Edible Worlds by Christopher Boffoli

Christopher Boffoli – Edible Worlds

Once again owning an exotic pet was proving to be
nothing but trouble.

In New York Ansell and I visited several galleries. My favorite by far was the Winston Wachter Gallery, which had a solo show for Christopher Boffoli’s Edible Worlds.

It didn't matter how much overtime was needed. The pancake
producers were determined to catch up with their
orders before brunch.

“For this show, Boffoli features a series of crisp and vividly colored images. The viewer becomes voyeur in each captured moment and is privy to scenes of work, play, and conversation. Snapshots of saturated color and massive food items allow the miniatures who stand in Boffoli’s surreal scenes to come to life.

With his history, no one would have believed it was an accident.

This juxtaposition of scale has been inspired in party by the heavy use of this visual device in films and television from the 70’s and 80’s and the 18^th century fable, Gulliver’s’ Travels. A wide range of human interaction is captured throughout this series within a dizzying array of produce and prepared staged foods.”

Blackberry CSI

I loved this show and its art. I thought the images were fun and the little one-sentence stories added a whole story to the images. I also liked how colorful and fanciful the images were.

This was my favorite one, for obvious reasons! It was also Ansell's favorite because it involved scuba diving.

Eric always had a healthy amount of anxiety before a deep tea dive.

NYC - Day 4 Friday 8/17

Last Day!

On our last day, we said goodbye to our nice Harlem apartment, dropped our stuff off at the luggage-holding store near Penn Station, and set out to Soho.

 The Soho area is pretty cool. It had some really interesting stores that I have never seen anywhere else. One of which was called Evolution and had everything to do with animals, insects, and humans. So, it had fossils, every kind of beetle, moth, and butterfly imaginable, bones, globes, rocks, etc. It was such a cool place and won Ansell and I’s best store in New York award.

Soho also had a little shop called Mini Cupcakes. It is exactly how it sounds. I chose the Cookie Dough one although I think the Smores would have been fun as well. It’s $1 for one, $3 for 3 and I think $5 for 6. The next time I might just get all the flavors to try it out.

These cupcakes are so small that even 6 of them probably wouldn’t add up to a full cupcake. :)

We also visited this fantastic boutique hotel/restaurant called Isola. The restaurant part is like an indoor/outdoor space. The walls and ceiling are all glass and they incorporate a lot of greenery and open space so it feels like the outdoors but temperature controlled. Ansell and I really loved it and we spent some time enjoying a drink (beer for Ansell and tea for me) while doing some quiet reading. 


I really appreciate when places allow us just to hang out and sip drink quietly while reading. The wait staff didn’t bug us much and didn’t pressure us to buy more stuff.

This is what we get in Portland.
Yeah...it's hard to top.

For lunch, we passed a cabaret place doing a $10 lunch deal and took advantage. We actually got a lot of food and it was pretty good quality for $10. It was obviously a “get-them-in-the-door” tactic though so you could meet the girls inside. I wasn’t that impressed though. If I wanted to see bored attractive girls dancing to music I’d go to a club, at least there the girls would be having fun. Besides when you used to live in Portland, OR and got to see fire dancers and gymnastics just taking off your clothes isn’t very impressive, just boring. So we ate cheaply and left.

These are all paintbrushes stuck in clear gesso.

We rounded out the day by meeting up with another of Ansell’s friends, Mitch, who is in art school and visited the Museum of Modern Art, or MoMA. We timed it to coincide with their free entry period and it was packed. Despite that we had a nice time looking around. I’m not a big fan of modern art and I really appreciated Mitch filling in some of the back-story and interesting details about certain paintings, styles of art, and artists. I also appreciated how low-key he was. He never came across as those artists who are so into themselves and what they’re doing that they’re a chore to be around. Instead he was refreshingly honest and down-to-earth. You can check out his artwork at www.mitchpaster.com.

After that we went to a cool divey diner and I got way too many pancakes. I downed those pancakes like I hadn’t eaten pancakes in months, which is kinda true.

Full on pancakes & happy from our time in New York we caught the bus home to DC.

We had such a wonderful time, Ansell got to visit some old friends and I met new ones, we saw amazing things, ate lots of food, drank lots of tea and overall had a great vacation. I can’t wait to go back!

See you soon New York!

NYC - Day 3 Thursday 8/16

Lower Manhattan here we come!

Thursday morning was spent exploring the Financial district. It’s a lot more interesting than I thought it would be!

We visited the Federal Reserve (boring) and the Stock Exchange first. It weirded me out because the Stock Exchange had the Chinese flag flying. We soon learned that they were having a summit or something there. All the Chinese businessmen and women seemed really excited. Yay for cultural exchange!

We walked down to the waterfront and saw the Brooklyn Bridge before stumbling upon this hidden restaurant alley. On either side of the alley were restaurants and the alley itself had been taken over by tables and hungry financers. It was wonderful.

