When I was a little girl, I used
to love getting up on Thanksgiving morning to watch the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day
Parade. It was amazing to see all the giant balloons floating above the
streets. Thanksgiving marks the day in the US when we give thanks for all the
original settlers were able to accomplish, for the peace they supposedly formed
with the native Indians, and the meal they shared with said Indians. The
Thanksgiving parade officially marks the beginning of the holiday season, and
what kid doesn’t look forward to that every year??
When I moved to New York City, I
was always tempted to go to the parade, but the idea of getting up really early
to cram myself in with all the other souls along the street barricades and
stand for hours waiting for the parade just didn’t seem worth it to me.
Luckily for me, these days I’ve
got a job with great perks! Last year my mom came in for the holiday, and my
boss was able to score a spot along the parade route for the two of us from the
vendors of the holiday movie Yes, Virginia. Their office building was
right along the parade route and allowed us the perfect balloon viewing, as it
was seven flights up. The balloons literally floated right by the windows. It
was lovely because we were inside, warm, able to watch the performances being
broadcasted from Herald Square, and had food, drinks, and a convenient
bathroom, yet I still wished I could experience it from the ground level.
Cut to: Thanksgiving of 2011.
This year, the vendors of the
newest Smurf movie offered our office tickets to sit in the grandstands
at the beginning of the parade. Awesome! (The grandstands are bleacher seats
along Central Park for the first few blocks of the parade.) I was able to get
two tickets, which Miriam was very excited about. We still had to get up pretty
early, but we were going to have seats! No need to cram ourselves in like
sardines.
We soon discovered we had something else to be excited
about—the New Orleans dance troupe, 610 Stompers, were going to be marching in
the parade! In case I haven’t mentioned this before, Miriam was born and raised
in New Orleans, so we get pretty excited whenever we see anything NOLA-related
(NOLA = New Orleans, LA). The 610 Stompers are a goofball group of men who
decided to challenge the fact that all dance troupes that march in the various
Mardi Gras parades always seem to be pretty, young girls. These guys dress in
cut-off, acid-washed jean shorts, sweatbands, red, shiny jackets, and
moustaches. They are NOT the world’s greatest dancers, which is exactly what
they are going for. They are pretty hilarious. We couldn’t wait to see them
live.
But let’s back track a little.
One of my favorite new traditions is to go up to the Natural History Museum on
the Upper West Side the day before Thanksgiving, when they start blowing up the
balloons. The balloons are on the streets by the museum and Central park. You
can get right up close to them, and it’s really neat to watch the process. They
start allowing viewers in around 3pm until late evening. I recommend
going as early as possible, as it gets REALLY crowded later in the day. I
wasn’t able to go this year, but here are pictures from the year before.
Kung Fu Panda
A cop directing pedestrian traffic into the viewing area
Horton the Elephant, my favorite balloon-- retired after last year.
On the subway with our tickets!
On Thanksgiving Day, we awoke at
4:30am, discovered it was going to be a pleasantly mild day, weather-wise,
grabbed Spuddy Buddy, our travel-ready couch potato, and hopped on the subway
to the Upper West Side. The tickets indicated that the seating would open at
7am, so we were aiming to get there a little before that. The moment we stepped
off the train a throng of people bombarded us. Early risers were already
sardined on the non-bleacher side of the street. It was 6:30am and the parade
wasn’t starting until 9am! These people were going to be squished together for
quite some time.
We were finally able to squeeze
ourselves out of the crowd and got in the grandstand ticketholder line. The
grandstands opened up fifteen minutes later, and off we went! As we were being
ushered down the street, we saw friends of ours already seated—they were
chaperoning their son’s class, who had all gotten tickets to the parade. We
kept moving and, luckily, scored front row seats! Very exciting. The one
problem was that we sat right over a subway vent, so every time a train went by
below us, cold air blew up through the vent, right up Miriam’s pant leg. Brrrr!
From our front row seats.
The grandstands
We got comfortable, since we had
about two hours before the parade actually started, and watched as the clowns
arrived to entertain the crowds. There were 800 clowns total, so if you are the
type to be freaked out by clowns, steer clear of this parade. They started
handing out balloons to all the kids, much to my displeasure—I have a
decades-old fear of balloons—more specifically, the popping of said balloons.
It stems from my childhood and having one explode in my face as I blew it up.
But Miriam and, more importantly, Spuddy Buddy, love balloons, so they had a
good time. Spuddy Buddy even got to meet a clown! He was very excited.
Surrounded by balloons...
