July 2001: New York City

Itinerary

Thursday:

2pm: Arrive at hotel and check in. Lunch at Turkish Kitchen. The inside of this place is just a little too red, but the food is excellent. I had a cucumber and mint soup, which was more than enough to compensate for the oppresively warm-toned decor, and I also had some sort of zucchini pancakes. Just don't ask me to pronounce anything in Turkish; that was the one humiliating point in the meal.

3pm: Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum for the Aluminum and Wallpaper exhibits. Aluminum was great. Short, but great. I liked the chaise longue which was inspired by a blob of mercury. Supposedly it made an appearance in Madonna's Rain video. John liked the mounted Audi frame, so it was really a show with something for everyone. Wallpaper was interesting, however inherently tacky its subject matter. Personally I don't want to be surrounded by a mythical Orient setting within my own living room, but to each their own.

5pm: Crossed Central Park below the reservoir, which wasn't as obvious a walk as I thought it would be. We went the wrong way round the jogging path. :-( Arrived at Bard Graduate Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts for the Print, Power, and Persuasion: Graphic Design in Germany, 1890-1945 exhibit. This was classic. Lots of posters from Nouveau to propaganda, as well as type specimens, silverware and a radio. I now know that if I want to design my own deco poster all I have to do is draw a diagonal line across the whole sheet and organize the rest of the design around that.

7pm: Dinner at Zen Palate. It's almost a little to vegan and organic for it's own good. I went for some veggie pancakes one more time, but the ravioli in peanut sauce was to die for. It should come in an entree version. John had some giant soup vat featuring seitan and root vegetables. Dessert was a slice of banana cream pie with almonds substituting for the cream parts. Not bad for no milkfat.

11pm: Drinks and more dessert at Roettele A.G. in the east village. We wanted to go to Belgo, but the darn place was padlocked up. Serves them right for being so poseury. The Roettele kicked ass; we started out with some Berliner Weisse but then got seduced into the chocolate fondue. No regrets there. The back of this restaurant is roofed over with an actual grape vine, and aside from the fact that it shedded on us the whole time, it provided a surprisingly bucolic effect for a NYC back alley setting. I love finding happy little surprises like this place.

Friday:

12 noon: We met up with Jonathan, Kevin and Tobias from HTF for a somewhat raucous lunch at the Noho Star. While the company was much more diverting than the food, I did manage to enjoy a smoked salmon sandwich on pumpernickel with a giant side of horseradish sauce and capers. Yum. P.S., buy all your fonts from HTF; those guys are awesome.

1:30pm: Shopping! I hit that market just north of Tower Records. More handbags than the human mind can comprehend. John was cleaning up at a smaller record store. We spent lots of $$$ this trip considering I tried to over-schedule us so we wouldn't have time. :-)

3:00pm: Off to the Museum of American Illustration for their exhibit on the Red Rose Girls: illustrators Jessie Wilcox Smith, Elizabeth Shippen Green and Violet Oakley. The show really suprised me. Those ladies worked hard for their money and were excellent draughtsmen. It made me nostalgic for my childhood days of good illustrated novels. Alas, as one ages the type gets smaller and the pictures disappear.

5pm: Back down to the Pierpont Morgan Library for the Master Drawings exhibit. This was amazing, and overwhelming, stretching as it did across rooms and down hallways. I did get to see Durer's crosshatching from mere centimeters away, so that was a rush. The permanent collection had some great stuff, but not all of it was on view. They have three Gutenberg Bibles, but only one was in the case. I guess there are advantages to actually going to Mainz. However, in keeping with the red room motif, Mr. Morgan's library was on view, and boy did he like red velvet. I'm sure I couldn't have gotten any work done in there.

7pm: Dinner and drinks with John's former Waycross friends Jill and Lucy at Rolf's. Pancakes, pancakes, pancakes. I think John had the sausage platter. I had the apple pancakes, which were good, but the regular pancakes were better. But they give you a teetering pile of them. It's a little much. Luckily we spent about 3 hours hanging out there shooting the breeze.

11pm: Drinks at Cafe de Bruxelles where we were joined by yet another Waycross person, Laurens. A giddy time was had by all. We made quick work of a pomme frite in the silver cone thingy, and then moved on to the dessert part of the evening. Much lambic was had by all. Drink the Gueuze -- it's champagne on crack.

Saturday:

11:30 am: Brunch at Danal. Another one of those lovely east Village places that features a garden rammed between the backs of buildings. I wanted to hang out there all day.

1pm: The journey up to The Cloisters! See the Gallery 1. Well worth the trip. We caught a lecture ("The Role of Saints in Medieval Art") while we were there and they even had the unicorn tapestries back from their near-constant cleaning cycle, so we lucked out.

5pm: Back to Roettele A.G. for a repeat performance. I had originally wanted to go out for Indian food, so we compromized and got the curry fondue. Yum. I ate all John's cornichons. We have a symbiotic relationship. :-)

11pm: The Albion with Ian and Shea. See Gallery 2 for pix of that evening.

Sunday:

2:00pm: Tea with David and Marc at Lady Mendl's. I'd never had a high tea before, and I just really wanted to do it. It was five courses: the first was a light mixed green salad, the second was the proverbial cucumber sandwich, with cousin versions in goat cheese and smoked salmon. The third course was _a_ scone with clotted cream, which is amazing if you've never had it, and what tasted like homemade berry jam. The forth course was _a_ petit four, with bone fide marzipan frosting, and the last course was dessert, in case you didn't get enough of sweets already. Oh, and there was tea, which was in fact quite nice. I went trad and got the Earl Gray.

4:00pm: A jaunt up Christopher St. to McNulty's, while we were still on a tea kick. I actually found the kind of tea they use for Thai Iced tea, so it was a successful trip; plus I love that store. It's very old world. John raided nearby Record Runner, and plugged up all those heretofore unknown holes in his vinyl collection. And having finally glutted ourselves on west Village shopping, we kissed everyone goodbye and headed back to the airport.

Sniff sniff!! I miss New York already. They have better fresh fruit and flowers than any place else I've ever lived, and on every street corner. Too bad rental prices have doubled since I left. Ah well. Check back to the site in late October and I'll have a report on the honeymoon in that crazy place called Benelux.