CURIOUSER NEW YORK

About a month ago I stumbled over this small cafe in Soho. Now, I go there every week for a taste of a very good looking french crêpe ...

Going back to fulfilling my promise to tell you about some of the great finds I come about in the city - the new places that not only I discover, but that I actually put on my  favorite list  of the places to revisit again and... again . One of such is the Republic - the noodles restaurant on Union Square.

Newport, RI: A perfect getaway for all seasons I was contemplating this article for a while, but taken that I left for Germany and Argentina after I came back from a weekend retreat in Newport, Rhode Island, I've delayed the review until now. As I've said in the article, Newport is a perfect getaway for all seasons - it's great during summer as you can take advantage of many beaches the town and surrounding area offers, but it's also great during the late fall, as the town transforms into the magic of the leaves changing into very many colors - from green and yellow to red, violet and orange. I was able to capture this magic moment, and can't wait to share it with you. To see what I mean, click to continue...

I'm in Germany right now to visit my family for Christmas, so most of my blogs will be about the happy holiday Christmas time in Germany - from foods I love and miss when back in USA to street fashion and German lifestyle. I'd like to start with the Christmas Market, or, as the Germans call it - Weihnachtsmarkt. It's one of the things I miss about Europe... So, the things we eat at Weihnachtsmarkt: The Kartoffelpuffers...

Thanksgiving dinner at my parents' house. I'll be missing it terribly this year! Thanksgiving is only two days away, but I'm sure a lot of you have already done all the shopping and string beans, sweet potatoes, cranberry sauce, and, most importantly - the turkey are resting on the shelves of your refrigerator... This is more that I can say for myself! If I'm right about it and you've already done your Thanksgiving shopping, then you are so much smarter than I am, because I haven't done any shopping and/or preliminary preparations, which means, I would have to brave the crowd of the last minute procrastinators tomorrow hoping to have any kind of poultry left. What did I get myself into?!!

  There's no doubt Marlene Dietrich had a soft spot for Berlin. As a matter of fact, even after she moved to Hollywood, she's never forgotten that she was ein Deutsche frau. She once said: “Ich hab' noch einen Koffer in Berlin.”  Which means: "I still have a suitcase in Berlin".  She's never really left Germany; she flew it because she was against the Nazi regime. But she never really wanted to live in Hollywood. Well, and I can't blame her.

Growing up with the best grandmother ever, from an early age I was exposed to all the baking - one of the activities that my grandma is very passionate about - [and she is great at it too!]. I could spent hours watching my grandma making dough, rolling out the sheets of thin dough and filling them up with all kinds of ingredients - from potatoes and cabbage to cottage cheese and fresh berries. I still don't know how I managed to escape getting fat as I  definitely indulged in all the freshly baked pies and cakes.  I'm in owe for my grandma for making my life so much more beautiful and full... And even now, up to this day, when I come and visit my grandma, she puts on her apron and a white cap and asks me what I want her to bake me and one of the things I always ask her to make is her signature honey cake that takes two days as it requires some serious preparation, but at the end - the cake is to die for. 

Last weekend I finally opened the rollerblading - a.k.a. inline skating - season in New York!  I've been waiting for this moment all winter and early spring because this was going to be my come-back after not having skated in the city for more than six years. 

Continuing with the series of the great finds in the city, here's something I've discovered last weekend - a very cute shop of handcrafted gelato on a stick! Knowing me well, you'd know that I'm obsessed with gelato. I'm not a big fan of the regular ice-cream - especially the American kind that is too sweet and too heavy. I usually end up indulging in the real kind of gelato when I travel to Europe. My favorite gelato of all times is in Italy, I especially like the ones I tried in Florence. [By the way, as I learned later, it wasn't an accidental that I found gelato in Florence one of the best I've ever had - each year Florence holds a Gelato Festival , this year the festival will happen May 23-27, 2012. Visit and taste for yourself!] My personal favorite place for gelato in Florence is Gelateria de' Neri (Via dei Neri 22r), and I'm not the only one who says so! My favorite flavors are kiwi, hazelnut and pistachio, although I'll t...

The Coffee Shop's Lump Crab Avocado Mango Arugula salad... The other day over a brunch at one of my favorite cafes in the city The Coffee Shop - [ remember The Sex and The City's girls' favorite place? ]  with my girlfriend - [we had the same - the yummy Lump Crab Avocado Mango Arugula salad and their signature mixed berry mojitos], we got into talking about, how a lot of women these days are concerned with the designer's brands and labeling themselves up. [ It was easy to do as the perfect outside seating of the Coffee Shop allows for plenty of people-watching... ]

Have you ever tried a juice cleanse?  Apparently there's been a crazy about it. Not that I didn't know about it, it's in every single women's magazine - but I just didn't know it'd become so huge and so populated by the idea of this juice to be the answer to all the toxins in one's body. The juice cleanse has become the must-have remedy for clearing up your...basically everything: your body, your soul, your mind. You might be surprised or not, but I have not tried a juice cleanse. I've been more of a smoothie-kind-of-gal. I was making the smoothies not for cleansing, but for vitamin and protein essentials to take after my jogging, biking, and/or working out sessions. It's been a religious habit of mine to incorporate various greens, veggies and fruit with a touch of Protein powder to see if it'd do any good for my tire-wholesome muscles after a work out - [ Harley Pasternak and David Kirsch , who I respect, staid it should have do...

Due to some popular demand - [or as I called it "Can you please share some of your great finds in the city?" regular requests from my NYC and non-NYC friends] - I've decided that they were right, I should write about my finds. There is just no reason why I shouldn't talk about both great and - wacky - finds I stumble over in the great city of NYC... Here's one of my latest great finds that keeps on waking me up in the morning...

That's right, just as I was about to agree upon my obsession with the sugary - [only God knows how hygiene they are] - street nuts in NYC, the chestnut season has arrived! I'm now torn between the two, which all comes down to the basics - non-sweet chestnuts for the main course, sweet roasted sugar nuts - for desert...I'm basically on a 'nut lunch diet', which does NOT save me any money at all. That reminds me of the days when I lived in Paris, where I've established quite a cozy 'routine' that I called my 'rewards' program: for every French lesson I take, I buy myself a bag of chestnuts.

There are a few things that I heart about NYC. Actually - there are many things about NYC that I heart and that I miss every time I'm away from the city...

There is always a day when you wake up with a specific idea for the breakfast only to find that you don't have all the ingredients to make it... And that can either end in a frustration that could send you off the track for the whole day, OR - it could give you a platform to innovate and come up with something that you'd like so much that it becomes a dish with your household name on it - a signature dish aka [your] style !