Eat Your Vegetables, Eat On The Roof

Ben Flanner and his cool parents

Dinner and a movie on the roof

Are vegetables good for you?

Of course!

Are they fun?

Fun?  And cool.

Here at the SMP Building in Long Island City, up on the roof,  Ben Flanner has created a one acre farm with a killer view.  Ben has always wanted to run a farm, according to his mom.  I don’t know if he ever imagined that farm to be on top of a former auto parts manufacturing building on Northern Boulevard but that’ s what makes his farm so cool.

We had a dinner for about fifty people followed by a screening of one minute videos created by local artists in their favorite restaurants in Queens.

This is a little film project we call the Moveable Feast.   Do you want a peek at where artists like to eat?  Check these out.

We had salad with greens from the farm and desserts made by aspiring pastry chefs from the food incubator program down the block.  I nibbled on beet greens which are a beautiful deep red color and delicious in a mixed green salad.

Locals Rule

I love being a local.

I love buying local produce, working with local artists, supporting local businesses. There is an unmistakeable sense of pride that is part and parcel of local creative industries.  It is a distinctive Queens edge that comes through.

Especially in the lettuce.

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Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

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Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

How Is Your Inner Beach Bum?

The season of flip flops, guys in shorts with baseball caps, American flags flapping wildly in the ocean breeze,  boys like Sky, with boogie boards tucked under their arms riding their bicycles to the beach and beach bums  has finally burst through the last gasp of winter. Welcome summer!  Welcome to Rockaway Beach!

My summer checklist

Outdoor grill working?   Check.

Outdoor shower stocked with towels?  Check.

Patio furniture hosed down?  Check.

Fresh supply of sunblock?  Check.

Summer in Rockaway Beach is not a season.  It is the point of the exclamation ending the sentence, “Surf’s up!”  It is the sand in your shoes that will not go away.  It is  “Margaritaville” cued up as your personal soundtrack.

Did I mention pride?
Locals are swimming in it.

I must confess that Seth and I started our weekend in Manhattan at a Ford dealership on the west side of Manhattan. It is hard to believe but we had a great experience mostly because Todd Nighe, the guy in the picture next to Seth, really took care of us. And you know what? Great service like this just made us lifetime Ford Explorer fans. I feel the same way about my dentist, the woman who cuts my hair and the bank representative who does our refinancing.

Weekend of Gay Honkers

We spent a few early morning hours by the water waiting for our car to be serviced and were startled out of our caffeinated stupor by a sudden flock of geese landing in front of us.

“Honkkkkk!” yelled one of them swimming towards us.

“Honkkkkk!” replied the other one swimming away from us.

Rinse and repeat.

This went on for a while. “They must be mates.” said Seth. “Or they’re flirting with each other.”

I peered at their coloring and said, “Those are males, that’s why they’re honking at each other. Females have different colored feathers and they are much better behaved.”

Seth shook his head. “Those two look the same to me, ” he listened to them squawking across the water and said, “They must be gay honkers.”

Gay honkers.

With that image fixed forever in my mind’s eye, clearly, it was time to get out of Manhattan and back into the Rockaways.  I simply cannot take him anywhere anymore.

This first weekend on the beach swelled with high numbers of beachlovers, surfers and boogy boarders. Rockaway Beach shone like seaglass.  Hey, we are a beach town nestled in the borough of Queens,  really not far at all from Manhattan.  Closer than you think.  Imagine, a New York City beach!

Here’s how to make sure your inner beach bum rocks:

Wear sunblock

Bring a beach book

Stroll down the boardwalk and people watch

Have a Blue Island Coffee or a Rockaway Taco

Take a surfing lesson

Still here after the lifeguards have gone?  Check out the Bungalow Bar for a great meal by the water

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

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Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

Daniel Boulud’s Secret Recipe For Success

On the first Saturday night at Boulud Sud, we descended with an unexpected crowd of eight.

Mais sans doute, it was a typically magnifique!  Here we are, moi, Daniel and Mikki.

It is tres difficile for me to imagine the life of a successful restauranter as he continues to build his empire without wondering what the secret sauce is.

What is it about Daniel Boulud that brings him success, the three star Michelin rating, his restaurant’s ranking among the best in the world?

The vodka gimlet elegantly served in a slender carafe?

The Lamb Cleopatra that was simply delicious?  The accompanying roasted beets in pistachio yogurt?

