just back from the culinary capital that is new york city. woo hoo! i ate plenty and will now try to recount each and every morsel of food consumed in a five-day period, backwards. but first, the highlights:
dean and delucas: while persuing the aisles of dean and delucas, new yorks fancy pants store, it starting pouring outside. a pipe burst, flooding one of the best cheese selections found in new york with raw, nasty, stinky sewage. dean and delucas patrons, myself included, all crowded up in the front of the store, trying to avoid the stink of sewage without plunging out into the torrential downpour. tee hee!

i think that was the best and only highlight, although it did occur to me that sometimes vodka cranberry drinks smell like vomit. actual puke. huh.

today
in an attempt to fill my grossly expanded stomach, i am currently eating a post-lunch bowl of veggie broth with egg noodles. oh yum. of course i just ate a rather large lunch at trattoria 10 in chicago with my dad, brother and not-really-related almost uncle-type person. an insalata caprese and stuffed morel mushrooms in brandy cream sauce. yum! and delicious bread. dessert was a waffle cone with vanilla gelato and seasonal fruits (i.e. grapes, cherries, blackberries, rasberries). several cups of coffee.

tuesday, july 23
the night ended at village karaoke with beer, beer and jays bbq potato chips while watching lacey and her friends sing their hearts out. also got a scoop of double chocolate fudge ice cream in the village and the veggie maki combo with age tofu from a japanese restaurant on st. marks. earlier had a slice of mushroom pizza in the lower east side and pizza is so to new york what hot dogs are to chicago. before pizza was lunch at american wraps with lacey, jen and vanessa near hunter college for the working/student girl's convenience. food was non-descript which was okay since i had a very heavy tomato spinach quiche for breakfast at the cafe near lacey's home. coffee and cold beverages consumed throughout.

monday, july 22
picnic in the park! sesame noodles, olives, mozzerella, tomatoes, bazil, salad, bread, brooklyn lager, etc. lunch was probably good although i can't remember what it involved. erm. um. yes! lunch at kate's joint with vanessa and lacey...i had a boca burger type item.

sunday, july 21
tapas and cannoli with zach, kim, brian, sarah and adam. the tapas served with sangria at xunta was divine but nothing compared to the chocolate cannoli Veniero's, an italian bakery that's been around since 1894. on the opposite end of the dessert spectrum, i had a hot pink snowball at ps1 for my late afternoon snack followed by a coconut bubble tea at saint alps tea house. brunch was a fantastic omelette with frites at tournesol, a small french bistro tucked away in long island city. i love french fries.

saturday, july 20
i had a perfectly respectable dinner of red curry and tofu at a thai place in cobble (kobble?) hill after an afternoon of carnival food at coney island: nathan's cheese fries, a bite of a nathan's hotdog, a strawberry smoothy. brunch with zach, kim and lacey at a cute little place in park slope. and obies EVERYWHERE! frankly, it was a little creepy. but my "eggs sophia," with avocado and tomato instead of ham, was tasty.

friday, july 19
arrived in new york at 11am. grabbed lunch with courtney and laura at a cafe near courtney's place. we split a vegan "egg salad" sandwich, which was tasty, despite the fact that it tasted nothing like egg salad. the free samples of rice crispy treat were also a good thing. coconut ice cream at the chinatown ice cream factory and the previously mentioned dean and deluca highlight. courtney and i had dinner at quintessence, a raw food restaurant in the east village and i was pleasantly surprised. we split sesame seaweed salad, "pasta" marinara with "meatballs" [1/2 the menu was in quotations] and a hemp burger. i was not hungry an hour later. i thought the food tasted good. and i was impressed with their creativity. the couple sitting next to us had embraced the raw food lifestyle and the woman was apologizing to the guy because she forgot to put enzymes in his salad. he gave her a book titled "Peace is Everlasting" or something like that. they were pasty. we followed our pure, fresh, raw dinner with drinks at gingers and henrietta hudsons.