wednesday meet up

 
chanda and i had our annual summer ice cream get together with ellen this afternoon . . 

morgenstern's ice cream is incredibly creamy and delicious. i had honey burnt vanilla and coffee crisp. ellen had coffee crisp and bourbon vanilla . . and chanda had brown sugar mocha (a vegan ice cream made with coconut) and strawberry rhubarb sorbet. ellen has been busy doing exercises to help her balance, working on her computer with last minute class updates, and attending chamber music concerts twice a week. it was nice to see her.

afterwards, i walked to ottendorfer library for a louise erdrich book they had: the sentence. i'm not sure which category this fits into for my wnyc summer reading challenge . . "book recommended by a friend?" (though it wasn't . . ). 

i passed this cookbook shop which i've never been in . . it would be nice to peruse one day . . 

remember this house? i snapped a photo a few weeks ago of the interior . . now they have completed the landscaping, complete with window boxes, and i think it looks beautiful. i love the black wrought iron work!

and here are my nephews working hard on the house. they replaced a patch of deteriorated wood along the gutter.

summer ice cream date

i walked to the hardware store to meet chanda after her work shift and from there we walked to morgenstern's to meet ellen for our annual summer ice cream date (chanda needed some wall anchors for hanging pictures in the apartment).

sunflowers on the avenue . .

we were fortunate in that the line didn't form until after we ordered . . (morgenstern's is very popular - remember the lines from past posts?). ellen and i both had chocolate hazelnut, but different flavors for our second choices. i can't remember her second, but mine was honey burnt vanilla . . and chanda had lavender and something else . .

and then, surprisingly, it poured! we did not have umbrellas but the shop workers came out to roll their awnings down.

(note chanda's blue ice cube trays - the second item she picked up from the hardware store) we talked with ellen about her last show and about a future meeting she's supposed to have with the directors of the theatre she rents out. they are always trying to get her to use their lighting technicians instead of her own.

----

on the way home i stopped at rafetto's for spinach and cheese ravioli for dinner which we had with leftover marinara sauce . . always so good.

knitting projects and spaghetti and meatballs and ice cream again

korrina came by for a visit today (primarily to pick up her jury summons). i felt like having the leftover spaghetti and meatballs from tuesday, but added spicy and mild italian sausages and more meatballs . . so there was plenty left to send home with her.

musselburgh hat by ysolda . . (k's project)

korrina's socks . . 

damsel by josée paquin . . (made by me)

later in the afternoon janet and i took a walk to little island and along the river to chelsea piers 

after which i met greg and we walked to morgenstern's for ice cream . . 

greg said, there will be a line! and i said, no! no! there won't be a line!

you can see who was so very wrong . .

our lady of pompeii . . 

so it was back to julietta's again . .

lemon sorbetto and chocolate gelato . . (greg had mint chip, coffee and lemon sorbet)

it was a beautiful sunset tonight . .

ice cream and a reunion after covid times

 

the second bedroom has been such a mess for the past year, and now it feels very good to have it clean and organized. of course it's still very cluttered . . that is a continuous process, but at least it's not messy. it's also guest ready now, for whomever would like to come visit. for the next twenty days, it will be morgan.

 

but first, here's chanda doing laundry. we had a 2:15 date with ellen at morgenstern's ice cream shop and she was speeding along through the laundry process as it was 2 pm. 

at morgensterm's with ellen.

my flavors were coffee crisp and burnt honey vanilla (no more yuzu which i had on our last visit). chanda had pineapple pandan (which was a light green color but still tasted like pineapple) and vietnamese coffee, and ellen had pineapple pandan and caramel corn.

chanda sat with us for awhile and then moved to another table to listen to another zoom orientation call . . i can't remember what this one was about! before she moved, however, i went in to order an affogato . . it was just so hot outside that i was feeling sleepy and needed some espresso to wake me up. i still wanted to make red bean and quinoa chili afterwards, when i returned home, for dinner and i definitely needed some caffeine to boost my energy . . ! chanda enjoyed seeing ellen's photos and videos from her trip to bryce canyon in utah, and we talked about the dance classes starting in the fall.

 ----

 

morgan's plane landed around 5:30 and since morgan took the air train into the city, we met on the block and walked home together (with greg) (we actually missed each other at first, but then i ran ahead and caught up with morgan on bank street by the apartment and we walked back to get greg). it's exciting to be all together again after being apart for a year and a half.

considering how quickly i made this chili, it was very good . . i even managed to make quacamole with cilantro and lime. this is one of my favorite recipes from cynthia lair's feeding the whole family cookbook. 

uh oh . . where are we going? to get ice cream! 

at chelsea market . . via the high line.

my lemon sorbet cone . . 

i had so much ice cream today . . i'm not very sleepy right now, between the sugar and the caffeine . . 

it's just a warm summer new york night . . 

and it's wondeful to have morgana home for a visit . . it'll be nice to be all together.