There are few feelings worse than the mix of horror and disgust you get when something drips on you from above while you’re walking down a sidewalk in New York. It may be just condensation from a window mounted air conditioner. We always assume these drips are either an experimental virus carelessly spilled from an unlicensed medical laboratory or some hideous comic-book style mutagen.
It’s bad enough that no one in New York cleans up after their dog, leaving the entire city littered with landmines. Some days, navigating the three blocks from our Chelsea apartment to the subway was like walking from South Korea into North Korea through the DMZ. The minute we focused our attention on the ground, the assault began from above.
It’s bad enough that no one in New York cleans up after their dog, leaving the entire city littered with landmines. Some days, navigating the three blocks from our Chelsea apartment to the subway was like walking from South Korea into North Korea through the DMZ. The minute we focused our attention on the ground, the assault began from above.
On top of the landmines and random dribbles, the sidewalks are piled thick with trash bags, scaffolding, deliverymen pushing dollies with boxes piled high, tourists scanning maps and people in suits shouting obscenities into cellular phones. All these obstacles came together on the day we dropped in on CrossFit Black Box NYC for a noon workout. The warm-up included an 800-meter run around the block. We now fully understand how salmon feel as they swim up river to spawn. It has been a long time since either of us has felt such a strong sense of accomplishment from running such a short distance.
CrossFit NYC has a brand new 12,000-square-foot facility. That’s not the location we went to. We visited their third floor location in the Flatiron District. The space would’ve made a perfect live/work loft. It had high ceilings and great light streaming in through large windows. As a gym, however, a three-story walk-up is difficult because you can’t drop weights without risking the lives of the people in the suite below. As far as we could tell, they manage this by not doing a lot of Olympic lifting at this location. This restriction, however, didn’t stop them from kicking our asses. Our workout included handstand push-ups, pull-ups and burpees. Andrea finished in the middle of the pack. Steven came in dead last.
CrossFit NYC has a brand new 12,000-square-foot facility. That’s not the location we went to. We visited their third floor location in the Flatiron District. The space would’ve made a perfect live/work loft. It had high ceilings and great light streaming in through large windows. As a gym, however, a three-story walk-up is difficult because you can’t drop weights without risking the lives of the people in the suite below. As far as we could tell, they manage this by not doing a lot of Olympic lifting at this location. This restriction, however, didn’t stop them from kicking our asses. Our workout included handstand push-ups, pull-ups and burpees. Andrea finished in the middle of the pack. Steven came in dead last.
Fact: The coaches at CrossFit NYC were awesome. The members were helpful and incredibly welcoming. The only thing that could’ve made our experience better was if they’d had a balcony. A perfect end to the workout would’ve been to step onto a balcony to catch our breath and cool down. And we could’ve become a part of New York’s eerie landscape by dripping sweat onto unsuspecting strangers below.
Running around the block was not the only time we risked our lives for a good story for this book. At the hyper-expensive, mind-blowingly delicious, West Village Japanese restaurant, Nara, we ordered a course of tempura-fried blowfish. Battered and fried food is definitely not on Drink Your Carbs Food List, but we ordered it anyway just to see if blowfish would kill us.
Fact: Prepared incorrectly, blowfish is deadly. Blowfish contains a powerful neurotoxin, tetrodotoxin, which shuts down communication between nerves. There is no known treatment or antidote. Cooking the fish does nothing to reduce the toxicity. Symptoms begin with difficulty speaking as the central nervous system is slowly paralyzed. Over the next few hours, the lungs and heart stop receiving instructions and quietly shut down. It’s better than having your face eaten off by zombies, but slow suffocation is most certainly an unpleasant death.
Prepared properly, blowfish is as safe as any other fish we eat. In reality, the risk is tiny. No one has died of blowfish poisoning in years. But a chance of death, no matter how small, adds a layer of drama that most other foods lack. You get to pretend you’re playing Russian roulette while doing something less risky than eating oysters. (We love oysters. We eat them all the time. Nonetheless, this is absolutely true.)
For those not interested in sampling blowfish for themselves, we’ll describe it. Blowfish is tasty. It’s a light flaky white fish. If we’d been told it was cod, we would’ve said it was the best piece of cod we’ve ever tasted. Our lips didn’t tingle. Nor did we experience hallucinations. Our speech remained clear, at least through the first bottle and a half of sake. In spite of the fact that blowfish commands street-drug pricing, it turns out that it has none of the side effects.
The final risk we took in pursuit of a noteworthy vacation was to shun hotels and instead book an apartment through the website Airbnb. If you’re not familiar with Airbnb, it has the power to turn every single person in America into an innkeeper. Have a moldy tent in your garage? Set it up in the back yard and, with the help of Airbnb, you’re now the proprietor of the worst bed and breakfast in America. They also list whole houses and apartments. Since we’re too old and grouchy to go back to having roommates, we opted for an empty apartment in Chelsea.
The final risk we took in pursuit of a noteworthy vacation was to shun hotels and instead book an apartment through the website Airbnb. If you’re not familiar with Airbnb, it has the power to turn every single person in America into an innkeeper. Have a moldy tent in your garage? Set it up in the back yard and, with the help of Airbnb, you’re now the proprietor of the worst bed and breakfast in America. They also list whole houses and apartments. Since we’re too old and grouchy to go back to having roommates, we opted for an empty apartment in Chelsea.
