We were in Manhattan over the Labour Day weekend to attend the anniversary party of a good friend. She and her husband married last September, but waited until this year to throw an amazing party, held at Top of the Garden on West 30th Street.

This was my second trip to NYC, and like the previous one, we kept it short. New York is expensive and…intense! Coupled with the high heat and humidity last weekend, I came perilously close to coming unglued by NYC’s demanding pace, and had to resist the urge to hide in our air-conditioned hotel room.

But Manhattan is so wonderful, so much fun, with so much to see and do that it’s impossible to remain in foul humour (my most familiar state of being) for too long. We visited the Intrepid Museum which became home to NASA’s Enterprise Space Shuttle in April, 2012. We also visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is really too large to appreciate in a single visit. And, being a bit neurotic about knitting, I visited Purl Soho where I felt like I was the only person in the city buying so much wool on what surely was the hottest day of the summer.

The downside to short trips to NYC is the lack of eating opportunities. However, we did manage to squeeze in visits to Momofuku Noodle Bar for lunch, and to Prune for dinner. Prune’s style is very casual yet elegant, simple yet flavourful. The chef-owner, Gabrielle Hamilton, recently published an autobiography, Blood, Bones, and Butter, which chronicles her journey as a cook. It’s an excellent read. I’m also a fan of her sister, Melissa Hamilton’s work as half of the Canal House Cooks duo. They seem to share a lot in common with respect to food and food preparation–that is, to keep things simple in order to respect a food’s natural taste and texture (no heavy sauces, no excessive preparation, etc).

We did do more than eat this past weekend, but it was just too hot to care enough to take pictures. The next trip to New York will definitely have to take place in the winter months, when I undoubtedly will complain about the cold!