New York for a day-suggestions

[norma427]

more pictures, some with star hung on 57th street

Norma

[norma427]

end of pictures.  I wonder why the Empire State Building was light up like a Crayola Crayon last night.  It was more colors than I have ever seen before.  It was lite up in all the primary colors. 

Norma

[Matthew]

He is running for the President...I'm not joking.lol

The last I heard, he had filed a multi million dollar lawsuit against Hershey's for copyright infringement.  Maybe he won the lawsuit & is laying in his underwear playing his guitar on his own private island.

[norma427]

If anyone is interested the UNICEP Snowflake on Fifth Avenue and 57th Street in New York in the two pictures I posted marks the beginning of the holiday giving season and exists as a beacon of hope, peace and compassion for children around the world. The New York Snowflake, donated by the Stonbely family, was engineered and entirely handcrafted by designer Ingo Maurer and his team in Germany, and is 23 feet in diameter, over 28 feet in height, weighs more than 3,300 pounds and uses 16,000 Baccarat crystal prisms.

Sorry, I didn’t get a better picture of the UNICEP Snowflake, but we were driving in the car.

Norma

[pizzablogger]

Thanks for the pictures and recap Norma.....some good snaps in there as well. Always love seeing pics of NYC and hearing more stories....they never get old.

FYI, next time you are going to Queens, more often than not taking the Holland or Lincoln and cutting across the city are not your best bet.

Taking either the Outer Bridge Crossing (from NJ) to the Verrazano Brigde or using the Goethels Bridge (from NJ) to get to the Verrazano Bridge and then using the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) is often the faster option. If you must get to Queens via cutting across Manhattan, the Queens-Midtown Tunnel can be a good bet.

Don't know if you utilize them, but on the AM dial of the radio you should pre-set both 880 and 1010 into your AM dial. 880 does traffic on the eights and 1010 on the tens of every minute. By exit 9 or 10 on the NJ turnpike, I religiously work these stations back and forth. Traffic into NYC can change at a moments notice, and these two stations have saved me from more than one backup due to an accident.

Sounds like a great day. Thanks again for sharing! --K  

[norma427]

Thanks for the pictures and recap Norma.....some good snaps in there as well. Always love seeing pics of NYC and hearing more stories....they never get old.

FYI, next time you are going to Queens, more often than not taking the Holland or Lincoln and cutting across the city are not your best bet.

Taking either the Outer Bridge Crossing (from NJ) to the Verrazano Brigde or using the Goethels Bridge (from NJ) to get to the Verrazano Bridge and then using the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway (BQE) is often the faster option. If you must get to Queens via cutting across Manhattan, the Queens-Midtown Tunnel can be a good bet.

Don't know if you utilize them, but on the AM dial of the radio you should pre-set both 880 and 1010 into your AM dial. 880 does traffic on the eights and 1010 on the tens of every minute. By exit 9 or 10 on the NJ turnpike, I religiously work these stations back and forth. Traffic into NYC can change at a moments notice, and these two stations have saved me from more than one backup due to an accident.

Sounds like a great day. Thanks again for sharing! --K  

pizzablogger,

Thanks for saying you liked some of the pictures and recap.  I never get tired of NYC, even though I don’t get there very much. 

My oldest daughter did live in Queens for awhile and came back home many times.  She has tried different ways of going back and forth, and usually it doesn’t take as long as yesterday to get to NYC.  She drives up 78 from Allentown.  That is about the shortest way from our area.  We did take the NJ turnpike different times and that way is longer for us.  We even tried to come back to our area from Brooklyn, down though Staten Island and that took longer and then we also had to pay the toll for Verrazano Bridge, plus the tolls for the turnpike. 

Thanks for telling about what channels to use on the radio dial. 

Norma

[PaulsPizza]

Norma, great pictures.
The photo of Carnegie hall brought back great memories for me, my wife and I stayed right across the road in May 2005 @ the Salisbury hotel for our honeymoon.
The first time we went to NY was Christmas 2003, NY is a magical place at Christmas.

Paul

[Tscarborough]

Thank you Norma, I feel like I visited the city myself.

[norma427]

Norma, great pictures.
The photo of Carnegie hall brought back great memories for me, my wife and I stayed right across the road in May 2005 @ the Salisbury hotel for our honeymoon.
The first time we went to NY was Christmas 2003, NY is a magical place at Christmas.

Paul

Paul,

Thanks for saying the pictures were great.  I only have a Sony cheaper Cyber-shot camera and wish I could take better pictures.  There are so many pictures to be taken in NY.  I looked into many pizza businesses and just wanted to see what their pizzas looked like. 

Glad to hear the photo of Carnegie Hall bought back memories for you.    They are doing construction there now. You are right that NY is a magical place at Christmas.  I might get to go to NYC again before Christmas and if I do I will take some more pictures of pizza places I can visit and also how NYC looks at Christmas.

Norma

[norma427]

Thank you Norma, I feel like I visited the city myself.

Tscarborough,

Your welcome.  I will post more pictures on this thread when I get to visit New York again.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

Norma,

I hope you like the walnut raisin bread from Jim Lahey's bakery. For many years I spent Thanksgiving in NYC and would stop by the bakery before heading for the airport to buy that particular bread. It was one of my favorites.

You didn't say all that much about Joe's pizza. Can you critique it for us, and also compare it with your own NY style pizzas?

You grandson is a handsome lad.

Peter

[andreguidon]

wow Norma !! that bulk dough pic is worth $$$ !! very nice recap, thanks for all the details... ill be in FL from the 22DEC to 09JAN, if i get a good deal for tickets i am dying to go to NY... you just made me want to go even more....

