NYC Restaurant Week (winter edition) is here!!! I shall find my way back into Daniel Boulud's dining table once again! Although I tried making reservations at Cafe Boulud for next week but it looks like they're already fully booked. I'll try calling tomorrow but if I can't get reservations, it looks like I can get a table at Bar Boulud (the other franchise on the other side of town) instead. I just checked out both menus and if I can manage to get tables for both, I am SO going!!! Also, I shall make Louiie drool with envy because I just saw that Susur Lee's restaurant, Shang, is also participating until the end of February! It's 2am and I'm surfing through restaurant week menus that are making my stomach growl.

Enough about glorious food. So I finally got to see Tim Burton's exhibition at the MOMA and it was bloody amazing!

no photography was allowed so I only have two images from the entrance and the exit of his section of the museum

He really is truly an artist! It featured a lot of his drawings, painting, sketches from way back 1979 (maybe even earlier, I can't remember). Including all the character sketches from all his movies! It goes to show that his characters really are a product of his twistedly genius imagination. I didn't even bother seeing any of the other exhibits in the museum today. I paid my $20 just to see his and it did not disappoint! They even had some of the props used in some of his movies: Beetlejuice's sleeves, Michelle Pfeiffer's Catwoman costume from Batman Returns, the headless horseman's cape from Sleepy Hollow, Batman's rubber masks, the Edward Scissorhands costume, the barber's tools from Sweeney Todd and lots more! There was even a section of the exhibit where it felt like you walked into a small room from the circus in Big Fish. The exhibit runs until April so LOUIIE, I AM TAKING YOU THERE!!! I went home with a 3-pc figurine set from his Stainboy series. They're so cute!!! I also just framed some of the postcards sketches I bought from the museum store. I LOVE IT!

I walked from Moma all the way to Times Square trying to decide where to eat dinner. It was morbidly freezing out and I didn't have enough layers on plus I forgot my warm, fuzzy hat. I gave up on the whole enjoying-nyc-by-walking plan as my ears and fingers were dangerously close to getting frost bite and I hopped on the subway to eat at Monster Sushi down at Chelsea. This place is quickly becoming my go-to joint for a good and affordable sushi dinner. Of course, Ushiwakamaru still is hands down the best damn sushi place I've ever been to. But I wasn't prepared to drop a C-note (and then some) for a single meal. That one time happened to be a birthday treat from my friend Rie. That visit may as well be my last. I can't afford that place unless I was celebrating a very, very, very, VERY special occasion
.
I was hoping to watch Legion after my Moma trip but the next showtime almost two hours after I had finished my dinner. I decided to go home and watch The Men Who Stare at Goats instead.

Currently halfway through Percy Jackson and the Olympians: The Lightning Thief. Very fun book! I highly recommend it. I just started reading it yesterday and I find it difficult to put down, even when my stop is here and I need to get off or I'll be late for work.

Woke up this morning and I grabbed my iPod touch, checked Facebook (like I do every morning)

and read status updates saying it was snowing. I stood up, pulled back my curtains and smiled. It was so pretty outside.

viewed better when seen larger. *click*

This season is a lot different from last year. We didn't get as much snowfall as we did last December-February. I remember sludging through a lot of ice before and now I feel there was no point in buying my new snow boots since I hadn't needed to use them as much as I thought I would.

Today, I will have a date with myself. I plan on (finally) heading over to the MOMA to see the Tim Burton exhibit, which I've been wanting to see for months now. I've been postponing the trip for so long and I don't want to miss it like I did with the Kandinsky exhibit at the Guggenheim. I may catch a movie afterwards, maybe see Legion then walk around looking for a good place to eat depending on where my feet take me. I love walking around in New York. Getting lost is not always a bad thing in this city.

Now who wants to visit me next?

At long last! I've finally finished!

Since I was already down fixing up photos I took yesterday for the restaurant, I finally got to finish post processing Ifang's prenatal photos. I'm so embarrassed it's taken me so long to do this. She gave birth to Koyuki a little over a week ago and she is absolutely precious! Now if I can only get Ifang to let me take monthly photos of the cutesy bb and I'll be a happy camper.

The rest of the album can be viewed here.

