around town with the martigs

In addition to my window shopping spree, Kurt's parents were in town this past weekend which meant I got to do some running around with them a bit.

We had a dinner date set with the Martigs on Friday after work and decided to grab a quick drink at Eataly first. Luckily, I was able to convince the group to pop into Marimekko next door for a moment.

Kurt recently met the guy who did the sound (really interesting, I promise) for the shop, so he told his parents about the science of it all while I speed-browsed all the gorgeous patterns and fabrics. I never knew Marimekko made clothing but now I have added a few new dress pattern ideas to my sewing aspirations.

Once the rest of the group was finished browsing (I could have stayed in there all day!) we popped over to Eataly for a quick glass of wine. The bar area we wanted to occupy was packed (must be the après work watering hole for the upwardly mobile) but luckily they offer glasses of wine that you can wander around the store with. Genius. I would most definitely be inclined to spend a tad more money if tipsy while grocery shopping. You're a clever one, Mario.

Next, we headed towards the dreaded Times Square for dinner. A friend of Erik's had recommended this pizza place in midtown called Don Antonio. They offer a wide variety of pies and even had gluten free versions for Erik. After sharing some super fresh mozzarella cheese, we all dove in to our own pizzas and they were delicious! I'm generally a pizza purist and love red sauce on mine, but I couldn't pass up the Pizza del Papa (the Pope's Pizza) which was topped with butternut squash, zucchini, roasted red peppers, mozzarella, basil, and olive oil. Mmmmm. I might have to try and recreate this at home. However, that springy wood-fired crust will be impossible to copy. If you can bear the trek to midtown, I would highly recommend Don Antonio!

On Sunday, we all traveled to the Upper East Side to visit Kurt's new favorite museum, the Museum of the City of New York.

The Manhattan Grid celebrated 200 years last year and the museum had an excellent exhibit on the highly ambitious master plan that set the framework for NYC to be the metropolis it is today.

The exhibit was great. I'm normally an awful person to go to museums with because I get bored quickly. This time I tried really hard to read all the descriptions and really study all the pieces. Luckily, I'm a big fan of this lovely city, so it wasn't too hard the focus. It's amazing to see all the images of the transformation from rolling farmland to flat , regularized plots. The Greatest Grid will be up until July 15th. Check it out!

After the museum, we rushed back to Brooklyn and took a long walk through Park Slope to get lunch at Cafe Steinhof.

The weather was pretty chilly and rainy, so warm Austrian food was perfect to warm us up. I went with the Chicken Paprika topped with spaetzle. Delish.

Next we headed to Commonwealth Bar in Park Slope (the Martigs are such troopers to let us drag them around all day!) for the announcement of the results of some participatory budget voting for the district. Sounds complicated but its actually simple. The local council member is letting the public decide how they would like to see a portion of the budget spent.

Many groups formulated ideas and the public voted. Kurt's brother, Erik, and several compost enthusiasts wrote a proposal for a chunk of the budget to go to a high tech compost container and other items to facilitate their compost program in Gowanus.

We were sitting on pins and needles as Brad Lander, the local council member, gave a little speech before revealing the results. Erik's project got the second most amount of votes and was granted funding! Woo hoo! Congratulations, Erik! I'm so happy to see your hard work pay off.  It was great that the Martigs were there to join in the celebration and was the perfect way to top off a busy weekend!