Favorite Fall Festivals

"Know what you love, and do what you love.  If you don't do what you love, you're just wasting your time."    Billy Joel

Finally, time for my favorite of the Festival Season, “my” Food Film Festival!    I believe I have I have shared my enthusiasm, and passion, for the FFF.  I am so truly grateful, grateful, and feel so blessed, to have been embraced into this “Family."  And, a family it feels like.  We work hard, play a bit, and even travel together!

Our final production meeting for New York’s Festival began at a very cool event: Brooklyn Bounty, The King’s County Agricultural Fair hosted by the Brooklyn Historical Society.  What made it even more enjoyable was seeing Ben Flanner, Head Farmer of the Brooklyn Grange Farm win the Pioneer Award from the Historical Society.  The Brooklyn Grange Rooftop Farm at the Brooklyn Navy Yard was perhaps my favorite venue of Rooftop Films last summer!

Well, the weekend of NYC’s Food Film Festival was wonderful, crazy, fun, successful and we rocked!  I could go on and on (as you well know).  Our Executive Director was very happy as he commented many times that this year’s team was one he’d been hoping to gather for years.  We worked very well together, no drama and trauma.   Five events in four days: Cocina Peruana opening night; Edible Adventure #011: Just Add Sriracha; The Food Porn Party: Halloween Balls (In the spirit of the day, we were all Pirates!); Brewmore + More on Saturday afternoon; and finally The Night Aquatic.  We sold out all weekend!

Seth, our Executive Director, sent us a thank you after that weekend, I used this in my thank you to all of "my" amazing volunteers: “….You probably overheard guests talking, but if you missed it...Everyone had a great time. And while every event had its own special moments, each day, it was taken to the next level. The Night Aquatic ended up as a perfect closer. And the energy in that shrimp boil was epic...a room full of 300 NYC strangers all eating with their hands, shoulder to shoulder, quickly becoming friends. You turned the windowless basement of a movie theatre into a beautiful night on the river.”

The Skyline Room @ Kendall

A couple of weeks later, a core group of us headed to Chicago for the Fifth Annual Chicago Food Film Festival.  We were happy to be back at Kendall College.  It is a wonderful venue to hold the Festival.  The culinary students and events staff are a joy to work with, be with.

Billy carving his BBQ

Five more events in four more days.  Same themes except for The Chicken Wing Hunt for opening night.  Also joining us in Chicago, and to cook for us, was awesome Billy Durning owner of Hometown BBQ in Red Hook Brooklyn.  We were able to connect and work with some of the Festival’s faves in Chicago, especially Akiko Moorman and her partner in life and work, Philip Foss, taking time away from their Michelin starred restaurant, El Ideas.

It was truly a pleasure and joy to spend time, and work hard, with this amazing group of people, my FFF family.  We went to a couple of old haunts while in Chicago: our first family dinner at The Old Jerusalem again.  And, a visit to Chicago wouldn’t be complete without a visit to The Weiner Circle (to get abused by the lovely hostess/cashier), and Billy Goat Tavern.  But honestly, a couple of the nights, we simply went home, had a glass of wine, or beer, and “chilled” together.  Perfect.  Actually many of my favorite moments were actually in our little “home."   Another instance was on our first evening, making a gingerbread house (kit bought while food shopping at Trader Joe’s), which became a focal point on my “merch” table.  It was awesome, perfect.  (We even started out own little group on GroupMe where we still visit 'cause we miss each other!)

First Fall Festival

“This time, like all times, is a good one, if we but know what to do with it.”

                                                                                Ralph Waldo Emerson

Wew…The Autumn was a whirlwind and busier than I had even anticipated.  (Hence the two months between blog posts!)  One special night I forgot to mention at the end of September was having my Ladies with me.  Katie had come down for a job interview at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital.  Coming home from Go Orange a NYC Food Bank sponsored Scavenger Hunt in Midtown (a wonderful way to spend a gorgeous Sunday afternoon with strangers), my heart sang as I walked into my Hx3 to find my “Girls” cuddled on my bed eating frosting from a can (found at the back on my cupboard) and watching stupid tv!  We enjoyed a wonderful restorative yoga class at Yogaworks in my neighborhood and a lovely dinner salad, if I say so myself, while watching more silly tv together.  A few days after that 6 hour interview, Katie was offered an amazing job with the HIV clinic.  For 24 hours I thought I would have both Ladies in NYC with me.  Then, Katie called her grad school mentor who is the nursing director for Paul Farmer’s Partners in Health.  Two days after that, Katie officially accepted a job with Partners in Health to go to Sierra Leone to help with the Ebola crisis.  OMG, what a roller coaster of emotions..

