Poverexic in NYC

Memorial Day weekend was incred.  Went to D’s house in Sea Girt(h), NJ, which is literally a 1-minute walk from the beach.  I got so tan.  Tanning was only a tiny fraction of the weekend though — the rest of it was literally just drinking, eating, and playing rounds and rounds and rounds of asshole.

On Saturday afternoon SW the grillmaster starts grilling some burgers and I am like waahhhh I show yous a better way to make burgers: THE JUICY LUCY, or as I would say it, THE JUICY RUCY, or as SW re-named it, THE JRUICY.  So we made some thin patties, put a chunk of muenster cheese inside, mashed the edges together and created the most dericious JRUICY ever.  And then following that was SW’s very own spicy chicken sandwich with grilled veggies.  This was accompanied by endless cans of Bud Light.  I couldn’t stop drinking them, they were just so refreshing.

Then that night the entire group of 20 people went to Asahi Hibachi, or “BYOB Benihana’s.”  It was a complete shitshow, and I think we luckily scared the children at the next table away from us.  I got steak and shrimp and ordered the steak rare, which was good at the moment but bad news several hours later.  I wasn’t the only person who experienced this discomfort.  Anyway, the best part of dinner was by far when SD comes back from the bathroom to find a takeout box where he was sitting and he’s all like waaahhhhh this isn’t mine, I finished my entire plate <<opens box to check what it is>>  And there, delicately placed inside the takeout box, was a bottle of Smirnoff, courtesy of A.

Ohhhhhhhh shit SoNnNnNnNNNNNNNN you just got ICED!!!!!!!!!!!!

The rest of the night was about 6 straight hours of asshole and drinking, which did not mix well with the rare hibachi steak.  It may have been the most beer I had consumed in a single day since college.  This continued until dawn when I finally passed out upright in a chair because all the beds and couches were already taken and the chair was more comfortable than the floor.

Sunday morning started out with some chorizo breakfast burritos, which were amazing but even worse news after an entire day and night of drinking.  The rest of the day consisted of some tanning at the beach, a lot more drinking, and then some sausages with peppers, meat lasagna and grilled pineapples with bacon on skewers for dinner … followed by even more rounds of asshole.

What a great weekend.

VH1’s Best Week(end) Ever.

Went on a date with Judah Friedlander of 30 Rock on Friday, and it was incred.  He was wearing his WORLD CHAMPION t-shirt and CAMPEON DEL MUNDO hat.  We went to this small Mexican restaurant in the East Village, and while the chips and guac/salsa were ehhhhh, hearing about Judah’s life and book and comedy career made up for it.  After a good hour or so, we parted ways as he ran off to go do another comedy show, and I ran off to Crocodile Lounge for D’s birthday where they serve you free pizza with every drink you buy.  What a friendly, friendly place.

Then Saturday was SS’s pre-birthday, which is when anti-poverexia began.  We started off the night with dinner at Republic where I got BBQ pork over vermicelli noodles and a pitcher of frozen lychee martini.  We then proceeded to attempt to get into PDT but realized the cap was 3 people for walk-in and we had 4, so instead we tried to go to Solas then got too lazy to be in a standing bar because my heels were killing me and I really needed to sit, so we went right next door to this awesome hookah place with really incompetent waiters.  Let’s just say we all ended the night with a really strong hookah buzz and were not looking forward to waking up the next morning before noon.

Good thing SS made brunch reservations at 1pm, which allowed me to still not die in the morning and enjoy a lovely brunch at Bar Breton of eggs benedict with smoked salmon, mixed greens, home fries, a side of french fries, and a nutella shake that came in a jar with a huge dollop of whipped cream on top.

Eggs Benedict

Nutella Shake

I then continued to eat SR’s leftover galette with spinach and feta and made a really strong attempt to finish SS’s leftover sundried tomato and spinach omelet but failed because she had literally dumped an entire bottle of Tabasco sauce on the poor omelet and had showered it with black pepper.  I guess that’s what happens when you grow up on Indian food.

The day is still young and more foodventures await me tonight for the series finale of LOST.  Of course my roommates and I were planning to enjoy the finale at home on our comfortable couch over Tasty King, but S insisted we go over to his place where he was hosting a LOST party.  “How can I convince you and the twins to come over to our place for the finale,” he kept asking.

S, the answer is quite simple: get us something that is going to be significantly better than Tasty King (impossible task) and free to us, and we will become motivated to go 2 blocks over to your place.

LOST.

