Glad to be home, I had to leave NYC to get some cooler weather – in Miami!
NYC was brutal. Heat indexes over 100 made it unbearable at times. This red hoodie cartoon reminded me of my favorite red hoodie, which I brought to NY with me, thinking I might need it at nights like most summers, but even the nights were warm this year, there really was no cool air other than the airconditioned places. I heard a weatherperson on tv describe it as the Northeast having “no airflow.”
I was living on iced coffee.
MOMAMOMAStarry Night, MOMAPicasso, MOMAJP Morgan LibraryJP Morgan LibarayThe METSelf Portrait, Van Gogh, The METThe METThe METThe MET
One day, I felt I was getting heat stroke, really – I wasn’t sure what to do, but I managed to get back to the a/c and my bed and I drank a lot of color water, and in time, I got back to normal. I wondered how I would get back across town, from uptown to downtown, as I waited on those roasting subway platforms.
Also, this year Manhattanhenge was a bust – too many clouds blocking it both nights.
But in spite of all the heat, I did have a lot of fun. A lot of my family from Miami was up north and we had good times mostly in The Hamptons. In the city I did a lot of my favorite things and went to many of my favorite museums, including Cleopatra’s Needle, behind the MET Museum and the JP Morgan Library, which I had passed a few times, but never visited.
Ate in a lot of new places – three Greek restaurants ironically. But I forgot to check out Maria Loi’s place, Loi Estiatorio, which I see on tv a lot. I like her Mediterranean cooking style.
I’m looking forward to cooler temps in the fall, when I return for NY Comic Con and pumpkin and apple picking in October and Thanksgiving and so many more things in November.
Cleopatra’s Needle in Central Park
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I’m getting up quite early these mornings, while it’s still dark out.
No, it’s not about Daylight Saving Time. It’s because there is a rooster in the neighborhood! And it start crowing about 5 am every day!
I’m not sure where it’s coming from, we live on a small cul-de-sac, so it shouldn’t be hard to find. I asked Ray, our UPS guy to call me if he sees it in his travels.
In Miami, there are chickens and roosters all over the place. I have a friend who calls us the land of peacocks and palm trees, because there are a lot of those, too. But the chickens and roosters are the worst.
I’ve seen chickens crossing busy highways, I know, there’s a joke in there somewhere and I’ve heard roosters over the years. Key West is known for them.
Years ago, when I lived in Coral Gables, there were chickens across the street. And I don’t mean at someone’s house, I mean they were just random on the street.
A few months back, there were chickens in the Publix parking lot. We would have to drive around them in order to avoid running them over.
The peacocks are welcome, by me anyway. A few years ago, a bunch of newspapers across the country misquoted me about the peacocks, making it look as if I didn’t like them, and people were not happy with me around here. But it was a misquote and I love them. The chickens and roosters, not so much.
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I’ve been a hermit lately, ever since the start of the pandemic. I mean I do go out and I do travel, but I’m not doing what I used to do. I’m sort of stuck in that staying in mode. I used to be out all day and night. Now I’m not. I used to participate in the community, in a big way. Now I don’t.
Yesterday I went to a memorial in our village. It was for someone who was big in the town, who was almost the godfather of our town.
The memorial was in one of the parks in the village and there was a large turnout. There was a proclamation from the city in his name and a few beautiful trees were planted in his name. We have quite a few parks in the village, but this was his favorite, so it all centered around this park and him.
My point is that there were so many people there and I know 90% of them. I hadn’t seen many in quite awhile, ever since I stopped publishing the daily news here. When I covered the news I was everywhere every day, gathering up news, covering events. It’s a small village so it was easy to see most people most days.
The funny thing is that as I looked through the crowd, it seemed as if my news gathering caused a quarrel between many of the people present and me at one time or another, they weren’t too keen on things I wrote. I literally had issues over the years with half the people who where there yesterday.
Half of them yelled at me , or threw me out of their offices or called me names over the years. Yet in the end they gave me many awards and accolades. We were/are a dysfunctional family.
I remember the deceased telling me at a meeting once, “Tom, this is not for publication.” And at another point he says, “Tom, this is not for publication.” And a third time, he said, “Tom, this is not for publication.” And I held up my pad and said, “I have not written a sentence. You haven’t said anything worth repeating.” And the whole room laughed. I guess we did have good times through it all.
At one point, we thought it would all make a good reality show of the craziness we lived through daily. One of my friends worked for Endemol, a producer of reality tv, and she would always tell me to come in and pitch the idea, which I never did.
I caught up with so many people yesterday. The thing is, we all still live here and while the village is quickly turning into a city, the people are all the same.
