Shake Shack at Madison Square Park

Way back during the summer of '07, I was interning at St.Martin's Press in New York City. This publishing company is located in the fabulous and historic Flatiron building, located at 23rd street between Broadway and 5th Ave. From my desk I had a perfect view of Madison Square Park, right where a little place called Shake Shack exists. Burgers, fries, shakes, hot dogs, and ice cream is a basic list of the fare served here. Pretty much without fail there would be a long queue between 11:30 and 3pm. There is ALWAYS a line, because it is delicious even if a little overpriced.
Amanda was mourning having to work today, and somehow mentioned milkshakes. My eyes lit up and I went "We have enough time to go to Shake Shack!" which Mana had never been to, even though she didn't live far from it her freshman year. So we quickly got showered and out the door, and even though we waited in line the better part of an hour, it was SO worth it. She felt better and got food to eat before work. It helps that we got to breathe nice park air while watching adorable dogs and cute rambunctious babies.

Amanda enjoying her first trip to Shake Shack. Shack-ago dog, cheese fries, and a vanilla milkshake.

This is me sipping on my vanilla milkshake. I got a bird dog, which is a chicken sausage. Mmm!

I miss that little park. And that part of town. That was a great summer in my life! Mental note: must visit more often, and must try a concrete at Shake Shack because I am curious about that custard confection.

ADC Paper Expo

Wednesday night I went to The Art Director's Club for a Paper Expo. Basically paper companies and print shops throw a party and give away a lot of free samples in the hopes of getting new business. Score for us designers! $10, free pads of paper and paper samples, and alcohol and snacks as long as they lasted! An hour there got me a couple beers, plenty of cheese, and a bag full of samples. The coolest thing there? On print shop had a small old-fashioned press running! Pretty sweet!


With everything—even printing—moving more and more digital, seeing this in action was awesome!

Kashi Bars

This is for my friend who was blogging about Kashi foods earlier today. My mother got me these when I was Upstate, and they are pretty good! Like a healthier dessert. I brought back the Dark Chocolate Coconut. Apparently there is also Pumpkin Pie and Raspberry Chocolate. I can't wait to try the rest!

Easter Weekend

I went home for Easter Thursday night and stayed through Monday morning. I hadn't been home since Christmas! It was a very nice visit, mainly spent hanging out with my Mother. These two kids were up waiting for me at 11:30 when I got home!

Roscoe sitting pretty in his favorite chair.

Miss Many posing too :)

Some home improvements had been made recently. Our family room rug had been shot for quite some time. It owed us nothing, being 15 years old and trampled upon by three dogs, two cats, numerous caged animals, three resident girls and their friends! Last weekend my parents put in wood flooring (Pergo or however it's spelled...), and my mother and grandfather painted the walls a nice gold color. New furniture is on the way! That's Grandpa's leg. Mandy is always happy to be petted; Bubs was showing us all how yummy his chewy was!

Bubba posing again...he looks sad when he is on his best behavior for a photo!


My sister is managing Giffy's Snack Shack this summer. So if you're in Clifton Park, NY, come get ice cream at the mini golf course....and before that get dinner at Giffy's Bar B Q up the street. I worked there for 4 years, and gave my sister my job when I moved to the city. Anyway, the point is she was awarded the responsibility of managing the Snack Shack, and we went to get ice cream Friday, the opening day for the season. She's still getting a hang of the soft serve machine, as is evident by the cone she made for my father!


And I'll leave you with a picture of myself in my new spring jacket. Half off at Macy's! Let's hope I can keep the coffee stains (and worse!) off of it...although it is thankfully machine washable!

Hope you all had a happy holiday weekend as well!

Baking Baguettes

This weekend I finally had success baking french bread!! I've tried a few times, with minimal success at quicker recipes and utter failure at my first long-term attempt. So it was quite exciting to finally do it right. To celebrate (and help devour three baguettes), I had a couple guy friends over for a bread, cheese and wine night. I also made a bead dip. Coupled with some oil and vinegar-not to mention a couple movies- how could it not be a successful get together?? I need to repeat this baking performance. The boys showed JUST as it was done baking...and the baguettes even sang! Delicious.

The successful loaves, and the nice crumb!



The food spread, as it looked on my living room table.

Hope to repeat this soon!

Cartooning

Maybe I should share some of my cartoons here, eh?
I started these after going on the "Most Ghetto Family Vacation....EVER." My Dad won a $99/person cruise over the phone....and boy was it evident! The best part of the trip was the people watching and making up stories about these people.

This coupled with an idea from a sketchclub blog I used to follow (and will have to find and link...) I began to draw them from memory. Now, taking the subway every day, I have a LOT of time to observe all the people one runs into in NYC. and then draw the outrageous or most interesting ones.

The first is Jem, aka 80's Stripper, aka Rod Stewart. Her hair had so much hairspray that it did not move. She had had a boob job....but about 25 years ago. and her clothes were all circa 1984. and she did NOT have the muscle tone to pull off this teenie bikini! Also note the extra long belly chain.

This is her husband, Bob, that I dubbed a used cars salesman. He had what looked to be jerry-curled hair. The best thing about these two had to be that they looked very much still i love (I garnered they'd been married awhile, could be wrong.)
This woman we dubbed LaFonda, a la Napoleon Dynamite. This is what she showed up to dinner in on the first night. A see-through net top witha bra. and she was a veery curvy girl. She believed she looked stellar in it.
This is LaFonda's husband, dubbed Germaine. He had gooorgoeus blue eyes....and then showed up to the snorkeling excursion in this speedo.
This girl we dubbed Pimple Ass, for obvious reasons!
And last in the Cruise series are The Jonas Brothers. These were three brothers from Alberta, Canada, the only family as pale as us on the boat.
and there they are! more to come later!

Diller Scofidio

My boss just told me about this website for a firm called Diller Scofidio.

It is a pretty awesome site! The firm just did a lot of work for Lincoln Center.
This shows all their projects, and when you mouse over them it looks like an aerial shot.

This is what happens when you specify a particular category of projects. The ones standing up are in that category!This is a project called Dissident Ironing. I am crazy and like to iron, so this was interesting. IT explores the social convention attached to ironing, and plays with breaking the conventions of ironing. What if you went crazy and ironed outside the box??


...and this one I just liked. :)

Interesting site and work....AND it was navigable! Novel, eh?