[norma427]

Norma,

I hope you like the walnut raisin bread from Jim Lahey's bakery. For many years I spent Thanksgiving in NYC and would stop by the bakery before heading for the airport to buy that particular bread. It was one of my favorites.

You didn't say all that much about Joe's pizza. Can you critique it for us, and also compare it with your own NY style pizzas?

You grandson is a handsome lad.

Peter

Peter,

I do really like the walnut raisin bread from Jim Lahey’s bakery, but I think the loaf I purchased was baked a little  too much.  Did your bread you purchased ever look as dark as the picture I posted.? I sliced the walnut raisin bread this morning and had some slices.  This is a picture of the slices.  Do you have any idea how Jim Lahey’s bakery makes their pan pizzas?  They were delicious and so crunchy on the bottom.  I never experienced a pizza like that before.

I didn’t post much about Joe’s pizza because it tasted just like any average pizza I can buy around my area.  As can be seen on the pictures I posted the crust is more dense and bready.  In my opinion the crust had a slightly sweet taste to it.  The cheese and mozzarella on the slice I purchased were just average.  I like a better mozzarella and sauce.  I find with each pizza I taste, they all taste a little different.  As far as comparing it to the pizzas I make at market, I like the Preferment Lehmann dough a lot better.  There were people inside of Joe’s purchasing pizza.  There are so many pizza places in NYC to try.

Thanks for saying my grandson is a handsome lad.  He is all boy and wants to keep on the go.  I think we would have stood in line at John’s to try their pizza, but I know my grandson wouldn’t have been that patient.  It is something about his strawberry blonde hair color.  Only my grandfather, then me and now my grandson have that color of hair.  No one else in our entire family have that color of hair.  My hair now is almost white, but it was his color at one time.  My grandson’s parents both have really dark hair. 

I didn’t post this other picture before, but we also purchase steak on a stick from street vendors in  Astoria, Queens.  In my opinion their steak on a stick with lemon is really good.  I brought home 5 steak on sticks.  There were from outside Greek vendors.

Norma

[norma427]

wow Norma !! that bulk dough pic is worth $$$ !! very nice recap, thanks for all the details... ill be in FL from the 22DEC to 09JAN, if i get a good deal for tickets i am dying to go to NY... you just made me want to go even more....

andreguidon,

I was also surprised how Keste's dough looked.  I could have taken more pictures, but they were busy, and I didn't want to bother them any more. Roberto was very nice and answered any questions I asked.  His pizzas were amazing in the taste of the crust and the dressing he used.  I would have like to tried more of his pizzas, but I had to save room to eat other things.

I hope you get to visit NYC.  It is an amazing place and they do have so many pizzas to try.

Norma

[Pete-zza]

I do really like the walnut raisin bread from Jim Lahey’s bakery, but I think the loaf I purchased was baked a little  too much.  Did your bread you purchased ever look as dark as the picture I posted.? I sliced the walnut raisin bread this morning and had some slices.  This is a picture of the slices.  Do you have any idea how Jim Lahey’s bakery makes their pan pizzas?  They were delicious and so crunchy on the bottom.  I never experienced a pizza like that before.

Norma,

The crusts of the walnut raisin breads that I purchased from Jim Lahey's bakery were on the dark side but not quite as dark as yours. At one point after one of my visits to NYC, I attempted my own version of a Sullivan Street walnut raisin bread, as I discussed at Reply 56 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,4114.msg42660.html#msg42660. Unlike the Lahey bakery, that uses some commercial yeast for their sourdough products, I use only a natural preferment.

If you ever find yourself going to the Sullivan Street bakery in a future visit, you might also pick up some H&H bagels from their bakery (http://www.hhbagels.com/) that is only a few blocks away from the Sullivan Street bakery. That was my other stop before heading for the airport.

I do not have any idea as to how the Sullivan Street bakery makes its pan/sheet pizzas.

Peter

[norma427]

Norma,

The crusts of the walnut raisin breads that I purchased from Jim Lahey's bakery were on the dark side but not quite as dark as yours. At one point after one of my visits to NYC, I attempted my own version of a Sullivan Street walnut raisin bread, as I discussed at Reply 56 at http://www.pizzamaking.com/forum/index.php/topic,4114.msg42660.html#msg42660. Unlike the Lahey bakery, that uses some commercial yeast for their sourdough products, I use only a natural preferment.

If you ever find yourself going to the Sullivan Street bakery in a future visit, you might also pick up some H&H bagels from their bakery (http://www.hhbagels.com/) that is only a few blocks away from the Sullivan Street bakery. That was my other stop before heading for the airport.

I do not have any idea as to how the Sullivan Street bakery makes its pan/sheet pizzas.

Peter

Peter,

Thanks for referencing the link to where you made your own version of Sullivan St. Walnut raisin bread.  Your walnut raisin bread looks delicious.  I will try your formula sometime.

Thanks also for telling me where to find some good bagels, when I have time to visit NYC again.

Norma

[pizzablogger]

A couple of the pics brightened up a little and sharpened.

In a car in bad light and they still came out as good as they did? Not a bad camera at all.....and a good steady hold. 

Loving the under the bridge shots too!

[scott r]

aaah,  street meat, so yummy.    I miss NY so much, and your photos made me feel like I was there.   Thanks Norma!   

[Jet_deck]

Thank you Norma, I feel like I visited the city myself.

+1 For me also!

[JConk007]

I may go to NYC  for the holidays ( only 20 min for ME to the bridge) again this year.  after seeing those great pics Thanks Norma! and what kind of Keste pie was that that blogger touched up? I am drooling!!
Great work ! Have a great thanksgiving!! Very Cute Grandson too he must have been fascinated!
John