexican restaurant in Sunset Park. Eclipse is located right on 4th Avenue, and easy to miss. Eclipse is a happy blend of delicious and relatively healthy "real" Mexican food and good decor and service. Unlike our other hotspots, who haven't invested in appearances, Eclipse has savvy decor to attract all sorts of clientele while keeping prices low. Also differentiating themselves from other hole-in-the-wall neighborhood places, they have a full bar (rather, than, say, Matamoros, where the situation is BYO).

I tried my favorite kind of tacos, carne enchilada (spicy grilled pork), 3 for $6. They weren't as spicy as other joints in the neighborhood, but they were rich in flavor and cooked cleanly, without a lot of grease. The ingredients in our pico de gallo salsa were incredibly fresh - you could taste it - and E practically huffed his bistec burrito.






In short, Eclipse is a great place to take people who enjoy lots of different kinds of food, but are afraid of places with tacky decor, menus in other languages if they exist at all, and waitstaff who don't speak English. The courtyard is lovely, the staff courteous, and it's the perfect place to take my parents when they're in town for some delicious food.

Eclipse Restaurant
4314 4th Avenue
Brooklyn NY 11232

Food Review: Delicias Mexicanas

I am apparently expanding the reach of my restaurants. Having recently begun working in Harlem, I decided it was time to sample the delights of Spanish Harlem. A quick troll of blog reviews and Yelp told me to try Delicias Mexicanas.

Walking over from my office, I realized when I crossed Lexington that I went from Harlem to Spanish Harlem. Delicias Mexicanas is located just south of the 116th stop on the 6 train, with a clean, pleasant seating area decorated with tans with plastic plants. Their menu is extensive, from the standard burrito and taco to huaraches, birria, and flautas. I sampled the al pastor taco, which is strongly flavored with pineapple, and the carne enchilada. These are served with chopped fresh cilantro and onion on small corn tortillas. They make excellent fresh guacamole that holds true to the flavor of the avocado, and red (very spicy) and green (milder but not mild) salsa. On the whole, Delicias Mexicanas is very good, although I remain partial to my neighborhood taquerias.

Also recommended: eat-in restauarant, rather than getting takeaway. All the savory juices make your taco shell soggy by the time you finally get to devour it.



Delicias Mexicanas
3rd Avenue between 115th and 116th
Manhattan, NY

Quick Fix Eats: Pitza

E and I had a last-minute dinner conundrum, as all of our travels and graduation commitments have kept us from shopping for food. Our fridge had a sad rotten cucumber, three takeout containers from Vietnamese food last week, some pomegranate juice, pasta sauce and condiments. Not exactly the makings of a delicious meal.

So we rallied our strength and biked down to Three Guys. A few fresh veggies and some pita bread later, we had pitzas.

We took the pita bread, warmed the oven to 350 degrees, and then laid the pitas out on a tray. Spooning a bit of tomato sauce, basil and garlic onto the pitas, we then added some chopped tomatoes, peppers, and mushrooms before laying some fresh mozzarella on top. Add some black olives as a final topping, and bake for 15-20 minutes, until the mozzarella begins to bubble and brown.

Delicious.

If I were to make this again, I'd use less sauce and avoid the chopped tomatoes: they made the center of the pitza a little soggy. Otherwise, survey says: this is a great and quick YUM.

Experiments in Cooking: Greek Salad

Best quick lunch in the entire world:
cherry tomatoes
feta cheese
lebanese cucumbers, chopped
black or kalimata olives
spoonful of balsamic vinegar
ground black pepper

Food: Rico's Tacos

E & I finally got up the nerve to go try Rico's Tacos. We had heard rumors it was good, but the odd mural of a smiling pig being boiled alive and the shabby exterior of the joint had served as deterrents thus far.

It has long been my belief that the tackier the decor, the better the ethnic food. And Rico's adheres to this rule. The building is definitely run down, but when you pay $1.50 for a delicious taco, who really cares? I tried the carne enchilada (spicy pork), and Emile tried al pastor (also pork, roasted with pineapple and other sauces). My 3 tacos, for a mere $4.50, were delicious. Our waitress provided us with three types of salsa: red (spicy), green (not as spicy), and a creamy but light guacamole. The tacos, on small corn shells, come with meat, onion, and cilantro and the customary plate of limes and radishes. The rest is up to you. The meat was delicious and moist, and I found my hands stained with spicy red grease after wolfing down my tacos like a lady. The meat is more seasoned and a bit more spicy than other Sunset Park taco joints, even my beloved Tacos Matamoros. I highly recommend taking the tacos with a dash of the red salsa and the guacamole: tangy, limey, spicy heaven awaits.

Outdoor seating available, kind of.

Rico's Tacos
51st St (just above 5th Ave)
Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Cash only

Food Review: Thanh Da

Emile and I tested out a new Sunset Park restaurant recently: Thanh Da. Thanh Da is a Vietnamese restaurant that is super cheap and, as we delighted in discovering, super delicious. The place is a bit small, with handwritten signs in Vietnamese and English advertising various products from "Fried Shrimp Chips" to "Lychee Shakes." Diners can either order take-out from the counter, or can sit down and order from a waitress in the requisite blue caps. We ordered Vietnamese spring rolls, which were filled with meat and vegetables and came with a light (not sticky) carrot-and-garlic sauce. I ordered a Vietnamese meatball baguette, which comes on a French-style baguette with meatballs spiced with beets, jicama, carrots, and cilantro. The waitress also brought a plate of leafy greens to further stuff our sandwiches: mint and watercress. The mint provided the perfect refreshing bite to offset the spice of the meatballs. I also had a Vietnamese iced coffee (Ca Phe Sua Da) and Emile had a lychee shake.

SO. Delicious. And our entire bill was $16.
Oh, we'll be back.


Thanh Da Vietnamese Food
57th at Eighth Avenue, Sunset Park, Brooklyn
Cash only

Saturday Surfing & La Isla for Sunday brunch

Saturday e and I went out to Rockaway Beach at 90th so he could grab some waves. I read James Clifford on the beach. Such is my life!

Sunday for brunch we tried a place called La Isla here in Sunset Park. Every time I walk past, I can barely see through the steamed-up windows but there are consistently folks in there eating (a good sign!) So today, we tried it. It's Puerto-Rican/Dominican food: lots of fried meats, with fried vegetables, and hearty soups. Delicious, and affordable. My chicken sandwich was $4.00, and amazingly tender. We also ordered tostones, and tried a different flavor each of their 7 types of fresh fruit juice!

La Isla
5th Avenue between 50th & 49th, Brooklyn, NY