Adios Minnesota!

On our last day in Minneapolis, I tried to do a repeat of the awesome breakfast at Al's Diner. Alas, the line was too long and we didn't have that much time before showing up for work. So we walked around the neighborhood and found Tony's Diner.

I went with a potato hash, toast, and a veggie omelette topped with american shredded cheese.

It wasn't the same as eating at Al's, but it hit the spot for the morning.
Work was smooth and we were out early enough that we attempted to look and see if there was any possibility to check out the lgbt night life in Minneapolis, a city that is supposed to be super gay friendly. Everything looked like it would start after 10pm and both of us were ready to be asleep early, what with the flying out of the city mad early in the morning. We fell into my old fave: enter Taste of Thailand.

We each had us some singh thai beer and veggie spring rolls.

I went with my tried and true choice: tofu pad thai.

I was not impressed with the sauce flavor, but the tofu was good and firm, well scalded, so not all was lost. A good way to end the visit, only sad I didn't get to see Dawn again.

Not a single sighting of Sherman Alexie

So, going to spend a week in the Northwest, specifically on Weippe, ID. In order to get there from New York, though, Mariel and I had to fly first into Seattle, then to Spokane in Washington to spend the night. It snowed a little last night, and the air feels cold as hell (15F as I type), and the snow is coming. I'm going to have to drive, which y'all know I love (not), and I'm starting to freak out about it.

So, in order to relax a little, and since I've been up for HOURS, I went to the hotel's gym for a bit of a walk. I walked 2.40 miles in 48 minutes. After a quick shower, I decided to keep it simple and headed for the hotel's restaurant.

View from my table:

I loved the mist moving over the water the best. Also, I saw someone running past. Crazy ass runners.

The good thing about "working out" before breakfast, though, is that it (mostly) keeps me from trying to eat my weight in sugary carbs at breakfast time. I wanted something hardier than instant oatmeal, though, because I don't see me stopping often while driving to Weippe for lunch and what not. I decided for "Jo's Breakfast Bowl."

It had skillet potatoes, light jack cheese, light cheddar cheese, spinach, grilled mushroom slices, onion, with scrambled egg whites and fresh pico de gallo salsa. Topped that with whole grain buttered toast. Alright, so the thing wasn't super healthy or anything, but it's infinitely better than pancakes, or a bagel with cream cheese. The hardest part really was not to eat it all; I was already full halfway through it, since I tried to put my fork down between bites, and I had had a cup of warm water with lemon before eating. It was so hard to not eat it all even though I felt full! I kept trying to trick myself by saying that if I ate more it would be longer time between meals, but was able to leave behind a full slice of toast and about 30 percent of the meal. However involved the thing is, I can see me cooking this for breakfast.

In any case, now to pack and get ready for Weippe!

Shana Tova

So Mi Cariño and I decided to celebrate the Jewish New Year by taking advantage of a deal purchased months ago. A night at Glen Cove Mansion with several fun perks along the way. We began by picking up the car near La Guardia, then drove less than an hour to the great unknown that is Long Island. Here's the view on the drive up. I have a clearer picture of the Mansion, but I kinda like the tree being in the way so to speak. 

The Mansion is pretty big, and there's some story to it, but not really anything super exciting. It's beautiful though, with wonderfully manicured grounds. We began by enjoying their entertainment center, where we played some ping pong (this was not table tennis folks.) There's a disagreement as to who won the two games we played, but I'm pretty sure it was me.

After ping pong, we used the bikes that the hotel allowed us free use of, and rode around the surrounding streets. I didn't take any pictures of that, but regardless I wouldn't post those because I looked hella funky in that bike helmet. It has been over a year since the last time I rode a bike anywhere, so this was a lot of fun, but also very scary.

Bike riding led to visiting the Long Island Sound, which was as dark and greyish as the name sounds. We enjoyed the fresh air and the tiny walk before snuggling down to watch "Super 8," which we had wanted to see in the theaters but never got a chance to. The movie is really good - it's like a scarier, treasure-less Goonies. Really fun.

Soon it was time for dinner and so we went to the Mansion's third floor to their restaurant Pub 1910 to first have some drinks

My appletini was perfect. Then I opted for a turkey club on sourdough bread with mayo and fries.

