Bushwick, Brooklyn is not what it use to be.  It is even better.  Within the last ten years or so Brooklyn has undergone a major period of gentrification. With all that change came a wave of new restaurants with an array of flavors previously unfamiliar to this neighborhood. One of these restaurants is Roberta’s ( https://bit.ly/2RUOGYZ ), a very popular pizza place. Many of those who have worked here have gone on to create pizza legacies of their own. One such person is Frank Pinello of “Best Pizza” ( https://bit.ly/2HDHqMc ).   But this lunch wouldn’t be pizza adjacent as most of my meals are.  No on this day I was going for more of a Japanese flair. I was here for dumplings! I love a good dumpling, both traditional and modern. My favorite are most definitely the French onion soup dumplings from “The Stanton Social” which I have had on two occasions. The first time was in April 2012 ( https://bit.ly/2MGBEcy ) and the second occasion took place in Aug

Because I feel every birthday should be celebrated whether it is a “special” number or not, I dragged my extremely jet lagged butt out on my birthday.  I had flown home from Phoenix on a red eye flight and landed at 7 a.m. on a Monday, the morning of my actual birthday.  Though I was desperately exhausted I was unable to sleep. Instead I decided to power through just like on the many nights I suffer from insomnia, although I was more grouchy than normal.  F.Y.I. - I am never pleasant when suffering from post vacation blues and this time it was worse because I had just gotten used to seeing my best friend every day and now I was having some separation anxiety. But it was my birthday and I had plans. First up I went to my local pizzeria for a slice for lunch.  Frank’s ( https://bit.ly/2WpXJ3L ) is nothing fancy but I am wild about their regular slice, especially when it comes right out of the oven, well done, served up on a sliver circular tra

What is in a number? Rather what is in an age?  I am now thirty-seven and I know I will spend the year saying things like “I am thirty-seven and will do whatever I damn well feel like”.  But what the hell does that mean? I think it is supposed to mean that I am a grown ass woman who can do whatever she likes whenever she likes. As Julia Roberts famously said in “Pretty Woman”: “I say who, I say when”. This a line I quote on a frequent basis.  As I get use to saying my new age out loud and finding new freedoms I can associate with it, I have this unmistakable sense that this is the age I have been waiting to be. By that I mean that I have always thought thirty-seven is the age I would be when the life I had transformed into the life I have imagined. When what I was working and hoping for, actually became the life I lived on a daily basis.  Without going into specifics I am being to see the necessary steps I have to (and will) take to get there even though the

For my final stop in Astoria I decided to tackle yet another item on my annual to do list, “Sal, Kris, and Charlie’s”.  This is a deli in Astoria has been on my to do list since 2016 ( https://bit.ly/2JSFq4u ) and it was not too far from where I had lunch and purchased my doughnuts. I am no stranger to a good deli. I have previously been to the Carnegie Deli ( https://bit.ly/2RiRCdJ ) before it closed, and of course to Katz’s Deli ( https://bit.ly/2UjGzma ) which now has a second location in Downtown Brooklyn.  But this is the first time in a long time I was going to a deli that wasn’t infamously known. I read about it somewhere and obviously whatever I read compelled me to add it to my list. Once it is on there is takes damn near a miracle to get it off without me actually visiting it. I don’t question myself. I know better.  So a pitstop I would make. The area around the deli seems desolate and like a strange place for such a popular deli. Th