Sunday, June 27, 2010

ST. JOHN USVI




Crewed Catamaran LEVANTE


Stacey and I spent the last week at St. John Island. We went with friends who have been 21 times. It was a busy week. It was a fun week. We ate and drank like kings and Queens. We spent a day island hoping on a 56" catamaran. We rented a jeep one day and drove from beach to beach, bar to bar, from one side of the island to the other. Here are a few photos. More photos and details in the coming days.

Friday, June 11, 2010

MOBILE, ALABAMA. END OF MAY.

George, the mixed up basset hound, and I drove to Mobile the Friday of Memorial Day weekend.
Stacey worked half a day, got on a Delta Jet and beat us there. Damn, damn, damn.

Anyway we were gonna spend the weekend in beautiful downtown Mobile, eating and drinking. And I must say we did a very good job doing both.

Everyone was there. Sisters Kim and Pam and Kim's boy Scottie. Our brother Jeff was around all weekend as was our cousin Cheril and her two boy Nathan and Cole.

We spent most of our time at Roper St. Like I said eating and Drinking.

To start with Stacey mixed up a couple batches of a Strawberry, black pepper, tequila drinks. Yes, you read that correctly. Strawberries, black pepper corns cooked down in simple syrup, strained into a strawberry tequila mixture.

http://freshfrozenherbs.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2009/05/savory-strawberry-cocktail.jpg

This was Saturday night. If you weren't drinking the strawberry/tequila drinks then you were having Vodka Martinis. Either way it was not pretty.

We cooked about 75 oysters on the half shell that night. Half of them we covered with spinach, bread crumbs, cheese and baked them for bout 15 minutes. You know Roc-a-fella style. We baked the other half as well, but we covered these with bacon, That's right bacon, shallots and a white wine sauce. Both ways tasted great.

We also has some jalapeno peppers, stuffed with cheese and onions. They were served in a puddle of Grilled Red Pepper–Tomato sauce. Nice.

MFH had read about these dishes in parade magazine. A Bobby Flay article about grilling everything. Which is a concept I'm totally into.

Desert. Peaches. Sliced into bite size pieces, wrapped in foil, along with, butter, Cinnamon and brown sugar. Grill for about 5 minutes, longer if your coals are old. Then serve with vanilla ice cream and Carmel sauce. DAMN DAMN DAMN!!

That was Saturday night. Mom and Dad wanted to do ribs and stuff on the grill Sunday so we did.

Standby.

Wednesday, June 9, 2010

104 PERRY ST. DAY 5


We are leaving. Going home. And the nice young lady, AD2, who has been so nice to let us stay here, is leaving as well. We are going back to Atlanta and AD2 is going to Hawaii. Boo Hoo.

We get up Friday morning and go looking for fried chicken. Those sons a bitches at the Dirty Bird still have not opened. Stacey's pissed. What ya gonna do? We walk a few blocks to the Meat Packing District and check out the Apple Store. Cool place. It is differently the future of retail. You would think you are in a library not a place to buy notebooks, Ipods, laptops ect.. Everything is clear. All glass or Lucite as in the spiral staircase with clear steps going from the ground to the 4th floor. Very nice place.


We walk back and still no Dirty Bird. So we walk across the street to an old school doughnut shop and grab a bite to eat. We walk around for a while, then we decide to head home. Atlanta.


It' Saturday, we get back from NYC around 4 p.m. and head straight out to Ikhlas for fried chicken. The best fried chicken in East Point!!!




Thursday, June 3, 2010

104 PERRY ST. DAY 4


We don't get up very early Friday. It's quieter then usual next door. We are headed to MOMA today. Admission is free every Friday 4 til 8 p.m. I should know better.
First it's sushi. We have read about a place not far from Perry St. Koo Sushi is the name. Koo is on West Houston. I'm not sure exactly what time we got there, it was around lunch time. Koo was not busy. We sat and had water. We ordered a salad and a couple rolls that were recommended in the article we had read about Koo. We also ordered two pieces of Unagi, freshwater eel. I love Unagi, especially warm. This was warm and was pretty good. Not great. Same with entire meal. Good not great.

We walk and end up at Union Square. The market is wide open. There are hundreds of vendors. Selling everything from art to fresh rabbit meat. There is produce, milk, cheese, bread, plants, honey, juice, cloths, fish, meat, and grits. And more. The guy selling the grits had them labeled as Hudson Valley Stone Ground Polenta. They were grit. I bought a bag and have made a batch and they were good. I made them with a strong chicken stock, I need to try them with butter, cheese and two fried eggs.

