i'm back from the dead

daily drop cap project - jessica hische

goodness gracious.

my poor blog has been neglected. my life post new york just did not seem as blog worthy at all. but i've done a lot in the past couple of months.

left new york and said goodbye to the moderns and my fav cassie castellaw
visited the lovely az - shopped, visited arcosanti and spent time with the fam
moved back to provo into the cutest house with the loveliest ladies i know
visited my sissy in logan - she is awesome and play volleyball for utah state
started school and a new job
bought a gym membership - yes, perhaps i did eat too much in new york
threw a fantastic housewarming party
fell in love with twitter - @brookeeengland
made a bucket full of new friends - shout out to @connieboodge
gave a cupcake to jessica hische
had some lovely post letterpress class breakfasts with the one and only nick smith

this year is going to be the best yet, i feel it in my bones. get ready

the tally

bella by rick banks

so i accomplished 72 items out of 106 on my famed nyc bucket list.

i am such a list maker and having unchecked item on a list, drive me nutso, but the days i was spontaneous and just let myself explore the city, i always found a few gems.

i am planning on a favs of nyc post here soon. so you all can await that one with baited breathe.

as for right now its nice to be home, riding bikes, swimming in the pool, eating momma's food and watching the sun set.

art: alys and feininger

in my final days, i made a big push to go to as many museums as possible.

francis alys

i loved francis alys piece the guards at the ps1. captivating and beautiful. the ps1 is an amazing place and i cant wait to go back. i wish you all could see the piece. essentially, francis choreographs 64 queens guards in the city of london. they are all told to start marching from random points in the city. when two guards run into each other, they are to begin marching in step. when they find another guard they will starting marching with them, and so on as the group grows.  when they form a group of 8 x 8 they are to march to the nearest bridge and disperse. the cinematography is amazing. the camera cut from different wide angle to birds eye, from deep focus to shallow focus. alys also attached camera to the guards themselves, which added another dimension to the piece. alys does not reveal his agenda til the end of the piece. so you watch the piece eating up the beauty of it all and then, when you read what exactly was going on, your mind is blown, so you just have to watch it all over again.

lyonel feininger

i also fell in love with the work of lyonel feininger at the whitney. the breadth of his work was astounding. just take a gander. comics, toys, photography, woodcut. he even taught at the bauhaus.

new york botanical gardens

instagram photo dump

the next food network stars

brooke and cassie.

yes, you best believe.

read all about our award winning eggplant parmesan.

and this would be the cookbook we designed together.

bahaha. i wish.

the good life cookbook spotted on design sponge

recap

image via archidose

image via archidose

image via luminaire

this weekend marissa and i explore financial district. i was sure, there was nothing to see down there, but she showed me otherwise. we ate at the sandwich house, which was cheap and yummy. we visited the trinity church, rubbed the bull (but not his junk - that's a little weird to me), checked out the smithsonian's national museum of the native american, and walked around battery park.

we also scoped out some of the buildings i wanted to see in the midtown area. i took some pictures, with my real camera, so i will post those soon. we got up close and personal with the chrysler building, got some pictures of philip johnson's seagram building, and pretended like we belonged in the waldorf astoria. we also tried baked my melissa's cupcakes. they were yummy and creative, but way too small, like they were honestly the size of my eyeball, weird comparison? yes maybe so. oh also spent part of the afternoon dreaming of diamonds in tiffanys. 

i had the chance to enjoy the early evening on the pier at 72nd. it was gorgeous. i need to be by the coast always. i just love being able to feel a breeze coming off the water, even if it was the toxic hundson. still made me happy. for dinner i enjoyed dinosaur bbq with friends. the wait was worth it, because for the first time in my life i had some fried green tomatoes. so yummy. and the syracuse style salt potatoes. man oh man. 

