I can’t believe it’s already November with the holiday season coming around the corner! Summer flew by so quickly, but I’m also enjoying the transition into autumn and winter with seasonal treats lining grocery store shelves and the cooler weather. They are also playing the Hershey’s Kisses We Wish You a Merry Christmas commercial on TV right now so that’s certainly setting the mood.

I’m going to cover a few things in this post including a birthday dinner and brunch with friends in early July and a few site updates.

A few things popped into my mind when adding in new sections on my site. One section I was thinking of adding was a library section. It was similar to one which I had on my old site but instead of just listing the books which I’m reading, I might provide more information or restructure it another way. I’m also working on the page to transfer the Prezi presentations I made when working with ESL clients in the past. Stay tuned for those!

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Recipes / Music

I cleaned up the formatting on my Recipes page and added a few more since my last post. With the new format, everything looks more organized and neat. It was a bit difficult at first since I had to rewrite some of the sections due to some of the recipes being indented improperly.

I have around 10+ recipes on queue to add before moving on to the next set. I’m going to add a few more from the list.

I know it’s a bit random that I’m including music under the recipe section but I have some stories to tie them together with (I promise!).

One of the things that I enjoy when watching food shows is the music. The catchy instrumentals paired with the eye catching dishes create the perfect combination. There were two songs in particular which I tried to look for in the past but couldn’t find their exact names.

One was the song from the Season 4 promo for Next Food Network Star and the other one was from an episode of Nigella Lawson’s show Nigella Express where she made Caramel Croissant Pudding. I finally found the name of the two songs (after 13 years!) just a few weeks ago. The Food Network song was Funky Stars by Xavier Decanter, David Mespoulet, and Steve Halford. The one from Nigella Express was Latino Nuevo by Shahrooz Raoofi.

You bet I searched for them on the store to purchase and unwind to! I was just really happy to find them since I really dug the tunes.

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Reading

When I was going through books on Amazon in late July, I noticed that some purchases had points attached to them. I was not aware of the Kindle Summer Rewards program but saw that I was eligible for the beta launch. I liked how they added bonus incentives such as badges. I already knew that there was no way I was going to get them all. haha But it was fun trying to get what I can along the way.

The program had been enjoyable. When you reach 400 points you would get a $4 ebook credit. They provided a lot of opportunities to earn double the points for purchases or getting 350 points for spending $15. At first I was like, I don’t think I would be able to reach the 400 points but with the special offers, I was able to get to more than 400 points and redeem the credit. I definitely would like to see how this would develop in the future when it launches. I was able to purchase a couple of books from food writer/chef Ruth Reichl which I had not read yet. I love reading through her work such as Garlic and Sapphires and have put Save Me the Plums and Remembrance of Things Paris on queue to read.

I used to go through books quickly to try to have a record that I read through “X” number of books, but then I realized that I wasn’t immersing myself and fully appreciating what I was reading. In the past few months I started rereading a lot of the books which I had completed in the past to see if I would gain some new takeaways from them which had not come up from my initial reading. I was surprised to see the difference from this deep dive (and it’s not just from understanding the plot of the story), but I tried to direct my attention more to the characters and themes which the author is conveying.

Toward the end of August, I completed A River in Darkness by Masaji Ishikawa which provided an emotionally detailed account of his family life in Japan and subsequent survival of navigating through North Korea after his father moved them there with the intention of providing them all with a better life. I wrote my thoughts on the book here on Goodreads.

I’ve been catching up on writing reviews on Goodreads for a few books I had reread recently. I think I got the hang of it! I wanted to provide some foundational info on the book without revealing spoilers.

Tying in to what I discussed in with what I had discussed in the introduction, I’m still deciding on what approach to use when having my library page (would Goodreads be the place to have the reviews while I provide smaller thoughts/snippets on the site?). But again, it’s very exciting to continue branching and developing kevinnissimo.

