Restaurant of the week - Gimme S'MAC!
It's not really the restaurant of
this week, but Christina and Uli came into the city a couple of weeks ago and we came upon this little gem in the East Village:
S'MAC
345 East 12th Street
New York, NY 10003
+1 212-358-7912
I grew up in Chicago, and like a lot of kids in the midwest, I had my fair share of 'mac and cheese'. The stuff at
S'MAC isn't like the mac and cheese mom used to make (mmmmmm thinking of that powdered orange cheese is making me hungry!) - you can get anything from the
All American, which they say is 'just the way you remember it as a kid', to the
Cajun, which has a couple of different types of cheese, sausage, and Cajun seasoning to give it a little kick. All of us ordered the
Major Munch size, which was perfect after walking around all afternoon. I have no idea who could put away the
Mongo size, but I wouldn't want to meet them in a dark alley.
Overall, I would say that if you're in the East Village, and just want a quick (but tasty) meal, S'MAC is worth a try.
Say 'cheese'!
Labels: food, New York
Buon Compleanno Giulia
Anche se non puoi ancora leggere, ti mando tanti Auguri di buon compleanno!
Blogging
So there I was, making an innocent quip (I quip sometimes) after my friend John told me he was taking a Java programming class. "I should get you to play around with my blog," I said. John replied with a hearty laugh (I would say John has a hearty laugh) and,"You have a
blog?"
After going on the defensive, explaining that I started the blog as a way for my friends back in the UK to see how I was settling into New York, I realized that I have nothing to be defensive about. In this day and age of MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, etc., why
not have a blog? What better way to keep friends and family up-to-date about what's going on (John asked me,"Do you have entries about going to buy a pair of socks?" Not quite, John, but I did
blog about going to Bed Bath & Beyond - twice), posting your opinion about restaurants or bars that you've been to, or just venting about things that are happening in the world?
I know my readership is small - Serena thinks it's about 8 people - but it's loyal, and hopefully the people who read my posts see something that makes them think, laugh, or go out and have a nice meal.
Re-connecting
Yesterday I received an email from someone I haven't been in touch with in over a decade. Mary Beth (aka 'MB') was part of a group of friends I had in college. In fact, MB married Brad, another college friend, not long after all of us graduated from the
University of Illinois.
MB and Brad were at the
Chicago Police Department Memorial Foundation 'Run to Remember' over the weekend, and saw someone running who looked like me (i.e., skinny Jewish guy). If that had happened fifteen years ago, when we were all in college, MB and Brad would have chatted and speculated about what happened to me and the story would have ended there. Now, all MB had to do was 'google' me and not only did she find out where I am and what I do, she also found links to my blog, and could have found about
my Philadelphia marathon experience, and even links to publications.
I confess that I've lost touch with almost everyone I went to college with. Once in a while I 'google' some of my old college friends, but unfortunately not everyone has a last name as uncommon as 'Jaffe' and a first name that's spelled a little differently (in fact, according to
this website nobody in the US has my name).
I met some great people at U of I. But since then, I've lived in Chicago, Philadelphia, London, and now New York City. Losing touch with some of the friends I've made has been inevitable. It's nice to see that re-connecting happens too...
P.S. MB, I'll finish my reply to your email tomorrow.
Deja vu all over again
Last night the
Chicago Bulls lost to the
Detroit Pistons, ending their 2007 playoff run. It's strange to be at an age where you can remember the last generation of Bulls/Pistons players, fighting for Eastern Conference.
Shame we don't have
Michael anymore - could have used him last night.
One Square
In
my last post I mentioned my friend
Hoy, who works at the
Tribeca Film Institute. Hoy has been in 'the biz' for years now - you can read his bio
here.
Last week Hoy sent an email around to all of his friends about one of his short films, One Square:
Last week you may remember hearing about the comments Sheryl Crow made promoting the use of one square of toilet paper. It turns out she wasn't the first to imagine such a premise--below is the link to my short film entitled ONE SQUARE.
ONE SQUARE is a "green comedy" that envisions a world in which the government rations toilet paper in an effort to conserve resources. It brings to fruition the suggestions that Sheryl Crow made, exploring what would happen in a humorous yet thought-provoking way.
Please check it out, and depending on where you work, you may want to forward it to watch on your home computer as it is not quite PG-13 because of its subject matter (think South Park/Dave Chappelle/Adult Swim).
