Tuesday, January 30, 2007

This is the Girls Table, Thats the Boys Table

As it is Restaurant Week in NYC, myself along with my food loving cohorts took advantage and went to dinner at the fabulous sister restaurant of Le Cirque, Osteria del Circo. After the seven of us (all female) were seated, a group of seven young gentlemen were seated at the next table over. Immediately we all were thinking that this was the girls table and that was the boys table, kind of like a seventh grade dance. As the evening progressed, I noticed some highly unusal behavior from our male counterparts. First off, they were extremely well mannered, well dressed, and quiet. Not at all like the groups of beer swigging guys I normally meet at say Off the Wagon, but maybe I am just not used to seeing guys my age act at all sane. We on the other hand were much rowdier and almost casuing a ruckus, not intentionally of course, but when you put seven girls at a table with food and wine, what do you expect? When our table of girls was seated, we summarily began diving at the bread basket, it was 7:45pm and we were starving! Our basket was half empty within minutes. The table of men next to us, however, did not touch the bread at all...not one of them even looked at it! Were they watching their carbs? I think they were, especially after seeing that every single one of them ordered a salad for their first course. Now come on, guys, this is Osteria, you do not go there and order a salad! There were so many other sumptuous selections on the menu. Not one of the girls at my table ordered a salad, I had pasta, a few had soup, some calamari, but no salads in sight. Now comes the entree, over at the "men's" table I saw some salmon and some chicken, none of them ordered the ravioli which looked divine, or the wild boar stew which was divine. I guess they were too fatty for these strange men who seemed to be watching their weight. Needless to say, there was no dessert for them, we all had ice cream. Why in the world would they waste their time and money eating at such a lovely restuarant when all they were going to eat was salad and chicken. Obviously they just wanted to be seen in such a nice place, and did not really care about the food. We didn't really care about the place, we were just there for the food. It seems that these men reversed roles on us and they were the women and we were the men. But judging from their quiet table and probably unsatisfied stomachs, we had a much better time!

Thursday, January 25, 2007

A Women's Right to a Callback

One of the greatest mysteries in life is figuring out how to get a man to call you back. In this technology laden world, the callback should be one of the easiest things for a man to master. But, here in the 21st century when no one is without their cellphone at any minute of the day, a man can not figure out how to call a women back. This comes up for one reason, yesterday I was supposed to have a lunch date with a friend, whom I will call Big. Yes I am reffering to Mr. Big in SATC, but this guy is exactly like him, smooth, suave, great talker, even better bullshitter (and let's face it, every women has her own Mr. Big). We have known each other for a few years now and talk every so often. I hadn't spoken to Big in about 5 months. I saw him once in September when I first moved to New York, as he is a native New Yorker. After that one time, I never heard from him again, that is until about 3 weeks ago. Around Christmas, I received a text message from him saying that he lost his phone so he didn't have my number, but he just recently "found" my number again. I played the game and waited to call him back for about a week. I called, left a message and nothing. Then on Monday, he calls. i answer, we caught up and he suggests that we get together for lunch on Wednesday. He said he would call me Tuesday to finalize plans. I'm pretty excited, I hadn't seen him in a while so I thought it would be fun. I even picked out some great restaurants in the Financial District (where he works) such Michelin rated restaurants as Bridge Cafe and Harry's Cafe or Bobby Van's Grill which is actually inside an old bank vault! Tuesday rolls around and no call. I am starting to get a little worried that my lunch date is not going to happen. I get the balls to call him late Tuesday night, no answer, I don't leave a message, I figure he will just call me back. Just to be safe, I send him a text saying "still on 4 lunch tomorrow?". I get no response. Wednesday comes and no call, no text, no lunch. Why?? Why would he even make plans and then not call? What was going through his mind when he decided to stand me up? I would totally understand if he didn't want to see me, but either don't make plans at all, or call me and tell me. Have the balls, be a real man, make something up! Tell me your dog died, I don't care, but at least give me the common curtesy and call me back. I think I have the right to a callback! It is now Thursday, and I still haven't heard from him. I can only think that he got arrested and can't waste his one phone call on me.

Wednesday, January 24, 2007

My Attempt to Become a Blogger

Greetings out there to anyone who reads this. This is my first attempt to become a blogger. I never thought I would be doing this, but low and behold, here I am, exposing myself on the internet. I started my blogging quest a few weeks ago when I was searching for a job in the food publishing world and almost every desireable job I came across required me to have a blog or webpage or something along those lines. I didn't realize I would need a blog to get a job, I thought a college education and a master's degree would be enough. I could have saved a hell of a lot of time and money over the past 5 years by sitting in my basement making a blog instead of in a classroom.
Let me start out by telling you a little about myself and what my blog will be about. I currently reside in Manhattan, living out my dream of doing something really cool that will make me a lot of money. I am originally from New Jersey, wait no that's not right, SOUTH Jersey (please no Jersey jokes unless you want to piss me off). Jersey is a great place to grow up! I lived in a suburban town with my parents and older sister until i went away to college. I was attended The College of New Jersey and was all set to go to medical school when one day I had a revalation and realized I just didn't want to do it. So I moved to London for a little to figure out what I wanted to do. That was when I found my real passion, food and travel. I grew up in a family where the most important place in the whole house was the kitchen. I don't remember a night where my family did not sit down together and eat dinner. I miss it now sometimes. Anyway, another huge important part of my life when I was growing up was traveling. We went on multiple vacations a year, all over the country and I always loved it! So when I moved to London, I traveled all over Europe basically eating my way through. I tried as many different native, traditional foods as possible. My London friends would laugh at me know if they read this, because I was a vegetarian for a long time and when I was in Scotland I had to order a traditional Scottish breakfast which includes haggis and blood sausage. It actually was super delicious, but being one of my first meat meals in a very long time, I got soo sick from it. So while I was over there I decided I wanted to do something in food or nutrition, like maybe be a chef. When I came back to the States I got a job at a catering company and I absolutely loved it. I loved cooking and being in the kitchen, I just despised the hours. I had no time for anything, I was working all the time and going to school when I wasn't working. I knew I just couldn't do that the rest of my life, so culinary school was out. My parents were on me about my future and frankly, I was scared I would end up working at McDonalds with a degree in biology, not my ideal situation. As I was searching for my future, I stumbled upon a graduate program at NYU entitled Food Studies. So I up and moved to New York! It was the greatest decision of my life. I found an internship at a fabulous food magazine and had the time of my life for the past 5 months. At the end of my internship, I got offered a job which is where I am now. I have been officially working as a food editor for 1 month. It's amazing and I love it. So thats pretty much my life story to date. As I update my blog I will share little tidbits about my past and current life. Enjoy!