By Napoleon I, I do not mean Bonaparte, the little emperor with the hand up his own shirt. I'm referring to the number one Napoleon pastry I've had. It was the lightest, and the freshest--I don't think I had to chew at all. And come to think of it, it was pretty much the cheapest. When the girl serving me told me the price, I thought it was only for the Napoleon, but it turned out to be the total bill, and even that would've been cheaper than a Napoleon at some pastry stores I've frequented. Where did I find this wondrous French pastry? At an Italian bakery in Brooklyn. (By the way, for the Aussies among you, a Napoleon is a vanilla slice with tarted-up icing on top.)
Caputo Bakery
329 Court St
Brooklyn NY

This Tea Ball may not be the most practical teapot in the world but it has to be pretty close to being the cutest. Unfortunately, as far as I know it is only available in England, and unless you, like me, have family members, with taste, who live there and send you gifts like this, you're stuffed. But you can still window shop. There's lots of nice things here, even if the exchange rate does really suck.
When we moved house, a very kind Venezuelan friend gave us a pan de jamón. It's Venezuelan Christmas bread, filled with ham, olives and raisins, and it saw us through a day of moving. From now on we will always think of it as Venezuelan Moving Bread. It's delicious and very portable.
Watch the making of Venezuelan Moving Bread.
Go to recipe for Venezuelan Moving Bread.
Or order it around Christmas from:
El Cocotero
228 W. 18th St.,
New York, NY 10011
nr. Seventh Ave.
Call them: 212-206-8930
If you thought that it was a little extreme of me to go on a cruise for the couple of days my apartment was uninhabitable, this will prove to you that people in Manhattan, because nobody has the space to put their friends up, do this kind of thing all the time. This guy, Mark, went to live at Ikea for the week that his apartment was being fumigated.
This is what a fake island looks like.
This is the fake island directory. If you could read it, you would see that the island has a lot of naturally occurring bars serving unnaturally potent cocktails.
The beach, battery-chicken style. Baste and roast.
Tropical island food.
Through a series of unfortunate events, some of which cannot be publicly disclosed, I end up with a stateroom* on a three night cruise at exactly the same time my apartment was uninhabitable due to toxic fumes from an adjoining renovation. Serendipity, you might say. And you might well say it if it were a different kind of ship, say, something in the Cunnard or Crystal line. But the ship I find myself on is not that kind of ship. (*There was nothing stately about that stateroom.)
It is the other kind of ship. With a casino on board, all-day bingo, pina coladas in plastic souvenir glasses—a flashing, colorful light was built into the base of the glass—and a happy hour that never ends. It’s the kind of ship that sails away on a Bahamian Adventure instead of taking you to the Bahamas. The kind populated by the newly wed, overfed and nearly dead—the cruise industry’s description of its clientele, not mine. It you're fond of a buffet—and tray-sized dinner plates—this is the cruise for you.
The ship stopped for a day in Nassau and encouraged all passengers to take one of many tours offered, many of which took you to Vegas-like attractions or water sport activity-centers and ensured that you did not have to actually see any of Nassau, or meet anyone who lived there, or eat any local food. It was hard to see the Bahamas for the water slides.
And just in case going to a real live island was too much of a culture shock for the average cruiser, the following day the ship docked at a small island owned by the cruise line—one that was decorated to look like a Disney version of Nassau, where you could lie on the beach, eat, eat, eat at the beach buffet, shop at a mini straw market, all without encountering any pesky local people or, God forbid, another culture. Suffice to say that when I dug too deeply in the pristine white sand of the beach, I found concrete.
Still, the air was fresher than the fumes in my apartment, the sun was shining, and there was no lack of food or alcohol. So, as far as forced vacations go, it was certainly better than dying of epoxy poisoning. Just.