It left a lot to be desired, I managed to eat half of it before I gave up on it. The Pub had some live music entertainment, good old music, but nothing that I loved much. The Pub had a good atmosphere though, and we enjoyed our time there.

To finish our visit, the next morning the Mansion provided us with free breakfast. We were very pleased to see that it wasn't the regular continental breakfast fare.

You're looking at cantaloupe, blueberries, french toast, home fries, sausage, bacon, toast, and "scrambled eggs." The eggs were powdery and they were the only thing that wasn't great. Otherwise, I really enjoyed the free food, and ate to my hearts content, even if it was a bit too much.

All in all, an amazing way to begin the new year.

Diners and Dives

Sometimes Dinner calls for breakfast. After a 10 hour workday, we walked to Philadelphia Deli, to have some chow. The place is in a very old shack looking structure, where the tables look like they've been there 20 years and the chairs and booths 30 at the very least.

Our waiter greeted us by calling us Dear every other second, and looked like she should've retired a good 15 years ago. She was quite lively and spry. I chose to have me a sausage and cheese omelette with potatoes and toast.

It was quite tasty and I devoured everything in sight. After the waiter found out that we were from out of town, she came over to make sure she knew where we were from and our business in town, before insisting we had some of the pecan pie before we left. I didn't want to be rude, so I said yes. She added some ice cream:

I kept thinking of When Harry Met Sally. Pe-CAHN Pie! Susan and I left nothing behind.

Afterwards, Susan and I decided that a movie was needed, because we needed to dispel the last dregs of the very long day. I didn't tell her I had seen Bridesmaids already, so we watched that. It was kind of weird and funny, because we laughed a whole lot more than anyone else in the theater (being Friday night, the small place was chock full of couples and a couple of female friends.) Not sure why - they laughed the most at the bathroom humor in the midst of the film, but I still find that opening scene beyond hilarious.

Brotherly Love

After a lovely week that involved watching two Harry Potter movies a day, a night Latin dancing at Henrietta's, and a day at Six Flags Great Adventure the girls, Mi Cariño and I got on the road to Philadelphia. Like last year, there were Queer movies to enjoy, and good food to be had.
First stop, a repeat, with Cafe Estelle. This time I had the corn and black bean omelette. I forgot to take a picture of pancakes, but believe me, we had them this time too. They were as good as we remembered.

Afterwards we made our way through Old City in Philadelphia, taking it easy and seeing the Liberty Bell from the outside once more, Christ Church, Old Pubs, and just generally enjoying the very hot day. In the afternoon we saw "Jessie and Jamie are Not Together," which was this hybrid of a romantic comedy with musical numbers thrown in. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Parts of it were really funny, while other parts, not so much. The musical numbers? Unnecessary, all of them. None of the songs were catchy or were saying things that were truly advancing the story (since most feelings expressed through song were said outloud before hand anyway), plus, the actors weren't really good singers anyway. That just takes away from that kind of thing. However, there were tons of nice sex scenes, funny date scenes, and the ever present gratuitous sex between best friends that doesn't really get addressed at the end. I'd give it a 3 out of 5 - much better than the disaster we saw last year, but not quite "Kissing Jessica Stein/Saving Grace."

After we followed Cariño's brother recommendation to find some cheesesteaks. We decided for Pat's.

I had me one with onions, peppers and mushrooms, and cheese. It was extremely tasty, but I didn't go crazy for it. It WAS a far better choice than the steaks we had last year. 

After, the girls dropped us off at the hotel before they set on the road back to New York. Picture of my hotel key, which I thought very clever and cute.

Phila, or at least Old City Phila, is chock full of these informative blue plaques. This one is right outside City Hall, by our hotel, and I enjoyed having the knowledge. I took the picture on my way to the bus stop so that I could go to NY.

Monday morning, after arriving in NY at 9:30, I watered plans and changed clothes to then go to work so that I could travel to... Philadelphia. Don't ask me. My co-workers and I drove down and arrived in the afternoon in time to record an interview and then be sent to a cocktail party at this boat/restaurant.

Very cute. Once work was over, Mi Cariño and I went for dinner to Cuba Libre. Very expensive, appetizers not really needed kinda place. Which we didn't realize until after we had the aforementioned appetizers.

The bread was great, though! Not Cuban bread, but close enough, and toasted, which makes a difference. Plus, it came with an amazing Mango Butter.

