Friends, I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true. This is only the 3rd time in the history of this blog (that is nearly 4 years!) that we’ve gone out to dinner without the girls. The last time was on my 40th birthday nearly 2 years ago. Let’s not get into the why, but rather revel in the fact that we did it (and to think that I got totally chewed out by a blog reader last year who said that I treated the girls like burdens to our lifestyle when we handed the kids off to Mark’s mom as soon as we got to Seattle so that we could walk around Pike Place by ourselves, bwahahaha).

We’re so out of the whole restaurant scene at this point that it was hard for us to choose where to go, but after some deliberation, Mark chose The Modern for his 40th birthday meal, the fancy formal restaurant inside The Museum of Modern Art. Somewhere along the way over the past few years, fine dining with 3 or 4 course tasting menus has turned into dining experiences with many little extra dishes in between the courses that you do choose (we are not talking about the 8 course tasting menus which, sad to say, I’m unsure I can do anymore. Can’t eat like I used to in my old age). So even before your first appetizer comes out, you may have already been given a few amuse bouche dishes and a few extra sweets at the end of your meal. In our case, we had some kind of foamy carrot soup in a test tube-like glass vessel, a bit of raw fish and some kind of goat cheese tart served on spoons, and our personal favorite, a ceviche like dish with skate in a sauce that I could have licked straight from the bowl, with a single squid ink marshmallow cube. And after our dessert course? Your waiter comes around with this insane sweets cart filled with rows and piles of macarons, petite cookies, brittle, marshmallows, chocolates and truffles and you get to choose whatever you want. And while you are stuffing your face with all this sugar (after already having dessert), some other waiter comes and hands you mini cones filled with perfect domes of ice cream, and then as you are handed the check, you are presented with this fancy, shiny box of petite cakes filled with caramel to take home.

I gave it to the girls. Okay, there were 3 mini cakes inside. I ate one.

 
We don’t have any more big birthdays coming up in quite a while (oh thank god, because I didn’t have a problem with 40, but the next one is almost too much to bear), and that has been the only time that we’ve indulged in such fanciness because let’s face it, the bill at the end of the meal can be shocking, but we decided that we should go out to fancy dinners once a year, perhaps on our anniversary. We also decided that when Mia turns 10, we’d like to take her out to a lunch at one of these fancy restaurants. If there is any kid who has a sophisticated adventurous palette, it’s this kid. While looking over the menu trying to decide what to order, we couldn’t resist saying how much Mia would have enjoyed this meal.
 
PS. thank you all so much for the birthday wishes to Mark. So sweet.

There is one tradition that we have that I completely forgot to tell you about, but sometimes traditions are like that. You don’t realize that you do something year after year until a few years pass and you finally make a note of it. I remember the first year we went to Ippudo after our first holiday season 4 years ago. We dropped off our last delivery in the East Village and headed over to what would become an annual celebratory dinner – our company Christmas party, ha! (and actually, did I tell you that Mia and Claudine did in fact help assemble over a hundred flat packed gift boxes this year? They took the job super seriously). Ippudo is one of those places where people start lining up at least a half hour before it opens and we don’t go there often if at all the rest of the year, so it always feels special.
 
Back home to hot chocolate and nibbles off this insane chocolate house my mom brought over a few weeks ago. Watching the Nutcracker on TV. Mark’s first night doing nothing on the couch in well over a month. A perfect start to Christmas vacation.

I have to set aside these leisure days in the city every so often. It’s important. Walking around by myself aimlessly in Manhattan or sometimes with a friend – in this case, my sister-in-law. It’s easy to get caught up in your own head, your own community, your own world, when you work from home. Usually, my daily excursions include the 3 block walk to the kids’ school, nothing more. But nothing beats getting out into the world every so often to look, to taste, to smell. It makes you realize that you are just 1 small piece of the puzzle. It helps remind you why you live here, to appreciate the city which we sometimes forget to do. It doesn’t hurt that it’s a glorious 65 degrees on a late November/ early December morning.
 
Btw, I’m sort of obsessed with beans on toast after having had it here at Pastis in the Meat Packing District last Monday. I had it again when I took the girls out to dinner at a local English restaurant in our neighborhood, but I am craving this version again, with fried eggs and a savory roasted tomato. Yum!

Sometimes you just have to give into your cravings. There is just no other way.
 
Did you have a good weekend? Ours started off well: a long overdue visit with some old friends of ours and the last outdoor Brooklyn Flea Market of the season before it retreats indoors for the winter. Today has been a confusing day though and I’m not sure what the week will bring. It’s Thanksgiving week. A big change of last minute plans. We won’t be together this holiday…still…need to think about the things we are thankful for.