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Birthday Dinner

In early July, I met up with a few close friends on separate occasions to catch up. One of my close friends took me out to dinner. Earlier that week she told me to meet her in front of the Barnes & Noble at Union Square around 6 PM.

She took me out to a French restaurant called Boucherie at Union Square. After the hostess showed us to our seats, we sat down and settled in. The environment was lively and absolutely beautiful. We were seated next to the piano which gave us a nice view of the restaurant.

Left to right: Menu, dessert menu, our seating next to the piano, and restaurant

The server was amazing. He was very friendly, attentive, and helpful throughout our dinner. As we were looking through our menus we were deciding on what we wanted to have. We settled on the filet mignon (Filet de Bœuf) and the mushroom ravioli (Raviolis aux Champignons). My friend asked our server for a wine recommendation to go with our meal. He recommended a red wine which paired well with our dishes. For dessert, we both got the chocolate mousse (Mousse au Chocolat), the Pistachio Bombe Glacee, and espressos.

Throughout dinner we were just catching up on how family and loved ones were doing, any future travel plans, and other birthday plans I had coming up. I was surprised seeing the birthday candle on the dessert but was touched by the thoughtfulness.

At the end of our dinner, the server handed me a signed book from Boucherie with a warm birthday greeting. He thanked us for a wonderful dinner. We thanked him for being so hospitable and providing the great recommendations. It was such a great experience, and I highly recommend coming here.

Signed book from Boucherie

After dinner we headed off to Ampersand Bar for drinks to end the night. We mainly stayed with The One with Cucumber since that one was delicious but also tried the Flamingo to mix it up a bit. We continued our conversation and this time I shared stories with her about past dating experiences. Aah! At the end of the night, we gave each other a hug and parted ways. We promised we’d meet again sometime in the holiday season.

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Brunch

The week after, I met up with my friend Chris for Brunch. He wanted to go down to the Seaport since he hadn’t been there in a while. He originally planned for us to meet at Industry Kitchen, but they didn’t have any openings ready until 3 pm on the day we were meeting. I suggested either Barbalu for Italian or Seaport House for seafood. He decided Italian so we planned to meet at Barbalu.

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We started off with some sangrias (they were really refreshing!). Our server recommended it since it was a warm summer day. For the appetizer we decided on the Burrata with Prosciutto di Parma. The server informed us that they didn’t have burrata and if mozzarella would be okay. We said it was fine. For the main course, I got the Fettuccine with Meat Ragu while Chris got the Spaghetti Alla Carbonara.

The food was really delicious! He and I were catching up on work and how our families were doing. I hadn’t seen him in more than a year so we just got into random topics like coding, data science, and other interesting topics. We also talked about outdoor activities (he’s a big fan of them) and summer plans.

For dessert we had espressos and shared a tiramisu.

He had another event to attend afterward so we both walked together to World Trade Center to catch our trains. We gave each other a hug and parted ways. We planned to catch up again soon.

The summer was great to catch up with friends and family. I was catching up with my brother and aunt, talked to Dr. Cowart before she visited family over the summer, and started on my continuing education requirements. It was really nice to spend time with others while doing some leisurely reading.

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Fashion

I decided to separate this part from the reading section since I also wanted to cover one of the past events I attended at the Fashion Institute of Technology. Back in March 2016, I attended one of Fern Mallis’s presentations where she discussed her newly released book Fashion Lives: Fashion Icons with Fern Mallis. I wrote a lot of notes throughout the presentation and wrote up an entry on my previous site. I’ll share this with you before I finish with a note on her upcoming fashion talk at the Y.

One of the great things about New York is that you can experience these talks from professionals in a diverse range of fields. I remembered how lively her talk was and she kept our attention throughout the entire hour. She integrated her own personal stories about how she got to where she was at that point of her career and how her passion for the field pushed her in directions she never would have imagined.

