Author: nataliar77

Glorious Gastronomical Gluttony

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Back by popular demand and by that I mean, one person told me that they like this feature and that makes it “popular demand.”

So, whenever I get writers block and that is relatively often, I go down to the German deli in the building and get some kind of treat. I must be the only person in the place that buys these chocolates because whenever I got there to buy two, they tell me I can have six for the same price. And, I always get the six and its always the same justification in my mind. I’ll eat these all week.

An hour later, all of them are gone. Why?

Well, first an introduction:

Who is the handsome man on the wrapper? Its Mozart. The ‘nets doesn’t have much information about what he has to do with the chocolate, other than to say that some chocolate maker in Austria in the 1890s decided to put his face and name on a chocolate.

Here it is in all of its glory:

And, here’s the best part:

The marzipani-chocolaty goodness.

There is no middle shot. No hesitation on my part on finishing these things. The burger in the previous entry disappeared in stages? This thing appears and disappears. I give it a 9.9. I’m not using the 10 yet, but this is pretty close to perfect.

I love marzipan and combine it with dark chocolate, you have magic. My parents insist on keeping these bars of dark chocolate around all the time as some kind of “treat.” Not for me. When I want chocolate, I don’t want it to taste like medicine. It doesn’t have to be milk chocolate, which can be god awful if its in some kind of candy bar or something. But when I have dark chocolate, I want it to have some kind marzipan or something in there.

I’d usually say “hey, fellow frequenters of the German deli, you don’t know what you are missing,” but I am not going to say that. I am going to say — hey, people. Don’t buy the Mozart chocolates. More for me!

Detente Over

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And how did I come into possession of such a wonderful photograph? As many of my trips on the subway, it started innocently enough. I went to Brooklyn Heights to take pictures and eat the aforementioned hamburger. I was tired and a little sluggish after the fat-fest, so I thought, why don’t I just take the subway?

Per usual, a big mistake. I got on at High Street and should have ended up back in Manhattan. I got down to the train and it didn’t say where it was going, which one was uptown or downtown. Neither of them said it was going to Manhattan. Neither of them said anything. I got on the one I thought was going in the right direction.

when I saw Jay Street and that we weren’t in Manhattan and decided to get off, where I snapped the above utterly disgusting photo. Then, there was some guy wearing an orange vest who perhaps knew where I could go. I said I needed to get to Brooklyn Bridge and he looked at me perplexed. Brooklyn Bridge. It is a stop on the NYC metro that is on the other side from where we are now, but I guess that was too complex, so I just said I needed to get back to Manhattan. He said take the train on the other side of the station. I get there, more total and utter confusion. It again didn’t say which way the train was going. He told me to take the F train, the next stop being York Street. That turned out to be the uptown train. I didn’t get on that one, because I thought York Street was still Brooklyn.

Then, another train marked as an F arrived, but it wasn’t an F train. It was an A train. If had taken the F train, I would have ended up in Rockefeller Center and not Grand Central, where I needed to be. Good that I didn’t take the F, but does every ride on that damn subway have to trigger an aneurysm? Must it always suck? Must the train always smell as good as the picture looks?

I have been a few places in my life and some where I didn’t speak the language, but I somehow managed not to get lost on public transportation, but yet somehow, whenever I take that tangled up, insane, subway, I end up where I don’t need to be, annoyed, hot and angry.

And don’t even get me started on how those stations are permanently under construction, especially on the weekends.

The hatred is definitely back. Detente over subway, until you prove to me that you do not suck. I get the feeling it will be a while before that happens.

Hasn’t this woman been through enough in her life?

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She’s been stolen, had acid poured on her, had a rock thrown at her and can currently be seen at the Louvre, behind bullet proof glass. She is truly amazing and when you go and actually see her, she seems alive. I stood there and thought she was about to start waving at us.

There have been many explanations about her smile. My favorite was that she had all her teeth broken and that’s why she looks that way.

And, Marcel Duchamp, he of the personally autographed urinal, used her to create one of his best known and funniest pieces of art:

Not only does she have a mustache now, but L.H.O.O.Q is an abbreviation for a French phrase implying that she is “hot down below.”

But as far as cruelty towards her goes, this I think is the most egregious:

Recognize that disgusting smirk? Yes, she’s been transformed into the man for whom it so hard to put food on his children and someone who is glad that now he knows what he didn’t know when he didn’t know it. I could go on and on, but I won’t. I mean he’ll just mess it up himself, so what is even the point.

Anyway, after being him all day long, no wonder La Gioconda needs one of these:

Glorious Gastronomical Gluttony

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I’m introducing a new feature on ye olde blog — restaurant reviews. Lame, I know, but I am no Frank Bruni. There will be pictures of the food, my extremely witty commentary and then I score from 1 to 10, but for means of exaggeration, some scores can go as high as 40, because, like I said I am not Frank Bruni or the New York Times. I am but a humble blogger, one of the 100 million people on this planet that blogs.

For my first reviews, I sampled the culinary stylings of Cold Stone Creamery and the Five Guys burger joint in Brooklyn.

First to the Cold Stone Creamery. Last week on Top Chef, the chef-testants were asked to create a new ingredient addition for the chain’s ice cream. The show is always filled with its share of eccentrics, who I think could make really good food, but decide to stretch themselves to show off and out do everyone else. Sometimes, they are very successful. Other times, they fall flat. The falling flat is really funny a lot of the time, because these guys have huge egos and they get taken down a rung or two. I get the feeling a lot of these guys are out to prove they are worthy to everyone.

Each season has had its share of eccentrics. There was the guy who made a tamale with about a 100 ingredients for a challenge where they were judged by housewives. There was also the guy who pretty much put foam on every one of his dishes, or some kind of gelee.

This season features a chef named Hung who I could tell from day one was not going to disappoint in the cooking insanity department. So, last week it was put stuff in Cold Stone Creamery ice cream. The highlight were the Cold Stone Creamery ingredients made by Hung. My personal favorite was his cauliflower white chocolate foam. Cauliflower white chocolate foam? Cauliflower white chocolate foam??????? I couldn’t stop laughing at this thing.

I decided to go to the Cold Stone Creamery myself, hoping that the cauliflower white chocolate foam had not made the menu. Liquid into liquid ice cream? Create a slight problem there, Hung?

The place was mobbed, but I went to the one in Times Square, so that’s not a surprise. Another pleasant surprise was that no cauliflower landed in my ice cream. Ok, I’m going to say it again — cauliflower white chocolate foam?

Anyway, back here on Earth, in the mobbed ice cream place, I had to pick from the menu fast. Otherwise, I’m pretty sure I would have been the victim of a stampede. I choose “Birthday Cake Remix. Here it is just after I started eating it:

The verdict: 7.5. I am sure the cauliflower white chocolate foam would have greatly improved it. Ok, stop talking about that. It was cake batter flavored ice cream, mixed with brownies, sprinkles and some kind of caramel type sauce.

What I never get about these kinds of places is why this stuff has to be so sickly sweet. I choose the smallest portion, because I knew if I got anything else, I couldn’t finish it. But the whole combination was this sugary insanity. Cake batter ice cream. Sweet on its own. They could have put a dark chocolate dense cake in these and called it a day. Then, the sprinkles. Ok, jazz it up a little, but to finish it off with that syrupy sauce? That lowered its point value with me. Cold Stone Creamery is a good concept. Ice cream, mixed up with what you want or off the beaten path kind of ingredients. Interesting. But less is more when it comes to those types of things. I am not some sort of culinary snob. A Big Mac to me, is a little slice of heaven. But this was underwhelming.

Well, despite its sickly sweetness, I did finish the thing:

But it isn’t going to become a destination for me. Kind of a one time thing. But no way in hell a cauliflower white chocolate foam would have improved it.

Next stop on the gluttony tour was the Five Guys burger joint in upscale Brooklyn Heights. When it comes to Five Guys, I am actually hipper than the Brooklyn hipsters, because I knew about it first. I loved Five Guys burgers when I lived in Washington. Actually, for about a year, they were pretty much my sole source of solid food. The Five Guys I went to was always mobbed with people, smelled of fries and peanuts and was the absolute definition of place that looks like a ramshackle shack from the outside, but had great stuff.

Five Guys is kind of a down home, hole in the wall kind of place that isn’t anywhere even close to being hip in Washington. In New York, its in hip Brooklyn Heights. The place reproduced the decor I was so accustomed to in Washington:

Still, something about it felt wrong. Maybe because it is franchised, or something. It kind of reminded me of that moment in the original Wayne’s World when Wayne’s basement is reproduced as a TV set. The original had missing floor tiles and showed a general lack of regard for decor, which was fine by me. But, this is not a review of the decor. Its about the burgers. This one gets a more complicated score.

Overall burger quality: 8.5
In comparison to the original: 6
Comparison to previous burgers I had in New York: 9.5
I guess that averages out to about a 7.

