Toto We Are Not in the Bronx Anymore...

Yesterday my friend and I embarked on our apartment hunt for post graduation. Emerging from the subway on the Upper East Side, I felt like I was Dorothy emerging from the tornado in The Wizard of Oz. Of course I have been to Manhattan before, in fact I'm there at least three times a week for my job. But emerging from a subway stop with the mindset that one day, I might live there was pretty different. You see a place with different eyes.

“Someday I might walk past these restaurants every day.” 

“Someday that might be my grocery store.” 

“Someday this could be my post office.”

Plus, there were no men yelling about selling gold and diamonds as there are at my familiar D train stop and there was definitely no loud salsa music playing.

We had a great afternoon exploring the neighborhood, taking in the local fare and people watching, but when we returned to the Bronx via 4 train and made our way down Fordham Road I couldn’t help but feel a twang of  strange satisfaction and pleasure. I’ve talked about how walking down Fordham Road is a battle and it’s usually an annoying battle but I’m going to miss that battle. Arriving home and throwing myself on the couch I realized that I’ll never feel that weird sense of accomplishment that comes with battling one’s way home. I’m sure it will not be hard to get used to the wonderful scents of Shake Shack and beautiful windows of local boutiques, but I have to admit I’ll kind of miss the battle.

College Cooking

Everyone who has graduated from a dorm room without a kitchen to a dorm room with a kitchen has probably received a cheesy book with this title from an equally cheesy aunt or uncle. It probably has recipes like "cheese quesadilla" which instructs the "chef" to dump shredded cheese on a tortilla and heat it up for a few minutes on the stove (don't laugh, I sustained myself on these junior year). Either way I like to think that I have risen above that, at least slightly and by this I mean sometimes I buy fancier cheese than shredded cheddar and occasionally I venture to Whole Foods for "trendier" ingredients. Here are the three things I go for when I find myself hopelessly wandering the isles of Modern Food.

-"Fancy" cheese. Save the cheddar for the caf and go for goat cheese, feta, gorgonzola or blue. The latter two taste fantastic with a little balsamic vinegar and roasted onions and garlic on top of pasta and all of them also make a great salad garnish. It's well known that cheese makes everything taste better, but fancy cheese makes everything taste gourmet.

-Avocados. It's a shame they're so expensive because I would eat these babies all day every day. Whip up some guac, put them on top of scrambled eggs or just eat them straight out of the shell! Sometimes I can't even believe they're good for you.

-Hummus. Sometimes I have to stop myself from filling my shopping cart with dips alone, but hummus always wins out in the end. With so many varieties to choose from I always find myself going for something garlic involved. What to dip? The sky is the limit, pita chips, carrots, peppers, tortillas and your face.

Clearly I'm no Emeril and I'm also not very imaginative, but I am not longer making quesadillas for every meal so I guess that is a success.