Giving Thanks

If I ever won an Oscar, my acceptance speech would look something like this. And I wouldn't stop for the music.

Thank you, Mom and Dad, for going on that blind date so many years ago, and for your hugs and unconditional love and support.

Thank you, brother T-, for always making me laugh, helping me improve my music selection and for one-upping me in the gift department with your high-tech gadgets.

Thank you, feline brother Tucker, for your insatiable appetite (I am now not the only bottomless pit in the family), for being my shadow in Carmel and for making my luggage your bed.

Thank you, Mrs. Thomaselli, for putting up with my two-year-old theatrics in the pool and for letting me drown, I mean, float.

Thank you, J.P., for stealing your mom's broach and re-gifting it to me in preschool.

Thank you, Mrs. Janiga, for my first report card and telling my mom I was loud and bossy in the first grade.

Thank you, Joan, for challenging me to be the only 8/under who could make a 25-yard butterfly holding my breath.

Thank you, Steven Thomas, for being my first unrequited love.

Thank you, Crissy Jacobs, for being my best friend in Paris, and for dying your hair with me in Italy and co-facing the wrath of Sister Maureen. Now, can you join Facebook, please?

Thank you, Tim Murphy, for throwing chairs at me in the pool and for my hard-earned SISU t-shirt.

Thank you, John Blackburn, for my acceptance letter to the University of Virginia.

Thank you, Dino, for putting me on the blocks and for giving me my first pair of Virginia Swimming sweats.

Thank you, Swimster, for introducing me to the world of fine dining and encouraging me to write and write better about it.

Thank you, N.Y. family, for the happy hours, the bar-hopping, the laughs, the dance parties, the Sunday fun days, the dinners and the friendships.

Thank you, Mom, for being my first editor. Without your pen-wielding, I would be righting sum seerius garbij.

Thank you, Dad, for that wondrous turkey and the best ever Sally Lunn bread.

Thank you, corduroys, for having a forgiving waistline.

Thank you, T-, for surprising me with the 1982 Walt Disney Christmas video -- what a trip down memory lane.

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Report From the Front Lines

I'm layered up on my couch, alone in my freezing apartment, watching "West Side Story." I'm not totally alone. I am staring down the neck of a bottle of Penny Lane Cabernet Sauvignon. I cleaned my room earlier to the tune of some of my favorite show tunes (I'm so sick of the mix on my i-Pod I'll listen to anything) and somehow half of it has disappeared. Half-blogging, half-watching the movie, I forgot how adorable Tony (Richard Beymer) was in the 1961 original Hollywood production. And how have I been in musicals, studied musical theater and thought "West Side Story" took place in Los Angeles? God, I'm an idiot. This just goes to show, until you live in Manhattan, you don't fully appreciate or realize the influence of your hometown on film.

I planned on going out tonight to celebrate everybody else's Friday. My logic was working on Thanksgiving Day (and Friday) was going to be miserable enough, I might as well be miserably hungover after a fun night. Instead I ended up going on a cathartic evening run in Central Park and coming straight home. Mom, Dad and T- are waiting for me to join them in Conn. tomorrow and I'm looking forward to it. T- flew in from Calif. and I can't wait to enjoy the few hours left of Thanksgiving with him after work. It's his first Thanksgiving home on the right coast in several years. I'm dreading being on the train with drunk parade-goers, but I'll find my own poison to celebrate with.

Over the past couple of days, I've been hearing live reports from the kitchen. Though awful sounding, I can't help but wish I had been there to witness the mishaps firsthand.

Exhibit A:

My dad makes an award-winning apple pie -- it's just one of his many fields of expertise in the kitchen -- though yesterday his masterpiece turned to a disaster. What makes it worse is he worked a half day to get started on it. The heart-filled process was going swell until the timer beaped "Ready!" When he went to take the pie out of the oven, the glass pan it was sitting in crumbled in his hands like a dry sandcastle. The pan was brand new and I believe he brought the remnants and the receipt back to the store for a refund. I think the store should have paid for the ingredients that went to waste as well, but that's neither here nor there. I told Mom to save the mush so I could have some apple sauce and she said adamantly, "No way!" Until this afternoon. She must have had a change of heart because our next conversation she said we'd be eating crustless apple pie, the bottom half anyway. I cracked up. And with a glass half full attitude, I say less crust means less calories and I'm perfectly OK with that.

