Ben & Cara

After an epic, seemingly never-ending search, we finally moved! It took so long mostly because if we were going to stay in New York, we were determined to stay in Astoria. Last time we moved within Astoria was a few years ago, and as it turns out, many more people started asking themselves Why Leave Astoria? in the meantime (it's QUEENS, people!). We also wanted a top-floor apartment, two bedrooms, a private house or small building, views of something other than brick walls, a separate kitchen, decent closet space, easy street parking, a reasonable walk to the train...yeah, so it took a minute.

Ben and I interacted with the usual cast of characters in the Astoria rental market ("Near to All!" "A Must to See!" "8,000 sq feet!" "No Guests Past 6pm!"), until finally finding two nice apartments in one day. The runner-up was a great little place - a block from Astoria park, large balcony, nicely renovated, second floor of a private house whose owners were Italian snowbirds living on the first floor for only 5 months out of the year. The drawbacks were an awkward layout (we could have made it work, but...), a tiiiny second bedroom, and the distance from the train through mostly residential streets. We were sorry to turn it down but didn't want to act out of desperation. It took a great amount of self-control.

TWO OVEN RACKS!!

Nick, our broker from the last apartment, came through the same day, and after several months of thorough stalking, he showed us this apartment. It never even reached the listings - as soon as the owner told him it would be up for rent, Nick called us. Typical, NYC. We liked it instantly, and then embarked on the nearly one-month process to secure a lease. By most standards in most other cities, this is an average apartment. My sister's apartment is half the price and almost twice the size in a suburb of Philadelphia. But by New York standards, at the price, with laundry access and proximity to the train, it's a find. The owner previously lived on the floor below, so the building is in great shape, and he did a meticulous job renovating before we moved in. I never realized how much I missed seeing the sky - we get the sunrise in the front of the apartment, and sunset in the back (ideal for my night shift-working self). I'm also going to include a picture of my stove---->

I included this photo because I also did not totally realize what a true upgrade I would be making in life by leaving the My-First-Stove behind at the old apartment. ESPECIALLY for someone who enjoys cooking, who cooks nearly all her (and by proxy, Ben's) meals, and also who once watched an entire quiche somersault out of the oven and face-plant on the floor, owing directly to the singular, faulty, tiny, cursed oven rack. I'm getting off-track, and most of the things I hated about the last apartment were absolutely #firstworldproblems, but this is all to simply say that no amenity in this new apartment, large or small, is lost on me.

On a pure side note, I've recently made two experimental recipes in said magical oven. The first was a sprouted bread made primarily out of oats and seeds, flour-free. Sarah Britton calls it her Life-Changing Loaf of Bread, which I disagree with, but I am probably too much of a realist.

Life-Changing Bread [sic]

It is for sure an Interesting Loaf of Bread, An Excellent Way to Get More Fiber, and Delicious With Almond Butter When Toasted. The texture was a little weird, and in general, mine came out a bit difficult to work with, possibly owing to the fact that I used quick oats instead of regular rolled oats. I may try again, just because the concept intrigues me, and because her enthusiasm for the recipe is really convincing.

Also in the interest of experimentation, I adapted a gluten free, grain free, sugar free banana muffin recipe from Running to the Kitchen, a generally enjoyable food blog (I just realized why there's no widely-used abbreviation for food blog --> because it would be "flog"). Now, when imagining a food without gluten, grains, or sugar, I can see many of you going like

Mood-lit Muffins

...which I get, I really do. When I needed to go gluten free in 2008, after the sheer confusion about cooking, I started to appreciate that it was forcing me to try foods I hadn't even known about previously, like quinoa, millet, and sorghum. So I've been slowly experimenting with cooking and baking under the guidelines of the SCD, which basically ignores the existence of grains, starches, and non-natural sugars, in an effort to try new things. I've discovered the wonder of using almond and coconut flours for baking, as well as coconut sugar and dates as sweeteners. Are they total crowd-pleasers 100% of the time? Nope! But they are different, and sometimes delicious, and certainly devoid of some of the inflammatory things that we put in our mouths too much. So the above recipe became Banana-Strawberry-Quinoa-Chia muffins - fairly delicious, great for a not-too-sweet breakfast. My final recipe barely resembled the one posted, but it was a good starting point, and clearly adaptable.

Aaanyway, back to the apartment. After selling off much of our furniture in the move, and quite a bit of discussion, Ben and I decided that we wanted to try to take ourselves out of the consumer cycle a bit in our efforts to furnish this apartment. That's a fancy way of saying that we want to try to avoid buying anything new for the apartment unless absolutely necessary, partly because it's rarely necessary, partly because we don't want to invest in high-quality furniture just to drag it from place-to-place, and partly because of a sentiment that can be best expressed by the "Love in the Time of Ikea" episode of 30 Rock.

So began the hunt for other people's discarded treasures. Here's what we've come up with so far:

Leather / metal easy chair from Gowanus Build It Green

Rolling wooden desk chair, Vintage Third Ave (TOTAL STEAL)

Canary yellow wood dining chairs (2), Chelsea Housing Works

Deceivingly large-capacity dresser, Craigslist

Drop-leaf wood / stainless steel kitchen cart, Craigslist

Wood Coffee table, Salvation Army (PA)

Glass bowl, Vintage Third Ave

What secret thrift / vintage / second-hand furniture stores are you hiding up your sleeve? We have a long way to go, so clue us in, please.

On our last full day in Rome, we decided to hit the popular touristy spots. First up, the Colosseum. I don't know if this needs any introduction, but if so, here's the wiki.

The view from our front door. Seriously.

Approaching from the street.

From underneath the outer walls, waiting in line.

From one of the lower decks, looking up at the nosebleeds.

Translation: Hot Dogs: 30 gold pieces, Beer: 70 gold pieces ...

Middle decks looking down. Note that the original "floor" was made of wood and has been destroyed over time. Those are the chambers under the floor, and those folks are standing at would be ground level.