It’s a double weekend of comedy for Chris and me this weekend, as he booked us second-row seats to see the Indian comedian Vir Das tonight, plus Bill Maher at Madison Square Garden tomorrow. Chris introduced me to Vir Das earlier this year via a Netflix special he was on that showcased talented comedians from around the world. Vir Das, because he’s Indian and from (and based in) Mumbai, adds a different element of comedy than what Indian-American/Canadian comedians like Hasan Minhaj or Russell Peters offer in that he’s not from the western world; he chooses to live and stay in India. That gives him a really interesting perspective on the world overall. And he can be very politically incorrect and say things about the U.S. or the UK that western people probably would not say or even think and then get away with it. It was refreshing to hear him speak, particularly about “wokeness” and his take on it. It was also fun to be in an audience that was about 95% Indian, and very likely Indian originally from India. I was a different kind of minority in a different kind of majority tonight, and I kind of liked it.

Since my very first visit to New York in 2004, I’ve been enthralled with this city, not just for how multicultural and diverse it is, but also for how it seems like no matter how much you know about it, no matter how many neighborhoods you visit and no matter how long you’ve been living here, there’s always something that’s just right under your nose that you have no clue about. I’d been to a number of restaurants and hole-in-the wall spots along east 53rd street over the years of living here, but my friend introduced me to one of his favorite spots along that street, which is a Japanese jazz bar/restaurant that is in a basement below ground level. They play live jazz every night, have a very extensive and attractive looking bar, and even have a delicious and well-respected Japanese menu (I really loved the cod-roe spaghetti there). The whole vibe is very New York speakeasy combined with Japanese culture and customs. I loved my whole experience there. I felt even luckier that my friend had befriended the host at the front because we got in easily at around 6pm, and then as we were leaving, there was a really long line outside, even in the rain. It’s spots like these that remind me how lucky I am to live in this amazing city.

Instead of waiting until the winter months and being completely overwhelmed by all the scrapbooking of events that have happened over the last year (that’s a lot!), I actually got a head start on it by printing out photos from our trips this year to date. I’ve already finished our trips through Labor Day weekend in Atlanta and Birmingham, which means that once January-February rolls around, I’ll be a little bit more relaxed and calm knowing that I have only travel/events from November-January to handle. It’s a lot of clutter with scraps of paper, pamphlets, tickets, wrapping paper, etc., to hoard and keep, but in the end, it’s worth it to see the final product of everything we’ve done together neatly organized and laid out in one place.

Every autumn season, other than looking forward to the wide variety of fall apples (Honeycrisp!!) and autumn and winter squash, I also get excited about seeing canned butternut squash and pumpkin available everywhere, which means it’s pumpkin-themed baking time, whether that means pumpkin bread, pumpkin pancakes, butternut squash soup; it gets me really excited and wanting to spend even more time in the kitchen than I already do.

Today for the first time this season, I made pumpkin bread with a new recipe and tweaked it quite a bit. I swapped some of the white sugar for brown sugar, added vanilla extract, and also used coconut oil to increase moistness over regular oil or butter. I also topped the loaf before baking with a cinnamon sugar topping, and wow, this bread really blew me away. Not trying to brag, but this pumpkin bread is, by far, the moistest, richest, most satisfying pumpkin bread I’ve made, and I’ve made a lot of these loaves since college. The spices just sing in it. This recipe is most definitely a keeper. And it will be on the vlog soon!

The sky was black at around 4pm today. I’d never seen people in my office trickle out so quickly. It was as though we were all under the same depressed spell, and by 5pm, nearly every single person was out of the office. When I left at around 5:15, it was as though I was the one who “stayed late.”

Even when people tell you they love autumn and winter (and I do, too, for all the cooking, baking, holidays, autumn foliage, etc.), as much as they love it, they just want to get the heck home and away from the office much earlier than they normally do.

After seeing a matinee show this afternoon and running some errands, we decided to walk up to the heart of the Upper West Side and have dinner at a local French spot where we’ve previously gone for a quick drink. The restaurant is small and cozy, with just a handful of tables and a small bar. The menu is also small but with a decent-sized wine list at relatively higher price points. This is to be expected with French food in New York, but to be fair, the prices could easily be higher given that we are in New York City, and anytime you reference anything “French,” the dollar signs tend to go up.

We had a glass of wine each, shared a charcuterie platter of mixed cheeses and meats, and had two mains. After tax and tip, the bill ended up being just shy of $150. The majority of the food was quite good, and the quality of the wines were expected given that they were about $14/glass. But it made me think about all the delicious French food we had in Paris that exceeded the quality we had tonight, and it was always a fraction of the cost. It’s bothersome that you have to pay at minimum this much to eat French food in the city. It’s a big reason we rarely even eat French food unless we’re in France. Americans have this obsession with all things French and are willing to pay that much more for French food. But while I enjoy and can appreciate French food, I do not believe these prices are warranted when the same people complain about overpriced Chinese or Vietnamese food.

With autumn in full swing with its dipping temperatures and splashes of oranges, yellows, reds, and golds across the city trees, we can also expect that indoor heating, particularly in our office, will begin to turn on. Chris and I are lucky to live in a building where we have full control over our heating, ventilation, and air conditioning systems by room, so we can always adjust it as we see fit. In our Flatiron office, though, where the building is quite old, we do not have this luxury. Instead, the building decides whether and when to turn on air conditioning or heat, and they also decide the temperature to set it to. We have zero control over this. What this inevitably has led to is some rooms being scorchingly hot, while others are cold and frigid. It’s a constant complaint during the colder months, but there’s nothing we can do about it other than have a backup hoodie at our desk or strip off extra layers of clothes. Gotta love New York City heating and air conditioning.

Chris and I have stopped dressing up, but given that we have Halloween trick-or-treat sign ups, we have participated in this every year where we allow trick-or-treaters to ring our doorbell to ask for candy from us. This has become a tradition since moving into this building. The other tradition that Chris personally has is that of the assorted candy bag we buy, whether it’s from Costco or Target, he will pre-pick out all his favorites (Kit Kats, usually, or peanut M&Ms) and set them aside… for himself. It’s as though they never existed for the children. And what do the children know — they have no idea what our assortment was like!

I’m not fully in favor of this approach, but I figure that if there are only seven or eight Kit Kats in an entire 15-pound bag of candy, then it’s not the end of the world. We’re not really being selfish. And this year, we actually received far more trick-or-treaters than we normally get, so it was even more fun to see all the little kids dress up (even grown adults trying to get free candy).

The chill is really setting in today. Winter is around the corner, and autumn is steadily warning us about this with the temperatures that continue to creep down on us, along with what felt like a very sudden change in the colors of the leaves today. Even along our street, I noticed that all the leaves had changed colors, ranging from burnt orange to greenish-yellow. Autumn sweeps over the city and it feels as though yesterday was never summer.

I also felt the impending dread of Daylight Savings Time ending. I hate the darkness at 4pm each day when I’m at the office and all the street lights are already on. I hate not being able to see light outside my window at a time that is supposed to be late afternoon. I just want warmth and light. I had that in Florida the last two days, probably more of it than I’d wanted given how humid and muggy it was, but it felt so much better than today in New York.