Good afternoon, everyone.
I went to Sam’s in Cobble Hill with my friends last night, and we got the corner booth by the door, which gave me a perfect fishbowl view of every person who walked in the front door. The clientele of the newly-reopened neighborhood Italian restaurant included a dozen parents who parked their strollers out front, Brooklyn cocktail historian Brad Thomas Parsons, groups of guys ordering pizzas with 3+ toppings, individual guys walking out with takeout boxes of pizzas (good to know), happy first dates, and a very lively scene at the bar. It was an incredibly cozy room, somewhere between a red sauce joint (but my Long Island red sauce joint doesn’t throw Peruvian Drop Peppers in the house salad) and a social club. The sausage pasta was glossy and vanished within minutes of hitting the table, Diet Coke was served out of a crispy can, and our whole table was happy to see a Rob Roy at the top of the cocktail menu. Weirdly, the last time I had a Rob Roy was with the same group… at Twin Tails in Columbus Circle.
There are a few more seats left for Monday’s screening of Trick ‘r Treat at Cobble Hill Cinemas (which is across the street from Sam’s). Hope to see you there.
Today’s newsletter includes: Air Mail’s social editor of 5 years got a new job (from the Feed Me Job Board), a $370 sundae in Midtown that will only be available for a few more days, a menswear festival in Tokyo worth looking at Google Flights for, LA’s favorite toy store is expanding to Park Slope, Tanya Bush renewed my faith in Bon Appétit, J Lee went to the Hudson Valley and came back with a report on what’s new Upstate, and Graza’s giant tub of hummus is too damn big.
Expense Account is a series on Feed Me by semi-anonymous restaurant critic J Lee. He hosts a podcast with the same name. This week, he took advantage of peak foliage in the Hudson Valley.
It’s that time of year. It’s Autumn in New York, it’s the Autumn of our (my) life, maybe it’s the Autumn of our society. It’s time to get Upstate. If you’re reading this, please stop what you’re doing, stand up, walk out your door, and head Upstate. The trains on Friday are pretty solidly booked, but go on Saturday, and stay till Monday. Or rent a car, run, walk, ride your bicycle, steal a boat, it’s worth it. It’s crazy to be so excited about leaves. Sometimes things are green, and sometimes things are red, but there aren’t many things in the world that go from green to red, a nightmare for people that are red-green colorblind. The leaves represent a fleeting moment, and we love to savor a fleeting moment, we love to milk it till it’s dry and dead, and then we love to do it again next year. The leaves really are just so beautiful, so special. Mt. Fuji is a great place to look at some leaves, if that’s the kind of thing you’d like to do with your weekend. Mt. Fuji is a gigantic hibachi complex, a Japanese castle, in Hillburn, NY, about an hour-and-a-half drive from my house in the East Village. It sits atop a private mountain, part of the Ramapo mountain range. The food is not good but it doesn’t matter. From your hibachi table, as they ignite your onion volcano, you get a 360˚ view of the most beautiful foliage you’ve ever seen. Heaven at Hibachi.
This weekend is the Sheep and Wool Festival in Rhinebeck (the site of the forthcoming Soho Farmhouse). It’s a festival to celebrate sheep and wool, and the people who love sheep and wool. Coincidentally it’s also a great place to eat some lamb. If you love funky hats, and angora rabbits, if you’ve never seen a vicuña, then this is the place for you. The Sheep and Wool Festival always falls on the weekend with the most perfect weather, the weekend when the leaves are at their absolute peak. It’s the weekend when you can finally take that new scarf for a test drive. You might just be inspired to make one. It’s one of my favorite weekends, I look forward to it all year.
“Honestly it was too crowded with hot people for me to really relax, and there’s nowhere to sit. I wish someone had told me that this was not the time nor the place to wear my novelty jellyfish boardshorts that I bought at Reny’s in Maine. I’ll reiterate, it’s not for me.”
Also this weekend, The Waldorf School of Saratoga Springs is hosting their annual Autumn Festival. I promise you it’s not creepy to go. If you’ve never been to a Waldorf school, it’s definitely something to see. It’s idyllic in a way that’s hard to even describe with words. The sun shines on this school, it lights up the unbleached wooden furniture. I literally saw a cow give birth, a little calf came out covered in goo. I witnessed the miracle of life, and saw children selling hand-harvested honey, and fresh-baked pizzas from the pizza oven they built. They’re all amazing artists, they draw, they sculpt, they weave, who knows if they can read or write or do math, but they make their own clothes. All the children are in their handmade sack dresses, you might mistake them for Amish, except that their parents all drive Teslas and wear Arc’teryx. It made me want to go back to school, or maybe join a cult.