All I ask is that for each time you laugh during the film, choose one person to forward this link to (or more, if you like). So 5 laughs = 5 people. And 0 laughs = you really need to lighten up a bit. Feel free to rate it, too (be honest if you love it, dishonest if you don't ;)
Thanks for watching and I look forward to hearing your feedback/comments!
Hoyland
Watch ONE SQUARE here
For a little background on Sheryl Crow's comments, click here.
Labels: film
Tribeca film festivel 2007
Last week was the sixth annual
Tribeca film festival here in New York City. An old high school friend of mine,
Hoy, works at the
Tribeca Film Institute, the organizers of the festival, and comp'd me tickets to a couple of the shows.
A Dirty Carnival can be described with one word - violent. This Korean film tells the story of Byung-du, a low-level mobster trying to help his dying mother and younger brother and sister. Byung-du's 'career' seems to be moving along nicely until he's reacquainted with an old friend from school, Min-Ho, who is now a movie producer. A Dirty Carnival has elements of other mob movies such as
Goodfellas and
The Godfather (and even goes as far as completely duplicating the scene in The Godfather where Carlo is strangled in a car). There's even a scene at the end that was similar to
The Sixth Sense and
Fight Club, where the main character flashes back to earlier moments in the movie to help explain why the current scene is happening. Overall, although I thought the movie was interesting, I didn't think any of the themes were very original, and really couldn't get past the brutally violent fight scenes.
Dj Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation is a DJ-meets-film experience. Dj Spooky's show involves him 'remixing' DW Griffith's 1915 film
The Birth of a Nation, a controversial film used by the Ku Klux Klan as a recruiting tool. I enjoyed the idea, having a soundtrack playing to the film, and Dj Spooky 'mixing' the film in the same spirit as he would mix music at a club. I think I would have enjoyed it more, and gotten more out of the experience, if I had seen the original movie. Dj Spooky was recently interviewed on NPR, which you can listen to
here.
Labels: film, New York, Tribeca
Restaurant of the week
As promised...
After living in London for over 5 years, I had established quite a list of 'go to' restaurants for friends and visitors. I would ask what they felt like eating - fish & chips, pub food, Italian food, etc., and we would go to one of the places on my list. My Italian pick was
Oregano, a restaurant just off of Upper Street in Islington. I say that Oregano
was my pick, because this past weekend Serena took me to a place that has forced me to relegate Oregano to Serie B.
Spacca Napoli
101 Dean Street
London W1
+44 (0)207 437 9440
Spacca Napoli (named after the street in Naples that splits the city in two) is just off of Dean Street in Soho, an area known to be a bit touristy and overpriced, but when Serena told me the pizza was made like the real pizza from Naples (see one of
my previous posts) I knew I was in for a treat. We started with a plate of 'involtini di melanzane', which is sliced eggplant (aubergine) wrapped around fresh buffalo mozzarella with a touch of sauce, similar to the sauce in eggplant parmesan. For the pizza course, we tried to order the 'pizza metro', which is a long, rectangular pizza that they top in sections, so that you end up with one pizza that is part margherita, part Napoletana, etc. We were too late for the pizza metro, so I had the margherita (which Serena recommended I have with buffalo mozzarella instead of the regular mozzarella), and Serena had pizza Siciliana. We finished the meal off with some limoncello. I'm not sure what the total bill was (thanks Sere!) but the prices were reasonable, especially for the area. Definitely worth a visit.
Labels: food, London, travel
NY-LON
Schedule for the last 5 days:
Thursday: Work at 8:30am. Catch the subway at 7pm to go to Heathrow. Catch 11:30pm flight. Asleep by 12:30am.
Friday: Wake up in London, catch tube to Kings Cross to meet Serena. Rewarded with an amazing dinner of spaghetti with clams and sea bass.
Saturday: Take tube to Borough Market for an abbreviated version of the 'Jaffe tour'. Finish walk with a little picnic/nap in Regent's Park. Dinner at an amazing pizza place in Soho (post to follow).
Sunday: Pancake breakfast (Aunt Jemima, just add water), then tube to Westminster bridge and the boat to Hampton Court Palace. Picnic in the gardens at Hampton Court, walk around the palace (pick up some ideas for future houses). Finish the day with a little
S&M.
Monday: Tube to Heathrow, noon flight to New York. Back in lab by 4pm.
what a life...
Labels: London, travel
