Happenings: Cupcake Party

In yet another example of why I am growing quite fond of NYC, today, the cupcake blog "Cupcake Takes the Cake" is celebrating their 4-year blogiversary with a cupcake blowout. Grub Street reports:

with free cupcakes from folks like Crumbs, Sugar Sweet Sunshine, Little Cupcake Bake Shop, Kumquat Cupcakery, and Butter Lane: “Prizes include coupons for free mail order cupcakes, cupcake cookbooks (Baked, Baking With Agave Nectar, Confetti Cakes for Kids), cupcake-themed novels, 2009 cupcake calendar, a giant cupcake-shaped cookie jar, red velvet cupcake mix, a cupcake necklace, cupcake t-shirts, cupcake flowers from 1-800-Flowers, and more.” Yay!! cupcakescupcakescupcakes!!!!The fête will be at White Rabbit from 6 p.m. till 9 p.m.

Sounds like sweet baked loveliness to me. Would like to go, but not sure I'll feel up to it. I've still got the sniffles, but feeling much better than I did on Tuesday. Bad news is City Guy has come down with my cold too. :(

Happenings: Not For Tourists Holiday Party

Here's another thing I'd be doing if I weren't sick....

NFT, the ever popular "Not For Tourists" guide to NYC, is celebrating their 10th anniversary by giving away free copies of their 2009 guide and free booze tonight in the Lower East Side.
Go here, print out the invitation, show up at 6 pm at Fontana's Bar, 105 Eldridge St, and live it up. I'm a sucker for free stuff.

Happenings: Bon Appetit Supper Club & Cafe

Every year, the Bon Appetit Supper Club & Cafe "pops" into town for a week, featuring cafe items designed by celebrity chefs, cooking demos and tastings in a beautifully designed space. Think a fancier version of Europa Cafe or Pret-a-Manger. You choose from sandwiches, salads, soups and desserts by chefs like Tyler Florence, Cat Cora, Mario Batali, Ben Ford or Charlie Trotter. They do dinner too, apparently, but by invitation only.

Today, on the penultimate day of the supper club, Mr. Aussie and I went to lunch there. We got there early, around 11:30 to avoid the midtown lunch rush and didn't have to wait in line at all. I ordered Cat Cora's Thai Chicken Salad Spring Roll and Ben Ford's Clam Chowder with Leek Cream and Applewood Smoked Bacon and Claudia Fleming's Triple Chocolate Brownie Cookie.

The clam chowder was my favorite item - really flavorful and not thick and heavy, like other clam chowders. The spring roll was really disappointing. Where was the dipping sauce? Also, this spring roll was the size of a burrito. Not very Asian at all. The brownie cookie was good too--moist like there was cream cheese in there--but ultimately, I've had better food elsewhere.

What really made the trip uptown worthwhile were a> the free Bon Appetit tote bag, b> the free copy of the November issue of Bon Appetit Magazine, c> the sample Ghiradelli chocolate squares and finally d> the gorgeous space. When you first walk in, you order your food, cafeteria style and pay.

Then you walk into the dining room, where they do cooking demos while you eat. The only problem is you couldn't really see what the chefs were doing because they didn't have one of those reflective mirrors over the cooking station. The fairy forest decor was stunning, and I just loved the gas fireplaces and cozy lounge areas. Upstairs, there's a cookbook bar where you can browse cookbooks by the various featured chefs, a wine & cheese sample bar, Maybelline samples, Ghiradelli chocolate samples, and Gold Peak Tea samples (great tea, btw - a new line from Coca-Cola).

Happenings: Japan C

This afternoon, Miss Fashion and I went to Felissimo Design House on 56th St & 5th Ave to check out the 11-week celebration of Japan product design, known as "Japan C." On Monday, the exhibit will begin its final week, but for 10 weeks, each week has had a theme--for instance, paper products, Japanese make-up, household products, or Japanese foods, which was the theme this past week. The nice thing about going today is that you can see products from the entire run of the showcase all at once. And next week, they're having an auction to sell the items being displayed.

Don't be fooled by the anemic displays on the first floor. There's a lot more to see on the four floors of the design house. Some of the stuff they're showing you could just as easily find at a Japanese grocery or department store--stationary, Hello Kitty figurines and bento boxes, for instance. But there were a few items that jumped out at me.The freeze-dried Koya tofu you see on this table caught Miss Fashion's eye. Just soak in water, and you have tofu!Okurin--officially marketed as "recyclable gift bags" - these bunny shaped canvas bags unzip at the mouth and hold things. I love that the Japanese so love to give gifts they've developed an eco-friendly way to do it.Cedar laptop case, anyone?Not like we haven't seen stuff like this before, but how cute are these persimmons, each with their own facial expression?

Nezca--Swarovski-studded rope essentially. Crafters, let your imaginations run wild.Random dogs in aloha shirts.At first glance, a platter of lovely cakes and parfaits...On closer examination, they're made of towels!
A "file cabinet" style recycling in-home recycling station. Perfect for cramped Manhattan kitchens!

Happenings: Big Apple BBQ Festival

Today City Guy and I met up with some friends at the event NY carnivores look forward to all year--the Big Apple BBQ Festival in Madison Square Park. It attracts pitmasters from around the country, including some hard core pork and beef from places like:
....out of Texas, for which people were already waiting in wrap-around theme park style lines a half hour before the festival opened. Getting a taste from some of the most popular pitmasters, like this one, meant sometimes waiting for an hour in 100+ weather. Boy was it HOT! and HUMID! today.
But for $8, you could get brisket and sausage with coleslaw from Texas:
Or pulled pork shoulder from Alabama: Beef ribs from Los Angeles or more pulled pork from Mississipi or the Carolinas:Crawfish and okra hush puppies from Mississippi: And so much more! There were 16 pitmasters in all. Don't worry, City Guy and I didn't eat all this ourselves. We had lots of help. Our friends took turns standing in lines, while others of us chowed down on a picnic mat under the trees in the park. Unfortunately, the park was not only HOT! and HUMID! but teeming with people. It was a mob scene. Last year, they had 120,000 people, and I'm sure this year rivaled that number. Can you imagine? Every square foot of the park was populated with BBQ lovers These photos do not do the crowd justice:Anyhow, we loved the food - my top three choices of the day were:
1> the sausage from Salt Lick BBQ, Texas
2> the beef rib from Mr. Cecil's California Ribs, California
3> (a tie) the smoked crawfish and okra hush puppies from City Grocery, Mississippi and the pulled pork and awesome vinegary cole slaw from Big Bob Gibson BBQ in Alabama

Having a picnic with friends was also great. And how cool that in NYC, all these awesome pitmasters come to me! In how many other cities do you get to eat world class cheese one night and then world class BBQ the next day? Still, the crowds are a bit much--I always feel like an ant when I'm around thousands of New Yorkers, all my individuality squashed. And did I mention how HOT! and HUMID! it was today? In any other city, people would have run for cover on a day like today...New Yorkers are hard core, as they say.