Saturday, October 2, 2010
Looking Back...
As I look back on my past summer experience at Sloan-Kettering I can't believe how amazing it really was. I learned so much, created many friendships, and have better prepared myself for a future career in the sciences. I made lifelong memories that I will always cherish, and I got to see first hand how it is to live somewhere (especially in a city) where I knew no one, and did everything on my own. I had to deal with a lot of situations that I never thought I would have to get through, but being alone and working through them with those around me really helped me grow as a person. I will never forget those of you who helped me through one of the roughest times I have been through thus far, and can't wait to see what the future has in store :)
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Moving out of my Apartment
So as I sit here in my somewhat empty apartment I am thinking about how much I am going to miss NYC. The last couple of days have been pretty amazing- crazy subway rides, being soaked in the rain, poster presentations at Sloan-Kettering, hitting a person while in a taxi, and having the big piano at FAO Schwarz shut down just so I could play heart and soul with an employee there. This would only scratch the surface as to what I have been doing over the past three or four days. But now we are all forced to move on back to our homes and back to reality. I am actually not leaving NYC today. I am now going to take all of my belongings and take a taxi to the lab. I will work there all day and then take a town car to my post-doc's house on Roosevelt Island. I will sleep on their couch and we will rent a car tomorrow to drive to The Hamptons and there is a party at my boss's house on the ocean-should be fun. Then, I will stay at that house for a night, get into a train at Stony Brook, and then fly out of La Guardia on Monday. I will be home around midnight. So I have a very long long long weekend ahead of me and I am sure this will be interesting since I will be brining very large luggage with me wherever I go :) I will definitely miss NYC and the people I have shared this experience with.
Monday, August 9, 2010
Presentations, Posters, and Paul's Burger
So the past couple of days I have been pretty busy with presentations, posters, and eating ridiculously good burgers. I have to admit that after these 10 weeks are over I will pretty much have a pretty good handle on great food in New York City from burgers to French food, from Japanese to Italian... and so on. So this past Friday I had my presentation for my lab, which I would consider the most important presentation I have ever done thus far in my career. It was a presentation specifically to excite my boss- and it did. I needed to have her excited so that when I left my project would continue and I would be able to have my work published by the end of the year, or at least on track to be published. After the presentation and receiving accolades from my boss, I had a poster that I had to finish by today- I got it in within minutes of my deadline. So this past weekend was a mixture of work and play. On Saturday I went into work and went out to dinner with Emily. We then walked to the East River (gorgeous) and then we decided that I had to try Ferrara's desserts in Little Italy since I have never had it. They are famous for their cannoli- and it was amazing! oh, and we took the subway to get there, which is always an experience. After eating a cannoli and gelato we went to "Rice to Riches" where I bought rice pudding, but had to save it for later because of how full I was. On sunday I went with Emily to The Museum of Natural History and relived my childhood- I LOVED THAT MUSEUM AS A KID. After a good four hours of wondering around looking at blue whales and debating with anthropologists on human lineage we happen to run into literally (very bizarre) another friend and walked to Lincoln Center to try and get tickets for South Pacific- we learned pretty much all plays only do 3pm performances on Sunday :( So instead we took the subway (again- 2 days in a row!) down to Astor place and we went to Paul's, which is a really good burger place and they have $5 1/2 pound burgers- of course mine turned out to be $11 because I wanted cheese, mushroom, and cooked onions. But nonetheless it was great. We then stopped at a Mr. Softee and I had a chocolate milk shake. We went back to the apartment and watched a movie- I had a great time! So now I have only 7 days left in the city. It has been truly an adventure. There have been ups and downs, but I really do love living here and could definitely see myself going to Medical School here in another 2 years. I have learned so much and I have made a lot of new friends who I am sure I will keep in contact with through the crazy amount of years it will take before we all get our degrees. Well, it's now 11:34pm and I have a stupid breakfast meeting at 8:30am- it's pointless.
Tuesday, August 3, 2010
The burger of my dreams...
