Mashed potatoes aside, mac and cheese is the ultimate comfort food in my world. When I make it at home, I consider it an emptying-of-the-cheese -drawer exercise, which makes me feel warm and fuzzy in multiple ways. (I hate wasting food.) The randomness of the cheese selections means it may never quite taste exactly the same twice, but believe me, it’s always good.
While consistency may not be my personal strength, chef Ric Orlando has been hitting it out of the proverbial ballpark for decades. I can’t think of another person (except maybe Dimitrios at City Beer Hall) who has so successfully merged seemingly disparate cuisines into fantastic and memorable dishes. Thai and Italian? IRC’s done that. Traditional dish with an ingredients twist? Of course!
For the recently held Mac & Cheese Bake Off at Keegan Ales, Ric combined two of my favorite dishes – Peking Duck and Mac & Cheese into a dynamite skillet of deliciousness. I dropped in on Tuesday night to sample the dish and was very happy to have had the opportunity to make a meal out of this small plate which satisfied two cravings with each forkful. Three, if you count bullshitting with Nick at the bar.
Served piping hot in a cast iron vessel, the plate was a delight of creamy, crunchy goodness with lovely and tender slices of duck hidden beneath toothsome noodles, mung bean sprouts and chopped scallions. There were also swirls of hoisin (plum?) sauce and gorgeous buttery breadcrumbs, making this a perfect marriage of many flavors taken from two very different and individual cuisines.
The dish was a special Tuesday, (3/3/20), so call ahead or check NWBB’s website for availability. At $12 it was a bargain, paired with a glass of wine it was a meal. Can’t get enough of Mac and Cheese in all its glory? Here’s your chance to sample more delectable variations this weekend – and raise some $$ for a good cause.
Category Archives: favorites
When culinary worlds collide – Peking Duck Mac and Cheese at New World Bistro Bar
Filed under Albany, Cooking, Delaware Avenue, DelSo, Dinner, Eating, favorites, Food, Local, Recommendations, upstate New York, winter
Where to stay in NYC?
Over the years I’ve stayed in a lot of hotels in New York City. Most of them have been perfectly fine, especially since I’ve only required accommodations for a single night or maybe two. There have been a couple that I won’t book again – The Empire across from Lincoln Center comes immediately to mind. That room was so damn small that it was impossible to navigate, even though there were only two Lilly boys at the time we stayed there and they were significantly smaller than they are now. Pass.
My favorite hotels, the ones I return to repeatedly, are my picks because of a combination of amenities, space and location. Value for the price, basically. The Millennium Hilton on Church Street is my absolute favorite place to stay because it checks every box for me – I love that area of the city for an evening run, on weekends it’s possible to actually find on street parking, and the shopping and eating options are decent. Oh – and there’s an indoor pool, something rarely seen in my experience in NYC.
While I tend to stay at Hilton properties (including Embassy Suites, Hampton Inn, Hilton Garden Inn, Doubletree) because of rewards programs related to my credit card, there are times when I go off brand and try someplace different. TravelZoo sends a weekly email with some good deals and I’ve discovered some terrific, new-to-me hotels by taking advantage of these opportunities when the price is right.
Last weekend my son and were in the city to celebrate his birthday. I had a reservation at a Hilton, but canceled when I received an email offering a night’s stay at the St. Giles Tuscany on E. 39th. A few years back I spent a night at a different St. Giles property, now closed, and found it to be comfortable, chic and well located, especially when Amtrak was using Grand Central as their NYC station. The deal being offered through TravelZoo was unbeatable at $140 total. I booked it.
We arrived too early to get into our room prior to our matinee at Lincoln Center, but we were welcomed and invited to enjoy the complimentary hot beverages in the lovely lobby while our bags were checked. We returned hours later, after dinner and a walk around Bryant Park, to finally see our room and I was blown away.
The room was easily the largest NYC hotel room I’ve ever been in. There was a hallway with the bathroom to one side and a gigantic walk in closet on the other. The bedroom had two queen beds with enough room remaining to move around without bumping into one another. It was just enormous! The bathroom was a dream with gorgeous tile, a floating vanity and a tub that made me regret having had recent surgery which prevented me from indulging in a deep, sudsy soak.
Generally speaking, I don’t spend a tremendous amount of time in any hotel room, much preferring to be outdoors or doing fun things. That doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate having somewhere comfortable and well laid out to return to after a full day of activity. Maybe you’re the same? What are your favorite places to stay in NYC?
Celebrating Elvis
I can’t say that Elvis was my very first crush (Tom Jones holds that honor), but he was the first performer whose albums I owned and played incessantly. My mother would order them for me from commercials on television and I would wait impatiently for the UPS guy to deliver the records to my house weeks later. The haste of Amazon Prime was unimaginable in the 70s.