I think I need to get out there again – go to things, participate again. Go to bingo at the women’s club, go to a meeting this week where our town’s yearly parade is planned, go to an arts festival meeting, attend a village council meeting. The good part is that I won’t be covering any news and it won’t be a job. I’ll just be one of the village people like everyone else.
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I’m back in NYC for a bit of the summer. Had my first Mr. Softee of the summer – actually first of the year and to think about it, I haven’t had any ice cream of any kind since October, which was a Mr. Softee at a block party in Westhampton.
Ran into a Chinese food festival at Washington Square Park – delicious food, long lines. Wall to wall people. Summer is here in NYC!
That cute little guy was in my face in the subway. Luckily I didn’t have my Mr. Softee cone with me, he would have been all over it.
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I was wishing someone a happy birthday today on Facebook, and something new came up – past photos of that person with me, come up along with the birthday wish. This reminded me of my friend Vincent.
Years ago, when Vincent would send Christmas cards, he would include photos of you from the past year. I don’t know if he took the photos deliberately or not, but he would have photos of you at a Fourth of July picnic, or a birthday party or a trip we went on together or whatever.
Usually every December, when you opened your Christmas card from Vincent, out would drop two or three photos of yourself with others, including Vincent (0r not). It was usually some event you had forgotten about, nothing grand like a wedding but always a small event that faded from memory.
I was thinking of Vincent’s photos when the photos popped on on Facebook today, the Facebook photos aren’t current because I don’t take as many photos as I used to. I forget or feel awkward when we’re at a party or event or whatever, I think people may wonder, “What are you going to do with that picture?” But truth be told, everyone is taking pictures every minute of the day, so I wouldn’t be the only one. And 9 times out of 10, they say, “Send me a copy of that!”
Many times at events – with family and friends, I’m tempted to go around and get pics of people. Sometimes I’ll hand my phone to one of my cousins and say, “Go around and get pictures,” but they never do either.
One of my cousins is starstruck and he’s the first to get pics with some famous person or other, whether they want that or not. But I don’t have enough pics of family and friends. I’ve got to make an effort.
I don’t think I have anything from our family Christmas or Easter this past year when we all were together. There was a wedding a few months back, I don’t think I have many from that either.
I’ve got to make an effort to start getting pics of everything.
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I’ve been living in the stone age this week. What happened is, my internet and tv went dead. ATT Unverse just stopped working. It was an area thing, not just me. The frustrating part was that ATT wouldn’t tell us anything – just that the service would be back soon, which it wasn’t.
It is now almost 60 hours and we’re still off the grid. But I finally found out what it is – one of my neighbors told me it’s a problem with a junction box. And that 60 hours may turn into 100 hours without service according to ATT, who my neighbor got through to.
The good part is I called ATT and instead of canceling their service, like I always promise to do, I am giving them more money in the form of a hotspot on my iphone, which now allows me to have internet. So I am able to post this, post my cartoons and do some work.
It all went dead Monday night at 9:30 pm, right in the middle of Summer House, which I was watching. And I didn’t realize how bad things are when we don’t have internet and tv. Mostly, I couldn’t work, not even cartooning because I go back and forth between computers.
It’s happened before for long periods – after hurricanes mostly, but we’re too consumed with that mess to worry about internet and tv. But the last time, we did have electricity, no wifi or tv, but my neighbor who has Comcast/Xfinity, gave me his password and since they were up and running, I didn’t have to rely on ATT, I used his password to go online and work.
At night during that time, instead of being able to watch tv, I watched two Harold Lloyd movies on YouTube on my phone. So I made do. Oddly enough, without wifi and tv, you sort of feel as if you are Harold Lloyd hanging by a thread, off of a clock.
The great Harold Lloyd in Safety Last
But for some reason, Monday, into Tuesday this week felt strange. It’s hard to remember a time when we didn’t rely on the internet, I mean, whether you use cable tv or streaming services, you need to get online these days for that.
My brother was telling me about YouTube tv, he has that. I was looking at how it worked at his house the other day. It’s much cheaper than cable and it gets all the channels. So I was considering changing to that. Again, it would relay on wifi to work, but you could use it on your phone or tablet, etc. so you could use that bandwith to make do.
After 24 hours of this mess, I was over my withdrawal symptoms, I felt at peace. I didn’t miss tv or the internet. I felt like it was in the “old days” when I was hardly ever home and basically in and out to change my clothes.
I think I started being a homebody during the pandemic, and never stopped being in that habit. But now I know I can live without being addicted to wifi and tv. I enjoy depriving myself (doesn’t Kramer say that on Seinfeld in one episode? I think it was about him not having a refrigerator).
First world problems.
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Let me start by saying I don’t even boil water. I can, of course, but I don’t. Except to make tea. But I do love watching cooking shows. I guess it’s the same as DYI home shows, I don’t plan on renovating any time soon, or house hunting, yet I enjoy these shows, too. I find them relaxing. There’s not much thinking involved. Although I guess if you’re following the recipes, there is thinking. But since I’m not following the recipes, I don’t have to think.
