Friends, Wine, and Warmth

Never one for shameless self-promotion, I do not inundate the inboxes of friends and family members with links to my blog every time I write a new post. Yet I do share posts that I am particularly pleased with from time to time, or those that I think someone would especially appreciate. What I especially appreciate, however, is anyone who takes the time to read my articles, and I take it as quite a compliment when one of my posts compels a reader to visit a restaurant, bar, museum, or other venue that I’ve written about—which is why I was especially excited when my friend Michele, after reading several recent posts, suggested that a group of us get together to visit a place I’ve written about, one that peaked her interest and, subsequently, that of a number of our friends.

The place was Vero, the wine bar on 2nd Avenue that I wrote a post on a few weeks ago. After a flurry of emails sent in an effort to coordinate the who, what, when, where, and how, our group of seven—five of whom had driven in from northern New Jersey—met at Vero on Saturday night.

Possibly the coldest night of the fall so far, Saturday did not provide the most enticing of weather for leaving one’s apartment—or fleeciest sweatpants. Lauren and I bundled up in preparation for the ten-minute walk to Vero—a walk that, once we were hit with a very wintry wind, we decided to forego in lieu of a cab. But we warmed up as soon as we walked through Vero’s front doors and were greeted by a very welcoming hostess who led us to the table I had called to reserve just a few hours earlier. We sat down, ordered glasses of wine, and were sufficiently thawed by the time the rest of the girls arrived a few minutes later.

As greetings and excited chatter bounced around the table, we ordered drinks and picked out an assortment of plates to share amongst ourselves. With seven of us, I was able to experience more of Vero’s menu than on my previous visit. Several of the girls ordered a flight, in which they were able to choose three wines to taste. Our very accommodating waiter kindly brought the flight selections out one at a time, as there wasn’t very much free space on our tabletop, and I was pleased to see that each glass, though smaller than a regular wine glass, held an ample amount of wine.

We all enjoyed at least one type of wine we had never tried before; for me, this was a Rioja, a crisp Spanish red with plum and dried cherry flavors. Something else I had never tried before, yet had heard a greal deal about, was Vero’s panini. I ordered one with prosciutto, figs, gorgonzola, and rosemary oil; and a few of the girls tried the prosciutto, buffalo mozzarella, and basil aioli combination. Warm, crisp, cheesy, and utterly delicious, they complemented our wine, as well as the meat, cheese, olive, and bruschetta platters we had ordered. More than enough food for the seven of us, our choices turned out to be perfect for sharing on a chilly almost-winter night.

Once we had gotten our fill of wine, cheese, and Vero’s warm and cozy atmosphere, we decided to venture out into the cold in search of a place for dessert. We walked just a few steps when my friend Sue pointed across the street.

“Kristen, didn’t you write about that place, too?” she asked, aiming her gloved hand at Hi-Life, the bar and restaurant just up 2nd Avenue from Vero—and another venue I had written about just a few months ago. “Let’s try that—it sounded good!” she added.

And so to Hi-Life we went, where we ordered an array of cold-weather drinks and desserts: Irish coffees, chocolate martinis, chocolate cake, vanilla and chocolate gelato truffles—all were heavenly. Having seated ourselves in a different configuration than at Vero in an attempt to catch up with everyone, we all enjoyed our desserts, our drinks, and our company.

After such a lovely evening—and probably because we were still somewhat stuffed from all we had consumed—we all felt just a little bit warmer on our way home.

Books Galore!

This holiday season, budgets are tight, and wallets are being clutched even tighter. But there is one gift that is always in style, always a pleasure to receive, and always affordable: a book. And this weekend, books are even more affordable than usual, as there are two book fairs in our area that are offering great deals—and for good causes.

First, there is the Barnes & Noble Book Fair benefiting East 82nd Street’s St. Stephen of Hungary School. Held at the Barnes & Noble store located on 86th Street between 2nd and 3rd Avenues, the fair will run from 9 a.m. to 11 p.m. on Friday, November 21 and Saturday, November 22, and St. Stephen of Hungary School will receive a portion of the proceeds. Stop by on the way out for your Saturday-morning workout or your Sunday-morning Starbucks to check out the selection and support a neighborhood school in the process.

