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LJ and I just spent 3 days in New York, and except for the heat/humidity, it was glorious.  We arrived at the Mansfield Hotel on Wednesday afternoon.  It’s a wonderful little boutique hotel on 44th Street across from the Algonquin between 5th Avenue and 6th (or Avenue of the Americas).  It is a prime location being equidistant from prime shopping and the theatre district, and I plan to partake of a little of both.  The room is roomy (for New York) and the bathroom is great.

Mansfiel Hotel

In the M Bar

After drinks, we go to dinner at Osteria al Doge.  It’s a wonderful little Italian place on 44th that is really busy for a Wednesday night.   I had Salmon alla Griglia which was perfectly cooked, and LJ ahd Ravioli Spinaci.  He said it was wonderful. 

After dinner we walked to Grand Central Station and got our Metro cards so we could take the subway like locals while we’re here.  We jumped on and went downtown to 86th to our favorite little bar in NY where the wait people sing Broadway tunes between slinging drinks.  It was fun, but we called it a fairly early evening after all the travel and hubbub of the first day.

Thursday morning we had breakfast at a little restaurant called Un, Deux, Trois.  It was a pretty little place, but breakfast was really pedestrian and cost a fortune.  I think we’ll find a more down home place tomorrow.  We then head uptown and shopping at the MOMA store.  We roam Rockefeller Plaza and go into the NBC store so I can buy a 30 Rock t-shirt.  As we walk back down 5th Avenue, I decide I haven’t brought the right shoes, so I go into Nine West and buy another pair.  I know, we have Nine West in Dallas.  But it just feels different in New York!

It’s time to have lunch at Le Bernardin.  I have been anxiously waiting for this for months.  Eric Ripert is one of the finest chefs in the world, and this is going to be a world class experience.  And it doesn’t disappoint!  Lunch is a prix fixe, 3 course meal.  My first course was barely seared shrimp with mache and wild mushroom salad with shaved fois gras and white balsamic vinaigrette.  LJ had barely cooked slivered scallops in a lime coconut sauce with cilantro.  They were both simply magic.  I could have stopped there and been happy.  But, no.  My main course was baked wild striped bass with a corn canneloni in a light perigord sauce.  Everything was so light it fairly floated.  The flavors just sort of lingered on the tongue.  LJ had crusted red snapper with zucchini, mint and coriander compote in a rich citrus broth.  Finally, desserts were so elegant and delicious.  They are titled by the food that is featured.  I had “Pear” and LJ had “Hazelnut.”  Pear consisted of a cinnamon caramel parfait, liquid pear, smoked sea salt, and fromage blanc sorbet.  Amazing!  I have no idea how it was done, but the “liquid pear” was a little grape looking thing that when you bit into it, there was a pear explosion in your mouth.  “Hazelnut” was a gianduja cream with Oregon hazelnuts (which was kind of like a hazelnut mousse) and honey banana brown butter ice cream.  I don’t think words can do it justice.

After that lunch, it seems like nothing could top the day, but we are seeing Denzel Washington and Viola Davis in Fences that night.  It was amazing, devastating, the best play I’ve ever seen, which is saying a lot considering I’ve see Ian McKellan and Helen Mirren on stage.  I have never cried so hard watching a play.  I’m sure Viola will win a Tony.  What a day we’ve had! 

Friday morning we slept a little later and did a little more walking around town before getting ready for lunch at Bobby Flay’s Mesa Grill.  Mesa Grill has a really fun vibe with colorful walls and table linens and a moderately noisy atmosphere.  We start with Margaritas - LJ has the Mesa Grill Margarita and I have a White Peach Margarita.  Yummy.  Our appetizer is Rough Cut Tuna Nachos with Habanero Mango Hot Sauce and Avocado Crema.  It was really like a tuna tartare with gorgeous raw tuna with the two sauces and homemade tortilla chips on the side.  Wonderful!  LJ’s main course was Cornmeal Crusted Chile Relleno with roasted eggplant, manchego cheese, sweet red pepper sauce and balsamic vinegar.  I had a Pressed Roasted Pork Sandwich with grilled red onion, arugula ancho mayonnaise and Southwestern fries.  For dessert we shared a blueberry tart which consisted of lime custart in a very crisp shell topped with whipped cream and a crushed fresh blueberry sauce.  Outstanding!  All I can say is it’s a good thing you walk 5 miles a day in New York.

After lunch we went to Chelsea Market.  This market is like a New York mall with lots of stores under on roof covering a couple of city blocks.  It was bustling and the stores were wonderful.  We particularly liked the Italian food market.

  After spending a couple of hours wandering Chelsea Market we head back to the hotel to rest up before going to see Stacey Kent.