New Year! New Living Room! New Casa Cuadro!

Our "other" roommate has finally moved out, taking all his stuff away with him so we were free to reign over our shared spaces. Tita Chon donated two of her armchairs (striped ones in the photo) and I bought a funky Billy limited edition billy bookcase from Ikea last January 1st. I bought a couple of other stuff too to spruce the place up a bit. I got home from brunch with Ana, Chen and Poy one day and all "his" stuff was gone and I started jumping up and down with excitement and grabbed the vacuum and broom and swept and cleaned and re-arranged everything to my liking. I sent the above photo via MMS to Mica and Benny and they were uber excited to come home to see it for real!

The couch is gone though so guests will have to make do with sleeping on our spare futon. You're fine with that Louiie right? Hehehe. As if you had a choice. I have yet to purchase a nice little L-corner sofa bed from Ikea. I found one I really liked but I have other things to spend for so that will simply have to wait.

I need to start sleeping earlier so I'm not too crummy in the morning. I actually enjoy taking my time before heading out to work, brewing my coffee, making myself a proper breakfast and still have time to wash dishes. But lately I've been waking up with just enough time to shower and skip out before I miss the train to work. Maybe I should stop typing and go to bed.

You think?

I will miss watching your show on Hulu while getting ready for work everyday. Even when you were the host of Late Night, I always watched you more than I watched Leno. Your brand of what I like to call acid humor was always right up my alley. I will surely miss you.

I'm struggling to stay awake just so I can post these photos because I know if I don't do these now, I will never be able to do anytime soon.

Louiie has been trying to convince me to start a food blog. She says she wants to capitalize on my culinary streak, whatever that means. She says I cook more than she does (not counting the hundreds of meals she busts out everyday at The Wynn of course). Although she's right. I HAVE been cooking quite a lot lately. I just haven't been taking photos of any of my recent exploits and I'm sorry about that. I've been getting a lot of feedback from people who seem to enjoy consuming all the stuff I keep producing. They keep saying I should go to culinary school. I'm flattered but I think I may be too old to get into that business now. I have Louiie to guide me anytime I need help in the kitchen anyway. Maybe one day when Louiie finally decides to put up her own restaurant, then I will consider applying to be her sous chef :)

I now only go to Starbucks when I'm running late for work and don't have time to make my own coffee. I make them better. Hehe. Now only if I can get my hands on those toffee nut syrups...hmmm...

Well today was one of kitchen days. I woke up and made my usual espresso + caramel cappuccino. I made blueberry pancakes again with fresh strawberries and blueberries for breakfast.


Mica was on the phone with one of her friends when she suddenly mentioned something about inviting them over for dinner. I immediately got excited and we began planning the night's menu. We made:

Soup Starter:

Corn, Cheese and Potato Chowder with turkey bacon

Salad:
Mixed greens with bell peppers, grape tomatoes, slivered almonds and french artichoke dressing

Pasta:
Pea and Tomato Pasta (a recipe we got from Giada de Laurentiis)

Entree:
Chicken Roulade with garlic herb roasted potatoes

The night's beverage of choice were several bottles of California Riesling.


Dessert:
Blueberry Cheesecake (extra whole leftover pie from the batch I made for Mica's party last Saturday. The cheesecake was a smashing hit, btw) No photo for this one, it was mutilated before I could

We were out within an hour and I bought kitchen items I would need to prepare dinner. The roulade was a suggestion from Louiie, who I called for help for menu ideas. She dictated the ingredients and procedure over the phone and I tried to re-create everything tonight.


We got home later than planned and started cooking only minutes before guests came in. We fed them the usual cheese platter with dried fruits and nuts, kalamata olives, baguettes, biscuits plus an added bonus of prosciutto that I picked up from Murray's cheese shop this afternoon. We had the usual brie and goat cheese plus, by suggestion of Louiie, I bought a quarter block of Brillat Savarin. She has kept talking about this cheese for weeks and keeps insisting that I get them. When I finally went out to get them, I find out that she has failed to mention how ridiculously expensive it was. How much? They were $28/lb!!!! So my measly little quarter block cost me a little over $10. But were they good? Oh fuck yes they were good. Our usually popular choice of double cream brie was ignored.

