We've been back in New York for a week now, but it feels like so much longer than that, for some reason. We had such a wonderful holiday vacation, we got to go home for a week and although we both got sick, it caused us to slow down, rest, and really enjoy our time with family and friends.
After a leisurely weekend recovering from the colds, and just getting back into the groove of being in NY, on Monday, it was back to the normal routine. We met up with some friends who just moved here from San Francisco and we went to Ethiopian food, which Neil and I had never had before. It was very interesting - you eat with your hands, using flat bread to scoop up the food. The food was yummy, but it did kind of tie our stomach in knots for the next few days - I don't think we were used to the spices.
I got back into the swing of things at work and it was really nice to be back. The ballet season is starting now, and so I have big plans for us to attend. Ballet is different than Opera; with Opera, they do, say, three shows in a two month season. For ballet, they have 20-30 short ballets, and when you go on a certain night, you will see 2-3 of those ballets. It's like going to the symphony, where they might play 3 different 30-40 minute pieces. I have never been to a ballet besides the nutcracker, so I'm interested to see how it is.
Yesterday, we had our first major snowfall since we've been here. We missed the huge blizzard over Christmas - we got out right before it started and came home after it had been mostly cleaned up. It snowed for most of day yesterday, but unfortunately, it was a little too warm for the snow to stick and stay and by the time I left work, you couldn't even tell that it had snowed. But, it was beautiful while it was coming down. Our office has a big row of tall windows, and the snow was swirling outside of it in big, floaty flakes that made me feel like I was in a snow globe. I kept stopping work to go stand and stare. I tried to get a picture of it, but it's hard to capture something like that with a phone camera. :)
Last night was also a free night at the Whitney Art Museum, so Neil met me after work and we headed over the Upper East Side to attend. There was a line waiting out the door when we got there, though, so we decided to eat dinner and let the line subside a bit. The nice thing about New York is that it forces you to be spontaneous. When you're out doing something and your plans change slightly, or you don't really know much about the neighborhood that you're in, you are forced to try new things. I used to never go into a restaurant without first doing extensive research of their menu, their reviews on Yelp, etc. I hate wasting money on bad food. But I feel like, here, there is less risk, somehow, of getting bad food. I know it's out there, but we really have yet to encounter it. I think, without exception, that all the food that I've eaten here has been really wonderful. So, last night we wandered until Neil spotted a BBQ restaurant and it ended up being perfect. BBQ beef brisket on a chilly night hit the spot exactly. And Neil also got a 20 oz. goblet of beer that he enjoyed immensely.
By the time we got back to the Whitney, the line was gone and the galleries had really cleared out. The main show on display there was by a relatively unknown artist named Paul Thek, and it was really interesting work. He was a sculpture and installation artist, primarily, but he also did paintings and drawings. I thought his sculptures and installations were the most interesting pieces. He did a whole series called "Meat", which were wax sculptures that looked like pieces of rotting meat, encased in plexiglass boxes. There was something very appealing about them, even though they looked so macabre.
There was also a show of Edward Hopper on display. The Whitney has a large collection of Hopper's because his wife donated a huge number of his works after his death. I love his paintings - you can always tell a Hopper because they are so still, so contemplative, so quiet. Even in his scenes with people in them, I always feel as if everyone has paused, that there is complete silence in the scene, like he caught them in a moment where everyone had just stopped talking. There is always almost a sense a melancholy in his paintings. They make you stop and think, consider what just happened, what is going on in the lives of the people in the paintings. One of his most well-known paintings:
Do you feel it? The quietness? There is no noise in this painting. It's cool, calm, collected. And then melancholy lurks right below the surface.
Here is one I've never seen before, but I get the same sense from it. I don't feel like those women are talking. It's like they both paused to think about something for a second, and that's when he caught them. Maybe it is something to do with the composition, the women are not really the focus of the painting, the focus is somewhere above their heads, on the coat hanging on the wall or the sign outside the window. But I find it very interesting. He had such a unique style, unique point of viewing all these regular scenes.
Next Friday, it will be off to the MOMA for their free night. It's so great to have so many amazing art museums in one place. What a treat!
In other news, the Farmer's Markets have been very dreary places for the last few weeks. Food just doesn't grow here in the winter like it does in California. Obviously. And it's so cold to be out and about. So, for the next few months, I decided to join a CSA-type organization that sources its food from local farms whenever possible, but substitutes in a few greens and fruits from warmer climates like Florida and California. I got my first shipment on Thursday, and it included mostly root vegetables and squash from local New York farms, but I also got some spinach from Florida and some oranges from California. I haven't had an orange since we left California, and the tangerine that I had yesterday was SO good! I don't love that they have to come all the way across the country, but good citrus is SO yummy. I also got a rutabaga in the box - does anyone know what to do with a rutabaga? I have no idea. Some further research will be required.
Finally, my friend Gabby gave me
this link yesterday, that provides a whole report and scorecard on organic dairies and milk. I found it very fascinating and horrifying to read about the co-opting of the organic label by mega-dairies and corporate farms. Basically they are continuing in their factory farm practices, calling it organic and getting away with it, because the USDA is not really interested in regulating the use of the term "organic". There was some very eye-opening stuff in the report and on the scorecard. Brands of milk that have such great reputations that, after some investigation, don't really live up to their rhetoric. Strauss milk, for one, in California, was scored quite low. But it's the gold standard in San Francisco. Interesting. How does your milk stack up?
Have a great weekend!