Yeah, the original is always the best. I got my usual combination — cheeseburger with onions, relish, pickles and mayonnaise. The patty was thinner than I remember and not as juicy. The burger itself was overloaded with my toppings and almost got lost in all of it. I did eat the whole thing, of course:

Going, going…

Gone:

See the extra pickle and onion left over. What am I supposed to do with that? I guess I could have gotten fries, but with the visit to the ice cream place beforehand, it was all kind of too much. Also, considering I take a cholesterol lowering drug prescribed for geriatrics, I’ll skip the fries for now.

The final analysis:
If I crave burger-y goodness, I’ll just fire up my George Foreman lean mean fat reducing grilling machine (it always has to be referred to in its entire name) and cook a burger recipe I found in a book by James Beard, who is pretty much the father of modern American cuisine. I take ground beef, put some heavy cream in it, grind up onions, salt, pepper and on to George and maybe toss on a piece of cheese and you are good to go. I’m just not sure if it is worth enduring the [censored]ing New York City subway system for just an ok hamburger, when I can make the same one at home.

Anyway, stay tuned for more gastronomical gluttony, because believe me I love to eat.

America’s Next Top Model

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First things first. Don’t ask me what this is about. I assume he’s doing yoga or something or signaling people from space. Ok, I’m posting this because I think its a funny photo:

Yeah, ok, he’s making some kind of point. Who is he you ask? This is Jim Cramer, former major league money manager, host of Mad Money and occasional grand-mal freak-out-er. Mad Money is a show where Cramer throws things, screams and generally acts like a lunatic. BUT, under all of that, he does a really good job explaining and breaking down the markets. Occasionally, I think he’s wrong, but even he admits as much.

Anyway, Cramer is not the center of this post. Why would I have called it “America’s Next Top Model”? Well, last season Tyra Banks had a photo shoot where each girl had to take a photo where she had to express an emotion. Sad, happy, un-medicated psychotic, you name it, the hamsters (that’s what the internets calls the contestants) had to do it because there is no other god than Tyra.

I came home and I saw Cramer Cramering it up with his show, and I snapped some photos of him. Then, I thought, why not bring two heretofore not paired together people — Ms. Tyra and former professional computer keyboard thrower Jim Cramer.

Cue the America’s Next Top Model music. Na na na wanna be on top? Na na na na. No, really. That is the intro music, sung by Tyra because its all about Tyra. Always.

So, here is Cramer, in doing his fiercest poses, coming one stop closer towards becoming America’s Next Top Model:

Here he is in quiet repose:

Coquettish Cramer

Cramer looking like he can’t believe what those people at the Fed are saying:

And, a Cramer trademark — the angry pointing into the audience:

Here he seems to have been inspired by Donald Trump with the hand movements:

From my perspective, Cramer achieves every look in the photos, but will Tyra and company like it?

Here is my imagined America’s Next Top Model panel session:

But now it is time for your individual evaluations and Cramer, you are up first.

Tyra: Your photos are strong, but I am not sure if you are high fashion enough. I mean I can do ugly poses, but make them look high fashion. Look at this one in quiet repose. I mean your neck is completely gone.

Mr. Jay: You should have worked the hair and makeup a little bit more. I mean a top model can work any look she has. Show them Tyra. You have to try to be soft and more expressive with your eyes.

Mrs. Jay: Oh honey, don’t even get me started on the runway walk.

Tyra: We are not judging that today, but to go further in the competition, your poses have to fiercer, stronger. Do you really want this? I mean I was walking the haute couture runways of Paris when I was 17 years old, because I wanted it.

Photographer, with a foreign accent: Cramer, he was the least co-operative of all the models. I don’t know. He kept saying things about P/E ratios and risk arbitrage. I am photographer, not a mathematician.

Tyra: In this industry, the model is a blank canvas. It is the model’s job to follow the photographer’s instructions.

Cramer: Hey, Natalia, how did I end up in this mad fantasy of yours? Huh? Why am I here? The Fed isn’t curbing the sub-prime mess and I am here listening to how I should be more expressive with my eyes? Where’s a computer? Can I throw it at you?

Natalia: Ok, Cramer. Calm down. You end up in this fantasy because you disappointed me. I watch your show and I think its great. I convince others that you are not a total lunatic, but that little outburst… I’ll stay a fan. I won’t do the boo-ya, but if you have an outburst like that again, back into Top Model purgatory you will go. Understand? Ok.

Thanks, King

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And thus Jim Thorpe greeted King Gustav V, after the king had called him “the greatest athlete ever.”