Spuddy Buddy and his new clown friend
The crowd got revved up when the
marching band opening the parade started lining up right in front of us. The
band members entertained us by running up and down the street, getting us to do
the wave and doing call-and-response cheers.
Then the parade got moving. The
balloons floating above us were larger than life! It was really cool. My one
disappointment was that they retired Horton the Elephant, so he wasn’t flying
this year.
The start of the parade
Sonic the Hedgehog
Miriam, Spuddy Buddy, and Spongebob Squarepants
Because the weather was decent,
the celebrities were all actually riding on their floats, which was cool. When
the weather is bad, the celebrities tend to wait it out closer to Herald Square
and jump on before their float is televised. Some of this year’s entertainers
included Avril Lavigne, Neil Diamond, Straight No Chaser, the guys of Oceanspray
Cranberries, the cast of Sesame Street (we got a tad giddy over that), American
Idol winner, Scotty McCreery, and Mary J. Blige.
The cast of Sesame Street
We even had a couple celebrities
hang out in front of our bleacher section before heading down to do
interviews—Al Roker, who conducted the interviews, was followed by two of the
Grimm cast members and 30 Rock’s Jane Krakowski. That was fun.
Al Roker with the guys from Grimm
Then it was time for the 610
Stompers! We made a sign and wore our New Orleans Saints (American football
team) Santa hats in order to get their attention, and it worked! They came
running by, screaming the Saints’ signature cheer, “Who Dat!” and slapping us
five before busting out their stellar dance moves. Here’s the video from the
NBC telecast of the parade at Herald Square.
After the 610 Stompers, we
settled down to enjoy the rest of the parade, getting doused with confetti,
watching the other colorful balloons floating by, and taking advantage of our
awesome spot for great picture opportunities. Spuddy Buddy even got to meet the
big balloon Clumsy Smurf. He was nervous but handled it like a trooper.
Mobile Azaela Trail Maids curtseying
Santa!
Santa finally came sailing by on
his float, marking the end of the parade and the beginning of the holiday
season. We all cheered and waved and then started making our way out of the
grandstands. I was able to sneak in behind the parade and get my picture with
it, which was fun.
Then we started making our way to
the train station with all the other revelers. When we saw the amount of people
heading to the trains, we decided we’d wait a bit. There was no way we’d be
able to squeeze ourselves onto a train with all those other people. We opted to
find a place to grab a bite to eat—somewhere warm with a bathroom. The lines
for the bathrooms at the various Starbucks we passed were, literally, out the front
doors, so we didn’t even try there. The difficulty was finding a place actually
open on Thanksgiving Day—not too easy when it’s a national holiday where most
businesses are closed.
We ended up finding a cute little
restaurant off Broadway called Café Luxembourg. Because it wasn’t on the main
drag, it wasn’t overly crowded. The food was yummy (I had Eggs Benedict), and
the place was toasty warm. We took our time eating and then made our way to the
now empty subway.
Once we got home we cooked up a
small Thanksgiving dinner, enjoyed the Packer/Lion football game on TV, and
then prepared for the midnight madness of Black Friday shopping…We don’t need
to go into that…Let’s just say we probably won’t be doing that anymore.
I really must say that seeing the parade from the
ground level is much cooler than being inside a building, even with the colder
temperature and the lack of bathrooms. Being on the street allowed us to be a
part of the excitement. We could hear all the marching bands, see all the fun
details of the floats, and could scream and cheer along with our thousands of
neighbors. It was a very neat experience, and hopefully, I’ll be able to share
the experience with my own kids one day.
I love the colors on the trees, the
crisp chill in the air, wearing fun scarves, and the fall fruits and
vegetables.
Fall marks the return of the pumpkin
spice lattes, butternut squash soups, and apple pies. It also means it is time
to head out to the orchards and do some apple picking.
Miriam and I woke up nice and early so
we could meet our friends, Stephanie and Josh, at their apartment on the Upper
East Side. One necessary aspect to apple picking is having a car in order to
drive to the orchard. Luckily, Josh’s parents lent us their car for our
adventure.
Last year we ventured to Eastmont Orchards a couple hours away from New York City, where it offered a bunch of different
apples ripe for the picking. It also had a big squash garden where we could
pick a pumpkin or other weirdly shaped squash.
This year we were limited on time, so
we headed to Concklin Orchards in Pomona, NY, about 45 minutes out of the city.
The weather wasn’t the most “fruitful” for apple picking—it was chilly and
sprinkling—but we put on brave faces and went for it!
At the orchard we were told there were
only two types of apples available for picking: Cortland (my fave!) and Red
Delicious. Sadness. We had hoped for a variety of apples. We soon discovered
there was really only one available, as the Red Delicious were not quite
ready—which was slightly disappointing.