It wasn’t the Rapture, but Saturday was the one hot sunny day all week. Sunday was misty and cool and now it’s Monday morning and we’re back to rain, so who knows. Maybe there was something special about that day. Thanks to those of you who came by and said hello at the Smorg Flea. It was pretty fun (and super crowded). Hope you didn’t catch me, you know, yelling at the kids or stuffing my face with food or anything. Although I have to say, with those long lines I feel like I spent most of my time at the Flea waiting on 5 different lines to get 5 different things for each member of the family. The girls were good sports though and they occupied themselves by “helping” Mark at the table and by digging and shoveling the gravel that is ground cover into little piles.

It was a trip being at that spot though. That waterfront used to be my favorite place in the city years ago before it was developed. There used to be nothing there – no tall shiny buildings, no grass, no park, no promenade – just some logs and gravel and the best view of the city skyline this side of the East River. I hadn’t been to that spot in well over 10 years. It was cool though, and I must say, the perfect 2nd location for the Brooklyn Flea.

We had a good weekend, did you? The forecast beat all odds and we got the crummy wet weather out of the way Friday which made way to a gorgeously sunny weekend. Mark was back at the outdoor Flea this Saturday and it was packed since it marked the first day of the outdoor season. Sold out of most things and everyone, vendors and flea-goers alike, was so happy to be back outdoors. Nothing beats being back at the original Brooklyn Flea site. It sort of feels like the first day of school where you see all your old pals again. We will, however, be at the new Williamsburg location next Sunday to check it out.

With the Flea over on Saturday afternoon, Mark had a true day off yesterday. The girls were excited to have “Daddy Day” which started off with breakfast, the farmer’s market, then a trip to the Prospect Park Zoo and Carousel. They must have clocked a couple of miles of walking at least. I left the family after breakfast was over and headed to brunch (2 breakfasts!) to meet my friend Amy. We hardly ever go to brunch – previous tight budgeting didn’t allow – but I think we need to start up again. It really is a lovely way to start off a Sunday, isn’t it?

I don’t think I ever feel more like a parent than I do when I’m sitting with my kids’ teachers and having parent-teacher conferences (I also sort of freaked out a little when I realized that there is less than 4 months left in the school year. The time! Where does it go!). To celebrate Mia’s stellar report card (she is reading 2 grade levels ahead) I took her out to lunch after I picked her up from a half day at school. We weren’t the only ones with that idea. Seemed like every place in the neighborhood was packed, bewildering the sushi restaurant waiter and the table sitting next to us. They were visiting friends in the neighborhood and had wondered if everyday was like this, if parents in our Brooklyn neighborhood took their kids out for sushi lunch all the time (ha!)

I can’t remember the last time I had one-on-one time with Mia, just like this, sitting down at a restaurant eating a leisurely lunch. It was nice. But it sort of highlighted a bunch of “issues” she’s having with Claudine lately – so much so that I discovered she had written quite a few essays and mini-books at school about her relationship with her little sister. The word “annoying” came up more than a few times. It’s kind of amazing what’s revealed when it’s written down, even by a 7 year old. I sense that she gets really frustrated when Claudine wants to join in at every toy or game that she plays, copies her drawings *exactly* when they are sitting opposite each other at their art table, and in her words, gets more attention from us. “Claudine! Claudine! It’s always about Claudine!” (Um, is it bad that I always think of “Marsha Marsha Marsha!” when she says that?).

It’s interesting to see their relationship evolve. Right now, there is a lot of fighting. Their bickering will often be the thing that wakes me up in the morning, but it’s not all bad. I know that Mia deeply cares for her little sister, plus she told me that she’s glad Claudine didn’t end up being a boy because they can play together with all the same girly toys. It does makes me wonder how different Claudine would be if she were the first born. She copies and emulates Mia so much. I always wanted a sister growing up. Which reminds me of this little snippet of a book about siblings that I read at my parent-teacher conference today:

(a short essay with illustrations on how your sibling was born, by Mia)
First, you ask your mommy for a sibling.
Then you wait and wait and wait and wait.
Finally, Mommy goes to the hospital.
Your sibling is born and you have someone to play with.
When your sister gets older, she gets annoying.
It reminds you that you don’t want any more siblings.

Kept thinking it was Sunday yesterday. But no, it was Saturday and it kept throwing me off. I’m grateful for the extra weekend day. We don’t have day jobs and tend to work weekends anyway, so I don’t necessarily get that “sunday-pit-in-the-stomach” feeling as we head into the work week, but the kids go back to school tomorrow and we start the rushed morning routine all over again.

