Sweet Blog o' Mine

Looking Back

Over the weekend I did some looking back at the archives of my blog.  I've been blogging regularly since 2003, and I have to say that it's fascinating (at least to me) to have an electronic record of that time.  Granted, it's only a limited sliver of my life, but it really does bring back all kinds of memories.  I'm sort of a fan of my very first post, back in 2002:  "So here goes -- it's the first posting on my new weblog. Tune in and see what happens . . ."

When It's Time to Change

You've got to rearrange!  Keeping in line with all the changes I've made/am making in my apartment, I decided that SBOM needed a little sprucing up too.  Hope you like the new layout and design!

Happy 4th Birthday, Gothamist Food!

Our little food section turns four today.  Here's where it all began.  Some of my favorite posts:

• My interview w/Mario;
• Learning how to roast a suckling pig;
• Pickling with the masters;
• Making matzo brei with Marc Meyer and Vicki Freeman;
• Anything to do with foie gras, mostly for the comments;
• and, of course, getting beaten up about eating at per se on my own dime.

My 722 posts, in all their glory (plus one later today), can be found here.

Know Your Audience

For many in the blogosphere, this article in Sunday's magazine wasn't necessarily breaking news.  Long story short, girl in her 20's blogs about her personal life waaay too personally, girl becomes editor of Gawker along the way, trashing everyone in her path, girl's "secret" blog is discovered, girl quits Gawker, gets a taste of her own medicine.  When you put everything out in public, people feel entitled to pick you apart, which is why I always adhere to strict guidelines as to what I write here.  Sure, I've been writing since 2002 (or more like 2003), and someone who doesn't know me could read through everything and learn quite a bit about me, but not all that much, really.  I always assume a few things about my audience, which generally keeps my content in check:  my parents and family read this, my boss and co-workers read this, and anyone I date reads this.  With that firmly in mind, I post away with my rather vanilla subject matter (see further discussion here and here).

At Least I'm Doing Something That's Good for Me

Blogging is good for you.  Then again, I'm sure all the time I spend at the gym isn't so bad for me either . . .

6 Hundy

On Thursday, I hit my six hundredth Gothamist Food post.  SIX HUNDRED!!!! 

Ch-Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes

The people have spoken and I have swapped photos accordingly (see left).  Thanks for all the input!  Am off to the wilds of Massachusetts for a wedding this weekend, but am (for some odd reason) taking a detour to Pelham on the way -- as long as there's Four Corners Pizza involved, I'll be a happy girl.  PS -- went swimming last night after work and made it for over 20 minutes with no rest.  Looks like I might make it through this triathlon after all! 

Picture This

Someone recently pointed out that he thought my blog picture (above left) doesn't look like me in person, but that my flickr profile picture looks more like me (for those of you who have been reading for a while, you'll recognize the flickr picture as my old blog picture).  I'm not sure I agree with him -- they both look like me to me.  I'm kind of gussied up in the one on the left, and the guy who made this observation often hangs out with me when I look like a schlub and am wearing no makeup -- at the beach, on bike rides, etc. -- I thought this might be the issue.  Then again, it might just be the angle.  Regardless, the picture above is over a year old, so I'm thinking it's time for a new one.  What do you think of the one here?  Let me know in the comments.

I'm off to the beach for the weekend, where, among other things on the agenda, Joe is cooking -- yay!  I'm also going to try to squeeze in two runs and some lap swimming on the bay side of the island.  This may be wishful thinking . . .

Catching Up

Let's see -- just a little catching up since my last post.  I had a few relatively quiet nights this week, believe it or not.  Not too many, though.  Friday night, The Lovely Miss Katie and I tried out the new Blue Ribbon Bar -- definitely one to add to the regular rotation, although not too often, as it was pretty easy to go overboard, both on the delicious food and the wine flights (see the foie gras torchon above as evidence).  Saturday morning, after a workout, I met Dad at Chinatown Brasserie for some delicious dim sum, including my favorites, the shrimp dumplings with pea shoots, pictured above (love the eyes).  Sure, it's more expensive than Chinatown dim sum joints, but it's really worth it.  More pics of all the tastiness on flickr.

After some laundry and errands, I met up with Hugh for a drink -- it's hard to believe although we've "known" each other electronically for years, we've never actually met in person!  He was even sweet enough to draw me a cartoon on the back of my Gothamist card (thanks, Hugh!).  I did some cooking Saturday night and eventually fell asleep on the couch.  I suppose I was exhausted -- I slept for about 11 hours.

Today was Brooklyn day -- birthday brunch for Doug followed by a walk with Bill and dinner at Katie's.  In line with several of my other Brooklyn jaunts, I ran into someone I knew when I stopped in at Big Nose, Fully Body to buy some wine.  And now, I've tidied up my apartment and am going to hit the sack early so I can work out first thing before work.

Weekend Wrapup

Still dealing with the number crunching, but managed to fit in some fun this weekend.  Friday night I had sushi with Gabe at Le Miu, a spot in the East Village.  Some of the chefs have Nobu pedigrees, and although they are trying to do some inventive things with the cooked dishes, I think we both enjoyed the sushi the most out of everything we tried.  I got a good night's sleep on Friday and woke up Saturday for a great workout.  The rest of the day I did some work and cooked a carrot and potato soup out of this month's CSA bounty.  At 5:30 I met up with members of my Gothamist Food team, including the three new writers who I hadn't yet met in person -- it was great meeting them all and getting a chance to chat over drinks.  Afterwards, I moved on to meet John B. for dinner at Momofuku Ssam Bar -- that place absolutely rocks.  It even got the John B. plate-licking seal of approval.  If you don't know about it, check out this NY Mag piece on David Chang, and then hurry over there for the three terrine sandwich, the brussels sprouts, and the pork buns.  I'm going to try to gather a group for the whole pork butt that he does -- who's in?  Dinner was followed by drinks at various and sundry bars in the East Village, where we were joined by Matt, the Lovely Miss Katie, Meg, Jenn and others. 

Today I met up with a gaggle of food writers/bloggers for dim sum:  Augie, David from Thrillist, Alaina and Ed from Serious Eats, Jen from Snack, Andrew from Gothamist, and Jennifer and Chris from Savory NY.  It was great fun, and I plan to organize a similar gathering in the not-too-distant future.  After some quality couch time, I cooked up some more CSA stuff -- I roasted a half-chicken and more of the veggies.  I'll have plenty of food for lunch this week!  And now, maybe a bit of work, but then early to bed -- gotta hit the gym before work.