Birdland is a great place to see jazz!  It’s an intimate club but it serves full dinners (if you want and you haven’t just eaten everything in sight at Bobby Flay’s) or just a cheese plate or snacks.  We were seated right at the edge of the stage.  Stacey was, as usual, impeccable.  She did about half of her songs in either French or Portuguese.  Her new CD is called Reconte-moi and is done entirely in French.  It’s just lovely, but harder to relate to when you can’t understand the lyrics.  Still, she is an amazing singer and we loved it.

We leave on Saturday after having been excited, entertained, and exhausted by New York.  But we know we’ll be back!

Well, we’ve done it.  LJ and I have completed a total remodel of our kitchen at the lake.  We were lucky enough to be able to do this while we were living somewhere else.  I can’t even imagine what hell it must be to try to live in your place while the kitchen is being completely gutted and put back together.  At one point, our refrigerator, range, dishwasher and upper oven were all sitting in the middle of the living room.

That’s behind us now, and all we have left is the clean-up, which is no small feat.  I won’t be able to start the major unpacking and cleaning up until this Friday and Saturday.  But I’m happy.  Before I do the official unveiling, let me show a couple of “before” shots.

Looking from the dining room back into the kitchenFrom the counter

This island replaces the old counter

The transition from the kitchen to the hardwoods

By the way, the contractor was Dee Nichols at Dunn’s Floors and More in Gun Barrel City, Texas.  I can’t recommend him highly enough!

Let’s have an appetizer and cocktails:

 

Marinated Olives with Feta

 

1 cup Kalamata olives

1 cup green olives

1 cup e-v olive oil

6 tablespoons fresh lemon juice

5 garlic cloves, thinly sliced

2 tablespoons chopped parsley

2 teaspoons lemon zest

1 teaspoon dried oregano

1/8 teaspoon crushed red pepper

10 oz. feta, cut into ½ inch slices

 

Mix all olives, ¾ cup oil, 3 tablespoons lemon juice, garlic, parsley, lemon zest, ½ teaspoon oregano and red pepper in plastic bag.  Marinate, refrigerated, over night. 

 

Place feta on a platter, drizzle with remaining olive oil and lemon juice. Sprinkle with oregano and black pepper.  Refrigerate overnight.

 

Serve both with pita bread.

For LJ’s birthday, we did the coolest thing.  We took the Texas Heartland Flyer (Amtrak) from Ft. Worth to Oklahoma City for the weekend.  We met our friends in Ft. Worth on Friday afternoon and had late lunch at the Flying Saucer.   Then we boarded the train at the station and it pulled out right on time at 5:25PM.  The train was wonderful.  The seats are large and the leg room is enormous.  Even LJ can stretch out.  You can walk around, go get drinks or a snack in the cafe car, and relax and enjoy the scenery.  It’s MUCH more comfortable than a plane.

CJ & LJ on train

We arrived in Oklahoma City at about 9:15 as scheduled, and walked a short 3 blocks to the Skirvin Hilton Hotel.  The hotel was built in about 1910 or so, and renovated and expanded in 1945 and it is a grand place!  The lobby ceilings are at least 3 stories high and the fortieres would make Miss Ellen jealous.  The rooms have been completely updated and are just sleek and elegant.  We picked the right place to stay.

Saturday morning we all had a scrumptious breakfast in the hotel, and then we set out for the Oklahoma City Memorial.  As we were walking along, a city bus driver stopped and asked us if we were going to the Museum.  When we said yes, he insisted on giving us a lift because it was chilly and windy.  What a friendly thing to do!  We weren’t more than a couple of blocks away.  The memorial itself was just awe inspiring.  None of us could keep the tears from falling looking at the chairs, one for each life taken.  Of course the small chairs for the children were especially painful.  What a lot of people don’t know is that in addition to the outdoor memorial, there is a museum on the site which is a 3 story exhibit.  It’s broken into chapters such as Confusion, Chaos, Survivor Experiences, and Rescue and Recovery.  It was all quite moving and beautifully done.

We left the Memorial and walked next to the Oklahoma Museum of Art.  What a wonderful Museum!  I was so pleasantly surprised.  The first floor is for special exhibitions which is currently The Dutch Italianates.  These were Dutch painters who travelled to Italy to live and study with those masters.  We were not familiar with any of the artists (which felt really weird for us), but the paintings were interesting.  The second and third floors house the permanent museum collections, and for us the most exciting was the Dale Chihuly glass collection.  His blown glass pieces of flowers, sea shells, boats and other beautiful creations was amazing.  We took a few pictures, but it must be seen to be truly experienced.

After the Art Museum, we walked through the parks of the Myriad Botanical Gardens. 

Resting at Botanical Gardens

By then it had warmed up a little, the sun was shining, and it was just beautiful.  We just sat on the benches and took it all in for awhile, until we realized how hungry we were for lunch.  We walked on to Bricktown, which is the area of downtown Oklahoma City which they’ve revitalized and through which they’ve built a canal.  Restaurants and shops are beginning to build up along the canal, as well as some condos and hotels.  It’s on its way to becoming really special. 