Cottage for LOST

Had an in-person client meeting at our office today, and YOU KNOW WHAT THAT MEANS.  FREE BREAKFAST AND LUNCH.  It was so great.  Had bagels and fruit and freshly squeezed OJ for breakfast, followed by an array of sandwiches, salad, pasta and cookies/brownies, accompanied by endless Diet Coke.  I have no idea what our team got out of that unproductive meeting, but I sure know I got plenty out of that meeting.

PLUS!  Last night when the clients came in, we were invited to a product launch party at SPiN New York hosted by their ad agency.  And by “invited” I mean apparently the ad agency invited every other partner agency in NY except for us, but our male client who likes us invited us anyway, so we went anyway.  I love crashing parties, and because the invite said “casual dress,” coworker A and I deliberately dressed up in our most “hot yet professional” dresses because clients like pretty people, and we knew everyone else there was going to be in jeans.  The PR girls are always the prettiest out of all the advertising, media buy and digital agency people, hence why we’re never invited to parties hosted by partner agencies.

So the party was just one big ping pong tournament (which I did surprisingly well in), but I got distracted by all the free booze at the bar, the mini burgers with caramelized onions, sliced pork sandwiches, roast beef sandwiches, caramel popcorn in cones, and ice cream sandwiches with coffee ice cream sandwiched between two really big chocolate chip cookies.  It was one hell of a party.

But what REALLY made the party was when towards the end of the night I look over to my right, and standing there was JUDAH FRIEDLANDER OF 30 ROCK.  I nearly choked on my ice cream sandwich when I suddenly gasped in a gust of air.  I was almost as excited as this black dude was about Wendy’s:

Wendy's SoNnNnNnN

Roommate L and I both woke up on Saturday around 10:30am to find that we were both scrambling around the apartment for the same 2 things: Pepto and Excedrin.  Roommate L was going to a wedding, and I was going to a chili cook off.  We both really needed both.

Not sure where our huge bottle of Excedrin went, but after frantically searching around every shelf in the kitchen for about 15 minutes I finally found the huge bottle of cherry Pepto hidden in our 6-pack wine bag from Trader Joe’s!! … only to find to my dismay that there was only one tiny sip left … fuck.

“It’s ok,” says roommate L.  “You need it a lot more than I do.  You’re going to a chilifest.”

Yes, I was indeed going to a chilifest, and I didn’t need anything getting in my way of eating every single chili in the cook off.  So I took that last swig of Pepto, put on my preggers dress in preparation for my food baby, and headed out the door to go support S who was competing in the cook off.  Here’s what was in store for us:

Chili Meat

O-M-G.

The chili cook off was on the rooftop of 230 5th and it was a beautiful day for a cook off.  I was prepared to eat a shitload of chili and get a sick tan.  The party was incred, and out of the 40 teams competing, S’s chili was by far the best one.

Chili by S

It was the same chili S had made at his own chilifest at his apartment last year with 4 different kinds of steak, venison, bison and other woodland creatures.  Here was some other chili:

Competitor Chili

So I had about 40 other bowls of that, plus all you can drink beer.  People were seriously shitting their pants left and right.

After all that chili, though, I still felt S’s was the best.  Apparently, however, the judges picked a different group’s VEGETARIAN chili instead.  I MEAN REALLY!??!?!??!  What even IS a vegetarian chili!?!?!  Why do vegetarians always try to turn meat into mush JUST STICK TO YOUR SALADS!!!!!!!!!!!  That was an unfortunate win.

After an entire day of drinking and eating, we were still starving and parched so S, C, A and I decided to go to dinner at L’Express.  On the menu for the night: duck mousse, salmon tartare and steak tartare.  YESSSSSSSSS.  My fav things.  Everything is better raw, like cookie dough.  So I got the salmon tartare and both C and S got the steak tartare, which was delicious but not quite as delicious as roommate L’s steak tartare:

Roommate L's Steak Tartare

I guess I inadvertently continued my impressive streak of raw meat eating.  C was so full from his appetizer tripe dish that he literally ate like 3 bites of his steak tartare and then left the rest for the waiter to take away until I SWOOPED IN and saved the rest.  It was so good.  The best part, though, was that after I was all stuffed from raw salmon and steak, along with C’s leftover flourless molten lava chocolate cake with vanilla ice cream, I took out my credit card when GASP!!!!!!!!!!!!!! kind generous C in his complete state of drunkenness insists on picking up my portion of the bill.

Best day ever.

Went to the SABRE awards dinner at Cipriani’s last night, and it was INCRED.  I’d never been to an awards dinner before and I really felt like I was at the Oscars… food-wise.

