from the desk of tara hope…

last weekend was a little abnormal because i was home alone and matt was down in fairhope with his family. a friend was supposed to come stay with me for a girls weekend but it didnt work out, so i had a whole weekend to myself to walk around with my camera and explore!

i started the weekend off early on thursday buy going to see a friend’s art opening. the light was absolutely gorgeous that day so i couldnt help but snap some photos along the way…

(…the green is for you, nicole!)

down in chelsea there are all these huge warehouses that house art galleries…

our friend Glen Hansen was showing his new collection in the fischbach gallery. this guy is AMAZING, he has pieces in the metropolitan museum of art and everything! go check out his art here…if i had $40,000 i would have bought one on the spot!

the opening…

sarah, barb, and me…

sarah, barb, me and glen ( the artist himself!)

you can’t see it in this photo, but that cute little old lady had on red heart sunglasses…she was FIERCE! and her husband was an old hipster. they were so new york. i loved them.

on friday i took sarah to see “anything goes” for her belated birthday present.

…um…we LOVED this show. loved it. go see it. now.

on saturday after afro-jazz i took roxie to the park on a long walk and loved seeing signs of spring!

the rest of the weekend was spent mostly browsing some flea markets around the city…

including one of my favorites, “the garage”…obviously named because its in an actual parking garage!

i found some beautiful vintage children’s book (which i have been collecting forever) and proceeded to lug all 10 of them over to hell’s kitchen to check out the flea there…

…love the views from that flea!

so when i walked over to 10th ave to catch a cab home i remembered there was a church nearby that i had wanted to photograph, but was usually in a car driving by it and not able to stop and take photos. so since i had all the time in the world i walked over to the church and proceeded to take as many photos as i wanted, which made me very happy 🙂

the back of the church(yes, the back. the front is even more stunning)

the front…

and then a street cleaner asked me where i was from, because i sounded “european” and i laughed and hailed a cab and headed home 🙂

the weekend definitely wasn’t what i expected but it was a great time of relaxing and photographing and enjoying my city 🙂

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this was such a lovely weekend! as usual it involved lots of yummy food and we spent time with some great friends!

saturday after my weekly afro-jazz class with sarah, husby and i went down to lower manhattan to meet up with safadi, one of my bestest buddies from high school! he is a true foodie and showed us around some of his favorite haunts in the city.

i love going deep into chinatown because everything is so vibrant and colorful!

our first stop was the golden unicorn for dim sum…

… i cant believe i didnt get photos of the chicken feet!

after that we meandered through chinatown sampling little treats:

beef jerky…

bubble tea…

and of course stopping to take pictures along the way…

after that we made our way to the lower east side for some dessert to finish out the day.

like i said in the last post the lower east side is very colorful and full of characters. here is the mosaic mans dog “jessie jane”. she loves meeting people and getting her picture taken. isnt she cute? 🙂

now back to the dessert…three words: momofuku milk bar. this place was amazing. its well-known and for good reason.

this is called “crack pie” and its the perfect name because its addictive just like cocaine. the milk is called cereal milk because it tastes like the milk at the bottom of your cereal bowl! genius!

thanks safadi for a perfect foodie saturday! you are our guru! 🙂

on sunday we had a slow morning, just taking it easy and cleaning the house a bit. for lunch we met up with sarah and her friend marcel. we took them to radiance tea house and scheduled a tea tasting, since we hadnt been to one yet. the lunch was fabulous as usual, and the tea tasting was really fun! we learned alot and took home a few new tea-related items to practice our new knowledge 🙂

the tasting set-up: (white, green, oolong, darjeeling black, caramel rooibos…and mochi for dessert!)

sarah and marcel…

the four of us ( i didnt get the “muted color-scheme” memo :))…

it was the perfect way to spend a sunday afternoon!

afterwards husby and i took puppy for a little walk around the farmers market and picked up a couple snacks. i am loving daylight savings time and the extra hour of sunlight! 🙂

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so matt and i have learned recently that we love the east village. there are so many cool things down there to do, see and eat! we have also learned that we could never live down there. we don’t have nearly enough tattoos and piercings (ie: none). i love seeing what people are wearing because the fashion is pretty outrageous, and SO new york! actually, the whole neighborhood is SO new york, lol 🙂

(we saw the man who creates these mosaics all over the east village, so stinkin cool!)

some photos from around the village:

we ate lunch at crif dogs which was AMAZING. seriously, so good.

the restaurant was such a dive (which we loved) that there was even graffiti on the toilets!

after that deliciousness we headed over to soho for some shopping…

kates paperie (aka a stationery store/little slice of heaven)…

pearl river mart (a chinese superstore)…

(matt loaded up on tons of weird snacks…you know…like dried anchovies….guh-ross)

and the new harney and sons tea lounge….

where we had a lovely snack of cheddar chive scones with honey mustard butter and a cheese plate…

that was one of my favorite days in new york ever, just hopping around town with husby exploring new streets and eating yummy food 🙂

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last night i went down to the lower east side to dessert trucks cafe for a macaron baking class! i fell in love with macarons in paris at laduree, and im really a horrible baker, but i thought it would be fun to know how to make them for parties every day (lets face it, anytime is a good time for a macaron)

it was a nasty, rainy night but braving the weather was so worth it for these yummy treats!

dessert truck’s cute cafe…

the store-made macarons…

time for the workshop! the guy in the picture in the top right corner was the pastry chef….vincent, from france…

in the kitchen, whipping the merengue…

piping the cookies in spring colors…

putting the topping on the cookies (lavender, coconut, cocoa, and sesame seeds)…. i piped the first two vertical rows…

my little bag of treats to take home!

