orichalcum

I love NYC. This week, I love NYC because of....the Duckathlon! Yes, that's right, D'Artagnan, the foie-gras and duck company, is celebrating their 20th anniversary and as part of the festivities are running a eating competition/scavenger hunt/trivia contest where teams of 4 run around the Meatpacking District and Chelsea Market, engaged in competitive duck part eating and trivia. A. and I are looking for 2 folks to join us in our quest on Saturday, Feb. 26th - it _is_ duck season!

Sadly, we are not exotic enough to have a  McLent menu in NYC. Though I hear that giving up Law and Order for Lent is very popular here in Manhattan.

The best piece of food writing I've read in months is  this guy's chronicle of his attempt to cook three romantic, sexy meals for three women as first dates in three nights. mryt_maat will particularly love this.

I turned to my most trusted advisers. "Get Spanish cheese and crackers with saffron," Jack said. "Then it won't matter what you cook. Women go wild for Spanish cheese and saffron. I mean that literally. Wild!"

"The ladies love mashed potatoes," declared Andy, another single friend. "And any lady who claims she doesn't love mashed potatoes is lying."

"You're cooking?" Jerry asked. "For a woman? Are you going to talk about your feelings? Are you going to share?"

Also, there's a mysteriously appearing and disappearing dumpling bar, Rickshaw, run by Anita Lo of Annisa and the folks who manage Cosi, that someday I will actually manage to eat Peking duck dumplings and chocolate soup dumplings at.

And now we even have Jamba Juice. And multiple grilled cheese sandwich restaurants. Sadly, the rice pudding restaurant I blogged about sometime ago turns out to have been a gambling front.

I'm going to go drink some unpasteurized apple cider with my husband now, and eat fresh pumpkin pie from the farmer's market.