The Cloisters Museum

The Cloisters is a branch of the Metropolitan Museum of Art that is features art and architecture from medievel Europe. The museum is nested inside Fort Tryon park which has beautiful views of the Hudson river. For those interested in exploring different parts of NYC, I would definitely recommend a trip up to the Cloisters. It is quite far uptown (but easily accessible via M4 bus or A train).  In fact I hardly remember the last time I traveled up to 190th Street on the West Side. While we visited the museum during the warmer weekends in March, I am looking forward to visiting again in the spring when the trees and grass are green! Perfect for picnicing and avoiding the Central Park crowds!

Here is a view of the Cloisters as we were approaching up the hill. The heavy wooden doors and stone staircases fit into the medievel theme. Everything reminded me of a monastery until I saw the group of people sunbathing in various stages of dress on the lawn...

And here are some of my favorite parts of the museum with the beautiful arches:

My favorite room in the Cloisters is the unicorn room featuring wall to wall tapestries of magical unicorns. I think I could just sit in this room for a long time. My second favorite room is the Throne Room (no picture available) where it featured many expensive and exquisite jewels.

Gift bag from prettycity night at Salon Ziba

As I posted last night about the prettycity event at Salon Ziba, the event was a great success for the salon and all attendees. My favorite party about attending beauty events is usually the gift bag that is usually full of sponsored products and other samples. And this time, it did not disappoint! And believe me, I know events that have given out less interesting and useful products. Here is a picture and a list of the products.

Starting from the left:

L'Oreal Professional Shampoo
Ziba Salon Dry Shampoo
L'Oreal Professional Absolut Repair
Revlon Lashes
Moroccan oil treatment
Mirabella Semi-Precious Marble Blush
Palmer's Coconut Oil Protein Pack
Cafe Bustelo Expresso Coffee

I am very excited to try out all the products especially the Salon Ziba's brand of dry shampoo. I think it would be very useful for those in-between wash days when I am super busy and/or tired to get up early to wash my hair. And I'm also looking forward to trying the Mirabella blush - it reminds me of the Prescriptive blush products. Lastly, the expresso coffee is a bit of an odd product to be included in the gift bag - but perhaps they think that women need to drink coffee to stay energized? I'll have to keep pondering that thought.

In the meantime, feel free to comment on any of these products. Which one should I try first??

Prettycity Event at Salon Ziba

I attended a pretty awesome prettycity beauty event last night at Salon Ziba! For those in the know, prettycity is a website that recommends products, services and places for all things beauty! And the event featured a joint collaboration with Salon Ziba in which guests can sign up to receive a night of pampering salon treatments!

I received the invitation for the event through a friend but it was actually advertised through a popular women's magazine. The 200 guest slots were filled up pretty quickly but luckily a few of my friends were able to sign up right away! I expected a lot of people to attend but I think the event coordinators were very good at controlling the size of the crowd. While I arrived 15 minutes after the event time started, there were only 20 guests in front of me.

As I entered the salon, I was impressed with the size of the salon and the organized sections for food, drinks and salon treatments. The sales and marketing employees were very welcoming and friendly. However the make-up artists looked bored and uninviting. But that was the only negative part of the evening. I found the other staff members quite cordial and open with sharing their professional advice on hair and nails.

The salon treatments were performed gratis by the professional staff members which included make-up application, dry hair styling and manicures. In addition, we were treated to Sweet Sunshine cupcakes and cookies, and apple/soju drinks (yum!).

Here are three different styles of hairstyles that were done on my friends:

The first is a fairly extensive up-do that can be worn to weddings and other fancy events! I was fairly impressed with the amount of time spent by the hairdresser on her hair.

Here are some large beautiful curls that were done with a straightening iron!

And lastly, here are some small gentle waves created with a large barrel curling iron.

Stay tuned for pictures of the products in the swag bag!!

