I got home about an hour ago.
Unpacked my care packages.

And here I am.
The very thought of eating anything else today is just too difficult to
imagine, there is no room for anything else today!

OY!

Margaret and Barb were, as usual, incredible hostesses.

I took the train from CT around 10:30 or so, and arrived in NYC about an
hour later. I took my time and arrived at the Margaret's around noon. Jack
Schidt and I arrived outside the apartment building at the same time and we
went upstairs together.

Stan was already there, and Margaret and Barb greeted us both in the hallway
with hugs. Once inside, I was immediately handed a bottle of Extra Spicy
V8, and told I was on Bloody Mary duty! I was a little nervous mixing up
Bloodies, as I had to live up to Marcel's bloody mary, and, well.....his
were pretty darn good! I made 2, one for me and one from Barb. Her only
complaint was that it was too tomatoey, not vodka-y enough! Not long
after I arrived, the another wave of guests arrived...Marcel and Michael
(Dog3)....and soon after Goomba38 (the original Goomba) and her friend,
SueEllen. SueEllen and I hit it off right away. I mixed up a Bloody for
Michael....and somewhere after that it gets a little fuzzy for me.
Apparently my Bloody was a little TOO Vodka-y for my own good!!!! I know
that Boron Elgar arrived with Kate at some point. Maybe they got there
before Goomba and SueEllen. No, I think they might have arrived around the
same time.

The table in the living room was set with all sorts of wonderful
things....most notably, some incredibly garlicky homemade "boursin" type
garlic and herb cheese that Barb whipped up. Yum! Oh, and some great sun
dried tomatoes that tasted great on flat bread with some of that garlic
cheese Barb made. OH, and the best part: Some slices of Polish Sausage from
the very famous Kramarczuks (Barb, please forgive me if I spelled that
wrong!) on Hennepin Ave in one of the Twin Cities (Minneapolis or St. Paul,
I forget which. All I know is, it's too far from CT for me to shop there,
which is tragic!) and also Krakova (another type of Polish sausage) that
Barb described as a ham sausage. I didn't try that, but I really enjoyed
the Polish sausage. Stan declared the ham sausage good, but not as good as
the Polish. I took his word for it. There were also amazing olives from
Zabar's, and marinated mushrooms. I had to move away from the olives
because I didn't think it would be fair for me to eat them all without
letting others have some, too. Kate offered me her share of the mushrooms.
It would have been rude to decline, right? :-)

Maxine from RI showed up a little while later, and her family arrived a
couple hours after she did. They were exploring NYC while Maxine was with
us, stuffing our faces. A little while later, Curly Sue arrived with her
entourage. By the time Sue got there, I had 2 bloody marys under my belt,
and working on the third. I was chatting with Sue Ellen, and I must have
declared myself officially "crocked" 3-4 times by the time I got to the
bottom of that last one. Did I mention that Barb brought Gedney's
Horseradish Pickle spears (sorry if that's not the proper name for them) to
use instead of celery stalks for the bloody marys? WHOOOOOO baby, those were
some pickles and they made for very interesting drink stirrers!

Time and space became a little fuzzy for me at this point.....vodka does
that to me.

I will try my best to describe the food:
A heaping plate of pastrami.
I didn't look far past that, lemme tellya.

A heaping plate of corned beef.
A heaping plate of roast beef.

Mini-bagels from H&H.
Thin sliced sour rye bread with seeds.
Thin sliced very dark, soft inside-crusty outside pumpernickel.

Lobster salad that I understand was outstanding, but I don't care much for
lobster so I passed.

Creamed herring.
Lox.
Cream cheese.
Tomatoes, onions and cucumber slices.

Egg salad that looked beautiful but I had so much else to eat I didn't have
room for it.

Health salad from 2nd Ave Deli which Margaret knows is my very favorite
salad in all the world!

And the biggest shrimp I have ever seen in my life!

We ate. We drank.
We mingled....it all went by so fast.

Next thing I knew, dessert was served.

The most creamy and luscious cheesecake I ever tasted.
An equally superlative chocolate cake.
Margaret's home made cookies.
Rugelach
Strudel
Fruit salad.
Several kinds of cheese.

The weather was beautiful and several of us went out on the balcony to enjoy
our desserts al fresco.

Before I knew it, I was sitting on a train heading home, my bag bulging with
all sorts of delicious delights to nosh on the next few days, wonderful
smoky, garlicky smells emanating from beside me.

I got to spend the day with good friends, made new friends, and enjoyed some
of NY's most delicious foods.

What could have been better?