Seeing this stadium had to be one of the highlights of all the travel I’ve ever done. Usually, when you see places that you’ve seen in pictures, they disappoint. Only three places I’ve been in my life made me feel that seeing them live way surpassed the photos. Those are Red Square, the Mona Lisa and this stadium.

It was raining the first time I went to see this thing. I assumed it was a tourist attraction that they had guides to and maybe charged admission. Instead, it is an actual, functioning stadium. This made it all the more weird when someone, in the pouring rain speaking in a New York accent flagged down some boys in a golf cart who worked there. No doubt they were perplexed about my wanting to see the thing. Did they not know of my long standing obsession with the Olympics?

Anyway, here are some NON ARTISTIC photos of the stadium taking in the pouring rain:

That person down there actually had the forethought to wear some kind of clothes that protected them from the rain. I wasn’t that smart.

This is going to sound like the cheesiest of cheese-ball statements, but I walked into this thing and could almost hear the cheering and the crowds from the Olympics that was held the year my grandfather was born.

Some more rain soaked photos:

Rib vaults? Rib vaults on a stadium? The thought that went into building this place really amazed me. Its a stadium, but it seems to be influenced by gothic architecture. Sublime.

Here are some from a day where the weather wasn’t totally suck ass:

And, an “artistic one” for the haters out there who think I am not longer artistic. Again, I had between 5 and 20 minutes to photograph this thing, so just kinda capturing it took center stage:

To close, a picture of the street where the stadium was located. Finally, something will replace a place in my in my past that my animosity towards is too large to explain here. That Valhalla is exorcised from brain, to be replaced by the street on which this lovely stadium is located:

Take that Mrs. Cialfi, whereever it is you are.

Some weird photos

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Some idiot once told me that I needed to take normal photos. As Lorimer Black says to Mr. Hogg in William Boyd’s book Armadillo “define normal.” As soon as someone defines normal to me, I’ll keep on taking these kinds of pictures. Fight the power!

Anyway, these are non-categorizable works of sheer genius. Me and Oscar Wilde — both of us. All we have to declare is our genius.

Feel the radiating genius from following photos:

Ok, yeah, you can actually kinda tell what this is. The moon, from my parent’s back porch.

What, pray tell, could this be?

Back-lit water from a fountain.

Here we have island of the lost baseball trophies:

This is another one of my pale imitations of the greats. Walker Evans would have made this into an icon. Me, yeah, well, hey, not exactly what you would call “iconic.”

I manipulated this one. Here is the original:

One more. Ok, this one isn’t that weird. This is a rotting disintegrated doric column from inside [fill in appropriate curse word here] subway:

About the last picture of the column. Don’t you care about me, New York City? Just when I grow to love you again, you gross me out with the subway.

A break with tradition…

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That is, these are not from my daily load of shots of Grand Central/details on buildings/blurry shots taken from some moving vehicle/people’s feet. These were taken with the Canon AE-1 all manual fun fun fun camera of wonder.

I was going to keep these under wraps until I was ready, but I realized that there are shots I really like and want to share them with people. Or, should I say person. Well, ok, people.

You gotta click on these to get the full effect. They are coming across small. I don’t know why.

Enough with the blah blahs, here is the work:

I was going for an Alfred Stieglitz/Georgia O’Keefe 1930’s in Mexico kind of feel. I loved the shadows in it and the sort of off-ness of the whole composition. Some disagreed, but a friend reminded me that photography is very personal.

Here is a photograph that I think is ok, but a lot of people like:

And the pièce de résistance:

As soon as I saw this tree, I knew this was going to be special. I walked around it and took a scant three shots at an f8 and an f11. I like the small apertures because I like my photos dark. Ok, photography lesson over.

I took these photos and goddamn, I am going to post them

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Yes, haters out there. Some of them are blurry. Some of them are not “up to my standard.” Some of them are not up to the standard of a 10-year-old with their first disposable camera, but I walked around for a long time looking for these details and again, I had to contort myself into all kinds of weird positions to get these photos, so here they are in all their glory.

Oh wait, there’s more. In case you don’t know, this is Wall Street. Old New York. The New York of book and film and lore. Wall Street will get my professional eye treatment in the future. Consider these sort of location scout kind of photos.

Whenever I see these, I think of “oh, and after I went to Harvard, I went to work for the family firm of” investment bankers, loss adjusters, whatever the WASPs do after St. Grottlesex.

I love how all of these things symbolized a kind of faith people had in the capitalist system, faith that remains to this day. It was all about industry and strength and using traditional symbols of power to signify that there was a new sheriff in town and it was that this great capitalist experiment.

Eh, I’m done with the dissertation. Here’s some more boring/interesting photos: