Pickles

Our weekend has once again flown by, varying radically from the work days which crawl at the speed which a snail might actually beat. However, we did manage to get into some fun stuff, beginning Friday with the discovery of a new Argentinian restaurant and Ryan's Daughter (much raved about bar on 1st Avenue) and wrapping into Saturday's shoe shopping in Union Square, pen and notebook shopping for my much-anticipated sessions with Sharon which are scheduled to begin this coming Wednesday, some college football (yeah, it was me, sitting on the edge of the couch shouting profanities at a flat non-responsive screen - likely not!!), and Korean food at Gama (I think that's its name) on St. Mark's Place, where we've drank Soju before but not eaten. The food was superior. We had never eaten Korean anywhere before, so we were in for a nice treat, and it only added ambience to the experience that there were about 95 Koreans seated at a giant mess of tables in the middle of the dining area, toasting shots of Soju in uproarious manner and hugging one another in interims. They were so loud that our adorable Korean waitress begged us to ask them to be quiet. Clearly, they had been there awhile. Anyway, we drank Soju again (when drinking Soju, according to our favorite drinking television show, it is proper to pour the other person's drink, which is a small shot glass meant to be sipped) and drank Korean beer called OB and ate scallion seafood pancakes and dumplings filled with glorious things and skirt steak and brochettes and seasoned rice. Everything tasted quite good, although again, I'm no aficianado of Korean so I'm not going to claim it's the best thing since cheddar cheese (which is, of course, The Best Thing.)*After Korean, we walked a while, attempting to find a place that seemed suitable. I dragged Craig into some awful upper crust bar where we were carded and couldn't really find a seat and there were mirrors everywhere and fancy people so clearly, we didn't fit in there. After that, we headed right to Sweet and Vicious, which is completely great (we first went there back in August of last year when my dear college friend Jen threw herself Bi-Coastal 30th Birthday parties, one in New York and one in L.A. - incidentally, that was also the time she became pregnant with her now-gorgeous healthy boy named Langston!) Sweet and Vicious was stuffed to the gills with artsy and wonderful people, and the patio out back was a blast.*Today we ate brunch at Yura, went to the grocery for the week's food (Cajun Chicken Pasta and Asiago Orzo and Chicken...Wednesday I have writing session so we're ordering Chinese, Thursday we're going to Pub in the Park with Jeff and Lauren - Joe's Pub's concert in the Shakespeare theater in Central Park - Patty Griffin is playing!!!...more on that later, and Friday morning we fly to Buffalo for the Don/Jen wedding) so I am only cooking twice this week. I made turkey tacos for lunch, we ordered tickets to see Claire Danes in George Bernard Shaw's Pygmalion next Saturday night after flying back from Buffalo, and tonight I have book club (waiting on Alison who will be here soon and we will car service it over there.) We will hash out just how bad The Optimist's Daughter is, drink wine, eat healthful appetizers and brood. Brooding is my new favorite word to describe the art crowd and the thinking life. I think brood is hilariously on target.*Pickles and Olives is a store my co-worker swore to me high and low was at 86th somewhere near 2nd or 3rd. Because of our exploits on 1st Friday night, I finally found the place that is my heaven on earth (do they also sell wine??) which sells pickles and olives by the barrel-full and which probably deserves a handful of my paychecks sometime soon. Obviously, they weren't so much open Friday night.
Off to party down New York City book club-style. That yields a lot of brooding and wine.*