Tonight, a friend and I went out for dinner and we were talking about how he’s thought about moving to the Bay Area to live for a while. He just visited my hometown for a wedding and lamented that despite how much he loves it there, he absolutely hated all the driving. He said he ultimately wants to settle down here in New York; it’s pretty much the only place you can live in this country where you don’t need a car.

I hate driving. I know I’m going to have to drive again at some point, but once we reach this summer, it will officially mark seven years since I was last behind a wheel. I don’t want to live in New York City the rest of my life, so I guess I will have to suck it up and drive again, but I’m not looking forward to it. Parallel parking sucks, and gridlock makes me want to grind my teeth. Lately, I’ve been romanticizing about having a beautiful house somewhere in Southern California – maybe Santa Barbara or San Diego, but those romantic daydreams do not include road rage and constant honking.

I went to Tory Burch’s Madison Avenue location yesterday to return a hand bag I ordered during their Friends and Family Appreciation Sale that ended up being too big for me. Even though I was there for a return, the service was still extremely attentive and friendly, and the person helping me even offered me a beverage – bottled water, Coke, or Diet Coke? When I noticed a similar bag I was interested in and started playing with it, out of nowhere, another sales person discreetly puts the same bag in two other colors within my reach and gently lets me know this is the same bag I am looking at, just in their other available colors for me to see. Part of me felt weirded out by it, but the other part of me felt relieved that I didn’t feel pressured to make a decision or buy anything right away the way you do at other department stores, or even brand-specific stores like Coach. This is what it’s like to shop at a really nice boutique store. They actually want you to feel special. Sort of.

And then I thought, actually, I think I feel the most comfortable shopping online when i don’t have to be around other prissy shoppers making all of their buying decisions out loud. I love online shopping and how easy, fast, and pressure-less it is.

For the first time ever, I met someone who did not enjoy the Broadway show Book of Mormon. He said that he found it too cheesy – the lines, the music, and even the facial expressions. Then again, he also is not someone who enjoys Broadway shows or theater at all, for that matter, so I’m not sure if Book of Mormon should be any exception for him in his theater opinions.

I’ve definitely had moments when I thought certain lines or smiles or songs were cheesy when at a Broadway production, but that’s partly there because that’s what appeals to people; people like to see and hear things that feel good, and that’s why Broadway is Broadway; it’s mainstream, and it’s what people want. The one show I do know (and saw) that was off-Broadway that dealt with a real topic – depression, mental illness, and suicide in the context of a family – didn’t have a very long off-Broadway life. You can’t really bring your family to a show about rape or murder or people jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. If you want that kind of stuff – what is arguably more real to life – smaller theater groups are where you should be looking.

Tonight looked to be a miserable rainy night according to the weather forecast, and since Chris wanted to stay in, he suggested we order a pizza and go home after work. I wasn’t really keen on the idea of ordering Domino’s, so I decided that I would order a Previti pizza (half Sardinia – artichoke, spinach, and creamy cheese truffle sauce, half chicken parm) for pickup and take it home. When I suggested it, I barely thought about the fact that a) I was going home during rush hour and b) because of that, the 6 train would be packed, so how would people react to my carrying an 18-inch pizza in a large box on the train?

Surprisingly, the experience was comical… and even inviting. Most of the time, people get contentious and pushy when others carry baby carriages and other large items on the train, but this time, not only did two people offer their seat on the train for me, but as soon as people saw me with my big pizza box, they literally started moving into the train and pushing other people to get further in (and if you are unfamiliar with the trains during rush hour here in New York City, you will know that people hate doing this and absolutely love to hover around the doors. They don’t care that there is space in the middle and that you need to get on the train, too). A few people joked that they would make room for me if I were willing to share a slice with them. Someone asked me where the pizza was from because it smelled so good. And a couple other people commended me for “being so brave” to carry a pizza box onto the train at this time. “I’m not sure if it’s bravery or cheapness for not wanting to pay for a cab,” I laughed. “Actually, maybe it’s a little of both!”

So New Yorkers aren’t that bad. Sure, they can be rude, but there are these moments when you realize that they are real people who have a sense of humor… and just love their pizza.

One day when I leave New York, I know one thing I will miss is the number of great, “hidden” spots that are sprinkled all over the city – the secret restaurant that you can access only by walking through an unmarked door in what appears to be a pawn shop, a bar that you get to by dialing a phone in an old-school telephone booth, a Japanese speakeasy you get to by walking through another Japanese restaurant – the list goes on. A colleague just told me about a pop-up ramen spot that opens only after 1am in Lower East Side, and it’s in the basement of an unmarked building; really, you have to know someone to get into this place. New York is a city where it’s probably impossible to see, do, and eat everything. It keeps you wanting more – and wanting to be in the know.

