Category: Happenings in the City

6 Days to Dragon*Con: An Eating Guide

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I live in a locavore foodie area and I love great food and restaurant experiences, but this is not what Dragon*Con is about.  While I am not normally of the “food is just fuel” mentality, I go into that mode during Dragon*Con.  The weekend is an endurance test, and I want not-too-unhealthy things that will keep me up and running from panel to panel and into the night.  Additionally, if I don’t eat breakfast and if I don’t eat every few hours I turn into a raging hosebeast, so I need to make sure I have these things on hand.  Here are some of my tips and tricks for eating to feel like a human being at Dragon*Con.

1) EAT BREAKFAST.  Preferably, eat it in your hotel room if you can–it saves time and money.  It doesn’t have to be fancy and shouldn’t need to be refrigerated.  I bring a loaf of whole wheat or multi-grain bread with me along with a jar of low-fat peanut butter, and I throw together a peanut butter sandwich in the morning when I wake up (just don’t forget to bring some disposable knives with you).  Easy, cheap, healthy, and protein-packed–just what I need to start the day.  If I need an extra pick-me-up I grab an orange juice from one of the hotel convenience stores.

English: A peanut butter and jelly sandwich, m...
English: A peanut butter and jelly sandwich, made with Skippy peanut butter and Welch’s grape jelly on white bread. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

2)  BRING SNACKS.  We usually have a little cooler that we can fill with ice, so I throw some greek yogurt in there that I can grab as a snack when I’m in the hotel room to fix my makeup.  I also never go anywhere without a granola bar on me–you never know when hunger could strike, it might be in line at a panel or while you are at a party, and you don’t want to have to drop everything and shuffle off to the food court to get some food.  Trail mix and beef jerky are also great options.

3)  Speaking of the food court, it is your friend, and there are ways to eat healthily at the food court.  And also I generally love walking through the food court and seeing people in costumes.   I am a big fan of Moe’s, that sushi place (Yami Yami I think it is called?), and that prepared food place across from the evil Chick Fil-A (I think it is called Cafe Momo).  At Moe’s I usually get a rice bowl or a salad, fill it up with chicken, veggies, and black beans, top it with lots of salsa and dig in.  Yami Yami I typically only hit up once or twice, because it is a little pricey and the line can be long, but they have pretty decent sushi and lots of vegetable options to ensure that you get some green things in you.  And I love Cafe Momo–affordable, lots of healthy protein and vegetable options, and it is usually pretty quick and easy to load up at the prepared foods bar and to be on your way.   There is also a Middle Eastern-ish place somewhere in the food court that offers pita sandwiches and hummus platters, and that’s a solid bet as well, if a bit messy.   All of these places make it very easy to carry your food back to your hotel room so you can eat while watching Dragon*Con TV.  Multi-tasking!

This is what happens if you eat at Chick-Fil-A: You have to wait in line and then the zombie apocalypse comes and then you turn into zombies and eat people and just don’t eat at Chick-Fil-A they fry hate and serve it to you so you get fat. Hate will clog your arteries.

4) That being said, you are on vacation, and it is okay to treat yourself.  I always get at least one Dairy Queen Blizzard, because it is the perfect food, and I sometimes let myself get one fried-food meal although I usually feel pretty gross after, ha, so maybe not this year.  And definitely no evil Chick Fil-A this year.  I love their chicken nuggets, but I prefer my fried chicken to come without a side of hate and intolerance, thank you.  Avoid the pizza place with all your might because it is terrible (unless it has changed ownership).  I’ve also been wanting to try that little noodle place tucked in the corner because it looks yummy, but it always has long lines oi vey.

5)  There is no need to go to a sit down meal, unless this is a thing you like to do at Con?  I have plenty of sit-down meals in my normal life, I’d rather eat and run at Con–there is so much to do, and there is no need to wait for a table at the Hard Rock Cafe, or Fires of Brazil, or Durango.  I know lots of people who have annual dinners with their Con friends, which is cool, but I’d much rather be in the thick of things than going and having dinner elsewhere.  We had lunch at a sit-down restaurant my first year at Con, and my whole experience consisted of me thinking about all the time we were wasting, and how badly I wanted to get back to Con stuff.

But seriously, guys, try to avoid the fast food. I mean, look at what it does to you.