The best weeks of the year, from a television viewing perspective, were the ones in which the 4:30 movie featured Elvis movies like Blue Hawaii and Viva Las Vegas. Even as a kid I knew the quality of these movies was suspect, but they were just so damn fun to watch that it didn’t even matter.
August 16, 1977, the day Elvis died, is a day I’ll never forget. I was in Long Island at a shopping center that had outdoor speakers broadcasting a radio station playing pop music. There was an interruption in the programming and a man’s voice announced the shocking news that Elvis Presley was dead.
It was my first rock and roll heartbreak.
Had Elvis lived, he would now be 85 years old. On Saturday night the Hangar on the Hudson in Troy is hosting a birthday party to celebrate the King of Rock and Roll. Johnny Rabb, the Tichy Boys and other special guests will be performing in what promises to be an epic party in the King’s honor. My dancing shoes might not be blue suede, but they’ll be on my feet nonetheless.
Entering Palm Springs…
When I travel my preferred method of transportation, when possible, is walking. It’s the best way to capture images of sites and to feel a connection to the land, so to speak.
On my recent trip to the desert I logged miles on my feet, crisscrossing my way around the city of Palm Springs utterly charmed by the beauty, both natural and manmade. Here are some of my favorite doors and gates…
Can’t wait for my next opportunity to visit this special place in the high desert.
Filed under beauty, California, Christmas, favorites, holidays, Observations, travel, vacation, winter
Holiday gifts, 2019
Christmas Eve dinner with all my favorite guys at our favorite Chinese place.
Filed under beauty, California, Christmas, Dinner, Eating, favorites, friends, Hiking, holidays, musings, Observations, relationships, travel, vacation
Next week, when I’m in California.
(I just like saying that. Wink.)
Christmas, the year and the decade will all end.
I’ll be traveling with a companion for the first time in a long time.
My Jewish mom will meet my Jewish boyfriend, to put it in its most simple terms.
We’ll spend two hours soaking in springs heated by the San Andreas fault, which just goes to show that sometimes even the least stable situation can bring maximum relaxation.
I’ll get to see and walk and hike and maybe run in some of my favorite mountains.
There will be a respite from the barrage of politics and news.
We will go to the nice Aldi’s and get avocados for guacamole.
There’s the the possibility of rain. And dancing. And maybe dancing in the rain.
Next week when I’m in California is going to be fun.
Skiing with my Uncle Wolfgang
Last week’s epic snowstorm provided an unexpected early December treat – the chance to cross-country ski at Albany Muni. I got out there four days and the conditions just kept getting better. It was awesome and Jeter and I loved every minute of it.
Other than the first day when I skied with a friend, it was just me, my dog and nearly two feet of snow. Sort of. Skiing solo provides lots of time for thoughts and when I cross country ski I can’t help but think of my Uncle Wolfgang. He, too, was a cross country skier, albeit much more accomplished than I. Wolfgang, my mother’s youngest brother, was a competitive biathlete in Germany and, as I ski, I do my best to glide with the grace and strength he once did.
As my eyes took in the beauty of the snow covered golf course and my lower back became damp from my exertions, my head filled with memories of my Uncle. He and I, along with his wife and a Lilly boy or two, took some great road trips together around Europe. Wolfgang and Brigitte were great travelers and I have wonderful memories of sharing time with them in Paris, Amsterdam, NYC and, our last trip, Berlin. I miss him and will always be sad that he was taken so fast and furiously by cancer just weeks after we parted in Berlin.
But, I feel him with me, deep inside, and I truly understand the sentiment about how you never really lose someone you love as long as you have memories of time shared. I get it now and it gives me so much comfort and peace to know he won’t ever be gone.
I started thinking about all the little things I do that immediately remind me of people who no longer walk the earth beside me. When I chop vegetables, I remember Len, who taught me how to hold a knife. As I put together a salad in the metal bowl I insisted upon getting in the divorce, I think of my mother-in-law and her inability to not give her son and I something to take with us each time we left her house. If I see a deer dead on the side of the road, I recall my friend, John, who once demonstrated his compassion for a dying doe by finishing the job a car had begun, an act of kindness that he unfortunately wasn’t able to extend to himself.
Losing someone we love and experiencing the void of their absence, especially near the holidays, makes for an emotionally challenging situation. Knowing that we’ll never again hear a loved one’s laughter or feel their embrace, quite plainly sucks. However, if one takes the time to focus instead on what remains – the memories and moments and love shared, it seems to me that they’re never really gone. At least not from our heads and, of course, our hearts.
Filed under aging, Albany, beauty, cancer, Europe, family, favorites, friends, Germany, Local, love, musings, Normanskill, Observations, relationships, skiing, travel, upstate New York, x-country skiing
