Peaches and Prosciutto

Seemingly every stand at the greenmarket has peaches these days, so we loaded up and paired a few with some silky 18-month prosciutto from Eataly to make a light but luscious summertime snack.

Picturing Science at the American Museum of Natural History

Picturing Science, now on view at the American Museum of Natural History, highlights how scientists use advanced imaging technology to peer ever deeper into the natural world. It's as fascinating as it is beautiful.

Guelaguetza

To get a seat at Guelaguetza, a bodega in Hell's Kitchen, we had to move a flat of Jarritos off one of the three tables, as the other two were taken up by coloring books belonging to the daughter of the delivery man and waitress/cook. No matter: you don't come here for comfortable surroundings or the atmosphere, even if that does include said daughter dancing to Sesame Street; you come for cheap and tasty tacos. We went with chicken, chorizo, lamb, and pork skin, each under $3, all fresh and satisfying.

space

Alexander McQueen at the Met

It's hard to say what's been more talked about this summer, the Alexander McQueen exhibit at the Met or the lines to get in. Stretching around the top floor and down the central staircase, with wait times of, roughly, three hours, getting in to see the exhibit requires stamina, reading material, and PowerBars. (Or a membership: sorry to rub it in, but we only waited about 15 minutes.) In any case, it's worth it. Absolutely.

The show brings together pieces from McQueen's many collections, beginning with the bumsters that made his name in the early 1990s through the ephemeral Kate Moss hollogram dress and concluding with the printed spandex-like dresses that showed around the time he killed himself in 2010. Idiosyncratically decorated rooms, including one with burnished mirrors and a soundtrack of howling wolves, highlight the masterful narratives McQueen constructed: the rape of Scotland by England, the tendency of fashion to exoticize and festishize the clothes of other cultures, the beauty and terror of nature. This is an exhibit that lives up to the ambition of its subject: "When I'm dead and gone," he once said, "people will know that the twenty-first century was started by Alexander McQueen."

Photos: Sølve Sundsbø / Art + Commerce
I love

Catalyst for Change Mural

Serious Eats: Bistro Lamazou

Hey everyone, we're also writing about New York for Serious Eats. Periodically we'll link to content here that we produced there.

 

This week's Date Night finds us at Bistro Lamazou, where we discover the pleasures of the ham glass [read more].
space 

Lucian Freud at the Met

Lucian Freud died this week. We went to pay tribute by visiting Naked Man, Back View, a 1991–92 portrait of Leigh Bowery, the great big performance artist, seen from behind, his mounds of flesh piebald and textured with oil paint. At the Met, we discovered several other paintings on display, part of an exhibit of work by British artists after World War II. Like our favorite, they mostly show the body in repose, without costume or mask, as misshapen and awkward as when we enter the world, or when we leave it.  

i love

Brooklyn Bagel and Coffee Company

The Brooklyn Bagel and Coffee Company isn't in Brooklyn and we've never had their coffee, but their bagels are among our favorites in New York, at once chewy, dense, soft, and crisp.
space

The Human Waterfall by the Streb Extreme Action Company

Yep, this was pretty much the coolest thing ever.