Autumn on the continent is a novelty for me from Hawaii. On a walk around the block in Collegeville, Pennsylvania, this morning we detoured down a path to the creek. Some of nature’s colors remain before winter comes.
Now we are back home where Kelly is making cabbage soup and I am baking desserts for watching the Penn State vs. Nebraska game on TV. Family of seven will be congregating.
The colors of New York are black and bling, except when it’s raining. Then out pops an array of umbrellas, as colorful as the corner flower stands and fruit wagons.
I find the street scene more liberating than the museum scene (apologies for odd segue).
My hubby Pete likes to go to museums, and after a few minutes I often say, “I’ll meet you in the museum gift shop.”
The Museum of Modern Art a few steps across the street from our hotel was far too crowded for me to see the exhibits at leisure or at all.
They all want to see “The Starry Night” painted by Vincent Van Gogh
The 9/11 Museum guided tour at the World Trade Center—although excellently designed, informative, and emotionally moving—left me so sad. I wondered how our tour guide could deliver all the terrible information day after day. I supposed that when the events of September 11, 2001, occurred, she was too young to have fully understood or be affected by the news.
The names of the deceased are engraved around the pools where the towers stood.
“No day shall erase you from the memory of time.” A quote from Virgil amidst a sea of blue tiles each representing a person who died on Sept. 11, 2001, when the twin towers collapsed from terrorist acts.
Luckily we found some very cool music for a change in mood at the Iridium jazz club at 1650 Broadway between West 50th and 51st streets. The Ed Palermo Big Band had its CD release party. It was jazz. It was rock’n’roll. It was oldies. It was loud. It was great.
Big band playing tight. Wow!
Lord & Taylor on 5th Avenue with holiday window trimmings
Oh, the choices! We walked down 5th Avenue, 4.9 miles from 54th to 14th Street in Manhattan. We strolled High Line Park above vehicular traffic to the Whitney Museum in the Meatpacking District. Met a cool-looking dog, ate pizza, and took the subway train back to “home.”
Evergreens point to Rockefeller Center
Finally, the ice skating rink is ready
On the High Line, a former elevated railway turned into a green park
Interesting architecture
This building caught my eye from the High Line, too
Art pieces juxtaposed with railroad ties
Urban walkers
An effort to add greenery to the city
Skyline from the High Line
More views
Looking down from the High Line
Sun bathing. Brrr …
Meeting Massimo, a St. Bernard and poodle mix. Omg
Pizza pizza at Serafina’s
I’m schlepping around New York City with a group led by Diamond Head Theatre’s John Rampage and Deena Dray to see Broadway musicals like “Hello, Dolly.”
Gosh, I love the lights of the big city. Anything you want you can get here, it seems. And the advice I’ve given myself is, relax, be selective as far as visitor attractions go, dress warmly for the 30-degeee F. November weather, and walk everywhere.
Yesterday, though, we took a private bus tour with the gang to become oriented. At nighttime we went to “Hello, Dolly.” That Bette Midler–what a star!
This morning Pete and I took a behind-the-scenes tour of NBC Studio at 30 Rockefeller Plaza. After a nap we’ll go over to the Museum on Modern Art across the street from our hotel, and tonight we take in “The Play that Goes Wrong.”
Here I post some images and impressions of the first 48 hours.
Painting at Remi Restaurant
Meringata con Crema e Frutti do Bosch Marinati Allard Salsa di Lamponi (a deconstructed macaroon from Remi restaurant)
Breakfast at Astro. That’s creamy yogurt.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral
Cathedral pipe organ
John Rampage of Diamond Head Theatre and Zora, our local NYC guide. She was good!
In the shop window is a model of Rockefeller Center built with LEGOs.
Smoothing the ice at the skating rink
Architecture
Building the platform for the gigantic Christmas tree
Mosaic
“Make Time For Joy” show with the famous Rockettes
Radio City Music Hall
LOVE sculpture. There is another one that spells HOPE.
Bus-window view of Central Park
Ad atop a yellow cab
Mike and Pete at the Flat Iron building
NYC street scene
Another street scene
Flat Iron building
Landscaping with cabbages
Brookfield Place
Brookfield Place stairs
Brookfield Place stairs, looking down
Looking out from in
Dessert sampler before the show
Me and Pete at the show. So wonderful!
Blessed is she who feeds the homeless and the hungry. “She” is an island woman named Kiana.
Every Wednesday around half past noon, more or less, a group of adults gather outside of the Library of Hawaii main branch near the gate to Iolani Palace for what might be their only square meal of the week. They wait quietly and politely for Kiana to faithfully arrive in her car with a delicious buffet lunch.
