Arthur Avenue w/a side of Locatelli

Any of you ever been to Arthur Avenue? No? Yes? Whatever! When you get there, go to The Market. It's just loaded with wonderful Italian goodies! Olives, prociutto, sausage, fresh pasta and, of course Locatelli - you know, that's romano cheese at its very very freshest and finest!

My friend after I thought I'd been surreptitiously taking photos of him, brazenly asked me if I wanted to take a picture of him. Of course, I said! And so I present you with my new friend, Tony, king of the Locatelli cheese counter, and an all-around good cheese guy! Oh, and if you want to learn more, go to the post I wrote last time we were there! You'll find it here.

What fun we had!

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

The Secret Pathway of the Steps...

(Sounds like a Nancy Drew mystery!)

Miss Lauren and I went on a field trip to the Big Apple to meet two other blogger-met friends, Miss Kate (for the first time), and our hostess Miss Daryl (we've met twice before - lovely!). Daryl wanted to show us the Boat Basin and Riverside Park before we had lunch, and we all gladly agreed (visit their blogs here and here for more pics of our adventures - you won't be sorry!). As we were walking out of the park, we came across this charming Secret Pathway of the Steps. Of course, we had to follow it. 

Surprise! At the top of The Secret Pathway of the Steps...two seats! Imagine that! In the middle of this most lovely park were two seats, that obviously didn't belong there, but still, were just waiting to be filled...

 

And so, Kate and Daryl sat, and enjoyed a laugh at the 

randomness of the many different and sometime silly 

Seats of NYC.

(Ok, I'm conjuring up what they were thinking.)

~~~

xoabb

expect NYC salutations!

ABC Wednesday - It's S!

Do join us!

P. S.  Tomorrow I'm payin' it forward from Daryl (and Asthmagirl (Diane), too, from a time I forgot about, sorry Diane, feeling small now). Also have a little continuation of the ABC ~S~ theme - just one photo, I promise, but it's good! So do join me for a little PIF giveaway fun!

A Most Excellent Field Trip

A wee bit of time ago GB threw a surprise 50th birthday bash for me, and a bunch of my dearest friends gave me a gift certificate to The Silo. Yesterday, just a few days years later, I cashed in that gift certificate in grand style! Of course, not wanting to go alone, Mental P., jules and Miss P. went with me.

 (MPM & Miss P having a grand old time.)

What a time we had! We took part in an artisanal cheese and wine paring course. Must admit, the cheese part was a stretch for me, aka, Velveeta Girl. (I know my mother cannot believe she could possibly birth a child that thinks the cheese world begins and ends with Velveeta! She will be proud to know that yesterday her Velveeta Girl's cheese palate was immensely broadened!) Five cheeses paired with five wines. All were excellent, even though all the cheeses were smelly. (That's usually Velveeta Girl's cue to leave the room.) And Velveeta Girl loved all of them! WOW! That's a first! It was truly amazing to learn that certain cheeses pair well with certain wines. It really does make taste sense! Whoda thunk?

We were also treated to other wonderful bites of goodness. 

We watched as fresh ricotta was made (I'll never buy ricotta again - so easy to make and so delicious!). It was mixed with fresh herbs and served on endive. 

The grounds of this wonderful place were magnificent

(wish the gas pump had shown what the price was back then).  

Skitch and Ruth Henderson bought this place in the '70's and over the years have made it into a living museum. There's the culinary school, Skitch's museum, and an artist's program among other things - and all of this is in the middle of a land trust they've created...such a wonderful place to visit!

Of course, Mental P has written about this, beaten me to the punch, darn her! She even posted a photo of my mushrooms! Can you stand it?? And the pictures she's posted? Please do ignore them. Well, at least the ones of me - jules is kinda cute. That Mental! Always stealing my thunder!  Hmph!  

~~~

xoabb

expect anything!

Another Most Excellent Field Trip

ABC Wednesday:

A is for Arthur Avenue

Little Italy in The Bronx

The very best place in the

 world to take a dearest friend

Especially if he happens to be Italian!

GB and Gus.  

Gus was GB's high school coach and amazing mentor many years ago. GB's dad died when he was only five, and tho his mom, Mimi, did a most excellent job, Gus did a wonderful job filling in as his coach and dad-like guider to GB during his high school and college years. Believe me, GB needed all the help he could get (Mimi told me so)! The lovely thing? The two of them are closer now than they were then. Visits are regular and planned events!  

