I still tend to get lost in my thoughts while wandering through the city, imagining what it looked like 50 or 100 years ago. One of my favorite culinary treats is the lamb gyro from Rafiki's Halal cart in Union Square. I'm rarely without a book in hand and wish I went dancing more (especially swing dancing....although there's always an uneven ration of women to men). A little silly and a little serious, with some times childlike fascination and excitement for the most trivial seeming things.

Feeling very lucky to be able to make amazing food all day at a little speakeasy type place in the west village and I have nights and weekends off. Anyone who knows about the restaurant life will agree about how rare this is.

Random trivia, spending an entire day wandering around eating different treats, laughing at myself and at the absurdity of life, fixing things in my apartment with just a rubber band and a paper clip so we don't have to call the landlord, making tasty meals out of nothing special, reading at super hero speed.

No one ever believes my age, which I guess is a good thing. It gets a little annoying after a while.

I'm a chronic reader; it's practically an addiction. Pete Hamill, Ruth Reichl, Anthony Bourdain, Caleb Carr, Michael Chabon, Erik Larson, Dorothy Parker, Jack Kerouvac, Stephen Ambrose, Biil Bryson, David Sedaris, George R.R. Martin, J.K.Rowling, the list goes on and on...

My movie picks are almost as varied: Philadelphia Story, O Brother Where Art Thou, Poltergeist, Jaws, Bonnie and Clyde, Harry Potter, Garden State, American Beauty, His Girl Friday, Rear Window, Laura, Vanity Fair, The Ice Storm, Pride and Prejudice, Paper Moon, Midnight in Paris, Gangs of New York, You Can Count On Me, Bugsy Malone, the Thin Man movies...

It really depends on what kind of mood I'm in. So far this week I've listened to: Johnny Cash, Billie Holiday, Massive Attack, Mos Def, J-Live, Tribe, Beastie Boys, Led Zepplin, The Postal Service, Carl Perkins, Alexi Murdoch, Jaydiohead, Jimi Hendrix, Louis Armstrong, Yo Yo Ma, Jurassic 5, Cut Chemist, RJD2.....if I like it , I like it. There's not a genre that I can honestly say I don't like. Maybe pop but I've been known to dance in Target to Rihanna if it comes on.

It seems like the cool thing to say that you don't watch tv but I've never been one of the cool kids. Mad Men, Game of Thrones, 30 Rock, Parks and Rec, Band of Brothers, Fringe, Downton Abbey, Copper, The Simpsons (now and forever), Weekend Update on SNL, Veep.

Coffee
Something, anything, to read
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups
an overactive imagination
Bathtubs
Sleep

Usually just enjoying the fact that I don't have to get up before dawn the next day.

As much as I love being a chef, if I could do it all over agin, I think I might've become a historian.

You understand that sometimes having no plan is the best plan.
You're not afraid. Of conversations that an last from dusk until dawn.
You agree that a weekend should be a mix of laziness and mad cap adventures. There are hundreds of amazing things to do in this city, it seems a waste to spend all your spare time on the couch.