Oatmeal CookieBlog

Worth His Weight in...Chocolate?

I was at the Brimfield Antiques Show on Friday, checking out all the stuff for sale and doing some really good people-watching. (People have the antiquing thing down to a science!) I saw some interesting items, but what really caught my eye was a 4'-tall Santa chocolate mold at the Dad's Follies booth. A 4'-tall Santa chocolate mold with a $40,000 price tag. Yes. You read that right: $40,000. The dealer said only three exist: the one pictured here, one in a private collection somewhere in the United States, and one at the Christmas Museum in Rothenburg, Germany. If you're interested, you'd better start shaking out your couch cushions now!

Historically Correct Graffiti

I baked a final batch of bring-in-ables for the folks at work, but I forgot the baggie on the kitchen counter this morning. D'oh!

Luckily, with everything winding down it was a slow day, and I was able to run home, pick up the cookies, and make it back to the office pretty quickly.

As I got close to the train, I noticed that something about the sign was different. And then I saw it. Some smartypants had covered over Brooklyn with Breuckelen, the original Dutch name for the borough. Now that's clever!

I hope this stays up and blends into the background of the neighborhood the same way all those Neck Face tags have.

Welcome to the Taj Ma Hot Dog

On my way home from work last night, I passed what I thought was a new art installation going up in the new pedestrian park on 23rd Street, right between Madison Square Park and the Flatiron Building. Last month, there were huge plastic daisies with solar-powered fans on them. What could be next?

A new hot dog stand? Cool! It would be the best of backyard cookout bites. You could have a burger from Shake Shack or a wiener from Taj Ma Hot Dog. Or both. But not so fast, fellow street food fans...

It turns out this was just a temporary set for an episode of Ugly Betty filming right now. Doggone it.

Someone should totally...ahem...borrow that name and set up Taj Ma Hot Dog stands across the city.

A T-Shirt for Cookie Lovers III

I totally misread this T-shirt I saw at a street fair on 14th Street last week. I thought it said "Drop Cookies Not Bars." I guess that shows where my head usually is.

Of course, the first thing I thought of was my Raising the Bar? poll, in which most people preferred round drop cookies more than rectangular bar cookies.

Law and Order: SOTS (Scene on the Street)

On our way to meet Alan for dinner at Brass Monkey Bar, site of the Frankel-Bensimon Real Housewives of New York City catfight, Gary and I walked right into a taping of an episode of Law and Order: SVU. Mumma would have been so jealous! She's completely addicted to all incarnations of that show.

You can't see so well from this pic I took with my phone, but check out my handy-dandy arrows. Yup...that's Mariska Hargitay (Det. Olivia Benson) on the left and Christopher Meloni (Det. Elliot Stabler) on the right.

This was in the Meatpacking District on Little West 12th Street, just below the newly opened Highline Park. There was all this hubbub for a scene that will probably end up being about 45 seconds long when the episode airs.

The Cat on the Hat

Yes...that is a cat on that guy's hat. Sorry, folks. That's about as close to Dr. Seuss as I can get.

This was the scene on 6th Avenue and 9th Street the other night. All I'll say is that this snap cost me a dollar.

As Cindy Adams, gossip columnist for the Post, says: "Only in New York kids, only in New York."

 

Cotton Ball Sky

Every once in a while in New York, something will happen that stops everyone in their tracks, brings traffic to a crawl, and spills people out of buildings with cameras at the ready.

This was the sky above 7th Avenue on Saturday night. The city was drenched in a pink-and-orange glow, and cotton ball clouds stretched from the Hudson to the East River.

I wasn't the only one to grab a snap.

It reminded me of the lines "The Earth looked like it was lit from within/like a poorly assembled electrical ball" from Liz Phair's song "Stratford-on-Guy."

Update: Check this out.

Broadway Beach

New York has turned big chunks of Broadway into pedestrian zones, including one right in the middle of Times Square. I'm sure it messes up traffic royally, but there's something very cool about sitting in a beach chair in the middle of it all. This was the scene last night as I was walking south through Times Square with a new friend. I snagged us seats from a couple German tourists fleeing the drizzle.

See...I knew I'd put my iPhone's camera to good use.

I Guess There's a Wine for Everything

We saw this sign at a wine shop on Lexington Avenue in the 80s as we were on our way to the 92nd Street Y for Francine Segan's tea talk and tasting the other night. Good thing I had my camera with me!

My grandmother may have been 100% Italian, and I may make eggplant parmesan from scratch, but I have no shame in admitting I love Chef Boyardee. There were a few years back in the day when Chef Boyardee was pretty much all I ate...straight from the can. Why bother dirtying a pot, right?

Pairing wine with the lowly Chef? Sure. Why not? 

Happy Holidays!

I went up to my roof and took these pics of the Empire State Building lit up for the holidays. The east and west faces are blue and white for Hanukkah, and the north and south faces are red and green for Christmas. Kind of like home with me and Jon.

Happy Holidays, everybody.

Alton Brown's in My Back Yard!

Hey, look! On last night's episode of Good Eats, Alton Brown was in my hometown of Carver, Massachusetts, visiting the Decas Cranberry Company. It's a good thing I had my camera ready...and my DVR.

New Feature: Scene on the Street!

I've added a new category to the blog. Introducing "Scene on the Street"! In the course of walking and eating our way around New York, Jon and I come across stuff that we just have to post. Now there's a category for all that crazy, funny, weird stuff. (Take a look here, here, and here.)

West Village Weirdness II

Just when we thought our Friday night constitutional through the West Village couldn't get weirder, we come across The Village Pet Store and Charcoal Grill. (Click on the link; it's worth it. There are videos you'll watch again and again.) At first glance, this place looks like a run-of-the-mill pet shop. But on closer inspection, you see something's not quite...right.

The sign outside the store reads, "Open for Rare Breeds, Pet Supplies, Mechanically Retrieved Meat." No,those aren't baby chicks at right, they're chicken nuggets! You guessed it. This is an art installation. What you don't see in these pictures is the motion. Each of these things was moving around, kind of like a processed-food version of the Hall of Presidents at Disney World.

Fish sticks swimming around a goldfish bowl. Hot dogs squirming around a snake enclosure. If you're in  New York, you've got to make it down to this place. Its' at 89 7th Ave. South, between Bleecker and West 4th Streets. It's open Monday through Friday from 10 am to 12 am until October 31, and it's free!

Update: There's more info at Andrew Sullivan's blog and the New York Times.

West Village Weirdness

No, these people aren't lining up for the Village Halloween Parade a week early. These two are advertising for the new Cirque du Soleil show called Wintuk.

It's just another Friday night in the West Village.

Scene on the Street

We spotted these two signs on our Summer Friday IV walk. The first one was on a coffee cart parked across from the Starbucks on the corner of Astor Place and Lafayette Street. This is the coffee guy's answer to a Starbucks "venti." The second one was a salon on on the corner of Lafayette and Jersey Streets. I guess that dog on the inside is a real rebel.