Greetings from New York!
Oct. 3rd, 2023 09:54 amGreetings from New York! This is actually my last morning in the city (soon I will be on my way to visit ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
skygiants and genarti!), but I'm making a leisurely morning of it to spend a little bit more time with my hostess's cat Bagels, so I thought I might also post about my NYC adventures.
It has been a glorious trip! Some highlights:
DINNER AT DELMONICO'S. This is the umpteenth reopening of the oldest restaurant in America, and my God was it delicious. They make their own butter, in house, lightly sprinkled with black salt, we were forced to request a second basket of bread to ensure that no butter was left behind. Then I had the short rib tortellini, the short rib filling so perfectly tender, and a brown butter foam for a sauce - so rich and yet so light! - and everything sprinkled with hazelnuts, which drew all the disparate delicious flavors into one grand symphony. And for dessert, baked Alaska made with walnut cake and banana gelato and sweet meringue, and a tart apricot jam on the side to cut all the sweetness... to be honest I would have switched out for a different gelato, a classic vanilla or perhaps (this was Elena's idea) a hazelnut, but it was still very good.
And then we walked back to Elena's place over the Brooklyn Bridge, which is all lit up in the night and oddly peaceful up above the cars.
The Cloisters. This is the Met's medieval art outpost, a small castle of a building set at the top of a park in Upper Manhattan. One of the most peaceful museums I've ever visited, built around four cloisters, each with its cloister garden (although one of the cloisters is enclosed to protect the limestone pillars, so that garden is some pots of ferns, haha) and its fountain and its fruit trees. I took a garden tour (I've gotten very into tours this trip; the docents are so fun), which included not only the gardens but a discussion of plants in medieval art, particular the Unicorn Tapestries with their flower-strewn backgrounds, so meticulously woven that art historians have managed to identity more than 80 species of flowers... and also a little tiny frog in the lower right quadrant of The Unicorn Rests in a Garden. Love all the animal details, too.
A talk by Jane Goodall! Elena nabbed the tickets for this, and it was fantastic, the audience so pumped that we surged to our feet in a standing ovation when Goodall walked on the stage. The talk had an interview format, and the questions were mostly about her life. How did she get into studying animals? "When I was ten, I was in love with Tarzan." How did scientists react to her work early on? "They said National Geographic wanted to photograph me for my legs. Nowadays this would result in a lawsuit, but at the time I thought, if National Geographic wants to fund my research for my legs, *smacks legs* go legs!"
And a trip to the Tenement Museum. In keeping with the general literary theme of this trip, I took the All-of-a-Kind Family tour. Okay, there is no All-of-a-Kind Family tour, it's just the tour of a Russian Jewish immigrant family's apartment in 1911, but still, thematically appropriate. This family had six children and three rooms - not three bedrooms, three rooms total. The parents slept in the bedroom, the girls in the kitchen, and the boys in the front room, where they also sometimes put up a boarder, although unless he hung from the ceiling like a bat I'm not sure how he'd fit! But the oldest girl married one of the boarders so presumably he slept in the normal way, as it would seem to be a bit of a red flag if your suitor sleeps hanging from the ceiling.
(I can see real advantages to marrying the boarder, tbh. You'd already know all about his domestic habits. Does he snore? Will he pick up a dish cloth once in a while to help out?)
All in all an excellent visit. And now onwards! Boston awaits!
skygiants and genarti!), but I'm making a leisurely morning of it to spend a little bit more time with my hostess's cat Bagels, so I thought I might also post about my NYC adventures. It has been a glorious trip! Some highlights:
DINNER AT DELMONICO'S. This is the umpteenth reopening of the oldest restaurant in America, and my God was it delicious. They make their own butter, in house, lightly sprinkled with black salt, we were forced to request a second basket of bread to ensure that no butter was left behind. Then I had the short rib tortellini, the short rib filling so perfectly tender, and a brown butter foam for a sauce - so rich and yet so light! - and everything sprinkled with hazelnuts, which drew all the disparate delicious flavors into one grand symphony. And for dessert, baked Alaska made with walnut cake and banana gelato and sweet meringue, and a tart apricot jam on the side to cut all the sweetness... to be honest I would have switched out for a different gelato, a classic vanilla or perhaps (this was Elena's idea) a hazelnut, but it was still very good.
And then we walked back to Elena's place over the Brooklyn Bridge, which is all lit up in the night and oddly peaceful up above the cars.
The Cloisters. This is the Met's medieval art outpost, a small castle of a building set at the top of a park in Upper Manhattan. One of the most peaceful museums I've ever visited, built around four cloisters, each with its cloister garden (although one of the cloisters is enclosed to protect the limestone pillars, so that garden is some pots of ferns, haha) and its fountain and its fruit trees. I took a garden tour (I've gotten very into tours this trip; the docents are so fun), which included not only the gardens but a discussion of plants in medieval art, particular the Unicorn Tapestries with their flower-strewn backgrounds, so meticulously woven that art historians have managed to identity more than 80 species of flowers... and also a little tiny frog in the lower right quadrant of The Unicorn Rests in a Garden. Love all the animal details, too.
A talk by Jane Goodall! Elena nabbed the tickets for this, and it was fantastic, the audience so pumped that we surged to our feet in a standing ovation when Goodall walked on the stage. The talk had an interview format, and the questions were mostly about her life. How did she get into studying animals? "When I was ten, I was in love with Tarzan." How did scientists react to her work early on? "They said National Geographic wanted to photograph me for my legs. Nowadays this would result in a lawsuit, but at the time I thought, if National Geographic wants to fund my research for my legs, *smacks legs* go legs!"
And a trip to the Tenement Museum. In keeping with the general literary theme of this trip, I took the All-of-a-Kind Family tour. Okay, there is no All-of-a-Kind Family tour, it's just the tour of a Russian Jewish immigrant family's apartment in 1911, but still, thematically appropriate. This family had six children and three rooms - not three bedrooms, three rooms total. The parents slept in the bedroom, the girls in the kitchen, and the boys in the front room, where they also sometimes put up a boarder, although unless he hung from the ceiling like a bat I'm not sure how he'd fit! But the oldest girl married one of the boarders so presumably he slept in the normal way, as it would seem to be a bit of a red flag if your suitor sleeps hanging from the ceiling.
(I can see real advantages to marrying the boarder, tbh. You'd already know all about his domestic habits. Does he snore? Will he pick up a dish cloth once in a while to help out?)
All in all an excellent visit. And now onwards! Boston awaits!