I was at lab tonight and my post-doc told me that she saw this restaurant on food network last night that she wanted to try out. So we went tonight to The Stumble Inn Bar and Restaurant. It was definitely a bar since I was carded and I convinced the guy that all I wanted was a burger and I was allowed entrance on the condition that I wouldn't drink (of course that wouldn't be a problem even if I was 21). So we go in and site down. Now I should tell you why this place is so famous. The picture speaks for itself:
I had a burger with cheddar cheese and mushroom INSIDE the burger itself so when you bite it bursts with all of this cheese- out of this world. I will definitely go back again. Another thing that happened tonight included seeing the first glimpse of the feature that was done on me in PBG Lifestyle Magazine. Here is a glimpse below:
I had a burger with cheddar cheese and mushroom INSIDE the burger itself so when you bite it bursts with all of this cheese- out of this world. I will definitely go back again. Another thing that happened tonight included seeing the first glimpse of the feature that was done on me in PBG Lifestyle Magazine. Here is a glimpse below:
Sarah Visits NYC
So yesterday Sarah LaPierre (picture below) came up to NYC to visit me.
She has never been to the city so I had somewhat planned a full day of touring. Our day started by going to Iron Chef Morimoto's restaurant:
IT WAS ONE OF THE BEST RESTAURANTS I HAVE EVER BEEN TO! <- the caps and exclamation mark don't do it justice. The restaurant itself is gorgeous. The entire ceiling is all fabric and the sides are bamboo imprinted walls with lighting that is truly exquisite. I had an ice tea with actual different fruit chunks and seasonings in it (looked like a mohito- spelling?). For lunch I had tempura shrimp roll and angry chicken. The sushi was great! I wouldn't expect it not to be, but the angry chicken was an "adventure." I true adventure. Out of the country sort of adventure. It was a roasted chicken breast, which was seasoned and cooked to perfection over what are called fingertip peppers- (side note: The wait staff were as informed about the food as any food network host would be.) What made this an "angry" dish was that fingertip peppers can be very mild to the point where they are just delicious or can be VERY spicy (Scoville units: 6-8 out of 10), and there is no way to know which pepper is which. Just so you know I didn't know anything about these peppers until after this experience :) The first pepper was very mild and tasted amazing. So I was under the assumption they would all taste the same. I took about a half a pepper and paired it with a piece of chicken. Within three seconds of swallowing- wow. I have never felt as though my mouth was bleeding from a pepper being so hot, but that was the feeling all the way down my esophagus. It was really funny actually. Good thing that there was plenty of water at the table. My mouth actually burned for about 10 minutes and was sensitive to anything I put in my mouth. It was an experience. The waitress told me that a woman once ordered the dish after she informed them about the peppers and started flailing her arms to try and get the waitress to get her milk. I would have enjoyed seeing that. So our lunch was really good and after that we walked to Little Italy (about a 2 mile walk). We went through Soho, Noho, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, and the East and West Villages on our way to Mulberry street and at our destination had a world famous cannoli. From there we walked to Spring Street where we went to "Rice to Riches," which is Ellen Degeneres' favorite "restaurant" in NYC and was in the film Hitch. We ate some rice pudding.
After stuffing our faces with more food we took a taxi to Lincoln Center.
We went into the Metropolitan Opera house and then went into Juilliard's library which had a lot of books about art- duh. We ventured to the lawn roof, which is a building that you can walk on top of it's roof that is a lawn- kind of cool. We then walked to Central Park and spent about two hours meandering around seeing all the major sights including the boat house, Bethesda Fountain, Sheep's Meadow (relaxed here for a good 30 minutes), and we also went to The Mall. After Central Park and walking at that point about 4-5 miles, walked back to my apartment. We watched some shark week and then we were off again. We went to In the Heights broadway lottery and didn't win, but got tickets, came back to the apartment (watched more shark week) and then Sarah had her first NYC pizza and broadway experience- very exciting. We went to Famous Famiglias for a "slice of pie" and then went to In The Heights.
