by day the blue will pale down into white where it touches the white of the land, after sunset it has a new circumference-orange, melting upwards into tenderest purple. but the core of blue persists, and so it is by night. then the stars hang like lamps from the immense vault. the distance between the vault and them is as nothing to the distance behind them, and that farther distance, though beyond colour, last freed itself from blue. -e.m. forster (a passage to india)
morgana was having a twelfth night theatre meeting with a half birthday get together for a friend all in one night so greg and i decided to stay out longer after driving back home from connecticut. we went out to eat at my friend's friend's restaurant machiavelli's. we had been here before about a year ago.
i had the goose liver special! they were very good. i had never had goose livers before.
we also had the special dessert: an apple heart tart with vanilla ice cream.
nathalie's french press coffee is amazing!
i think the coffee with cream was actually my favorite part of the meal!
it was another beautiful day and after picking up a bag of gifts from our friends who had seen morgana, greg and i went to third street for chanda's music hour.
i was going to put the movie up, but supposedly it's too big of a file to upload onto the blog. i then tried sharing it onto youtube, but my account isn't letting me sign in from the home computer. i'll have to ask greg for help when he gets back.
(it's now the middle of july and i finally got it posted . . funny how things can suddenly work out once a little time goes by. i have no idea what i did differently from when i tried in march.)
greg and i had dinner uptown at a friend's restaurant. she has a special pasta chef so the pasta was amazing (greg had strazzopreti with broccoli rabe and sausage, and i had pappardelle with mushrooms and green beans in a cream sauce). for dessert we had the sorbetto.
the coffee was also . . superb!
the restaurant is decorated beautifully. behind me, on the wall, is a fresco based on an italian painting from the renaissance. you can read about the artist and his work, and about the restaurant itself, here. (oh dear, actually i can't find information about the artist on the website . . she has it only in the menu at the restaurant . . i suppose i will suggest to her that it would be good to put up online!)
chanda is at a birthday party that is ending late, so greg waited for her (at barnes and noble's) while i went home . . i ended up walking downtown . . through times square. i haven't been through times square at night in a long time.
chanda started working on this puzzle last night before bed, but couldn't get very far as it was quite late. this morning after only an hour or so of work, she had a lot completed. here she's on a break from some testing we're finishing up (late late late). i think it was done by bedtime.
usually on thursday we don't have classes or activities. however, this thursday we decided to try the children's chorus classes at third street (tuition-free for already enrolled students). the girls seemed to like the class, and came away discussing the music the teacher said he would have them sing. (chanda also came up to nathalie's restaurant with me today. it's coming together . . slowly. she's hoping to open monday or tuesday).
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for dinner i made chicken thighs in a skillet with fresh thyme and rosemary and diced red potatoes, along with baby spinach in an avocado garlic lemon dressing.
korrina, camille and i took the train to columbus and 85th street. janet's friend has been putting together a restaurant since her old one closed in the west village a year of so ago. (it was called la focaccia, and can actually be seen as a setting in a few films that take place in manhattan). the new one she is opening is using several canvases painted especially for a restaurant venture she was supposed to do before la focaccia. the canvases are beautiful and depict medieval looking soldiers and horses. the name is to be machiavelli. we may do some work part-time in the morning for breakfast.
chanda and i ran several errands this afternoon to the post office and library. along our way we passed the linden trees in bleecker park. four of them went down in the storm. they were quite old, and i suppose they're more vulnerable to the high winds without any younger, more supple vegetation around them.
we got back a little late from our errands, so had a simple maranara sauce and zucchini sauteed with garlic and basil for dinner.
