New York diet

Richard and Patti enjoying the"Man Made Mascarpone" with cherries rice pudding at Rice to Riches in the Lower East Side - 37 Spring Street - delish...yes, I fell off the wagon..thud. A store with only rice pudding - so New York...flavours year round like "Sex, Drugs and Rocky Road", "Fluent in French Toast" and seasonal delicousness like "Kiss my Anisette" , "The Secret Life of Pumpkin" "I'll Take Eggnog for $200 Alex"....sizes from diva to Moby - serves 10 and they deliver in the U.S. They have adorable take out containers - cute ovals of plastic whose seal is airtight and angled spoons.

Also incredibly clean washrooms...I'm just saying if you need to find them and we did - it's good to know....our fallback was Starbucks...

We also went to Shopsin's - which I had been warned about - the legendary crankiness and downright surlyness of the cook and owner Kenny and his fickle nature of who orders something he gets pissed off about - for Patti it was ordering the f*** ing turkey sandwich on a previous visit. It's a booth basically in a farmer's market and lo and behold - no fireworks - perhaps it was my calming Ralph Lauren purple sweater dress - the server even apologized about bringing me a full order instead of the half of the mac and cheese pancakes - when I go off the rails - I go big - it comes with syrup natch and a bottle of hot sauce. Interestingly there are a lot of veg options on the menu so he is less of a curmudgeon than Anthony Bourdain.

How to work off that lunch? Why more shopping - a visit to "Sur La Table" and twee Christmas tree ornaments - broccoli and fig - there were honey jars, ketchup bottles, cupcakes, bananas....the MoMa store and of course Moo Shoes where I got a Matt and Natt royal blue skinny belt, a Vegan guide to NY and petted the resident cat...I was tempted to buy shoes for hubby - but a) didn't know which style and b) afraid of getting the size wrong.

The night before we laid out our shopping haul on our beds - like a mini bazaar - needless to say I did not win that contest....

The walls have numerous sayings "Limit 500 rice puddings per customer" and "After eating do not drive or operate heavy machinery"....

This is mine - I think my plaid shoes are on the floor.....

These are Richard's acquisitions..

And the winner....Patti!! Though half of her display are gifts....:)

Back to a seemingly quiet Toronto, cooler temperatures - which are refreshing and a vocal workshop tonight - not sure how that will be with the cold....

A little plug for Nathan Hiltz at Joe Mama's on Sunday starting at 7 - yes boys and girls - Hallowe'en, going to Andrew Downing's gig for "The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari" at the TIFF Lightbox theatre and more musical happenings as they come across my virtual desk.