How about that Turkish pudding surrounded by some kind of rhubarb swirl?

The edgy grapefruit sorbet?  The mint chocolate pave with pine nuts, jasmine flower and chocolate sorbet?  Yum!

The smartly attentive staff?

All that, and Daniel himself, working the room and making all of us feel extremely especiale and enchantee. Of course, the food and the service are exemplary.  The ambience is chic and inviting.  But I think that intuitive ability to connect with with his guests is the cherry on the cake.  It is what makes an evening out with friends memorable and it is what makes us his best word of mouth warriors.

Boulud Sud.  The new star in the empire.  Ask for Michael, the guy with the cool tie and glasses.  He will make sure your evening is heavenly.

Bon appetit.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

Where is Your Batcave?

This post first appeared on the Queens Council on the Arts blog

my desk at the Writers Room

Are you an urban ninja?

If you live in a jungle, you will need to know where to find food and shelter.  If you spend time underwater, it is helpful to know where the coral reefs are.  No matter what world you are a citizen of, your survival depends on your knowledge of the environment and, more importantly, how to navigate it.

I am a writing machine.  I may appear to be a slightly flustered nonprofit executive director en route to another meeting but no! – do not be fooled by my facade.  Its my way of gathering material.

And what I need in my environment is a place to write.  Enter the Writers Room, an urban writing colony on Broadway and that is a picture of the desk where some of my best writing emerges.

Feel like taking a coffee break?  Slip into the kitchen and sip your brew while talking a little shop with other writers.  How about a nap?  There are several large inviting recliners and a couch where you can relax by a large window with a great view of the city.

This is one of my secret gardens of bliss in New York City.  If you are a writer who needs a place to write, check out the Writers Room.

Katherine’s field office

Meet before you pitch

If you have a merry-go-round of meetings like I often do, here’s another way to get off the ride and regroup.  This is the time Katherine, my consultant extraordinaire, and I spend a lot of time sitting with legislators doing a one two punch round of funding request pitches.  Clearly, we needed a bull pen of some kind to get our game together.  Katherine found this little place on the corner of Chambers Street and Broadway tucked in the back of a Starbucks.  It is great place to get it together.

This is a city with a lot going on all the time.  If you are part of it, you will need to stop the pinball with your flippers every so often and halt the game, take a deep breath, take in the moment -

- and then let the game resume.  When you are ready.

You need places like these.

photo by Leandro

Where is your batcave?

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

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Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

Do You Have the Sitzfleisch to Write?

photo by Morten Brunbjerg

What do you need to write

I look at it the other way.

I write because I need to.  Everything that is necessary for me to do this I somehow make happen because I have no choice.  If I don’t write, something inside of me becomes very upset and this is not a good thing for me, my skin, the universe.

But sometimes just having everything you need in place can jumpstart your process and here are a few suggestions:

You may need a space that you can collect your thoughts and focus on your writing.  If you have a busy life, and who doesn’t? – this may seem like a mission impossible thing.  Take a look at The Writers Room, an urban writing colony located in a bright airy loft with partitioned writing desks, a library, comfy chairs and community of literary spirits in the heart of Greenwich Village.

People write for different reasons.  Once I figured out why I write for you it transformed what I took away from each day, each conversation, each unexpected story.  Suddenly, I had so much stuff to write about and not enough time to write.  Why can’t I ever win?

Still can’t get going?  OK, time to throw down your glove and take a writing challenge.  Maybe you are one of those people who has to lose weight or write a novel in the public eye so that your journey is fueled by group competition, one upmanship, humiliation and accountability.  Some sites even ask you to name an organization you absolutely detest as the recipient of a donation from you if you don’t meet your goal.  Talk about incentive.

What you can look forward to

I have done all three of the above and what is working for me consistently are writing challenges.  I am inspired by doing them and by people who do them.  Last winter I decided to do five posts a week until I had 100 posts.  The interesting thing that happened was that this rate of blogging became so second nature that before I knew it I had 200 posts.  The challenge grows as my blogging skills grow.

Here are the results of two bloggers I greatly admire, Kivi Leroux Miller and Katya Andresen.  They both shared a blogging challenge and the learnings from Kivi’s blogging experiment and Katya’s 100 posts are worth checking out.

Check this out this post by Marcus Sheridan if you want to be a Freaking Awesome blogger as well.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?