Exhibit B:

T- and Dad were trying to make amaretti biscuits this afternoon. Stubborn T-, as we like to call him, used some wax paper for the cookies, despite fair warnings from Dad to NOT use the paper. Well, half the cookies they made ended up on T-'s wondrous wax paper and they liked the comfy paper so much they wouldn't come off the paper once they left the oven. So, half the cookies had to be thrown out.

Man, between broken pies and stuck cookies, I'm not sure what's left in store for the war zone that is my family kitchen. At least the ovens haven't busted halfway through the day like they did one year, knock on wood.

What are your Thanksgiving cooking bloopers?

TCM is having a musical medley tonight, but it's time for me to go (to sleep).

"The air is humming ... and something great is coming! Who knows? ... Maybe tonight . . . "

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Dan Barber on ABC's Nightline

I've been perusing Web sites for delectable Thanksgiving fare and as a sucker for stuffing (and Dan Barber), I decided to post this mouth-watering mushroom-hazelnut recipe. Chef daddy of Blue Hill and Stone Barns Farm in Pocantico Hills, N.Y., Barber will be on "Nightline" tonight to show you top picks for his Thanksgiving menu. If you're taking a break from the family, the turkey, or the turkey that is your family member, be sure to tune in.

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Pizzeria Uno in Allston, Mass.

My new friend, Jonesy-at-the-Rink, has been watching my blog "like a hawk" to see if I've written about our Pizzeria Uno outing this weekend. I told him to sit tight, it would be a while, then I decided, what the heck, why put off 'til tomorrow what you can do today.

I have been hearing of the football event, Harvard-Yale, for several years now, though have never had the fortune of attending the Ivy League equivalent of Florida-Georgia (it's not exactly on the same scale as the world's largest outdoor cocktail party, but you get the idea). I was supposed to go to New Haven last year, but a swim meet got in the way of day drinking. Tailgating is one of my favorite pastimes and I was not letting the same thing happen two years in a row. I didn't go to either school, but this event is on my bucket list.

I met Jonesy-at-the-Rink at the New Haven train station. It was sort of a blind friend set-up, courtesy of GoldenT. Jonesy and GoldenT saved me from sitting six hours on a Fung Wah bus next to some smelly stranger while praying we wouldn't blow up on I-95 and wishing I was in a car or riding first class in the Acela.

Jonesy and I were getting along swimmingly on the ride to Boston until he mentioned an e-mail he received in error.

"So, tell me about so-and-so?"

"Excuse me!?" I died.

"Yeah, GoldenT may have sent an e-mail the two of you exchanged..."

"Oh my god! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?!"

I was mortified. I kept trying to pick up where the conversation left off, but I was too flustered to continue and worried just how much I had written and how much he had read. Turns out GoldenT had inadvertently forwarded him an e-mail we exchanged when she meant to just send him my e-mail address. Thanks G-mail. I still am not sure which e-mail he was referring to, but I hope it was rated PG.

We arrived in Boston and the weather was awfully frosty. We opened a couple of Whale Tails and put our feet up for a few before we went in search of food. We walked at a fast clip for about seven minutes before we did a U-turn and ended up at the first place we walked by Pizzeria Uno.

The staff was extremely friendly. The girl who served us had a smile as wide as the Grand Canyon and she was more bubbly than my kitchen sink after Thanksgiving. I ordered the pizza -- my favorite -- the personal, deep dish with pepperoni and peppers. Jonesy-at-the-Rink ordered the steak. We opted for red wine, hoping it would warm us up.

