The Type Directors Club

You'd imagine any club that belongs to directors to be a fairly ritzy place. Nice big leather chairs, whiskey and cigars on top, no women allowed, you know the kinda thing.

Unfortunately my expectations were a little too high when I entered the small residential studio apartment for a talk. Apart from the slight lack of female presence (although I don't think they were barred) it wasn't quite what I imagined. My apartment is larger than this event venue. It isn't often I can say that. (I was sat at the back when I took this photo)

On the good side the talk on the Goudy's was excellent. If you don't know them, you may know a font, or family of fonts called Goudy. No? Ah well, I wouldn't worry about it, there are more important things in life. You also probably won't care about this cool piece of letterset, hand printed type I got there either would you?

No? Still doing nothing for you? Ah well, probably for the best. It's a slippery slope, and judging by the Type Directors Club, it doesn't lead anywhere fancy. Nice kerning though.

I pledge allegiance...

(Not sure I'm quite there yet. Nice type are though)

Andy Warhol

This is Andy Warhol and it's take one, take one

It's, it's Warhol actually

What did I say?

Whole, it's whole as in wholes

Aa, Andy Warhol

Wah, Andy Warhol, Andy Warhol

Like whole hub

Andy Warhol like what?

He, ha?

Are you ready?

A silver statue of Andy Warhol appeared overnight in union square. But only one. A collection of slightly different statues would have been a nice idea. This is still pretty damned shiny though.

Dhal

Boil lentils for an hour. Combine with a sauce made with tomatoes, onions, garlic, chilies, garam masala, ground coriander, black pepper and turmeric. Easy, delicious, makes your flat smell great!

(Griddled chicken on top in case you were wondering)

The most interesting stores in New York City

I don't know where these stores are. But whatever this truck is selling, I'm interested.

Big Buck Hunter

I think I've heard of this game before, but I don't recall ever seeing a version in the UK.

For New Yorkers with a bit too much pent up aggression who want to shoot something, I'm sure nothing beats Big Buck Hunter. The world's greatest virtual game hunting, err, game.

(seriously though, looks a bit shit, doesn't it? What's wrong with Grand Theft Auto anyway?)

The award for the most over packaged book goes to...

What's wrong amazon? Run out of normal book envelopes? Why did my book come in a cardboard pack, 6 or 7 times larger than the book.

Of course, the real crime here is that I haven't completed the Millennium trilogy yet. For shame.

Chelsea Flea Market

This is tucked away near the Shake Shack, just west of the park.

I love inner city markets, there is something rather nice about an area being reserved for market trading in between skyscrapers

The best thing at the market? Other than some rather tasty Dolmas, this selection of chairs is about as eye-popping as anything else on show. I think my personal favourite has to be the houndstooth pattern in the back left corner with purple buttons. Class.

On a stick

I was absent-mindedly taking photos of the boating lake in central park. When I came to check through them later I noticed something a little strange about this photo

Nice as it is, what is that girl doing in the boat?

Ah, of course, taking photos of herself with a camera on a stick.

Surely it would have been easier to ask the ginger guy in the boat next to her?

Horse and cart

Somewhere in central park

Curry Burrito

This post is dedicated to the friends from university who helped develop the now legendary, curry pizza. Particular shout out to Steve, my co-creator, and Phil, the master of the art.

Anyway, an invention like curry pizza (for those who aren't acquainted, it's a curry poured over a pizza. I'd recommend a very cheesy pepperoni pizza and any spicy chicken curry, for the optimum blend of flavours and textures) doesn't come along very often. But I think I may have trumped it with my favourite new meal, the curry burrito.

I've no idea why no one has combined the two before. A Burrito normally consists of spicy meat, salsa, guacamole, sour cream, beans, rice, cheese and maybe some coriander in a tortilla. It's a taste sensation, but the filling it also not too far from your basic spicy meat curry served with raita, pilau rice and naan bread.

As I had left overs from my curry night (see previous post) I decided to combine the two to see what would happen.

Mixing a leftover lamb and sweet potato rogan josh, with pilau rice creates a good firm consistency (the curry is too sloppy by itself), then piling on guacamole and sour cream with some coriander, and wrapping it in a toasted tortilla works so so well.

I purposely left out the cheese, next time it might have to go in as well though.

This photo in no way does curry burrito justice.

Kalustyans

Last weekend I got the hankering for a bit of Indian cuisine. Back in the UK I cooked a lot of Mexican, as it's pretty hard to find decent mexican places. In the US it's fairly hard to avoid eating Mexican food, especially Burritos, I'm really going to have to go cold turkey on those, it's getting unhealthy. Literally.

Anyway, as I was saying, there is no point cooking mexican when the stuff you buy is 10x better and cheaper than making it yourself. However, good indian food is still rather few and far between in most places.

Manhattan does have a couple of Indiatowns, the best one being on a stretch of Lexington Avenue around 28th street. So off I trotted to get all I'd need to cook myself up an Indian feast.

If you want to buy Indian ingredients there really is only one place to go.

Kalustyans. Famous for it's huge selection of indian spices and other ingredients.

However, this isn't really true. Between you and me dear reader, there is a better place next door called Foods of India, which has more or less the same stuff (although far less range) but for half the price.

Anyway, back to Kalustyans. It really does have an extraordinary range of stuff.

Most of which I've never heard of.

While I was tempted by the Bamboo rice, I just felt that $33 was a little bit much to pay for a bag of rice.

No idea

Now here's is a good idea. A bar where you drink for free. Thankfully the No Idea bar has got there before me. Every night one name gets written on the board, and if you can prove that's your name then you drink for free all night.

This time the name was:

Close enough!

"Yes barkeep, I know my driving licence says James, but my friends all call me Jamie, don't you guys?"

"Yes Jamie"

I was rather drunk that night...