♥: 2012 NYC Food & Wine Festival

Hubby and I headed off to NYC today.
We hopped on NJ Transit to the
2012 NYC Food & Wine Festival.

We have the new double decker train.

Riding the train today was quite interesting in itself
since today was also Comic-Con.

I was expecting to see Sheldon, Leonard, Howard and Razz there hah

The New York Comic Con is an annual New York City fan convention dedicated to comics, graphic novels, anime, manga, video games, toys, movies, and television.

People in full costume on the train -
makes for a very interesting ride . . .

Super hero's are not my thing but these
folks were having fun.

We headed over to the book signing area.
Hubby wanted to purchase a cookbook
from David of QVC.

Here's hubby shaking hands with David

Here we both are with David.

We also saw Stanley Tucci - the actor

who also has a new cookbook out.

Here he is getting ready for his book signing.

We had tickets to see Paula Deen so we headed back to 42nd street.

We had plenty of time so on the way we walked through the

Chelsea Market. What a fun place!

The building is just so cool.

Here is the history.

Chelsea Market is an enclosed urban food court, shopping mall, office building and television production facility located in the Chelsea neighborhood of the borough of Manhattan, in New York City. Built in the former National Biscuit Company factory complex where the Oreo cookie was invented and produced, the 22-building complex fills two entire blocks bounded by Ninth and Eleventh Avenues and 15th and 16th Streets, with a connecting bridge over Tenth Avenue. In addition to the retail concourse in the structure east of 10th Avenue, it also provides standard office space for tenants, including media and broadcasting companies such as Oxygen Network, Food Network, Mr Youth, MLB.com, EMI Music Publishing and the local New York City cable station NY1. Also, more recently, Google has moved into some of the second and fourth floors.

Retail facilities were introduced into the building by connecting the original back lots of individual buildings to a central, ground-level concourse with entries at 9th and 10th Avenues (completed in April 1997). Anchor stores include the Chelsea Market Baskets, Manhattan Fruit Exchange, BuonItalia, Anthropologie, and a restaurant called Buddakan. There is also the Fat Witch Bakery, Amy's Bread, Ruth's Bakery, Chelsea Wine Vault, Eleni's Bakery, The Lobster Place, Dickson's Farmstand, The Green Table, Chelsea Thai and Friedman's Lunch, as well as a variety of smaller stores selling cheese, artisanal salt and olive oil, chocolate and flowers.

The Food Network films its shows Iron Chef America and Emeril Live in the Chelsea Market.

The developers of Chelsea Market have encouraged a symbiotic relationship among their tenants with the vendors supplying the restaurateurs with fresh ingredients, such as seafood, vegetables, fruit and meats. The presence of television companies in the same building also brings media attention to the site and the businesses that are found there. The site also allows businesses to combine their manufacturing and retail assets under one roof.

Inside they had Jacques Torres chocolates.
Oh my goodness. The hot chocolate.
I can hardly describe it.
It is so thick it is almost like pudding.
You could eat it with a spoon.

You can see the texture pretty good in these photos.

The market was decorated for fall and the pumpkins were so cool

The detail is just amazing . . .

Loved these boxes from NYC & London

I love this old painting on the walls

How cute are these cupcakes?
One of the bakeries in Chelsea Markets.

I thought these were adorable. I can see a Westie like
my Solomon in the box.

How cute is he?

When you walk through you smell so many good things.

Fresh baked bread . . .

Seafood . . .

Warm toasted nuts . . .

Amazing soups . . .

After Chelsea we hopped on the subway to see Paula.
And even that was an adventure today.

As we are waiting for the subway I notice one of these guys
just wandering down the tracks - yikes
I know there are plenty of them but this was the first time
I have seen one. A real live NYC Subway RAT.
I felt sorry for him.
He was like a BIG mouse. Poor guy.

Paula looked so well ! We were not allowed to take photos
but this one from the internet is how she looked.
She has lost 40 pounds and her husband has lost 60.
They both look terrific.
She spoke alot about the controversy with her cooking,
diabetes and medications. She really was lovely and
such fun.

After seeing Paula we headed for a bite at
a little sandwich shop before we caught
the train home.

It was a fun day and I am so tired.
I think hubby is too I can hear some
loud snoring coming from the other room hah