Arrived there to immediately head to the open bar where I picked myself up a glass of champagne followed by a bellini as I spent 30 minutes chasing around the butlers in my high heels following the hors d’oeuvre plates of pork and apricot slices, pesto filled cherry tomatoes, caviar and blinis, etc etc etc.  The award ceremony began shortly thereafter, and after each chunk of winners was announced, they’d bring out more and more food.  First a plate of 4 perfectly seared scallops on a bed of greens and mushrooms, then a glass of red wine, then some awards.  My boss to my left doesn’t like seafood so she sent the scallops back and requested a Greek salad instead.  My boss to my right doesn’t eat, so she only ate 1.5 scallops and picked at the rest.  !??!?!??!?!??!?!??!?!??!??!?! UGGGHHHHHHHHHHH.

To calm my increasing frustration and anxiety with the amount of scallops that were going uneaten around me, I inadvertently kept saying yes to the guy who came around every 2 seconds (that’s what she said!) asking if I wanted a refill on my wine until I remembered I was with important people at the company.

I forgot 2 seconds later and ordered myself another glass of champagne, and then… A CHRISTMAS MIRACLE.  Out comes an entire trough full of the B-I-G-G-E-S-T cuts of perfectly cooked rare steak I have ever seen in my entire life, accompanied by roasted potatoes and a bundle of asparagus.  My boss to my left was so disgusted by the size of the steak cut that she sent it back and ordered the vegetarian dish instead.  !??!??!?!??!?!??!?!??!??!?!  My boss to my right was so disgusted by the rareness of the steak that she sent it back and ordered the fish instead.  !??!??!?!??!?!??!?!??!??!?!  WHAT THE FUCK IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE!??!??!?!?  I started to whimper after each of those incidences until I remembered I had to act like a lady with manners in front of important people.  Needless to say, I finished every single bit on my plate, literally, then requested another bellini.

By this point I was composed enough to have non-chinky eyes but tipsy enough that my slightly uninhibited self started blabbering about all the useless junior people at our company when I suddenly caught my boss glaring at me from the corner of my eyes.  I immediately shut up about work and pretended like I was talking about my friends.

Last came the most generous slice of chocolate mousse cake I’ve ever seen in my life, followed by coffee, followed by dessert trays full of mini eclairs, fruit tarts, chocolate cakes, lemon tarts, cookies, and chocolate covered strawberries.  It was surreal.  The glamorous world of PR…

I love CRL meetings.  This past week was an entire week of full-day meetings with our worldwide CRLs, which meant MEETING LEFTOVERS E-V-E-R-Y SINGLE DAY.  I literally went an entire full week not spending a single dime on breakfast, lunch or dinner because every day at work there were leftover bagels, muffins and fruit in the mornings, an incred array of leftover sandwiches and salad in the early afternoons, and yet another incred array of leftover sandwiches, pasta and cookies in the late afternoons.  I have never been so happily full.  It’s weeks like these that make me want to come into work every day (like that time I had to work from home because I was legit sick and missed out on the monthly staff meeting that apparently had amazing sliders, mini pulled pork sandwiches, fried chicken, bbq chicken, chips and guac, beer, etc etc etc UGGGGHHHHH WHY DID I STAY HOME THAT DAY!??!?!! so upsetting).

Anyway.

To continue the amazing week, this weekend roommates M and L made this:

DUCK

SPICY SOUTHWESTERN CHILI RUBBED DUCK WITH CHERRY POMEGRANATE WINE SAUCE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Noodle Soup

SOMETHING ASIAN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The secret ingredient is… NOTHING!!!

Finally some 80+ degree weather this weekend, and you know what that means — DAY DRINKING!  We celebrated L’s birthday yesterday with brunch at Sunburnt Cow: $18 for choice of brunch food plus all you can drink Moomoosas or Moo Marys.  So I got their famous hamburger medium rare with cheese, lettuce, tomato, EGG, BACON, RED BEETS AND GRILLED PINEAPPLES!!!!!!!!!

Sunburnt Cow Burger

It was absolutely incred, but what was more incred were the 4 moo marys I chugged down my burger with while W was trying to cure her hangover with bottomless moomoosas and a cup of coffee…

Coffee?

Huh?  Derrr… Well that’s something you don’t see every day.  Hot scalding coffee in a glass cup with a plastic condiment container of milk and a thin straw to drink out of…

The brunch was super dericious, I snagged W’s leftover pieces of toast and salad, C’s leftover bits of buttermilk banana pancake, and I had a nice buzz going from my moo marys.  And then!!!  As if the brunch couldn’t get any better, kind generous birthday girl L decides to pick up the entire tab for us.

O!!!!!!!

M!!!!!!!

G!!!!!!!

We then spent the rest of the afternoon drinking beers all day (and V’s gay), and then I proceeded to take a very satisfying nap from 5pm-10pm before heading out for the night.