Thank you so much everyone for your support! I’m really loving how kevinnissimo is progressing and hope you’re enjoying reading through my adventures. There are a couple of things I wanted to highlight in this entry (since I post updates on Arc II entries while Arc I entries will remain unchanged and keep to the original post from my past site). So I decided to create a new entry here before posting my first entry for the Archive section.
As I was going through my old phone (it was a Nokia Lumia 635–I had to plug it into my older laptop to access the photos 😅), I saw that there were a lot of pictures which I had not published online. I decided to organize them into folders and include them for future posts in Arc II. I was surprised to see a lot of them since I had forgotten that I had these pictures. These past pictures are what gave me the idea to write certain sections in this post.
Recipes
Another thing I was doing this past weekend was organizing a collection of recipes that family members gave me throughout the years. I was scanning them because I wanted to save them electronically in the event that I lose them during a move or they just get misplaced or become illegible and hard to read (some of them were from recipe cards from the 80’s as well as handwritten ones which look a bit fragile). This gave me an idea to put up a section on my site with these recipes so that you all can have access to them.
As I was reading through the recipes, one thing I noticed was that a lot of them were easy to make and can be modified as needed to suit your tastes and nutritional needs. I think I’m going to try out these recipes and post them here. I’ve tried variations of some of these dishes but have not made these specific recipes. This is exciting! Now I can liven up some dishes (off to the grocery store later!).
When I was looking for a style idea for the recipe page, I saw that one of the recommendations was an online menu from a restaurant. I thought it was clever and adorable, so I formatted the style to fit the recipes on the page. The recipe page has been published so go check it out if you’re looking for some meal ideas. I’ll try to update that page regularly as I get through the recipe stack. The main picture I put up on the page was a tasty dish from a wedding I attended which was Pecan Salmon in a champagne cream sauce with potatoes and asparagus. (It was absolutely divine!)
I should have the first two recipes put up: Swiss Chicken Cutlets (from Healthy Meals in Minutes) and Gwen’s Country Butter Cream Ribbon Chocolate Fudge Cake. Hope you enjoy them!
Reading
I’m finishing up My Life in France so that I can put up my mini review on Goodreads. After that I’m deciding on which book to cover next. There are a couple that come to mind such as The Girl with Seven Names by 이현서 (Lee Hyeon-seo) and David John, Tina Fey’s Bossypants, or Paulo Coelho’s The Alchemist.
It’s nice revisiting these books as I begin putting up my reviews on Goodreads. Whenever I read books, I try to rotate through different genres and/or topics (for example, I would read a comedy after reading a political thriller). It was interesting for me to see how people who are learning English as a second language choose books to start reading with because whenever I’d ask them, the majority would say Harry Potter. Back when I was in grad school, one of my students was so excited reading the Twilight series. She would come to class and she’d give me a synopsis of what she had just read (she’d always tell me beforehand, “Oh! I hope it’s okay, so I don’t ruin anything by giving away spoilers for you!). It’s so nice seeing individuals be passionate about their interests, and I think it’s great when people find books which captivate them.
While I do enjoy the current books on my reading queue (which you will all see through my Goodreads as I continue posting reviews), I still revisit many of the ones I had read as a child like Stephanie Spinner and Steve Bjorkman’s Aliens For Breakfast. Roald Dahl’s Matilda was another one of my favorites (oh that chocolate cake part!). These are fun reads and can be done in one sitting.
Dining and Warm Company
In December 2017 my cousin and her friend from the West Coast came to visit to experience the holidays in New York. We were discussing what restaurant to have dinner at and she told me that her friend wanted to go to Beetle House since he was a big fan of Tim Burton. My cousin made a reservation for three for the evening.
When we entered the place, we were surrounded by iconic art from many of Tim Burton’s films. I’m sure you can recognize a few from the pictures below— The Nightmare Before Christmas, Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, and of course, the renowned Edward Scissorhands. We still had to wait a bit since they were cleaning and setting up our table. We waited at the bar and my cousin’s friend B ordered The Nine (which had absolut citron, triple sec, midori, and I think a sour pucker and lime juice) while I got Alice’s Cup O’ Tea (anyone close to me knows that peach is my favorite fruit so when I saw that it had peach vodka I knew I had to get it!).
