WELCOME TO MY TRAVEL BLOG

I have always enjoyed traveling, even if it meant sleeping in a tent when I was younger. I prefer hotels and cruise cabins now, but the motivation is the same...an adventure waiting to happen. Sometimes you will find me traveling with my husband and/or family. Sometimes I will travel alone, and sometimes I will travel with friends. I hope you find it entertaining to keep up to date with me as I explore the world around me. Warning...I like to take pictures of food so don't read if you're hungry. More adventures await...see ya soon...Amy.

Friday, May 6, 2011

Cupcakes....be still my heart!

Chelsea Market in the MeatPacking District

loved these cool windows

I think the water towers on top of all of the buildings are really interesting


Inside Chelsea Market. The "artistic" architecture attracted a lot of different photographers

Sarabeth's Bakery....where we ate breakfast

My very yellow Pumpkin Muffin and a Chubbie cookie

My view in Chelsea Market while we ate breakfast

Eleni's Cupcakes in Chelsea Market

Oh the cupcakes. I wish we had had more people with us to try more of them.

They are also well known for their cookies. We didn't try these but they sure were pretty.

Chocolate Ganache with Vanilla Buttercream and my mini Vanilla with Vanilla Buttercream

Kate's fabulous Raspberry Vanilla with Raspberry Vanilla Buttercream.....yum

Beautiful but expensive cookies

SoHo

I think this may be the edge of Little Italy, but I'm not sure

Lombardi's Pizza....the first pizza place in America

traditional thin crust New York style pizza

Mariebelle in SoHo

I love these beautiful little chocolates

Jacques Torres, a fabulous chocolatier


Inside the Jacques Torres store....a chocolate paradise

Sweet Revenge...a unique concept

almost walked right by it

Inside Sweet Revenge...the owner is the lady standing at the bar

a unique concept of pairing cupcakes with wine and/or beer

the selections for the day. I wanted to try every single one!

we settled on the Pure for Kate and the Peanut Butter with Chocolate Ganache for me. Mine was their signature cupcake. Kate's is flavored with my favorite vanilla, Blue Cattle Truck

our first glimpse of the Empire State Building while walking to dinner

Passed by the New York Public Library while walking to dinner

Artisanal Fromagerie....yum

Kate's Frisee salad. I think she's not really a fan of frisee but she really liked the salad.

My Bibb lettuce salad....wonderful

Traditional fondue with apples and bread chunks
As I usually do when I travel, I had a plan. It is rare that you will find me standing in the middle of the street wondering where to go next and wasting my time. My plans are usually flexible so when we saw that the weather might be changing, we altered the plan somewhat. We went to the Meatpacking district first thing this morning to eat breakfast at Chelsea Market. I had never been to Chelsea Market and it is a really cool place to visit for foodies. I definitely want to go back and check out some of the food places we didn't get to and pay more attention to some of the architectural elements. We ate breakfast at SaraBeth's kitchen. This is the breakfast version of where we ate last night. I own SaraBeth's beautiful cookbook and her Chubbie Cookies are a favorite of Danny. She is well known for her homemade jams and pumpkin muffins. I ate a pumpkin muffin and a chubbie (yes i know, a cookie) for breakfast. Kate had a croissant and jam. I have to say that I have had better pumpkin muffins, but this one was good, moist, and not very sweet. The Chubbie was good and tasted a lot like what I make from her cookbook. Kate enjoyed the jam and without realizing it, our purchase of more jam ruined our attempts to travel carryon back home because of the "liquids, gels, and aresols" rule. We walked around through Chelsea Market, taking in the sights and sounds, and shopping at Anthropologie, one of our favorite stores. Next we visited Eleni's cupcake store for a midmorning treat. Kate won the prize with her selection of a Raspberry Vanilla with Raspberry Vanilla Buttercream cupcake. It was divine. I had a Chocolate Ganache filled with Vanilla Buttercream and a mini Vanilla with Vanilla Buttercream. Their frosting was absolutely wonderful. We watched a "food tour of new york" group come in and eat their preselected red velvet cupcakes. We were glad that we were able to choose our own flavor to try. We moved on from the Meatpacking District to SoHo for lunch and a little more shopping. I have to note that this was our first day for figuring out the subway system in New York. Everything goes in the direction of "uptown" or "downtown", so you need to know what direction you are going. Even when you know that, you may wind up on the wrong subway which is what happened to us. Sometimes the trains don't tell you that they are an "express" train and won't be stopping where you need to stop. My solution to this was to just relax, get off at the next stop, and figure out what went wrong. No problem! However, that doesn't mean that it didn't happen more than once! SoHo means "South of Houston" which is a street that is pronounced "Howston", not "Hewston". We stopped in at one of my favorite stores, Fresh, and picked up some yummy smelling soaps, some natural cosmetics, and face scrub. We were getting hungry for lunch, believe it or not, and decided on Pizza! We were right down the street from the very first pizza establishment in America, Lombardi's. We only had a short wait for a table and sat down to rest our weary feet. We shared a Caesar salad and a traditional cheese pizza. This place only takes cash and if you forget, there's an ATM right outside! Really cool piece of history there in SoHo. It was time for dessert, at least according to me, and we stopped into my favorite little chocolate shop, Mariebelle's. This shop has a "chocolate cafe" in the back, that we skipped, but they have some of the most beautiful little chocolates. We then went to another chocolate shop that I like, Jacques Torres. My niece introduced me to this place and we had a wonderful Frozen Hot Chocolate on that trip. It was too early in the season for that this time, but I did pick up a few chocolates there also. Our last stop before going back to the hotel turned out to be one of our favorites. We found Sweet Revenge, a unique cupcake experience that pairs cupcakes with beer and/or wine. It's very small and we almost walked right by. While we were there, the owner was being filmed for something. We had already finished our cupcakes, but we were one of the few people in there so they offered Kate another glass of wine I guess to keep us in there. Another group of women came in and they made them sign wavers because they were actually going to be part of the filming. We were a little disappointed that we had eaten our food so quickly and missed being the object of filming, but it was so good. The concept sounds strange, but Kate tried their wine pairing with her cupcake and said it was amazingly really good. The cupcakes are dense, but full of flavor and very different from what we had eaten at Eleni's. We were pretty tired and went back to the hotel to put our feet up before dinner. We walked to dinner at Artisanal Fromagerie Bistro. Just as in France, we were placed at a table along with several other people. We were almost elbow to elbow! With so many sweets, we knew we wanted a light meal and settled on salad and cheese fondue. Kate had Salad Frisee which had a blue cheese dressing, chunks of bacon, and a poached egg on top. I chose a Boston Bibb Salad with a parmesan black pepper dressing. I thought the fondue with apples and bread pieces was fairly authentic and it was so filling we skipped dessert! We walked back to the hotel up 5th avenue right at dusk. The buildings all lit up were beautiful.

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