Fall doesn't really feel official until I buy my annual bottle of Woodford Reserve. I'm not sure how it started or how I was even introduced to Woodford. When I first started going out to the bars I was a Maker's Mark sour gal until I realized I was poor as fuck and should just stick to Miller Lite's.
There are also certain movies that just make sense to watch in the fall. Kind of like Christmas movies but not as obvious. One of my fall movies is Dead Poets Society. It makes sense why it's a "fall film" - it starts at the beginning of the school year, the New England foliage is shown through much of the film - for me, at least.
What better way to celebrate fall (thought it's been in the 70s lately...) than combining the two?
Though Dead Poets Society does take place in New England I had to make an Old Fashioned the Wisconsin way. I used this recipe from the Old Fashioned Tavern and Restaurant, but obviously I used Woodford instead of Korbel and between two grocery stores and two liquor stores I couldn't find Angostura bitter so I settled for orange bitters. I love New York but that is one of the many things I miss in Wisconsin: you can buy liquor, beer, wine, mixers, groceries and hygienic products all in one place. Sometimes even banking.
pre- and post-muddle
This is me trying to be all artsy blogger. How did those pistachios just fall out of the cup? It's artistic! All kidding aside, I kind of like this picture, I may play around with unrealistic expectations set ups more often.
Now fix yourself an Old Fashioned (the Wisconsin way) and watch Dead Poets Society while the fall air breezes through your window!
Like everyone, I love food, but I'm also cheap, so Free Tours by Foot was right up my alley.
It's free in the sense that you don't pay anything up front, you purchase the free tickets via EventBrite then throw in a dollar or two per restaurant you stop at to sample something. At the end of the tour you are welcome to tip your tour guide as you wish. I'll start with the end of the tour and tell you that our tour guide was a lot of fun, so she got a good tip. I wish I could remember her name, but I've heard a lot of the tour guides are pretty good.
Our first stop (Washington Square Park) did not include any food samples, but our tour guide did give us a bit of history. If you know what a Potter's Field is, then you already know the history. I did not. When she said that I joked "like an artists' commune?" but a Potter's Field is far from that. Basically it's a large grave. So when you walk through Washington Square Park, Madison Square Park or Bryant Park, you're walking all over dead bodies.
Basically, back in the day, when the city's population mostly lived in the most southern part of the island and yellow fever hit, they took all the bodies to these parks, safely away from everyone else. About one hundred years later when they decided to build the famous arch, they found all these bodies in the ground and just sort of shoved them to the side. Fun.
On that morbid note, here's when the food started:
I don't think I've had a falafel that I didn't like, so don't take my word for it, but there were great. For the $1 we got three with a hot and yogurt dipping sauce. Our guide warned us that the hot sauce was very hot. I like spicy and I didn't think it was too bad, but if you don't like hot/spicy, I'd skip it.
This one of two places on the tour that I have previously visited, but I didn't mind. They definitely have more than artichoke pizza, but you'd be doing yourself a disservice if you didn't at least try their artichoke pizza. It's super creamy and delicious and the crust stays crunchy so it's not like you have to end up eating it with a fork because it gets so soggy.
Location: Faicco's Italian Specialties (no website available)
260 Bleecker St (between Cornelia St and Morton St)
New York, NY 10014
212-243-1974
I had first heard of Faicco's from a cute movie called Little Manhattan with a baby Josh Hutcherson and tried one of their famous Italian Special sandwich. Definitely worth the $11 but you'll probably want to split it with someone. Or just take a rest after eating it all. On this tour we tried their arancini/rice balls. If you're not familiar with them, an arancini is rice and cheese rolled into balls, breaded and fried. They get their name because they resemble little oranges, or arancina, in Italian.
They're famous for their rice balls, but I was a bit underwhelmed. Maybe I need more herbs or spices, but they were sorta blah.
I've been dreaming about this pizza since we sampled it. Apparently the secret to their delicious thin-crust is that instead of rolling the dough out on standard flour, it's a mixture of Parmesan cheese and herbs. We sampled their famous Nonna Maria, named after the owner's grandmother, which has homemade marinara sauce, mozzarella, Parmesan, olive oil and fresh garlic.
