Laughs »Best of 2010 Laughs Round Up

Great Fun

Take time to laugh with some amature singing sensations, business advice, a window into your next adults only vacation, trailer madness, and p-i-z-z-a!

1. Giallothon

2. PIZZA

3. Harvey Sid Fisher

4. Your Business Card Is Crap

5. Hedo Rick

6. Jan Terri

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Posted on January 5, 2011

TV Shows »Best of 2010 TV Round Up

Great Shows

If it’s true that TV rots the brain, then you better make it worthwhile shows like the ones in my shortlist that feature high fashion, monsters, odd humor, and drugs:

1. Signe Chanel

2. Breaking Bad

3. True Blood

4. Jam

5. Snuff Box

6. Walking Dead

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Posted on January 5, 2011

Web Sites »Best of 2010 Website Round Up

Great Sites

There’s never a lack of interesting things to find online and here’s my shortlist of some of the best I’ve come across this year. Please excuse the self promotion.

1. Brittany Hague

2. Advanced Style

3. Big Happy Fun House

4. The Selvedge Yard

5. The Look

6. Wrong Side of the Art

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Posted on January 4, 2011

Places to Visit »Best of 2010 Places to Visit

Great Vacations

As you can tell, our Barcelona trip was amazing.. but me took in some fantastic sites closer to home too:

1. Park Guell

2. Mercat Boqueria

3. Figueres

4. Museum of Jurassic Technology

5. Ludlow Lakeside Rental

6. Mummer’s Museum

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Posted on January 4, 2011

Spend a Couple Minutes »Best of 2010 Ways to Spend a Few Minutes

Great Things

It will only take a minute to read my short list of the best ways I spent a few minutes this last year:

1. Hipstamatic

2. Metal Mad at Giant Robot

3. Rags to Richesse: Rugs from Morocco

4. The Highline

5. Zac Posen for Target

6. Eye Candy

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Posted on January 4, 2011

Spend a Couple Hours »Best of 2010 Ways to Spend an Hour

Great Activities

Fashion, woodcuts, one man bands, razor clams and bedazzled nails – these are the best ways I wasted away the hours this year:

1. Get A New Bathroom

2. Graphic Heroes, Magic Monsters: Japanese Prints by Utagawa Kuniyoshi

3. Brooklyn Museum: American High Style: Fashioning a National Collection

4. Eataly

5. Sakura Nail Salon

6. Jon Brion at The Largo

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Posted on January 3, 2011

Drinks »Best of 2010 Drinks Round Up

Great Bevvies

Talk about going out with a bang. One of my last alcoholic drinks before ten months of pregnant sobriety was the best (I looked forward to having it again all ten months but have yet to). The rest of the year found me taking in my fair share of decaf lattes and iced coffees – fortunately I live in one of the best neighborhoods for coffee. Rounding out the short list is low brow strip mall sweetness and high brow Upper East Side daintiness.

1. Nama Sake

2. Blue Bottle

3. Coke Slurpee

4. Five Leaves

5. Cafe Grumpy

6. High Tea at Kings Carriage House

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Posted on January 3, 2011

Desserts »Best of 2010 Desserts Round Up

Great Sweets

For anyone with a sweet tooth, I present the best icy, sugary, fruity, chocolaty, and bacony desserts I indulged in this year:

1. NYC Icy

2. Crack Pie

3. Cat Head Cupcakes from Ruthy’s Bakery

4. People’s Pops

5. Betty Crocker Chocolate Chip Mix

6. Pig Candy

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Posted on January 3, 2011

Restaurants »Best of 2010 Restaurant Round Up

Great Food

Wow, as much as I might miss being able to go out to restaurants lately – we really ate well this year! From Spain to Connecticut to Flushing, from my spiciest meal to date to fried fish bones to arms length lobster rolls.. there was so much tastiness in 2010 that I just had to include some honorable mentions on top of the short list.

1. Barcelona

2. Little Pepper

3. Traif

4. Lobster Landing

5. Soba-ya

6. Fatty Cue

Honorable Mentions: Paulie Gee’s and Imperial Palace

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Posted on January 2, 2011

Style Icons: Female »Best of 2010 Female Style Icons

Great Ladies

My short list of style icons are a fiery bunch sure to inspire your closet and your attitude:

1. Iris Barrell Apfel

2. Grace Coddington

3. Peggy Moffit

4. Jadin Wong

5. Nina Simone

6. Meiko Kaji

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Posted on January 2, 2011

Style Icons: Male »Best of 2010 Male Style Icons

Great Men

It was a tough year for loss. My favorites in the fields of art, fashion, and literature passed away this year. They rank among the best male style icons of my 2010:

1. Frank Frazetta

2. Alexander McQueen

3. JD Salinger

4. Malick Sidibe

5. Danilo Donati

6. Hipgnosis

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Posted on January 1, 2011

Hunks »Best of 2010 Hunk Round Up

Great Hunks

From drinking thespians to silent funny men – bring on the parade of babes.

