Klosekraft

Weekend update

My weekend can be summed up as follows:
Friday night: very fun party at the Casa de Two Tiki Bars.
Saturday: all planned activity suspended due to truly punishing hangover.
Saturday night: very fun dinner party -- I'm waiting for a recipe to appear in my inbox so I can post it.
Sunday: something I've been meaning to do for ages: go out for dim sum in Flushing.

It was a cold, dreary day (that photo was taken at 1:00 in the afternoon) — perfect for sitting around with friends and eating a lot of tasty tidbits. We went to Gala Manor, which I would definitely recommend. I would also definitely recommend, if you can, taking along someone who speaks the language. We didn't and suffered for it. (I mean, relatively speaking, of course. It was exactly the opposite of suffering, really.) There was a lot going on that we couldn't follow, food coming out of the kitchen that wasn't on the carts, a part of the restaurant where it looked like people where getting food out of steam trays, very little English spoken or written anywhere.

A corner of the cavernous space:

A sampling of what we had:

We had plenty of other stuff too (I just got sick of taking pictures) and ended up paying $11 each, including tax and tip.

Weekend update

I had a great weekend, just the ideal mix of time alone and seeing friends, new places, old favorites, much-needed stuff done, great food. If I had sat down beforehand to design my ideal weekend, it wouldn't have been far off from this.

Some highlights:

Cultural:

• A free concert at Bargemusic, a boat-turned-performance-space that's moored under the Brooklyn Bridge, with  Becky and her friend Courtney, who was visiting from Philadelphia. They don't announce the programs for their free shows beforehand and it turned out to be a classical pianist with the most, um, expressive face I've ever seen on a musician. There were points when I thought he was going to start crying, he was so moved by his own playing. It was more than a little ridiculous, honestly. But the music was lovely and you could look past him and watch boats going by.

• The Obsessive Consumption show on its last day at the Jen Bekman Gallery. It was mainly works on paper with a couple of textile pieces. I had thought it was the other way around, but still liked it. She chronicles her relationship with consumerism by drawing everything she buys.

Food:

• Saturday morning, I took myself to breakfast at Eisenberg's, a New York institution I had never been to. While I ate my egg and cheese on a roll (breakfast of champions!) and drank my coffee, the guy behind the counter told me about his back problems and we talked about the Breeder's Cup. It was a nice way to spend 20 minutes or so, especially since it came on the heels of the one kind of bummer note all weekend — I went to my favorite early yoga class and learned that the teacher I really liked isn't teaching anymore and that her replacement is the sit-around-and-visualize-our-chakras type, while I like the kind of yoga where you sweat a lot and it hurts to raise your arms for three days afterward. 

• Tae and I had a fantastic dinner at Five Points and I meant to take pictures of the food, but completely forgot about it (beet salad and housemade ricotta cavatelli with butternut squash and mushrooms). She brought me flowers and when I referred to them as my 'break-up flowers,' corrected me to say that they were for no reason other than I'm lovely. Aw.

• Last night, Erin and her mom and I went to Di Fara's, frequently hailed as the best pizza in the five boroughs. I've been meaning to get out there for a couple of years at least and can't believe it took me so long. There is no ambiance to speak of (fluorescent lights, sticky laminate tables) and the air is so thick with greasy, sooty smoke from the ovens that our clothes and hair and skin reeked of it afterward, but there's a real sense that you're having An Experience, that you're watching a supremely gifted man at work. And the pizza...  I was ready to be disappointed by the pizza. I figured it would be good, but didn't honestly believe that anything could live up to the hype. It does though. It really, really does. It's the best pizza I've ever had. Any of the write-ups I linked to will give plenty of information about the man behind the pizza and so much more descriptive descriptions than I seem able to pull together now. I should add though, since I don't think any of them mention it, that the sauce is so good, I would happily eat it with a spoon. Or out of my scooped bare hands, if there wasn't a spoon handy.
  

Dom DeMarco stretching some dough:

In motion (love the cash register and that fantastic green on the walls):

And the pie itself [drool]:

Embellished doors:

Etc.:

• I gave blood, sort of spontaneously. I had a little time to kill and walked by a blood drive. I've been meaning to get back to donating regularly, so this was a good start.
  

• At Purl, I bought the most amazing yarn ever. I mean, the yarn itself is just brushed mohair (Promise in fuchsia), but the color is like nothing I've ever seen. I nearly yanked it out of Becky's hands after she unearthed it in the 40% off bin. I think I actually pulled a random skein out of the bin and offered it to her, saying something like, "Wouldn't you rather have this green one?" (She ended up buying a cream and peach skein, the polar opposite of this one, so I don't feel bad about getting all puppy-dog-eyes on her.) My god, I love this yarn. I can't take a decent photo of it, it's so intense and saturated.  It seems to generate its own light. This color is to pink what scotch bonnet peppers are to ketchup.

