To market we go

Last weekend we practiced one of our favorite weekend rituals: walking across town to 202 for breakfast, followed by a stroll through Chelsea market before heading out to wherever the day might take us (the nearby High Line, the West Village, the WestSide parkway...). On this particular day we happened to cross the Brooklyn Bridge on a walk to the Red Hook Ikea, but that's a story for another time.

We first tried 202 after spying it on New York Magazine's list of best breakfasts--they won the honor of best French Toast, a menu item which Aron was obsessed with at the time. (Now we both are.)



This is the article's description that sent us running over: "The secret is the whole vanilla pods she uses to infuse a mixture of heavy cream, a restrained measure of confectioners’ sugar, and free-range eggs from upstate New York, left to sit overnight. Once the brioche wedges have absorbed every last drop, they’re gorgeously browned in clarified butter and crisscrossed with three strips of Applewood-smoked bacon for a smart salty contrast." It did not disapoint (even if, believe it or not, we still think Frankie's French toast is the best): it's like having bread pudding for breakfast and it is deadly good.

I love sitting in the midst of Nicole Farhi's racks of clothing (it's an in-store cafe filled with dark woods and marble surfaces), sharing eggs then dessert (bread pudding, er, French toast) with Aron. There are delicious cocktails for a true brunch, but I also appreciate that you can eat there at 9am if the mood strikes, whereas most of our brunch favorites open at 11am. And in the summer, when it's warm, you can eat outside.

202 belongs to a complex or restaurants and retail shops that make up the Chelsea Market. In the '90s, the National Biscuit Company's original factory was re-imagined as an indoor market and dining space. (It reminds us of San Francisco's Ferry Building.) At one time, the factory produced Oreo cookies, Saltines, and Fig Newtons. Today, you can see Amy's bread being made...

order milkshakes at the RonnyBrook Dairy milk bar...

 

 

pick your fish or order a lobster roll at the Lobster Place...

  

 

choose your cut of beef at Dickson's...

or go for a meal at one of the many restaurants--like 202, Friedman's, or The Green Table. (Del Posto, Morimoto, and Budakan are also part of the market.)

 

  

 

Today, the market fills the lower floor of the block between 9th and 10th avenues and 15th and 16th streets. There were originally two buildings, connected by an elevated pedestrian walkway and the elevated railway known as the High Line--now a greenway well worth a stroll. Makes for a perfect morning...

Check out our post on the High Line, here.

Let me be here

It's snowing today! Stuyvesant and Gramercy Parks both looked lovely--all dressed in white--on my way to work. Still, wouldn't it be nice to be watching the snow fall from this tub? Wishing...

P.S. Exciting news!

We were featured in a few different places around the web this week! We couldn't be more thrilled:

Æ: took our advice and tried the best burger in New York...

Monna McD gave a shout-out to our Thailand travelogue...

And both Design*Sponge and Oh Joy! liked our BookBook find!

Thank you!

If you enjoy Hither and Thither, we'd love to hear from you! 

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(Photo from here)

How much does 550 sq feet really need?

It amazes me how, in a place as small as ours, there can still be so much home improvement that we want to do. We got our first real taste for it when we upgraded our bathroom.

Our big move this weekend was to finally get our microwave off of the kitchen counter by fashioning a shelf. A little sawing, leveling, and drilling later, it actually looks like an undermount microwave—only it’s more compact than most of the undermount microwaves we found and doesn’t scare me with visions of our upper-cabinetry crashing down. 

 

But by far the most exciting news is that we are going to re-do our countertops! In a manner typical of us, we mulled over and priced out every option and alternative at various stores around the city before deciding that dark granite would be the best choice for our brief tenure. That included going out to Red Hook on Sunday (by that I mean we took a long walk through the ugly part, by the elevated subway, the freeway, and the canal in the rain) to where they charge less per-square-foot but, we then discovered, only if you live in Brooklyn. Still, success: hours of online research and in-person comparative shopping (not to mention two-and-a-half years of discussion) has finally resulted in a decision!

We’ve ordered the granite countertop, bought our sink online, and we're close to buying a faucet (that last part is proving to be far more difficult than anticipated), and to maximize our dollars, we'll be removing our old counters this week! (We’ll leave the installation to the pros.) Look for photos soon…

I just can't help myself

More. Book jackets.

This time for a MacBook.

Aren't they awesome? They're by a company called BookBook. Each hardbound, leather cover is individually distressed so that no two are exactly alike. Another reason why my next computer should be a Mac.