We ate lunch at a New Orleans style eatery which was fine, nothing to blog about, and then we took the boat ride along the canal.  The boat “guide” (did we need a guide?) was full of bad jokes and regional put-downs and nearly drove us batty, but the scenery was interesting.  There were some pretty fantastic sculptures of people on horseback and in covered wagons depiciting the rush to Oklahoma to stake your claim to land. 

Sculptures along canal ride

I would recommend the boat ride with a different guide, but I guess you don’t get to pick.

By the time we finished, we were all ready to head back to the hotel for a nap.  We all met up in the evening, for drinks and dinner, and the Skirvin kindly gave us gratis transportation to our restaurant in the hotel limo.  We went to a beautiful little restaurant called Nonna.  We started in their bar which is upstairs and looks out onto Bricktown and the canal.  After drinks, we went downstairs to dinner.  The specials were steaks, which some of us had, but LJ had a sausage lasagna and I had duck breast with blackberry sauce.  It was all good and we were all quite happy, and pretty exhausted from our day.

Ok City Train Station

The next morning we caught the train back at 8:25AM.  It left on time, and returned us to the Ft. Worth Amtrak Station about 12:15.  What a weekend.  If you’re looking for something a little different, I highly recommend it. 

It’s my birthday, and once again LJ has pulled off an event weekend that made it so special.  We had a mini staycation in Dallas.  The best way to describe it would be to say we ate our way through the weekend.

It started with lunch on Saturday at Jasper’s, Kent Rathbun’s incredible restaurant featuring, as he describes it, gourmet backyard cuisine.  It is a lovely place with a warmly modern decor.  The ceilings are incredibly high, and the tables are dark wood but the lighting and accessories are all metal and glass.  I wanted to eat something light considering I had an idea that much more was to come that day, but, alas, Mr. Rathbun is not known for light.  I had the Smoked Salmon Cobb Salad, and it was delicious.  I expected thin slices of lox-like salmon arranged in a Cobb Salad, but instead was treated to a generous portion of perfectly cooked salmon filet.  The salad had the expected boiled egg, apple smoked bacon, tomato and avacado with a rich creamy dressing over all.  What utter decadence!  LJ had what was called Grilled Chicken Breast, California Avocado.  It was a lightly grilled breast of chicken over a lovely sauce of avocado puree with avocado chunks and grape tomatoes accompanied by Paula Lambert’s specially made creamy cottage cheese.  LJ said it was perfectly cooked and delicious.

Later in the afternoon, we checked into the lovely Warwick Melrose Hotel.  The old, stately Melrose is where my parents spent their wedding night 63 years ago.  It has been lovingly restored, and it retains its old charm while being perfectly comfortable.  Our room was a mini suite on the 8th floor with windows all along the side facing downtown.  It had a homey little sitting area and luxurious draperies and bed linens.  The bathroom floor was marble and it had all the amenities you would expect from a hotel of high caliber.  The Library Bar is still warm and inviting with its dark wood walls and high ceilings.

The highlight of the evening was dinner at Rise No. 1.  It’s a tiny little place with antique French googaws filling the room, wooden tables with mismatched chairs, a circle of stone in the center, and an exposed kitchen.  The restaurant specializes in souffles, and they are remarkable.  But first, the salad.  LJ and I started with a Rise No. 1 house salad with baby lettuce, bleu cheese, toothpicks of granny smith apple, pecans, and the most amazing “Pecan Vinaigrette.”  It is like nothing I have ever had anywhere.  It’s made with fragrant walnut oil that almost makes you think of chocolate when you take the first bite.  We were overwhelmed with the salad, but Rise was just getting started.  Oh, and the bread!!!  It was without a doubt the best bread I have had since I was in France.  It made me understand why, when Jacques Pepin was asked what his favorite food is, he answered, “really good bread and really good butter.  What better can you get than that!”  This bread was perfectly crunchy on the outside and slightly chewy on the inside.  I could have made a meal of it.

My entree was Truffle Infused Mushroom Souffle and LJ had Jambon & Gruyere Souffle.  We kept going back and forth trying to decide who had the best.  Each one was intensely flavored and light as a feather, a feat I don’t believe is easily accomplished.  Whe the waiter asked me at one point how the meal was going, I believe I teared up!  Then came dessert.  I could not resist my all-time favorite, Grand Marnier Souffle, and LJ had Bread Pudding Souffle.  He insisted his was best, but for me you can’t beat Grand Marnier.  Anyway, both were flawless.

After dinner we went back to the hotel and went into the Library Bar for an after dinner drink and a little entertainment.  They had a lovely female singer who wasn’t bad, but it was glorified karioki with prerecorded background instruments.  I wonder how good she could have been if she had been accompanied by live piano and drums or bass which would have allowed her some room to express herself instead of following a pre-set arrangement.

Anyway, what a lovely birthday.  Great food, beautiful surroundings, lovely music - it doesn’t get any better.  How lucky I am to be married to someone who loves these things like I do, and generously lavishes me with them.