Temptation, Thy Name Is...

... either Brasserie (well, precisely, cucumber gimlets at Brasserie) or business class complimentary drinks. Tonight I shall be travelling overseas for my first business trip and, alas, I will not be able to take advantage of the joys of free booze on a plane. It's making me very annoyed, actually. And last night, another Shirley Temple was required to stave off the jealousy at not being able to tuck into a cucumber gimlet - which also broke my personal rules for living - or a nice glass of Sancerre. Dagnabbit.

I will have to content myself with purchasing local liquor and bringing in a hipflask on Monday.

Obviously, that's a joke. Obviously.

A Nice Glass of...

... what, exactly? One of the problems of not drinking is it makes me realise how limited my beverage choice is. To whit:

• Can't have caffeine after 6pm (breaking that rule today, and I will pay for it later)
• Juice is full of sugars that are not good sugars (i.e. have turned to alcohol)
• Non-caffeinated beverages like ginger beer (NOT ale) and lemonade/sprite-type things are full of sugar - or are diet and full of nutrasweet which, frankly, scares me and also tastes a little like washing-up liquid when you think about it
  
• Caffeine-free coke is... well, it's just that I don't want to drink it, not that I do not like it
  
• Milk is yummy but again, full of fats and calories that seem wasted because a) they are not cheese or b) wine
• Water I love dearly, but I don't want to drink a ton of it and be up half the night. It'd be much preferable if shops in the US sold squash but, alack, they tend not to - or it costs about a tenner

So, you see, drinking really is the optimal option. Roll on March 1.

Snowtographs

It's been a winter of great piles of snow elsewhere, both at home and in the US, but until today, New York City had managed to avoid the hits - certainly, this winter has not warranted a nickname such as Snowmaggedon. I saw something on tv a couple of days ago that said that while Baltimore had had over 60" of snow since December 1 (that's nearly as tall as me!), NYC had seen a mere 15.5".

Nonetheless, yesterday we got a big fat foot of snow that muffled the sounds of the street, squidged and crunched underfoot, and utterly enchanted me. I worked from home, and took a break in the late afternoon and fading light to take some photos of the snowy streets. It was an absolute joy. I can imagine that getting to work is not going to be quite so much fun.

The (snow)chair on our deck

Park Place

Poor old snowed in lions

Our building

Check out this gorgeous pic of Eastern Parkway, too - I'll be trudging along that to work very soon... And to see the rest of my photos, follow this link.

Assorted Donuts

Today is the anniversary of the death of the great hip-hop producer, J Dilla. It's not an overexaggeration to say that he produced some of the most inventive, fun and creative hip hop since its creation. He took this sort of neo-soul feel and just flew with it, bringing about one of my favourite albums ever (it was #4 in my greatest albums of the 2000s), Fantastic, Vol. 2 by Slum Village, along with one of my favourite tracks ever, Runnin' by the Pharcyde (from Labcabincalifornia - a mere $6 on amazon at the mo - on which Dilla produced several other fantastic tunes, such as Drop, which has a truly great video).

And here's an example of what Dilla did so well: slinky bass, the fun whooping... it's just perfect. And I am incapable of sitting still when it comes on. Which is the point, really.

First (& Second) Hurdles

Onto week 2 of No Booze in February (NBIF). Thus far, I've had the first of my passes, for the Super Bowl. I'm afraid I drank beer other than light beer; I think I may have managed to avoid breaking the rule if we hadn't discovered that the wonderful Brooklyn Beer & Soda sells my favourite Tico beer, Imperial, for not much more than the bars in Costa Rica - which was, at least, impressively cheap. So I drank a few of those, and felt a) quite light-headed quite quickly indeed and b) rancid on waking up on Monday morning. Although the recovery was remarkably quick, interestingly enough.

Yesterday evening was the first real test, the real temptation, however. Because it was one of those casual, lovely meals with great foodie friends, who were salivating over the claret they had ordered - a Bordeaux Saint Colombe '05 which, apparently, was earthy and bloody (suitably enough for claret) and went extremely well with the incredibly good burgers we had last night. It smelt divine. It was a genuine test of my resolve that I passed, but by which I was saddened. Roll on March.