Catching Up in April

The last few weeks, I’ve had some unexpected travel. The trips themselves were planned but it was unexpected how quickly the intervening weeks flew. Feeling like I’d hardly been home when it was time to pack up and leave again, it didn’t help that the entire city is coming out of hibernation so every weekend offers competing to dos, openings and events. Back from Puerto Rico after Easter, I missed the beach but was comforted to find Cobble Hill in full bloom. I had the chance to do a little virtual traveling as well and put up a few more posts on Devour the Blog including camarones al chipotle and torrejas with lavendar and honey syrup with more to come.

On the link front, when the New York Times announced the details of their soon to be launched paywall, I thought it was a fair way to monetize the traffic to and from their site and had no problem paying my own way, but mostly I just thought they were kidding. Apparently not, having maxed out my 20 monthly articles early, I was doing my usual hopping around their when I got a pop-up thanking me for playing and letting me know they’d see me in a couple of weeks when they’d be happy show me the Sam Sifton’s review of Graffit, the new Spanish modernist restaurant on the Upper West Side. A little chastened, I worried how it would effect it would effect my usual NYT heavy catch-up posts. Though I still think Melissa Clark’s mango round up is worth a visit, it made me look around a little for links like Lorena Muñoz’s look at  vegetarian Mexican  and Noreen Malone’s hilarious take on El Bulli elegies to include. I also thought it was a good opportunity to link to some of my favorite posts celebrating spring by the usual suspects like 101 Cookbooks (love that bird at the window), Cannelle et Vanille (have to remember the next time I come across gooseberries) and From Argentina With Love (I’ll definitely make this next Easter but don’t plan on waiting that long).