I don’t know a whole lot of people who live in Manhattan anymore – seems like most of my friends are in Brooklyn or move to Brooklyn eventually, but we did visit one of Mia’s old preschool friends who made that reverse move from Brooklyn a few months ago. Sometimes I try and imagine what it’s like to live in Manhattan again and I can’t really quite imagine it, not with kids. Aside from my nostalgic ramblings that I document here, I forget what it’s like day to day. We’re so used to living in Brooklyn, I guess.

While the kids and I were visiting with a friend, Mark spent the late afternoon hours at Dean & Deluca passing out samples of some of our products. Dean & Deluca in Soho now carries 8 of our items and they’ve become a consistently great retailer for us (although I found out that they mark up our prices, as I guess all stores do, ergh). We don’t focus on wholesale like some of our Brooklyn food colleagues, but we’ve been happy with the D&D business. (remember this post when we first heard that they were interested in carrying our products?) On a related note, Terrain in Philly is now carrying 3 of our cookies.

After the demo was over, we decided to take the kids to Chinatown for dinner. Mark and I were craving soup dumplings. This made Mia very happy since dumplings are Mia’s most favorite food ever. As we were sitting in a booth at Shanghai Cafe on Mott Street (sorry for the crappy photos – weird, purple lighting in there), it made me realize that we don’t really eat Chinese out very often. Once in a while we’ll do take out at home. Such a shame. While it’s not quite the same, I remember our dinners in Chinatown when I was a kid to be really special events. We’d drive in from Queens, park the car in a lot and walk over to the restaurant, which as I recall from my kid memory, was usually a large banquet-type space, basement level, a little mysterious, but always fancy, that you’d have to walk a few steps down to get to. It seemed like we would always go during the winter – I just remember walking in the cold, steam coming up from the manholes in the street, then walking into the restaurants with a welcome bowl of savory soups with bamboo shoots, crunchy fungus, pork and tofu.

We enjoyed our meal. Mia got her dumplings, Claudine got her noodle soup. She kept rubbing her tummy with her eyes closed. We’ll be back.

Have you heard about it? The massive Oscar Farinetti/Mario Batali/Joe and Lydia Bastianich owned restaurant/marketplace? Supposedly it’s the largest Italian food and wine marketplace in the world. Well, it *is* huge and sort of Vegas-like in the way the space rambles along and the 5 or so restaurant seating areas are situated right within the aisles of food (it feels sort of “theme park-like” in that way), but do yourself a favor and try to go during the week if you can. We went with the kids on a very cold Sunday with visions of eating good food, but it was soon squashed by the long waits and crowds. The girls were happy with their pear nectar juice boxes though and we miraculously found 4 free chairs right across the way from the fish section. And so we sat and people watched. What a scene. Lots of ladies in fur coats.

In the end, we walked away spending $28 for a block of cheese, a bag of mushrooms, a box of pasta picked by Claudine, some shallots and some herbs. The cheese made up for more than half at $16.

Was it good cheese? Yes. $16 good? Maybe not.

It’s become sort of a tradition. To go to Ippudo after the end of our holiday season and celebrate with a bowl of ramen and pork buns. Place gets packed though and there was a line out the door when they opened right at 11. There are lots of other ramen places in the city and now 2 near our house too, but we prefer this place and it’s large and kid-friendly. They gave the girls princess bowls to eat noodles out of. This is one classy joint.

So hey, listen up. It appears that some people thought we had a booth at the Union Square Holiday Market this year because our friend Re Jin from Bailey Doesn’t Bark ordered our shortbread cookies to include in one of her holiday gift sets. Her booth is well branded. There’s a huge sign with the company name over the booth. We do not sell porcelain tableware. And yet 3 very small packages of cookies scattered throughout the booth display was enough to make some people think it was our booth. It didn’t happen just one time. It happened a lot and some people even told Re Jin that they loved “the blog”. Really? I mean, RJ is also Korean…but…really? It became an inside joke. She’d text me nearly every time it happened. She even overheard someone say, “wow, Whimsy & Spice really expanded”. We are both just completely confused by this. 3 little packages of cookies, people, amid a sea of Bailey Doesn’t Bark wares. If it was, indeed our booth, wouldn’t we have more cookies to sell than 3 sample display packages? At some point, Re Jin didn’t even bother correcting people anymore. She just smiled and said “thanks” when people came up to her to let her know how much they loved the blog.

Sorry RJ, that people mistook your booth for ours. And uh, thanks to anybody who thought that RJ, who is younger (and prettier!) than I am, was me.