Foodie Hotspots

As mentioned, we went to Tamarind on Friday night, which is an upscale Indian restaurant. The decor was relaxed and the service was non-pushy. Ideal for a lazy dinner in Tribeca catching up with friends we'd not seen since before Christmas.

The food was good, though not spectacular - mediocre considering how much we paid. I will say that the chicken starter was deliciously moist, and that my mutton curry tasted better the following day. Maybe the problem is that I just like a dirty* Anglicised curry.

Last night we had lemon pasta, which is a Chan staple when I can't be bothered to cook. I always find that I have less appetite for cooking when I've eaten out a lot. It makes no sense. Anyway, you should all try lemon pasta, it's refreshing, easy-to-make and hits the carb-lover's sweet spot. Cor, I fancy some now. I'm a garlic fiend so in addition to the grated garlic, lemon zest, lemon juice, parmesan and olive oil (parsley if you're being fancy), I also chop up a clove for luck so you get a bonus garlic crunch and hit. Mix it up into an emulsion and stir into cooked spaghetti. Yum.

Today, we had brunch at the super popular Buvette. It's located in the West Village, which I think is the go-to neighbourhood for brunch. It's always so sophisticated and brunch-y round there. The East Village, where we live, is for booze, the West Village is for eggs.

I had the eggs and prosciutto, which sounds simple enough, but are delicious because they're 'steamed'. (They take the eggs and cook them using the wand of an espresso machine). The whole dish is them smothered in olive oil and grated parmesan cheese. Mmmmmmmm. And don't get me started on the blood orange juice. I could have necked a couple o' pints of the stuff. Delish.

I do love a good nosh.

NB* This isn't supposed to sound as offensive as it does. We've been to a couple of posh Indian restaurants here, as everyone keeps saying that they're the only places you can get a decent curry. They've just been sanitised and uninteresting. Satisfactory, but nothing to write home about.

In contrast, you can go to any bog standard curry house in London and there will be a deep unctuousness to the curries back home. And the fancy ones in London which are inventive combines all you'd expect in a comfort food dish with ingredients or flavour combinations that shouldn't work, but do. I am definitely currying when I go home next.

Winter, Snow, Exercise, Food

Nothing beats a bank holiday weekend, especially in January. I think the UK is missing a trick by not bringing one in. As a fellow Brit friend said last night, 'They do winter so much better in the US.' And it's true.

There's Thanksgiving, then there's Christmas, then New Year, then Martin Luther King Day (long weekend), then the Superbowl, and all the while, the days are getting gradually longer and brighter every day. The sun is still shining at 5.15pm and inside my cranked apartment, it's practically tropical.

This week saw the return of the Polar Vortex part deux. Bloody hell it's been cold. On Tuesday, both my gyms cancelled all their classes, but fortunately I had a week's pass from a fancy-dan gym where I'd had a facial. (I'm not going all New York, the Boy treated me for Christmas). It was a 15-minute walk away, which normally would be absolutely fine, but with boshing horizontal snow in the slicing cold, it was a tough trudge. It definitely felt colder than Polar Vortex part une. The sun reflecting off the snow was so incredibly bright that it took me a good 5 minutes to adjust once I was back in our building. Imagine that happening in London.

All I've done this week is eat and exercise. This is fast becoming a health and fitness blog, but without the healthy eating and without any training knowledge, so DO NOT do what I do. In fact, do the opposite...

Here's the exercise lowdown:
- I tried kettlebell kickboxing at our martial arts school this week. I can see why people get addicted, as you properly have to work your whole body. I felt it in my shoulders the following day. Always good to cross-train, kids, as you get to work different parts of your body. The thing I don't understand is why the kettlebell kickboxing doesn't work you as hard as the martial arts classes. It's the same school so it should be the same intensity, no?
- I went to a 30-minute core class on Tuesday. Burning abs! Burnings abs! There was this thing called a pilates ring, which you just squeeze with different parts of your body whilst you're working your core. Er, hello? Do they not know that ab work is already hard enough.
- I've re-embraced running recently and was surprised that I'd been finding it so hard considering how much exercise I've been doing. I hadn't factored in how rubbish I've been at converting miles to kilometers. I've basically been running at 1.5km an hour faster than I did at home - even faster than when I was training for the half marathon.
- Today, I pushed myself to the max at tabata and used 10lb weights. Not through choice, but because those were the only ones left. By the end of the session, I was close to vomiting and I couldn't get my body to stop shaking. It took a good 25 minutes of stretching for my body to calm down. Ufff, I'm going to be sore tomorrow.