"How about we splurge on the most expensive bottle?" asked Jonesy.

"Umm, sure the one for $25?"

I love Boston.

The Malbec left a lot to be desired, but we polished it off before heading home to a movie and pajamas.


Jonesy killed his steak and I even got a nibble. It was surprisingly really tender and tasty. My pizza wasn't as good as the one I'd had on the upper west side, but I still grabbed a box to take home (and GoldenT and I enjoyed it in the wee small hours of Sunday morning).


I don't care what you say about chain restaurants. Pizzeria Uno's crust cannot be beat. It is sweet, buttery and crispy and it never disappoints. I challenge anyone to give me a better-tasting crust.

The rest of the weekend was a blast and a blur. We woke up at 6:45 a.m. Saturday and tried going to Kupel's Bagels to contribute to GoldenT's pre-game fiesta. Sadly it was closed for the Sabbath and GoldenT grabbed some Brueggers instead on her way home from the hospital. We were making drinks in the kitchen while rocking out to Vampire Weekend on Pandora. We loaded up on coffees and every kind of whisky and chocolate, caramel and coffee liqueur we could get our hands on. Coffee cocktails made up the first course, while Bloody Marys and screwdrivers made up the second.

I didn't see a football on Saturday, though we did sneak a peek at the Yale football team exploding out of the locker room, and I heard Sen. Ted Kennedy made an appearance. After bouncing around tailgates in our puffers and snow gear, the crew headed to the pool for some flip cup games. When that got old we made our way to John Harvard's and a couple other Cambridge establishments, where we met up with Young'un, TheTustler and BeanieBaby. Before we knew it, 10 p.m. felt like 3 a.m. and GoldenT and I headed back to her house to play a few rounds of GuitarHero.

Sunday morning I messaged a few friends to see if brunch was happening, and when nobody seemed alive, Jonesy-at-the-Rink and I decided to grab Starbucks and hit the road. We already started planning next year's Harvard-Yale.

"Party at your place?"

"Sure," he said.

"So...tell me about so-and-so?!" I had to give him somewhat of a hard time about the previous night. Luckily, I managed to escape scathe-free and with a "finer co-pilot" award.

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Best Places for a First Date in New York

Mona's Apple is a little over three years old now, and while I can barely count the amount of dates I've had since inception on two hands, I've eaten in enough restaurants to know what's suitable for a first date and what's not.

A first date spot needs to be casually romantic, but not too cheesy. It needs to be crowded enough so the silence between conversations isn't deafening, but it can't be so happening that you're screaming at each other over the dining room din. It should be cozy, but you shouldn't be eating on beds or in each other's laps.

This post may be more appropriate for the month of February, but who doesn't want to snuggle up around the holidays, especially in these freezing temps. So whether you're breaking things off with a summer bummer or starting things up with a fall doll, it's always first date night somewhere.

For sushi lovers:

My favorite date spot for sushi is BONDST. I've had more exciting and unique sushi at Megu, Morimoto, Nobu 57 and Bar Masa, but if you're on a date, you can easily be swallowed into the size of these places and lose focus of the person sitting across from you. A first date is all about first impressions, and you don't want to be competing with the restaurant to make the best one. BONDST's atmosphere is sleek and elegant, yet not over the top. It's your upper, middle-of-the-road New York sushi spot in price and ambiance.

For Mexican lovers:

Umm, if you're thinking of doing Mexican on a first date, you need to go back to the drawing board. Why? Use your head.

For Italian lovers:

Nothing says date night quite like a big glass of Sangiovese, some olive oil and spaghetti and meatballs. How can you not think back to Lady and Tramp dining in an alley behind an Italian joint, being serenaded by one of the chefs. To reenact this moment, hit Morandi, Gradisca, Bacaro or Enoteca i Trulli. Neither of these spots are so hardcore, a la Babbo or Il Mulino, that you'll need to stress months in advance about reserving a table. Save the latter two for the anniversary or engagement dinner, respectively.