The Orchid Show

The weather is now a bit warmer in NYC but the flowers and trees have still yet to bloom. However why wait to enjoy the beautiful blossoms of the spring when you can enjoy it now at the New York Botanical Garden? Earlier this month, I went to the Bronx to visit the NYBG's newest exhibit: The Orchid Show - Cuba in Flowers.

While the rest of the garden was cold and dreary, the main event was clearly inside the greenhouse. We walked in and was immediately greeted by the sweet floral scent of orchids. The air was warm and the crowds of people made the room even hotter. But this was clearly not a problem for the visitors, since we were all entranced by all the different colored orchids.

Take out your cameras, people! Sadly, I only have a point-n-shoot camera but there were many professional cameras and lenses that day.

I don't know the names of all the flowers, but the last picture is my favorite flower. The yellow and burgundy red contrast is amazing. And the shape of the flower makes it look like a sundress! Can you just image a woman rocking it out in this outfit? From afar, it looks like dancing ladies!!

Here are some tips for those that wish to go to the NYBG: Bring your own food/snacks! There is a cafe open but we did not go inside to purchase anything. Instead, many visitors brought their own food and sat in the open chairs and tables. I can imagine it is a lovely place for a picnic! And make sure you purchase a ticket that will get you to ride the tram! It is a 20 minute tour ride of the entire garden. You can hop on and off the tram or simply sit through the entire ride to enjoy the scenery.

There are many new exhibitis and upcoming sections to the garden that will open later this year and in 2011. I look forward to going back in the spring time!

Christmas Tree at Bryant Park

Last Friday, we went to see the Christmas tree lighting at Bryant Park. It's been a while since I was there but the park has turned into a beautiful area for holiday shopping, eating, and ice-skating. There was a Christmass show featuring operatic singing and ice-skating performances by a future Olympian in the 2010 Vancouver Olympics. Here is a picture of the 76 foot tree donated by a Connecticut family.

And here is a picture of a comparable tree! Still looks pretty good from a few feet away!

Turkey in a Bag

This year was our first attempt to cook a Thanksgiving turkey and it was surprisingly easy and quick to make! I wanted to rave about the oven-bag method for cooking a turkey because it turned out juicy and plump. Yum!

Thanks to Reynold's for selling their oven bags and making turkeys delicious for families across the country. Seriously. We had a 14 pound turkey that cooked in about 2 - 2.5 hours. We let it rest until ready for carving and it was perfect. And for those that worried about the beautiful browning of the skin, it wasn't a problem for us!

Here are some tips that we incorporated into our turkey making process:

Make sure the turkey is completely thawed out! Wash and dry the turkey at least a few hours ahead of the cook time so that the skin has time to dry out (for better browning). Rub the turkey with a herb butter rub consisting of one stick of melted butter, dried spices such as sage, thyme and rosemary, salt and pepper. I also added sprinked paprika all over the turkey to enhance the brown color. Most importantly, we stuffed the cavity of the turkey with an orange, lemon and onions to enhance flavor and juices. Finally, we made a large bed of vegetables on the bottom of the bag consisting of onions and celery stalks - it also helped that we had a large bag of onions to use up!

The only negative to this cooking process? We were too lazy to take the entire turkey out of the bag so we simply carved it while it was still inside the bag. It made for less messy cleaning but we lost some of the OOOH and AHHHing effect of seeing the whole turkey.

Pumpkin Cheesecake

Thanksgiving is here and gone (except for the leftovers inside my refrigerator) but I had to share a recipe for the two delicious pumpkin cheesecakes that I made for my own dinner party and also at my friend's party. It was the perfect ending to a turkey-stuffed meal especially since almost everyone is a fan of cheesecake. And pumpkin cheesecake is even more appropriate for the holiday's, right?? My best compliment of the night was when someone said that it tasted better than a Junior's cheesecake!!!

