fyi, i'm mostly over here now...should be checking in here sporadically, but wordpress seems to be a lot quicker in turkey...hope to see some of you there!

along with sundaes and cones (favorite flavors: red bean, taro root, black sesame, matcha), il laboratorio del gelato will be one of my most-missed new york institutions.

flavors tried: earl grey, toasted almond, sweet potato, espresso, salted caramel, coconut, mexican chocolate, black mission fig, fresh mint, strawberry, olive oil, malt, pistachio, pink pepper tarragon.

i’ve said it before, but one of my favorite places in the city is the south seaport.  no, not that south seaport - the one with throngs of tourists and sticky gimmicky restaurants and abercrombie storefronts belching shoppers in and out…no.  

walk past that to the site of the old fulton fish market, where every sunday the new amsterdam market sets up camp.  separate from the greenmarket, the vendors are a combination of farm booths selling fresh produce and more specialized local businesses and restaurants: artisanal drinks and sweets, cheesemongers, pie bakeries, heirloom citrus, brooklyn-made wine, fresh tempeh, hand-harvested seaweed.  

it’s less comprehensive than more traditional greenmarkets, but fun for excursioning.  in the past two weeks we picked up the most insanely delicious yellow nectarines, heirloom tomatoes, p&h lime soda, oysters and corn on the cob grilled over a wood fire from mas farmhouse, a lobster roll, rye boules from nordic bread, and world-altering cheese.  more on that soon.

my favorite shop in new york, bowne & co. stationers on water street, has been closed by the seaport museum since the spring. tragically, i think (others agree).  it makes the area a lot less full of life, but the market is still worth a trip.

saying goodbye to new york is hard.  this city and i have had our ups and downs, but it’s tough to leave.  gw is here for another year, then who knows when/if we’ll be back in a permanent way.

so i’m trying to transition deliberately.  revisiting favorite places, checking out new things i’ve been meaning to do.

 

last weekend gw and i took the water taxi down to red hook to pay a visit to fairway and, more importantly, steve’s key lime pies. we got off the ferry just as the place was closing, but we called ahead they kindly stayed open an extra 15 minutes for us.

we got what we always get: the swingle. a 4-inch key lime pie with graham cracker crust on a stick, completely encased in dark chocolate and frozen. perfection.

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the big news

the "big news" that i alluded to many moons ago is finally fit to print.  so here it is:

after almost 2 years, 2 apartments, 2 boroughs, 2 jobs, leagues of sidewalks pounded, dozens of pilgrimages to the beach, countless dinners at bark, millions of mta miles logged, 7 book club books read, pounds of flour sugar cocoa powder sifted mixed and baked, and, and, and…i'm leaving new york.

in july i found out that i've received a fulbright grant to turkey.  two weeks of much hemming and hawing and some really heartbreaking decisions, but ultimately this is too big of an opportunity to pass up.  i'll be shipping off to muğla, in southwestern turkey, for nine months of working as an english teacher at a university, and hopefully doing an apprenticeship with a local farmer.  there are still a lot of unknowns at this point, but the wheels are in motion and i'm excited.

i've heard enough scattered information to suspect that blogger may still not be supported in turkey, so i've started a new wordpress blog to document my life in turkey: crustacean island.  i do hope to continue updating here as much as possible, but i suspect that in the face of technological difficulties, the new tumblr will be my primary means of blogging for the next year or so.  hope to see you over there!

and the reason for the season: gw’s show. four solid days of prep culminating in an incredibly vital, warm and well-attended opening night. if you’re ever in the south of france, check out non-objectif sud.

blissed out from paris, we were a little sad to be leaving the city for provence. a few hours by train, with a brief stopover in lyon, we arrived in orange. romantically whisked away by our gloriously generous hosts via open top car to la barraliere, site of the gallery and sometimes-b&b.  our minds were changed.  just outside the village of tulette, literally surrounded by vineyards, the site is a renovated provençal farmhouse with former stables serving as gallery space.  lavender and sunflower fields, shockingly ripe fig and plum trees, ubiquitous mistral cutting through.

each night, every night,around nine, we head up to the terasse for champagne, nuts, olives, sunset watching, pit tossing.  the evening settles in and we move to the courtyard for the main event: tomato salads, potato gratins, barbequed quail, grilled trout, roasted lamb, followed by salad course, followed by cheese course, followed by sorbet.  hand-pressed olive oil from backyard vineyards, local young wine in giant plastic jugs, lavender honey, fresh butter, raw milk cheeses, rosemary olives.  the dream.