We played Cranium after dinner but I noticed the Cranium games that followed after that game night with Louiie, Angel and Kelly was never quite as fun.

Tomorrow shall be less exciting since I have to do laundry and really have to sit down and finish Ifang's pre-natal photos. I shall need to attend a district meeting at my friend Rie's house tomorrow night so I need to finish all my tasks early. I've been unable to attend a lot of SGI's meetings due to conflicting work schedules but I'm glad I can make it tomorrow specially since Rie (pronounced REE-YEH) is leaving to head back home to Japan by the end of the month and I will surely miss her. I haven't told you anything much about her but she's become one of my really funny friends here in NY. She even treated me to a lavish Japanese sushi dinner on my birthday. It was the best (and most expensive) sushi dinner of my life. I was wobbling home from all the raw seafood plus amazing sake.

So...

Off to bed for me...It's 3:30am already and I have laundry tomorrow.

I was off unusually earlier yesterday since Mica volunteered to take my dinner shift in exchange for my covering her shift the day before. I had planned on heading up to midtown and checking out the Tim Burton exhibit at the MOMA. I got there at 5pm only to see the ticket booths were closed since the museum closes at 5:30pm. I didn't know that. Last time I was at MOMA was my birthday in 2008. On my way back down to the subway I saw a huge SALE sprawled across the window display of H&M. I should not have gone in. Two hours later, my hands were heavier and my wallet lighter.

I was hungry as hell after all that shopping and headed down to Union Square to meet Rann for dinner. Since the weather has dipped to the 20s-30s, I've been craving a lot of hearty diner foods so I headed to Chat 'n Chew which served homestyle diner dishes. I had their meatloaf and gravy with mashed potatoes and veggies. It was really good!!! I would have had a slice of their apple pie a la mode if I wasn't stuffed already. We met up with Oli after and headed to their apartment in Chelsea. It's the first time I saw their new place since they moved in last December. It's a really cute studio apartment that's perfect for the married couple but a little pricey for someone like myself to live by myself. Mica and I have this determination that we would be able to move out into our own two bedroom apartment by 2011. Hopefully all works out as we hope.

I sat in their apartment and had awesome conversation that eventually lead to Oli busting out post it notes as she wrote down all the requirements of my "ideal guy." She then re-wrote everything into a pretty postcard which she gave me. She says I need to have something physically out there if I want this guy to come into my life. Gee, I hope that works.

I introduced the Golamco couple to websites with access to free pirated online movies and Oli was so excited that we watched It's Complicated last night. She even sent Rann out to the grocery store to buy snacks. Mica followed after her shift and we all sat down drinking beer and mooching on chips and chicken fingers.

Got home around two and I passed out soon after since I had an early shift this morning. Work was boring, nothing much to tell there. Picked up alcohol on the way home and Mica and I drank and snacked on grapes as we greeted the start of her birthday.

I got laundry tomorrow before work. I'm also hoping to have enough time to make pancakes with flambeed apricots. If I don't get lazy, then I may show you a photo. We shall see tomorrow.

To my sister, girlfriend, bff, beybeh...

Maligayang Kaarawan! Sana pag nagkaboyfriend ka na, ako na din para hindi mo parating iniiwan.

I've been gone so long. I know.

To you, who still bother dropping by to see if I've had something new up, I apologize and thank you. There have been days when I felt like putting something up but then I stop and think about how long it's been since my last real post and I felt that I can't share anything until I've explained my absence.

You see, life lately has been somewhat complicated. Nothing exciting enough to share, if ever there was, then I was too busy enjoying myself to sit down and write about it. I would tell you all everything's that happened in the last 3 months or so but that would be too long and too boring. I shall, however, itemize and summarize to keep this blog up to speed as much as I can.

1.) So Grace and Angel came to New York last October and we had the funnest 4 days we've had in a long time. The three of us haven't been together for over 5 years and we tried to catch up on each other's lives as much as we could. I wished we had more time together. None of us knows when us girls will be together again. I miss my ladies.

