So, I had the crazy pleasure of meeting “yoyonub” (aka Miles Chandler) this past weekend. After a late Friday night meal at the home of some friends, this young guy pulls out a yoyo and just mesmerized us all with his command of a couple of small milled pieces of aluminum and a string. OMG. It was a spectacle that I didn’t want to end. The most I ever learned was to Walk the Dog. And I thought I was super cool. Anyway, when I got home that night, I ended up falling into the black hole of the yoyo subculture, and basically stayed up until 3 a.m. looking at every video I could find. Of him, and others. The one thing I can’t convey here is the soothing whir of the yoyo as it spins. I wanted to put Miles’ video up, but the profane soundtrack might offend those of a more pure nature. He was wielding a Popstar yoyo. Like the gentleman above. If you feel the itch to take up a new pursuit…buy one here. Mine is in the mail. And, since I now know that you are hooked, check out this video as well.

Last week, on a dismal rainy evening, I trekked out to Coney Island Avenue to meet some old friends of mine for an evening of food from the Caucasus. We are an intrepid little band of eaters, and our cravings often take us outside the familiar bounds of Manhattan and Brooklyn. I arrived early, and a good 10 or 12 blocks from the restaurant, so took my time in getting there. As I was walking towards my destination, I passed by a large Russian supermarket and jumped at the chance to get out of the rain. Plus, give me a supermarket or a hardware store and I am at my happiest. I ended up walking back and forth through the entire store. Everything was printed in Cyrillic. No one spoke English. The odd shaped biscuits caught my attention (and were far easier to transport than the 50 types of feta, countless canned goods or the giant cow heart from the meat display). So familiar and yet totally strange. From the shape of the Russian writing baked into the diamond-shaped cookies to the green string holding together a necklace of vanilla scented, donut-like sweets. Always amazed at how the most mundane item can be such a clear reflection of another place.

In the early glory days of ebay, I came across some unusual and quite large botanical charts from 1850s England. There were four of them. They were listed in the furniture section of the site because they came housed in their original schoolhouse/mission style oak cabinet. Consequently, the charts went relatively unnoticed by the voracious collectors who, in a blink, buy up these types of illustrated images. Regardless, the bidding price started to rise…quickly…and well beyond what I was equipped to pay. So, a friend and I decided to go in on them together. Through sheer tenacity, adrenaline, the refresh button and a healthy dose of stupidity, we prevailed in the auction. She paid one quarter of the price and I forked over the rest. Two of them hang in our apartment in Brooklyn, one is in my studio and she has the fourth. I never ever tire of looking at them. Here are a few details from the one in our living room.

Here’s a little peek into my new studio — the reading corner. I finally set up some bookshelves, as well as a chair and a lamp that I kidnapped from our place in Brooklyn. I hooked up an old stereo and, truly, I could not be happier!! It’s going to take awhile for all this to sink in.

Clearly I have a problem — Just taking stock of my recent postings and realize that 80 percent of them relate to sugar in some form or another. However, these Icelandic and Danish candies are all about the packaging, not about the eating.