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Although hubby is down for the count with a cold and generally feeling miserable, I’m craving hot roast beef sandwiches on toasted buns with lots of horseradish.

It’s been beyond ages since I made a roast. I want it medium-rare and juicy, not leathery and desiccated. So googled around, and Shirley seems to have a pretty good plan. I make pork tenderloin in a similar way, and it always comes out perfect. So I will give it a whirl and report back! Did the math and need to cook the roast for 10.5 minutes exactly before I turn off the oven.

Ignore the horrible picture in the link – I’m hoping it looks more like:

http://www.food.com/recipe/shirleys-perfect-rare-roast-beef-238069

Saw this on way to book club the other night. It’s freaking huge.

Could not decide: Cute or Hideous?

Turns out NYC is just a small town after all.

We spent a good long time in line last weekend for the WTC1 observatory. Right in front of us was a stunningly good looking European couple with a young child in a stroller. Mom looked exactly like Keri Russell (circa Waitress, not Felicity or the more recent Americans). Dad was thin, well-dressed, and the kind of Euro good-looking I expect to find on an ad for a watch I can’t pronounce. Lily was a blond cherub, probably about 18 months or so, who caught everyone’s attention in line.

Well, not everyone’s attention. Once Keri and Dieter (I’ll call him) released Lily from her stroller/prison, Lily was on the go. And Keri and Dieter were oddly disinterested in where Lily was off to. A good spin on their parenting skills is that they were not fussy helicopter parents. A more negative spin would be that they were completely negligent.  I and others in the line were shepherding Lily along so that she wasn’t lost from her oblivious parents.

And then we got up to the Observatory and parted ways with Keri, Dieter and Lily. (And ate a $50 lunch consisting of 2 grilled cheese sandwiches and 2 drinks, because that’s exactly what you can get away with charging people who are hungry and 102 stories in the air.)

The next day, wandering around the south-end of Central Park before heading out to the airport, I asked G:  Hey, I wonder if Keri and Dieter still have Lily? The odds did not seem good.

And then, about 2 minutes later as we walked out of the Park, who should we encounter at the 61st Street entrance but Keri and Dieter – and Lily, in her stroller, safe and sound. Turns out NYC is just a small town, and the odds were pretty good for us to run into the fashionable family one last time before heading back to TO.

Warning to NYC: if there’s a blond 18-month-old toddler with a pink sippy cup running around tourist spots in Manhattan all by herself, I think we know Keri and Dieter have dropped the ball.

This quote presented itself to me this morning on Pinterest. And I’m not feeling it.  I’m entirely disinclined to forgive someone who doesn’t deserve it.

Moving on to 2017.

Of course NYC is going to be crazy in December. Shoppers, tourists – and  now police and political protesters everywhere. But last weekend’s trip sent me Over The Edge. 5th Avenue was a nightmare – literally shoulder-to-shoulder with the masses. Don’t think I can handle those crowds again.

But despite my bitching, we had a good time and did entirely touristy things. And the weather was perfect – crisp, clear Autumn days.

Rockefeller Center was also packed, but it’s the first time I’ve seen the tree up and decorated, so we persevered.

 

It all felt very Christmasy, between the skaters at Rockefeller Center and our hotel room directly overlooking the Wollman Rink in Central Park. Shout out to Serendipity!

Our hotel (The Pierre) from Central Park:

After a quick line-up (I lie – well over an hour), we also went up WTC1 to the observatory on the 102 floor (really 100-102), for a spectacular view of the new Frank Gehry tower (Beekman Tower) and the bridges of Manhattan over the East River (Manhattan Bridge to the north, Brooklyn Bridge to the south):

And of course the 9/11 memorial, which is beautifully understated – serene and somber.

https://www.911memorial.org/design-overview

Just happened to be standing by the name of a 9/11 victim with the same name as my brother:

And visited Grand Central Station the morning before we left – it always surprises me how beautiful it is.

And I always make the cliched but amazing Green Bean Casserole.

https://www.campbells.com/kitchen/recipes/classic-green-bean-casserole/

Honestly, it’s just so good.

Still reading Zoe Whittall’s The Best Kind of People, which is our December read. Very disturbed how quick the family is to entertain the possibility that dad could be guilty of the sexual assault charges. I assured G. that if he were charged, I would have his back 100%. No doubts.

Lots to report. No time Monday morning.

Teaser … view from our hotel:

Thanks Mary Jane for bringing this piece to my attention.

Rosie DiManno in The Star defends free speech. And the amazing lawyer Marie Henein, who vigorously and professionally represents those facing the overwhelming power of the state.

Hail to the University of Chicago, then, which sent a welcoming letter to incoming freshmen at the beginning of this semester, bluntly stating that campus political correctness is antithetical in their institution of higher learning.

“Our commitment to academic freedom means that we do not support so-called trigger warnings, we do not cancel invited speakers because their topics might prove controversial, and we do not condone the creation of intellectual ‘safe spaces’ where individuals can retreat from ideas and perspectives at odds with their own,” the dean of students wrote to members of the class of 2020.

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2016/11/24/marie-henein-haters-part-of-a-worrying-trend-dimanno.html

PS – this post is not defending rape culture. It’s defending intellectual rigour. Get over it.