6)  Um, I know this is blasphemous, but I don’t really drink much at Con.  Actually, I don’t really drink much period, and I am such a lightweight that one or two drinks do me in, and I get sleepy so quickly when I drink, and I don’t really have fun or like the way alcohol makes me feel, and I’d rather be aware of my surroundings so I can process all the awesome costumes and remember every detail, so in general I don’t have more than one or two drinks a day.  I KNOW THIS MAKES ME WEIRD, sorry.  Don’t listen to my drinking tips–except for this one.  Buy booze before you go to Atlanta and make your own drinks in the room, and maybe also make a “party bottle” to carry around with you, because the alcohol in the hotels is EXPENSIVE.  Additionally re: booze, do whatever works for you, be safe, and remember to…

7)  HYDRATE.  OMG guys hydrate so much.  I drink a lot of water in my daily life and I probably double that at Con.  All the meeting rooms in all the hotels have water dispensers so make sure to bring a refillable bottle and STOCK UP SERIOUSLY.  Water is your friend.

I have lived by these eating rules and I have yet to get sick at Con (this is likely because I use a lot of hand sanitizer, wash my hands a lot, and generally have a very strong immune system).  Supposedly there are some other secret tips I might be missing, like another food court hidden in the Marriott (although that is only open on Friday), and maybe there are some tucked-away convenience stores I might be missing?  Did I forget anything?  Do you disagree with my tips?  Do you have some tips of your own?  Let me know in the comments!  We’re all in this together!

 

36 Hours in New York City: Co. Pane

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We had tickets to Sleep No More on Saturday at 7:00 and so decided to get an early dinner at Jim Lahey’s Co., his pizza establishment down in in Chelsea.  I love, love, love Sullivan Street Bakery (seriously, I write about it a lot) and have been wanting to try Co. for awhile.  We met my friend Phil, who I’ve known since forever and who was all over this blog during my Whitney Internship days, and his girlfriend Jaclyn down for an early bird, old person dinner at 5:30.

We ordered a chopped liver appetizer, a pizza bianca appetizer with ricotta, and a margherita pizza.  And it was all extremely yummy, especially the chopped liver, but the pizza wasn’t as good as the Neapolitan pies I’ve had at, say, Keste or Motorino.  I mean, it was good, and it worked out well since we were so close to the theatre, but it isn’t my favorite Manhattan Neapolitan pie.  In terms of Jim Lahey’s pizza, I prefer Sullivan Street’s little rectangular slices.

So after a quick dinner, Phil and Jaclyn walked us to the theatre.  And then we bid our farewells and Jon and I got ready for Sleep No More…but you’ll have to wait until later to hear about that!

36 Hours in New York City: The Breslin

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As y’all know I love NYC.  So you can imagine how bummed I was at not having visited since summer 2010, due to that whole unemployment thing.  Jon and I planned a trip to the city for my birthday, which was in March, but there was a specific show we wanted to see (more on that later) so we planned our trip around ticket availability.  The second weekend in April was the only weekend that worked for our schedules.

Since I’m not yet allowed to take vacation days at work, we planned a very quick weekend trip.  We took a 6:00am flight to NYC on Saturday morning and so landed around 7:30.  We didn’t check any bags so we were at our hotel (the Hilton Midtown East, on 42nd Street near Grand Central.  We Pricelined it and so didn’t have a ton of choice, but it was a very nice hotel and it worked for the one night we were there) by 8:30.  I had decided to go someplace trendy and typically crowded to breakfast/brunch, since we were in the city early enough to beat the crowds.  After a bit of decision making, I finally settled on April Bloomfield’s The Breslin in The Ace Hotel down near Herald Square.  April Bloomfield is a British chef who has been having a moment for awhile–she also owns The Spotted Pig and The John Dory–but she’s having a bigger moment now because she just published a book, so she’s getting a lot of extra press.  She’s known for her decadent, pork-and-butter infused dishes, and also for her very crowded restaurants, so I decided that this was my best chance at getting to eat at one of her establishments without waiting in line forever (no reservations, of course).

We caught a Subway and were at The Breslin by 9:00.  The place was mostly empty, only a few hotel guests were there eating breakfast.  The restaurant is all dark wood and plastic animal heads mounted on the wall.  I didn’t want to take too many pictures, so I didn’t get any of the interior, but I could tell that at night it gets very loud and sceney.  In the morning it was relaxed, with Fleet Foxes playing over the speakers.

I talked Jon into order the lamb burger, which many food writers have called transcendent.  I didn’t think I could do a whole lamb burger at 9:00 in the morning, so I decided to break my Passover with a breakfast sandwich of house-cured ham, lots of cheese, and an egg.  I know, so Kosher.  Anyways, here is our food (sorry about the quality of the pictures, I told you it was dark in there, and I didn’t want to use flash).