I ordered the Butcher’s Stew (a take on Firehouse chili topped with cotija cheese, sour cream, and scallions served with garlic toast points), another Alice’s Cup O’ Tea, and the Willy Burger (which was a half pound burger with grilled pineapple, pepper jack cheese, smoked bacon, french fried onions, maple barbecue sauce, on a honey garlic butter bun). My cousin got Jack’s Jambalaya Risotto and B got the Sweeney Beef and they both shared the Cheshire Mac and Cheese.
During our dinner, there was also a group celebrating a bachelorette party. With Beetle House, there would be costumed characters who would come to the tables and chat with the guests. The character would change for each day. During our visit, it was Johnny Depp’s Willy Wonka. The bachelorette party had a blast talking to him and taking pictures. The actor was so in tune with the character. The way he spoke and his mannerisms were exactly like Depp’s character in the movie. B took a picture of my cousin with the Willy Wonka character.
Throughout our dinner we were just catching up on life’s musings. B was asking us trivia on Beetlejuice and we were just laughing throughout the meal. “How many times do you call out Beetlejuice for him to appear?” The combination of the vibrant environment with good company made it incredibly memorable. I’m typing this entry in 2021, and I still vividly remember that night from December 2017. It’s bringing back so much smiles!
After dinner, we walked around the City (at the time it was past 11:30 PM). We started around the Bowery area and moved all the way up to Rockefeller Center. Below are a few pictures I snapped along the way from the tree at Rockefeller Center, the Macy’s Holiday Window displays, and Grand Central Terminal. We were just taking in the atmosphere and enjoying each other’s company. I’m sure you’ve all had those moments where you are walking and talking with a friend, loved one, significant other, or another individual and you end up just getting immersed in the dialogue. Then you look at the clock and it’s 3 hours later or you realize that you just walked down 25 blocks from where you started.
It’s these impromptu moments which make some of the best memories. We don’t expect what will happen next but everything falls into place. This is why I love writing these blog posts. I love sharing these memories with others and in a sense, I’m having “conversations” with everyone through my posts here at kevinnissimo.
Art
As I was going through my other photos, I found a picture I took with Sebastian Masuda’s Hello Kitty Time Capsule back in May 2015. I met up with my friend J and Rob to catch up after work. They spent the day shopping and playing around at FAO Schwarz.
As we walked down Hammarskjold Plaza (around E. 47th St. and 2nd Ave.), we stumbled upon this piece. It immediately caught our eye and we all took pictures with it. I was so excited when I saw this because it brought back memories of when I made a presentation on Murakami Takashi and his Superflat approach during my senior year at Rutgers. Seeing artists develop their style and come up with new works is great because you can see their evolution as you follow their exhibits and presentations.
Now that I discussed this, I’m going through book recommendations to see if there are any art books I can dive into next. If anyone has recommendations, please let me know! I still have my art history books (do you all remember Gardner’s Art Through the Ages from Intro to Art History?) and love perusing through chapters from time to time.
As I’m writing my entries, more focused ideas come to mind as I’m building up kevinnissimo. It’s great to have that creative spark reignite, and again, I appreciate everyone’s kind support for visiting my site! As I had said before, I love sharing my stories and adventures. I look back at these photos, documents, and other memorabilia, and I get a chance to revisit these memories.
I do have some movies to watch which my friend recommended during our video call–Nomadland and Minari. We also planned to do a virtual movie night and dinner sometime soon. She’s amazing when it comes to new films to check out or what beauty products to try. We’re anticipating when we can see each other again in person so that we can catch up over some good food.
I’m currently working through the Comic Con 2015 blog which I plan to post this weekend. I resized a lot of the pictures in my original entry from my old blog, so I’m going to replace them with the original ones when I publish the blog post here. The pictures were on my old phone (which I discussed at the beginning on this post), so I transferred them over to a folder here on my laptop. The one great thing with the format here is that I can create the tiled galleries and collages for pictures (which my old blog could not do). What ended up happening was that I had to place individual pictures and it made the entry become a long scroll down the page. At least here I can group them together and make it more manageable (plus you’ll get to see when I attended the Adventure Time panel). I’m pretty stoked and look forward to publishing it for everyone to read.
Kevinnissimo: Adventures and Inspiration 