It was good as always (3rd time seeing it). Actually, it was the best out of the three times I saw it- the original cast was back from L.A. I believe. After that we went through Time Square and then came back to my apartment where I slept on the comfortable floor :) In the morning we got up and I went to work. We were supposed to go to lunch, but I didn't have time so she came to my work to say goodbye and she got on a bus to Delaware. It was a great 24 hours! A lot of fun spending time with someone who wanted to come visit me :)
She has never been to the city so I had somewhat planned a full day of touring. Our day started by going to Iron Chef Morimoto's restaurant:
IT WAS ONE OF THE BEST RESTAURANTS I HAVE EVER BEEN TO! <- the caps and exclamation mark don't do it justice. The restaurant itself is gorgeous. The entire ceiling is all fabric and the sides are bamboo imprinted walls with lighting that is truly exquisite. I had an ice tea with actual different fruit chunks and seasonings in it (looked like a mohito- spelling?). For lunch I had tempura shrimp roll and angry chicken. The sushi was great! I wouldn't expect it not to be, but the angry chicken was an "adventure." I true adventure. Out of the country sort of adventure. It was a roasted chicken breast, which was seasoned and cooked to perfection over what are called fingertip peppers- (side note: The wait staff were as informed about the food as any food network host would be.) What made this an "angry" dish was that fingertip peppers can be very mild to the point where they are just delicious or can be VERY spicy (Scoville units: 6-8 out of 10), and there is no way to know which pepper is which. Just so you know I didn't know anything about these peppers until after this experience :) The first pepper was very mild and tasted amazing. So I was under the assumption they would all taste the same. I took about a half a pepper and paired it with a piece of chicken. Within three seconds of swallowing- wow. I have never felt as though my mouth was bleeding from a pepper being so hot, but that was the feeling all the way down my esophagus. It was really funny actually. Good thing that there was plenty of water at the table. My mouth actually burned for about 10 minutes and was sensitive to anything I put in my mouth. It was an experience. The waitress told me that a woman once ordered the dish after she informed them about the peppers and started flailing her arms to try and get the waitress to get her milk. I would have enjoyed seeing that. So our lunch was really good and after that we walked to Little Italy (about a 2 mile walk). We went through Soho, Noho, Chelsea, Greenwich Village, and the East and West Villages on our way to Mulberry street and at our destination had a world famous cannoli. From there we walked to Spring Street where we went to "Rice to Riches," which is Ellen Degeneres' favorite "restaurant" in NYC and was in the film Hitch. We ate some rice pudding.
After stuffing our faces with more food we took a taxi to Lincoln Center.
We went into the Metropolitan Opera house and then went into Juilliard's library which had a lot of books about art- duh. We ventured to the lawn roof, which is a building that you can walk on top of it's roof that is a lawn- kind of cool. We then walked to Central Park and spent about two hours meandering around seeing all the major sights including the boat house, Bethesda Fountain, Sheep's Meadow (relaxed here for a good 30 minutes), and we also went to The Mall. After Central Park and walking at that point about 4-5 miles, walked back to my apartment. We watched some shark week and then we were off again. We went to In the Heights broadway lottery and didn't win, but got tickets, came back to the apartment (watched more shark week) and then Sarah had her first NYC pizza and broadway experience- very exciting. We went to Famous Famiglias for a "slice of pie" and then went to In The Heights.
It was good as always (3rd time seeing it). Actually, it was the best out of the three times I saw it- the original cast was back from L.A. I believe. After that we went through Time Square and then came back to my apartment where I slept on the comfortable floor :) In the morning we got up and I went to work. We were supposed to go to lunch, but I didn't have time so she came to my work to say goodbye and she got on a bus to Delaware. It was a great 24 hours! A lot of fun spending time with someone who wanted to come visit me :)
Pommes Frites and a tour of NYC
So on Sunday Night I went on an adventure with Emily. We went to "the other side" of town- Astor place. I went on a subway! I normally never go on a subway, only either walking or taxi, but anytime I go out with Emily (I am inserting a picture for reference)
Anyway, anytime I am with Emily I end up on a subway, which is good I guess because I wouldn't go on it if she didn't make me. Nonetheless, we went downtown to Astor place which has a lot of "hole-in-the-wall restaurants" including the heavenly place called Pommes Frites.
It is a place that only serves French Fries- a comfort food lover paradise. They have over 20 different sauces that you can choose from. I chose War Sauce, Wild Mushroom Mayo, and shared Parmesan Peppercorn. It was amazing! I had my French Fries and a milk shake from a Mr. Softee on the street. We then went to The Strand. A book store with new and used books that has 14 miles of books- there art section was out of this world! It was great. After browsing we went back home- on the subway again :)
Anyway, anytime I am with Emily I end up on a subway, which is good I guess because I wouldn't go on it if she didn't make me. Nonetheless, we went downtown to Astor place which has a lot of "hole-in-the-wall restaurants" including the heavenly place called Pommes Frites.
It is a place that only serves French Fries- a comfort food lover paradise. They have over 20 different sauces that you can choose from. I chose War Sauce, Wild Mushroom Mayo, and shared Parmesan Peppercorn. It was amazing! I had my French Fries and a milk shake from a Mr. Softee on the street. We then went to The Strand. A book store with new and used books that has 14 miles of books- there art section was out of this world! It was great. After browsing we went back home- on the subway again :)
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