mo' food, mo' bands, mo' rain

Friday: all sunshine and clear skies

Saturday: different story...

While I had a super fun time on Friday and Saturday, it's a huge bummer that the Sunday installment of Googa Mooga got canceled last-minute. I can only imagine how much food all those vendors had bought / how much money they're out now. Luckily for me, my tickets were just for Friday and Saturday, so I got my full Googa Mooga experience and was able to eat a bunch of stuff from places I had never patronized around NYC. The bands were amazing, and the drizzle didn't seem to be having a large effect on people's willingness to eat lots of food and sit outside.

Foods!

Falafel from Seersucker & Wings from Kasadela

Coffin Bao Fried Chicken sandwich from Baohaus

- I shared some Tebasaki wings from Kasadela with my friend Casey. Delicious!

- Black Eyed Pea Falafel from Seersucker (which is down the street from me, but I've somehow never been there)

- Car Bomb Parfait from Robicelli's = Guinness stout brownie, Bailey's ricotta creme, Jameson whiskey chocolate sauce, beer nut praline = holy cow. As rich and amazing as it sounds.

- Summer of Riesling!!

- Egg Begley Jr from Northern Spy Food Co.

- Truffle burger from Umami Burger (I split one with Ana, but I kind of wish I had eaten a whole one...)

- Maple cotton candy on a pretzel stick from Liddabits - perfectly mapley!

- Coffin bao fried chicken sandwich from Baohaus - so good. Spicy, sweet, crunchy, soft. I loved it.

Bands!
We were a bit more focused on eating than being active audience members on Friday during The Darkness and The Flaming Lips. I miss the days when Wayne Coyne used the enormous bubble. It was still light / the middle of the afternoon during both of their sets, which seemed like they would be better suited to, well, darkness.

This was my first time seeing the Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and even with the (uf, tall people) crowds and annoying girls behind me talking about things to do in Hoboken (what?), it was an amazing experience. Karen O is just the greatest performer and has a great sense of showmanship. I loved all her costume changes and theatrics.

On Saturday, I made sure to get there early enough to get an egg sandwich and position myself well for Sharon Van Etten. Her set was still pretty early in the lineup, so we found ourselves in the front row for her (yet again). She was hopped up on coffee from the Third Rail booth and had some charming (and only slightly loopy) banter between songs. Once again she was evocative and possesses a quiet type of slightly sad magic.

The rest of the day was spent much further back on the lawn, amongst the crowds of picnic blankets. I really enjoyed Father John Misty's set and getting to hear him live (Fear Fun is so great). He had some good natured chiding about the artisanal food offerings and the festival set up, and overall had a stage presence that charmed and translated to those of us who weren't close up to the stage.
Matt and Kim headlined the whole thing, which seems crazy when I think about the first time I saw them play in a dining hall at Cornell with maybe 50 people standing in a circle around them. Their enthusiasm was as contagious as ever, and somehow manages to be so big and crazy as to fill an entire park. I didn't realize they were together until the week leading up to the show, which seems to be a fact they're really promoting these days. Kim spent most of the time between songs talking about their sex life, which was maybe a little TMI. They also had some interstitial hip hop dance throwdowns, which we really enjoyed.

I do think that the organizers managed to fix a lot of the issues from last year in terms of the functionality and lines. The weather ruined Sunday, and I hope that they're able to help out the food vendors who clearly invested a lot into participating in this event and had to eat a huge loss not having customers that last day. I wish I could have eaten more on Friday and Saturday!

hands up and touch the sky

See you next year, summer. I'm a little sad to see you go, but I'll be glad to see 90+ degree days leave us. It's been pretty laid back, but a lot of stuff snuck in there -- the best kind of summer I think.

Summer 2012 tally:
- 2 weddings (with #3 coming up in a few weeks!)
- 4 Lou Malnati's pizza parties
- 5 concerts in Prospect Park (Laura Marling; Ghostface Killah; Childish Gambino/Danny Brown/SchoolboyQ; Wilco; Wild Flag)
- many first times including a trip to LA, hanging out in Jersey City, standing up in a friend's wedding, swimming at a NYC beach (the Rockaways!), and going to a bachelorette party (this is that scary part of our 20's where there's some kind of snowball and everyone gets married, isn't it?)
- a visit from two of my favvvvvorite people ever
- plus, 12 weeks of fresh summer vegetables (CSA!) and subsequent super delicious stuff being made
- this also just might be known as the summer of the frozen zombie fishbowl...we had a few too many.

I have no way to quantify the number of times I actually listened to Starships, but it's way more than what I recorded on last.fm. It definitely wound up being my song of the summer. I tried my hardest to avoid Call Me Maybe, but it was totally inescapable, particularly watching any sort of Olympics swimming coverage. yikes.

bring on it on, fall -- I have a sweater and some new shoes I'd love to wear. thanks. ::cue exit music::

we wake up with the sun in our eyes

Photo diary of my first trip to LA this past weekend, for my friends' wedding in Long Beach. Lots of beautiful weather and touristy fun. Back in New York now, it's been raining/misting for two days, which is making me super miss California!

all of the leches

Last week, amid all the Crossing Brooklyn Ferry madness, my friend also turned 26. So, my Saturday was spent making a Cinco de Mayo fiesta appropriate cake (not just tres leches, but muchas leches.) It was fairly involved, but I think it turned out well:

Muchas Leches birthday cake

This cake involved more whipping of various egg parts and cream than I have ever gone through before. But, I learned a lot about the massive volume increase you get from 7 egg whites... Also that making sugared almonds is insanely sticky, and cake doesn't absorb milk at the rate I thought it would (read: dripage).