I am constantly amazed at how well NY creates community spaces. You don’t go 10 blocks without seeing some kind of park or community area, which I think is really important in such a big area.

After eating we headed to Battery Park and saw the distant figure of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Then we walked over to the 9/11 Memorial but the area was totally sealed off and that was really disappointing. I really think it should be open to everyone. One day it will be but for now I understand they have to control the crowds.

The plans for the whole area, and the building of the new tower and the other towers, are very interesting and I can’t wait to see it all completed. It’s amazing that when I eventually take my kids to see it you’d never know that in the not so distant past there were two towers there.

After the Financial District we went to the West Village and hung out. Plenty of cool restaurants and stores. 

We relaxed (and people-watched) at an Italian Café, Olio e Piu, and I enjoyed a nice cup of tea and some Italian cheesecake while Ansell had beer and salmon.

The cheesecake wasn’t what I expected, in a good way. It wasn’t very sweet and was very dense. It was served with melted dark chocolate that was almost like ganache. It was something I wouldn’t have normally ordered but really enjoyed.

We then discovered the Village’s “High Line” which used to be train tracks that the city repurposed into a green, community walkway. This was hands-down my favorite place in New York.

It was so lush and it was great to get off of the street and up higher, where things seem clearer. It was such an unexpected space and I was delighted that the city had invested the money to make such a wonderful community space. I feel that DC and a lot of big cities really lack areas like this.

I thought a lot about my Aunt Carol when I walked along. I think she would have enjoyed it just as much as I did. I would like to one day walk arm in arm along the path and admire the greenery together. It’s such a peaceful place within the heart of all the hustle and bustle.

I want to go back so bad!

That evening Ansell and I met his friends at their apartment in Brookyln. As soon as I walked in I thought I had interrupted a TV show about New York artists. It literally looked exactly like one would expect a struggling artist apartment to look like. Nice!

They had set out a fantastic spread for us and it was great to meet Ansell’s friends from Barcelona. They were awesome people and I can’t wait to visit them again!

We got drunk then dragged ourselves home to Harlem. What a great, long, day!

NYC - Day 2 Wednesday 8/15

Another day, another chance to explore!

I started off the day practicing the fishtail braid. It’s the only braid that truly gives that shaft of wheat look.

We began our touristing (yes, I made that into a word) in Central Park and it is so much bigger than I thought!

It’s huge and so beautiful. It really has everything. From castles, to huts, to little brick houses, lakes, ponds, fountains, gardens, open grounds, big trees, little trees, playgrounds, EVERYTHING you could want in a park!

We started about 1/3^rd the way down and it took us two hours to get to the bottom. It was a great way to start the day. I was a bit puffed out at the end of it though!

Unfortunately our next stop in Brooklyn wasn’t so great. We met up with a friend, Nick, and tried to find the Brooklyn Flea, a big flea market, which is supposed to be great. I went to their website to make sure it didn’t say Weekends Only. Whelp, the website didn’t say it was but there was no flea market to be found. Then it rained hard and that sucked.

We aborted the Brooklyn plan and headed into the East Village, which was awesome! Packed with cool restaurants from end to end it’s the perfect location to do a food tour. Wish we had the time!

Nick, Ansell, and I drank some beers at an Irish pub while the storm overhead passed then walked around the awesome that is East Village until we ducked into a Cuban restaurant. The boys had rum punch while I snacked on these amazing Latin inspired deviled eggs. SO GOOD!

Inadvertent picture of Nick when getting
the Cuban restaurant...he's making a weird face.

It was great to chill out and talk with our friend Nick. He recently got accepted into Columbia’s writing program so it’s only a matter of time before we have his published books on our bookshelf. It’s also a great excuse to keep coming back to NY!

East Village had so many great niche restaurants that it is my No. 1 place to go back to and explore. I will definitely have to stop in to here next time and get my tea on!

Ansell and I were planning on hitting some bars at night but the weather got so bad we beat a retreat to our apartment and had another bath instead!

NYC - Day 1 Tuesday 8/14

This will be helpful!

And we’re off! 

 
We left DC’s Union Station at 8:30am and arrived at Penn Station at 12:30pm. We started by exploring the Penn Station area, which included the Garment District. The Fashion Institute is there and so the whole area has turned itself into every conceivable fashion/costume type business from stores devoted to trim to beads, feathers, fabric, and everything in-between. 





It was pretty fabulous! I did a lot of window-shopping but didn’t go in. I don’t need to feed the addiction!

We had a delicious Panini of prosciutto, goat cheese, and sundried tomato at the Picnic Basket before heading to the nearby Uniqlo.

We love Uniqlo and don’t have one in DC. It was such a cool store and even beat the one in Japan! We stocked up on staples before finishing our exploration of Chelsea and Midtown West, which is more stores and restaurants.

Then it was off to Harlem to see our apartment we rented for 3 days from Airbnb. It was shockingly large and I couldn’t believe we got such a great deal! 

It also had a big bathtub and Ansell and I celebrated our first night with a bath. Lovely!