For the Francophiles:

I have a long list of French restaurants. I seem to rotate between French and Italian. Of the several on my list, Landmarc and DB Bistro are the chosen two for a first date. Just make sure your date likes meat. While I would send anyone else to Balthazar, you can't have a first date in the loud and crowded Parisian eatery. Quelle desastre.

For the seafood lovers:

My go-to seafood spot is The Mermaid Inn. You even have two locations to choose from. I went with Swimster back in the day and it became an instant classic. At the end you'll even get a "miracle" (mood) fish to see what the other person really thought of your company and dinner. In addition to Mermaid, I will also mention Aquagrill. A date took me there a few short weeks ago and I was blown away by his choice of oysters, the ultimate aphrodisiacs, on a first date and by how much I loved the oysters. We even sat at the bar, which to some may sound as a huge first date faux pas, but it was very enjoyable and I highly recommend it. When your date's in the restroom you can keep practicing your conversation with your next door neighbor.

For the cocktail lover:

If you're not willing to commit to an entire dinner with a barely-known suitor, head to my favorite cocktail spots: Tailor, Little Branch or Milk and Honey. You will not only impress your date, but it's an almost guarantee that you'll hear from him or her again, in the least bit, as a dating consultant.

For the unabashed food snob:

One of the best meals I've had in this city was at Blue Hill. If I met someone, and he suggested to take me to Blue Hill on a first date, I would have one thing to say. Hot. Clearly this guy knows what's up. I ate at the bar with a friend several months ago and it was one of my most memorable dining experiences in the city. I felt like Jesus receiving gifts from the Three Kings. Every time another dish came out I felt like I needed to bow down in honor to the chef, Dan Barber. Again, if you love food and you're going for the wow factor, go to Blue Hill.

If atmosphere's the thing:

Two of my favorite spots for atmosphere couldn't be more opposite one another: Freemans and Alta. One screams Aspen hunting lodge, while the other feels like a villa on the Mediterranean. You can't go wrong with taking any date: first, second, third or last to these spots. Just confirm your date is a meat and potatoes kind of person if you head to Freemans -- home of the best, most reasonable filet I've had in the city. Alta is all about a sangria-drenched, small-plates meal. In other words, it's perfect if you want to talk more than you want to eat.

Have any other first date suggestions? Send yours along. Oh, and happy Friday!

Alta: 64 W. 10th St., between Fifth and Sixth Ave.
Aquagrill: 210 Spring St., near Sixth Ave.
Bacaro: 136 Division St., near Ludlow St.
Blue Hill: 75 Washington Pl., near. Sixth Ave.
BONDST: 6 Bond St., between Broadway and Lafayette St.
DB Bistro Moderne: 55 W. 44th St., near Fifth Ave.
Enoteca i Trulli: 122 E. 27th St., near Lexington Ave.
Freemans: End of Freeman Alley, off Rivington between Bowery & Chrystie
Gradisca: 126 W. 13th St., between 6th & 7th Ave.
Landmarc: 179 W. Broadway, between Leonard & Worth, also in Time Warner Center
Little Branch: 20 Seventh Ave., at Leroy St.
The Mermaid Inn: 96 Second Ave., near 5th St., also on UWS
Milk and Honey: 134 Eldridge St., near Broome St.
Morandi: 211 Waverly Pl., at Charles St.
Tailor: 525 Broome Street, between Thompson St. & 6th Ave.

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Word of Mouth

My hotspot correspondent Ray LeMoine shared a follow-up e-mail report to his initial take on The Eldridge:

RL: Dude, went to The Eldridge last night and the place was empty at 12:30-1 A.M. All dudes, only a few girls, mostly ugly ... The owner was hitting on the girls I brought!
Me: Shut up. Ahhhh! That's so friggin' hilarious.
RL: It was l-a-m-e. Even the promoter came to The Box...