Ingredients for the Pumpkin Cheesecake:

9 inch graham cracker crust
2 packages of 8 oz cream cheese (I used a lower-fat version)
3/4 cup sugar
1/2 cup of pumpkin puree (or a little more for more pumpkin flavor)
1 1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon
dash of nutmeg
dash of ground cloves
2 eggs
Optional: vanilla extract

Directions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Beat together the cream cheese and sugar. Add the spices/salt/vanilla extract and pumpkin puree. Beat in the eggs until the mixture is creamy. Pour the batter into the crust. Bake for 35-40 minutes until the center comes out clean with a toothpick. It should poof up a little like a balloon when it is done. Let cool before decorating with whipped cream.

I made my own whipping cream by beating heavy cream, sugar ream and vanilla extract. It was really easy to decorate by creating my own piping bag with a ziploc bag and cutting the tip off the corner. Voila!

Curry Beef Pastries

I finally baked! Well actually I baked chocolate chip cookies last weekend to get my oven ready for the holidays. And I was inspired again this weekend to venture into something different, a world of pastries. It is not that impressive since I purchased the pastry from Pillsbury - but I had to make the filling that goes inside of it!

Here are some general tips for making the filling that I found from reading different recipes. It starts out with a basic 1 pound of ground beef, 1/2 onion chopped, salt and pepper to taste, and 2 tablespoons of curry. Simple enough. I actually used an entire small onion because I like to have different filling texture in my mouth. Plus I love the taste of curry, so I added in an extra tablespoon of curry along with dashes of garlic powder and pepper.

Lastly, and here is the secret, adding a binding ingredient such as mashed potatoes or bread crumbs to the filling makes a world of a difference. We mashed two small potatoes and cooked it with the beef mixture. It was fantastic! This prevented the beef from becoming too crumbly. Others have used added yogurt but I wanted to keep it similar to the Indian samosa.

And here is a picture of the making of the beef pastry. Spoon in 2 tablespoons of the filling on one side of the dough. I cut the pastry dough into squares and folded them into triangles. Don't worry about overstuffing the pastries since it is always better to have more meat inside than less. I used a fork to help seal the edges and give it a nice look.

And here they are, all finished and ready to be frozen in my freezer! We cooked some right away at 375 degrees for 25 minutes, which was not necessary (almost got a little burnt). But watch your oven carefully since it just needs to be reheated. You may want to brush the pastries with an eggwash before putting them in an oven, for a nice pretty golden color.

Enjoy! I can't wait to enjoy my pastries in the upcoming days!

Yankees Parade Pictures

Okay, so by now it is old news that the Yankees are 2009 World Champions. But let's face it, they are still milking their win. So I figured I would post pictures of the parade down the Canon of Heroes in downtown NY....here is my view of the parade. Please note: I didn't leave for the parade until 10 minutes after it started. I *might* have to leave earlier for the next Yankees parade.

Look! Ticker tape! Er....your old tax forms.

The last float in the parade. It was hilarious that it collapsed before it went down the parade line.

The crowds! This is my only chance to view the players....by jumping up and down through the heads and cameras.

Ritter Sport Chocolates

Today I took a lovely stroll around lunchtime today with some coworkers when we were stopped by a woman who asked us "Would you like a piece of chocolate?" Of course I said YES! She also took a picture of us and posted it on their website, Ritter Sports Friends. As it turns out, this near 100 year old chocolate company has a great social networking presence on facebook, twitter and myspace.

We were given a solid square of chocolate and a short pamphlet on the different chocolate varieties. Mine was milk chocolate in a butter biscuit, my absolute favorite. There are different sizes in their chocolate bars, with the standard size being 100g while a king-sized bar is 250g.

Here are some of their enticing flavors: Cornflakes (how freaking neat would that taste?!), Cappuccino, White Whole Hazelnuts, Caramel Nuts, Butter Biscuit, Marzipan, Peppermint, Raisins & Hazelnut, Whole Almonds, Yogurt...Oh which one should I try first?!