so far so good

spring has sprung and new yorkers are so happy that walking around the streets of manhattan feels like being a part of the cast of some musical theatre production where everyone is going to break into song and dance at any moment. 

it really is a wonderful time of the year when people emerge from their malaise of winter, shed their outer layer of gloom and step into the sun, re-energized. it is that special time after the cold and before the humidity strikes. we must savor it, for it is brief.

i have been trying my best to take advantage of the sunny days amidst my work schedule, and fortunately i've managed to lock in a few solid hours of spring-time bliss. thursday i had a little anniversary, so for the occasion i cooked breakfast and my beau and i headed uptown to the cloisters in fort tyron park.

for breakfast we ate eggs with spinach, mushrooms, tomatoes and feta, french toast sticks, blueberries in greek yogurt with honey and drank oj and french press coffee. i did good.

the cloisters, which are lovely and peaceful, incorporate elements from five medieval french cloisters in its structure. according to the website, it is "the branch of the metropolitan museum devoted to the art and architecture of medieval europe." there was plenty of fascinating art to study, but mostly i was in picture taking heaven because there were so many interesting angles to look at. here are a few:

 

the rest of the pictures are here if you'd like to take a look. in addition to the beautiful structure and the artwork, the cloisters is in the middle of a lovely park overlooking the hudson river. there is a fantastic view of the george washington bridge. i highly recommend taking a trip up there on a sunny day. i instantly felt a sense of serenity that is hard to come by in manhattan.

other highlights of the weekend include a walk over the brooklyn bridge, (which is as lovely in parts as it is infuriating in moments where you become stuck behind a gaggle of tourists)  and a dim sum easter day brunch at jing fong in chinatown. this place is a massive establishment that seems to be able to accommodate hundreds of people at a time. the spillover of hungry patrons made its way onto the sidewalk as we waited for our number to be called. from there you are led up a giant escalator that opens into a sea of cherry red banquet tables and ladies pushing carts full of dumplings and various fried edibles.

having conquered dim sum in hong kong, i was appointed to take the lead in the ordering, and by all accounts, i did pretty well. we all loved the rice noodle rolls with shrimp and the variety of dumplings we tried...

but i think we agreed that the most delicious thing we ate were these deep-fried sesame glutinous rice balls filled with lotus seed paste that we had for dessert. sweet but not cloying, nutty, crispy & chewy, i could eat way more of these then i allowed myself to. these pictures are from the website serious eats, where you can read more about jing fong's best dishes.

my cousin, melissa, was in town from los angeles for the dim sum experience, so after lunch we set off on a mission in chinatown to find her the perfect marc jacobs knock-off bag she was looking for. even though i have lived in new york for 8 yrs., i have zero experience with the shady under-dealings of the black market hand bag industry of chinatown. the most i had seen in person was a curtain pulled in a store one time where my mom was looking at scarves. three camera & map-clad tourists were quickly ushered behind a wall i hadn't noticed existed while we innocently considered pashminas. it happened in the blink of an eye and i wondered where these presumable midwesterners had gotten their tip. trying to look both knowledgeable and approachable, i led melissa up and down canal st., popping into shops and trying to ask in my most subtext laden voice, if they sold handbags. every time the shop owner nodded at the unfetching bags lining the walls right in front of me. i knew we were missing something. on the verge of giving up, we were approached by a chinese man on the street asking us if we wanted handbags. "yes!" we exclaimed jubilantly. finally, i was going to experience the seedy underbelly of china town dealings first hand. i was hoping for an underground tenement situation, or at the very least a car trunk off in a alley somewhere. this man, who did not appear in any way sketchy, led us several blocks west until we stood in front of a storefront with a woman selling frogs on the street as he made some calls and we tried to look like we belonged. several minutes passed and he waved us to a new location several blocks in the other direction. i could have sworn some hand signals were exchanged with another man he passed on the way, but i can't be sure. we waited anxiously on our new location for our treasure to be revealed, but we were soon ushered to a third location. melissa and i noted the fresh slaughter of fish we witnessed along the way and the various dried things in buckets we were unable to identify. in our third location, our impromptu tour guide once more anxiously exchanged words on his cell phone until he finally threw his hands up in the air and apologetically told us in broken english that the police were everywhere today, so we couldn't see the bags. oh well, it was a fruitless goose chase in chinatown, but it was still kind of cool.

so spring is here, and so far so good. by the way, the above picture was taken on the steps leading up to the brooklyn bridge, encouraging you on your way to the borough awaiting you on the other side.