Here, on Likelike street, is the quiet and peaceful stage of Feed the Street. People come, they eat, they go.
She opens the trunk and unloads a tablecloth first, then an attractive spread of a home cooked lunch, including soup. The meal is free to anyone in need.
Kiana arrives. Next to the bicycle racks she sets down tablecloths to receive a car trunk load of prepared casseroles and other dishes.
Amidst the unfortunate circumstances in our country today, this kind and humble compassionate gesture begins earlier in the week with donations of raw produce from farmers and others who have a surplus or who just are more fortunate and want to give.
I have known Kiana to travel by city bus to far places on the island to pick up ingredients. She prepares the food by herself because her small studio kitchen has no room for a sous chef. I think it gives her great joy to express her creativity in this way.
Each week she publicly extends her gratitude for her “Feed the Street” project on a Facebook group called “Too Much Balances Not Enough,” listing the donors and their contributions. That is where I first learned about this activity.
Today I wanted to see a part of Kiana’s world. I put together some small zip top bags of feminine hygiene products, that I learned are very appreciated in addition to food, and went down to Likelike street. Like clockwork, people slowly began to congregate–about 12 when I first arrived and building to 24 or 30 when I left.
Hungry folks wait politely for lunch. They have much respect for Kiana who provides the food for free. Iolani Palace and downtown Honolulu are in the background.
Later Kiana said, in all 70 showed up today. She reported the women liked my small contribution that also contained items like toothbrushes, travel soaps and hand lotion, and that the men were disappointed that there weren’t any condoms.
I know there are those who are wary of homeless people, and that to befriend them would be out of their comfort zone. They don’t feel safe. Indeed, reaching out can be a problem, and Feed the Street has experienced harassment. (Having a sheriff or a cop in the vicinity might be a good idea!)
It’s not so hard to reach out with kindness to make a stranger’s hard circumstances a little better, I found out. You can bet the homeless don’t always feel safe themselves, but you could tell they trust Kiana.
Kiana is a cheerful, woman warrior. Thank you, Kiana. I love you, angel.
Today’s spread is all vegan except for one dish that contains pork. Kiana told me she likes to prepare 14 different menu items.
Everything is nutritious and tastes as good as it looks.
The Windward Artists Guild’s current exhibition at Hoomaluhia Botanical Garden’s Visitor Center main gallery features the visual art of 49 of its members through October 28. It is open from 9 am to 4 pm daily.
A reception will be held from 4 to 6 pm on Saturday, October 21, when visitors may meet the artists.
The entrance to the garden is at the end of Luluku Road between Pali and Likelike highways in Kaneohe, Oahu.
It’s beautiful show.
My “Royal Archival Banyan” (top center) is making the gallery rounds, but this is the first time with the Windward Artists Guild.
Paper collage is among the variety of art media.
“Birdsong” in stoneware by Dagmar Kau
Intriguing 3-dimensional works
“Stormy” raku ceramic by Barbara Guidage
Many of the art works are for sale. Contact Cynthia Schubert at c_schubertrichmond@hotmail.com
I love this whimsical triptych “Les Trois Parapluies” by Cindy Mochel-Livermore. Too bad it’s NFS.
The urge to harvest food from the home garden tells me the Hawaiian Makahiki season soon will be upon us. When Makahiki starts, in early November this year, all feuding and all work in the fields end. The harvest is over, we remain friends, and it’s time to call on others and play—for four months!
Today I pulled out 7-1/2 pounds of ‘uala, or sweet potatoes, of various shapes and sizes from the semi-circular patch out front. At the same time I plucked and saved the edible tender sweet potato leaf shoots. I rinsed and dried the greens and reserved them for sandwiches and salads.
‘Uala (Sweet potato)
Adjacent to the ti leaf and panax hedge, the semi-circular bed of sweet potatoes is 85% harvested.
I pluck and use only the growing tip of the vine. Any other part of the vine is too tough and not as tasty, in my opinion.
I rinsed greens carefully under running water for some tasty crunch in a cheese sandwich.
I also gathered kou tree blossoms that fell from above to make a saffron- or ochre-colored dye bath.
Tubular flowers from a kou tree
What now? I prepared candied sweet potatoes and an uala leaf and tofu salad for dinner, and I reserved the kou flowers for later when I can organize a day of fabric dyeing and decorating with my artsy friends.
I roasted sweet potato chunks in the oven and baked them a second time with butter, a little salt, brown sugar, and rum to make them taste like Thanksgiving candied yams!
For this tofu salad, blanching the leaves and a vinaigrette dressing has darken the leaf color.
How about a Makahiki party soon to enjoy the bounty? There are lots more sweet potatoes!
“Lono i ka Makahiki!”
Rebekah’s Studio 
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