this weekend we also had the chance to go visit the museum of the moving image. it was one of the best museums i have been to. the architecture, the interior design, the identity, the curation, and the hands on activities were all right on. i was smiling when i got to sit on a osorom bench designed by konstantin grcic, much more comfortable than expected. we all enjoyed the exhibit on jim henson. minus the use of papyrus throughout this exhibit, a little hiccup there. who made that choice. but this guy was awesome. we will all remember him for our friends kermit and big bird, but he did so much more.

our taste buds made our way around the world with venezuelan cuisine and french fare in the same evening. arepas cafe in queens is worth a stop if you find yourself in the neighborhood. and balthazar served me up a pretty lovely chocolate cake and nick's meringue was fantastique. 

items checked off list: 7

apollo

marissa and i had a lovely night yesterday at the apollo theater. we laughed, clapped, yelled, booed, danced, and sang. i still am thinking about that grandpa up there on the stage dancing and chuckle to myself. and the little rappers from brooklyn got their jam stuck in my head. thank you for a good night harlem.

the stone siblings

cassie and i can't stop listening to angus & julia stone. so good. and angus is one sexy individual.

love

images via ohjoy!

all you need is love right?
well my dearest roommate marissa let me a love note and a box from bouchon bakery on my bed one night.

i took the goodies to work the next morning for breakfast. oreo (tko) and brownie (chocolate bouchon) yum.

made my week a million times better

two peas in a pod

so you might be thinking i might be lying dead as a doornail and as flat as a pancake in the streets of nyc. my mother was almost positive that's exactly what had happened to me.
but i am in fact alive and doing well.

cassie and i have had quite a busy week at work. my typical late nights in the bfa are accompanied with little sleezer's pizza or mister mcdonalds and a large d p. but no sir, not here in nyc.

isn't she lovely, isn't  she wonderful

cassie and i have treated ourselves to:

max brenner
        we thought we had died and gone to heaven. we ordered the smores pizza and a red heart chocolate
        cake (choclate cake with raspberry filling). so yummy. definitely hit that sweet spot.

south brooklyn pizza
       thank you for staying open til 5 am. that served us well indeed. but the crust was super crunchy,  
       grimaldis and eataly win for best crust. south brooklyn has the freshest basil.

eataly
      incredibly decadent gelato and pizza for dessert. backwards? i think not. but i do think grimaldis and
       south brookyln have better mozzerella

shake shack
      for two incredibly hungry girls two double cheeseburgers, two orders of fries, one milkshake, and
       one concrete.

republic
      yummy noodles, but could you please give me more? cassie loved the lime chicken and i was all
       about the spicy coconut chicken. yes please.

wichcraft
     so close to the office and so easy to run over for some quick satisfaction and a cookie too

city bakery
      i have been craving a city bakery cookie all week, but they close so stinking earlier, but we finally
       made our way over there for lunch yesterday.

chipotle
     a happy burrito full belly guarantee

the brindle room
     this place in the east village delivers, so one night i order myself the 3 herb chicken sandwich. i  
     honestly don't think i have ever had a better chicken sandwich. so good.

beecher's cheese

     we came here one morning and had the breakfast casserole and multigrain bagels. yummy and     

     healthy too. well i dunno, but i seemed healthy than what i usually have for breakfast.

the city is so much quieter and cooler at 4 in the morning and i enjoyed my cab rides home with the windows rolled down.

chelsea market

michael hill map of nyc
here

marissa and i visited chelsea market. it had been on my bucket list but i wasn't sure what to expect, but it by far exceeded my expectations. we had fun browsing through the stores and bakeries and all the other goodies. we ate lunch at the green table, which was stellar. i had the grilled corn for an appetizer and the chicken pot pie for my entree. marissa had the harvest salad for an appetizer and the grilled cheese with blueberry chutney and a bowl of tomato gazpacho. for dessert, we both got a fatwitch brownie. i was disappointed for sure. i thought this place was hugely over hyped. i'd choose ghirardelli's brownie mix brownies any day. but we highly recommend taking time to visit the market.

