May. But also April and June.

At the very end of April it was my birthday. I celebrated at El Cantinero in the Village where it's all you can eat on Monday nights (AND my birthday was on a Monday night). We had fun and I didn't bother people by taking their photos. Heather made me an incredible Paddington Bear cake and the waiters put sombreros on all of us before we could even tell what was happening. What a fiesta!

On a nice May Saturday I walked through the neighborhood, took a train, and then walked through Central Park where a dog was getting a lot of attention, but not nearly as much attention as this raccoon.

Now what I was really up to was getting myself over to the Met Breuer to check out the Like Life, an exhibit about lifelike sculptures. It was real good. Met Breuer seems to always have real good exhibits. 

One Sunday I had the Lymans over, fed them pasta, and walked them around Inwood Hill Park.

The next week I had a gigantic Saturday that began with lunch at Olmsted where we ate, among other things, bacon and egg roll eggrolls, a salad, and brunch burger. Also had scrambled egg with duck and maple pitas but that picture didn't turn out very well.

Then I headed out to Journal Square to see Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure and Back to the Future at the Jersey Loews. Jeff and I got there early enough to have some time to walk around and have a look at the neighborhood, something we'd never done before in all our Journal Square years.

Here's a variety of walking around photos from midtown and downtown

There's a taqueria up in Inwood called Emilio's that I've taken to. One Saturday I went there with Lynda and then a few nights later I went there with my second cousin (or something like that) Jaclyn and my second cousin (or something like that) in law Tyson.

I've also eaten at Pasta Flyer now, too. I don't think it's going to work out for them.

Another Saturday (wow, how many Saturdays are there?) I went with Leanna and Jenny to Cherche Midi because it's about to close. Everything closes. After that, a little East Village/West Village walkaround followed by a visit to the vacant lot behind the 15th street chapel as a part of Tara's cookie party.

Let's see...more midtown walkaround and Korean fried chicken

There was a Sunday night where I "cooked" "barbacoa"

Then, finally, one Monday night, just last week, I went with Patricia to hear Ian Svenonius interview Brooks Hedley about Superiority Burger and the Superiority Burger cookbook.

Get yourself a chef who remembers his customers

Lots of Food, Not that Many Musuems

Mom and Dad came to town at the end of April, it was wall to wall deluxe eating the whole time.
We began by meeting up in Brooklyn, saying hello, and eating at Olmsted, a new "neighborhood" restaurant from a former Alinea chef. It was wild food disguised as normal food, or normal food with a wild side to it. I don't know. It was inventive, fun, not too wacky, and (most importantly) very, very good tasting. Highest recommendation!

Before heading home we went and saw A Quiet Place so I could watch Mom and Dad jump and worry about that nail. 

Then it was Friday! That night my friend Bryan was leading a tour of the ancient Greek and Roman stuff at the Met, which Mom and Dad were allowed to come on, too

After that we went over to the Flora Bar at the Breuer Museum. Between you and me, I wasn't mentally prepared for how chic and full of Friday night fancy people it was going to be. Mom and Dad handled it well, I was sitting there wondering how we were going to get home afterwards. Food was good, though. I just look at the food pictures and feel fine about the whole thing.

Saturday day we had a nice walk around Inwood Hill Park and Fort Tryon Park, had some family screen time, and went and saw the new production of Carousel.

This new Carousel is good. It's like they said "Hey, let's put on this old musical, but make it REAL good." And they did!

For dinner we went well into Queens to have dinner at SriPraPhai for some nice cheap and delicious Thai. And a visit to the Jollibee bee.

Crispy watercress salad

Sunday, a beautiful day. Before church we had lunch at Ma Peche, soon to be closing. SIgh. Oh well. I had the kimchi burger, Mom had the Chicken and Waffles. Since there was a small chance of the chicken being slightly spicy, Dad had pancakes (not pictured). Food was good, place was falling apart, really seemed they were just phoning it in for their last weeks. Have some dignity, Ma Peche!

After church we went back into Brooklyn for dinner at Claro. This is a delicious place that I was excited to take my parents to, but, oh man, that meal. The food, yes, it was good, but there was about a 20 minute gap between each dish. It got me aggravated old man style, and all they did was comp us a dessert. Sheesh. I loved Claro on my first trip, dinner was delicious on my second trip, but I don't know if I'll go back and recommend it. I mean I chose this place over Cosme. Guess I should've told them that? To illustrate how long we were there, look at how bright the first dish is from the natural light streaming into the restaurant when it arrived. Progresses towards pointless darkness.

Monday lunch at Carbone. This is where things got seriously serious. A fancied-up throwback to old red sauce Italian restaurants that you might wear a tie to, I wasn't sure what all the fuss was about (there's lots of Carbone fuss), but was excited to finally try it out.

It was a very fun meal. At dinner I think the clientele gets supremely fancy, but during the day it was us and idle chic people. I saw two people wearing Balenciaga Triple S's!

For dinner we ate at Hank's Juicy Beef. I had a hot dog.  

And then on Tuesday when i came home Mom and Dad were gone. Just like that! Their five night stay seemed like one of their shortest, but what a good time.

Lots of Museums, Not That Much Food

All right, let's get caught up on some mid-March to mid-April stuff...

For starters, there was this one Saturday when the Homers were in town and we had a dang good time.

One Monday night my friend/bishop Jeff gave a tour of Grand Central because he was being certified as an official Grand Central tour guide. Thanks to this tour I can now point out 4 or 5 things you might not know about the terminal AND I know the way up to the tennis court. (Did you know there's a Grand Central tennis court?!)

There's this eighty year old Spanish restaurant in Chelsea called El Quijote that was being closed down to get turned into something a little more flashy and up to date, so I went to have lunch there to see what it was all about while I still could. Conclusion: Very extremely old school, and very charming in that sense. Food was fine, they gave me a gigantic pot of mussels for fifteen bucks. But, all in all, more of a place that you're glad exists than a place you go to very often. Or more often than once. Or I don't know, probably would've been a party to go there with a gang of homies.

After lunch I went up to the Met to visit Joan

Another day I found myself over by the Daily News building so I dipped in and had a look at the globe for the first time in a while

Easter morning walk through Inwood Hill Park (the part without a hill)

Then, on a Friday, a little West Village, a little Whitney Museum.

The next day, a little Soho time. There was a big crowd having their Nikes marbelized.

One night/day I decided to get out my 50mm f/1.1 and practice with it a little before taking it to Michael's birthday party

And at the end of the week I took my 50mm f/2.0 to work and Brooklyn Bridge Park (and also saw Patricia)

And then, Saturday April 14th, the sun came out and it was nice for the first time. Headed down to the Chelsea galleries from my neighborhood.

And that's a bunch of museums and barely any food, just like I told you it would be!