We talked to the guy who runs the farm this polenta comes from. His name is Don Larsen and his farm is Wild Hive. I ask Don if indeed his polenta was grits. He confirmed it was. We talked grits a bit and he ask where we were from. I mentioned Atlanta and he mentioned Anson Mill. Anson Mill is in South Carolina and a big deal with all the hot shot chefs through out the southeast. I told him about Jenny Jack Grits, the best in the world as far as I'm concerned. He wrote down the name and said he'd look up Jenny Jack Farm.

We walked. And we walked, on and on. We stopped some where for a beer.

We got to MOMA about 3. Free started at 4 and the line was around the block. We almost left right then. Instead we went in and sat on the huge plush couch. I ask a volunteer dude if the line moved fast. He said it did. He said this was a rather light day. So we waited. About 15 minutes after the line opened we walked around the corner, got in the line and we were in the museum in another 15 minutes. We had to check our backpack, that looked like it could take days and cost lives. It wasn't bad at all. This is a well oiled machine this MOMA.

Things got tougher from there. The main exhibit is performance art. I just don't usually dig performance art. And this did not disappoint. I just don't get it. The "star artist" of the show is a lady who has been at it since the sixties. This exhibit consisted of her preforming her latest "piece". Her assistants were in other galleries repreforming older "pieces".

The Star Artist is Marina Abramović. Marina Abramović is sitting in a huge gallery, across form someone from the public. You come in, sign up and sit on the floor and wait. Watch and wait. And what you watch is Marina Aramović stare at whoever is next on the list..

After signing up to stare at MA and after your wait, you get your turn. You can sit and stare as long as you wish. The longest someone has sat and stared at MA was the whole day. Some lady was the first one that day and the only one that day. The Museum is open from 10 a.m. til 8 p.m. six days a week. MA does this everyday for over a month. Click here and you can read an interview with Marina Abramović. I found the interview more interesting than the performance.

Marina <span class=


The remainder of the exhibit is upstairs in other galleries. Lot's of naked people. I just don't get it. I always think "shock factor" when I see exhibits like this. To bad, maybe back in the sixties it was shocking, I find it boring.

A lot of the art on display we looked at last time we were here. Just a couple months ago. Not that it's not great stuff. There is a little bit of art from many different artist. But, the crowds are so large it is impossible to enjoy. We collect our backpack hit the nearest subway station. We don't use the subway system much in NYC, but today we use it to get us back to the west village. We head straight to Murray's Cheese Shop. We get bread, blue cheese, and some fancy crackers. Then we get six pack and a bag of chips. Then we head to 104 Perry St. We have a beer and snacks and watch the news. And take our shoes off.

Friday night we don't do much. We walk around the neighborhood. We are looking for fried chicken at the Dirty Bird. The Dirty Bird is just a few blocks from Perry St. We walk that way and find it closed for the night. It's about 8 p.m. on their website they say open til 11. WTF.
So we grab a slice and then head for POPBAR. They sell Popsicle's. Gelato on a stick. The have a few different flavors and you pick nuts to roll it in and chocolate to dip it in. Check their website for details. These things were good. I hear Popsicle's are the next big food thing. POPBAR was one of the best things about this trip.

Across the very busy 7th Ave. from the POPBAR was a large food truck. Food trucks are the thing right now. Hell people are doing books about food trucks these days. There are websites dedicated. Food trucks have always been a part of most of the older, larger cities. New York, Chicago, Philly, ect all have a huge food truck scene. Taco trucks are big in California and out west. Pork is popular everywhere. I bet there is a gourmet Popsicle truck soon. Anyway this is a taco truck, we got to check it out. So we cross over, it's about 10 p.m. and he's just getting set up. This is a nice truck. It is huge and stainless steel. There is a big menu. I order flatus. One of my favorite. I don't remember which meat. The flatus were OK. I was hoping for a little better from such a nice truck. Oh well.

http://www.portlandground.com/psu/2007-08-09psufoodtruck16.jpg

We take a long walk back to Perry St. Using side streets the entire way. If you walk around Manhattan much you soon get tired of all the people you have to dodge. The side streets are nice and you can usually find some cool little bar or shop or something.

35$ sushi

4.50$ subway

4.50$ polenta

13.50$ bread, chz, Murray's

7$ chips & beer

9$ beer at bar

10$ 2 popbar pops

12$ fruit, cream, water

4$ slice

5$ truck food

104.50$ total day 4


DEVIL ON HORSEBACK





I had never heard of Devil On Horseback before.

