Great friends, great food, and great conversations

"Lauren, why aren't you writing this blog on Sunday? Its what I look forward to waking up to?!"...I'm sure thats what you're thinking to yourself. Well, folks its because I was busy having an awesome memorial day weekend so lets get down to business. Friday was a half day at work and a half day of inspiration at the NY botanical garden. What a wonderful experience it was. I got to meet up with fellow Display Coordinators and Visual Managers and share some laughs while gathering inspiration for our upcoming windows!

Saturday we cleaned, relaxed and awaited the arrival Chris and Kate, a couple of smurfs from high school. Katie had spent the night sleeping in the Paris airport so upon a pick up from the air port she of course opted to go out and have a delicious meal rather than waste time sleeping, showering, etc. My kind of people. Honestly what a great foodie weekend we had. We had a vegan in the group so that led to trying some new food items, which was a refreshing change. Basically our entire weekend was planned around eating, snacking, shopping for food, restauranteer-ing, watching Gordon Ramsey, and a hint of dining. Oh, did I mention we ate a lot? Let me just go ahead and give you the play by play.

Saturday we hit up our regular spot Station House, which I've referred to in previous blogs as our spot to become regulars at. Then we grabbed a soy dirty chai or two at Matha's Country Bakery and I purchased a couple little treats to take home so that we could sample them later - I didn't want any guest to miss out on the worlds best tiramisu and fruit tart so be prepared if you come visit!

After a night of sleeping on the world best air mattress (thanks for the Christmas present mom and dad), our guests arose ready to see what other delicacies the city offered. We had researched the best vegan brunches in town and landed at Champs which has a 100% vegan menu. The hour and a half wait did NOT disappoint. I went with the breakfast enchiladas which has tofu scramble (substitute eggs), soysage, guacamole, sour cream, beans, rice, and salsa - it was the best enchiladas I've ever had. I'd say what really stole the show though was Kate's K-bomb smoothie which had banana, kale, agave, and almond milk. Okay I've really got to stop giving such detailed descriptions of what we ate because between us eating food and discussing the food we will eat next, you'd be reading this for dayyyyyys. In fact there is so much food in this blog that I don't even have time to tell you about our visit to MOMA but these pictures should sum it up nicely.

So why don't you just check out the websites of the restaurants we all visited together:

Bagelsmith - pumpernickle with sundried tomato cream cheese? foggetaboutit
Chelsea Thai - Pad See Ew, heloooo peanut saunce
Peoples Popsicle - Strawberry Ginger? Yes Please
PizzArte - Truffle mushroom pizza - ugh ya

Everywhere in Chelsea Market - This is a great article to sum up of what its like in there. Stop in the        grocrery store and grab some cocunut rolled dates with almond!

Great friends, great food, and great conversations make life what it is. I wish Cathy could have joined us but no doubt she'll be able to next time! In fact I've been enjoying life so much these days (now that is finally warm out) that I don't even mind that my car died on the way back from taking the girls to the air port yesterday and I had to hitch a ride at 5:30 am to work with a coworker and pay a hefty mechanics bill. Money is just money anyway and I'll make plenty more of it I'm sure.

Enjoy these lovely pictures of the view from williamsburg flea and central park.