Ladies Who Lunch: Mary Ann Pants at Campo

Miss Pants, as I have come to know her (referred to after refusing our internship director's comments on why wearing skirts was preferred for us during orientation), is one of my first minxes. She and I are closer in age than the others (yes, 25) and so we have more things in common having left our initial undergrad days behind a few years sooner than our fellow interns. However, I miss seeing her daily and have lunches of bad and worse hospital food. It is rare that she ventures out of her native Queens so I have to lure her with the promise of potential Italian eats.

We chose to meet at Campo, a "Rustic Tuscan Gathering Place" which had opened on Broadway at 113th Street in early May. Despite the item of hype, the Fried Green Tomato Caprese, there was little other reason for us to go there besides logistics. Needless to say, with our luck working for us as usual, that day they had not placed them on the menu. So we each had some overly priced underwhelming salads, hers of arugula and chicken and mine a version of a Cobb. Also, due to their positioning in the neighborhood of Columbia they had their drink menu named closely to entice young alcoholics with daddy's credit card; we chose to try the Barnard.

Basically, even a nice sunny day could not save this restaurant's boring food, organic hypocracy (breaded monkfish and organic ethics do not mix!), and high prices, however, I was still lucky to have lunch with the very photogenic Miss Pants!

above: The Barnard
above: Chicken and arugula salad
above: Italian dough balls...with honey?

~beth (Who also refused to wear anything but pants! Viva la revolucion!)

So What's This Grad School Business?

All four people who check in here every few months have noticed that the background color is different...and that after two months I posted something. Hooray, it looks different! Well, with this new stage of life goes a new, although ironic, color. I have decided that clinical nutrition is not for me at this stage. Many of you know the reasons as I have a tendency to talk things out until I resign them to be fact. Therefore, I successfully applied to Pratt Institute's Master's Program in Environmental Systems Management which began about five weeks ago.

My original base major (wager) in college (at Ohio Wesleyan University, Go OWU!) was Environmental Studies and despite the attempt towards each career I have, I end up back knee deep in John McPhee and Jared Diamond books feeling like a douche who needs to do something to save about sixteen species of obscure flora and fauna featured on late night Jack Hanna-type television commercials while simultaneously recycling every single fraction of physical matter I come across. Then I have a breakdown that I am turning into my parents. But I digress...

What in the world does this have to do with food or dietetics or anything I had spent the past 3.5 years and some odd $60K to accomplish? Well...this program does allow me to concentrate in LEED certified kitchen design as well as sustainable agriculture. No one in their right can deny there is a food crisis worldwide and that it is not going to get better any time soon. Therefore, while the Megans may wow you with TPN ditties, tube feeding cruises, or a broad scale clinical explanation of my tortured cholesterol scores (if they find the time), I will be focusing on green food and nonfood topics and my classes with a few restaurant trashes interspersed.

I hope you enjoy. And if you don't, please at least recycle the knowledge.

~beth (Who will use this website to procrastinate homework to the point of destruction and not so secretly would love to be Peter Beard when she grows up.)

Ladies Who Lunch: Ellen at Candle 79

During a yearlong unpaid dietetic internship you will actually find yourself becoming more conservative by the day. This is why I loved having rotations with Ellen, because she was the one person who might actually have been more conservative than me at any give moment. She totally understood every single thing I would say and she made the best faces when someone was being completely ridiculous. I miss her facial judgments on a daily basis.

We are both in flux between that soul-sucking internship and grad school so we have time to lunch and discuss our very important social lives and such. We decided to go to Candle 79 as it had been voted the Vegetarian Restaurant of 2007 by just about everyone who was deciding such things. Also, it is a Green Certified Restaurant, and since I am going to grad school for this...it seemed right up our alley. The menu was kind of like that of many Southern California places with raw items. After a precise eye roll from Ellen towards our new wavey server, we decided on some drinks, a lunch entrée, and Ellen had some dessert.

The food was interesting...the salad was divine, and I love Ellen's scrowl face!

above: Ginger Rush sake, plum nectar, ginger

above: Wild Fiddlehead Salad

above: Live Zucchini Enchiladas cashew cheese, spinach, guacamole, chipotle tomato sauce, cashew sour cream, pumpkin seeds, baby romaine, tomato-corn salsa

above: Some Special Ice Cream Thing

~beth

Goodbye Florent!

Literally one month ago my Brooklyn wife, Amy, and I went to see the send off for Gansevoort St. 24/7 iconic restaurant Florent held at Comix. Due to rising rents in the High Line area (Don't get me started on this...Meatpacking District!), it will close after 23 years. There are so few French diners in the world that last a day in the States, let alone 23 years!

There were many amazing acts that wowed us and made wearing such painful hot pink python Marc Jacobs pumps completely worthwhile. One moment it would be intimate to the point of confusion on our part, but then disturbingly entertaining the next. We followed it up with a trip a few blocks away across the bricks to get (literally) a midnight bite.

Where else in the city can you be the only two females within 5 tables of pretty ladies and get a plate of quality pâté for $9? I will be sad to only go to that neighborhood now for lesser things, if anything at all. We fear change.

above: The Dueling Bankheads

above: Varla Jean Merman

~beth ~ Who wishes she were around back during New York City's American Psycho days. Now it's just...pedestrian at best.

Ten Alternative Uses for Coca Cola

For the month of July I have been in attempts to not have a single bit of soda for the entire month. Not one teensy tinesy drop. Reading this list often of other productive uses for it helps.

Taken from the book 5 People Who Died During Sex and 100 Other Terribly Tasteless Lists, by Karl Shaw....

This just confirms my feelings on Coke in addition to its being liquid Diabetes...

Ten Alternative Uses for Coca Cola
1. As a spermicide [India]
2. As a pesticide [India]
3. As a toilet bowl cleaner
4. As a windshield washer
5. As a rust-spot remover
6. As a bloodstain remover
7. As a grease-stain remover
8. As a sink cleaner
9. As s meat tenderizer
10. As a wallpaper paste remover

~beth (Who until this month used to make poor little Andrew go fetch diet Coke at random hours.)

Preoccupation Eventually Gets Boring

Amidst the sea of CU Rugby, Facebook addiction, fractured skulls, beginning grad school and generally being away from the interwebs, I have written nothing substantive. Even the personal statement I wrote for my grad school application was pointless (However, thanks Annika!). I feel like I am under a sea of magazines and books compounded by a fractured skull, helacious humidity, and a depressing economy and environmental outlook...I find myself with tons to write about but no energy to do it. Therefore, I am going to make a decent stab at clearing through some photos and topics promised to myself and others.

Until that takes off, here is a photo of my friend Sarah's posh free range chickens as that is what I owe young Poon, who has asked many times for nutrition information on chicken. Sorry, kiddo.


~beth