283 Bleecker Street (between Jones St and Commerce St)
New York, NY 10014
646-852-6320
Famously introduced to the world via Shark Tank, Bantam Bagels are the bagel version of doughnut holes injected with various fillings. Our guide warned us to look for the hole in the bagel where they injected the filling and bite there, otherwise the filling will squirt out all over you. I did not listen. And sadly we didn't think to get a picture before I cleaned myself off. I was really looking forward to that cheddar dijon cream cheese filling in my pretzel bagel. There was still a little left but overall, it was a let down. Besides big grains of salt on top it didn't remind me much of a pretzel nor did it have a bagel taste. I was hoping it would be like Usinger's delicious pretzel buns if anything. This was one of two places where we went in ourselves and bought what we wanted, I'd skip this in the future.
257 Bleecker Street (between Leroy St and Cornelia St)
New York, NY 10014
212-388-5757
Our last stop was for dessert of course. This was a sort of free for all stop where you could buy whatever you wanted, no set samples. Surprisingly I wasn't feeling the sweets but they put out little samples of their red velvet cupcakes and brownies, and those were delicious. A friend lives near the location on the Upper West Side and said their fishbowl sundae was amazing, but you definitely need a few people to eat it.
Again, if you're visiting or just want to find something cheap and fun to do, I'd definitely suggest Free Tours by Foot. Besides the Greenwich Village Food Tour they also have one for the Lower East Side, a ghost tour, Gramercy Thrift and Vintage, a street art tour, and many many more.
I forget how many movies I watched growing up then out of nowhere something will trigger my memory and I'll remember some random movie that I watched many times, years ago. I'm not sure what made me think of the movie Spaced Invaders. With Halloween being around the corner there was probably an alien mask I saw or I overheard someone say a line similar to something in the movie. Whatever it was, I then needed to re-watch the movie. Not saying the whole movie is available on Youtube, but it might be available on Youtube.
Re-watching it after all these years was weird to be honest. Lines like "Prepare to die, Earth scum!" brought a wave of nostalgia and took me back to my childhood living room. It also made me think that kids' movies back in the day would not fly with the FCC or MPAA ratings today, such as the man dressed up as Hulk Hogan handing out cigarettes to trick or treaters. And I think my generation turned out okay (for the most part).
You may recognize at least one person in the movie: Ariana Richards. She may not act much anymore, but you've seen her in Jurassic Park, Tremors and/or (my personal favorite) Angus.
Here's the trailer so you know what I'm talking about. I hope it reignites some memories for those who forgot they ever watched it:
There seems to be a habit in my life where when a scary movie gets hyped up as the scariest thing ever, it ends up not being. The first time it happened was when an old co-worker, who was a huge horror movie fan, told me (in detail) the plot of Session 9. That night my roommate and I decided to turn on a fun movie and fell asleep in the same room together, we were that freaked out. A few years later I decided to suck it and watch it. Paranormal stuff is what really gets to me but Session 9 was borderline boring.
Flash forward a couple of years ago to when my then roommates were watching The House of the Devil and screamed when I opened the door, claiming that they were watching a terrifying movie. I finally gave it a watch last week and though I loved the 80s aesthetic and build up, the end result felt like it came out of nowhere and went to quickly for me to be scared or even enjoy it.
In honor of watching The House of the Devil I decided to make a meatloaf in the image of a typical devil. I used this recipe and added some red chili peppers as the horns, garlic as the eyes and black olives for the eyebrows and mouth. As you can see, the devil ain't so pretty after being baked in the oven but it was damn delicious.
A few weeks ago a few friends and I were lucky enough to see a taping of The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon here in New York City and quite a few people wanted to know how I got the tickets and what the taping was like so figure I'd write about it here.
Step 1: Sign up for an account at 1iota.com
Step 2: Follow @FallonTix on Twitter
At the beginning of each month (not necessarily the 1st, but within the first week) the twitter account will announce when ticket requests for the following month will become available (ie: Sept 6th at 11am they'll open tickets for October). They'll send out a few tweets leading up to when request time opens, so you don't have to keep checking every hour on the hour hoping to catch the announcement.
Once they announce the date and time, mark your calendars, and the day of, make sure you are signed into your 1iota.com account ahead of time.
Month Before: They open up the whole month that you can request tickets, so I went to straight to the end of September because I figure everyone would try for the beginning of the month first. I refreshed, requested various dates and every time it said all requested tickets were taken. I messaged my friend, who is a HUGE Jimmy fan, and told her I was sorry, I tried, but couldn't get any requests in. But I figure "let me try again" and I'm glad I did because 5 minutes later I was able to get a request in for two shows, one of them for two tickets, the second for 4 tickets. Once your request is finished they send you an email that informs you that your request is in but it doesn't guarantee tickets, but they will email you about two weeks before the show to let you know if you received tickets. I didn't get the first show but soon enough I received an email that my request for four tickets on September 28th was fulfilled. Of course they still have a disclaimer that the tickets aren't definite (I'm guessing in case someone who has connections wants tickets). The email also gives you directions on where to go and what time.