if you are in the lower east side neighborhood i HIGHLY recommend you check out dessert truck for their amazing sweets. and if you are anywhere in NYC, check out their website to see where their truck will be traveling around to that day!

after all those sweets, it was time for dinner! husby met me at katz’s deli (the deli in “when harry met sally” with that famous scene “ill have what shes having”).

this place had ambience out the whazoo! it was so old fashioned and i loved it for that reason.
the cash register…

see the sign hanging that says “this is where they sat in where harry met sally”…

corned beef, pastrami, and full-sour and half-sour deli pickles with lots of spicy brown mustard! yum!

you can tell it was really raining in this last shot. matt said i am just like my dad because ill do anything for a photo. i take that as a compliment 🙂

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saturday was beautiful so after afro-jazz(me) and doing some tax stuff(husby) we went for a family walk through the park. it felt like spring was right around the corner, which made me So happy!

we stopped by the food tracks at tavern on the green for a bit of soup from ladle of love to warm us up…

i always love walking by the dakota…

on sunday we took sarah out to lunch for her birthday. she got to choose the restaurant and she chose somewhere we have been excited about trying for a LONG time…peanut butter and co!!! that’s right, a shop that sells pretty much only peanut butter sandwiches and treats!

afterwards we stopped into an adorable belgium waffle shack just to check it out. we were stuffed from PB sammies, but they gave us some samples and they were AMAZING! im definitely going back for the cream puffs! we got some savory turnovers to take home for dinner, and matt got some banana pudding that we ate for dessert…it was better than southern banana pudding, which is saying ALOT!

if you are in the village, i HIGHLY recommed “go for a bite” for some treats or a snack!

speaking of the village…love this shot 🙂

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we packed alot of fun into our 3 day weekend last week!

on saturday we tried a new(to us) restaurant called corsino for lunch.

this place was awesome! they basically serve antipasti, and food to share. we ordered some baked ricotta and a charcuterie platter, and a few of their crostinis. it was all delicious!

it was a beautiful day (although very chilly and windy) so we decided to take the train up one stop to the new doughnut plant next to the chelsea hotel.

(i love how they decorated with fabric doughnuts! so cute!)

…mmm doughnuts. these were really good….but krispy kreme is still my favorite 🙂

afterwards we walked into the chelsea hotel to see its art-filled lobby. very cool…

i love the subway in chelsea because it has all these quirky little creatures everywhere…

that night we went to see a friend of ours play at carnegie hall! luke was invited to play with 400 other high school students and we had never been to carnegie, so it was a GREAT excuse to go!

they didnt allow pictures but of course i snuck a few…

(thats luke smack dab in the middle, with the oboe! we were so proud of him!)

after some great music we tried out “burger joint” at le parker meridian for the first time. its a burger shack literally hidden in the lobby of a fancy shmancy hotel!

it was dark, so it was hard to get a good picture, but you walk in between these red curtains and follow the little neon burger sign. thats how you find it!

the burgers were messy and awesome!

on sunday we went to see million dollar quartet. i am SO glad we did!

it was such a fun show, and those are some talented preformers!!! speaking of…i got to meet “elvis” after the show…

(the photo is a little blurry but you get the idea ;))

afterwards we ate dinner at havana central, a cuban restaurant on the uws. it was yummy!

on monday we layed low and did practical things, like taxes and such. that night though, we took a cheese tasting course at murray’s cheese shop! we have wanted to do this since we moved here and it was worth the wait!

for dinner we went to keste pizza…another place we had been wanting to try! this was also worth the wait. i got the prosciutto and mushroom pizza with a truffle spread….delicious!

i was sad we didnt get a picture of us at the tasting, so i snapped one in the subway on the way home…matt was thrilled 🙂

we checked ALOT of things off of our nyc master list this weekend and that makes me SO happy! 🙂

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i just wanted to brag about my awesome best friend a little bit! nicole is an amazing artist, and she handpainted me the most beautiful ornament for my christmas present and i want to show it off!

the images are of the “ghostbusters building” and the “friends fountain” in our neighborhood. i absolutely LOVE my ornament and i will treasure it forever. it will always remind me of our last christmas in NYC!

as if that wasnt enough, she also sewed me a super cute pillow with vintage doilies.

roxie loves it, too!

thanks meineke! youre the best!

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back in january(!) my uncle warren and aunt ginny came to visit for their very first trip to NYC! they are HUGE “the who” fans, and robert daltrey was doing a benefit show here that they wanted to see…and when they heard we were moving back and it would be their last opportunity to come visit, they jumped at the chance!

here they are on their first subway ride!…

i am SO glad they decided to come because we had a great time! i loved showing them around the city and even though we did lots of “first-timer” things, i was excited to get pictures(of course) and see a few new sights around the city

we saw:

south street seaport and the brooklyn bridge…

madame tussads wax museums…

fao shwartz…

the world trade center…

(if you get a chance to go into the memorial museum you should definitely go! they show the planned memorial and they also show photos and a timeline of the attacks. it was really cool…and heartbreaking)

ellis island… (i had never been here before and was SO glad we got to go! i would love to get more time here at some point)

we took a double decker bus tour through the entire city. it was FREEZING, but i sat in the open air section and got some pictures i was really happy with! here are some of my favorites from around the city in no particular order…

…those pigeons were having a bagel feast! it was their lucky day!

new york is such a beautiful city, and im not going to lie…i teared up a bit riding around on the bus, thinking about leaving in march. i got a sweet note from my aunt and uncle thanking us for letting them stay here, and aunt ginny said she can see why we love it so much here, and that she could totally live here. that made me SO happy to hear! 🙂 i love showing first-timers around and introducing them to the city i love so much! if any of you readers ever need NYC ideas, just ask! ill be glad to share what i know! 🙂

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