new york

in a way, it was like i never left. and in much the same way, i haven't one clue how i lived here for six years. how did i ride the subway every day? how did i do all of my grocery shopping with a basket and not a cart? how did i not spend all of my money on smelly cheese and pistachio cake at bklyn larder? 

(how did i sleep through the hum hum humming of the falafel truck out front and roommate patrick's 3am passion-pit-soundtracked no-girls-allowed patio parties? (i love you, patrick!!!))

and on the other hand: ask a 22-year-old me how i would ever be able to live more than two subway stops from the nearest pork bun, and no, i would not have been able to tell you.

today i go home to the farm after three weeks of making music, spending time with old friends and new, and eating approximately everything. i'll go home with a very full belly, an even more full heart, and a ring on it! i wish i could give all of my friends here one more hug, but i mustn't be long, as i've got to go home and plan a (omgomgomgomg) wedding.

here are a few of my favorite links and things from this past week in new york:

my first stop when i got to new york was black seed bagel with donny. it was a very tasty first stop and a good primer for the roberta's, the mission chinese, and the peekskill simple sour at the dog-friendly bar that i would later have with him. (hashtag my wedding diet starts tomorrow?)

i had three halvah desserts that i cannot get out of my head: an ooey gooey sandwich cookie at mimi's hummus, sticky crunchy halvah ice cream at the russ and daughter's cafe, and the kadaif at hummus place, which is covered in a mountain of shredded halvah. i later bought some shredded halvah from sahadi's to take home with me.

my first time performing in central park was with the knights last tuesday and it was so much fun. you can listen to the concert online!

the steak salad at five points. i want it every day of my life.

maria and i went dress shopping and saw pnina in real life and i got all kinds of starstruck. my kleinfeld experience was magnificent, but i think perhaps the wedding dresses at veka were much more farm girl me. 

tema introduced me to bakeri and i had a total cute attack.

yesterday's beautiful morning turned into a glorious afternoon in prospect park with some of my most favorite humans. the good people behind dolly and oatmeal, two red bowls, cake over steak, food52, apt. 2b baking co., and the tart tart came out for some serious noshing. serious noshing. and instagramming, obviously.

and but really, if i had to marry a restaurant and not eggboy, i would marry bklyn larder.

bye bye for now, new york!

-yeh!

san francisco + berkeley

what i've consumed in the bay area so far:

many little gems, stunning avocados.

three yolo slices of cheeseboard pizza, heavy on the green sauce.

one rebel within. omg. just. omg. 

dumpling in zanthoxylum schinifolium etzucc sauce.

bougie kombucha, because i'm quickly falling for kombucha despite its explosive qualities.

half of a veggie top dog as an appetizer to my cheeseboard pizza.

the best most delicate tomato soup i ever had + the best plum galette i ever had, complete with a sturdy caramelized crust, at the motherland.

the only flavored coffee drink i've ever truly loved, the mint mojito coffee at philz (easy on the cream and sugar).

a loquat and a sour plum, picked by tall tall timo on a sunny stroll through berkeley.

an inspiring gougère the size of my head.

10 soup dumplings.

too much wine.

and a ramp bulb from just left of the astonishing eggplant section at the berkeley bowl.

again, my wedding diet starts tomorrow.

-yeh!

scottsdale

i enjoy rooting for the lesser known city in a pair: the moorhead of fargo-moorhead, the st. paul of minneapolis-st. paul, the east grand forks of "the greater grand forks area" (aka our future place of residency, aka the butt of everyone's jokes around here), for really no other reason than i feel bad that more people know about their bigger sibling. so when the eggdad told us we'd better explore scottsdale instead of phoenix, i was extra excited. 

so excited that i wore my favorite grey t-shirt.

our first stop was the cutest farm fantasyland i ever did see. singh farms is a little farm in the middle of the desert that primps itself for visitors every saturday. chickens and a horsy greet you and then you can walk around the winding wooded paths that are lined with herbs, onions, flowers, and other cute things. you may come across a yoga class, you may find a jam stand, and you most certainly should buy a fresh english muffin. eggboy did a hot pepper juice shot at a little juice truck and only winced once. it was the greatest place ever! eggboy actually took a lot of these pictures so that he could get ideas for his farm. (i hope that means a pony is in my future!!!)