And my co-worker, MomoManiac, of Ko reservation-making fame, asked me if I planned on going to check out the new Momofuku spot, Bakery and Milk Bar. The IM went like this:

MM: you gonna check out the new momo spot?
ME: i would like to, yes!
MM: my friend went to the friends and fam last night, said it was good
ME: cool!
MM: they have this bread called volcano, that has bacon and scalloped potatoes baked inside of it
ME: s---!
MM: sounds delish, and there's a hole on the top of it that oozes out the inside, hence volcano

Umm ... I was mulling food options for tomorrow night, and after hearing about this, I need look no further.

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Bar Tabs: Bohemian Beer Garden

Every season has its bar.

This summer, for me, was The Frying Pan. Each time I went, I was reminded that being stuck in the city on a summer weekend isn't so bad after all. I don't have the stamina to get blitzed with The Drift Inn mobs every weekend. Lounging on a park bench at the Pan, feet up resting against the railing, river breeze through my hair, sunglasses in one hand and beer in the other is where you'll find me from June to September.

As soon as the leaves start changing color, the sun starts setting sooner and the closet changes from its shorts and flower dresses to wool pants and blazers, it's time to head to the Bohemian Beer Garden. If I gained an extra vacation day for every time somebody pitched it as a fall destination of choice I wouldn't have to return to work until 2012.

"Let's go to the beer garden in Astoria!"

"Well, I have this thing going on..."

"You're from Queens? Do you ever go to the beer garden?"

"This weekend would be perfect for the beer garden."

"Oh, I have the best memories of that place."

"Can we finally plan a trip to the garden?"

Fashionista and I had a couple of girlfriends visiting and the itinerary included the following: Mason Dixon, Bohemian Beer Garden, Spring St. Lounge, Cafe Noir, Naked Lunch and finally The Back Room.


To get to the beer garden you take the N to Astoria Blvd. There was some confusion as to where to go when we got off the subway, but walk one block to the intersection of 24th Ave. and 31st St. If you have to ask someone where it is, swallow your pride. Fashionista and I asked for directions in the local diner.

We arrived at around two o'clock to a half-filled garden. You feel like you're sitting in a vacant school playground filled with rows and rows of picnic tables. After a couple of pitchers of Hoegarden, we indulged in some of the hot goodies off the outdoor grill. The food's not great, but there's something about its carefree, outdoor atmosphere that sucks you in to the beer garden. Eating is secondary to people watching, catching up with friends in an open environment that allows sitting in private, no crowding and just good times. Not five feet from our table we spotted some friends who were there for the same reason. It's a small world of great minds we live in.

Fall is fading fast so get yourself to the beer garden before it turns into the snow garden.

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Hit or Miss?

For a birthday dinner ...

Hit: Il Buco. LilBee had her birthday celebration at my newly-discovered, favorite spot and it was award-winning. If restaurants received Oscars for their performances, Il Buco would win for best. We ate downstairs in the wine cellar at an enormous banquet table. The friendly servers brought us delectable hors-d'oeuvres and we had a wonderful menu to choose from. Appetizers ranged from beef carpaccio to sashimi, from flat bread pizza to empanadas. Entrees ranged from pappardelle and risotto to salmon and pork. As we were leaving I walked out and felt like I was on the set of a medieval movie. It was dark, candlelit and cavernous. I imagined myself coming back with a boy on a romantic date. Don't miss Il Buco.

47 Bond Street, between Lafayette & Bowery
212.533.1932




Miss: The Smith. I read The Smith was a poor man's Pastis and since it was close to my birthday party at Black and White, it seemed a no-brainer. I made reservations earlier in the week for ten people at 7:30.

Grievance #1: We showed up and despite having a huge table reserved for the crew, they would not seat us until we were all there. Now, I know this is a widely-enforced restaurant policy and I would have understood had we been assigned to a collection of smaller tables they had to move together. If I was at Jean-Georges or Chanterelle I wouldn't have flinched. But this was The Smith. Their excuse was they didn't want to screw a server out of the business if the table was left empty. Yet there was no other group of ten in sight and the table was clearly meant for large parties so they were the only ones being screwed. The seven of us who were there would have sat down and immediately ordered cocktails.

