FRIENDSGIVING

This Thanksgiving marks my 4th away from home. My first two at college were spent at my friend Kendall's home, and last years was in New York City with another friend, Taylor. While all those have been fun, I'm tired of being felt sorry for and adopted by other peoples families. I'm also tired from all of the traveling I've already done in the past few months. That's why this year, I decided to hold my own "Friendsgiving."

Blogger buddies Natalie and Anastasia joined my friend Victoria and I in Upstate New York this holiday for some time of relaxation and great food. Wednesday before Thanksgiving we received about 8 inches of snow, making us stay inside and enjoy each others company. We began this fourth Thursday of November with homemade pumpkin cinnamon rolls  and apple cider mimosas while watching the Macy's day parade. Since I was actually at the parade last year I didn't feel overly inclined to watch it, so I mainly dealt with food preparation.

After we picked up Natalie from the train station we got cooking on dinner, in which our main dish was a baked acorn squash  that we stuffed with stuffing and topped with parmesan cheese. (It was ordinary seasoned stuffing mix that I added golden delicious apple, pecans, and dried cranberries to at the end. I put turkey sausage in the mix for the meat-eaters at the table as to not omit turkey from the meal.) We struggled through cutting some very large sweet potatoes, but it was so worth it after they were oven roasted with olive oil and cinnamon. Mashed potatoes were made in a slow cooker, just chopped up and left there for a while with garlic and a bit of water. Victoria prepared a version of cranberry sauce that was super easy and delicious, as well as some toasted bread with garlic and rosemary!

For dessert, we went with a traditional pumpkin pie, and some not-so-traditional chocolate glazed donuts. (For those of you who don't know, I purchased a donut pan a month ago and I do not regret it. Buy one and make donuts. Seriously.) All in all, it was a somewhat contemporary twist on a traditional Thanksgiving meal. More importantly, it was delicious, and shared amongst friends.

I hope everyone was able to enjoy the day(s) off from normal obligations to spend time with friends and family! 

TASTE OF THE FUTURE

So I'm moving to New York City.

Not like tomorrow, but January is pretty close as well. I applied and got into a program that the school of architecture offers which takes place in the city (on Wall Street, to be specific.) As the school year, and calendar year come to a close I should probably find a place to live but I'm not too concerned because I'm just really excited to not live in Upstate New York any longer. But I digress...

The photos I took in late October during an extended weekend to the city. After our design studio midterm, as a class we were required to attend a 'field trip' into the city that was more or less just an intensive architectural tour. We visited firms, iconic buildings and areas, and looked at large scale construction projects. I went down a day early for it and met up with Anastasia and Natalie for a fun filled day with some blogger buddies. We frolicked through central park, went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art -which I had wanted to do for a while now- and then grabbed a delicious meal at a hole-in-the-wall thai place in Hells Kitchen. Natalie had to leave, but Anastasia and I went to a funny little bacon themed bar and talked about life and stuff.

The next three days were a whirlwind of running around the city with my design professors, visiting offices like Grimshaw and SOM, and seeing the Lever House and Seagram Building. We went to the West side to see a Bjarke Ingles construction site and went to Long Island City to visit our structural engineering professor at his office. When we weren't all running around, I was hanging out with my friend Taylor who I went to high school with, but she now lives in the city as a recent NYU grad. One night we went to an underground comedy show in the village and got macaroons, and another morning we got an amazing brunch at an adorable restaurant called Penelope's. One of our days ended in Brooklyn, and that night we took the ferry south to the Brooklyn bridge.
As we travel on the water with the wind blowing, staring at the city skyline lighting up the night sky, I was so content with things. If I wasn't already infatuated with the city, I am now.