Next up is the Goddard Riverside Community Center’s 22nd Annual Book Fair. A settlement house on the Upper West Side that has provided food, shelter, and educational programs to New Yorkers in need since 1959, Goddard has held this major fundraiser every year since 1986 and has raised over $7 million as a result. And each year’s fair is more highly anticipated than the last, as it promises discounts of 50% or more on brand-new books, from current bestsellers to classics, children’s books to cookbooks, all generously donated by area publishers.

The fair kicks off tomorrow with the Book Bash, the opening night celebration that gives ticket holders first dibs on thousands of books before the fair opens to the public. Featuring spreads from local restaurants and bakeries, wine and martini bars, and a raffle with prizes like a $1,000 Barnes & Noble gift card, theater tickets, spa packages, and much more, the Book Bash is a fun and festive start to a positive—and positively literary—weekend. Tickets are $125 in advance or $150 at the door. To purchase tickets, click here.

On Saturday morning, the fair opens to the public, running from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. on Saturday and from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Sunday. The earlier in the weekend you arrive, the wider your selection of books will be; the later you show up, the more picked-over the selection, but the deeper the discount you’ll receive. By late Sunday afternoon, prices are slashed so drastically that you could easily walk out with an armful of books for under $10. Tempting, no? Goddard is located at 593 Columbus Avenue at 88th Street—just a quick cross-town bus ride away. Click here for the admission card.

And then book it on over to both fairs this weekend to pick up some good reads for some very good causes.

An Uninvited Guest

A few weeks ago, Lauren and I began to notice that something in our apartment was amiss. While making breakfast one morning, I spotted what I hoped were a few flax seeds, or perhaps chocolate sprinkles, scattered across our kitchen table. I looked at them for a while. Then I looked a little closer, trying to convince myself that they were probably just some sort of seed that had fallen off a bagel or a sandwich Lauren had prepared recently. I swept them up, firm in my resolution that they were nothing to be concerned about, and went on with my day.

The next morning, however, I again noticed more of the same mysterious seed-like specks. Considering that Lauren had been away since my finding the previous morning, and that I had not eaten anything containing seeds or sprinkles or any other small brown particles, I was pretty sure I knew what I was dealing with. Yet I still tried to convince myself otherwise, sure that Lauren would dispel my fears later that evening when she got home. Surely she had eaten something with seeds, and I had just missed a few when I cleaned up the morning before. Yes, that was it. I let the specks be so that she could inspect them later on.

“Okay, you need to look at this,” I began almost as soon as I walked in the door that evening. Somewhat startled, Lauren followed me hesitantly over to the kitchen table. “These little brown things—you didn’t make anything with seeds recently, did you?”

“No,” she replied. We were now both staring intently at the half-dozen or so little brown specks scattered about the table, and the realization of what they most likely were began to dawn on Lauren. “Uh oh. Are those what I think they are?”

I took a deep breath. “I’m pretty sure they’re mouse droppings.” There—I had said it, one of the most dreaded words in the apartment-dweller’s vernacular. “I think we have a mouse.”

We left a message with our super and, while waiting to hear back from him, hoped that the little brown specks would just go away on their own. They didn’t. Each evening we wiped them up, and each morning there were a few more—just three or four, not enough to suggest our apartment was being commandeered by an army of rodents. But enough to know that we did, indeed, have a visitor.

Any doubts we may have hopefully clung to were dispelled one evening last week when I pulled a Reese’s peanut butter cup out of a package that we had been keeping on top of our microwave since Halloween. There, in the middle of the wrapper, was a carefully nibbled hole that revealed the contents inside—or what was left of them, because someone or something had eaten half of the peanut butter cup that I had been looking forward to. And I was pretty sure it wasn’t Lauren. I tossed the entire package into the trash, and Lauren left another message for the super again the following day—still to no avail.

We soon realized that our super was on vacation, and that, if we wanted to catch our uninvited guest in the act of raiding our snacks, we would have to do so on our own. But then, one evening this week, before we even had the opportunity to debate the merits of sticky, snap, and have-a-heart traps, we caught our visitor quite by accident—or, he caught himself.

Having picked up garbage bags on my way home from the gym, I reached into our recycling bin to put one inside—and there, at the bottom of the bin, was our mouse. He was curled up on his side, his little tail splayed behind him. And he was most certainly dead.

I jumped backwards and let out a scream that I’m sure was heard by everyone in the building, a scream that continued as I ran through the apartment and into Lauren’s room, where she had been sitting quietly at her computer until just a moment before.