So that’s my sandwich on top.  It was basically fried in butter.  I’m not a huge fan of ham, but this was so salty and flavorful that I was totally pleased.  The egg was still soft, and oozed lots of yolk when I cut into the sandwich.  I definitely could not finish it–it was rich and fortifying and fatty and delicious and great.  Jon’s lamb burger was also great (he allowed me only one bite, alas).  It tasted strongly of lamb and that was pretty much it, with just a thin slice of feta and some red onion to give some salt and crunch.  The burger was served with thrice-cooked french fries which were amazing.  I don’t usually like thick-cut french fries, as I prefer my fries with a lot of crunch.  However, the triple-frying method gave a really crisp, salty, crunchy exterior while preserving a soft, potatoey interior.  Amazing french fries, guys, I couldn’t stop eating them.

So, the trick to eating in a trendy establishment without waiting is to GO EARLY.  You might not see the scene, but you’ll eat the food, and in reality that’s what is really worth it am I right?

The Belated Passover Seder Run-Down

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Passover was about two weeks ago, and I suggested to my parents and sister and grandmother that they all come up to North Carolina, where my uncles and I live, and we all do Passover up here together.  I’ll do one night, I naively suggested, and my uncles would do another.  Somehow everyone agreed to this idea, and that’s how I found myself with the task of cooking the first night of Seder on a Friday night in early April.

I’m not going to bother explaining the terms Passover and Seder.  Other people have done it better than I can.  Just Google it.  I’m hoping that most of you know what these things are anyways, but I’m always surprised by how many people have never met a Jewish person, or how many people know nothing about Jewish culture.  What can I say, I grew up in Florida.

Anyways, doing Passover Seder is sort of like doing any other dinner party (which I have done), except not really.  Because you have to time the multiple courses of food to the end of the saying of various prayers and the reciting of various stories and the hopefully having of various discussions.  So you never exactly know when that food that is warming in the oven and hopefully not drying out at all will be served, because a Seder doesn’t really have a set end time.  Also, did I mention the multiple courses?

Anyways, I was doing just fine in my cooking of the food, and then my sink garbage disposal broke, and my sink started clogging, and that’s when my family arrived.  So that was fun!  Regardless all the food turned out just fine, and everyone seemed happy.  From what I could tell.

So here are some pictures of my family (maternal side only) assembled at my small-ish apartment for the first night of Seder.

An here are some pictures of my mother and uncles misbehaving themselves during the Seder.

That green thing my uncle is holding is one of our 10 Plagues, we’re all about fun representations of serious happenings.

And here is my dad, being exasperated by our relative’s antics.  That white thing he is wearing is a kittel, you probably remember me talking about it back in my post about Raffi and Rachel’s wedding.

Anyways, onto the food.

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A Day Trip to Greensboro

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Hey guys.  I know, I’ve been gone.  Work is really busy.  Like, really busy.  We have two giant events this week, and then our Spring Art Walk the weekend after this one, and I am mega-planning and organizing all of it and, yeah.  Also my entire family was here for Passover and then I went to New York City this past weekend.  AND I AM TOTALLY GOING TO TELL YOU ALL ABOUT THAT.  But first, I’m going to go waaaaay back to the last Saturday in March, when Jon and I took a day trip to downtown Greensboro!

My awesome friend Heather Gordon was part of a group show at the Green Hill Center for North Carolina Art.  The show closed April 1st and, of course, we waited until March 31st to go to Greensboro to see it.  Hey, at least we went!  Anyways, I’ve been living in North Carolina for over four years and I’ve never been to Greensboro, which is ridiculous because it is only an hour away.  So I figured we’d take this opportunity to explore downtown Greensboro.

We spent most of our time around Elm Street (see convenient street sign).  We got there around lunch time, so we had some lunch at Natty Greene’s Pub & Brewing Co.   I had a mediocre caesar salad and Jon had some kind of a wrap but we split some home made potato chips and those things were awesome and delicious.

We then headed down to Green Hill to see the show, which was called Word Maps.  It featured the work of four artists, all of whom do things with codes and languages and what not.  Here are lots of pictures of some art and the installation, it was a gorgeous gallery so I took a lot of photos. Oh also Heather had some work based on the game Parcheesi, which I have never played, but that is why a bunch of the pictures are of games and stuff.

Okay so all of that stuff above is by Heather, who is awesome.  The stuff below is by Vicky Essig, Paul Rousso, and Merrill Shatzman, respectively.  There aren’t a lot of photos, so you can chill.

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