Category Archives: par-tay

The Time I Had a Couple of Freaks from the Internet Come Stay with Me

Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, living in new york is neat, par-tay
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My longtime blogfriend Ellie found me because my old LiveJournal icon was a still from the movie Grey Gardens. My longtime blogfriend Kinard found me because we both had an unnatural-yet-totally-not-fangirl-ish love of the band Jump, Little Children, and she sat next to me at a concert without introducing herself. They found each other when Ellie moved from Oregon to South Carolina, and I told her to look Kinard up. They became fast friends and left me in the dust.

Until Ellie’s birthday approached, and they decided that the perfect way to celebrate would be to spend a few nights not doing touristy things in NYC with me. We planned extensively and then totally changed our plans. We watched the TKTS discount ticket listings and tried to convince Kinard she didn’t really want to see Mandy Patinkin and Patti LuPone on Broadway. I woke up the Saturday after Thanksgiving in Ohio and clicked repeatedly and extensively on the Momofuku Ko reservations website until I secured us a dinner spot after mentioning to Ellie and Kinard that it’s the most interesting restaurant in NYC and finding out that they knew of it and wanted to go but never thought we’d be able to get in. We tried to figure out a way to eat both truffles and caviar while they were here. I didn’t tell them our living room still doesn’t have blinds after a year and that they’d be sleeping in full view of our nosy neighbors.

My roommate/landlord/co-worker seemed totally fine with their visit until he realized halfway through our workday on Friday that:

1) I had never actually met either of them, and
2) they were alone in his condo.

But they didn’t steal anything that we know of (not that my candy wrapper clutch is interesting to anyone but me), and I met them and my other blogfriend-turned-real-life-friend Kim at Tocqueville for dinner. It’s one of my favourite restaurants ever, despite what our chef at Momofuku Ko said about it being stodgy. HE HAS NEVER ACTUALLY BEEN THERE. HE DOESN’T KNOW.

We ate hearty squash soups and roasted Brussels sprouts over succulent chicken breasts and truffled grits with dunky eggs and were plied with bowls and bowls of ice creams and sorbets on the house until 7:59 p.m., at which time we decided it was time to leave for our 8 p.m. Broadway show, which was Seminar starring Alan Rickman of Harry Potter and Love Actually fame. It was basically what I wanted every one of my college writing seminars to be and made me nostalgic for a time when people thought I had potential and I wrote on actual paper.

Ellie and Kinard's Visit
via seminaronbroadway.com

Afterward, we unintentionally walked out into Times Square, and while Kinard and Ellie acted like they didn’t care about it, I definitely caught them doing this:

Ellie and Kinard's Visit

And also this:

Ellie and Kinard's Visit

And this:

Ellie and Kinard's Visit

Even Kurmudgeon Kim was having a good time:

Ellie and Kinard's Visit

But then Pedophile Mickey Mouse showed up

Ellie and Kinard's Visit

and we had to go.

The next day, we rode the train into Madison Square Park

Ellie and Kinard's Visit

Ellie and Kinard's Visit

and ate sloppy Shake Shack burgers

Ellie and Kinard's Visit

and cheese fries with little wooden forks:

Ellie and Kinard's Visit

An evil squirrel came within inches of Kinard’s candy cane/hot fudge/marshmallow shake

Ellie and Kinard's Visit

but there wasn’t a chance that thing was wrestling a bite away from a girl enjoying her dessert this much:

Ellie and Kinard's Visit

Ellie, meanwhile, was trying to play it cool and succeeding wildly:

Ellie and Kinard's Visit

We spent the afternoon at MoMA, which I’ll have to recap in a post of its own, and then stopped at a nearby coffee shop to refuel for that evening’s big dinner at Ko. There was nowhere to sit in the coffee shop, so I had the brilliant idea of leading us down a few more blocks to Rockefeller Center, where there are sprawling plazas full of unoccupied benches.

EXCEPT DURING CHRISTMASTIME, OF COURSE. The streets were brimming with families leaving the Rockettes show at Radio City Music Hall. There were barricades at every corner meant to corral traffic that only succeeded in making the sidewalks unpassable. We finally did make it to 30 Rock, only to discover that the “sprawling plaza” was packed with strollers and women yelling, “Someone’s going to get HURT!” It was, to say the least, a mistake.

So we took the train down to the East Village, made a couple of laps from 1st Avenue to 2nd Avenue and back again until it was time to meet Kamran at Momofuku Ko for the girls’ first Michelin-starred-restaurant experience. Dinner was phenomenal: cheese-flavored broth with bone marrow over brioche, snail and chicken sausage on top of hand-torn pasta, the famous frozen shaved foie gras over fresh lychee and Riesling gelee, just to name a few. Plus that first taste of caviar Ellie was looking for, served in a heap next to a smoked egg. Ellie and Kinard were pros; they ate everything without question and said that some things they hadn’t liked so much in the past were made to taste delicious at Ko.

Kamran said I was being a snobby show-off at dinner, and it’s true that I complained to our James-Franco-look-alike chef that when we were in two weeks prior, the guys beside us had an embarrassing lack of knowledge about food, and yes, even James Franco told me to stop being a snob, but he hadn’t even eaten at Tocqueville, so I think my snobbery is deserved. No? Really? Okay, fine. Ellie and Kinard took it in stride, though, because I imagine they expected me to be a total braggart, anyway.

BFFs!

