Wasted Day in New York City

What a week - and it's not even done. This morning, my brother got married in Central Park. The day went beautifully; it was more perfect than any of us could have thought possible. Therefore, October 11 is a story for another day, and I'd instead like to write about the day before that, Wednesday. After about five hours of sleep, my parents and I boarded a train into Grand Central Station. I have seen it many times before, so we rushed through and got to check into our hotel at 1PM, even though we left at 9 that morning.

My dad had a hopeful enthusiasm for his own plans that slowly deteriorated as it got later. He wanted to walk around the streets and go into whatever place interested him instead of hitting the tourist sites, but it was the day before my brother's wedding and his fiance's parents were driving into the city from Wisconsin. We meant to only stop in to say hi before breaking off to indulge in our own plans, but were roped into having lunch with everyone. My brother was intent on taking us to P.J. Clarke's, citing little facts like how Nat King Cole proposed there and it serves Buddy Holly's favorite cheeseburger (if I'm remembering these correctly). Of course he only had a general idea of where it was, so it took us over a half hour of wandering the streets after a taxi ride, with his fiance's mother having a bad knee, to find it. Though the food was good, it was late in the afternoon by then, and it seemed like everyone's own plans had gone a bit awry.

The mood was rather low after that, and not helped by the fact that we wasted a bit more time sorting out hotel issues. It was past 5 by the time we finally split off and worked out the subway to get to Chinatown. My dad had earlier regaled me with tales of Chinatown in the 70's, where he happened inside a door which led to a hidden bazaar, which sounded too cool to be true to me.

Turns out, it was. Perhaps we were looking in the wrong place, but as the sun began to set we entered into Chinatown and were met with a lot of jewelry shops, tourist stores, and restaurants (which at the time was unhelpful, since we were still full from the late lunch). Every place seemed the same. There were kitschy, tacky tourist shops; restaurants (some of which were famous, making us more regretful of lunch); tea rooms (which seemed cool, but I'm not a fan of tea); foot massage parlors (a surprising amount); and half-outdoor shops selling natural herbs and a variety of dried things, which all had the same distinctive, strange smell I could not place.

While it was interesting and certainly seemed like a foreign pocket in the middle of NYC, I could only feel exhausted and vaguely disappointed by its lack of variety and authenticity. I might be singing a different tune if we went in with an empty stomach. We soon gave up and, after becoming a bit lost, made our way back to the hotel. At that point, which was pathetically only 7pm, I had to dedicate myself to homework.

So in summation, I spent a day in New York wasting time getting lost and dealing with hotel crap, wandering disappointed around Chinatown, and doing homework. The punchline is that exhausted as I was by then (I guess I have no stamina), I think I only got one or two hours of sleep when I resigned myself to bed. The next morning I had to be up by 6AM to prepare for the wedding, and that day I knew real exhaustion. Since that day is still today, I am currently writing this in a very sleep-deprived state. However, I'm pretty proud of myself for surviving, and considering how disappointing yesterday was, today was a blast. More on that is SURE to come!

Ode to Lemon Custard

Last Sunday, my parents visited and took me to dinner in the Italian section of Federal Hill in Providence, as a belated birthday present. Instead of writing about dinner (at Zooma Trattoria, which was pretty fantastic), I want to focus on dessert instead.

We wandered into a square lined with little restaurants and shops, decorated with beautiful European architecture, with a fountain in the middle and an abundance of cafe chairs. It seems like the perfect place for a warm summer evening, or really any warm time, even though that day happened to be chilly. Still, I admired the scenery. We stopped in one place at random: Palmieri's Bakery Cafe. 

Inside it was quite cozy and colorful. The display was filled with professional and delicious looking cupcakes, pastries, and cakes. I picked a lemon square and a lemon coconut cupcake; not usual choices for chocolate-loving me. For a couple days these sat in a box in my room, until I got a craving for lemon, and remembered again why I picked them out. The lemon square, though sizable and filled with delicious lemon custard, was quite typical of lemon squares (read: really good). But I had never encountered a coconut lemon anything, and while my mother scoffed at this combination of flavors, I was intrigued. They seemed, theoretically, to go hand in hand - both were refreshing and cool flavors, to me, and both brought back memories of hot days in Belize. This cupcake, by the way, was one of the best I've ever had. It was extremely light in flavor, weight, and texture, topped with a fluffy cream frosting and sprinkled liberally with coconut shavings - though it seems like it would have been, it was not at all too sugary. In the center of the cake was a lighter and whippier (is that a word?) lemon custard than was in the lemon square, but mixed with the cream and the coconut, formed what I would call a perfect cupcake. I wish I'd taken a picture, but I ate it too fast.

This put me back on track for my lemon love affair. I'd never cared much for it before I went to Belize last January. Perhaps it was being in a different place, a different culture, that let me adapt to the taste. I first tried lemon meringue pie in a small shop in San Ignacio, the first city we stayed in Belize. I didn't know what to expect, because when it comes to cake, I typically default to chocolate. The fluff was piled high here, topping a relatively small square of crust and lemon custard, but the flavor was fantastic. It was very light, tart, flavorful, and all-around perfect. I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.

I suppose it's a popular dessert in Belize, because we ended up eating lemon meringue for dessert two or three more times at our various hotels within two weeks. Though none have topped the first slice I ever had in that shop, I wonder if it was the novelty of the experience or perhaps those photos that make it look as exquisite as I remember. I'm not one to branch out in terms of what I eat (surprise), but this instance gives me a bit more hope for myself and many beloved flavors to come.