Birthday Celebration 2: Le Cirque

I didn't think I'd have any time to celebrate with my rigorous work schedule and all, but I was fortunate to partake in not one, but three delicious celebrations all at restaurants starting with the letter L.  The fanciest of all was on my actual birthday with C.  For most of the last decade I have commuted from the Upper East Side to Midtown for work, so I have walked by Le Cirque many times.  I never made my way inside for a meal until last week and it was absolutely fantastic.  I started with the butternut squash soup and since I'm a vegetarian they offered me their off the menu pasta primavera.  The waiter told us a story about the Italian chef who opened the French restaurant and made his native pasta, but with a French flare.  Mine was delicious and was prepared right front of our table.  It was a real treat and I have never been made to feel so special for being vegetarian.

Pasta Primavera

C had the lamb

Of course my favorite part was the dessert.  I had a Le Cirque specialty, a lady finger with a dark chocolate stove covering.  

Chocolate Stove Cake

C's Banana Souffle

Birthday Celebration 1: L'Artusi

The other night A and I went back to a cute Italian place in the West Village.  We had tasty pasta followed by yummy dessert.  My gnocchi was melt in my mouth soft.  For dessert, A had this . . .

Hazlenut Chocolate torta

I had this and it was delicious.  I love soft desserts (i.e. pudding, custard, panna cotta, mousse etc) that are just purse sweetness with cream on top to boot.

Bittersweet Chocolate Budino

A surprised me with an additional birthday dessert since my big day was only a few days away.  I had been debating between two and she stealthily added my second choice on "her way to the bathroom."  Additional dessert is like a dream come true for me.  With friends like A, you really need to stick to your workout regimen.

Passion Fruit Panna Cotta

a closet look

Something to Watch

Truth be told, many Academy Award winning movies go right over my head. That's why the two I've watched most recently were such delightful surprises and I highly recommend both.  First, The Apartment starring Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. '

I know Shirley MacLaine mostly from Steel Magnolias and Sweet Charity, two of my favorite movies.  I know Jack Lemmon, from Grumpy Old Men.  Seeing them in roles from 1960 when they were much younger made me see each of them in a whole new light.  Jack Lemmon's character has an apartment on West 67th street between near Central Park and uses it in order to get ahead at work.  I am so fascinated with anything that depicts an older version of New York from Breakfast at Tiffany's and How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying to Mad Men.  This movie totally upsets any idea that men in New York just recently became cads.


The other movie I saw, A Room With A View, I watched entirely because lately I cannot get enough of Maggie Smith.  Since I know Helena Bonham Carter from Les Miserables, Dark Shadows, Alice in Wonderland, Sweeney Todd, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory this was a bit of a shock for me.  I didn't know she was even capable of existing outside of some dark weird role.

I think this is one of those movies you watch when you are in the mood for British accents and early twentieth century English Society.  Not terribly much even happens over the course of this two hour film. Nevertheless I enjoyed myself for some inexplicable reason.

Love

work treat I discovered in my Bag

flowers

appetizer - fried spinach ravioli

vegetarian chicken parmesan and pesto pasta

Upstairs Downstairs

 

 
I can't get enough of Downton Abbey, no matter how many people they obnoxiously kill off.  So I decided to try Upstairs Downstairs, which is something of a poor man's Downton.  So far I like it.  I trust the plot will thicken.  The Downstairs staff could stand to be a bit more likable.  I would love to see the original series from the seventies, but I don't know where I can find it.

Also, I missed the season premiere of Sherlock and then waited too long to catch it on PBS's website.  I am so sad because now I feel compelled to wait until the season is over and it comes to Netflix.  Who knows when that will be?  Between DVR, Hulu, and Netflix you would think I could get it together.  Nope.

Sleep Deprived

There are many topics I would like to discuss but I am so sleep deprived I will be lucky to make it through the work day and safely trudge through the snow back to my apartment.  At some point I am going to completely burn out.  Until then, I guess I just keep working nonstop.  Here are some things I would like to discuss but I am just too tired:

• Last night while watching the Super Bowl I learned that Phillip Seymour Hoffman died, much to my chagrin.  I loved him in Doubt, Capote, and even Catching Fire.  A friend pointed out that he recently starred in The Master, that movie inspired by L. Ron Hubbard founding Scientology and now he's dead.  I really need to see that.  
• On Saturday night, C and I went to see The Wolf of Wall Street.  It was so funny and exciting but unneccessarily objectified women just as gratuitously as the unseemly characters portrayed in the film.
• A friend currently nine months pregnant with the baby she concieved out of wedlock with her boyfriend from church posted an article on facebook slamming the same sex marriage ceremonies that took place during the Grammys. Glass Houses . . .

All would make for interesting posts, but I am just too tired to fully flesh out all my ideas. Headache all day long . . .