There were a few random trips/activities I did this summer that I never got around to writing about..and I keep staring at the photos. For posterity’s sake..here they are.
City Bike Ride
The first big thing I did was go on a bike ride through Manhattan. After purchasing a bike this summer, I tried to ride it as much as possible. I decided to ride from my place to 59th and West End to go visit my brothers for the day. The trip was fairly straightforward – but it was kind of cool to ride all the way from Astoria to the west side. The 59th Street Bridge is vastly underrated and I had the path mostly to myself.
These pictures are all from the bridge itself – the rest of the time I was using Bond-like maneuvers to avoid cars. Other than Central Park South being unpaved at the time and a few aggressive cabs, the trip was stress free and I would definitely do it again. The trip was a little over 6 miles each way.
The one caveat about it being “stress free” was my decision to play squash for 2 hours when I got there. The next day, my legs felt like some sort of purée.
Try a New Recipe
Next item on my list was a new recipe. Lauren and I were out of options (this was before the Great Epiphany During Which Lauren Decided to Eat Meat Again) so we went with an easy seafood dish. We didn’t spend too much time making them complicated but they tasted very good. The one change I would have made would be to crisp them a little more but other than that, they came out great. Recipe and pictures below.
Maryland Crab Cakes
1 pound crabmeat, shredded
1 1/2 tablespoons dry bread crumbs
2 teaspoons chopped fresh parsley
salt and pepper to taste
1 egg
1 1/2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1/2 teaspoon ground dry mustard
1 dash hot pepper sauce
DIRECTIONS:
1. Preheat oven broiler.
2. Mix together crabmeat, bread crumbs, parsley, salt and pepper.
3. Beat together egg, mayonnaise, hot sauce and mustard. Combine with other ingredients and mix well. Form into patties and place on a lightly greased broiler pan or baking sheet.
4. Broil for 10 to 15 minutes, until lightly brown.
Two kinds of crabmeat
Rice. Exciting, no?
Baking the crab cakes
Finished product. Probably could have made a more exciting plate, but they tasted good. FWIW, honey glazed carrots are awesome. And yes, that salad is pathetic, and is only there in case my mother reads this.
Brandon’s Play
Last, but certainly not least, was my brother Brandon’s play. He has been acting as long as I can remember, and has already appeared in an Andrew Lloyd Webber play and Rescue Me with Denis Leary. This summer, he enrolled in Stagedoor Manor (I would be remiss if I didn’t note that when googling it, be abundantly sure to click the the camp in upstate NY, not the self proclaimed only gay bar in Georgia).
The camp is like an acting farm system, with alumni such as Robert Downey Jr., Natalie Portman and Zach Braff. With any luck, Brandon will be out of rehab in time for Iron Man 16. Anyway, the camp put on a production of Oliver and he got the role of Oliver.
He was terrific, and it was very funny to hear my 12-year-old brother speak like a poverty stricken Londoner. Here are two incredibly low quality pictures (he’s on the left in both).
The other item of note was a celebrity connection. When Tony Randall was 72, his longtime wife died of cancer. Three years later, he remarried (she was 25 – Tony Randall FTW) and had a son and daughter. Well, that son was Brandon’s roommate at camp. He seemed like a very nice kid for the few minutes I spoke with him, and it was a random brush with celebrity considering we were deep in a Hasidic town in upstate NY.
More importantly, though, the night after I met him, I was at Lauren’s watching Family Guy with her dad. The following episode came on. Skip forward to the 1:15 mark (it takes a second to load since it may or may not be from China).
This concludes my very long catch up post.