on our way to the market, we stumbled upon maritime hotel. we were intrigued by the architecture of the building, so we pretended like we belonged there and went inside to explore. the place had a similar feel the phillipe stark's hudson hotel. the design of the building was great, however, i don't know if i was sold on all the furnishing choices.

oh i love chairs. i really do.

the england clan

meet the siblings

                       

while my family was here in new york, we crossed off quite a few things on my nyc bucket list. it was fun showing them where my stomping grounds have been for the past couple months. and i was good to have my closest of friends with me. sometimes we all need a little lovin.

here are the highlights from the trip:

they loved max soha, quite is a great little place by my house. this time i ordered la pugliese, which was so tasty. shell pasta with brocolli rabe and spicy italian sausage. 

on sunday, robert comstock came to talk to the singles ward. which was really great. i am glad my family had the opportunity to hear from him.

we also got to go to a yankees game, we arrived a bit late, which was perfect timing for me. i didn't even have time to get bored. and the yankees won, so thats a plus. 

for my mother's birthday dinner, we enjoyed some indian food. the vindaloo was so yummy. and in the morning we suprised her with a piece of german chocolate cake from harlem's make my cake. 

on monday morning, we rented a car and took a road trip up to niagara falls. the falls were beautiful but the town was a dump. we took a boat ride under the falls and it was amazing how strong that water is. we were all soaked. 

while we were road tripping, we stopped at palmyra, where we were able to see the hill cumorah pagent. we also had the chance to see the palmyra temple, the smith farm and home as well as the sacred grove. 

thursday evening, when we were back in the city, we had a pizza taste test. we went to two different places i have been wanted to try: bleecker st. pizza and joe's pizza. joe's wins hands down no doubt about it. do not be seduced by bleecker st. pizza's signs proclaiming them the best pizza in nyc. whoever declared that was not a pizza aficionado. joe's pizza is a pizza by the slice kind of place. but instead of a warmed up greasy mess. the pizza was the perfect combination of greasy goodness and fresh fantastic.

to finish up our dinner feast, we got three slices of cheesecake from rocco's on bleecker st. we got a chocolate cheesecake, a s'mores cheesecake, and an original cheesecake. i still can't decide what was my favorite. but man it was good.

on friday, we got tickets to go see wicked. i was so excited to finally see the musical. all of us kids have had all the songs on the cd memorized, but had never seen the show. it was great to finally pieces the story together. and of course i was bawling when they sang "for good"

on saturday, my sissy and i went to see harry potter. it's crazy to think how much we have all grown up since i first picked up harry potter and the sorcerer's stone. we then indulged in a little shopping and some cookies from levain's bakery. i have decided that i would rate these suckers as the best cookies i have had in new york. 

we also made our way over to the guggenheim, where we were able to see lee ufan's exhibit and enjoy the architecture of that building. 

then it was off to brooklyn, where we walked over the brooklyn bridge and got ourselves some grimaldi's pizza. grimaldi's has a location in scottsdale, arizona of all places, which my family frequents often. so we thought we had to try the one that started it all. the pizza was great. i think it might just be the best i have had. i would put eataly and south brooklyn up there with it as well. the crust was thin, fresh and not burnt. the tomato sauce, was not overly seasoned, but the natural sweetness of the perfectly ripe tomatoes was the predominate flavor of the sauce. the mozzarella was yummy and the basil wasn't too raw nor too cooked. i made three pieces disappear so fast. for dessert we got some ice cream from brooklyn ice cream factory. the strawberry ice cream topped me off perfectly. we took the water taxi back to manhattan. it was perfect timing and we got to watch the sunset over the city. it was a perfect last evening with my family.

i think shan is going to be craving another bagel from absolute bagels in the next few days. and i also converted her and my momma to instagram. you can tell i like it a little huh?

i will miss them, but will get to see them again soon. my little brother can always brighten my day. he is the sweetest little guy. 

my brother's cuter than your brother.