2.) I turned 28 last November. I was so fixated on making that birthday count, obsessing on how I was going to celebrate it. I wanted to make up for the depressing birthday I had the year before that. A time when I was still fresh from my separation and clueless about what to do with my life after it. I'm in a very different place now, I have very little of that old baggage left in me and I felt the need to commemorate that. Needless to say, my birthday fell short of my expectations. It wasn't what I thought it would be and I slept that night with a grimace and a sigh.

3.) Thanksgiving was a bit more fun. Everyone in the family except the Elabdouni's (tita chon, omee and tito mo) were in Mississipi celebrating it with Tita Susan at her new house. I decided to go out to Queens and spend the night and we had a typical American thanksgiving dinner, a meal of turkey slices, roasted chicken, mashed potatoes, corn, yams and cranberry sauce which tita Chon bought pre-made at the nearby grocery store. It was great. We all sat down for dinner as if we Filipinos (plus one Moroccan) regularly do this every year.

4.) This year I was able to give presents to people that mattered to me. Last year, I was unemployed and broke and had no resources to do so but this year was different. I still don't have a whole lot of money but I managed to give small tokens of appreciation to some. I even baked cookies (LOTS AND LOTS OF THEM), placed them in proper pastry boxes or metal holiday tins. I made choco-peanut butter cookies, white chocolate cranberry oatmeal and mint chocolate chip cookies. I don't want to brag but they were an extreme hit specially with the folks in the restaurant. So much that they've been demanding I make them more ever since. I've actually just finished preparing the cookie doughs (at 1am, mind you) which I will bake tomorrow before work.

5.)Christmas and New Years was one of the most fun I've had with family ever. This is the first time I've spent the holidays with family here in New York. Last year they were all in Germany for Kristoff's funeral. I got to know my other cousin Joe, whom I only see once a year during the holidays. He's 13 now and all grown up and I was kind of expecting him to be aloof and distant since he doesn't really know me all that well. After three days with him, he would be the first one to hug me when I walked in the door and even begged me to stay an extra day when I was supposed to go back home to Brooklyn. I shall make it a point to visit Syracuse soon so I can see him and Tito Ans again.

6.) I still cook from time to time. Specially since I finally got myself a pressure cooker which is, by the way, a godsend since it cooks my meals at a quarter of the time it normally takes to make them. I would've taken photos of my kitchen exploits but I'm ashamed to admit I've also been a lazy photographer.

7.) Mentally and emotionally, the last three months have literally been a morbid roller coaster ride. One would think I was bipolar at the rate my thoughts and emotions were going. Mica, was unfortunately a witness to all of this. Currently, I feel the dust has somewhat settled and I'm back to my usual self. Chanting helps a lot, even if I don't do it as often as I should.

8.) Thoughts for 2010: This year, I've made it my goal to surprise myself again. At the end of 2009, as I always do when a year ends, I looked back the previous year and see what I have accomplished and I am in awe of how far I have come. 2008 was a HELL of a year, both good and bad and I was just so wonderfully surprised how I managed to pick myself up from all the chaos that year has brought me. All I needed to do was go back and read my blog posts from that time and compare it to where I am now and it's like they're two different people. I'd like to be an entirely different person again when this year ends. A whole new me with much less apprehension and more hope and promise.

9.) One of the first steps I'm taking this year is my photography. It may remain a hobby and never a career but it's something I know I'll be doing for the rest of my life. My photography has taken a backseat and I really want to bring it back as part of my life. I keep making excuses for not pursuing it and I think it's time to stop. I may not have the best equipment and my camera is old and outdated but I will use whatever I have to reconnect with this long lost love of mine. I've been playing around a lot lately and took photos of Mica, her sister Benjie and Mica with Benny and the little number of photos I've posted on my facebook have created a small buzz amongst their friends and now they're telling me a lot of their friends want photos taken too. I'm flattered and scared at the same time. It's different when it's just play and when it's photos for work. I've done one job already and took pre-natal photos of Benny's friend Ifang. I haven't finished post-processing images and will share them (I promise) when I am done.

Well this post has gotten much longer than I thought it would be. But I suppose it was meant to make up for all the time I've been away. I will try to make it a point to share something, may it be a small post or even just a photo. I've come to realize I blog mostly for myself rather than for anyone else. I know I'll be disappointed to see next year that I have nothing to look back on during my annual year end introspection. 'Till next post.