New York, A Love Story
When we touched down at JFK my eyes misted up with an overwhelming sense of nostalgia. A bright blue sky framed the skyscrapers on the horizon, the smell of pizza permeated the baggage claim area (really!), and the Lebanese cab driver who immediately (and proudly) informed us that he'd beaten up his last passenger. More than anywhere else this feels like home to me. Granted, my entire week there was tinged with rose-colored glasses because really, nothing beats New York City on a crisp Fall day, and we had a succession of them. By October the tourists have gone home (well, for the most part) and you can spend hours wandering up and down and across and around the wide sidewalks. I love getting caught up with energy that sweeps you up and carries you along from the moment you step outside your front door. And while during my past few visits to New York I've quickly become annoyed at being a tourist in a city I called home for so long, this time I somehow let go and just enjoyed seeing friends, shopping and eating and eating and eating.
I cannot write any more about our trip though, without first shouting from the rooftops that my talented and very handsome husband won an Emmy Award for his reporting in Syria alongside Richard Engel, John Kooistra, Ammar Cheikhomar, and Aziz Akyavas. Really, the Emmy ceremony is why we were in NYC in the first place, the food was just a happy necessity. Statue in hand, after drinking too much champagne and eating two slices of perfect pepperoni pizza from a 24 hour hole in the wall next to our hotel, it was on to the serious job of eating and exploring.The Huffington Post named Il Buco Alimentari e Vineria one of the ten best Italian restaurants in the US earlier this week. I'd have to agree! Crispy artichokes, scrumptuous octopus with nuggets of fregola on top, marinated razor clams, little gems salad with anchovies - yeah, and that was just to start. We then tried pastas, my favorite was the italian sausage with green onions, but I give them credit for a strong cacio e pepe spaghetti because it's nearly impossible to find one that beats the version we had in Rome earlier this year. We also had a whole branzino and sauteed kale with mustard and anchovies - two items that were on just about every menu in Manhattan, it seemed. The only niggle in our meal was that I felt rushed. We had a 10:30 pm reservation (our friend works until 10pm) and our waitress seemed impatient and huffy from the very start and during the second part of our meal staff did everything short of mop under our table to let us know that we were no longer welcome. Don't accept a late reservation if you don't want to serve a proper full meal to your customers. I found no fault with the food. Front of house should take a page from the kitchen's book.
On the plane home, my jeans decidedly more snug that on the trip over, I made a few notes about the things I loved from our week in New York. Apparently you have to put kale somewhere on your menu these days, pork still reigns supreme, Italian food is evolving and flourishing, and Asian fusion has come leap years from its origins in the 80s. I hope that here I've captured for you just a few of my favorite moments and morsels. I'll be back over there for all of November, so if you have suggestions of places you think I should try, please let me know! I often feel like I'm making the rounds of the places I loved when I last lived there in 2007, so much has changed and yet I'm surprised at how much stays the same.