“What is it?” She looked at me in fear, her eyes wide with concern, as though preparing for the news that our kitchen was on fire. While I wanted to dispel her fears, all I could get out were a series of “oh no”s and “ugh”s as I jumped around her room, shuddering and shaking as though there were five live mice crawling over me, rather than just one dead one that at this point was over ten feet away.

“There’s a dead mouse in the recycling bin!” I finally managed to shout, commencing a new series of squeals and shudders from both of us.

“Okay, okay,” I reasoned when we had both managed to calm ourselves a bit. “It’s only a mouse. Can you just go look at it to make sure it’s really dead?”

“Okay,” Lauren replied hesitantly. “Hold my hand.”

And so we crept back to the kitchen, clutching each other’s hands as we neared the plastic can and its fated inhabitant.

“Just peek in,” I prompted. “He’s in the far corner.”

“I don’t want to, I don’t want to,” Lauren repeated, attempting to retreat back to her bedroom while I pulled her toward the bin.

“You can do it,” I encouraged. “I’ll look with you.” We tiptoed toward the bin, our knuckles now white from gripping each other’s hands so tightly. We leaned forward and peered in, both hoping that my earlier sighting had just been a figment of my imagination.

Nope. The mouse was still there, and he was still dead. After more screaming and jumping and shuddering, we realized that the critter was actually kind of cute—and, feeling sorry for him, we tried to figure out the cause of his demise.

“Maybe he just climbed in there and couldn’t get out and then died of starvation,” I offered. “But he wasn’t there this morning. Can mice starve to death that quickly?”

“I think he was on the kitchen table, walking along like this.” She demonstrated with her fingers as though a rodent CSI detective. “There was no food up here, so he peeked down there and slipped and fell. And then broke his neck.”

“Maybe he felt guilty after gorging himself on Reese’s peanut butter cups and jumped on purpose,” I suggested.

After resigning ourselves to the fact that we may never know what really happened to our dead little mouse, we began to consider our options for his disposal.

Flushing him down the toilet was mentioned, as was a burial service in Carl Schurz Park, before we narrowed our options down to two more manageable ones: we could try to dump him from the recycling can into the regular garbage, thus salvaging our plastic bin; or we could just throw the whole thing out. We opted for the latter.

After getting the entire bin into a garbage bag, a process that took nearly ten minutes due another wave of screaming, jumping, and shuddering, I volunteered to bring the whole thing down to the trash.

“Hey,” I called on my way out the door. “Do you think mice are recyclable?”

“This one certainly thinks he is!” came the reply.

Fabulous Fall Foliage

Just a few days ago, I returned home from a trip to Indianapolis, where I was treated to spectacular weather and stunning fall foliage. Fiery reds, florescent yellows, ripe oranges—the leaves were showing off their peak colors in what seemed to be a grand finale to the fall. If you have not yet witnessed such a show of fall brilliance, there are still a few spots in our area where you can do so.

Bear Mountain: Whether hiking the trails for the day or relaxing at the rustic Bear Mountain Inn for the weekend, this Hudson River Valley state park is the perfect fall getaway. The leaves will be reaching their peak colors this weekend, so hurry up and plan your trip.

Piermont: This quaint little town right on the Hudson is home to antique shops, art galleries, cafés, wine bars, restaurants, and—this weekend—peak fall foliage. For directions, click here.

Long Island: Hop on the LIRR and head out to Long Island, where the leaves will be reaching their peak this weekend as well. It may be a bit chilly to hit the beach, but it will be perfect weather for sipping hot cider under a magnificent canopy of reds, yellows, and oranges.

Staten Island: Just a quick train ride away, Staten Island’s foliage will be reaching its peak this upcoming week. Can you think of a better reason to play hooky from work?

Princeton, NJ: Like much of central and southern New Jersey, Princeton is experiencing peak fall foliage this week. Hop on NJ Transit and, in just over an hour, you can shop in Palmer Square, stroll through the Princeton University campus, or hike the trails in Princeton Battlefield State Park—all under a stunning array of reds, yellows, and oranges.

Mohonk Mountain House: Treat yourself to a stay in this Victorian castle on Lake Mohonk in the Hudson River Valley, just 90 minutes from the city. This mountaintop resort and spa features hiking, tennis, boating, rock climbing, and much more. And, for at least another week or so, it will also feature some of the most spectacular foliage in the area. For more information, click here.

Hurry up and take in the splendor of this foliage season!