Right now I have four favorite tv cooks/chefs – Ina Garten, Christina Pirello, Rory O’connell and Mary Ann Esposito.
Ina has her regular cooking show, Barefoot Contessa and her Be My Guest with Ina Garten, which I love. It’s a show where she has a famous person come to her East Hampton home and she interviews them and cooks with them. I found this show while on a plane.
The first half hour is a sit down interview where they sit at Ina’s kitchen table and talk. The best part, I think. The second half is them in the kitchen cooking and chatting, but I prefer the first part where you learn a lot about people and how they got their starts, their philosophies, etc. But now the Food Network screwed up the whole thing by having only the half hour cooking segment, and for the whole hour, you have to subscribe to a streaming service. So you now have to pay for the best part.
I read a reader’s comment somewhere that says the celebs are bubbleheads and this person who left the comment didn’t care what these “bubbleheads” had to say. He felt the cooking segment was the best part, but I feel the opposite and I don’t find Stanley Tucci, Emily Blunt, Marcus Samuelsson, Nathan Lane and Julianna Margulies, bubbleheads, quite the opposite. They all have very interesting stories about their lives and how they got to where they are now in life.
And one more show I like, which is sort of a travel/cooking show is Stanley Tucci’s Searching for Italy show on CNN. It’s excellent and knowing that Stanley grew up in Calabria, Italy, makes it more interesting. The first street I lived on as an adult was Calabria (in Coral Gables, FL), so it comes full circle in a way.
Anyway, on with my favorite cooks – Christina Pirello, hosts Christina Cooks, a half hour cooking show, where she prepares what she calls Macroterranean food. – it’s vegan Italian/Mediterranean food. No meat, no butter, sugar, etc. All natural. I mostly love her personality, she reminds me of so many people I know from the Northeast – Staten Island, New Jersey, etc. Christina is based in Philadelphia.
One thing we disagree with is that she calls Italian sauce “gravy” but we always grew up with it being called “sauce,” and she insists it’s her way, but I disagree. How many times did my mother call me up and say, “I’m making sauce tonight, you wanna come over?” By sauce she meant pasta, meatballs, whatever was made with the sauce (not gravy). Gravy is brown stuff you use on meats!
It’s funny because at Christmas, one of my nieces, a vegan, made some sort of pasta that I loved. I said to her, it’s so light, the cheese not so overpowering. She said it was vegan. I said, “Oh right, I know of this Italian cook (Christina) who uses white miso instead of parmigiana cheese and it tastes the same, only lighter.” And my niece told me that that’s where she got the recipe – from Christina and it was white miso instead of cheese in this dish!
Rory likes to use a lot of wild greens and flowers in his dishes.
Next up, Rory O’Connell. He has a half hour cooking show, How to Cook Well from County Cork farmhouse, in Ireland. He has a thick Irish accent and I love to listen to him talk. He uses such great expressions, things we wouldn’t say in the U.S.
Rory uses a lot of plants and flowers in his cooking. He sometimes goes overboard and finishes a dish covering it with so many edible flowers, that you can’t see what the main dish is below all those blooms. But I like him a lot and find him entertaining.
Mary Ann Esposito has the longest running cooking show on tv called Cia Italia. She’s messy in her cooking, very homey and friendly and cooks in her own home kitchen in New Hampshire, where she lives.
Three of the four live in places I love – Ina lives in East Hampton, NY, Mary Ann lives in New Hampshire and Rory lives in Ireland. Christina lives in Philadelphia, meh, not my fav, but I still like her.
All of the shows I watch on PBS and Ina is on the Food Network and Discovery Plus for the full hour episodes.
And as Lydia Bastianich, another favorite cook says, “Tutti a tavola a mangiare!
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Still lots of things going on this season. I missed the Lake Worth Chalk Festival last weekend and a few other art events, but managed to get to this past weekend’s Gifford Lane Art Stroll, which is a block party in our village. It’s a yearly thing – 25th year, this year and it brings out the whole village. It’s like a tv show where the full cast shows up for an event and they are all in one scene.
It was also “305 Day,” on Sunday, which is the area code for Miami and on March 5 (3/05).
The hit of the block party is cucumber punch which is delicious on a hot day, which always seems to be the case for this event each year – it’s been a cool winter, but Sunday was totally hot.
The first year I went, 20 years back, I didn’t know the cucumber punch had gin in it, and I really had my fill, I was feeling no pain. Now that I know the ingredients, I take it easy.
