Weekend Report (Studying at Pepe's)

Got out of the house on Saturday early to get to Brooklyn Bridge at 7am sharp to enjoy the start of the NYC Summer Streets thing, where they closed off a main thoroughfare from the bridge to Central Park. For a while, I thought maybe the entire city forgot this was happening -- tons of cops milling around and from the bridge to Grand Central I saw all of 2 other cyclists, one dog walker, and less than 10 joggers. However, I did set a new personal land-speed record of getting from the bridge to 42nd Street in 12 minutes. On the way back close to home, my legs felt a little rubbery and thinking of an indulgent breakfast, maybe at my local diner I used to frequent weekly until I started watching what I ate. Yummy! Then I remembered, no, no yummy - gummy greasy pancakes and over-salty bacon, acidy diet coke. Comforting, maybe, but not yummy.

Sunday I got out on the bike on a casual pedal-about with E, explored the Williamsburg waterfront, made it down to the Red Hook vendors again for some amazing empinadas, hopped on the Ikea ferry to Wall Street, checked out David Byrne's 'Playing the Building' art installation (peeps were crawling around dancing at us as we wandered around), had a chillaxing beer (as some Canadians would say) and more laid back pedalling. A good mix o' food and riding.

SATURDAY
BREAKFAST: 6:15am, school made bagel with butter, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
We scaled out 4oz of dough for every bagel, they came out about half the size of store bagels. Very tasty.

BREAKFAST 2: 8:30am, leftover spaghetti with half a meatball, small amount of WF sport drink, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

AM SNACK: 9:45pm, big chocolate chip cookie, water, .75 bowl, hunger 4/5
Comfort food for the train ride to New Haven to spend time w/B and the father in law.

LUNCH: 1pm, white clam pizza, a few small slices of tomato pie with sausage, pint of beer, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
In New Haven at Pepe's, 30 minute wait in line but well worth it. Crisp and chewy, tasty wood char, fresh clams, big hunks of garlic. As I was eating it, I was studying it: how could I make this at home. Large mince of garlic, olive oil, wine reduction flavor, butter? Maybe not, maybe it would make it better. Ground pepper? Dried basil? Salt?

DINNER: 7:30pm, homemade stir fry veg and noodles, grilled shrimp, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5

EVENING SNACK: 8:30pm, small box of Entemann's chocolate chip cookies, half pint of Adirondack chocolate ice cream, 1 bowl, hunger 4/5
Needed comfort snack. Ice cream was hormone-free and a relatively short list of ingredients, but not as good as my homemade stuff...judging from the order of the ingredients, they use a lot less egg yolks than I do. The cookies were, as usual, disappointingly filler-tasting.

SUNDAY
BREAKFAST: 7:30am, half a chocolate babka-thing, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5
From Moishe's, the kosher bakery around the corner. Looking forward to making croissants with chocolate tomorrow.

BREAKFAST 2: 9am, school made bagel with butter, .5 bowl, hunger 4/5

LUNCH: 2pm, cheese and meat empinadas, large tamarind sweet drink, traditionally dressed corn on cob on stick, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
At the Red Hook vendors again, the empinadas were absolutely fried perfectly, the soft cheese pillowy and soft tasting. The tamarind drink was a lot less flavorful than what Chef K made in class, it was more like sugar water with a slight tamarind aftertaste.

PM DRINK: 4pm, 1 beer
In the beer garden of Battery Park

PM SNACK: 5pm, 1 bite of a slice of 2boots Pizza
E was eating, I wasn't hungry. She had a BBQ chicken slice. Really tasted it carefully -- from top to bottom, the 'BBQ chicken' tasted like vinegar and Tabasco, nothing like BBQ. It lent a greasy patina to the excess layer of moz, the sauce was overwhelmed b the toppings, and while the crust had a nice bite, they use so much cornmeal on the bottom of their pies that is supposed to be a trademark, but just tastes too gritty and vaguely burnt to me.

PM SNACK: 5:30pm, half a pint of chocolate ice cream, .5 bowl, hunger 3/5
Just needed to cool down a little.

DINNER: 7:30pm, beef lomein, half an eggroll, one piece of shrimp toast, water, 1.5 bowl, hunger 4/5
B's dad wanted Chinese! It's not my fault!