There is almost nothing one cannot find (or have delivered--even Costco delivers!) within a few blocks of a NYC apartment (or so it seems in my limited experience visiting the Upper East Side): good things--AND things that the masses of humans and dogs (trying to bump around together) bring to the city...
I'm sure that over time one comes to overlook the garbage piled high street-side, the sidewalks stained with gum and puppy poo and the grates to the underground world emitting nose-scrunching scents from sewers which must accommodate, for one thing, the massive load of 8 million people pooping!
Heading three dirty levels down to catch a downtown train and then standing up close and personal with strangers--that too is all in a day's business.
But when you come up for air you might just find yourself in Grand Central Station. How cool is that? We only took the time to visit the Market there, and only purchased two macarons from Eli's. But, how good were they? There are no words for my surprise at first bite (having tasted them in several cities before) ... these were at another level of seriously chewy goodness, purchased in a little oasis a few floors above the hub of dirty tracks below.
While a macaron was not on my list, something from the Martha Stewart Cafe was on my (minor) list of things to do in NYC! Martha's big old building is near the end of the elevated garden path that is the High Line, which we traversed for a little over a mile on a Monday afternoon. The High Line is clean, above the city streets, and covered in natural vegetation that was fading to fall in a good way.
Coming down off the High Line, we walked a very short distance on sidewalks congested with construction and dirty with activity (and goodness knows, not where one would expect to encounter Martha Stewart!), and yet, as we entered the lobby of her building, there she was--or at least, there we found a tiny corner of Martha-ness, with multiple brews and baristas, and of course, baked goods. I purchased a small Martha's Blend coffee and an oatmeal cookie. M. got a salted chocolate buckwheat cookie thing. We went back up three flights of stairs to sit on the benches of the High Line to enjoy, since Martha provided no place to sit. The prices were modest for NYC. Everything was well-named, with cool fonts and careful presentations--but it was a tiny corner of a good thing, right in the middle of an historically industrial and meat-packing area, which apparently is being renewed.
My son-in-law held up my instagram-worthy cookie in a ray of sunshine over the grates of the High Line. The cookie was rich with pecans, dried cherries and white chocolate. Martha has selected some of her favorite bakeries to supply her cafe--this one from the Brooklyn Bakery--and it was a very good thing!
There was a clean tray of multiple milk products. I chose the half and half. Who would dare to spill at Martha's and not wipe it up! One blogger suggested that Big Martha might be looking down from the multiple camera feeds above.
In case you didn't know, I object to the enjoy on Martha's otherwise well-designed cups, although it did not have that annoying command to enjoy dictated by an exclamation point!!
Well, that's about it for this visit to NYC!
Sorry that I did not have a way to include--in the good themes of this post--the warm gooeyness of a NY-style bagel, or the breakfast club with bacon and avocado that I enjoyed at the Cluny Cafe in the West Village. The Cluny Cafe, located in a quiet, wealthy and cleaner neighborhood of NYC, offered only skim milk (never! rather have it black) for my coffee, and it was not as good as at Martha's Cafe. But the Cluny Cafe does not have that pretentious diacritical French acute accent mark over the e--and Martha's does--making it impossible to type easily on a QWERTY keyboard.
After all that, I will throw in just one more pic anyway ... of my breakfast club sandwich:
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