Summer Weekends

Happy summer! We thought perhaps we might share a few pictures we've snapped over the past couple weeks.  We've had some lovely summer days just walking around the city, especially on the weekends.

Swings at Morningside Park near where we live.  Neither of us had been been on a swing in a long time and it turns out it IS still a lot of fun.

We took a ride out to Rockaway Beach for a little surfing (Patrick) and beach sitting (me), then wrapped it up with a stop at Rockaway Taco for some amazing fish tacos, then next door to DiCosmo's for a little Italian ice.  Almost 100 years they've been making them! Yummy.

Patrick took a long solo walk mid-week around Manhattan (grabbing coffee & browsing boards at Saturday's), across the Brooklyn Bridge, and through parts of Brooklyn (including Pilgrim).

Which brings us to this past weekend, where we ate a lot and walked a lot.  Not a bad way to spend time!

Our Saturday kicked off with breakfast at Good Enough to Eat, which is also good enough to wait in a line around the block for.  I don't even eat bacon, but that waffle had bacon cooked into it and looked delicious.  Also:  little buttermilk biscuits with strawberry butter.  We were too busy eating to get pictures of most of it.

From there we walked through midtown, where we stopped off for a break at the New York Public Library.  They had a children's literature exhibit and air conditioning, so we wandered through for a bit.

I do get that this isn't the library here, but it's a nearby building AND a place where we went and saw an awesome show this past winter, so it was worth including.

We took a nice long walk to help us feel less guilty about such an indulgent breakfast, then decided to hop on the train home.  But perhaps as a message that we still had calories to burn, that train didn't stop - and we ended up about 30 blocks higher than anticipated.  With the downtown train not running.  But again, it was a really nice day, so we thought we ought to just keep on walking.

So glad we did! We ended up just happening upon Grant's Tomb.  Not a destination we probably would have gone out of our way to see, but since it was right there we headed on in.  Apparently the largest mausoleum in North America.  Did not know that (but Wiki did).

The sarcophagi of Ulysses and Julia are surrounded by several of these rather ominous busts in a circular configuration.  Given that we had the whole place to ourselves, it was pretty intense.

Sunday was a lot less walking and a lot more seafood.  Lunch was lobster rolls from Luke's Lobster, which is about as close as we're going to get to "beachy" without leaving the city.

Somehow, despite having lived only a block away for our first year in NYC, we had never actually gone inside the American Museum of Natural History.  But we finally did it! Well, we took the first step of going inside and checking out the gift shop.  We're dying to check out the exhibits, but decided we should wait and come back later.

This is my dream date here:

http://www.amnh.org/plan-your-visit/amnh-sleepovers/for-grown-ups

Much too expensive, sold out, but HOW FUN would that be?

We walked past this and got a good chuckle.  I hear you and I understand.

A few photos of my gentleman friend that got stuck on my phone over the last couple months.  Promoting the radio station.

...hard at work at WKCR (my favorite host! check out his show!)

No caption really needed for this one.

And last but not least, a photo Patrick took that I just love.

Keeping it fresh, like bread.

Last week Anna received a very kind and culinary gift from one of our favorite people - Nancy Arnold. The present - a pistachio-colored KitchenAid mixer - arrived in the mail on a Friday and the baking commenced that Sunday.

Anna test drove her new favorite toy by making some delicious rosemary bread, and lucky for you I documented the process with my camera. Hope you enjoy the photos as much as we enjoyed the rosemary bread.

And now, I am going to turn it over to Anna so she can give you the recipe for her now world-famous rosemary bread...

-Patrick

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First of all, you should understand this was a really big deal in our household.  We stared at the dough every step of the way.  We even sat on the floor in front of the oven and watched the loaves bake.  It was a first attempt that just happened to be a success!

There is naturally a fair amount of waiting involved, but the actual steps to making these little loaves are really straightforward.  Completely worth the wait too! We came out with four smallish loaves, which was enough to take two to our friends down the street and for us to then sit and eat the other two (dipped in olive oil and pepper, caprese salad on the side) in a single sitting.

So without further ado:  the recipe.

Rosemary Bread

Ingredients:

1/4 oz. packet active dry yeast
2 tsp. white sugar
2 Tbsp. olive oil (plus more for brushing/serving)
2-1/2 c. all-purpose flour (plus more for dusting)
3 Tbsp. fresh chopped rosemary
1 tsp. fine salt
1/2 tsp. kosher salt/coarse sea salt

What to do:

1.  In mixer bowl:  yeast + sugar + 1/4 c. warm water

Stir and let sit 5 minutes.

2.  Add 1 Tbsp. olive oil + flour + 2 Tbsp. rosemary + fine salt + 3/4 c. warm water

Mix on low speed (using the bread hook) until you have dough.

3.  Knead in mixer on medium speed for 8 minutes.  If the dough sticks, add a little flour.

4.  Brush a separate large bowl with olive oil.  Add the little dough ball, cover with plastic wrap, and let it sit at room temperature for 2 hours.

Little dough ball....

BIG DOUGH BALL!

5.  Line two baking sheets with parchment.

Put dough on floured surface and divide into 4 pieces.

Flour the dough pieces and fold the edges and corners under to make a nice little dome.  Put the dough on the baking sheet, seam side down, two domes per sheet.

I'll bet you thought it was about to go into the oven.  I did.  But no - now you wait 2 more hours (uncovered) while the dough rises again!

6.  First, bake at 400 for 10 minutes.

7.  Brush the loaves with the remaining olive oil and sprinkle with coarse salt and the rest of the rosemary.  Then bake for 10 minutes more.

That's it! You can transfer them right away over to a rack to cool, but we only waited a few minutes before tearing into the first loaf.

And there you have it! Fresh baked rosemary bread.  Yum.