Foodwise:
- Umami burger. Mmmmmmmmmmm umami. You gotta love truffle-ly cheese atop chips. Mmmmmm umami.
- Shakshuka. Don't feed this tomato-with-poached-egg-North-African dish to a friend who doesn't eat eggs. You'll end up having to feed her fish fingers. This is you, Gym Buddy A.
- Tomorrow we're off to Tamarind for a posh curry with Brit friends who had curry at their wedding. They are true curry connoisseurs.

Finally, I have an amazing manicure courtesy of Gym Buddy 1. My fingers made me smile momentarily as I was doing my third set of press-ups tonight. But only momentarily. Oh, and y'all should get a mister bottle.

Dinner Chez Nous plus Celebrity Autobiography

We have two friends who have been amazing to us since we arrived in New York. We were here for maybe two weeks when they took us out for dinner. They also invited us to their house in the Hamptons for the weekend. Amazing.

Embarrassingly, it took us around 10 months to get them over to ours for dinner. I had tried hard to make it a nice one, but was nervous, as M, the cool lady is totes a Foodie. Eek! Plus they go out for dinner a lot to super fancy restaurants. Double eek.

On the menu was crab gratin, southern shrimp tchefuncte and baklava. I had slaved and sweated. M arrived - glamourously - laden with fancy EVO and balsamic as a house gift (the box came in fancier packaging than the fanciest toiletries I've ever owned).

'Will Cheeky Chops (not his real name) be arriving soon?' I asked.

M: 'Oh yes. He called to say that he was just jumping in a cab.'

So I stuck the crab gratin into the oven.

About 12 minutes later, M received a call, 'Hello...?' She queries the unknown number. 'Oh, Cheeky Chops, it's you. Where are you?' Her voice changes... 'What happened...? I'm here, at the Boy and Billychica's apartment.'

He's not coming, I thought. But then her tone changes. It's bad.

Cheeky Chops had been hit by a bike right outside our building, as he ran across the road. He was confused and had no idea where M was. The New York City parking system is ridiculous. There are four lanes of cars on our avenue, which are banked by parked cars, and then right between the parked cars and the curb is the bike lane. Way-to-go city planners.

Cheeky Chops is still in hospital in the trauma unit, but should be fine. Apparently, as they were cutting the blood-soaked shirt off his body, his only comment was, 'Ohhhhhhhhh, I really like that shirt.' He is a Cheeky Chops; I hope he gets better soon.

As for the dinner, we've been eating a lot of seafood, and butter, sugar, honey, pastry and nuts these last few days.

In other news, the Boy went out to celebrate day 7 of his birthday. We went to Celebrity Autobiography. Imagine the Karate Kid reading excerpts from Arnold Schwarzenegger's autobiography in a bad French/Italian/Austrian accent or the man from Who's the Boss pretending to be Sylvester Stallone's autobiography. That's what happened last night. As the Boy said, the Karate Kid reading aloud the prologue to David Hasselhoff aka the Knightrider's book is bizarre. Two key figures from our childhood. How surreal is that?

Let's Go Rangers

I've really struggled with American sports. Baseball, yawnsville, and this was in Japan too, not just here in America. Not a lot happens, it's hardly ever tense, it goes on and on, and many of the players are, well, fat. How can that be a sport?

American football is also in the same league, although I think that's because there are too many rules. It just doesn't make all that much sense.

Now hockey, that's a game I like. It's fast, complete in three periods of 20 minutes and is super glitzy. If you google the rules, the Wikipedia entry is done in three paragraphs. What's there not to like?

Well, the fighting is a bit strange. For my English friends who aren't avid followers of the NHL or any other ice hockey league, you're allowed to body check opponents if they have the puck. Yes, that means slamming into them or slamming against them when they're up against the wall.

The other thing that is condoned and indeed, used as part of the tactics is fighting. When two players take they're gloves off, it's a sign that they're ready to duke it out and the referees actually stand back and leave them to it. How weird is that? There are actually players on teams that are brought in as enforcers, who do most of the fighting. Their primary role is to protect the start players. What a surreal concept.

Anyway, I love it, though I'm unsure whether it's because of the fighting or in spite of the fighting. Here's the million-man brawl in 2004 between the Senators and the Flyers. I'm glad my team won last night; Let's Go Rangers!

The Boy's Birthday

Finally some activity in the form of the Boy's birthday weekend after a week of non-stop exercise and all-round good behaviour.

We went to the Boy's favourite bar, Barcade in Williamsburg for old skool arcade games and beer. I felt like 'Bad Wife', as the group next to us was also a birthday party and had come equipped with a kilo of tacos, Hershey kisses, birthday cake and banners. Well, it's not a major birthday...

The highlight of my evening was introducing the 'You've been Tangoed' advert from the 90s to our American friends. Explaining the concept of a fat, bald man spray-painted in orange running around slapping people in the face doesn't really mean much until you've seen it with your own eyes. Thank goodness for Youtube. (For non-British friends, here is the link).