Sunset on the Pier

So, with that nut to chew and swallow, “my” Festival season began in earnest.  I spent four wonderful, interesting, and fun nights on the Rooftop of a Pier on the Hudson River working with the Sponsor Activation Team for the Food Network’s NYC Wine & Food Festival.  It’s funny, the celebs that I got to “see” (Jon Bon Jovi, Rachel Ray, and many other “famous” chefs) didn’t thrill me as much as the great people I got to work with and for.  As with all the events I have been blessed to work at, I learned a lot.  I love what I am learning.  In this case in particular, I learned a tremendous amount from the Women who were my “Bosses” about working with true grace under pressure.

Not shirking other duties, responsibilities and friends, in between all that fun on the Pier’s Rooftop were CPR classes, all-you can eat amazing sushi dinners at a new place in my ‘hood (Sushi Para on 3^rd Avenue between 81^st & 82^nd Streets), and doing my production assignments for the Food Film Festival.

And, of course, spending time in my Central Park; enjoying a wonderful Sunday afternoon up at the Dana Center with a new friend from Greeter Guide training helping out at the Halloween
Parade and Pumpkin Float was truly special.    

Delicious Autumn!

"Delicious autumn! My very soul is wedded to it, and if I were a bird I would fly about the earth seeking the successive autumns." 
   George Eliot

Is there nothing better than sharing a special weekend with a very special friend?  As I’ve mentioned so many times, I am so blessed by the many Friends I am making in my new home town of NYC.  But, as that old song says that we sang a million years ago as Girl Scouts….”Old friends are gold…”

The Loeb Boathouse in Central Park

On that note, a dear Friend of the past 20 years whom I met decorating at the Milton High School All Night Graduation Party (which trained me for my one of my new “careers”!), came down to play on a picture perfect early Autumn weekend.  Arriving mid-morning on Friday, we sauntered over to my park.  Deciding to treat ourselves to The Loeb Boathouse for lunch (I had been saving that for a special occasion, what better time than this?!), we sat by the Lake for 2 hours sipping Prosecco and catching up.  Oh, was the wait ever worth it!  It was a perfect lunch on a perfect day in a perfect setting.  Does it get better than that? 

Dusk from the Boom Boom Room

Apparently yes!  Remember when I observed my new Boss teaching at the Standard West, a foo-foo hotel on the Highline?  Well, he got us a reservation in the Boom Boom Room for a sunset cocktail.  Oh, my, yet again.  It is not normally a “scene” I would like, or so I thought.  It is magnificent, with live jazz playing.  NYC expensive, but worth it for a special occasion.  I want to go back on a snowy afternoon for sunset and sit next to the fireplace again.  Thanks, Boss!

Saturday morning we had brunch with some NYC Ladies at a neighborhood Belgian Restaurant, Brasserie Magritte.  It was long, leisurely, and lovely.   That evening we headed to the theatre district to see a play that I got tickets at $4 each through my Theaterextras.   Billy Porter’s (Tony-winning star of Kinky Boots and Angels in America) play While I Yet Live which he touted as “..a love letter to my mother, my sister, and the women who raised me..” hit breathtakingly close to my home.  But, when my friend asked if I wanted to leave at intermission, I said no, as it was excellent.  I received one of the best compliments of my life after the play.  The final soliloquy was especially beautiful.  My friend said she had heard something similar once, from me!  (I am healing, thank God.)  We simply ended the weekend having a simple brunch at another neighborhood staple, Hi-Life.

Manhattan Cricket Club

One of my dearest friends in NYC, yet another gift from my Food Film Festival, invited myself and our Senior Producer from the FFF to a wine tasting at a restaurant he has a “piece of.”  Luckily for me it was directly across town from my Hx3 on the UWS.  Burke & Wills is a great little place, an Australian bistro, with great happy hours prices and food.  The wine tasting was held upstairs in a quasi-hidden room that is like a beautiful small library, and home to the Manhattan Cricket Club!  I will go back for a jazz/blues night.

A fellow Greeter-Guide and her Puppy

Getting my dog fix with Central Park’s Paws was a wonderful way to spend a Saturday at their annual Fair.  Unfortunately the weather wasn’t cooperative at the start of the day, but relented a bit to bring some people out.  Even on a rainy morning, my Park was beautiful in the early Autumn.  I’ve often said that I don’t need, nor want to be reincarnated, but if I were I wouldn’t mind coming back as a spoiled Puppy-head, especially in NYC, believe it or not.  Some of these NYC pups are better dressed than I ever could be!

From the Patio

From the living room.

Having enjoyed OHNY (Open House New York) last year, exploring some very cool spaces, I happily gave my time on a Sunday afternoon.  Oh, boy, I was not disappointed.  I got to spend the afternoon in an amazingly cool and beautiful space, a live/work Tribeca loft for Marpillero Pollak Architects, a very interesting and gracious couple.  God, I love finding hidden gems in my city!