The Yum Yum Factor

Forlini's on Baxter It feels like all I have done is travel this year - two mini trips to Mexico City, a week in Playa del Carmen with my sister and now, last week, Shack and I took off to NYC for a few days of fun before he starts his next block of work that looks like it might take him straight through to Christmas. For now, I am staying put and jumping right back into work with a supper club for 25 tomorrow night at the Deppaneur. The good, the bad and the ugly of last week's getaway: We booked through Travelocity because we had to book it the same day and Expedia, my usual go to for flight/hotel deals, doesn't do same day travel. Are we weird because we sometimes decide to go away at 8am and want to leave before supper that same day? all I will say is: DO NOT STAY AT THE NIGHT HOTEL - THERE ARE TWO RIGHT NEAR TIMES SQUARE AND I CAN ONLY ASSUME THE OTHER ONE WAS JUST AS TERRIBLE AS THE ONE WE WERE BOOKED INTO. What Shack looked kind of co...

It was mid December and we realized that we had nothing happening for an entire week. Sadly, The Kid didn't want to miss any school (WHO IS THIS PERSON??) so Shack and I booked our trip late Friday night and flew to NYC early Sunday morning. No time to plan or overthink. We landed to find ourselves sweltering in our winter coats. The first thing we did was check into our hotel and ditch the coats and set off to explore the city in nothing more than long sleeves two weeks before Christmas Day. We spent the entire day wandering midtown, making our way towards Central Park where we rented bikes and rode through it, again WITHOUT COATS, until the sun set. Dinner consisted of a couple stops in Little Italy for meatballs and pasta and then a third place for espresso and dessert. Even late at night, the weather was balmy and perfect for exploring the magical wonderland that is New York at Christmas without having to brave the cold and snow.  Perfection. We spent a d...

We woke up bright and early, got dressed and got out onto the street by 7:45 am.  The one nice thing about waking up that early is that we were greeted with the most beautiful sunrise, reflected in the glass of the new tower, 1WTC, that is being built  in the northwest corner of the World Trade Center site. We sat and looked at that for a while but neither of us wanted to miss one minute of precious time on our first full day exploring the city so we left in search of coffee and too see where the Wall Street Occupiers were camped out. As it turns out, they were basically right beside our hotel so we didn't have to look far. At that point there were only enough protesters to fill the small parkette with little spill over and it didn't seem like a big deal at all. They were all just waking up themselves so it looked like a sea of marathoners taking naps, wrapped in their metallic space blankets. The first thing I wanted to do was go to see the statue of Liberty because ...