I had me a Mango Mojito to relax a bit. Once I took out all the extra mint they put on them things, it was not bad at all.

Main entree: Vaca Frita

con arroz blanco y habichuelas negras.

For dessert, Mi Cariño had a coffee and shot of liquor with soy milk concoction whose name I don't remember. Tasty but I wouldn't have been able to drink that whole cup.

The bill came in a very cute cigars box.

Another blue plaque, this one on the way to the place where we recorded. I find it lovely and hilarious that a branch of the U.S.A. Military Services was born in a bar.

View of Philadelphia from the Suite I was working at. Plenty of Memorials in that part of town.

We returned to NY Wednesday night after having had a great time. I wouldn't mind making this trip an annual thing, it was a lot of fun, and the lovely thing is that Phila still has many other things to go see. (Next year the Rodin Museum, for sure.)

On a clear day you can see forever

After a night of debauchery, nothing like Diner food to set everything right. We made our way to Gemini's in Kips Bay, where everybody knows my face, if not my name.

To make things different, I went for the Corned Beef Hash with Potatoes, two eggs sunny side up, and wheat toast.

I pretty much scrambled all that up and ate every single bit. It was really, really good.

Afterward, we walked to Times Square, got caught in torrential rain (I mean that. I'm talking DRENCHED), struggled to figure out what to do with our afternoon, and ended up shopping. Not a bad Sunday - except we were all tired. I made my way back home to watch the Barbra classic, to cross stitch, and to miss mi Cariño, who's coming home soon.

Latte mi corazón

Needed a severe morning pick me up before work today - Sunny San Diego has unfortunately not been as Sunny as it usually is. I had been looking forward to this trip a lot - perfect weather San Diego and all that - and I am not going to say that the Universe has conspired to enforce some serious global warming this week in this part of the world just to mess with me because I was looking forward to this trip... but I think the Universe conspired to enforce some serious global warming like behavior this week in San Diego just to mess with me. Not that we're letting this slow us down - my sleeping fits do that enough already - but we went to get ourselves some cafecitos at this shop one of our participants owns in El Barrio. The shop's name? Latte mi corazón. Go ahead, groan if you'd like, but it's too cute to not give into it.

Latte mi corazón is actually set on someone's house  - the front/side part of their house. Which is a good thing to know ahead of time because we drove by it once before we realized that it wasn't just someone's front yard/terrace. I like the homey feel to it, for sure.

Walking in you find tables and seating area before going inside the actual cafe part. The walls, (like any self respecting coffee house) were lined with paintings and art for sale.

The other side was chock full of Mexican Caravelas. It looked better than it sounds, specially with the plexi-glass like walls.

Our Barista, David, helped us make a choice. I went for the Café de Olla, and Carolina went for the Meximocha. Café de Olla was freaking delish and it comes with canela and piloncito and for once I drank a coffee drink without adding mountains of sugar to it, and so I say, good one!

David's gaydar must've been on because he was soon talking to us about his boyfriend and about friends and sugar daddies and the San Diego Pride Parade and the New York City Pride Parade and what not. He was adorable and I wanted to take his picture but I did not want to freak him out, so I didn't. I'm also pretty sure he thought Caro and I were together/together, since he kept trying to tell us which Dyke places to visit and that "no one would bother us." We laughed at that.

We sat outside to enjoy our drinks plus some breakfast pastries, listening to Mecano and los Aterciopelados, and Shakira, and Carolina and I went over one of my favorite subjects, that subject being that Spanish music really doesn't work well in translation - and as she talked about explaining to her girlfriend J. what the words to the Mecano song "Aire" meant, I once again felt very lucky and glad that mi Cariño needs no translation.

De los paises

So I mentioned in my last post, my Tio is visiting from the Dominican Republic. My sister took advantage of his plane ticket and sent me masa de empanada de yuca (the dough to make yucca empanadas.) We fried them this morning.

This is unadultered empanada - that is, no added colorants to make it reddish. To make this you take Yucca, peel it (they're really fun to peel), grate it. When you grate yucca, you get this soft, actually kinda wet result.  I don't really remember the following steps to make the dough, though (ha!) and don't feel like faking knowledge by looking it up. But if you search for "empanada de yuca" you'll find plenty of results. Fried Yucca soaks up oil, however, so if your stomach is not the kind that can take oily foods well in the morning, I suggest you eat this for lunch or dinner. In any case, thank you Manita!

