apartment doesn't have internet yet... but peaches frozen yogurt does!

i recently found this on the menu of indigo indian...

can anyone explain what exactly kasta kachori contains??

furthermore...

HAPPY 21st BIRTHDAY, FRIEND DAVE!!

things i love about {dave}

1. he is in fact known to most as the d train

2. he has marimba skillz. mad mad marimba skillz. 

3. the other night he pleaded with me to learn my secret mac and cheese recipe. finally i caved and made him my sous chef.

4. his parents!!!!

5. occasionally, during a late night practice session, he'll approach me with sad puppy eyes and say, "mollmoll do you have any fooooood?" (and i mean, of course i always have food). he makes me feel like i'm doing my job as the makeshift mother of the percussionists. 

6. he often waves to inanimate objects. like sandwiches that he's about to eat. 

i can't contain my excitement to go to five napkin burger to celebrate!!!

last night, after a nice peaceful walk through the city with myself, i came home to find a little packeege from my auntie cathy. it was a sweet journal (she is well aware of journal obsession) that says, "anything is edible if you put on enough mustard!" (she is also way hip to my mustard shelf). is that not the most perfect journal you can think of?!  i can't wait to start using it to write down new recipes- like this most recent one that friend marsha sent me for spinach salad:

fresh spinach and strawberries

1/2 cup sugar

2 tablespoons sesame seeds

1 tablespoon poppy seeds

1/4 teaspoon worcestershire sauce

1/4 teaspoon paprika

1/2 cup oil

1/4 cup cider vinegar

i can't wait to try it! i better do so soon too because strawbies from fairway have been soooo tasty lately!

and now a bit about organ music...

in the midst of my excerpt shedding a few days ago, my friend keenan, who is a fantastic organ player, approached me to play with him a minimalist piece for solo organ by the famed and illustrious ad wammes. i wheeled in a xylophone, divided up a few lines (did you know organ music had three staves? i certainly didn't), and went to town. oh it was so much fun!! i've never heard such awesome organ music! and if i do say so myself, the high tingy sounds of the xylophone fused with the airy, almost haunting sounds of the organ sounded super fetch. i felt like joseph gramley from organized rhythm. except, is it wrong that the only additional thing i wanted in this organ + xylophone jam was a sick beat on the drumkit? i can't wait to play more with keenan and see where this mixture of sound goes... 

something that i'd like to get off my back...

list of people i unadmire 

1. SOUR PUSSES

2. DEBBIE DOWNERS

3. CATTY GIRLS!!!!!!

4. JUDGEY PEOPLE

phew! that felt good to get out...

anyways.

the english muse does this thing where she has guest bloggers.. and i thought that was a fantastic idea!! so i'd like to introduce my first guest blogger, the famed and illustrious friend craig. i met craig a few years ago at tanglewood when he approached me as i was playing the marimba and said, verbatim, "sometimes i can feel a low F in my stomach." my reaction to that was... i didn't know if i should think he was a complete and total weirdo or a complete and total genius. but in compliance with number 4 on my list of people i unadmire, i decided to go with the impression that he was a genius. and i quickly realized that he is. teehee. 

so here he is!

welcome, craig!!!

xoxo

yeh

weekend trip to tanglewood!

last wednesday was the inaugural dinner party in my new apartment!!

menu was:

spinach salad with tasty honey dijon dressing (p.s. anyone have a good recipe for that?)

my secret mac and cheese made with applewood smoked bacon, smokey gouda, jalepeno jack, gruyere, white cheddar, and pecorino romano 

an impromptu fruit salad 

lollipops 

it looked a little like this...

the absence of any sort of coffee or dinner table added to the, ermmm, charm?

after dinner, friend aziz got a surprise email from the boston symphony orchestra saying they needed him for a concert STAT! 

...so we packed our things and left for the berkshires...

and you must understand, i love the berkshires.

so much so that i am going to get married right on the tanglewood grounds... if they let me... and if someone actually agrees to marry me... 

and the wedding shall be catered by loeb's. home of best sandwiches in massachusetts. pictured here from left to right are the italian stallion and the leslie b. don't tell anyone, but these little sandwiches are secretly the real reason that i went to tanglewood this weekend. 

i got serenaded by guy tisdale. who then proceeded to throw down on a lil bartok sonata for two pianos and percussions. 

friends aziz and kyky, pre bso concert. aziz was getting ready to tear up some triangle on la valse!

(i also basked in the sounds of brahms 2, beethoven 4, liszt piano concerto number 2, and the brahms piano concerto number i forget. all in one weekend!! it was fabulous. and the tmc orchestra was amazing!!)

 on sunday morning, tim genis took aziz and i out on his swank boat. it was total swank. 

this is tim wake-boarding. you might be asking yourself, "then who is driving the boat??"

...there's a first time for everything.

xoxo

yeh

food and furniture

food: so if i'm not at school practicing between the hours of 11 and 7 on any given weekday, i'm most likely perusing the aisles of fairway market or zabar's. it's this new guilty pleasure that i have... playing hooky to look at food. 

