December 28, 2007

So Wrong...Yet....

December 21st

I took some photos tonight at my annual friend's holiday dinner, but none of them compared to the best holiday e-card I received today! This is the second in a series of holiday greetings designed by this friend that made me totally crack up!

S'MAC That!

December 20th

Anytime the girls and I get together, the day usually focuses on food. Today was no exception. After a bagel-rific breakfast, we met up on the Lower East side for lunch at Katz's deli where we ate huge pastrami sandwiches. We digested the food while contemplating The New Museum's grand re-opening. My opinion, thumbs down on both the building and the art. The stairwells and elevators were poorly marked and most of the "Unmonumental" art was garbage.

Even though it looked beautiful in the city, the day was cold. We spent the afternoon wandering the new huge Whole Foods on Bowrey and drinking coffee.

Whole Foods has an entire gourmet beer section. This was our favorite brand!

After perusing the wares at the Union Square holiday bizarre, we landed at S'MAC, the glorious wonder that is the all macaroni and cheese restaurant in the East Village.

We destroyed a Major Munch 4 cheese and Cheeseburger variety skillet. This part of our day gets a big thumbs up!

Diamond Project III

December 19th

My lovely ladies were in town for another fabulous girls reunion. On our walk to locate the train, we passed the Michael Kors store on Madison. We were in agreement that a man who designs and proudly displays a floor length animal print moo moo is perhaps not totally qualified to pass judgments on Project Runway.

December 27, 2007

Paula Dean Gooey Cake

December 18th

In anticipation of the arrival of my girls, I baked the most decadent cake ever. Paula Dean truly is a master of butter and fat! This is the peanut butter chocolate variety, but I do plan to make the pumpkin kind for Thanksgiving next year. I've included the recipe below should any of your feel like clogging your arteries!


Cake:
1 (18 1/4-ounce) package yellow cake mix
1 egg
8 tablespoons butter, melted

Filling:
1 (8-ounce) package cream cheese, softened
1 (15-ounce) can pumpkin
3 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla
8 tablespoons butter, melted
1 (16-ounce) box powdered sugar

1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon nutmeg

Preheat oven t
o 350 degrees F.

Combine the cake mix, egg, and butter and mix well with an electric mixer. Pat the mixture into the bottom of a lightly greased 13 by 9-inch baking pan.

To make the filling: In a large bowl, beat the cream cheese and pumpkin until smooth. Add the eggs, vanilla, and butter, and beat together. Next, add the powdered sugar, cinnamon, nutmeg, and mix well. Spread pumpkin mixture over cake batter and bake for 40 to 50 minutes. Make sure not to overbake as the center should be a little gooey.

Serve with fresh whipped cream.

For a Peanut Butter Gooey Cake: Use a chocolate cake mix. Add 1 cup creamy peanut butter to the cream cheese filling instead of the pumpkin. Proceed as directed above.


For Kickball Cowboy

December 17th

This is a photo of a bookshelf in Barnes and Noble that must be dedicated to my friend Kickball Cowboy. He used to rock a Beowulf beard and he loves The Big Lebowski so much he participates in Lebowski Fest every year!

December 25, 2007

Granny Glam Christmas

December 16th

First of all, Happy Birthday, Mel. I know you didn't even want to think about drinking that mimosa, but you were a good sport!

Secondly, tonight was yet another edition of FEAST. Tonight's theme: Granny Glam Christmas! This was the first time people actually apologized for the food they submitted. But as we all know, food made post-WWII had some weird rules.

So Emily made this wonderful platter of meatballs. It actually looked pretty, but her decorating skills have nothing on these Weight Watchers recipe cards from the 1970's.

The cream cheese olive sandwiches were something of a joke, but the Devil's On Horseback (prunes and figs wrapped in bacon) were actually tasty.

And what is not to love about tatter tot casserole?

Finally, dessert consisted of some very scary peppermint jello thing that no one could choke down, my very own strawberry jello cool whip concoction and Baked Alaska. It was an interesting mix of food to say the least. Next month's theme is New Years Baby. (Think baby back ribs, baby carrots, etc.) Any and all food suggestions are welcome.

Adopt A Neighborhood - LES Santa Hat Pub Crawl

December 15th

Yo, Crosby here. I'm guest blogging on Miss Banana's site so I can tell y'all about my killer night at the third annual Adopt A Neighborhood Santa Hat Pub Crawl, which took place at some fine establishments on the lower east side.

First I took a quick ride on the F Train. Thankfully, this beeotch of a subway decided to run on schedule over the weekend.

I had a few tasty beverages with Miss Banana and friends at Boss Tweed's down on Essex. Before leaving, I made friends with the bouncer. Always a good plan when on a pub crawl, right?

I also took a moment to capture this sexy photo with my lady. I don't understand how a fine looking woman like Miss Banana - who runs all these events promoting the city, debauchery, and Santa hat love - is still available. Thankfully, she ALWAYS has hugs to share with The Cros!
After a few $2 PBR cans at Welcome To The Johnson's, I gave Santa some props and shot people with the frickin laser beams attached to my head.

We picked up a few additional crawlers at the third bar, Slainte, and I deflated a few brain cells with several Irish coffees.

Buying drinks for all the fine ladies at the crawl left me in need of a quick stop at the ATM before we hit up Lilly Coogans for more Irish beverages.

I've always wondered if New Yorkers would like their take out delivered by a five foot inflatable bear. No matter what, I know I rock the delivery bike, basket and all.

