I Saw it and I Liked it

Here's some good stuff:

1. Another homemade laundry detergent post! This one is for a dry, powdered detergent. I can't wait to try it when I get to Brooklyn! One thing I've been doing with my homemade detergent is swapping out the zote soap or ivory for Dr. Bronner's Bar Soap. I love their crazy message, and I love mixing the scents up. I've done Lavender-Lemon and Rose-Almond to name a couple! Also, this post came from a blog called Oops, I Craft My Pants! How can you not love that?

2. A Pulled Fruit Sandwich by my real life BFF, Lara, in which she uses Jackfruit. I mentioned this a couple weeks ago and I can't stop thinking about it! I bet it's so much better for you than real pork! I crave BBQ all the time, too. Lara and I used to cook together all the time when she lived in Clifton.

3.The Honey Trees. I can watch youtube on our TV now, and I'll never go back to real radio. Sorry, bedside table alarm...you served me well. I'll save the emergency battery ones to take on picnics, to the beach, etc, but now that the sound actually travels to other rooms with TV radio, I don't need to fiddle with dials anymore.

4. A silicone steamer! This will be sooo perfect for making the whipped potatoes that were on Cook's Country TV two weeks ago. You steam the potatoes before mashing and then whipping them so that they're not totally waterlogged.

Charlie Kimble & Bridget Lancaster, will you guys adopt me?

Don't go misconstruing the topic of this post

Well, well, well. Here we are. Yes, we made it to NYC. It took a month to get the internet.

I should post pictures of our apartment!

Our new hood!

Our hangouts!

Ryan's office!

But no.

The first blog post as a brooklynite will be on the topic of the Pickle Eating Contest that Ryan participated in. Sponsered by Brooklyn Brine and hosted by Black Rabbit, which is one block away and made us feel quite at home here, we decided we'd invite the few friends we'd made so far to watch Ryan chug some vinegar-y delights. Ryan's friend from work, Justin, couldn't resist joining, too. Here they are, ready to go.

 This is the announcer with his mega-phone. He tells us that there was a cash prize last year, but this year, they will pick up the bar-tab for the winner as a prize. Last year's winner showed up, found out there was no cash prize, and left. Apparently, he was a professional eater. Whose profession is that? Seriously. I mean, I would love to eat professionally, but I would also like a toilet seat made of gold. That's our friend Arie, in the front, in the conductor's cap.

 The chow down begins.

 What are they looking at?

 Something has caught their attention and distracted them from eating the pickles at a winning rate. We're about 2 minutes into the contest at this point.

 There were 20 whiskey sour flavored pickles in the jar. That's a lot of pickles.

 Forget it. This guy here ate all 20 pickles AND DRANK THE BRINE in less than 5 minutes. He even enjoyed some fried pickles afterward.

 Who wants to do it next year? Me! It looked like so much fun! Ryan only polished off about 5. I can totally take him!

September 11 & Pizza

Michael (what we call the mayor, because calling him Bloomberg is confusing) told us New Yorkers to go about our daily business on September 11th, so that's what we did. Those 2 little blue dots off in the distance are the beams from ground zero. Below are photos of the Empire State Building lit up all red, white & blue. I took all of these photos from the India St. ferry pier.

Most of Sunday's ceremonies were for families of victims, and we were too paranoid about taking public transit, so we stayed in. We think we might go to the unveiling of the monument this weekend, which is open to the public.

And then we ate pizza at Paulie Gee's. Metromix claimed this as the best pizza in NYC (although, not traditional NYC style) and it's right here in lil ole Greenpoint!

Below is the oven they cook it in.

We had The Greenpointer with prosciutto. We like our neighborhood so much that we feel it's appropriate to eat it, too. This was covered in arugala, shaved parm cheese & lemon juice.

This had super crispy (almost fried) pepperoni and was drizzled with a special honey that is harvested in Brooklyn and fermented with vinegar & red chiles. www.mikeshothoney.com It's my favorite. You can buy the honey in bottles at the bar, which I want to do, so that I can make some kind of awesome coffee cake with it.

The pizza is baked with fiore di latte, which is mozzarella made from cow's milk, instead of buffalo.

And then there's the 2nd best part of Paulie Gee's, which is the bathroom. This picture on the wall indicated to me which room was for ladies.

