Leap Year Wordless Wednesday: 2/29/2012

Color blocks. Meat Packing District. February 2012.

The view from the High Line in NYC. February 2012.

NY City Bites, or how I ate my way around Manhattan

“If this town is just an Apple, then let me take a bite.” – Michael Jackson, Human Nature

What is it about New York City that makes its food so delicious and unique? Is it the water?

I was  there last week celebrating my birthday with two of the most important women in my life (Mi Mamá y Mi Tia)  and in retrospect, it seemed our mantra was let’s “Eat, Drink and Be Merry.”

According to one of the city’s tourist gurus, there are 31 thousand restaurants in New York City (Manhattan) alone. THIRTY ONE THOUSAND!

Here are a few photos of recently discovered and eternal favorites. This was my 7th trip to New York and it was wonderful. (Gracias Mama y Tia!!)

PS: Full disclosure: I took all the photos except for one, and I am happy to share as long as you give me credit for them.

Balthazar SoHo:

Balthazar from its interior. A French Bistro that feels like heaven.

It was 10 am and the place was already busting at the seams. We needed a reservation for breakfast.

Still one of my favorites after all these years. Balthazar on Spring street in SoHo never disappoints.

Prune, Lower East Side:

We went on the recommendation of my beloved Anthony Bourdain, from a  few seasons ago on “No Reservations.” And I don’t say this lightly, but it was one of the best meals I have ever had in my life. We ordered several things, but for my dinner I chose the short ribs over the Yorkshire bread and every bite was a delight. This is a tiny tiny restaurant with a French feel. We absolutely loved everything about it, even the price.

Bone Marrow dish with salt and toast, a glass of wine, and radishes with butter and salt. Simply Amazing. No le pide nada a los taquitos de tuétano que nos comemos en familia.

Tiny place on the Lower East Side. Prune is frequented by stylish New Yorkers who love good food.

Make a reservation in advance. Prune is located on 1st street between 1st and 2nd Avenue in New York City.

Waverly Restaurant (around the Village)

Here’s a great place for breakfast, which I initially confused with the “Restaurant” from the Seinfeld show. Nos estabamos muriendo de hambre when we walked in, and we were delighted with all the options, it has the look and feel of a coffee shop, but has a full scale menu.The price is nice too.

The Waverly Retsaurant is a full scale restaurant with a coffee shop feel. Inexpensive and a really great spot for breakfast on a Sunday morning.

When I saw the sign I initally thought it was the original "Restaurant" from the Seinfeld show, but that is another restaurant altogether. The sign is pretty great though.

Tiny coffee shop/restaurant with all the typical breakfast noshing your heart desires, and then some. They have a huge menu to choose from.

You can also eat at the tiny bar, which resembles a diner. Cash only, please.

PizzArte, at 56th Street. Midtown

A modern, elegant, artsy place with great pizza napolitana, salads and pastas. Very cool setting and we also loved the food. As a bonus, they had a great soundtrack. Owners are ITALIANOS. Can’t go wrong with this place.

Entrance of Pizza Arte at 56th Street.

Margherita Pizza and Linguini al Vongole at Pizza Arte. MUUUY RICO.

Hot dog stand in front of the MOMA museum:

Need I say more?

You can't miss them, they're all over the place.

No guts no glory: Le pedi a este chavo tomarme una foto con el. Nunca habia visto un vendedor tan guapo. Nice guy too with a great smile.

Bar at the St. Regis Hotel:

A very swanky and posh place to have a drink. Elegant, rich, old school, and hits the spot after a long day. “Sip it slowly.”

Lovely place for a drink or two.

One martini, Two Martinii, Threee Martiniii...

At the Oscars: Demián, Demián, Ra! Ra! Ra! (New Bromance: Bichir and Clooney!)

¡Seguimos echando porras!

