The Best of 2022
I’ll forever love a best-of-the-year list, so off we go.
BEST EXPERIENCES
Waking up at dawn to walk through Central Park during a snowstorm.
Above Photo: Central Park during a snowstorm, January 2022
Visiting part one of the In America exhibit at The Met. And then revisiting it a few months later with updated pieces.
Seeing Debra Messing in the play Birthday Candles on Broadway.
Finally visiting the incredible New York Transit Museum.
Taking Baby Dog to Central Park each season.
Above Photo: Baby Dog in Central Park, February 2022
Above Photo: Baby Dog in Central Park, April 2022
I went blonder than I’ve ever blonded before.
Above Photo: Blonde Liz, March 2022
Seeing American Buffalo with Sam Rockwell at Circle in the Square theatre with Nathan. Just incredible.
Traveling to England, Spain, Scotland, Barbados, Las Vegas and Los Angeles! (Individual posts for those coming soon, I swear!)
Seeing Mr. Saturday Night with Billy Crystal on Broadway. Love that man.
Finding the real Amityville house and seeing it in person.
Above Photo: The house from The Amityville Horror, July 2022
Going to Kim’s Video Store in Manhattan.
Visiting my best friend Harmeet’s lake house in the summer.
Having my first tea service with my friend Marla at the cutest place The Wild Tart - and then visiting the Elora quarry and gorge (where scenes from It were filmed).
Above Photo: Elora Quarry, August 2022
Rediscovering my love for Halloween sitcom episodes.
Continuing to crush Halloween.
Seeing the Thierry Mugler exhibit at the Brooklyn Museum.
Visiting the newly opened Museum of Broadway.
BEST NEW RECIPES
Zucchini Lasagna
Above Photo: Zucchini lasagna
Sour Cream Banana Bread
Above Photo: Sour cream banana bread
Lemon Brown Butter Salmon
Antoni Porowski’s Moroccan-Style Lamb Bolognese
Above Photo: Antoni Porowski’s lamb bolognese
Soft Pumpkin Cookies with Salted Maple Icing
Leftover Turkey Sandwiches with Stuffing Waffles
BEST FOODS I ATE
The wild mushroom soup with truffle oil & mascarpone at Giorgio’s of Gramercy.
Above Photo: Didn’t even mind how burned this bread was THAT’S HOW GOOD THIS SOUP IS, Giorgio’s of Gramercy
The seasonal lemon poppy seed cruller at Daily Provisions.
Above Photo: Lemon poppy seed cruller from Daily Provisions
The mussels from The Independent in Midtown.
The burger at The Sparrow Tavern in Astoria.
The chocolate peanut butter pie at The Angelika.
Above Photo: Chocolate peanut butter pie at The Angelika
The french onion soup dumplings from Mimi Cheng’s.
The steak Diane from Dowling’s at The Carlyle.
Every single pasta at Rezdora.
Above Photo: Truffle Raviolo (the giant raviolo with black truffles), the Grandma Walking Through Forest in Emilia (the green pasta), the Maccheroni al Pettine with duck ragu, Rezdôra NYC, March 2022
The burger au poivre at Raoul’s.
The roasted corn and couscous risotto with parmesan from Glass House Tavern.
Crab cakes from Bar Crudo in Brooklyn.
Every single thing at Bazaar Meat By Jose Andres in Las Vegas.
The absolute best BLT I’ve ever had at Sala in Astoria (served at brunch only).
BEST TV & MOVIES
The Golden Girls: I never watched it growing up but it’s wild what a great show it was.
Malice: Okay, do you know anything about this movie? If not, don’t look it up. Just watch it. I was ON CLOUD NINE watching this one. So many twists, there’s a great Alex Baldwin monologue in it, it’s just a party of a movie. Especially if you love early 90s semi-sexy psychological thrillers, WHICH I DO. Such a great movie.
Trapped: Nathan’s first season premiered and was reviewed in The Globe and Mail!
Top Gun Maverick: I know, who even am I? This is so out of character, but I loved it.
PEN15: Best new show I’ve seen in years. All women born in the mid 80s need to watch it.
The Thomas Crown Affair: Love 90s movies like this.
The Bear: Just a great first season.
The Summer I Turned Pretty: This was just a perfect summer/teen show that I didn’t know that I needed.
Barbarian: Such a perfect movie. Bill Skarsgård can do absolutely no wrong.
The Crown: Depressing to binge watch all at once, but really good overall.
Bob’s Burgers (Christmas episode): I WILL NOT SHUT UP ABOUT IT.
BEST PURCHASES
The lip exfoliator & lip butter from Three Ships.
Every single tee tree product at The Body Shop. (As well as their whole Wild Pine collection.)
The AG Hair Colour Savour Mask that Ulta has apparently stopped selling?!
Gorgeous address labels from Zazzle.
Vicks bath crystals.
Aerie black leggings with pockets.
Holler And Glow foot mask from Target.
Black, tulle slip dress from Free People.
BIGGEST DISAPPOINTMENTS
The sandwiches at Alidoro in the West Village.
Sullivan Street Bakery.
Angelina Bakery in Bryant Park.
Literally all Kylie Skin products.
Any product described as “lip oil” - BUY SOME DAMN LIP BALM FOR THE SAME EFFECT, PEOPLE.
So many recipes from Half Baked Harvest (the ginger sesame noodles with mushrooms and the sesame garlic chili oil noodles, for example). It’s a beautifully curated site but with such lackluster flavours in the recipes.
SLT. I love pilates, but this was just wretched.
The continued celebration of The Kardashians.
Part Two of the In America exhibit at The Met.
Halloween Ends. Just a mess of a movie.
A Christmas Carol (the one-man show on Broadway) was hell on earth.
I stand by all of these opinions!
And here are my favourites from 2021, if you’re interested!
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So it's 2023 and one of the things we already talked about is what we wanna do this year.
Actually, what we talked about is what we did last year...
That we wanna do again this year.
And while what we enjoyed in 2022 spread out across the entire year amidst all the other stuff we didn't enjoy at all... a lot of it did manage to cluster in December. Which, interestingly, was the month we spent the most time hanging out with friends.
So that's one lesson we picked up.
Here's the second:
It was also, somehow, a month that managed not to speed by even though there was a lot of activity in it. A lot of travel. A lot of To Do's. And yet we enjoyed all of it. And yes it does make us wonder...
Does it have to just be December?
It's probably a question we should pursue and continue to pursue because at its heart is a quality of life issue. A what do you want your life to be kind of thing.
After all, our workloads did not lighten in December. And yet we managed to spend time with more friends as well as more time with friends, not all of whom were in-state.
Our sense of time, by the way, seemed to expand to accommodate all of that. It did not seem as if the minutes and hours and days and weeks went racing by. Which, yes, makes it seem as if December's a box like the other eleven boxes of months... but with magically more space inside it.
Not even joking.
If I had to guess, I would say it's the quality of time we spent. Not simply doing... but hanging out. You know? In a way, doing nothing with our closest friends. We didn't go places with each other. We didn't do things together. We just were. Together.
We spent time with each other and only time. Investing that time in conversation across a spectrum of topics and experiences and emotions. The consequence of of which, I'm pretty sure, is that Time.
Did not race.
As if Quantity Time is hitting the gas...
And Quality Time is hitting the brakes.
Talk about things that make you go hmmmmmm... right?
Of course 2023 has its own treats lined up in the coming weeks and months and we're definitely looking forward to those. But it's that mastery of Time we lucked into in December that's capturing my imagination. Because it's a lesson that very much seems like a good one, a most valuable one, to carry with us into the new year.
😊
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