 There is no fear that anyone will forget to load a new roll of T.P. on. I want this for my own bathroom.

No one is getting through the door with this lock.

 And a cute, dainty mirror on the wall.

 Where is the sink? Outside of the W.C. I washed my hands next to a dude. He commented on the all the cool fixtures in the bathroom, too!

I took some pics of us eating, but they turned out to be open-mouth mastication shots...so I'll spare you!

Karlen left for home today, and I'll miss her, but it's also nice to get back into the routine. Tonight, it's back on Weight Watchers for us. We're also excited about finding Battlestar Galactica on Netflix streaming! Getting Netflix has been a little dangerous for our social lives...

I think I gained 40 lbs this week

 And it's all Karlen's fault. I took her to Hill Country Chicken in the Flat-Iron District, which I love. Part of the dining room is pictured above. Isn't it adorable? It's totally the kind of kitchy-kitchen I would love to have some day, but unfortunately, Ryan wouldn't. He likes sleek, modern kitchens like we have now. Oh, well. At least I've discovered Hill Country Chicken and can enjoy the scenery there!

 Here we have, clockwise from the top, fried-cheesy-mashed-potato-casserole, a hill country club (fried boneless breast, bacon, avocado & spicy ranch sauce), an extra side of spicy ranch sauce, a side of hot sauce, and some fire-n-ice pickles. They also have Boylan's soda on tap, and free refills.

 Karlen relishes the casserole, which is a layer of mashed potatoes, a layer of "double-fried" french fries, and slathered with pimento cheese. Mmmmm. Then we needed to burn that off:

 I'd been looking for an excuse to visit the High Line. It's a state (or maybe just city, not sure) that was formed on top of an old, elevated railway line. We walked the whole thing, which was like, 15 blocks, but totally didn't seem like it because it was so beautiful. (And totally not full of stop lights & traffic)

 I apologize for accidentally keeping the blue-ish filter on. It was actually a really pretty day.

 There is weird, random art. I love it.

 And then we decided to reverse the good we'd just done. Yeah. Sprinkles helped us with that. Carrot for Karlen and pumpkin for me.

 Then I took this picture for Lara. It was on 60th St. in the Gold Coast.

 There was a LOT of walking. We were still hungry. We made our way to The Meatball Shop in Williamsburg. They have 4 different variations of meatballs and a daily special, which I had, and is pictured below. It was a bolognese ball made of beef, mortadella, steamed carrots & cream. Decadent. I got them "naked" style, which is just balls in bowl with a little piece of foccacia. They come topped with your sauce of choice, and I chose pesto. I also had a side of corn & rissoto.

 Karlen had the spicy pork balls with classic tomato sauce and mozzarella cheese on a baguette. It came with a side salad.

Thankfully, we were within walking distance from home and thankfully, Karlen is in to walking (she walked THE WHOLE Appalachian Trail!). More adventures to come. Tomorrow, we're going to PS1/MOMA and a small batch tour of the Brooklyn Brewery. Tune in to see it all!

Hot Dog!

A good motivation for blogging is having a friend come to visit!

Karlen and I worked together at the Clifton Branch Library, and she was our official first visitor. She was breaking the futon in for everyone else who is scheduled to arrive. She is also in love with all things food related as much as I am. Possibly more. We had so many amazing things to try. Her first request was Crif Dogs. I'd never heard of it, but they have one location in Manhattan and one in Brooklyn, which was a mere 1.2 miles away from my apartment! We had to walk there in order to burn them off.

These are NYC hot dogs, but not your average street cart puppies. These were some artsy-fartsy, fancy liberal arts college dogs. They are house made wieners, wrapped in bacon and then deep-fried.

 Karlen likes to take photos of food as well! This way, we both looked silly in there. Ryan HATES it when I take photos of food. He wants me to get a smart phone specifically so that I look more discreet when I do it.

 Karlen had The Chihuahua, which was topped with sour cream and avocado.

I had The Tsunami, which was dipped in teriyaki sauce after being fried, then topped with pineapple tidbits and green onions. It was awesome. Ryan was waaaay jealous, so we're definitely headed there together. I love showing him the things that I discover on the weekends!

Computer & a working camera mean...

I'm back!

Here's my kitchen to prove it: