Category Archives: food and drink

Niche List. April 23

abandoned stuff animals
This photo was taken on my block. Who abandoned the stuff animals?

Hester Street Fair opens this weekend. Now people in Manhattan will not have trek across a bridge to enjoy artisan food and overpriced vintage. 🙂

Cupcake Eating Contest at Ivy Bakery. I’m judging and will make sure that every crumb is eaten.

The Lascivious Biddies are playing Monday at Rockwood Music Hall on Monday. Wish I could see them, but have a prior engagement. You go for me!

Bonus: I was quoted in a Mashable article, Eight Social Media Strategies To Engage Multicultural Consumers.

Only In New York Happened In Austin

The Beatards
With tonight being my last night here at SXSW, I wanted to go see some bands.  First, I checked on Foursquare and Twitter to see where some of my friends were at, but my gut told me to strike out on my own in the hopes of something supercool. I did an IRL “StumbleUpon” when I read on a flyer that Miz Metro would be playing at midnight at the place called Club 115.  I saw Miz Metro speak last fall at a 140Conf Meetup. At the Meetup, she talked about how she is using twitter to grow her fan base as a artist.

So I was there catching Miz Metro performance when two of my friends showed up. Let me preface this by saying that I didn’t check in on Foursquare, so this was complete serendipity. Chris Sullivan (AKA Shockwave) and Jen Dunlap (AKA Funlap) walked in. I met their friend DJO. who also makes kimchi and he knows Cathy Erway who is a friend of mine. We were on a panel together on Saturday for TechMunch Austin.[It’s a freaking small world!]  DJO is the dj for The Beatards. They are bringing back the Brooklyn Old Skool hip hop energy with new school lyrics and beats.  They are like the Beastie Boys for this century.  Tonight was the first time I heard them and I love it! Shockwave get onstage and did a little something.

http://vimeo.com/moogaloop.swf?clip_id=10253863&server=vimeo.com&show_title=1&show_byline=1&show_portrait=0&color=&fullscreen=1

I had a fun time partying with friends that I don’t see that often in NYC.  It was the perfect button to this week here in Austin.

Niche List: Non Social Media Week Edition

First off, I don’t hate “Social Media Week”. It just reminds me of those made up Hallmark holidays like Sweetheart Day. I will be attending a few Social Media events next week which is like pre-gaming for the big orgy of tech networking, SXSW. I will be there, too.
Anyway, these are a few fun events for the first week of February.

Feb 1. Valentine Craft Night at Etsy Labs (55 Washington Street) with Rachel Johnson of SwapBot. 4-8PM. FREE

Feb 2. Summit Bar on Avenue C is making fancy drinks. Free tastes and $6 cocktails. 6-8PM

Feb 2. Aziz Ansari is back in town to promote his new comedy CD and to answer questions at the Soho Apple Store. 7PM

Feb 5. Carolyn Castiglia’s Splurge. It is a comedy show with LIVE music (Adira Amram), funny comics and a video. Happy Ending. 8PM Free

Smashing Time At Smashing Darling Event

June 023
Cocktails, cupcakes and couture. What more could a woman ask for?! Smashing Darling and PR Couture hosted a fun event last night on Mulberry Street.
It was great to see Mo and Trish Darling. Yuli Ziv, who just gave a great talk about fashion and twitter at the 140 conference was there as well as Bob from Brooklyn Royalty and Pamela from Market Publique
I met Mellie Davis, founder of The Fat Apple and her wonderful friends who seem to be in the know of all the parties in the city that even I don’t know about.
The goodie bag was like opening presents on Christmas Day. I got a beautiful necklace made by April Torres of Isabella Grace Originals as well Burt’s Bees lip gloss, a $25 gift certificate from Charlotte Russe, Mad Gabs lip balm, a gift certificate from Edun and a cute T-shirt.

The Week In Links: Jesus Camp, Art Openings, Cupcakes

cupcakes from cupcake camp

Tuesday, I went to The Bell House for the very first time. Brooklyn Based just started a new film series, Drinks on the Doc where they will show indie documentaries. The first one was “Jesus Camp” which is a very scary movie.
Wednesday, I bought some fly Vans sneakers.
Thursday, I check out some art in Chelsea, Sophie Calle at Paula Cooper and the Objects of Desire at Anna Kustera.
Friday, I did some co-working at Treehouse and later I went to CupcakeCampNYC.
Saturday, the boy and I went to Beer Table and got tipsy from fancy beers.
Sunday, I made macaroni and cheese for two Easter brunches.

Feast on This

The things that make a great conference is learning new things, meeting cool people and not feeling overwhelmed with both.  Today I went to All Day Buffet’s The Feast at The Scandinavian House.

Presentations included:

  • Vertical Farming by Columbia Professor Dickson Despommier
  • Making Garbage a positive commodity by Terracycle’s Tom Szaky
  • World traveler and organic soap maker Josh Onysko, founder of Pangea Organics.
  • New Orleans as a Social Innovation Laboratory by Robbie Vitrano of Trumpet. In his presentation, he had one of the best Don Draper references, “Everyday I do God’s work, which is advertising”.
  • Social Design  and Social Impact with Elizabeth Johansen from Ideo.
  • Organizing Ideas with Scott Belsky of Behance.
  • I miss Play Pumps but they bring water pumps to Africa
  • Piers from PSFK talked about creators, communities and companies.
  • If We Ran It by Michael Romanowicz and Marissa Shrum. Daylighting. Slashers. It’s a look at how young  people have an interdisciplinary approach toward career and work.
  • Fame Theory by Jose Serrano-Reyes and Seth Aylmer. Using data to steer social capital.
  • Chad Rea of EcoPop who challenged everyone to do the opposite of what they are currently doing.

Shoshi and Nichelle at ThisNext Dinner

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shoshi and nichelle, originally uploaded by nichellest.

The lovely folks from ThisNext were in town for Fashion Week, and they invited us New York Mavens for dinner at Tortilla Flats. Shoshi, Nichelle, Sarah and Patricia were among the group about twenty people talking about social shopping and recommending. Check out one of my lists on This Next.

Omnivore’s 100

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catfish, originally uploaded by nichellest.

I so rarely do these blog forward things, but I love food, so here goes my list of things that I have eaten on the Omnivore’s Humdred.  My stuff is in bold, and #94 is pictured above.

1. Venison
2. Nettle tea
3. Huevos rancheros
4. Steak tartare
5. Crocodile
6. Black pudding
7. Cheese fondue
8. Carp
9. Borscht
10. Baba ghanoush
11. Calamari
12. Pho
13. PB&J sandwich
14. Aloo gobi
15. Hot dog from a street cart
16. Epoisses
17. Black truffle
18. Fruit wine made from something other than grapes
19. Steamed pork buns
20. Pistachio ice cream
21. Heirloom tomatoes
22. Fresh wild berries
23. Foie gras
24. Rice and beans
25. Brawn, or head cheese
26. Raw Scotch Bonnet pepper
27. Dulce de leche
28. Oysters
29. Baklava
30. Bagna cauda
31. Wasabi peas
32. Clam chowder in a sourdough bowl
33. Salted lassi
34. Sauerkraut
35. Root beer float
36. Cognac with a fat cigar
37. Clotted cream tea
38. Vodka jelly/Jell-O
39. Gumbo
40. Oxtail
41. Curried goat
42. Whole insects
43. Phaal
44. Goat’s milk
45. Malt whisky from a bottle worth ÂŁ60/$120 or more
46. Fugu
47. Chicken tikka masala
48. Eel
49. Krispy Kreme original glazed doughnut
50. Sea urchin
51. Prickly pear
52. Umeboshi
53. Abalone
54. Paneer
55. McDonald’s Big Mac Meal
56. Spaetzle
57. Dirty gin martini
58. Beer above 8% ABV
59. Poutine
60. Carob chips
61. S’mores
62. Sweetbreads
63. Kaolin
64. Currywurst
65. Durian
66. Frogs’ legs
67. Beignets, churros, elephant ears or funnel cake
68. Haggis
69. Fried plantain
70. Chitterlings, or andouillette
71. Gazpacho
72. Caviar and blini
73. Louche absinthe
74. Gjetost, or brunost
75. Roadkill
76. Baijiu
77. Hostess Fruit Pie
78. Snail
79. Lapsang souchong
80. Bellini
81. Tom yum
82. Eggs Benedict
83. Pocky
84. Tasting menu at a three-Michelin-star restaurant.
85. Kobe beef
86. Hare
87. Goulash
88. Flowers
89. Horse
90. Criollo chocolate
91. Spam
92. Soft shell crab
93. Rose harissa
94. Catfish
95. Mole poblano
96. Bagel and lox
97. Lobster Thermidor
98. Polenta
99. Jamaican Blue Mountain coffee
100. Snake

Hot Fashion and Hill Country

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nary manivong, originally uploaded by nichellest.

Have you heard? It’s New York Fashion Week! Mo from Smashing Darling offered me a plus one to emerging designer Nary Manivong’s show. So I headed up to Flatiron yesterday afternoon despite my summer cold to see the fashion show. Nary’s designs are so beautiful. His lovely dresses and coordinate pieces are clean and modern yet with Grecian accents. They also look comfortable and could go from day to night. However, there wasn’t a runway. Plus, it was so hot in the room that we didn’t stay long.

Luckily, Hill Country was right across the street from the fashion show. Mo and I went to through the complicated process of ordering food so that we can chow down on some beef brisket, mac and cheese and sweet potato mash. What a perfect meal to have after a fashion show!