Devil On Horseback is a dish offered at Freemans. Freemans is the restaurant at the end of Freeman Alley at Rivington, between The Bowey and Chrystie. NYC.

We didn't have it , but the waitron told us what is was.


A date stuffed blue cheese wrapped in bacon.

I'm gonna cook my bacon half way, let it cool then wrap the date and put it on the grill. By the time the bacon finishes the date and cheese should be just right.

Tuesday, June 1, 2010

104 Perry St, Day 3



Thursday we wake to the sounds of walls crashing down. The apartment next to ours, we share a wall, is being gutted and prepped for renovation. It is 7:15 and it is loud. Same thing happened Wednesday morning. This morning they are beating on the wall between us and the art is about to fall off the wall. I have to remove the art from the wall. We sleep on and off til about 9:30. We have coffee and hit the streets. We are gonna go to the High Line and find a big chase lounge and sit in the sun for awhile. The photo above is of an art installation at the High Line. The High Line is a raised park 0n the lower west side of Manhattan. Currently it is about a mile long and runs along old, unused train tracks built above roadways. It starts in the Meat Packing District and runs north to 20th street. It runs between 9th and 10th ave. When completed it will run up to 34th street. It runs above buildings, under buildings and between buildings. Some parts have great views of the East River, some parts have views of the traffic on 1oth street. There are gardens, cafe style chairs, tables and huge chase lounges resting on the old railroad tracks.

104 Perry is about 4-5 blocks from the Meat Packing District entrance to the High Line. On the way we stop at a deli and get water, toasted bagels, cream cheese and magazines. We are early enough to get a couple of lounge chairs, we spread out and eat our food. We listen to the portable radio and read. We read about places to go in NYC among other things. We sit back and enjoy the sun, getting a little burn. Hell, we probably nap a little I can't remember. I do know we spend about 2-3 hours on the lounge chairs, on the High Line just chillin like Tracy Morgan.

We leave wanting to find a cold beer. I had just read about Bill's Bar & Burgers, neighborhood type place with a hamburger / hot dog menu. Bills Bar & Burgers also have good beers on tap. Bill's Bar & Burgers is about three blocks from where we exit the High Line. When we arrive it's about 2 p.m. so it's not real busy. We have a couple of beers and I have a hot dog. Chili cheese. The dog was split and grilled and perfect. Simple, not so much shit on top that it's a mess. Just right. We left very happy.

We didn't go far when we come across The Spotted Pig. It's a famous gastropub. One of the first in NYC. It's very popular. It's a funky building with tons of plants out front. Lot's of herbs, I'm sure used in the kitchen and bar. The young lady who is the chef/owner once cooked at the legendary Chez Panisse in Berkeley, Calif. She opened the Spotted Pig in 2005 and was an instant hit. She has also earned a Michelin Star at the Pig. We only had a drink, as this was the kinda of place we did not want to pay for. We had two drinks for $22 before tip. $25 for two drinks. That's stupid and I'm tired of. I wish we had not stopped there. I should have know better.

Back to the apartment for a while to rest our feet. Drink some beer and tequila. We then decide to go out and get a falafa sandwich. We go back to Taim, the falafa there were so good the first time we had to have more. So we did.

Later that night we head out to get a couple Bao sandwich's at BaoHaus and then to Nurse Bettie for the show. Like I said before click on BaoHaus and read this guys neat story. Eat there if you ever find yourself in the hood. 137 Rivington Street (near Norfolk), NY, NY 10002 the lower east side.

Around the corner on Norfolk St is Nurse Bettie. Nurse Bettie is a cool little bar where you can eat you BaoHaus if you want to. We did and we also wanted to see the burlesque show we had read about. So we sat at the bar and the young lady tending bar remembered us from last time cause we brought her a BaoHaus. Later we grabbed some seats that looked like they would have a good view. The place was starting to get crowed. The ladies in the show were in a corner getting ready. One danced in the window to get thinks going. It was a pretty good show, the best act was a young lady singing a sassy song accompanied by a saxophone player. There was about 5 or six little shows. It was cool and the crowd was into it. Seemed lot's were regulars for this show.

Then day 3 was done. The bar tender chick treated us to our last round and sent us on our way. We walked back to Perry St. in no time and crashed.

10.90$ Bagels, fruit & water

23$ Bills bar & burger

25$ Spotted Pig 2 stupid cocktails

12.50$ 2 falafa and 1 drink at Taim this was such a awesome deal compared to Stupid Pig

18.51$ 4 bao sandwich at BaoHaus

66$ Nurse Bettie drinks and a girly show

155.91$ total