I heard from Miss Banana that Mel was celebrating a birthday, so I got on the phone to make sure all the last minute stragglers arrived in time for the mystery cupcakes and our trek to Dempsy's Pub. Unfortunately for both of us, I heard he had a similar end to his evening.

Despite the sleet and sloppy drunken loss of memory, a good time was had by all crawlers, especially me. Miss Banana wanted you to know that you can see a full set of photos from the pub crawl here. She also asked me to pass along her love and thanks to everyone for making this a really amazing year of neighborhood explorations. She said you can see photos from almost all the adventures here.

As for me, I'm packing up my Santa hat and hibernating for the winter. Hope to see everyone again this summer for another season of Bad News Bears kickball!

Friday Night Lights

December 14th

I had to work a craptastic evening event at the museum tonight. It really stinks getting out of work at 10pm on a Friday! At least the city is still sporting it's holiday cheer to warm my icy spirit.


It's Beginning To Look A Lot Like Winter

December 13th

Today was cold and sleeting. Hence, you'll only get a photo snapped from the protection of the doorway and a quick howdy doody. (Uh...huh huh, I said doody.)


December 20, 2007

Damien Hirst Again

December 12th

Tonight I attended the opening of the Lucian Freud exhibition at MOMA. On my way there, I passed the Lever House which is sporting a signature installation by Damien Hirst. He already has a permanent sculpture in the garden, but this was a special commission for their changing exhibition lobby. Since he's already controversial and WAY overhyped, I'll just keep my thoughts private and leave you with the photos and the article link above.


December 14, 2007

Roscoe's Chicken And Championship Games

December 11th

Tonight was the last and final game for Roscoe's Chicken and Kickballs. We won our quarter final game 2-1 and lost in the semi-finals 10-4.

Since the lighting on the field is just about the worst kind for photography, I gave sepia a shot and am pretty happy with the outcome! It's sort of fitting that kickball look nostalgic.

Someone was very upset with the chicken and it's lack of karma in helping us win! You can click here to see more photos of Martin berate the chicken and here to see my friend Sugg's latest professional shots of the games.

Thanks for a great season of kickball everyone. I'm really hoping we get to play together again in the spring.

PS- All the items on the right of my posts are now hyperlinks so if you are interested in the books or music I'm into, it's just a click away. Also, I installed a counter and right now I'm looking pretty much like a loser. Be sure to visit often!

Popular Photos From The Miss Banana Archives

December 10th

I was in full recovery from my weekend and did not take a photo today! But here's another photo from my archive of hilarity!

This is a painting that actually exists in the legit museum art world. In order to protect the reputation of the creator and the museum (not mine) that dealt with it, I'll just leave it at that.

Happy Birthday!

December 9th

Happy Birthday, K! Thanks for getting to 31 before me!

December 13, 2007

Ho! Ho! Ho-ly SANTACON!

December 8th

I've been trying to devise a way to describe the utter hilarity, insanity, and stupidity that is Santacon without much success. Since I don't want to postpone updating the blog any longer waiting for inspiration, I will just start rambling and hope for the best.

In essence, Santacon is a pub crawl where dressing like Santa or any variety of a holiday theme is the only requirement for participation. I suppose the goal is jointly to spread holiday spirit, dress like an idiot, drink beer out of paper bags, make new friends, and generally have the best time ever! With the exception of sky diving, this was the best thing I have done all year! I had so much fun!

My day started with a totally embarrassing lonely ride from Brooklyn on the subway dressed as Ms. Santa. I met up with my friends Chris and B-Wong in Bryant Park and was never so happy to see another red costume in my life. All three of us were super happy to see a billion Santas outside of our destination bar.



After grabbing a beer here, Santa was on the move to Grand Central. You can only imagine the confusion of mid-town tourists as 2,000 Santas poured down 5th Ave and into the station chanting HO HO HO and being general assholes. When asked where we were from, the answer was always The North Pole!


Once we had confused the Metro North patrons in Grand Central Santa continued to wreck havoc on NYC transportation by taking the 6 to Astor Place (with a quick stop off to dance to the Peruvian pan flute band.) where Santa spun the cube and danced on top of the acid party bus!

I was in and around Tompkins Square park for the remainer of the day taking photos and generally having a blast. Please please please click here and take a look at my full set of photos. You will not be disappointed. You can also click here to see Santacon photos from around the country.

OH....and check it out, this photo was chosen by Gothamist, making this my second time since November! All sorts of random people on the Flickr community have made comments and marked this as their favorite! I'm extremely happy!

December 12, 2007

Roscoe's Chicken and EOSP

December 7th

Tonight was our End Of Season Party for kickball (even though we have one week of games left). Since this is a children's game, the powers that be decided to make this a prom complete with a king and queen as well as semi-formal dress. Only difference between this and high school - open bar!

This is my new friend Miss BoPeep who is rad and hysterical! She dumbfounded everyone at the prom by pulling that classic "removing the glasses" trick and looking totally gorgeous! Me on the other hand -- I just looked strange sporting the RCK flare earrings.

As someone else commented on this photo "From left to right, smoldering gaze, jovial smile, knowing smirk."

This is Kickball Cowboy. For the entire season he was rocking a full beard that earned him the nickname of Beowulf. When he won a novelty award for "Best Beard Growth" it was pretty hilarious!

This is my favorite photo of the evening. I'm not quite sure how the hell this happened since I think it is impossible to achieve a double exposure in digital format, but there certainly is a ghost of bad 80's class portraits making an appearance here!