We rented an apple picker, which is a
long wooden handle with a metal cage on the end. The top of the cage is open
and used to pull the apple off the branch and into the cage. It certainly came
in handy for those apples too high for us to reach on our own.
Miriam using the apple picker
Apple picker success!
We entertained ourselves by meandering
down the different lanes of trees, quickly picking our share of Cortland
apples, at which point Josh decided it would be fun to chuck the rotten apples
with the apple picker to see how far they would go. That was too tempting for
Miriam to pass up so she gave it a try as well—it wasn’t as easy as it looked.
We then hiked it through the mud over
to the Red Delicious trees, stopping briefly to glance at the section we
thought might contain peach or pear trees, tempted to cross the barrier to get
an up-close look…and then we continued on our muddy trek to the other apples.
Red Delicious
Red Delicious trees
We were practically alone amongst the
Red Delicious, seeing just a couple other people. Steph immediately grabbed an
apple off the tree and took a bite. Miriam did the same, and I stole a bite of
her apple and promptly spit it out. I’m not a fan of Red Delicious to begin
with, but these apples were not anywhere near being ready to eat. We ended up
not picking any, and instead, Miriam and Josh decided to chuck the rotten ones
over the fence to see if they could get it to the forest line. Steph gave it a
shot, as well, but I just sat back and took pictures. I know my limitations…
After we got our fill of the apple
picking, we weighed our bags and paid for the apples we picked (Miriam and I
weighed in at around 20lbs). We then hit up the little grocery market they had.
We grabbed some freshly picked pears, apple cider, maple pumpkin butter
(yummy!), and fresh spices, and then walked around the picked pumpkin patch.
We found this incredibly amusing...
Once everything was paid for, we went
to the nearby mall and grabbed lunch, after which we did some browsing in the
stores before heading back to the city.
Over the next few weeks it was time to
bake!
Here are some of my favorite recipes
from this year’s baking. Click on the recipe title for the link to the recipe.
This was a HUGE success last year;
this year I tried a variation, which adds 3/4 cup dried cranberries. Both were quite
tasty, but I may stick to the original just because the cranberries tend to
over power the rest of the flavors. And I went a little heavy on the zest this go-around. That overpowered the apple and pear flavors, as well, so watch yourself if you make this one. Pair it with vanilla ice cream-- yum!
Apple, Pear, and Cranberry Crisp
Brown Butter Creamy Apple Pie meets a standard apple pie (find the recipe links in the paragraph)
I combined two different recipes for
this pie, wanting to get a good crust but also wanting a juicy pie.
Technically, the streusel is supposed to go on the top of the pie in lieu of a
top crust, but I wanted to make a fun top crust while still getting the streusel
flavors. I was out of shortening so I used an all-butter crust recipe I found on-line. I took the crust from this recipe and the streusel from this
recipe. I keep my apple slices on the larger size-- more like wedges than thinly sliced. I find it keeps it more moist. I mixed the apples with the streusel, layering as I went, and then, in
honor of my blog and my love for these animals, cut the top crust into elephants on parade, using my elephant
cookie cutter. Very cute and very tasty.
Stephanie found this recipe in the
linked blog and shared it with me. These were too cute to pass up! They are
very tedious to make, but taste great and look amazing if you take the time on
them. And the blogger behind Smitten Kitchen has some great tips, too!
These are phenomenal, a recipe again from the Smitten Kitchen blog. I find scones
often too dry for my tastes, but these were just right for me, what with the
moisture from the apples and the cheese. Very tasty. The perfect weekend
breakfast.
Last year I also made Apple Butter in
my slow cooker. Apple butter has a slightly thicker consistency than apple sauce and is great to spread on toast and waffles, to dip pretzels
in—you name it. I sealed them up in jars and gave them out as gifts over the
holiday and enjoyed a couple jars myself throughout the year. I really liked it
but I felt the recipe I used added too much sugar. Apples are already loaded
with sugar, so adding a whole lot more is really unnecessary. If I make apple butter again
I may look for a recipe that doesn't use so much sugar. But, hey, don't get me wrong, it was quite tasty!
All in all, the apple picking was a
success, even if the orchards weren’t exactly to our liking. We did plenty of baking and the results were delicious!
Then it was time for the 610
Stompers! We made a sign and wore our New Orleans Saints (American football
team) Santa hats in order to get their attention, and it worked! They came
running by, screaming the Saints’ signature cheer, “Who Dat!” and slapping us
five before busting out their stellar dance moves. Here’s the video from the
NBC telecast of the parade at Herald Square. 