Goodbye Wisconsin!

Ah, time to go home! We squeeze one last meal outta Green Bay before being stuck in a Milwaukee airport for 3 hours - Breakfast at Nicolet Restaurant!

I go all out with some blueberry pancakes

On the way to the airport, we stop to purchase Cheese Curds, and Cheese Whips. Can't go to Wisconsin and not come back with Cheese!

Seven C's

Sunday! Not  a bad day considering it was working in a weekend. I began the day by treating me to some breakfast: two eggs sunnyside up, hash browns, toast.

Our last day of recording went by really smoothly and quickly. The weather was great. We got lunch to go from Kavarna. I forgot to take a picture of the actual food. I had the rabbit, which is a sandwich of lettuce, tomato, onions, cucumbers in a light vinaigrette. This came with some kettle chips, and we shared a white macademia cookie.

We celebrated the end of the trip by going for frozen custard, which apparently is pretty big in Wisconsin. In case you don’t know, frozen custard is ice cream… richer and creamier. We drove out to Zesty’s, listening to the Glee soundtrack (I’m sure to Matt’s concern).

Zesty’s has an old soda shop type of feel, with great colorful decoration on the walls. They also sold your regular French fries and burgers fare.

We both chose to have the Seven C’s, which I learned consists of chocolate custard, cashews, caramel, cookies, chocolate chips, and chocolate fudge nuts. I ordered one scoop and Matt ordered two, but we received two and three scoops respectively. Score!

Sinfully delicious doesn’t begin to cover it. The hardest part of it all was having to stop myself from eating the full two scoops.

For “dinner” and since we had taken care of desert already, we headed to Titletown – a brewery a couple of blocks from our hotel. (Don’t drink and drive, kids!) Great crowd was there. Can I say that Green Bay probably has more bars/pubs/breweries per capita that New York City does? One in every block friends, one in EVERY block! Almost. In any case, the locals were friendly and they didn’t mind that we asked to have the tv’s showing the Mets-Yankees game. We tried several of their beers, with my favorite one being the “Irish Blood” something or other. Great after finish.

After several drinks, cursing out Jeter and drunkenly making the lame joke that Feliciano Rodriguez is probably Alex Rodriguez’ cousin some food was ordered. We had the fried cheese curds as appetizers

and the bison burger as my main entrée. The burger was a bit rare for my taste, but I was just tipsy enough to not care.

And then the Mets win! 6 to 4. Closer than I’d have liked, but a win is a win.

Saying Goodbye to Brownsville

So on our way to the airport we stopped by El Taquito Cafe on the outskirts of Brownsville for Breakfast. It was still dark outside when we arrived and at first we thought the Cafe was closed even though it advertised being 24 hours in the weekend. Luckily we moved in closer to investigate.

I had Los Huevos Divorciados. Eggs, with green sauce, red sauce, potatoes, beans.

Perfect way to start your day with a kick.

Ich bin ein Berliner!

So I had to take vacation days or I would lose them, and my friend says "I'll be in Berlin for Easter weekend," and I answered with "I want to be in Berlin for Easter weekend!" And so I was. 

We had a blast. We both arrived on April 1st and the first order of business was to get us something yummy to eat. Enter Vietnamese Food restauran Hoai Nam, a couple of blocks from our apartment.

The atmosphere was very nice and they helpfully had the menu in English and German. I began the meal with vegetarian dumplings, kimchi, and Saigon beer. 

The main course consisted of Tofu Noodles with coconut milk:

It was a great way to begin our visit!!

The next day we went on a walking tour of mostly East Berlin. We saw all the big attractions: Checkpoint Charlie, the Berliner Dom, Museum Island, the TV Tower, a bit of Berlin Wall that's still left, Hitler's Bunker, the new memorial for the murdered Jews of Europe, the German memorial for the victims of War and Tyranny, the Royal Opera House, Bebelplatz and the memorial to the book burning that happened there in 1933. Awesome, and exhausting... some pictures: 

After all that walking we were starving! First we took a break at a small café and had a bit of a snack

We did go drinking, which was great and fun. The beer was cheap and of EXCELLENT quality. There are no pictures of debauchery available, however ;-)

The next morning though, we took our time waking up and had brunch at around noon. We had to search but found a little brunch place, practically empty. I had the Chorizo and sweet pepper omelet

The omelet was good, but it made me feel a little queasy later. More sightseeing happened, in the meantime - the weather was perfect and we rode U-Bahns and S-Bahns all over the place. We ended Saturday night by watching the movie "Precious" with German subtitles - yeah, we like to keep it light and sweet during vacation. 

