So, the party is over and it's back to the grindstone. After three weeks Mom has headed home and I've hit the job hunt. We ate amazingly well and had a ton of fun on a tiny budget. Some of our tips for making the most of your dining dime: make your own coffee in the morning and don't eat out. I know this may sound like a cruel limitation in a city known for amazing food, but if you have culinary skills and a small budget, I found a "high/low" strategy was the best bet. We had amazing (and amazingly cheap) "street" food: pizza, papusas, and hot dogs, but made a constant activity out of sourcing the best raw materials to bring back to my apartment, and either eat as is, or cook up just the way we liked it; keeping the tip for ourselves. We feasted on cheeses and meats, fresh crispy bread, seasonal veggies and fruits, gourmet vinegars, oils, olives, spices, spreads and condiments, hand made candies and bakery, and of course inexpensive but delicious wine.
We spent a great day shopping in Grand Central Terminal. This may seem odd, but Grand Central is a great place for food shopping. There is an indoor market with everything you could need nestled into one long narrow corridor, just steps away from commuter trains heading up-state, and with easy access to the subway rumbling by unheard beneath your feet. One sees New Yorkers whizzing through the throngs, picking up what is obviously their dinner for that evening, before jumping on the subway home. We stopped at some old favorites, and found some new ones: At O & CO. we bought a great bottle of balsamic vinegar, and were steered towards two delicious cheeses at Murray Cheese by the helpful and genuinely nice staff. We bought some spices from Penzeys (and smelled just about all of them), got a fresh baguette, some spanish chorizo and some crazy good handmade candy from Li-Lac. We chose butter toffee and maple fudge and it was the best of either that I'd ever had. It was my first time stopping at this shop, and I will definitely be back.
One of our favorite food stops is always the Chelsea Market at 9th ave. and 15th st. an indoor market that houses food shops along a long rustically industrial arched hallway. Its full of great food, but we like it mostly for the vibe, its comfy and out of the elements, a good thing when its scorching hot or freezing cold: the latter on our day in Chelsea. You would think it would be swamped by tourists but it's blessedly a nice mix: tourists, locals and foodies. We picked up some soup, bread and bakery, and sat at one of the many tables along the corridor to people watch.
Another great day was spent in Williamsburg. We hit two vintage stores, and apparently a time warp. As we emerged onto the cold empty street at 11 pm, (yes, some stores stay open until 11, one of the perks of living in NYC) we realized we were famished. We walked a few blocks to the main drag: Bedford Ave, for a slice of pizza. I knew we were close to a great pizza place my friends and I used to go to in college at all hours of the night; usually after drinking all night. At least I was pretty sure it was great pizza, but it seemed a sober taste test was in order. Lucky for us, it was as good as I hazily recalled. It embodied everything that makes a New York "slice" the best pizza in America. What a masterpiece of simplicity; a marrying of soul mates: tangy sweet tomato sauce and salty melted cheese. A thin crust that's crispy and charred in spots, but chewy and plaint enough to crease lengthwise. This crease gives your giant floppy triangle the structural integrity needed to deliver your masterpiece the short distance from grease stained paper plate, to your eager smiling face.
My favorite day though, was a perfect confluence of planning and spontaneity, great art, great food, great weather and great company. We started our day getting up early and heading to the Metropolitan Museum of Art on the upper east side. We picked a few new shows to scour in depth, and wondered through some old favorites, not really looking, just absorbing the "museum feel". As our appetite, and the temperature outside, peeked; we left the quite dimly lit interior for the bright and noisy New York sidewalk, and it was warm - balmy! It was The warmest day of the year so far and people were out in force: upper east side nannies with their charges, office workers: suit jackets draped over there arms, old ladies and poodles, local kids full of pent up energy, and clumps of teens loosed from school for the day.
We passed by the two busy hot dog carts near the Met stairs and headed south a few blocks before picking up our "dirty water dogs", as the classic cart food is sometimes "lovingly" referred. I highly recommend grabbing a good friend and building up a good apatite; enough to ask for a slew of dogs, and a card board box to serve as make shift park furniture. I ordered us four with kraut, ketchup, and mustard. We found a bench in the sun just inside Central Park, and feasted in comfort with our cardboard tabletop and a great view of the action: jubilant New Yorkers shaking off cabin fever, plunging into the park smiling and chatting: all with a knowing glint in their eyes: every one of them knows - this is one of those days you wait for all winter.
The day was so beautiful, we spent the rest of it "bench hopping" our way down the east side of Central Park down to the south corner at 59th street. We got an ice cream and watched grubby bottomed kids feeding a goose, ambled along the edge of a man made lake, and walked through the Central Park Zoo(closed for the season). As we neared the end of our walk and the sun was going down over the buildings fringing the park and the gilded yellow light glinted through the bear branches, I knew without a doubt, this was the best day I had ever spent in the park, and I was lucky enough to share it with my favorite person, my Mom.
p.s. Happy Birthday Mom!!
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