 

Because I'm 12

Tonight I had dinner at the best named restaurant in New York.

Lest you think there's photoshop at work: there isn't.

I must have lost my ever-lovin' mind.

Carolyn is in town for a few days and we got together last night to catch up a little and troll around Soho. Our first stop was at Purl Patchwork, the latest addition to the Purl Craft Empire. I had brought along a couple of patterns I've been considering, just in case something happened to catch my eye. Just the slightest bit of encouragement from her and this is what came home with me:

This pattern is a vintage one that my mom apparently tried to sell at a garage sale (for 25 cents--it's a bargain at twice the price!), but I rescued. The smaller black and white pattern will be on top, and the flowered print will be the skirt.

This fabric is for this dress (the "girly dress" on the left. I wanted a print that I wouldn't have to worry about matching at the seams and that would make me look neither like Laura Ingalls nor someone's couch. I like that the cotton is lightweight enough to wear during the summer, but that the color and style will work with tights and a cardigan well into the fall. I'm a little concerned that both dresses fall well beyond my current sewing skills, but really, what's the worst that could happen? Carolyn assured me that the directions for the Betsy Ross dress look pretty straightforward and easy to follow (they start off by showing you how to tell the right side from the wrong side of the fabric—I already know how to do that!) and I have a couple of friends who sew really well and will rescue me if I need them. If I'm going to get better at this stuff, I have to do projects that aren't easy for me. These both look like they fall between Stuff I Can Already Do and This Is Going To Make Me Jump Out A Window. It doesn't take much, sewing-wise, to really frustrate me, so this will be an interesting exercise. I happen to desperately want to own both of these dresses and the only way that's going to happen is if I make them, so it may just come down to learning through greed and coveting.

What about the yarn, you ask? We had wandered down the block to Purl on our way to Lombardi's for some excellent New York pizza. I needed to get a longer #7 needle to accomodate the ridiculous number of stitches the pleated black jacket is up to, but there's nothing fun about going home, opening up your bag, and finding just a new needle. I've had knee socks on the brain lately and something about narrowly red-and-white striped handknit knee socks makes me extremely happy. I'm going to knit them from the toe up to see if I can get away with one skein per sock. I suspect I'll need a third, but you never know...

Thanks for all of the good wishes about the interview yesterday. I got a call from the HR chick today to schedule a second interview with someone higher up the ladder. That won't happen until the end of next week though.

On walking around the East Village in the middle of the night eating falafel

Last night, while I was getting ready to go out and see my favorite Balkan dance band, the friend who was going with me cancelled. I made a few calls and most of my friends were either busy or not interested in going to see a band that started late on a Thursday. (note to self: make more friends who are unemployed or insomniacs) Not a big deal, the crowd at their shows is always really friendly--their whole shtick is creating the atmosphere of a village festival where there's great music and grandmothers and kids and everyone there is dancing up a storm--and I tend to see a lot of the same people over and over. I figured I'd see someone I had talked to before or recognized and would hang out with them.

It was weird though, an extremely sedate crowd (no one was dancing--that never happens) and some intensely smarmy men I didn't feel like dealing with, so I drank one glass of gin-scented tonic water (I hate a bartender who pours light) and left after the first set.

I walked around for a little while and found myself near my favorite falafel place. These guys know their falafel--they fry the falafel after you order so they're always hot and super-crunchy on the outside, they toast the pita, they add all kinds of yummy treats: tabbouleh, chopped cucumbers, chickpeas if you ask for them, and they don't pad it out with too much lettuce. You get tahini and some kind of tangy yogurt sauce and plenty of hot sauce and it's the most delicious thing going. The contrast between the hot pita and falafel with the cool, crunchy vegetables and the creamy sauces with the spicy hot sauce...my god.

I like foods that can be eaten while I walk (pizza, smoothies, falafel..). It appeals to my loves of food and walking around the city and efficiency. Why only do one thing I love when I could be doing two? So what if I drip a little tahini on my shoe? It'll come off. The East Village at midnight on a warm Thursday is full of people sitting out at tables on the sidewalk, going in and out of bars, walking around, standing around. I find it highly entertaining to watch all of the attractive people eyeing each other. I'm always halfway tempted to grab people by the wrists, tell them they each just checked the other out, and force them to introduce themselves. I'm not usually prone to nostalgia, but I had a little attack of it last night, walking by bars I used to go to with friends who've all left New York, places I've had dates of varying degrees of horror (including one who came down with explosive diarrhea mid-date), the place where a really amazing sushi/Korean restaurant used to be. They didn't have a liquor license but, once you were a regular, the sushi chef would share from his personal bottle of whisky.

No finished Cece pics yet. The neckband is looking a little wonky and I can't decide if it's the kind of thing that'll block out or if I should rip it out and do it over. I'm leaning toward blocking, but that's probably the laziness talking.