A Memorable Memorial Weekend

 I'm about a week behind in all of my posts, but that's just because we've been up to a lot these past few months, and we've been traveling a lot, often on separate trips.  Mike has been all over the country for work, and he's got a lot more coming up.  I've been a busy little bridesmaid for two of my best friends in the world, and playing house out in Connecticut with my cousins. It seems like every night of the week even after our weekend excursions, Mike or I have some post-work evening event.  We're never home at the same time.  I think I went over a week without actually spending time with my husband and that makes me a bit upset.

So this post is about how we spent our Memorial Day weekend.  There are a few small things that I haven't been able to do much these past few weeks. SERIOUSLY small things like sleeping in, snuggling with Winston, having my breakfast at home with the boys, taking family walks around Gramercy Park together, doing a legitimate grocery run, having brunch with my husband in the city, sitting outside on our patio, and cleaning the apartment as a team.


It's also really important for us to do a lot of the things that are really unique to New York (reminds me of Anchorman...."UNIQUE NEW YORK"); things that make this city really special. So this weekend, Mike and I made a conscious effort to do creative things with each other over the whole weekend. I've mentioned it before, but when it's a holiday weekend in NYC, the streets are a ghost town.  You can show up at any restaurant you want with out reservations, you can walk through the streets and pay little attention to the traffic lights, you can get cabs just about anywhere, and there is a significant decrease in the noise pollution.  So before the craziness of the summer catches up with us, we took the weekend to spend time as a couple, or in some cases the three of us!

We kicked off the weekend with a spontaneous dinner at Caso Mono, right around the corner from our apartment on one of our favorite streets in the city, Irving Place.  No reservations....and we were seated immediately...that almost NEVER happens at places like this.  Our dinner consisted of delicious Spanish wine, seasonal soft-shell crab, and what seemed like a never-ending flow of tapas. 

It was also a good time to do and visit some of our favorite places in the neighborhood (which involved quite a bit of alcohol consumption).  There are these little gems within walking distance from the apartment, and we spend hours at these places with just the two of us.  We had a self-organized summer beer tasting at the Taproom, where we each tried 6 different seasonal artisan beers from breweries near and far.  Another Mobley favorite that never disappoints is the always festive Churchill.  It's amazing how you can duck into these unassuming places and be mentally transported across the Atlantic to a cozy little English pub.

First Lobster Roll of the season

And with Memorial Day being the official summer kick-off weekend, we felt obliged to have our first lobster roll of the season at Bluewater Grill in Union Square.  We enjoyed outdoor seating (a nice refuge from the torrential rain that had been soaking us for the better part of the weekend), and watched all around us as the city transformed seasons. 

That's a BIG piece of cheese!

 But my favorite part of the weekend was how we concluded 3 days of being home and being with just each other.  I had seen an article on Conde Nast Traveler that had voted the Murray's Cheese Caves one of the top 50 "must see" destinations in the US.  The Mobleys are avid cheese lovers, so we were waiting all weekend to make the trip out to the West Village to learn about cheese. 

And the cheese cave tour did NOT disappoint.  Upon arrival, we were greeted by a VERY knowledgeable staff (I mean these people are like scientists), and a beautiful spread of 6 different cheeses.  We sat there salivating over the creamy goodness as we were told not to touch anything until after we had been educated by the cheese masters.



For two hours we learned all about the aging process and became, and we even became experts in different kinds of mold...yes, you should be jealous. The caves were extremely chilly (you'd think they would be warm to grow mold, but not so my friend...not so), and as you can imagine, stinky.  We saw hard cheese, soft cheese, stinky cheese, moldy cheese, big cheese, little cheese, baby cheese, and old cheese.  It would have been a lactose intolerant nightmare....but delicious to us.  But at the conclusion of the course, we got to eat all the delicious cheese that we learned so much about.  We had wine and champagne pairings as well as little sweet and savory treats to go along with our cheese.  And at the end, I was a little cheesed out, but that's probably a good thing, because I could have easily have spent a fortune on treats to bring home.

We have a crazy few weeks coming up, which I'll share with you on here of course, but I'm glad I got 3 full days to get tons of sleep, tons of exercise, tons of food, and enjoy being home before we kick off a very busy and fun-filled summer season. It really is good for your body and soul to just take a step back sometimes and press the restart button on your life.  Mike and I had such a great weekend with just the two of us, that it felt like we were on our own little getaway.  But there was no unpacking, laundry, and marathon days of travel at the end of this "getaway".  Those are the best kinds!

Our sweet outfits for the cheese caves!