We started the day having lunch at Enzo's. An excellent choice, among many other wonderful restaurants along and around Arthur Avenue. 

Dominick's, right next door to Enzo's, is the restaurant we ate at the first time we came to Arthur Avenue with Gus and his wife a few years ago. Found out today that Dominick is Enzo's dad! Obviously son learned well at dad's knee! The meals at both restaurants were wonderful. The difference? Dominick's is family style; everyone sits at several long tables together and the waiter tells you your choices. At Enzo's, you're handed a menu. I still remember the time we ate at Dominick's, Gus made the mistake of asking our surly waiter if the restaurant possibly had some dish (don't remember what it was). SurlyWaiter replied: "Did I say that when I told you the specials? No, I didn't! We don't have that!" All part of the ambience, and somehow it works!

After lunch we wandered into the Arthur Avenue Market. The first time I was there I fully expected to walk in to a warehouse of produce, meats and cheeses. Instead what greets you is an area filled with men (mostly) rolling premium cigars. Hmmm...a little bit of Cuba in Little Italy. As you can see, watching the cigars being made is magical (don't even begin to tell me how bad the cigars are for you, I KNOW! I'm speaking about the art of rolling one - and it is an art form). Wandering further down the aisle, there are displays of kitchen wares, meats, veggies, a myriad of foods and food related items, it's just unending. Definitely sensory overload!  

Just look at that Locatelli! Have you ever seen such an abundance of such a wonderful cheese? What it does to pasta dishes...ohhh can you imagine the goodness?

The hams and sausages - and procuitto, my beloved procuitto! Look at the abundance! Magnificent!

  

Go on over to my Flickr photos (or click on the slide show on the right) and you can see more pics of the Arthur Avenue Market, along with more of the wonderful specialty stores and restaurants that make up Arthur Avenue. It truly is a place not to be missed! The restaurants are wonderful, but the cheeses, breads, fish, cured meats, olive oils, vinegars....you simply can't find any better anywhere! OH! I forgot! There are pastry/sweet shops as well, but I never got photos! I think we were so stuffed from lunch it just never crossed my mind!  BUT, the sweet shops? The best and prettiest sweets with cappucino, espresso, regular coffee you've ever seen. Then there are the gelato shops...oh dear! Must go back and take more photos of this magical enclave! (Sorry I missed those!!)  I can recommend De Lillo's for your dessert and coffee stop after a meal as we had treats & sweets there another time. It's eye candy, and if you have a sweet tooth like my GB, you'll love it!

Do visit the new ABC Wednesday site - Mrs. Nesbitt (and her elves) have done a wonderful job setting up this new site.  And please click here to find my ABC Wed. Arthur Avenue post over there.

~~~

xoabb

A Most Excellent Field Trip

Miss LaLa (aka Mental Mama) called me Friday night to tell me she was off to the wholesale flower shop Saturday to get the flowers for her church and she wanted to know if I would like to tag along. Huh??? Are you kidding me??? OF COURSE I wanted to tag along! I've only been to a flower wholesaler once in my life and then I nearly fainted from beauty overload.

Thankfully, this time I remembered my camera. These are just a few shots of the flower glory that was there. The shop itself is quite utilitarian and barren...well, except for all the flowers and the 3 cats that reside there. Actually, when I opened the door to the cooler, I just happened to glance down to see one of the cats looking back at me. His eye language was clearly telling me that he was irritated with me as he had been waiting way too long to get out of the cooler and he also wanted to know just where the hell had I been all this time. I didn't answer him.

Lilacs, my favorite flower (hmm, except for violets and lily of the valley....oh yes, and stock and snow whites and wisteria and....oh never mind!) were there in abundance, in white and every shade of purple, from very light to my very favorite, the dark purple you see above.

Do you know what flower this is?

Or this?

Above is the "untamed beauty" LaLa & her church friend started with...

First, the flowers needed to be tempered so they'd last longer...

Miss LaLa working her floral-arranging magic

Notice the brilliance of her stem placement...

Red ginger shoots in honor of the Pentacost...above, an up-close of the finished arrangement. We ended up adding more ginger shoots - only five simply wasn't enough to make a grand statement for such a grand old church, and the additions certainly put the arrangements over the top!

Lovely, aren't they?

I'll post the rest of the pictures on Flickr

(as soon as I figure that whole thing out!)

Yes, a most excellent field trip!

HEY LALA, what are we doing next weekend?????

~~~

xoabb