... and so that is what i did today, with the good excuse that the only things in my fridge until today were two half eaten pizzas, soy sauce packets, a bottle of soy sauce, and my beloved mustards that i dared not leave at old apartment. 

i think i'll share some of my fave things to do at fairway and/or zabar's:

pick the cheesemonger's brain about (what else?) cheese. when i moved out of the dorms, mum suggested i try a new cheese every week, so i've been doing just that. this week though, with the arrival of friend aziz (of the famed "mac and cheese with aziz), the departure of friend and future second husband brian, and the homecoming of friend pj, a lot of celebrating is to go down with my very special super duper secret homemade mac and cheese. (in other words, there are about five cheese of the week this week). i scoped out the best emmentaler, gruyere, smokey gouda, pepper jack, and pecorino romano money can buy. sorry, wallet. 

check out what mustards i can add to my ever growing mustard shelf. i once dated a guy that asked me if i ever found myself looking for excuses to put ketchup on things. isn't that an awesome question? i'm probably an average ketchup user, but mustard, oy vey, i could live off of that stuff. the best sandwiches that come out of my kitchen usually involve a different kind of mustard on each slice of bread (and then don't be surprised if i get some of the cafeteria honey mustard (that stuff is the crack of mustard) to dip it in). today i bought a green peppercorn mustard that looked creamy and tasty. 

buy fresh pasta. unless i'm cooking carbonara or mac and cheese, there's no way i'm ever buying dried pasta again. ever. try it the whole wheat kind, i dare you.

sample the knishes. this applies exclusively to zabar's because fairway's knish counter is sorta weak (no offense). when i ask for a sample, i usually get some sort of answer along the lines of, "well we don't normally give knish samples, but for you, i think i can sneak one in." thanks, knish boys :-) the best by far is the spinach and potato. 

today at zabar's i stumbled upon this hilarious object:

the vic firth pepper grinder is no new thing to me, but a zabar's vic firth pepper grinder? oh hellllo! can someone give me a good reason why a percussionist that is an aspiring amateur foodie and also jewish shouldn't have a pepper grinder that was made on the same lathe as 30% of her drum sticks and imprinted with the name of her fave jewish deli? 

unfortunately, i spent all of my money on cheese and had none leftover to buy this beauty.  

furniture: of course one of the best parts about a new apartment is making the customary trek(s) out to ikea! here is my most recent ikea adventure documented in some low-quality cell phone pictures...

raise your hand if you're guilty of having driven out to ikea just to eat the swedish meatballs. i am. 

future second husband, brian, and his tasty princess cake.

i have this thing about stuffed animals- i can never EVER throw them out. but when brian came over and saw that i still had this stuffed hippo that an ex boyfriend gave me sitting in my bed, he hid it and then bought me this goofy looking thing to replace it. according to the tag it's a giraffe. but i thought it was a hippo. and brian thought it was a bunny (seriously.) so the giraffe's name is bunny the hippo. 

brian passed out in the chair on the cart waiting to check out

oops! fairway delivery is here...

xoxo

yeh

shopping in la jolla!

the beautiful, famed, and illustrious la jolla, california. btw, i'm sorta proud of this shot

pops was in rehearsal all day today, so i shopped! 

my first stop was the museum of contemporary art design store... because there is truly nothing better than a good museum shop! 

conventional teddy bears are so in the past... (from left to right) joe the egg, mr. bacon, and mr. toast

this place will always hold a special part in my heart because it is the first store where i was ever exposed to the fabulous ugly dolls! since then, they've gotten some other pretty killer kids' stuffs.... like stuffed bacon, eggs, and toast... and those weird donkey chairs that they have at the continental in philadelphia. 

i know your secrets, steven starr

after the museum, i strolled down prospect street to the cutesy, old fashioned powell's sweet shop. they're no dylan's, but they've got a lot of charm and all of the necessities, like rice paper candy and vintagey gum. 

i hope the actual gum itself isn't vintage... that'd be gross

beech's cute chochkies and things

i then discovered this adorable little boutique called beech on girard street. they had such cute and funky dresses by designers that i've never heard of before. they also had a ton of darling jewelry, as well as a collection of mezuzahs that are fit for the jappiest of all japs. and ohhh how i wanted a skull scarf so badly, but i kept telling myself, "yeh, you have to furnish an apartment!"

who in southern california wears scarves anyways? 

a pretty chair from M.O.S. on girard street that might be perfect in a certain new apartment of mine

of course, i had to hit up warwick's. the best stationary and book store evurrrrrr. it's been around for like a zillion years. this shop, too, will always hold a place in my heart since it is the first store where i ever laid eyes on a moleskine notebook. i must have been 12 or 13 because for some reason i remember wearing a michael stars shirt (those were so the rage in middle school), and i was, as i still am now, on the eternal quest for the perfect diary. at the time i thought i had found it- the elastic closure, the plain black cover, the narrow lines and high quality off white paper, OH, and the little pocket in back for secrets :-). it was nice to revisit this shop of my past, and to see what silly little wonders they had that you can't find at most stationary stores (like bunny shaped scissors, pencil cases that look like slices of pizza, cupcake erasers...)

moleskine, are we in luv?

excuse me, but are you the perfect diary by any chance?

When I walked into LF on girard street, i thought that i was in a thrift shop at first. i was soo wrong. i think that's what they want you to think... when you take a closer look, you realize everything is so beautiful and flowery and pretty and girlie and luscious! it was in fact rather overwhelming how many items were crammed into such a small space... but i did see many a dress that i would have looooved to try on, but the little voice in the back of my head kept screaming, "apartment!!!" 

LF

taschen's new york, as seen at warwick's. in my humble opinion, this is the perfect coffee table book. for a certain new coffee table in a certain new new york apartment, to be certain. not that i'm hinting at anything.. or anything..