Patrick Heads East!

This post is quite delayed considering it's been a week since my dear friend, Patrick, was here buuuut better late than never. I was so very excited a couple of months ago when he and I discussed a possible New York visit for him. He lives outside San Diego in Redlands and, while he constantly tortures me with how awesome the weather is, he decided to head east for MLK weekend since neither of us had anything going on. I personally find it kind of funny that the weather was so frigid while he was here so he can somewhat appreciate the brutality we face. At any rate, it was so awesome to finally have him back on the east coast for a few days.

He got to my apartment around 7pm on the 14th and we got to catch up a bit before heading to meet friends. I met Patrick in my first class when I started University of Phoenix in 2004 and we ended up taking several of the same courses over time. We've stayed very good friends over the years and I was really excited to introduce him to so many people here! We spent the entire weekend out and about. I got to show him Eataly and around several different neighborhoods. We also tried a new dumpling place in my neighborhood called Mahjong which was fantastic! We drank wine, talked about everything under the sun, listened to some new music that he introduced me to. Speaking of, I got to introduce him to the infamous Robbie Gil too as we met a group of friends for the show on Saturday night. Two side notes: A) My friend, Lori, and her fiance just moved back to the city as well and it was a total treat to have them out with us for the show and 2) Robbie Gil was sporting the most incredible mustache I've ever seen. Please behold:

As if we didn't love him enough.

Sunday was an epic football day since none of us had to work on Monday. We had quite the crew show up for that and it was so incredibly fun. Sometimes, you just have those days where you don't stop laughing. My face literally hurt after a while. All in all, it was such a good weekend spent with the greatest people. I love having pictures to always hold on to when such great memories are made:

Another Evening with Batali

Can anyone really ever get tired of Mario Batali? If so, then they are not my kind of person. The other night, I got to hear him speak at the Jewish Community Center in a far more intimate setting than I ever have before. He and food columnist, Amanda Hesser, did a Q&A type session that was really terrific.

Amanda's journey is pretty cool and one that I relate to in terms of truly just being fascinated by what goes on in a kitchen. She's had some very cool experiences and hearing her speak was really neat. The discussion flowed nicely between her and Batali and I learned a great deal more about what kinda fuels Batali as a chef. He's so witty and articulate which really appealed to me. He's the kind of guy with vision and talent that's just inherent. That's the kind of chef I hope to be one day.

I get a lot of inspiration from Batali in terms of his "less is more" approach. Both he and Cesare Casella are chefs I look up to in this regard because they have a love of raw, natural ingredients in their pure form that I respect totally. Some of the greatest dishes I've had in Batali's restaurants are as bare bones as you can get in terms of ingredients but have flavors that knock your socks off. Case in point, using fantastic olive oil DOES make a difference. ;) I particularly liked one of the things he said about having confidence in making solid decisions without getting every opinion under the sun. He said making a really good idea a collective decision never works and I completely agree with that. Of course you need solid people to bounce things off of at times but, in the end, when you're passionate about building something important to you, somewhere along the line you just need faith and confidence in who you are and what you're doing. I really did enjoy getting to hear more about his journey as a chef, though. Quite an informative and enjoyable evening:

By the way, as a fun side note, Batali and partners plan to open a beer garden on the roof of Eataly soon which I think is just so cool. I truly love living in New York sometimes where there is so much opportunity and such unique experiences.

Eataly

I've been talking with people about Italy a great deal recently and about going sometime in the near future. It's so exciting to think about it and imagine what life is really like there! In the meantime, I finally went to Eataly on Saturday afternoon and spent the day pretending I was already overseas. For those who don't know, Eataly is Mario Batali's newest venture in the city and it is awesome. Taken from their website:

Eataly is more than a supermarket with restaurants. It is an energetic marketplace, an opportunity to taste and take home the products of artisans who till, knead and press to bring you the highest quality products at fair price. We have assembled the absolute best Italian producers from every region under one roof and the absolute best chefs to cook their wares; Eataly is the heartbeat of Italy.

There are several of these locations throughout Italy and finally we get a taste of this in the US. It's so fantastic! We waited only 15 minutes or so to get in and, once inside, it's like a true lively and buzzing marketplace. I swear to you, I think I died and went to heaven. Everything I love about food and Italy and the Italian culture was right there in my face in the heart of New York City. The smells, the energy, the fresh homemade products, the rows and rows of olive oils...I was so completely in my element:

We walked around for a good while to browse all the products while forcing ourselves not to drain our bank accounts. I came across some black pepper olive oil and it was like crack - I had to have it. After roaming around, we managed to score a spot at one of the stand-up table areas. We were definitely ready for some wine and food after drooling over everything we saw. We ordered the most amazing meat board and cheese plate. They also brought us spicy glazed figs and candied lemon peel, both of which were unreal:

 MMM, lambrusco:

I tell you what, I am READY for some Italy. After that tiny glimpse into what the markets are like over there, I'm just about to get myelf on a plane immediately. It's so so so fun to think about! All in due time... ;)