1. Oliver Reed

2. Franco Nero

3. David Warner

4. River Phoenix

5. Buster Keaton

6. Brian Jones

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Posted on January 1, 2011

Albums »Best of 2010 Album Round Up

Great Albums

Choosing just a few best albums of the ones I enjoyed this year was tough and I am sure I’d pick another bunch depending on my mood – but after much deliberation here are some great listens, some of which you have probably heard a million times, others that might be a new surprise.

1. The Queen Is Dead

2. Opium

3. Cannibal Holocaust Soundtrack

4. Stretchin’ Out In Bootsy’s Rubber Band

5. Let My People Go

6. The Switched-On Box Set

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Posted on January 1, 2011

Songs »Best of 2010 Song Round Up

Great Songs

Here’s a playlist of some of the best songs that I’ve been into this year. There’s a healthy dose of early nineties r&b as well as some lovely romantic classics.

1. Pony

2. Blue Bayou

3. Silly Ho

4. Tell It Like It Is

5. Dirty Girl

6. Too Close

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Posted on January 1, 2011

Books »Best of 2010 Book Round Up

Great Books

I didn’t read quite as many books this year as usual, but have still come up with a pretty great short list for your literary enjoyment. So here’s the best of the picks for the next time you want to curl up with a good read.

1. Woodstock Handmade Houses

2. Clockers

3. No One Belongs Here More Than You

4. Lunar Park

5. Christian Lacroix on Fashion

6. somewhere i have never travelled, gladly beyond

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Posted on January 1, 2011

Movies »Best of 2010 Movie Round Up

Great Movies

Time to reflect and give a run down of the very best of the recommendations I’ve given over the year. So here’s my list of the top movies to see, a mix of old and new, funny and strange – the very best for the next time you want to stay in with popcorn and a whole bunch of movies (perfect actually for this after New Years weekend):

1. Hausu

2. Amadeus

3. Hard Ticket to Hawaii

4. King of Comedy

5. Videodrome

6. Valhalla Rising

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Posted on January 1, 2011

Drinks »Milk and Honey

milk and honey logo Here's what I said back on January 5th:
Tales of the ill-kept secret Milk and Honey bar, where at one time you could only enter if you had been given the ever changing phone number by an already trusted regular seemed the stuff of legend and had I not known people who had actually went through the hassle of obtaining the number, I probably would have let the famously exclusive Sasha Petraske hot spot remain off my radar and to do list forever.

See, I am not one for hassle and when I heard that they had changed their policy once again to make it where only members with a special key would be able to enjoy the hallowed dim cocktail walls, I knew that Milk and Honey was just a place I'd never see the inside of.

Fortunately for me, though, good friends are among the few who nabbed a key and they were kind enough to invite us there on Jim's Birthday. In a time when “speak easy” is the trend for drinking, this place trumps them all, as it should since it started the whole thing. The entrance is truly nondescript, even a bit sketchy: an unmarked beaten up thick gray steel door in a quiet apartment building, as you walk in you half expect that there's been some mistake and you'll end up in a stranger's living room past the thick curtains.

In fact, the space is not much larger than a living room and the ambiance is minimal: the lights are very dark, the booths are a bit battered and cozy, the music soft. I can't imagine the place would make any sort of real impression on those expecting a level of fanciness for all the secrecy, particularly if those lights were turned all the way up.

But superfluous decoration is beside the point of Milk and Honey, a bar truly and utterly devoted to the notion of substance over style. The experience here is about a civilized environment in which to enjoy perfect cocktails. Plus these expertly cocktails all cost $9; a price which is a steal compared to the $11-13 that absolutely everyone seems to think they can charge these days.

There are no crowds here and to our surprise, no menus either. You simply tell your kind and knowledgeable waiter what sort of drink you fancy and they come back with a custom made concoction. I opted for bourbon, starting with a frothy ginger spiced highball and moving on to a simplified take on the old fashioned. Jim found happiness in his beloved Chicago fizz.

It's a strange place in theory. In some ways it's a stand against the celebrity obsessed, over hyped bar scene. No name dropping or obnoxious behavior is tolerated, but at the same time, it's become an almost uncomfortably elitist corner of the city (in theory). After such a wonderfully pleasant evening there, however, I stepped outside and decided I may just enjoy being an elitist sometimes, so long as it means secret keys that open doors to places like Milk and Honey.

RUNNERS UP:
Voodoo Rootbeer
Agua Frescas
The Richardson
Lion's Tail
Temple Bar

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Posted on November 2, 2009