Essential Apps

Applications, that is, as in Mobile Applications. Sorry to disappoint you right off the bat; this is not a post about essential appetizers. I would say that I'd be interested in doing a post on that at a later date but, truth be told, that post is three, maybe four items long:

• Buffalo Wings
• Spinach & Artichoke Dip
• Guacamole
• Cheese and Cured Meat Plate (if you fancy, if not stick with the free bread)

 

Sorry, Caesar Salad Endive Spears, you tired. Now take your sad act home.

Now that I've got that out of the way, let's continue this single stone's throw to the death of our second bird: Mobile Apps that I have been finding essential to life in NHV. Granted, all of these are useful in life outside the GSCIA, but my appreciation for them, of course, has been forged through use in these mean streets.

Getting Around:

Parkmobile

Please, take my money, I beg you.

This town just about lost its wad when, 10 years into the 21st Century,  the City went ahead and brought its parking meter game up to 20th Century capability and added the ability to use your credit card. So, it goes without saying that, when they introduced compatibility with the Parkmobile app in 2013, offering the ability to pay, monitor, and add time to a parking meter from our mobile devices, my proverbial shit hit the metaphorical fan. Genius.

TransLoc

It's not common knowledge to everyone outside the Yale community that, if you're under 40 and look anything remotely like someone who could be a college or graduate student, this city (Yale) operates a free public transit system. The Yale shuttles services downtown and the surrounding neighborhoods, carting students/staff/faculty to/from school/work/class, and me and my drunken friends from someone's apartment to whatever bar is closest to Old Campus. TransLoc is a real-time monitoring system that shows you shuttle routes, and where exactly the closest shuttle is in its journey.

Uber

For those of you not into restricting your nightlife to the establishments immediately accessible by shuttle route, we have Uber. We all know what it is by now, and if you haven't taken it, I implore you to do so immediately, even if you don't have anywhere to go. I like the whole not talking to anyone on the phone thing. I like the fact that I don't have to deal with a cab driver claiming he "doesn't take credit cards" even though I can see the damn swipe machine right in front of me. I like the fact that, 9 out of 10 times, the car that shows up is an immaculate Lexus or Infiniti. I just like.

Avoiding Awkward:

Venmo

Restaurant table math. We've all been there. Passing the check around amongst all 17 of us. 3 suggest splitting it evenly between 12 credit cards, 2 people have cash,  1 person has a gift certificate that expired in 2009 but is pretty sure the restaurant will still accept it...please stop the insanity. Venmo does just that. Download the app, place one credit card on the table, let all your friends send you what they owe directly to your bank account, tip your waitstaff. I've heard of some others that do the same thing, and I'm sure they're great. But I've been rocking Venmo now for a bit, and it's been nothing but easy.

Shotify 

You're 30. You don't do "power hour" anymore. Those odd times when you and your friends find yourselves sitting around someone's apartment midway through a boring Saturday, you do what 30-year olds do and strike up a conversation about the Affordable Care Act or whether or not Ray Allen will go to the Cavs. Right? Wrong. You're bored. We're all bored. What better way to grease us through the inevitable dulldrum of life-after-college than to maintain a constant state of denial that we are, in fact, not in college? Shotify is an app that hooks up with your Spotify* account and creates a Power Hour mix out of a your playlists. You're welcome.

*I shouldn't have to tell you to get Spotify. You should have been done that.

Entertainment:

Yelp

New Haven has great restaurants, but after you've lived here one year you're perfectly aware that all 11 of them exist and know that, until something new opens, you're not going to discover anything new. So, don't bother Yelping up a place to eat tonight; stick with what you know. What you can do, though, is open up the Yelp app and cruise some of the hysterical reviews that people have taken the time to write. If you're a fan of satire, which I am, this place is a gold mine.

One of my personal favs is Pasqual P's review of the Sbarro's at the train station:

"Hey, Paz (my nickname)! Whuzzgoodwitit?" said my buddy Rusty. And so an evening of big 'za, cold suds, and intense viewing of sports on Sbarro's 26" TV began.

I've gone to sports bars before, and I generally have a good time. I mean, the constants are usually beer and BUFFALO WINGS. So do I fit in? Heck yeah, I do - I'm a guy, and guys like these things.