we walked all the way from rue monsieur le prince to montmartre. my friend had warned against venturing into the tourist throngs, but we decided to venture it.  blisteringly hot day, but it was cool inside the sanctuary.  we trooped down through the back stairs, and wandered up deeper into montmartre, to the north.  picnic lunch on a suburban bench.  oddities shop filled with disembodied dolls' eyes, tin fish and ciseaux de brodeuse.  started back down to the center, stopping for meringues and croissants aux amandes.  spotty rain.  questing for glass jars and vases.  broken french. 

heading downhill seemed like a good plan, until we realized that we had somehow walked all the way to the banlieu.  edging above porte de clichy, we'd gone off the paris city map.  adventurers, we.  a long, long trek back, dotted with rain, unplanned gardens, carousels, gelato, the eiffel tower by night.

we walked and walked and walked and walked

arriving in the city in early morning, our friend david met us at charles de gaulle. a tourist like us, in the city for just a day.  a train ride into the city, exhilarating after years, years! on planes, in airports.  orange and beige, open windows.  emerging - is there any better word for subterranean decampment? - from the luxembourg station, i felt like a was walking in a picture book, a living backdrop of Paris.  paree.  everything so creamy and gravelly and haussmannian. 

it was the first time for david and gw, and the first time in a very long time for me, so we did what all good first-timers should: we walked and walked and walked and walked and walked.  we drank our weight in water.  shared croque monsiers and chilled rose in les tuileries.  les jardins du luxembourg, la seine la seine la seine, the louvre, the pyramid, walking with necks craned. 

we parted ways with david at notre dame so he could catch a train to avignon, then made the wise traveler decision to go back to our hotel (so perfect!) and nap.  we’d been told that paris is at a much more northerly latitude than new york, but it was still a shock to find ourselves back out at 7:00 with the city still lit by milky-shimmery natural light. 

much more walking, along the seine and back, through rue mouffetard.  crepes en route.  yogurt in lavender ceramic pots.  public pools, tired feet.  almost no good photos from the first day – we were too busy looking.

back from france, well and settled.  walked and tanned and croissanted.  espadrilled.  lavendered.  fromaged.  seined.  graveled and dusted and macaroned.  wined.  wandered.  watered.  ile de la cited, gelatoed, bensimoned.  pooled.  glass jarred, yogurt cupped, french buttered, pain d'amanded.  fleur de selled.  more to come soon!

bon voyage...(très excités)

gw and i are leaving for france in less than 24 hours.  of course, being me, i have that usual flutter of nervousness about all of the moving parts (planes! trains! cars! hotels! navigation!) coming together smoothly... regardless of what happens, it'll be an adventure.  we've got good walking shoes (at least somewhat stylish, i promise), bad french, mixed senses of direction, and a healthy enthusiasm for wandering.  back in a week!

anyone else with summer vacation plays?  or stay in place plans (i refuse to use the word staycation)?

oy, a month goes by quickly. it’s been a schizophrenic spring in new york. rain and cool and august heat and back to cool. high summer’s on its way, though. busy-ness here. gw finished his first year of grad school a couple of weeks ago, and he’s been prepping for summer shows since then. summer fridays in full swing for me. fort tilden beach, coney island, governors island, van brunt street wanderings. water, water, wherever we can get it.

next sunday we’re taking off for a week in france. gw’s been invited to show in provence, so we’re spending three days in paris, then heading down to avignon-tulette for four days. any must-do’s while we’re there?

sun sun sun

after seemingly years of rain...the sun breaks!  summer fridays start this week.  governor's island opens, sandals hit the pavement, sun sun sun.

living like a citizen

feeling a bit sheepish about the quiet front around here.  all's well, just busy.  Big Life Things are potentially in flux (not in a bad way), so there's been a lot to think about lately.

i've been loving this spring.  cool and rainy and wildly humid, but not blisteringly hot yet like it was this time last year.  strange to think that we've been in new york now for a year and a half.  seeing seasons move.  as i've talked about before, it still feels temporary and immediate in so many ways, but the settling in of the realization that i'm making a life here adds some urgency and motivation to have a surer sense of place.  does that make sense?  it's easy enough to plan segments of my life into year-long increments, but committing to a place is something else completely.

not sure i'm there yet in terms of new york, but i suppose it's just about making a point as often as possible to live like a citizen, rather than a tourist