after the farm, we danced around old town scottsdale, eating yummy thing after yummy thing. there was the best darn cauliflower i ever had, some crispy polenta topped with fresh tomatoes, a salad with a facebook page, and pastrami with rye spaetzle. 

at night the city lit up with string lights everywhere. it was so pretty and welcoming.

we had the perfect amount of time to explore. we saw the sun again, i filled my pockets with vitamin d, and i filled eggboy's pockets with the rosemary that grew along the sidewalks all around town. such wonderfulness. 

here is a little list of restaurants that we tried and loved. (i wish i could hug all of you guys who gave me these recommendations!! alas, i am far away and haven't showered in three days.)

america's taco shop // the old town scottsdale location is in a cute little house with a patio out back that has ping pong and a massive chalkboard wall. you feel like you're in somebody's home! my favorite taco was the carne asada.

fnb // fnb is basically everything you want in a restaurant when you want to counter all of the blobby feelings of eating too many tacos: local fresh vegetables done incredibly well, really nice service, and just a few great options. we had a perfect lunch with perfect cauliflower and polenta.

citizen public house // fancy cocktails, great creative food. i'd totally have my birthday party here if i was a scottsdale gal.

pizzeria bianco (phoenix) // valentine's day fell on pizza night! so we spent the evening at pizzeria bianco's second location (not their downtown phoenix location, which we heard would have a super long wait) and it was just the loveliest experience. everyone was so sweet and the decor was a really hip mix of vintage and new, and the pizza! ok once you get out of the mindset that it isn't supposed to be the chewy and slightly soggy goodness that is kesté or motorino (even though it kind of looks like it), you can really get into it. it's a bit thinner and crisper, but oh! is it good. i'd recommend the sonny boy. 

gallo blanco (phoenix) // any place that will allow me to order a breakfast torta at 10pm with a margarita pitcher has my heart. furthermore the waiter had a man bun. furthermore there was a pretty good crowd on a monday night. egg and i got to catch up with two of our juilliard friends on the patio and it was the awesomeist!!!! and i loved the torta. 

-yeh!

MEET THE MOLLY MOBILE, 2.0

meet the molly mobile, 2.0. i got her this morning and she is the perfect amount of cute-- cute enough for me to already love her to bits, but beat up enough so that if she's out alone at night she won't get bike-napped by the meanie pants that stole the seat off of the original molly mobile. (by the way, i still have the original molly mobile, or what's left of her. i wouldn't dare give her to the trash man... i'm looking to donate her parts so that she may save the life of a broken bike. )

to celebrate the adoption, eggboy and i took her out for a spin to williamsburg where i took some pictures of doors for a photo assignment. being on a bike again was the most fantastical thing i've experienced since my game of thrones ​addiction began. seriously, outrageously amazing.

on the way back from williamsburg, we stopped at this restaurant that has been on my fungenda for months now under the title "bunny restaurant."​ the only explanation i can think of for why i would have called it that when writing it on my fungenda is that it sort of resembles the clubhouse of a mini golf course in illinois called bunny hutch. it made it onto my fungenda because it is just so painfully intriguing: it's in an itsy bitsy house that's in terrible disrepair on the outside and it sits on the corner of bedford avenue and pretty much the b.q.e... save for a sign that says "restaurant" it is totally unmarked. when we arrived around lunch time, the only people going in and out of the entrance were hasidic men, going in to eat by themselves. judging by the outside i was expecting some cute greasy diner on the inside. it ended up being a kosher dairy restaurant, and there only seemed to be menus in hebrew... so when the man behind the counter said "hi. falafel?" i just said yes. and i think it was good but i really can't completely recall because i was experiencing more culture shock than i ever could have imagined would be possible 20 minutes from my apartment. eggboy and i were the only non-hasidic people there and the room was practically silent. it felt like being in another country. 

from my receipt i learned that it's called klein's restaurant. and from my extensive google efforts, this was the only information i could find on it. like, am i the only one that's fascinated by an unmarked restaurant in a house on the b.q.e.?

we made it back to my hood in time for second lunch. all of that before second lunch!​ ​it was basically the most awesome morning ever. i floated through the rest of my day because i think riding my bike gets me on some kind of high... it's so jolly and delightful!!!! i am going to take m.m. 2.0 on so many adventures. we're going to go to costco and to the beach and to the dumbo merry-go-round. boy oh boy i simply can't wait.

-yeh!​