So we get to Sbarro, and Rusty and I exchange high fives - Coors Light on draught? IT'S ON. We decide to pair our nectars with a couple of sausage calzones. The calzones were expertly built - flaky dough, ooeygooey cheese, and then BOOM, sausage. This was good, but it was time for more beer and sports. There were at least 6 people already catching the Connecticut Sun game, so it wasn't easy to find seats.

But we did and we had like 4 beers each, called a cab, and then we went home to dream about doing it all again. Top 5 night of 2012.

New in New Haven

Winter decided to descend on New Haven with a vengeance and it has been difficult to do much but stay inside and dream of warmer days. While bundled up on the couch and obsessively perusing social media, I have been pleasantly surprised by all of the new and interesting happenings in New Haven. The city is really stepping its game up and I can't wait to fill up my social calendar with all of these fun events!

Escape New Haven:
Described as a cooperative, real-life adventure space where nothing is at seems. You and your team are trapped and have 60 minutes to escape a room by solving a series of puzzles that will challenge your mind and confound your senses.

It sounds scary, thrilling, and a great way to shake up a mundane Saturday.

Taste of New Haven:
New Haven is well known for its culinary abundance (even being named the top foodie city by livability.com) and now you don't have to wait for restaurant week to try out all the best places. Taste of New Haven offers four hour tours for $55 focusing on themes like a pizza and beer bike tour, ninth square restaurants, latin american tapas, and more. As eating and drinking are my two favorite things in the world, the struggle is more picking out which tour I want to do first.

Haven Collective:
I first experienced Haven Collective when they were doing events at Trolley Square. The events were always cute, but the building needed help. They have recently re-located their efforts to State Street and the space couldn't be cuter or more accessible. In addition to awesome vintage clothes from Vintanthromodern Vintage and pop-up shops from various vendors, they are hosting craft classes and meet ups. One of the best things may be the Sunday Brunch Craft Series which features a new craft every week with complimentary snacks and mimosas.

Snowed-In Activity: Cheesemaking

Looks like we are in for a big storm.

Getting to stay home from work is nice, but sometimes being cooped up in the house all day with nothing to do can get dull. Last time this happened, I decided the timing was perfect to try something I'd always wanted to do: make my own cheese. So, I picked up this mozzarella making kit from my local cheese shop. It came with everything I needed, only thing I had to get was a gallon of milk.

First step was to heat the milk and stir in a mixture of the ingredients, including some acid and rennet. I heated the mixture, and watched as the curds started to separate from the whey.

Probably the least glamorous part.

Once the curds were ready, I removed them from the whey and drained them. Pressing out all the extra water.

Gettin' all curdy.

 

Next, I formed the cheese by hand, careful not to over handle it, otherwise it ends up rubbery.

You better work, b****

Then I cool it down in an ice bath and wrap it up to enjoy later when I slice it up and combo it with some carbs for some blizzard night pizza!

My balls.

Pizza Haven

It's not news that New Haven is known for its pizza. When asked who has the best you may get varied responses: Modern, Pepe's, BAR, Sally's (to name a few). Personally, I'm not the biggest fan of New Haven-style pizza, as I prefer a bread-ier crust, but living one street away from Wooster Street, I can't deny that New Haven pizza is pretty great. Which is why I couldn't understand why all these new pizza places are popping up around town from the artisanal (Kitchen Zinc) to the make your own (Red Tomado), to Mario Batali's newest restaurant, Tarry Lodge. Don't we have enough pizza in this town???

I love Eataly in NYC, so even though I'm pizza-ed out, I had to try Tarry Lodge. After settling in to look at the menu, one pie in particular caught my eye: the guanciale with truffles and an egg. Intrigued, I ordered this pie and thank god I did. It's literally one of the best pizzas I have ever had. The runny egg mixes with the tuffles and cheese and the salty guanciale come together for a taste explosion.

 

To be fair, it's not really the kind of pizza they are selling on Wooster St, but it.is.so.good. I could probably eat a whole one myself! Who knew there was more room in New Haven for pizza??

NOLA NYE

A little bit of a recap post, but fun, none the less. As a group of friends, we journeyed from the cold Northeast to the The Big Easy for three days/nights of debauchery and local flavor for New Years, 2015. While some of our group had been before, and two of our group were natives, I had never been. I'd heard so much about New Orleans, from Mardi Gras tales to culinary appreciations, all of it good, all of it adding fuel to my excitement about finally getting to visit.