Day of: They suggest you arrive between 3:15pm and 3:45pm but I'm that person who likes to be early even when you don't have to, so we met at 3:00pm. You enter 30 Rockefeller Plaza using the 50 West 50th Street entrance and proceed to the Grand stair. We saw two stairs and were confused but luckily saw a page with a basket of candy and he told us we came to the right place but they weren't opening up the line yet so we could have a piece of candy. Then two seconds later they made an announcement that the line was starting. We were the first ones! Yay!
Once they check your bags/purses for any contraband, you get a wristband and ticket and they take you to the "lounge" which is a large room with lots of couches and screens that show various past guests. No pictures are allowed from then on. A few pages went around chit chatting with us. We met two very different ones.
The first had been a page for about 3 months and loved her job so far. She said she's never really had a bad day, the worst was when a certain celeb was not happy with her coffee, but if that was the worst day, she was ok with that. The page program lasts a year and sometimes the pages will be asked to come on full time. The second page to speak to us was not as spunky. It was his last day and he seemed antsy to leave. Seems NBC did not ask him to stay on board, so that may have had something to do with his not so perky attitude but he said he wouldn't have wanted to stay with NBC anyways cause that would be "working for the man." I don't know about you, but I like health insurance and benefits. He reminded me of about 90% of the guys I went to film school with.
Now onto the show! Though we were the first ones in line, we weren't the first ones into the studio. Which is fine because you don't get to choose your seats anyways. They call you in by groups and we were seated stage right, just in line with Jimmy's desk. They were actually great seats. I mean, first row would have been best (though some got hit with watermelon, more on that later) because it's first row and they got little gift bags. Boo.
Before the show starts The Roots come out and play a little music and they have a comedian come in and rev up the audience. It was fun and of course The Roots played their (probably) most well known song, The Seed (2.0). I wondered if they played that before every show and if it's the bane of their existence. I still love it though.
Higgins then comes out and talks with the audience as well. Then before you know it the show is starting and he's calling Jimmy Fallon's name.
Since we were there on a Friday we got to see "Thank You Notes"
His guests that day were Olivia Wilde and Fred Savage. With Olivia they did a new game called Watermelon Timebomb which was entertaining in the studio but disappointing on TV. The gist of the game is that they keep adding rubber bands around the watermelon until it explodes. A producer said it was supposed to be like a canon where the watermelon guts will explode upward from the top. The game lasted about 10, maybe even 15 minutes in the studio. It was getting pretty tense but also boring because nothing was happening! You could tell Jimmy was getting frustrated because they were actually about to run out of rubber bands and turned to his producers to see what could be done. Someone brought a hammer but they turned down that idea, then eventually they let Olivia throw the watermelon on the ground. When you watch the version they aired on television she just looks very impatient, haha!
After Olivia, Fred Savage came on. I don't think there was much a difference from his live interview compared to what they aired on television. He is just adorable and so full of energy, I kind of wish I got into The Grinder just because of him. He also outed what some believe was Sarah Paulson's super secret instagram.
Before the musical guests came on (Walk the Moon for our show), Jimmy did a little Q&A with the audience. He stood just a few feet in front of us and was making eye contact a lot with my friend who is in love with him, so that just about made her year. Maybe even life. I wish I knew he would do a Q&A because of course I couldn't think of a thing to ask it. A teacher was there whose students had all written Jimmy notes and you'd think it was a bit because the first note he chose read something along the lines of "Jimmy, our teacher would just die if she met you, so I honestly hope she doesn't meet you because I don't want her to die." It was almost too sweet.
Other questions were pretty standard "can you give me a hug?" "what happened to your finger?" It was nice that he took time out to talk with the fans.
After the little Q&A Walk the Moon performed. I'm that person who is way out of touch with music more than I should be so even though I had heard of their song "Shut Up and Dance" I needed a reminder from my friends and still have yet to hear the full song. Oops. That day they performed "Different Colors" and I really liked it! There are no clips of their performance online but here's the music video:
Once the show ended (about 6:00pm) they led us out by rows, down the elevator we went and out the exit. It was a great way to spend a Friday afternoon, I must say.
If you're in the area and a big fan of Jimmy, totally try for tickets. There's nothing to lose (except PTO if you work during those hours), so why not?
