happy hirschlerbirthday!

Happy birthday, dad! I love you!

Budaprague 2011

delicious gratitude

thanksgiving was absolutely delicious thanks to the culinary wizardry of the one, the only, petra tanos!

she started us off with a cheese plate featuring major deliciousness including a "Mt Tam" cheese by cowgirl creamery.

then we graduated to this insanely delicious fennel soup topped with a medley of olives and capers

the main course was pappardelle pasta topped with sage, walnuts and butternut squash--an absolutely unforgettable combination--mmmmm, still thinking about it!

then we had this amazing radicchio, endive, blue cheese, pear salad to round things out. holy freshness.

i am so thankful for petra, for my mom, my dad, for jonny, for all of my friends and frienemies, for the delicious foods of the world, for being alive!

thanks, world!

dad on bike

no, that's not lance armstrong--it's richard hirschler!

while i support dads on bikes, i also support helmet use--so please watch the following (things get astonishingly good at 00:49):

hooray!

a serious and chocolatey day in south beach

after sunning on the beach with dad, i attended the magical 8-mile twas my 17th!

after, I bicycled home for a super-fast shower so I would be clean for Chocolate Yoga!

chocolateyoga was all about savoring delicious chocolate, savoring the moment and realizing that we are full of bliss; sometimes it just takes a little chocolate on your tongue to access it!

(ring ring)

THEN--met back up with dad for a movie; a SERIOUS MAN. all i can say is, GO SEE IT, seeeeeriously. then give me a ring so we can discuss!

a new york afternoon

jon and I drove up to New York yesterday to hang out with my dad and sister.

it was lovely.

(petra and dad)

(creeping vines)(the incredible High Line)
people-watching at the High Line

i was so impressed by the High Line. what an incredible example of innovative landscape architecture--and the beauty of restoring old structures to create new possibilities for green space!

for the birds...

my mom and I arrived to miami to find that my dad (who was here for a week already) had done some grocery shopping and purchased this product:

I asked my dad to put on his glasses and showed him the label on the back with these ingredients:

Whole wheat flour, water, wheat gluten, high fructose corn syrup, soybean oil, salt, molasses, yeast, mono and diglycerides, exthoxylated mono and diglycerides, dough conditioners (sodium stearoyl lactylate, calcium iodate, calcium dioxide) (is this like pantene pro-v for bread so healthy it shines?), datem, calcium sulfate, vinegar, yeast nutrient (ammonium sulfate), extracts of malted barley and corn, dicalcium phosphate, diammonium phosphate, calcium propionate .

He was pretty repulsed so we decided to feed the rest of the package to the seagulls on the beach the next day.

it was so fun!

Who is Richard Hirschler? Part 1

This is
my dad.

He was born
in October, 1941
in Budapest.

His mother met my grandfather,
a famous gynecologist and also a communist who came from an Orthodox Jewish family.

It's no surprise that while some people were reading "Nanny Diaries" or the latest Malcolm Gladwell book on the beach last weekend, my father's was busy with:



Oh, dad! I love you.