(images from BookBook)

Feasting on Art

What a fantastic premise! Megan Fizell (Feasting on Art) takes still lifes of food--paintings, illustrations, photographs--and deconstructs them to create a meal. There are usually interesting tidbits about the art, artist, and the food, as well as lovely photographs of her fare. Such an inspired idea for a recipe blog. Her most recent post takes a look at an engraved botanical, a study of pears from the early 19th century, and follows with a recipe for Pear, Goat, & Proschiutto pizza. Others are less literal, like the Coconut Milk Ice Cream with Carmelized Papaya & Lime--inspired by a Frida Kahlo's painting, Coconut Tears.

 {Piet Mondrian, Composition No. 8, 1939-42; Oil on canvas, 74 x 68 cm, Kimbell Art Museum, Fort Worth}

One of my favorites is more of a recreation: her Mondrian Pound Cake, inspired by Composition No. 8.

(All images from Feasting on Art)

Lonny Magazine

 

When Domino--that most lovely of living magazines--folded last year, there was a collective cry from faithful readers. I still can't bear to part with my copies and feel a twinge of sadness whenever I follow an old DominoMag link and find myself transported to Architectual Digest instead. Sigh...

Some of the editors and creative directors from Domino have been trying a new venture--a virtual magazine--called Lonny. I flipped, er, clicked through the pages of the first issue when it launched, but didn't happen to notice that a second issue had come out (in December) until just now. I prefer holding a magazine in my hands (I spend enough time as it is in front of computer screens) but they've done a wonderful job of recreating the experience online. What's especially nice is that--as with e-readers--you can enlarge fonts and images and follow hyperlinked images to learn more about what's being shown in the photos. And you can splay out all the spreads in a grid, if you're over the idea of replicating traditional, front-to-back reading and prefer to jump around.

(domino covers via decor 8)

Brandy Library

Ashley, sensitive to my growing interest in American Whiskey, surprised me with reservations at the Brandy Library on Friday night. (How great is my wife?) I quickly got changed from work (after pausing to take in a fantastic sunset) and we headed downtown to Tribeca.

 

She kept me in the dark as to where we were going up until the last minute, when she steered us into the warm, fireplace-lit room and announced that we had reservations. Deciding what to sample would be difficult--beautiful bottles wrapped around the room, lining three walls of the space; it was like the home library of dreams, only filled with bottles instead of books.

 

Ashley opted for her favorite cocktail--a brandy-one, appropriately--the Sidecar (Cognac, Cointreau, and lemon), but I couldn't resist the American Whiskey tasting menu. We slowed the absorption of the alcohol with some tasty appeitizers: gougères and Cognac-cured moulard foie gras. Both were delicious, but especially the latter.

The whiskey tasting came with six whiskeys--one of which was a surprise--and came complete with instructions as to the order of tasting and a card on which one could take notes. There was also a bottle of water and an empty glass, should one want to try his hand at blending. Prichard's Double Barrel was one of my favorites, with notes of saddle leather and pralines and a moderate amount of spice. Four Roses Single Barrel with its clove, pepper, oak and citrus was a second standout. Elijah Craig Single Barrel 18 was the surprise taste and reminded me more of Cognac (which I also love) than of whiskey.

It was hard to resist trying other options, such as the Scotch or brandy tasting (especially after one round of drinks). I was particularly tempted when I saw our neighbors had a pour of the Connemara Irish Whisky, which, when I tried it in Ireland, had perhaps the most peat I'd ever tasted. But we opted to instead depart for dinner (Turkish food at Turks & Frogs) and save those pleasures for another night.

It's in the water

 

Last week we posted about our dinner at Motorino--around the corner, maker of a wonderful Naples-style pizza--and ever since then, its name seems to be jumping out at me from the virtual pages of Serious Eats and Slice. There's a great edition of The Food Lab on Slice, in which J. Kenji Lopez-Alt tries to test the theory that the mineral content of water effects pizza crust. After all, haven't you heard that the secret to New York's top-rate pizza is the tap water?

The actual results of his experiment are a bit lack-luster, but the way he goes about testing the theory--very methodically, with the help of Motorino's pizza-maker--is such a fun read (particularly if you're a bit of a food nerd and love rigging double-blind tastings). And from the looks of it, there are a few of us out there: the comments are hillarious! (Did you consider this factor or that factor? Is crisp the equivalent of sturdy? And so on.) I think I might need to make some more pizza... or find my way onto his taste-test team...

P.S. The Food Lab is such a fun feature. Aron and I are jonesing to try to recreate the Shake Shack burger a la Mr. Lopez-Alt 's Burger Lab research on A Hamburger Today. 

(Top Photos by J. Kenji Lopez-Alt; bottom found here)