The Bulls @ The Garden

"Getting tough with the toughest sport on dirt"

Real steers, y'all. With names like Skeeter, Austin and Reese, these riders obviously have names (and some, the looks) more befitting a Harlequin romance novel than the streets of Manhattan. The steers themselves were a trip. Would you ride Bad Blood, Wrecking Havoc or Black Tornado?

The PBR Invitational at the Garden was an awesome line up of some of bull riding's best. I was thrilled to see Brazilian rider, Robson Palermo and J.B. Mauney from North Carolina in attendance.

The Naked Cowboy front and center

Accoutrements aside (the music, the steers, the Stetsons, the spurs), there's something very familiar to me about all this. Perhaps its the memory of a life past, driving along a dirt road in the heat of the Oklahoma sun, dust clouds swirling around. Years ago.

Sifton on Casa Lever

Tom Sach's Hello Kitty bronze statue @ Casa Lever via Mille Fiori

I identify quite a bit with Sifton's writing. It's to the point, painting a picture of the expansive Manhattan dining savannah where hungry and bejeweled gazelles, antelopes and hyenas go to graze. It lacks the witticism that we are accustomed to ala Bruni, but give the man a chance.

What I did find a little shocking was in his review of Casa Lever (which garnered 2 stars), he completely missed (or chose to ignore) Tom Sachs' "Bronze Collection" exhibit of Hello Kitty and Miffy which is located right there at the plaza of Casa Lever.

Tsk...tsk...

Baked Day 14: 8 Points and Counting

Baker's Blade for Baguettes at JB Prince

"We forgot to tell you, yesterday you got 2 extra points," Carlos said.

Jesus nodded in enthusiasm. Chitter chatter...

"Jesus say, you get 2 more points today, your rolls is good. But I say no."

Carlos has spoken. Jesus was the guest judge yesterday. And he approved.

It was New Year's Day. The complex was quiet, all the other retailers were closed, save our kitchen. It was great. We were running on a skeleton crew with 3 times the work but I was loving every minute of it. There were no distractions today, no tourists with their cameras clicking away.

The conversations were mostly in Spanish. So conversations go something like this:

Yo something or other...blah blah blah blah..."Muchacha!" (HEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!)

Yup, that's what they called me. "Little girl." Not girl, not woman, but little girl. Must be the new bangs I"ve been rockin'.

I don't know what they were saying, but I hope it's all nice stuff.

Mr. Furbie was back. He had disappeared for a good while. This time, he floured my table, had my back, taught me newer techniques. He had attention to detail when it was important, but didn't sweat the small stuff like I did. All my boules had to be perfect. He just shrugged. But when I overworked my dough and I was literally tearing it (and didn't know), he instructed me to do 3 quick rolls and fold to correct.

I'm there to learn and I'm thankful that (almost) everyone was a willing mentor, even the more experienced interns. How can one not thrive in this kind of environment?