summer thing 14: perfect summer days

what follows is the cliche, yet obligatory urban-dweller post about awesome food. consider yourself warned.

yesterday my nonsexual soulmate (who shall be called NSS in all future posts) and i trekked to Chinatown for a real, genuine $7 day. in which we would spend no more than $7 for the day. we purchased all of the edible goodness that you see here at the dumpling house on eldridge st in chinatown for $3 a piece. i had to give my vegetarianness a rest (again) in exchange for cheap and tasty pork buns and a peking duck pancake.

we followed up our filling $3 meal with a trip to the chinatown ice cream factory (goodbye veganism), where i savored my "zen butter" ice cream, which cost $3.75 (yep, more than my whole lunch). zen butter tasted a lot like sesame, peanut butter and something else indescribably rich and tasty. yum.

as if the day wasn't awesome enough, the weather was a non-humid 75 or so degrees and sunny. i felt like i was back in my overprivileged college days, when i took the sunshine, palm trees and abundance of tanned, attractive swimmers for granted.

the afternoon ended at the strand, where we broke our $7 rule to buy $1 bargain books for our classrooms. so that didn't really count anyway. exciting purchases for ms. f? The Bluest Eye and Beloved, by Toni Morrison, neither of which I've ever read. I'm accruing quite a reading list for the following year. more to follow on that soon.

equally fabulous? the dinner party i attended in the evening. great wine (complete with an exciting stick on the bottle), food, and conversation dominated the evening. not to give myself airs or anything, but i think i was only slightly socially awkward. it was such a great night that the train ride from brooklyn to the upper east side at midnight didn't seem so bad. i even rewarded myself for such a pleasant day with a 1 am hot chocolate (which i suppose brought my spending total to $9 all in all). perfect ending to a fabulously leisurely day.

fyi--i imagine my posts next week won't have this happy go lucky feel, as tomorrow is my last summer vacation day. savor the upbeat blog while you can people, because it won't last much longer.