Today is the Boy's actual birthday and we've been stuffing our face with fish finger bagels, birthday cake, and Lobsterpalooza! We haven't actually eaten the lobster yet, but it's imminent and my face is salivating. This will be followed by a hockey game at Madison Square Garden. What a thoroughly New York day - apart from the fish finger bagels. (Admittedly in the UK it would have been fish finger sandwiches).

* FYI, as a thirtysomething, I still suck at video games. I have no dexterity or hand-eye coordination whatsoever. On one machine I got 1,040 points. The high score is over 8,000,000.

On a Health Kick

New Orleans and Christmas really took it out of me. I mean, I was fat and bloated, and by New Year's Day, if I never saw another glass of beer/wine/gin/cocktail again, it wouldn't be too soon.

So for the last week all I have done is exercise and eat healthily. The Boy has finally conceded that he will try and eat less meat. For him, it's an animal welfare issue whilst for me, it's a environmental thing. Nonetheless, we're going to try alternating meat-free a meat-y meals. I think my digestions enjoying the smoother ride, though it may also be something to do with me trying not to gorge myself as much as I usually do.

In terms of fitness, I've been trying all the classes under the sun offered at my gym. This week I tried three new classes: Barre Fitness, Groove Hoops, Pilates Fundamentals and Total Body Challenge tonight alongside my usual classes. We also had a sub for Kickboxing Bootcamp, so it was like that was a completely different class.

I've learnt a lot from trying those three new classes:
1) I have avoided those classes because I knew I'd be rubbish at them. I proved myself right in all three classes, most spectacularly in Pilates Fundamentals, oh, and Barre Fitness, too. In pilates, the instructor had to give me a fourth toned down option to the roll-up, which is essentially a sit up. (She had already offered three intensity levels to the whole class, the most basic of which I still couldn't manage). Dear friends, you will know that I physically can't sit up without using my hands. It is indeed an impediment. In Barre Fitness, the instructor would congratulate everyone on their excellent form and stretching abilities, get to me, stop, smile, and move swiftly onwards. I am not a graceful ballerina.
2) There's a lot of getting in touch with your inner self, particularly in Barre Fitness and Groove Hoops. In Barre Fitness, we had to imagine a hummingbird was inside our chests pulling us up and outwards. In Groove Hoops, we had to hula hoop as if we were a specific animal. I chose a bear, which fortunately meant I could be super bulky, awkward and clumsy. Ta dah!
3) Stuff is hard when you don't know what you're doing. In the Kickboxing Bootcamp class today, the sub got us to do loads of strange moves that I've never seen before. Again, I sucked. But, it does prove that you need to challenge yourself to move outside of your comfort zone.
4) As a consequence of my extra ab workouts, I am having trouble discerning whether I a) have a super sore tummy from all the core work b) still hungry as I'm not eating as much. It's a mystery.

In any case, I've lost around three pounds in eight days. Might be time to scoff those turkey dinners I froze on Boxing Day...

New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA)

I heart New Orleans, Louisiana (NOLA).

What a great city. Immensely walkable, immensely likeable and a little bit grotty - in a good way.

Highs:
- The food is incredible. If you like butter and seafood and any kind of food that falls into the comfort food category. We ate jambalaya; gumbos (seafood, chicken and sausage, duck), oysters (with mountains of cream and raw); debris (not sure what this is exactly, but it's meat cooked in some way); po boys; beignets (deliciousness. Doughnuts. Like Chinese yau cha gwai but doughier and covered with icing sugar); alligator; pulled pork, ribs and brisket barbecue; fried chicken; mac 'n' cheese; collard greens; biscuits; corned beef hash... Mmmmmmmmmmmmmm
- The jazz. We went to Preservation Hall. 'Nuff said.
- The architecture. The whole city is steeped in history, which is reflected in its architecture. The French Quarter is full of, well, buildings built in the Spanish style with hugely ornate balconies. Elsewhere, the neighbourhoods are more Frenchy and with plenty of shotgun houses, so-called because a bullet would pass straight through from the front to the back of the building. The Garden District is the moneyed bit. Residents include Sandra Bullock and John Goodman and the houses and behemoth.
- The spirit. I doubt I'll ever visit a town that has as much heart as Nola. If anything good can come of a devastating hurricane, Katrina has left behind resilience and great civic pride. People are so proud to be from New Orleans.

Lows:
- The wait for everything. The worst being my 25-minute wait in H&M to buy a cheap blouse. I only went in because it was so quiet. It's not southern time, y'all. It's just slow.

FYI, I have already found out that you can get beignets on Orchard Street here in NYC. Who wants to try want of those luscious puppies with me?