Tonight, Chris surprised me with a handmade pasta making class at Taste Buds Kitchen, which specializes in fresh, handmade cooking classes and “culinary experiences.” The class was less than 20 people, and we all got grouped into stations organized into three categories – marinara sauce and fettuccine, butternut squash ravioli, and spinach ravioli. Chris and I got placed into the marinara and fettuccine group with another couple. The marinara sauce was pretty straightforward since I’ve made similar versions many times, but the pasta making part was the most exciting. We made it from scratch using just flour, olive oil, salt, and eggs, formed the dough, kneaded, moved it through the pasta machine (a KitchenAid stand mixer attachment), and left it to dry. Then the assistants helped us boil the noodles and ravioli, and we were ready to eat. Nothing compares to freshly made pasta. The texture in your hands and the mouth-feel are a world away from dried, packaged pasta noodles.

So me being me, we went home, and I immediately wanted to look at the prices of the different pasta attachments. Apparently there is no single attachment that can just have a switch flipped to produce different pasta types, like linguine, fettuccine, spaghetti; if you want to create different types, you need to buy additional attachments, which go for around $75-100 each. I personally like the wider noodles the most, as I find it far more satisfying to eat wide strips of papparadelle or fettuccine than thinner spaghetti or angel hair.

I can’t wait until we get a bigger apartment or house so that I can buy my dream KitchenAid stand mixer with all my wide noodle pasta attachments, ice cream attachment, meat grinder attachment, and sausage stuffer kit. 🙂

I can’t believe it. I just did a Yelp search for “tacos and tequila” (sudden craving since it’s Thursday and I just want the weekend to come), and I can’t believe how many results show up for the East Village area. Granted, the number increases almost exponentially when you just search for tacos, but this is such a huge change from when I first moved to New York. Taco spots were non-existent, Dos Toros did not yet exist (and I believe it now has four locations, one of which is in Williamsburg). Even nicer places like Anejo and Empellon are opening up, and even tequilerias (mmmm, love). Mexican places in Manhattan are growing, so it looks like I won’t have to trek out to Queens for good tacos or tamales anymore.

Thai food in New York is almost as ubiquitous as cabs. In pretty much every neighborhood in Manhattan, you can find some cookie cutter Thai place that serves the staples, like pad thai, basil fried rice, tom yum soup, etc. Most of these places, like Spice and Qi, are pretty well priced, especially around lunch. It’s like the cool and affordable Asian food to eat even now. The better Thai places are in Queens, but unless you live in Queens or are someone like me and like to travel for food, you probably don’t care about this.

So I was really confused when I was in Midtown Atlanta for the last three days to find out that what is considered a decent Thai place was going to charge me $15 for shrimp pad thai for lunch… and then charge me an additional $3 because I asked for tofu with it. There are no lunch specials like you would find in San Francisco or New York – the lunch prices are the dinner prices. It was really shocking since pretty much all of the other restaurants I’ve eaten at in Atlanta seemed pretty cheap. And for the record, though the shrimp was cooked well, the pad thai itself was sub-par and on the verge of being flavorless like the Yelp reviews said.

And then Chris made me think about it when he said that Thai food is probably still considered exotic in Atlanta, so the restaurant feels like it can justify its relatively high prices. Like my classmate told me the other night, Korean food right outside of Atlanta is good and cheap, but anywhere else in Atlanta, it’s nearly impossible to find good, authentic Asian food. Southern food and BBQ would probably get tiring after a while.

Today, I spoke with someone who is from South Florida and told me that she finds New York City daunting. It’s so hard for me to relate to this because I grew up in a major city on the West Coast and spent most of my childhood dreaming about how amazing it would be one day to live in the concrete jungle of New York. She said the closest she had gotten to living in New York was Baltimore, where she hated it because cars were constantly getting jacked and broken into “by hoodlums!,” so this is how she imagined New York was. Well, I told her, if she lived in Manhattan, she most likely would not own a car, and Manhattan is so crowded and bustling at all hours of the day and night that it would be hard to break into someone’s car and not be noticed.

We love what we love and know what we know, but I am happy that I do not have this misconception of “big city life.”

Occasionally growing up, when we’d be on the road and would need to pull over for a firetruck or ambulance with flashing sirens, my dad would joke that it probably wasn’t an emergency, and they were just in a mad rush for their morning coffee or doughnut. Well, for the first time in my life today, I actually saw an ambulance with flashing sirens pass by me on Third Avenue today, run through a red light, and double park itself right in front of Crumbs, the ubiquitous cupcake chain in New York. As the driver of the ambulance got out, he gave a high-five to a guy standing in front who I’m assuming he knew. When the guy said, “You needed your sugar fix today?” He responded, “Yeah, I have to pick up some cupcakes!”

Got to love the abuse of power, along with the sugar craving. We’re all human, after all.