Monday July 12, 2010

Nikki Benz did great in yoga this am! Her boobs got in the way of several of the poses, but she did not leave the room and she tried to do everything…I think she only sat out on one of the postures. When the instructor asked her name she hesistated and told her “Nikki” instead of her real name. Then at the end of class the person at the front desk brought an envelope down with her real first and last name and the instructor was like “Nikki, what is your last name?” She was confused, I was dying laughing and Nikki was like “Well, yes that on the envelope is my legal name but I go by Nikki.” I wonder if anyone in the class recognized her. Or her boobs. At one point in the middle of class I looked at her inquisitively and did a thumbs up thing…asking if she was ok. She looked at me with a disheveled crazy look of exhaustion and sweat and pain all at once and whispered: “I love yoga.” She, like me, had never done any kind of yoga before but came with the intention of knocking out an intense amount of cardio in 90 minutes. We both HATE doing the machines at the gym. I get super bored and want to get off the elliptical after 15 minutes. Anyways, she said she was hooked and I hope that she does it back in LA or wherever she’s on the road.

I started to take a photo of this cute kitty and of course the owner flew out of nowhere screaming at me to leave money. He actually made me put the $ in the jar before I snapped the pic. Another man walking by got all in his face about how he can’t stop me from taking the photo and blah blah blah. The thing is, I don’t even mind giving the guy a buck. The cat looks pretty content.

St Patrick’s Cathedral (You gotta check out the inside if you have the chance… I didn’t go in today because I have already seen it and I didn’t want Nikki and I to burst into flames today. It was already too hot outside.)

For lunch we attempted to eat Japanese food at Cafe Zaiya but were sadly disappointed that it was not like a real Japanese place. I heard about it online from Midtown Lunch and it was one of their recommendations for a “fun” lunch. It was prepackaged like at the grocery store…ewww…but at this point we were hungry and it was the in-between time of sushi restaurants. The bakery and dessert selection was impressive so we decided to check it out. The green tea cake was too dry for me.

The lychee gelee was decent, but the texture was a little bit too slick for me. And I am not a huge fan of the lychee fruit. Only in my fruity martinis really.

The black sesame ice cream on the other hand! FTW! (For the win) It was nutty and yummy…it had an almost peanut butter flavor. It was gray with black flecks. I am in love and hope that I see this again very soon. Or I will be looking for it in Japan.

After lunch we were in a bit of a food coma and Nikki was in her state of deep relaxation and yoga retardedness so we just started walking …heading towards Bryant Park tp see if we could find some coffee and a grassy area to chill out. But, we miraculously found a bar with some yummy cocktails. Try saying “watermelonade.” Just try. Isn’t that a difficult word to get out? It’s just weird.

Meet Sophie, a 7 month old Portugese Podengo!

I had several drinks, Nikki could barely finish one. What a lightweight. We went back to our respective hotels and chilled out to get ready for our big night out on the town…. We went to Stanton Social to see Chris Santos the owner and executive chef and his wife, Taryn. Again this is one of those special situations where somehow through the magic of the universe I was supposed to meet these people. Chris is a culinary wizard and renowned chef and she is a talented erotic fine art photographer. (Do you recognize him from the show Chopped??) And on the left is Marc, a guy that we met last year when we were out with Chris and Taryn.

Nice tan lines, Laura. Sheesh don’t you have a mirror in the hotel? Wear something that doesn’t look so dumb next time.

Just like last time, Chris had us do the tasting menu of his favorite things. Ceasar salad bites…

Amazing potato and goat cheese pierogies with caramelized onions and truffle creme fraiche (I could have eaten an entire bowl of the creme fraiche!) and also his version of a Nori spiced tuna tartare roll.

FOR THE WIN: hand pulled chicken arepas with manchego and jalapeno salsa verde.

Shrimp (for some reason I am looking at the menu right now and I don’t see this…) it was delicious whatever was on there… I don’t remember. I see corn. lol

Red snapper tacos with creamy avocado and spicy mango (second place winner )

I was utterly stuffed at this point but I did try the meatball slider (if I was hungry I would have eaten a half dozen of them) and the beef carpaccio was deelish too… and would you believe that I didn’t even touch the lobster roll? Am I lobstered out from my trip? No, just full.

They were having a semi-private party upstairs so we rolled our fat asses (well mine, not Nikki’s) up to the tables/lounge. Marc is obviously enamored by Nikki in all of her beauty.

Definitely my favorite picture of the night. lol

We went to another club called Avenue. I love that they are sooo cool they don’t even need a website. Unless I am straight up dumb, I do not see anything to click on that site. On this site it says “Tough Door”…well not if you are with celebrity chef Chris Santos! ahhahahaha! Seriously, thank you Chris for such an amazing night of fine food and drinks…Thank you so much for your hospitality. I had a blast and if you come to San Diego, it’s on me!

I am such a 2 beer queer.

At about 3am I was a little bit cross eyed as you can see in this picture so Nikki and I said our goodbyes and we went home. Yoga tomorrow? oooooh I dunno… I have to check out of my hotel by 11:00. This might be rough.

Saturday July 10, 2010

I forgot to mention that last night while 631 was manhandling me I did notice a remarkable difference in my flexibility and strength in certain positions! yay! sooo many benefits to yoga! I went back to the midtown location this morning for another 90 minutes of hell and then met up with my friend Caroline for lunch. I met Caroline through a mutual friend last year and stayed in touch with her. (Last year we went to an oyster festival and afterwards went to a show where I fell in love with The McLovins!) Today we met at a French placed called L’Express on Park and 20th. I started with the tomato and cucumber salad which had a delicious basil dressing. I know this is so “California” of me to say, but it would have been great with some avocado in there, too.

Caroline ordered the spinach and ham omelette (which I forgot to take a photo of duh) and I had the steak tartare.  They had an appetizer size portion and a full size portion and even though we were sharing everything we still didn’t finish it. It had a little kick to it, but it was definitely not the best steak tartare I have had. Her omelette was great though. Fail no pics

It was great to catch up with her over wine and French food and since neither of us had a damn thing to do today, we turned it into a pub crawl! lol She is a makeup artist who has worked fashion, TV, film etc…and she gave me some good inspirational advice about pursuing a career in mainstream film/TV. I mean I know I could do it, but kind of lost sight of that fact that learning all that I did at NA really is the beginning of a potential career in filmmaking for me. Whether it be directing or producing or both. While talking to her it kind of re-inspired me and put the faith back in me about making an independent film. I gotta ton of ideas, now do something with them!

We went over to the Old Town Bar for some refreshing homemade lemonade and vodka drinks. Not too sweet, just tart enough.  The best part about this place is the functioning dumbwaiter! How cool is that? It is supposedly the oldest functioning dumbwaiter in NYC. I remember growing up as a kid visiting my aunt and uncles huge farmhouse in Maine and they had a laundry chute. I know that’s totally unrelated and is nothing like a dumbwaiter but it just reminded me of ways to transport things from one level of the house to another without using the stairs. We used to threaten to throw the cat down the laundry chute …but I don’t think we ever did. I hope I didn’t. Jeez that would be terrible.

We walked downtown to meet up with Liz. Caroline said this is a clock but the last 4 numbers never moved so I don’t know what those could mean? Anyone?

Liz asked us to meet her down here because she was busted, beat up and hungover and when she tricked us into meeting her at a Thai restaurant I hung up the phone saying “I am going to kill you, Liz.”
Let me tell you, I ate those words. Boyd Thai is no joke.

Thai nachos (puffed rice thingys) with a very tasty peanut sauce.

The mussels were only $5.95 and were great. I generally prefer mussels to be served in a white broth but this was deelish.

But the real winner was the salad dressing. This looks like a boring old tofu salad but the dressing that they use was unbelievably tasty… simply the Boyd House Salad. You have to try it.

Liz had to stop in and check out a rental that she manages and she took us down the cutest little street. NYC surprises me a lot with it’s hidden beauty.

Look at these two movie stars!

Ummm I am pretty sure that this is one way to definitely get people to piss on your stuff.

Liz’s dog Chester is a little grumpy with new people but eventually comes around. I love that he’s trained to go wild when she says “Tranny Hooker” to him.

Caroline and I headed off to another pub called Puck Fair…a place that she says always has cute boys We were so enthralled with our own conversation that we did not, in fact, speak to anyone other than the bartenders. I did try to talk Caroline into going to yoga with me in the morning no less than 15 times. Oh well. I took a cab home and then my night got real interesting when I pulled the “Reverse Taxi Cab Confessions” on my cabbie. I have tried a few times to upload the videos but it keeps crashing on me. I can tell you that I am quite drunk and slurring my words and giggling a lot. When he pulled up to my hotel, I finished filming and I stuck my head into the front seat and made out with the guy. HEY! He was young (under 30) and cute! As soon as I can get the videos to upload I will post them. Good gawd they are so ridiculous.

Friday July 9, 2010

The Bikram instructor this morning at 6am was getting on my last nerve with his voice: half auctioneer/half horse race announcer. I love going at that hour when it’s only 80 degrees outside instead of 90 though. I want to try the 30 day challenge, but it’s hard when you are traveling. Day 1. Let’s see if I can do this.

I forgot to share these pics with you earlier in the week! My sister Denise took Sylvia to camp and scared the shit out of her campers! She had a birthday party for her yesterday with cupcakes and balloons. You think I am nuts? Well now you know where I get it. A few of the girls kept fighting over who got to hold Sylvia lol. I had to ship Sylvia to San Diego today and you can imagine the look on the guy’s face at the UPS store when I walked in with her under my arm. I really wanted to bring her back on the airplane as my carry-on, but her bottom lip is fragile and I didn’t want her to get hurt. Plus I might have issues at the airport… ya never know. Those TSA agents are weird sometimes.

I met my friend Kristen (the one whose Dad died a few weeks ago) for lunch at Grant’s in West Hartford. We have been trying to catch up the whole time I was here, but timing was always off for whatever reason. I ordered the ravioli with Maine crab… deliciously awesome.

She ordered the lobstah roll…I am glad that I chose my ravioli because that looks like it has too much mayonaise on there. But then again, I am spoiled as all hell these days when it comes to lobster.

Their homemade potato chips were fantastic.

It was great to see her and finally get a chance to catch up. Of course we talked at length about her situation and the ups and downs of grieving a loved one/losing a parent. She was pretty open about discussing the details of his suicide and how she and her family are processing it. Kristen has had a pretty tragic life in that 15 years ago (almost to the day of her Dad’s death) she was the driver of a car that ended in a fatal accident. She was driving on a bumpy country road and lost control of her Jeep and flipped the vehicle. There were 5 girls in the car…three (inc. herself) were fine, one sustained a severe head injury and one died. Kristen was desperately trying to lift the vehicle that had pinned her friend down and when it caught on fire she had to make a choice to walk away or die with Tara. She pled guilty to vehicular manslaughter and is now a convicted felon. She has to live with her decision of drinking and driving for the rest of her life and will always remember the smells, sounds and sight of watching Tara die before her eyes. She had to forfeit her teaching career and worked in restaurants to pay all of the legal bills. She never spent any time in jail, but was sentenced to a bazillion hours of community service. She ended up speaking at high schools all over New England  telling her story to students and explaining the dangers of drunk driving. The ironic thing is that she was voted most likely to succeed in high school and I told her today that for 15 years I have always thought she was truly the most successful if she had changed the minds of even a small percentage of those kids about drinking and driving. We spoke at length about tragedy and how your life can go either way afterwards. You can shrivel up and close people out, or you can take what happened and learn and help others. Kristen has a new appreciation for family, friends, life and love. She never in a million years thought that that day would be the last time she ever spoke to Tara. She never had a chance to say goodbye to her Dad. Kristen reminded me (again) that life is very short. Make the best of it because you never know how long you will be here or how long anything will ever last.

I took the train to Penn Station and saw the Lady Gaga fans all over the place all dressed up like freaks for her show tonight at Madison Square Garden. I didn’t even snap pix, I suck. I got settled into my hotel and walked over to Bamboo 52 to grab a bit to eat with Liz, Steven, Jamie Lynn and Eva Angelina was in town! The waitress was pushing this roll on me with black rice and I was hesitant (because of my experience with the brown rice from the other day) and when the roll suddenly appeared in 60 seconds, I realized it was already made and they were trying to pawn it off on me. Whatevs, it was actually really tasty.

I sat with Steven for a good 1/2 hour  before realizing what his shirt said! HA!

Liz apparently likes to bite her own arm when she is getting fucked from behind.

I had sent 631 a provocative text earlier and wouldn’t you know it? I ate at McDonalds again tonight! I actually would like to revise my statement…it’s not like eating at McDonalds. It’s like eating at your very favorite restaurant where you have tried most things on the menu and you know whatever you order it will be great. You know what to expect in the quality of the food and the service, but sometimes you get a little crazy and order something new.

Saturday June 26, 2010

Betsy, Bob and I had a light breakfast before they dropped me off at the train station in Hudson. I was lucky to get on the 10:25 train due to a last minute cancellation… I had no idea that that particular train/time would sell out! I made it into the city around 12:45 and checked into my time share/hotel. I bought a time share through Hilton Grand Vacation Clubs several years ago and finally paid it off this summer. I get 5000 points per year which usually gets me a 2 bedroom condo for a week. Some cities are more popular than others so when I decide to do nights instead of the whole week I use more points. If that makes sense… like one night in Manhattan is 1000 points. Anyways…I have just under 20,000 points that I can use right now so this isn’t costing me anything except the $49 booking fee. The best part of the time share being paid off is that now for the rest of my life I get 5000 points a year which can also be transferred to any Hilton hotel worldwide or to another company called RCI which has hundreds of resorts around the world. When I die, I can will the time share to someone! The price was $25,000 and if you think about the fact that this is forever, it makes sense. I am just happy that I finally have the time to actually use the points! It is a brand new location and is right in midtown so I checked in and headed over to the closest Bikram studio. The practice of yoga is the same wherever you are, but each studio is a little bit different. There was a woman just yapping away at her friend before class started and it was getting under my skin so bad that I almost said something to her. I was trying to just lay there in the heat (same temp as outside I might add) and relax and prepare for class and she wouldn’t shut the fuck up about her wedding dress. No one does that shit at the studio I go to in San Diego. When you walk in the door, you are quiet. Period.

After class and a cold shower I went to the Lower East Side for wine and pizza with 2 guys that I went to college with for my one year at UConn. (Thank you Facebook for reconnecting us.) Dave is married with a lovely wife and a 2 year old and another one on the way. 631 is still single and still hot and we picked up where we left off in 1991. I went to visit him at his beachhouse last May and each of the 4 times that I came to the city in 2009 we were able to meet up. It was a little awkward after not seeing each other for such a long time, but the awkwardness dissipated pretty quickly and now it’s like eating at  McDonald’s: you know exactly what you are going to get when you go there. It’s funny, on paper we are a perfect match but there is still some sort of disconnect that I can’t put my finger on. We are both “foodies” (and both hate using that word), never been married, love to travel, etc… but I think even if we did live in the same city we would not be together. If it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. lol! He’s smart, funny, successful, fun to be around and we have great chemistry, but it is what it is.

Thursday 10.22.09

I arrived in NYC at the butt crack of dawn to attend a photography convention called Photo Plus Expo. It’s a massive amount of dorky middle aged dudes, but also a lot of the movers and shakers in the world of photography. I have enrolled in several seminars about branding, marketing, social media and publishing. I have thousands of images and I really just don’t know what to do with them so I am trying to wrap my head around the possibilities and options for me. I have been shooting stills for so long and have never really specialized in one field, so this is inspiring for me to figure out who I am as an artist. I have been around the planet and back (6 out of 7 continents! Australia is #7 in 4 months woohoo!) and I have tons of cool pictures to share with everyone….. Plus, I get to come to NYC again and hang out while the weather is still nice!

Last night I met up with Nikki Benz for a bottle of champagne and lemon drop shots (good ones… that is always a plus) at the W in Times Square. It’s entertaining for me to be out with a porn star and have random dudes recognize her…..but then it is even more fun when they try to be cool about the fact that they are porn connoisseurs and that they have just recognized a porn star. After having a martini with some cute young Wall Street interns, we went downtown and met up with a new friend of hers named Chris Santos….who happens to own a restaurant in the Lower East Side.

Chris Santos Interview (ironic that I know the woman who interviewed him for this piece… Laren Spirer! More on her later! This is about to become 6 degrees of separation in so many ways) It’s a rare occasion for me to enjoy dinner with the Executive Chef and owner of a place so I was super excited to eat my face off in his establishment. Stanton Social is a tapas style place with a lot of eclectic dishes from all over the world and Chris treated us to well over a dozen of them. I am by no means a food writer, or an expert of any kind in food reviews: I am merely here to tell you what I shoveled into my mouth.

I started with the pink grapefruit and mint martini which was to die for. It’s a strange combination that you would think tastes like ass considering what it’s like when you brush your teeth and then drink orange juice right afterwards. We then had a bacon, lobster, truffle marscapone on flatbread, tuna sashimi over avocado (I had to skip the jalapeno topper… I am the biggest wimp when it comes to spice), miso glazed Chilean sea bass, sweet and sour chicken cashew spring rolls, wild mushroom risotto cakes with parmesan and wild mushroom risotto flakes. OK breathe…. Then we had apple brie quesadillas with smoked bacon, duck confit empanadas, chicken arepas, sweet potato and butternut squash ravioli, orecchiette with rabbit sausage with fire roasted peppers and wild mushrooms, foie gras over vanilla risotto cake with a crispy apple between them, beef wellington. Breathe…I then ordered a cucumber vanilla martini (awesome, but not as awesome as the grapefruit one) and we proceeded to make ourselves sick with dessert. Donuts (waaaay better than Dunkin Donuts, I can’t believe I just said that out loud) with 3 different dipping sauces (chocolate, raspberry and caramel),

peanut butter mousse with concord grape sorbet,

and red velvet Twinkies.

Let me elaborate on the desserts and then I will give you my top 3 choices of the tapas. The peanut butter mousse was delicious, but the grape sorbet was too tart for me. The creamy smoothness of the peanut butter clashed with the texture and flavor of the sorbet.Chris and I discussed this last night and he basically said, “I am sorry you feel that way.” LOL! Anyways, I know he might read this and I want to apologize for offending him, if I did. Like I said, I am just stating my opinion and by no means is this blog going to have any impact whatsoever on the success of his restaurant. I think about 22 people are going to read this and only 2 of them live in Manhattan. As far as the red velvet Twinkie goes… I was a little nervous because one time when I was 6 years old I ate the entire family pack of Twinkies and got really really sick. To this day I cannot even smell one without gagging. So, being that red velvet cupcakes are one of my absolute favorite things to eat, I was a little scurred. Luckily, it tasted nothing like a Twinkie, and was properly stuffed with cream cheese frosting. At that point, I was ready to vomit and I kept eating the fucking thing.

My favorite things were (in no particular order) the bacon/lobster/truffle flatbread,
the beef wellington

and the orrecchiette with rabbit sausage. (no pic sorry, I couldn’t keep up with the dishes as fast as they were coming!) I can’t wait to go back and eat the other 878 things on his menu! I am sure that I have not named the dishes as they were on the menu, I am merely describing the items in them. After all, when you are dining with the owner, what is the point of looking at the menu at all?

After dinner we were whisked away in a scary black SUV instead of a taxi (of course because only commoners use taxis) to a club called ‘who cares’ where we proceeded to drink more champagne. I spent most of my time there with Chris’s wife making fun of badly dressed, homely “models” that needed to eat some sandwiches. A handsome man named Marc showed up to take us to another club called ‘I hate hip hop’ and I have to say I was a little upset because I had just fixated on these two skanks from New Jersey dancing away with their hideous hair and outfits. Trust me, I am no Versace, but I do own a mirror and I have glanced over the pages of a fashion magazine in the last decade. The night ended at 5 am and I was dragging ass today at the convention. My first seminar was stupid so I walked out and cruised the show floor looking for cool stuff. It is far less nerdy than I thought and there are far less nerds than those that trickle over into the AVN show from CES every year. If you don’t know what either of those are, google them and let your imagination figure out the rest. I did get to hold and caress the Canon 7D Mark II with the get-up that I need to balance the thing over my shoulder. More on that in a week or so…