All those relative non-issues aside, the cake was a big hit, and the party was a ton of fun. There were tacos and margaritas, and multiple kinds of guac. And a pinata!!

Pinata time on the roof

In addition to cake-making duties, I also made this little mix for the birthday girl. Happy birthday again, MC Manzana! ;)

Birthday Fiesta from thewarehousedream on 8tracks.

12th night...er, day.

Twelve days into 2012, these are the things I've been amusing myself with:

...a (belated) New Year's mix:

Welcoming 2012 from thewarehousedream on 8tracks.

...anticipating the new album from my 2009 album list toppers, Fanfarlo, who have a slightly updated sound:


...and, reliving a highlight of 2011 (and possibly of my entire music-listening, concert-attending life):


Otherwise, I've sort of been hibernating and cooking a lot of things with my CSA vegetable share (still trying to find the best use for turnips... but I love this cauliflower soup!) and watching Downton Abbey and wondering when it will actually look/feel like winter around NY for more than 2 days.

apples to apples

Shana tova to my Jewish friends! I've spent the day watching some folks I know leading Rosh Hashana services at 92Y Tribeca. Tonight a three-sevenths-Jewish group of us are having a potluck to ring in the Jewish New Year full of (hopefully) delicious foods, a Kosher wine that tastes better than Manischevitz, and a much-hyped homemade version of Apples to Apples.

My contribution to this shindig is my first solo-attempt to make a challah recipe passed off from our college rabbi's wife. When she makes it, it's the most delicious challah I've ever eaten. Perfect for the high holidays, it's a little sweet and full of chopped dates. I even figured out how to braid the round loaf, which I'm pretty proud of, even though it's hard to see the braids post-baking.

And for your own enjoyment, since I can't actually give out pieces of challah over the internet, here's some apples and honey for yourselves!

welcome to the space jam

Saturday night I fit a seemingly impossible number of people into my one-bedroom apartment for a space themed housewarming party. It was overflowing with aluminum foil, pop rocks, and really awesome friends who dove head first into the theme. I also threw the party so it coincided with several friends visiting from out of town, which made the festivities extra fun. I'm having some party-planning withdrawal now, though - it was all pretty consuming! The various elements included:

An almost 4-hour-long mix of space-related songs. Highlights here:

The playlist was visually-aided by a (mute version) of this Youtube playlist.

It got pretty middle-school-dance-ish with silver stars hanging from the ceiling, alongside a homemade galaxy (lit with christmas lights). Plus, more tin foil made an appearance to decorate an unused Ikea lampshade I had lying around.

There was "rocket fuel" made of Jager and Dr. Pepper (which wound up being my undoing), plus some sweet treats: Blue Moon cupcakes, and adorable alien rice krispie treats made by my friends Ana and Tiffany.

My friends came as a wide variety of spacey things...almost every costume involved aluminum foil, as you can see:

 space test animals (an elephant and a cat...)

the satellite that recently crash-landed on Earth, and the solar system 

generic foil/space hipster

Now that I've fully recovered (and my apartment no longer looks like the apocalypse happened), I'm definitely in search of a new project. Thanks to all of you who came out - my apartment is nice and warm now :-)

ice cream mania

Summer thus far has been full of lots of great things, but rising to the top of the list is the amount of ice cream I've ingested. And it's all so good. I took an ice cream making class over at Brooklyn Brainery and am on a quest to re-create Homer's fresh peach ice cream (or at least make one that's better than the other peach ice creams parading around NYC which are all far inferior to Homer's). On top of learning a slew of ice cream-related historical factoids, possibly the most important takeaway from the class was a rather intense discussion about everyone's favorite ice cream places in the city. Challenge accepted. I am slowly going through the list I made during class:

- Blue Marble (had black cherry--I think-- which was okay, but I think I'll try something else if I go back. Pro: they do mini-scoops or regular sized scoops!)

- Ample Hills (LIFE CHANGING ICE CREAM. I had Salted Crack Caramel, and there are so many other flavors I want to go back to try. It's a good thing I live over two miles away or I'd be in there every day and gain 20 pounds)

- Chinatown Ice Cream Factory

- il laboratorio del gelato

- plus, my go-to in the East Village: Sundaes and Cones, where I have seriously never had a bad scoop.

- Graeters (to be eaten on my trip to Columbus in August for a wedding! Perfect timing)

My friends are having an ice cream-themed housewarming party this weekend, and I'm planning to make a bourbon-peach cobbler ice cream (and hoping it doesn't melt en route in the almost-100-degree heatwave that's headed our way). My first attempt at making peach wasn't quite peach-y enough, so I have a few ideas about how to change things up this time for better results. It still tastes pretty awesome, though, so I don't mind eating my way through the test rounds:

what it means to be a firework

Happy (belated) Independence Day! No, not the movie, though that potential for alien invasion has come up multiple times over the course of the weekend. For the 2nd year, my friends and I took to Brooklyn Bridge Park for some picnic-ing. While cooler out than last year (pathetic but true), it was still sweltering and by the end of the picnic the icing on my cake had given out to the point where the layers were sliding around freely. Our celebration of America included a discussion of the popularity of the song "Firework" (what does it mean to be a firework? Baby, you're sparkly and only last a few seconds? Baby, you're a huge civic expense? Baby, you played a large role in the movie Mulan?), a few rounds of Bananagrams (difficult to play on a blanket, and when you feel that your brain might be melting), many types of (spiked and regular) lemonade, and at the end: a bucket of fried chicken. It was a hot, sweaty mess, but my sunburned back and I still call it a success.

EDIT: my magical flag cake was taken from this genius blog post. It's not as hard as you'd think!