I loved how heartfelt and honest she was (discussing being let go from a job due to the economic climate at the time but then finding another new opportunity). She regaled us with stories from her fashion interviews with designers in the business such as Tom Ford, Donna Karan, and Michael Kors. I noticed how engaged she was with the audience throughout the talk. Although the lecture hall was big, she made an effort to make eye contact and address the different sections while peppering in some witty remarks.

She began fashion week in New York City at Bryant Park. In one of the fashion shows, pieces of the ceiling were coming off and sprinkled the stage and some of the models. Fern then remarked, “We love fashion, but we weren’t going to kill ourselves for it!” She reassured us that everything turned out okay in the end with nothing major happening. It was quite the experience for her and she continued working on New York Fashion Week for the next several years.

After discussing her background in public relations and the beginnings of her career in fashion, she continued with stories of her fashion interview work at the Y. A few stories which she shared included trying to get Bill Cunningham, a fashion photographer for the New York Times to come in for an interview at the 92nd Street Y. Since he was a pretty introverted person who rarely shared the details of his personal life, he declined. It wasn’t until Fern returned from India that the interview came into fruition.

Fern was wearing a chiffon top and met up with Bill. During the meeting he accidentally spilled vodka on her chiffon top and was profusely apologetic. She told him it was okay and to not worry about it. He still continued apologizing and finally told her, “I’m so sorry. I will do anything…anything!” At that moment, Fern smiled and asked him, “Would you do an interview with me at the Y?” (to which he agreed to). We all laughed. It was an amazing story and set the stage for the fascinating details she continued to share from her fashion interviews at the Y.

One interviewee who was known to be quirky in the fashion industry kept asking Fern if she could smoke during the interview. Fern replied, “No! We’re inside a building in New York City!” The interview continued, but the interviewee asked again if she could smoke. At that point, the audience at the Y was laughing and Fern was thinking, “How can I get her to answer the questions?!” After a bit of time, the interviewee stood up and asked the audience at the Y, “Do you have any questions for me?” Fern replied, “You’re asking them that when you’re not even answering my questions!” Fern then started laughing.

Left: Poster of the event outside the auditorium
Right: Fern sharing her stories at the podium

She then continued discussing other fashion designers such as Tom Ford who had a sold out event. The place was so packed at the Y that they also streamed at another section on a wide screen on one of the other floors to keep up with the demand. Tom Ford charmed and seduced the audience (as he always does during his interviews). Tom shared a quote with Fern, “The most important thing anybody ever taught me is to only hire people you want to have dinner with.”

You can check her out in Fashion Icons with Fern Mallis at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. She told us that the next interview will most likely be in the summer, but she’s not sure yet since she’s still ironing out the details.

Although she discussed her work in the fashion and public relations world, she also provided a lot of sound advice and information for all of us in the audience (this is also applicable to any other other field). Someone in the audience asked the question, “Do you have any advice for aspiring fashion designers?” Fern replied, “Be nice to everyone because you never know who you will bump into in the future.” She then continued with, “…also, people like to hire and work with nice people. No one wants to deal with diva behavior.”

Regardless of our backgrounds, we all form relationships with everyone whom we collaborate or work with. There are always things you can learn from others, and Fern’s stories showcased this aspect.

At the end of the event, Fern signed copies of her book for the audience members. It was such a wonderful talk and really made the night enjoyable.

Fast forward to November 2021. I started rereading her book again in anticipation of one of her next talks on November 22 with Prabal Gurung. She has a great way of steering conversations and making her interviewees feel comfortable throughout the talks.

My signed copy of the book (such a great read!)

I’m very excited to watch the event this coming Monday! Since I have work, I will be attending virtually rather than on site at the 92nd Street Y. The upcoming event brought up so many memories. I didn’t anticipate including this section for this blog post, but it all tied together after reliving these memories as I wrote about them.

Hope you all have a wonderful holiday season! I do have other things I wanted to write about (such as things I’ve cooked), but as I had discussed in a previous entry, I don’t want to put too much information in one post. Definitely looking forward to providing you with more updates on the recipe and food side of things as well as adding in new sections on the site. Take care everyone.