To anyone considering a trip there, I highly recommend it. Here's some of what I found awesome:

Neighborhoods:

The house we stayed in was in a neighborhood called the Marigny, adjacent to the French Quarter. We got to spend a lot of time exploring those two neighborhoods, as well as some of the other cool neighborhoods like Uptown and Bywater. Each had its own vibe, good food, cool hang out spots, and great bars. The French Quarter was all I hoped for, with it's charming architecture, music around every corner, and a watering hole inside every doorway.

Our welcoming home.

Beers. Broads. Bourbon Street.

It was in the Quarter, as you can imagine, where we had some of our more drunken merriment. Such as the time we hitched a ride on a bicycle rickshaw living room. Yes, living room.

The ride.

Multiple hurricanes make photos blurry. There are ten of us on that thing.

On our last night in town, we were headed back to our house a little early to snooze before waking up for our 8am flight out. Rounding our corner in the Marigny, we ran smack into an impromptu battle of the brass bands. What else were we supposed to do, but dance our asses off before heading back out for a few more hours to soak up the city's legendary night life?

Bayou:

Early on the second day, we got up, fought our first-night hangovers, and drove across Lake Pontchatrain to the Louisiana swamps for a good, old-fashioned, touristy boat tour. Sadly, we saw no gators, as they hibernate in the winter time. But we did have a brisk, hangover-curing ride on the water, with an eyeful of eery charm, and even met some friends.

Spanish ivy looks blurry.

Raccoons are wily as all hell.

Apparently, all swamp critters love marshmallows.

Bourbon Street on New Year's Eve:

Following a great prix-fixe dinner at Vacherie, as picked out by our local hostess, we spent the countdown to midnight wandering the Quarter, ultimately living out the final seconds of 2014 in the middle of an energized Bourbon Street with thousands of other drunkards. Just past midnight, there were fireworks.

Wall-to-wall celebration

Add caption

Food:

The food in NOLA was no joke. Immediately off the airplane, we headed to the first culinary must on our list, and it didn't stop until flying out three days later. Sadly, I only had the wherewithal to snap one photo, of some HUGE delicious oysters from the famed Cooter Brown's .

Dayyumm.

Other notables include:

Jaques-Imo's, in a cool neighborhood call Uptown, had an appetizer called Shrimp and Alligator Sausage Cheesecake. A decadent, almost quiche-like, slice of delight, covered in a shrimp and gator sausage Creole sauce.

Killer Po-Boys, a small take-out window, tucked deep in the back room of an Irish Bar (Erin Rose). Here I got a bomb-ass pork belly po-boy, and my friend got convinced by the girl behind the counter that pickles are, in fact, delicious.

Cafe Du Monde, super famous, super delicious, surprisingly cheap beignets.

Dry January

Post New Years Eve debauchery in New Orleans (more on that to come) and overeating and over-drinking my way through the month of December, I have decided to take the month of January off and will not be drinking alcohol for the duration. This comes with one small edit as I did drink on January 1, having not left New Orleans until the 2nd.

I thought it would be hard, but having come down with some type of Voodoo illness post trip, I have found not drinking to be relatively easy. I have been spending my time sleeping, catching up on bad TV, and taking a lot of Mucinex. When I do get better, I am a little worried about how I will spend my time, but have come up with a few ideas:

• Work Out 
• Read more
• Clean my apartment and throw a bunch of stuff out 
• Clean out my closet
• Work on some decorating projects
• Bake

Let me know what ideas you have for fun that involve no drinking!

Follow Up

Back in November, I did a brief post on podcasts. Serial was all the rage, and I took the opportunity to point out another podcast I've been fond of for a while, WTF with Marc Maron. Specifically, along with the Robin Williams episode, I shouted out the Louis CK episode. Well, as it turns out, I'm either a way more influential blogger than I thought, or I have my finger right on the pulse of what's good and what's really good. This past week, Slate voted the Louis CK episode of WTF the #1 best podcast ever. 

When I first posted about it November, the episode had aged out of the free-to-listen category, and into the you're-gonna-have-to-pay-for-premium category. However, with the recent accolade, Maron re-released the originally double episode as a single episode now streaming on his site. If you're interested, listen now, as I have no idea how long it will be available.