Grievance #2: My friend brought in cupcakes for the festivities. I understand this is a huge no-no without clearing with the restaurant and/or asking about a "bring your own dessert" fee, but the server did not say a word about the cupcakes when she saw them at the table, other than "MMM! YUMMY!" nor did she inform us there would be a $50 charge for us eating them out of a box - no slicing and dicing required. After a decisive battle back and forth, the manager came and understood our argument that the server should have said something about the steep fee instead of pulling the apron over our eyes and slipping it on our final bill. The food at The Smith was decent though forgettable. I will not be hurrying back and if you have a choice, stick to Keith McNally's Pastis, not the poseur.

55 Third Ave., between 10th and 11th St.
212-420-9800

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We Decide

As my alarm rang at 5:30, I felt like a four-year-old waking up to presents on Christmas morning. Normally I can't get out of bed until 6:15, after slamming snooze on my alarm a dozen times, but today was different. A wave of giddiness drove me to rise and rally my butt to my local PS 154 voting station.

It's been a long, exciting day in the newsroom and I'm about to shut down for the night. I'm one of the fortunate (unfortunate?) ones on the early shift. I'm leaving my caffeine and sugar-soaked co-workers behind for an election watch party downtown. While I'm eager to take part in the revelry, part of me wishes I could stay while the voting numbers start trickling in. Four years ago I sat in a control room on the morning after Election Day. I alerted my senior producers that John Kerry had conceded to Bush and it was all "Breaking News Alerts" from there. If voting goes relatively glitch-free tonight, I will be merely learning of a concession on my Blackberry. Not quite the same.

I was hoping to compile a list of spots New Yorkers could ring in the new year of presidential rule with and I came across Cityfile's. If you're flailing with friends, or more surprisingly, clicking here this late on a school night, check out this great list.

Have fun tonight, everyone. Be safe. Be ready. Change, in red or blue, is afoot.

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Marathon Sunday

In just a few short hours, several of my brave friends will be waking up to bananas and bagels, sneakers and non-chafing sticks, bandaids and Gu, and hopping on the Staten Island Ferry to the start of this year's ING New York City Marathon. I hope they are well-fed, well-rested and more importantly, that they remembered to set their clocks back.

New Yorkers are good at finding excuses to celebrate, and marathon Sunday is one of my favorites. I plan on being out and about all day, chasing my friends and the tracking alerts I've signed up for. Here's to the system working and me being able to cheer on at least one roadrunner.

LittleMissSunshine informed me of her early morning wake-up call. She's set to arrive in Staten Island around 7 a.m., but the race doesn't start until around 9:40-ish. What the heck does everyone do for three hours while waiting for the race to begin, besides overeat, overdrink and overuse the bathrooms?


This morning I woke up in my post-Halloween daze and couldn't wait to go on a run in the park, to witness firsthand the positive energy that's been brewing over the past week. Every year I go through the same routine: a morning run in Central Park the day before the marathon, which leads to alternating waves of excitement and regret, which leads to motivation to get my butt in gear to run my second marathon, and yet ...

I got the chills as I approached the gates with the mile markers and the row of flags from various countries. My ride on the C train this afternoon could have been the sight for a model U.N. council. I was on for about 30 minutes and heard every other language but English.

As I left NYAC ready to start my park loop, I caught the end of a children's fundraiser. Kids were split up into age brackets and had to run roughly 200 yards. I got sucked in to the cute factor of munchkins running and cheered loudly for the passersby. The theme song from "Chariots of Fire" was going through my head.


Good luck to all who are participating tomorrow! I will keep an eye out for you from First Avenue in the 80s.

And a special "KICK BUTT!" to Rebecca Goodman, Douglas Gallagher, Graeme and Kate Leiser, Brian Kane, Jeff Hopwood and Mark Mattern. If this little guy below can finish with heart, so can you.

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