We spent the rest of the night visiting dive bars and pretending like we’re the kinds of girls who do shots. There was, for some reason, a surprising lack of people out anywhere, so I think NYC came off as this nice, serene place where you can just walk into a bar and actually get a seat and/or service from a bartender. Must have been the cold.

The next day, we went to Artichoke for pizza, because:

1) it is delicious.
2) it’s unlike any other NYC pizza.
3) normal NYC pizza is bland and dumb.
4) some people call it the best pizza in NYC (maybe me, too).
4) I wanted them to have an awesome insider pizza-eating experience.

So of course they were naturally like, “This pizza is okay, but we were really looking forward to getting the bland and dumb pizza Ellie’s boss recommended.” And then I died.

Ellie and Kinard's Visit

Ellie and Kinard's Visit

Look at that! So cheesy and creamy and thick-crusted! How could they not love it?!

But we followed it up with karaoke, which they were awesome at despite Ellie’s poor choice of Neil Diamond and my even poorer choice of Cat Stevens, and fries from Pommes Frites in the courtyard of St. Mark’s Church and a quarter-ton of frozen yogurt topped with mochi cubes and peanut butter cups and gummy bears from 16 Handles.

And then instead of walking across the Brooklyn Bridge like we had planned, we went back to my apartment and watched Jackass 3 and “The Virgin Diaries“. Like not-tourists.

And then they left the next day without having seen any New York friends other than me. I win I win I win!

Happy birthday, Ellie, and happy four-days-since-meeting-me anniversary, Kinard!

The Practice Thanksgiving

Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, holidays don't suck for me, living in new york is neat, par-tay, super furry animals
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One of the things about living in NYC that I’ve found hardest to adjust to is not hanging out at people’s apartments. We all either live in places too small to hold more than two people at a time or places too out of the way for anyone to want to travel to. If it’s not one, it’s the other.

But this year, my friend Ash was determined to have a practice Thanksgiving at her apartment and went all-out with impressive invitations, a massive menu, and promises that she would hunt us down and stuff us if we didn’t make it worth her while to take up her entire refrigerator with a brining turkey for two days. So we took cabs or spent three hours navigating weekend subway construction to make it to her and her husband, Michael’s, Queens apartment last Saturday night for a pre-Thanksgiving feast our families will have a hard time topping tomorrow.

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Michael and Ash got rid of about half of the furniture in their place to make room for this new dining table they bought especially for the occasion. Well worth it, I say.

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Ash carved a turkey for the first time and looked smokin’ doing it.

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

The turkey was about the moistest meat I’ve ever had in my life. The stuffing was fruity, the sweet potatoes spicy, the twice-baked potatoes bacony, the cauliflower casserole creamy, the green beans smoky, the apple pie belly-warming, the lemon cheesecake rich.

There was gravy, too, but I never eat gravy. Am I the only one who thinks it’s tooooooootally weird stuff?

Michael was in high spirits,

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Ash was being Betty Sue Homemaker,

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Jack was his usual pleasant self,

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Jeff was complaining that the ice cream was regular vanilla and not vanilla bean,

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Gizmo was pretending to innocently play with a ball under the table while secretly waiting for dropped turkey,

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

and Penny, the cat we found in the Hamptons, was acting like all of us would be about two minutes after dinner:

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Success!

Pre-Thanksgiving at Ash and Michael's

Hamptons Photodump!

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No, we actually did go to the Hamptons. And here are the pictures to prove it:

[svgallery name=”hamptons”]

Most of these were taken by my friend Anthony, who I want to be when I grow up. He took more than 1000 photos during the trip, if that’s any indication of what a good time we had. The pictures of us playing drunken Cranium (which I don’t even like) for five hours every night have been omitted. As have the pictures of me crying for another five hours after I fell down Rollerblading.

I’m Going to the Hamptons!

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As you’re reading this, I’m on my way to spend the next four days with eleven of my closest friends in THE HAMPTONS!


The apparent view from our back deck

Our house has a pool! And I’m bringing my new Rollerblades so my friend Christine can attempt to teach me to skate on the boardwalk and fail miserably! And we’re going to have “Top Chef”-style cooking competitions! And my friend Chantee says she wants to be on my team because she “trusts my palate more than most Food Network stars'”! And hopefully we’ll escape the weekend without anyone getting alcohol poisoning or accidentally sleeping together!

It’ll be my first time there, and just the idea of it makes me feel all snobby and pretentious. I love that.

Auf Wiedersehen, Jessica! Hallo, Drunk Katie!

Filed under all of my friends are prettier than i am, jobby jobby job job, par-tay
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My favouritest German intern of all time, Jessica, recently came back into town after being back home in Düsseldorf for nine months. In honor of her visit–and because she bugs me about it at least once a week–here are the greatest photos from the night we said goodbye:


I like how Beth apparently had no idea that this was supposed to be a funny picture
and not a try-out for “America’s Next Top Model”.


These are funny because I’m, like, the not-drunk-est person everyone knows.


Please notice Anthony’s face in the background.


I don’t remember why this was being done, but I do know it was offensive.


We all rode the bull. It cost $15. Someone paid for me, because that’s how I roll.
I broke my thumbnail on it.


Sonya puts this much feeling into literally everything she sings. This was probably “Barbie Girl”, Jessica’s absolute favourite song to do at karaoke. She likes to sing the boy part even though she’s the girliest girl you’ll ever meet.


Classy.

Move back soon, mama.