Soul Food

Today the weather is very English: rain, wind, and temps under 10C (about 47F).

I'm off to Canada on Thursday for a few days, for a big family reunion on the occasion of my eldest cousin's 50th birthday.

So I'd better catch you up before I go...

(Apologies if some of the images are clipped short by the sidebar, which detracts from their impact.)

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A couple of weekends ago, I stayed at my cousin Ryan and he drove us up to Westchester for the birthday of cousin Mandy's husband C. I enjoyed all the wonderful homecooked Guyanese food in their lovely cosy warm house, hanging out with their very intelligent kids. The guests were mostly C's relatives. His brother and sister-in-law are dentists - in fact they said if I wanted I could have an assisting job for the asking. I didn't know while I was there that his other brother is a lawyer, but I am considering legal assisting.


Skippy rules the world, and as he'd had a hard day cooking the food and supervising the kids, by the end of the night he was the sleepiest member of the family!


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Last Friday I was invited to the Chanel Mobile Art exhibition in Central Park. However, seeing as I live so far outside of Manhattan AND at the end of a train line, there was a significant delay which meant that the time slot on my ticket had expired by the time I got there half an hour late. (Fortunately it was free.)

While I waited for my friend to emerge from the pavilion, I took photos:



The pavilion designed by architect Zaha Hadid





An auxiliary building blends into the landscape.

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Afterwards, we walked a few blocks to Alice's Teacup for lunch/afternoon tea on E 81st St. and 5th Ave.(?)



This teacup really is an antique, from Bavaria



We chose the "Mad Hatter Tea for Two" which included 3 scones, 2 sandwiches, and a dessert spread. There were 150 types of tea to choose from! Predictably, I got one that would go with milk and sugar.

Scones: winter berry, oatmeal chocolate chip, buttermilk - with strawberry preserves and cream of course.

Sandwiches: 1) smoked chicken, stilton and granny smith apple and 2) chicken curry with apples and red onions (the flavor is haunting me right now).

Dessert: a hefty slice of mocha chocolate chip and buttercream icing cake, and a variety of crispy cookies.




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Then we went to the MET since it was such a lovely day, neither of us wanted to go straight home.

I snapped quite a lot of Greco Roman artefacts and sculptures but most of them didn't turn out so well with my phonecam. These are the best ones:


Roman religion required the woman to be covered during devotions


This rock crystal perfume bottle is the size of a man's thumb, so imagine the fine workmanship on the chain - I have an identical necklace which is only 40 years old, and this is about 1,960 years older than that!


Fine granulation and filigree on a gold Roman brooch



However, on this day the Egyptian images turned out better:



The Cat Goddess (Basta) in her simple Bastet form


A wooden head


Pharaoh whose name is on the tip of my tongue...



She-Pharaoh Hatshepsut, from her tomb









A scarab


These glass bead frogs are about the size of peas!


The Temple of Dendur, rescued from flooding as a result of the building of the Aswan Dam


Papyrus fronds in front of the Temple


The amazing space dedicated to the Temple of Dendur

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And on Saturday, I cooked cutlets:

New Home Soon

The R Train crossing the Manhattan Bridge into Brooklyn

Last Sunday I revisited the new home I will be moving into this Sunday. New roomie-to-be and I chatted, ate a bowl of blueberries, and measured every surface in my new room.

It had rained in the morning so the breeze was delicious, and following her directions I went on an exploratory walk. I will be living only a couple of blocks away from Shore Park which looks out onto Upper New York Bay and buffers Bay Ridge from the big parkway directly along the shore.


Trying to see the Verrazano Narrows Bridge through the trees as I enter the park


Little fountains dot the length of the park


It was too sunny for me to patch a panoramic together using the nifty function on my phone, so....


....there are simply two separate photos of the bridge running into the distance (Staten Island, actually)

Then I walked back "inland" and explored some of the neat little streets in the neighborhood. This is what I saw:


Some little Brooklyn whitestones, I'll show you brownstones another time


A quirky narrow Victorian


A real dollshouse!


Oliver Street, a good sign


This photo does not convey the peaceful villageyness of this street. Note the trees were trained to lean into the street and arch over it as you see in the next photo:


A pleasant green tunnel, again not well conveyed by the photo


And a rather Hollywood-style mansion across from a private school


Heading towards the shops on 86th Street, I came across a Cupcake Bakery!
I hope I remember where this was.....

So then I spent the entire remainder of the afternoon on 86th between 4th and 5th Avenues, never even making it to the center of the borough on Atlantic Avenue where the courthouse and even more amenities lie, including a new Target, a store I missed very much when I was in London.

There is every shop, bar, cafe, bistro, and convenience I could ever want right here in Bay Ridge, even some I hadn't expected - and all in one place - so I'd never need to go into Manhattan. Imagine if I got a job in Brooklyn too, my friends uptown would have to coax me into the City.

Tomorrow I will visit the Brooklyn IKEA that had its Grand Opening today in Red Hook, just north of Bay Ridge. There is a special ferry going between it and Pier 11 on Wall Street. Also, free shuttle buses servicing the nearby subway stops. But of course I want to take the ferry!