However, Oscar night did not go as planned for our favorites, at least for the Mexican nominees Demián Bichir and (five time!) nominated cinematographer Emanuel Lubezki. When all is said and done, we still feel a little bit robbed, but as they say, “it is an honor just to be nominated.”  I’ll leave out my nationalistic sentiments and all the “shoulda woulda” comments. Ni modo, no nos ha tocado ver ganar a nuestros nominados todos estos años, but at least it was a fun ride.

Para mi Demián fue el ganador y no sólo porque en mi humilde opinión fue la mejor actuación. Ganó porque sólo hay que ver como lo reciben y quieren todos los del Hollywood royalty to know he’s up there with the big guns.

Look at this picture below from the arrivals last night and how Clooney greeted Bichir in this lovely “Quiubole compa!” moment. That is genuine love among men, my friends. You can’t fake that, I don’t care how good an actor you are.

We witnessed a true Hollywood romance brewing before our eyes on national television in the Oscar pre-telecast:

Feel the LOVE. Clooney and Bichir are the newest Hollywood power couple. (photos from the E! Telecast)

From People.com, a lovely moment between Demian and Clooney.

We also found these great pictures on Quien.com, back from the Oscar nominee luncheon in Beverly Hills a few weeks ago. You can practically feel the joy in these images en donde se ve que le están echando muchas porras a Demián. 

Y así se acaba otro Oscar season. Congratulations to Lubezki and Bichir, you made us very proud.

From Quien.com (Demian y su momento Whiskey, articulo 26 de febrero 2012)

Demián, Demián, RA RA RA!! Foto de Quien.com ("Demián y su momento "whiskey" articulo 26 de febrero 2012)

My blog post on Time Magazine’s Latino cover generated hate mail. And this is my response.

No es la primera vez que me pasa en este blog de Life in Spanglish, but this time the hate mail received was more widespread and coming from a real (and really scary) source with a legitimate web address and very vocal members.

Yesterday as I wrote about the great Time Magazine Cover on the Latino Vote, I thought it would garner a few positive responses on our recently validated power status for the next presidential election in the USA. It never occurred to me that my blog post and link would be tagged to a white supremacist group’s online forum, where members with weird acronyms and spiteful names viciously attacked the blog and attacked the Latino community in the USA.

I will not post the address nor the name of the group. I will not post any of the comments they made. I will not approve nor publish any of the comments they left on this blog. Suffice it to say they have a logo that resembles a cross and swastika, and they don’t like minorities, ethnic groups, nor anything else that is different from their supremacist vision of the world. In a nutshell, they pretty much hate us and the fact we live here.

It was scary to read the comments, I’ll admit. It shouldn’t be a surprise, given the news we hear everyday, the newly appointed laws in Arizona and Alabama, the state of Immigration issues in this country. Yet, for my blog it was a reality check where it was directly placed on a hateful site and quoted by a very unpleasant group of people, and this made me feel vulnerable.

My first instinct was to respond directly to them on their forum, to defend the blog and to defend us. In the end, it would’ve reduced me to their same standing (and I also had to register to leave a comment, imagine that!) so I chose to delete as much as I could on this blog and just keep writing in SPANGLISH. Yes, there were many comments that made me upset, but as my good friend Gina Dewar said, there are many more of US, many more Latinos than the people who don’t like us, and we are here to stay.

So if they are still reading, and they’ve gotten this far on this post, then read and understand this:

Latinos are 50 million strong in the USA and growing. The United States of America is our home, and we are proud of our culture, language and heritage we bring into the mix. We are not here to take away from anyone, on the contrary, we will continue to contribute and work to help this beautiful country we CHOSE to live in. This is a country that has also given us so much in return, a country we love profoundly. And also, understand that we aren’t going anywhere. Aqui estamos, so please just find a way to make peace with this or just deal with it.

One of the beautiful things this country offers is freedom of speech. So in that sense, everybody is entitled to their opinion. But as far as Life in Spanglish goes, and so long as I’m writing it, we’re going to keep the conversation positive and the comments happy. Esas gentes no tendrán ningún espacio en este blog.

Could I interest you in leaving a response below, por favorcito? It would be nice to hear from you, nice person reader, along the lines of an “arriba los Latinos” tone.

Thanks for reading.

CB

Great Time Magazine cover this week: “Yo Decido”

Ya era hora que alguien lo dijera. Bravo Time Magazine. We love it. What a brilliant headline. I think it will catch on as a new mantra, along the lines of the always energetic but overused “Sí Se Puede.” (Para los mexicanos esto representa el amor/apoyo a la Selección Mexicana de Futbol solamente.)

“Yo Decido,” which for all my English speaking amigos, translates to “I Decide,” is a pretty strong statement. Yes, we have the power to make a difference.

I think this might be the first time that the magazine has a Spanish title on their cover and a mainstream media outlet declares the power of Latinos in the next elections. Look for it this week on your newsstand. I looked for it yesterday but it had not arrived.  It’s already making the rounds all over the place for the daring title and important subject matter.

Case in point: my 92 year old grandmother became a US Citizen last year and when they asked her why she wanted to become a citizen she said, “PARA TENER VOZ Y VOTO.” (“So I can have a voice and vote.”)

Here is the cover below and the link to the article online at Time.com “Why Latino Voter Will Swing the 2012 Election.”

From Time.com, the cover for the week of March 5, 2012.

Andale Demián! Mr. Bichir is having fun in NYC

Faltan sólo  2 weeks until the Oscars and our sentimental (and critical favorite) Mr. Demián Bichir took a few days off to go to New York and have some fun and promote “A Better Life”.

This morning he was interviewed on Good Morning America by George Stephanopolous. And we have to say he looked great, so relaxed and cool. You can tell he’s enjoying this moment. He talked about the movie, he squeezed in a little shout out to his paisanos los jardineros, and he joked that he is now BFF’s with George Clooney and Brad and Angie. Qué tal!

Here’s the interview for you to enjoy: Click on this link to take you to the ABC page:

Tambien le tocó estar en el Fashion Week. He made an appearance at the Oscar de la Renta fashion show earlier in the week, with front row seats! And obviously, he was checking out the models (and the fashion).

Photo from Quien.com

De la revista Quien.com

Pero lo que mas gusto nos da es que la gente lo está empezando a reconocer y le piden autografos. Here he is, happy as a clam, signing autographs as he leaves the GMA show in Times Square.

Bravo Demián, we’re rooting for you! Queremos que ganes.

Wordless Wednesday: Weird chocolate combos

Tortilla+Lime+Salt+Chocolate= weird combo. Found these at the REI store, $4 bucks each.

This is what the "fusion" foodie trend has come to. Chocolate + RamenNoodles = Not. A. Fan.

L.U.V. = MDNA!

It was a very good week for Madonna, in all her amazing glory.  Her Super Bowl performance last Sunday was one of the best ever. On Tuesday she announced her World Tour for 2012 (she’ll be in LA on October 10th); and according to iTunes, preorders for her new album MDNA hit the top spot in 50 countries.

Amen Madonna!

We’ll have to wait a bit for her new album, which drops on March 26th. In the meantime, here’s her latest video to get the weekend going. It’s from her new single “Give Me All You Luvin’” and it features Niki Minaj and M.I.A., because that’s how you do it in this day and age to stay fresh.

 

Even NPR practically raves on her existence: Madonna at Halftime: What it Takes to Last.

Don’t you just admire the fact that she’s been on top of her game ever since we met her back in the 80′s?  We all remember when she was still “Like A Virgin” and declaring to Dick Clark on American Bandstand that she was going to rule the world.

She was right, you know.

Madonna at Danceteria. Courtesy Affordable Art Fair. (Love this image from Fabrik Magazine, Issue 015)

Here comes Valentine’s Day. Cupido acuérdate de mi…

Today I realized Valentine’s Day is next Tuesday.

Y luego, all of a sudden, without any explanation, como que se me antojo mandar Valentine’s Day cards, like the ones you used to get in 3rd grade. Remember how you used to fill out one for everyone in your class? Me entro un poquito de nostalgia. Yo siempre escogía las de Snoopy.

Será que I’ve been running into all these little knick knacks all over the place. Made me want to buy corazoncitos de chocolates y artsy Valentine’s Day cards. Maybe if my new online dating sites prove any luck, the story will change by next Tuesday. (I am thisclose to rejoining eharmony and give them another chance, although you all remember my past experiences when they kept “matching me” with Lupillos and all the paisanos from Pico Rivera…NOT that there’s anything wrong with that, but that’s a little ways out of my area code.)

On another note, for the last 2 years I’ve made a couple of recommendations on Love Songs based on my current state of mind, which probably (sin querer queriendo) says a lot about me and my relationship statuses.

The first year it was KEB-MO and “You Can Love Yourself” which I still love to hear all the time and says that “if nobody loves you and you’re feeling like dust on an empty shelf …just remember you can love yourself!” In 2011 it was C-Lo,  topping the charts with his “F-U” song, or “Forget You”  for radio friendly audiences, and I thought it was THE Valentine’s Day pick for the rest of us, los del club de corazones solitarios. You know who you are!

This year, however, I have not picked a song yet, maybe because I haven’t had a moment to think about it or because Lana del Rey has been all over the place with her weird and addictive songs and Valley of the Dolls like personna…more on that on a later post.

Oh well. I still have a few days to pick and choose, but in the meantime I ran into this cutesy-tootsie art card at the LAPL Gift Shop and I think it will do:

Pick your poison people: El Cancionero del Amor, according to a Valentine's day card which I found at the LAPL Gift Shop in downtown.

Y bueno, si alguien me quiere mandar chocolates, me encantan los de See’s Candies. Absolutely, positively, undoubtedly, no question about it, my all time favorites. Hint Hint:

See's Candies please!

Wordless Wednesday: Need a Barber Shop in LA?

Oaxaca Barber Shop is located on La Cienega blvd. Cool name!

Checking out La Reina del Sur dvd at the Library

Man, the weekends go by fast. Somehow 48 hours are not enough para hacer todo lo que quieres/tienes que hacer, especially when you know you’re going to spend a Sunday afternoon watching commercials and the SuperBowl. (OK the halftime with Madonna was amazing, right?… But I digress.)

On my list for the weekend was to squeeze in a visit to the Library in downtown LA, even if it’s totally out of the way for me. If I can just get in 30 minutes during the week, I am a happy camper. May I recommend you visit it (again!) and see the cool stuff they have going on?

Browsing through their DVD collections on the first floor, oh joy! There are Documentaries, Foreign Movies and TELENOVELAS. A really good selection for all of us who have discerning tastes. I was impressed.

Wouldn’t you know it? They already have the La Reina del Sur dvd on the shelf. If you haven’t already seen it, here’s your chance to see what all the hoopla was about last year. Mind you, this is an edited version on 2 volumes (12 dvds total) but it’s a great series, nevertheless. Or maybe you’re just a LRDS junkie and you just want to re-live your favorite moments con El Ratas y Don Epifanio, not to mention El Pote y el Batmancito. I miss them…You could buy the series at Amazon, but it will set you back 40 bucks. Here at the library you can check it out for free for 2 weeks.

You can check out La Reina del Sur series dvds at the 1st floor of the LA Central Public Library in downtown.

Interesting juxtaposition of the Novelas dvds next to Anime. There is something for everybody.

Cinephiles rejoice. A cult classic from el DF in the late 80's. Alfonso Cuarón's first hit: Solo con Tu Pareja. Still funny after all these years.

Los pasillos de la biblioteca, with miles and miles of books.

Cool title in Spanglish. "Orozco in Gringoland" Will have to check it out soon. Chronicles Jose Clemente Orozco's work in New York City.

National Wear Red Day: Supporting Heart Health and Go Red Por Tu Corazón

Today, February 3rd, is National Wear Red Day and if I may, I’d like to make a little public service announcement on behalf of the American Heart Association and Macy’s.

When was the last time you ever thought about YOUR HEART? And I mean your heart as an organ that keeps you alive, not as a symbol of romance or love, or broken heart that inspires a sad love song.

It’s a very startling statistic to find out that women rarely pay attention to the fact that heart disease, and cardiovascular disease, are the number one killers of women. We think that heart attacks are exclusive to men. But I was shocked to find out that it takes more lives than breast and ovarian cancer among women, and that we do not consider the risks.

The Go Red Por Tu Corazón campaign website, en español! Hagan click para ir al sitio.Tell your mother, tell your sisters, tell your friends.

To raise awareness of heart disease among women, the American Heart Association launched an initiative called “Go Red for Women” back in 2004, and you will be happy to know it has made a difference.

They have also, very wisely, created the initiative in Spanish, calling it “Go Red Por Tu Corazón”  (love the title in Spanglish!) and is reaching out to the Hispanic Community. Díganle a sus Mamás, a sus Tias, a sus Hermanas, a sus Amigas que lo lean. Spread the word!

I encourage you to visit the website, in Spanish (click here) and in English (click here) and learn how to participate, create awareness and take care of yourselves and your loved ones. It’s worth a few minutes of your time. It even has recipes and very useful tips on how to recognize the symptoms and warning signs of a stroke.

One of the sponsors of this campaign is my favorite store- MACY’S- who has contributed $28 million dollars to the cause since 2004.  They have a special sale going on today Friday Feb. 3, for anyone who shops at the store and is wearing red. What a great idea, since today ando de rojo! I think I’m gonna save me 20% on my purchases.

You can contribute and make a $2 dollar donation by getting the Go Red pin at Macy’s and by shopping on the exclusive WEAR RED items they have benefiting the American Heart Association.

You can purchase this pin for $2 and support Go Red Para Tu Corazón.

And you can also use the power of social media to donate. Visit the Macy’s fanbook page (click here) and create a Valentine by February 14th. They will donate $2 for each Valentine card sent, with a total of up to $250 thousand dollars in support of the Go Red Campaign. ¿Quien me quiere mandar una tarjetita de San Valentin?

Macy's is a wonderful sponsor of the Go Red Campaign. Click on the image to support the cause on their facebook page.

La Reina del Sur, aka Kate del Castillo, y su entrevista post-escándalo Twitter

¿Se acuerdan hace unas semanas, cuando el mundo entero (incluyéndome a mi) opinó sobre el famoso tweet de Kate del Castillo y el escándalo que le siguió? Ah pues ahora Kate ya está dando entrevistas y platicó con Adela Micha (more on her later) about what REALLY happened that night she tweeted to El Chapo and what she REALLY thinks.

Hmmm. Maybe I’m not buying all her answers, but it makes for interesting television. There were a few moments in the interview where you could tell she was getting really unconfortable with Adela’s questions. Como siempre, la Adela no pierde la oportunidad “to make it about her” y le dice “yo te voy a decir, si me permites, lo que pienso al respecto….” (like we care!) En fin, dejara de ser Adela y dejara de ser la diva de las noticias.

Anyway, judge for yourselves, si es que todavía les interesa el tema. La Reina del Sur siempre da de que hablar, no? By the way, I’m still a fan, Kate.

Aqui esta el video de Youtube, ojalá que Televisa no lo quite y nos limite por no estar en México, como suelen hacer. Aqui les pongo el link a la segunda parte, pues son varias.

Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=H5FYS4itjZY#!

OMG! Kate's reaction to her post-twitter scandal.

Wordless Wednesday: Spanglish in action en el 562 area code

¡Eso señores! Nothing like tooting your own horn to get you noticed. Here's "La Mera Mera" at your service.