Sunday - Wandering Brooklyn and Manhattan (again...)

After Leena called in the morning and we talked, I looked at the chunks of beef in the fridge and thought, "well, if I don't cook them soon they'll go bad" and figured I'd fry them up for breakfast.  I hadn't gotten around to buying any cooking oil or butter or so I figured I'd just toss them in the hot pan and let them fry in their own fat...  However, this isn't a nonstick pan, so they all stuck pretty bad before they got cooking...

I let them cook, flipping them around with a spatula until some were a touch burnt at the edges.  Whenever they were on a part of the pot where I'd already scraped some off, they stopped sticking, but when they touch another, new part, they'd stick and I'd have to scrape them off and back into the center of the pan again...  Once I figured they were finished I scooped them all out onto a stack of three paper plates and used one of my kitchen knives to cut them up and eat them.  Tasty, nice, wholesome beef with no extra flavors, all the subtleties that would otherwise get covered up.

I soaked the pan with some soap and water and almost all the burnt stuff scrubbed off.  I don't have a scrubbing sponge, either, or I'd get even more off.  Anyway, it's things like that that'll "season" the pan.  Good quality pots and pans absorb the oil, fat and stuff of things cooked and eventually cook better and smoother.  Or maybe that's only cast iron, not stainless steel...

After that I wasn't really full, so I looked up the address of the 5 Guys in Park Slope and went out on the subway.  It was easy enough to find.  I ordered a plain burger, which comes with two beef patties by default, and a single patty burger is a special order, a regular order of french fries and a regular drink.  It came to $12, and used up almost all the cash I have on hand...  For my drink I got a Cherry Coke, which wasn't very cherry, but I'd have continued to be curious if I didn't get it.  It took about ten minutes for them to cook my order and I ate it there.  The fries were a lot, their regular order of them is a small cup filled, and then since they always serve in a bag, even for orders that aren't going out, they then fill the bag above the food with fries.

Now that was a filling meal!

After I finished it I figured I'd better walk a bit to work some of that off.  I walked all up 7th Avenue until it hit Flatbush Avenue and then I walked along Flatbush until I got to the Atlantic Avenue / Pacific Street subway station, where I usually transfer on workdays between trains.

From there I hopped on a 3 train into Manhattan.  I got off at 59th Street and Broadway, which is just at the corner of Central Park.  I walked around the park for a while.  It didn't take long to figure out why I kept smelling horses as I walked along the outside of the park, there were lots and lots of horse drawn carriages going around inside the park.

I stopped at park benches a few times to cool off.  I didn't even bring my backpack, and just walking slowly and leisurely I was sweating pretty heavily.  There were a few small drops of rain here and there, but not a whole lot, and not enough to ever think, "ah, it's raining."

After walking a bit in the park I went back out to the streets, zig zagging around a bunch of Manhattan streets.  I passed the Apple Store near the park and there was a waiting line to get in because it was so crowded.  The store is all underground, I guess.  There's a big, glass cube as an entrance in the middle of a square on the sidewalk and an elevator and stairs going down into the store.

It was sort of dazzling to walk amongst so many huge buildings.  They just never ended.  Anywhere I stood there'd be tall, tall buildings in all directions, and then walk a block or two and it's all different tall buildings in all directions.

I passed by the Museum of Modern Art where I could see some interesting artwork in the windows, and thought about going in, but figured I'd check prices and things online.  Since I didn't think (and now that I've looked it up, I was right) it was free, I figured it'd be better to plan a day there rathe than just stopping in to cool off from walking hard...  But looking at their web site, I was walking on the street outside the window in the photo from that link...

Photographic evidence that my camera
(if not me) was in Times Square...

I made my way to Times Square and thought about getting an ice cream cone or something, but resisted.  I sat at a couple of places there to cool off before getting on the N train back to Brooklyn.

I also stopped at Bryant Park, which is quite close to Times Square and watched the pigeons there try to eat a piece of what appeared to be a pretzel, but it was too big for any bird to swallow and too tough to break apart easily...

The ride from Times Square to the stop by my apartment was long and crowded and I was barely awake by the time I got out.  There was some elderly guy sitting across from me who kept twitching and yawning and drifting between asleep and awake.  Whenever he was awake he'd open up his duffel bag and take out a small, black plastic wrapped, flask shaped, glass bottle and swallow a little clear liquid, then put the cap back on and put it away, then he'd sort of drift off again, twitching his hands...