Lori and I visited New York City the first week of October. Just for fun, although the timing of
the trip was determined by my parents being in New York City and having an
apartment where we could crash.
A quick digression here. My parents are spending the month of October in NYC. At 85 and 80 years old, they have
rented an apartment in NYC (midtown/Hells Kitchen/Theater Disctrict area), and
are spending the month going to the ballet, symphony, theater, museums, restaurants
and doing everything else that NYC has to offer. Plus seeing friends and family and doing a little business
while out there. (Retirement is just a word to them.) They’re both
using canes to get around now, but this only seems to just slow them down a bit, not stop
them from doing anything. So while
this is, at first glance, incredibly foolish of them, it’s actually a wonderful
thing they’re doing. They are
setting the bar quite high, and I hope in 30 years Lori and I will be able to
do something similarly crazy and wonderful.
So Lori and I flew in to Newark a few weeks ago, taking the airport bus into Manhattan. Tuesday was spent relaxing, and going
to a taping of the Daily Show with John Stewart. More on that great experience in a separate post. Wednesday, before going to the theater,
we ate at ViceVersa. Nice Italian restaurant within walking
distance of the apartment, and of the theater we were heading to. We had an Acacia 2011 Carneros Pinot
Noir with dinner, and it worked quite well.
Thursday we went to the theater again. But before the theater, we met Sean and
Jessica, friends of our son Brandon.
They were, coincidently, also on vacation in NYC. So we invited them over to the
apartment for wine and cheese, and they also brought some desserts: chocolate covered strawberries, cannoli,
éclair. We picked up a bottle of Ridge Vineyards 2011 Three Valleys. This
is a blend of 65% Zinfandel, 20% Petite Sirah, 9% Carignane, 3% Mataro, 2%
Alicante Bouschet, 1% Grenache. We
love the Ridge Zinfandel-based blends.
This one was little heavier on the Petite Sirah than we would usually
like for an afternoon wine, but still quite good.
Friday we splurged on lunch, going to one of the top
restaurants in NYC, Gotham Bar and
Grill in the Greenwich Village area.
They have a great prix fixe lunch deal, which we all had. We started with appetizers of either
salad or a roasted vegetable soup (see photo below).
For the second course, the ladies had the goat cheese ravioli with lamb
shank, while my father and I both had the cod. For dessert there was chocolate cake with Almond ice cream,
a trio of sorbets, and a crumble.
We had a 2010 Wind Gap Pinot Noir, Woodruff Vineyards, Santa Cruz
Mountains with lunch. Excellent
wine, but still a bit young.
What a great vacation! I hope we get to do this again.
L’Chaim,
Larry