dining and wine

One of my extracurricular activities is a design project for the interior of a homeless shelter across the street from Columbia University. Last week I spent a couple hours with a photographer to take portraits for an upcoming exhibition at the Municipal Art Society and we found the Times' there.

I thought that the story would just be a Metro section piece, but it turns out that the story is in Dining and Wine.

Plug: If you watch the video around 2.40 you can see my argyle vest walk across the room.

non-food note

I know I'm probably overly sensitive, but I just realized that sitting next to someone who types using the hunt-and-peck method is suprisingly irritating. Especially if they quietly hum the words while they type or read. I believe that these two actions are intricately related.

ABM

Eric Asimov's column in the NYT today is all about merlots in the part of Washington where I grew up, namely the Columbia and Yakima Valleys. It's very nice to see some of my favorite wineries in the area get some press on this side of the country. Though I do have to admit that it is a bit odd for me to see my hometowns refashioned as Wine Country when, you know, I remember seeing a person being stabbed during lunch my senior year of high school. Napa Valley we are not. But I suppose that could happen.

chef dreams

Yesterday morning I copied out a recipe for eggnog cheesecake out of the Wall Street Journal at a favorite cafe. Part of me wondered why I spent time that should have been spent being a Very Good Student copying out a recipe that I have a 85 percent chance of never trying.

And in an act of telepathy today's NYT magazine has an article on just that phenomenon.

high school friends

A couple nights ago three lawyers and I ditched a (well, their) law firm holiday party to cap the night off in the East Village. One of the lawyers is also from Washington and surprisingly knows a couple people from my high school, including one of my best friends. But he hasn't yet had the pleasure to meet my friend Andy from high school, the most wrong-headed eater I know.

Although I regularly threaten to leave NYC as it is the most overrated, infuriating city in the entire world as well as one that reaffirms every day the essential thoughtlessness of my fellow human beings I might miss some aspects of New York life. I guess I won't find great Moldovan food anywhere else, although the Atlantic did have a brief piece on the influx of immigrants in places that you wouldn't expect such as the Hmong communities throughout small cities in the Midwest like Wausau, Wisconsin.

Also ain't nothing in New York that can beat Uwajimaya.

procrastination

Since Wake Forest University spent my college years in an intense competition with Duke to be the shittiest football team in the ACC, if not the NCAA, I really can't fathom the fact that the Deacs are ACC Champions. I would rather us be good at basketball though.

Go Deacs, go to Hell Duke, etc.

Last night Helen, a Duke alum and lovely person, and I talked about our respective issues in making cornbread. We both love it, but neither of us can seem to get a really fantastic loaf. Is there a secret? Should I break down and take a real baking class?