They used to serve the gin at a friend’s house where everyone lined up outside his green door and he and his wife and friends would serve it up to thousands. I guess after 23 years they felt enough was enough with the non-stop traffic through their house, so they have it out in someone else’s driveway now. So last year, I went to the driveway for the first time and got some punch and people started talking to me. But the homeowner was not having it, she started yelling, “Tom, you have your punch, now get out of here!” I couldn’t argue with her, because she is 97 years old! She’s a spry 97, but still.
This year while it was outside her house, she wasn’t around. She’s an avid bike rider at her age, so maybe she was out bike riding!
Anyway, it was a great day, I think I saw everyone I know there which is always nice. There’s a lot of food, live music and kibitzing. A perfect day for a small village.
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I lived in the building years ago and loved that area and that building and I had a dream about it just out of the blue. And the next day I googled the address and a listing came up on Zillow. It was for this nice, large penthouse. And even though I lived in that building for 9 years, I didn’t realized this two story penthouse was there!
There are four penthouses and two are very large double-floor units, according to Zillow. I had been in the two smaller ones, which were the size of the rest of the units in the building, which were quite large, too.
Anyway, this unit that was for sale looked huge and was two floors and had a big kitchen, which I loved, even tough I don’t cook, and it had a huge terrace and had unobstructed views of east and south – downtown Miami and Coral Gables and I could keep going on and on. And the neighborhood is very quiet and quite convenient. It had everything going for it.
The price was a fraction of my current home, the monthly HOA/maintenance fees were much lower than my current ones and the city taxes were the same as I am paying now. it was a win, win, win.
So I excitedly went to see the place and for some reason I didn’t like it. For one thing – the photos on Zillow were exaggerated and made the place look huge, but in reality it had low ceilings and cramped walls and spaces. But thinking about it days later, I realized the reason I was not into it was that it had to much of the current owner in it and too much stuff. What I mean is I have seen enough real estate tv shows that say remove all personal things from the place, which was not the case here, and it made a difference, a negative one.
There was one of those stair lift seats which was a turn off for me and I noticed a walker in the corner, which was used by the owners late husband it was overloaded with furniture. There literally were two dining room tables just feet from each other, one in the kitchen and one in the dining room, but they were just about 10 feet apart, which really made the place seem cramped. The rest of the furniture was oversized and made the place look crowded.
There were photos of family all over the place and the dressers in the bedrooms reeked of old lady – full of so many things from a lifetime of living.
The kitchen was full of stuff all of the counters (it would have been best to put them away in the cabinets or draws) and there were two dishwashers which I guess are good for chefs, but seemed useless to me. They were different styles and were mismatched and old. And they were not near each other, they were separated. The dark wood in the low ceiling kitchen didn’t make it seem bright and open even though there was one full wall of windows.
There was a very large storage room that was part of the unit, a huge plus, which would have been best left empty to show all the space it had, but it was so crowded and full that you barely could walk inside to look around.
Things lay around on the big terrace outside, an unrolled up hose and other things just making it look messy. And so much more.
So this dream place ended up turning me off and probably others since on paper it looks like a steal and a palace, but in reality it turns you off once you enter; it’s been on the market for six months or more for that reason.
What could have been snapped up on the first week is just sitting there unsold due to the mess that they are trying to show to buyers. And even though I know all these things I mentioned above, I still can’t see myself living there, even though I know it would be a different animal if it was shown empty. It would show so much better with a couple of pieces of furniture and nothing else in the place and then I think people could picture themselves living there.
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I don’t like to cook, I barely boil water. Oh, I can cook, I just don’t like to.
But the other day I made Air Fryer Chickpeas (Garbanzo beans). A friend posted a photo on Facebook of the ones she made and I had it on my mind. So I bought a couple of cans of the chickpeas and went at it.
The recipe I read had to be adjusted because as they started frying, they started popping, so I lowered the temperature and the time and they came out perfect – crunchy and delicious.
I washed the chickpeas to get all the salt off and let them dry in the air on paper towels – about an hour. If you let them dry, they’ll come out crunchy.
After that, I put them in the air fryer and air fried them for about 10 to 12 minutes at 360 degrees F. Some recipes call for a higher temp and a little longer time, but as I said, this worked out better for me.
As they were frying, I juggled them a bit every few minutes, to move them around.
When they were done, while still hot, I drizzled them with olive oil and then added sea salt, pepper, turmeric, powdered ginger and powdered garlic. I added rosemary, too, at another time. That really was delicious. They came out delicious. You can actually add whatever you like to them. Add nothing, or add everything. But if adding stuff, do it after they are done frying. Not before or during.
I never liked chickpeas even though I know they are very healthy and full of protein. I try to eat hummus, but never really like it either. There’s a chocolate hummus now, which I bought, but it’s still sitting in the fridge. But now that this new crunchy method is so easy to make and delicious, I may just start eating them, in this form.
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