I was strolling along 53rd St. this weekend when I caught the reflection of Hello Kitty in a window. I gasped and turned round the corner, to find a plaza with four giant statues of Hello Kitty and friends. It was the same day I went to the Met to admire works of Van Gough, Picasso, and Vermeer. And that, dear readers, is why I love NYC — any given day, you can find this awe-inspiring balance between the world-famous and the whimsical.
Have you noticed the amazing evolution of Keds over the years? Once plain white sneakers like Kelly Kapowski wore on Saved by the Bell, they now make really cute, comfortable NYC walking shoes. To reconnect with teens and twentysomethings, Keds hired Misha Barton as their model several years ago, and I think their smartest move was teaming up with designer Nanette Lepore. Her collection is now in its second year, but in my UWS wanderings today, I snagged my favorite pair from her first. Best part is, they were cheaper than a tank of gas would be if I was still driving around Jersey. Walking is so much better!
Even though I live so closely to Barnes & Noble, and it was my bookstore of choice in Jersey, I can’t bring myself to buy anything there these days…I’m too devoted to The Strand and the Housing Works Used Books Cafe. Not only are the books cheaper, but the stores also have originality. Take the Strand, which features the top 80 favorite books as voted by customers at the front of the store (see the Strand 80 here). But my favorite is the Housing Works Used Books Cafe, which I stumbled upon a couple years ago in SoHo.
I love the bookstore’s spiral staircase to a second level, the cafe where you can read with a coffee and muffin in the back corner…it’s straight out of a movie. And wouldn’t you know, mega movie stars like Gwyneth Paltrow frequent the place and donate their books. (All books are donated and 100% of the proceeds go to Housing Works, the non-profit that provides support and advocacy for New Yorkers living with AIDS and HIV. The staff is unpaid.) Check out Time Out New York’s article on the bookstore’s little-known celeb secret.
Thanks to a tip from Sammy, I spent Sunday afternoon wandering around Williamsburg, Brooklyn toward the annual Renegade Craft Fair. Craft fairs usually make me think of old grannies sitting behind tables, pawning off their crocheted tissue box covers or stained glass ornaments. Not this craft fair — it brought etsy.com to life before my eyes.
McCarren Pool Park was filled with tents of vendors who crafted the most ingenious pieces of jewelry. I had to talk myself out of several potential purchases, like earrings fashioned out of pennies or rings made from old buttons. I admired the creativity of whoever thought to construct lamps from upside down tea cups, necklaces from old typewritter keys, and magnets from old bottlecaps.
My favorite stops were:
1. Venuszine’s booth — a quarterly women’s magazine that seems to carry on JANE magazine’s quest to find the coolest, most creative women on the planet.
2. A blog/documentary project called 1 Bite 7 Days, which preaches the Japanese proverb “To every new taste, you gain 7 days of life,” and gives free taste testing of unusual dishes. I sampled the vinegar pie, which tasted like pudding and was served with a Vanilla wafer. I haven’t eaten those since snacktime in elementary school! After tasting, we stepped in a camera booth and said how we’d spend our 7 extra days, the proverb’s promised reward. Any guesses for what I said?
3. Not exactly at the fair, but on the walk back to the subway (before a quick stop at Buffalo Exchange), Shelley and I got deliciously refreshing frozen yogurt from /eks/. Much as I love Pinkberry, /eks/ won me over. It was plain without being bland.
Add on my first lunch in Brooklyn at Ella Cafe (I know, have to explore the other boroughs more) and a Rooney concert, and you see I tried LOTS of new things — which means I’ve got plenty of extra living to try even more. 
Genevieve and I aren’t the most adventures eaters. After all, we ate Ramen Noodles and Lucky Charms for Christmas Eve dinner in Liberia. When we meet up in NYC, we have a habit of defaulting to salad dinners at Cosi (that bread!). But this Tuesday, we decided to break the mold and check out a place I’ve wandered by several times on the UWS, the Hummus Place.
We tried hummus tahini (with egg on top, the true Mediterranean way, our waiter said), falafel, and stuffed grape leaves, and then blindly ordered a dessert called kadaif. It looked something like the image below, except less square and more like a birdsnest-looking heap. It’s basically shredded wheat, topped with vanailla infused ricotta cheese, and caramel-tasting sauce. It was too sweet for Genevieve’s tooth but I finished it off for the both of us.
Check it out next time you’re around Amsterdam and 74th. For $5.50 per person, you can even have a hummus party there, complete with Pita bread and pickles.