Sunday also had a slow start, but in a good sense. Museums were visited, we went up to the TV Tower observatory (not as cool as the Empire State Building, but who's comparing?) and also up to the Berliner Dom roof and had great looks of the city. We didn't make it too far into West Berlin, unfortunately, but I guess that means we'll have to go back. We finished our visit to Berlin by having a delicious meal at a Vegetarian restaurant in Kreuzberg. Some awesome Rose wine and a stuffed aubergine in a bed of a tomato sauce:

The next day I headed back to the States, via London. I made a quick stop at the Brittish Museum.

I made what I believe was a brilliant attempt to actually at the very least walk through the entire museum, which consists of three levels and what seems like countless exhibitions. I failed miserably.

To cheer myself up, I walked to the West End and attempted to find a good show. I ran into Cat on a Hot Tin Roof, with Sanaa Lathan and Phyllicia Rashad. I got super excited. 

But then I find out that the show is sold out for the night. Bum-mer. I keep walking and almost inmediately I run into another theater, where Dirty Dancing (Yes, based on the movie) was playing. I figure, what the hell, right? I liked the adaptation of Legally Blonde to the Stage (actually one of my favorite musicals, say what you will,) and the show's been open for years by now, there's no way it would be open for long if it wasn't good. So I got whipped out my student ID (yes, it is expired, but the Brits didn't seem to care) and purchased me a 20 Pound seat, which was on first mezz, second row center. What luck, right? 

Before the show I walked around - I found at least three different Thai food restaurants, but this is the one I chose

Thai Square was a GREAT choice. I let the waiter know I had a Show to make and she brought out my Tofu Pad Thai inmediately

It was one of the best Tofu Pad Thai's I've ever tasted. The Tofu had a wonderful scald to it, the noodles had a good consistency, the sauce made me very happy. YUM to the MY. 

Quickly though, as I was cutting it close, I ran to The Aldwych Theater thinking that as soon as Dirty Dancing was over I would skip over to the Stage Door on the other theater and get to say hi to the actors of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. 

Dirty Dancing... What... a waste of my time and money. They included EVERY SCENE of the movie. Even though it made the entire thing run choppily and made scenes sometimes less than a minute long. What that means is that it took longer for the actors and the stage to set up for a scene than it got them to actually say the lines. The dancing was not properly Dirty, I'll say that too - severely dissappointed in that respect. AND they added scenes to the whole deal: A bit about Neil the grandson going freedom riding and Baby and her mother having more a rapport, as well as showing Baby's mom and pop talking to each other a bit more. Unnecesary scenes for the movie and certainly unnecesary for the show. These people really needed to get the important scenes together, combined some of the scenes to make the flow better, and they seriously needed to choose a Johnny that had a bit more experience with modern dancing and not a completely ballet trained dancer. The guy was horrible. 

The only saving grace of the show was the actress that played Baby's sister. Now, she did almost a carbon copy of what the movie actress did - but it was a good choice. Singing during the talent show and her way of dancing: perfect. What upset me is that the entire theater went crazy when Johnny did his "Nobody puts baby in a corner" bit, which came out rushed and quickly, and done badly. They started cheering and SINGING ALONG AND OUTLOUD when the "I've had the time of my life" number came on, as if: a)they had never seen the movie, and b)as if the actors were any good. Really, I cannot possibly explain how angry I was at my having spent money on this. And then, to boot, by the time I was out, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof had been long over, and there was not even a slight chance to say "hey" to Mrs. Cosby. Feh. 

Regardless, I enjoyed the walk back to my hostel, and I had good chamomile tea before bedtime. The next day I checked out early and decided that my last meal in London before heading to the States would be what they call "The full English."

This protein-and-grease fest consists of buttered toast, fried bacon, fried egg, fried sausage, and beans. Topped it with a cup of coffee and off the Airport I went. I felt a little queasy there for a second, but it was well worth it. I'm pretty sure that on this mini vacation I put on all the weight I lost in the month of March. Huzzah.