Fact: Renting an apartment is by far the easiest way to travel on DYC. If you have a kitchen, you can shop and cook. Being able to fully control even one meal a day makes a huge difference in limiting your dietary damage. At a minimum, it’s nice to be able to make your own breakfast, which is always the most difficult Drink Your Carbs meal to eat out.
It is usually possible to order a Drink Your Carbs-friendly omelet and a side of fruit, but most breakfast menus read like a dessert course. Avoiding sugar and simple carbs at lunch can be challenging. Avoiding sugar and simple carbs at breakfast is far more challenging. Sometimes your only option is a fruit cup, and sometimes even that comes drowned in simple syrup.
Airbnb is the anti-Four Seasons. Forget a front desk, doorman and porter. We picked up the key at a corner laundromat and let ourselves in to the first floor studio apartment. The place did not disappoint. It was light and clean. This was a huge relief as the biggest complaint people have using Aribnb is cleanliness.
The apartment had a small kitchen and a private garden. It was well stocked. We had no problem making eggs and bacon for breakfast. It even had wine glasses for an early evening drink in the garden. It was also filled with the owner’s stuff. His diploma hung on the wall. Framed pictures of his girlfriend were placed strategically throughout. It was far less like staying in a hotel than it was borrowing an apartment from a friend. The owner also left us coffee and told us to “feel free to raid the liquor cabinet.” The Four Seasons can’t compete with that level of hospitality.
The apartment had a small kitchen and a private garden. It was well stocked. We had no problem making eggs and bacon for breakfast. It even had wine glasses for an early evening drink in the garden. It was also filled with the owner’s stuff. His diploma hung on the wall. Framed pictures of his girlfriend were placed strategically throughout. It was far less like staying in a hotel than it was borrowing an apartment from a friend. The owner also left us coffee and told us to “feel free to raid the liquor cabinet.” The Four Seasons can’t compete with that level of hospitality.
Fact: Not every Airbnb experience is as positive as ours. One apartment we rejected had a review warning of mystery liquid dripping through the ceiling from the apartment above. Apparently, in the City, this is not exclusively an outdoor problem.
We had a fantastic trip, but we admit that it was not our most successful Drink Your Carbs vacation. We came back from the Las Vegas without gaining a single pound. New York, however, defeated our attempts to stick to our diet. This is odd, because navigating New York’s food and drink scene while maintaining Drink Your Carbs should’ve been easy.
In New York restaurants, it’s completely normal to modify an entrée to reduce the carbs and calories. When we ordered according to the Food List, no one reacted negatively. In fact, they offered suggestions for making items even healthier. Our cheating was never out of necessity. We simply got into a bad pattern of permissiveness. We could’ve just as easily stayed strict throughout.
In New York restaurants, it’s completely normal to modify an entrée to reduce the carbs and calories. When we ordered according to the Food List, no one reacted negatively. In fact, they offered suggestions for making items even healthier. Our cheating was never out of necessity. We simply got into a bad pattern of permissiveness. We could’ve just as easily stayed strict throughout.
Fact: We did manage to eat a perfect DYC meal at Bier Craft, a beer garden and sandwich shop in Brooklyn. Along with the usual meats piled between slices of homemade bread, they had a “Paleo Jerk Chicken” on the menu. It was full half a chicken coated in jerk seasoning, served on top of bacon-filled collard greens and roasted broccoli. The dish was awesome, but it wasn’t strictly Paleo. It would’ve been far more accurately described as “Drink Your Carbs Chicken.”
Loren Cordain, the author of the original Paleo Diet book, places both bacon and chicken thighs on his avoid list alongside bread and potatoes. He also limits beer to a single 12-ounce serving per day, which is challenging in a restaurant that serves pints. (We added the link here because no adherent to the Paleo Diet would otherwise believe us.)
For every perfect Drink Your Carbs meal, however, we would break down and order some kind of starchy carb with the next. At Rare Bar and Grill, we ate amazing burger salads, but halfway through our meal broke down an ordered fries. At a small deli near the apartment, Steven ordered a breakfast sandwich on a poppy seed bagel two days in a row, while Andrea paired her scrambled eggs with home fries. This wouldn’t have been a problem if we’d exercised or cut back on our drinking, but this isn’t what happened. Our wine intake spiked as we spent our evenings drinking with friends and, during the 10-day trip, we worked out exactly twice.
This is not to say that the entire trip was a Drink Your Carbs disaster. The balance between our Drink Your Carbs meals and our cheats likely explains why neither of us came back five pounds heavier. For every meal that contained potatoes or lunch that contained French fries, we had at least one carb free banquet. Averaging our meals, our trip probably earned a solid C on Major Morgan’s Grading Scale. It could’ve have been worse. But it also could’ve been far better.
There was no point in beating ourselves up over our dietary failures. Instead, we returned home and imposed our punishment: 10 days in Austerity Mode. We paid for our dietary transgressions by cleaning up our diet for the same number of days as we were travelling. It was a small price to pay for a fantastic vacation.
This is not to say that the entire trip was a Drink Your Carbs disaster. The balance between our Drink Your Carbs meals and our cheats likely explains why neither of us came back five pounds heavier. For every meal that contained potatoes or lunch that contained French fries, we had at least one carb free banquet. Averaging our meals, our trip probably earned a solid C on Major Morgan’s Grading Scale. It could’ve have been worse. But it also could’ve been far better.
There was no point in beating ourselves up over our dietary failures. Instead, we returned home and imposed our punishment: 10 days in Austerity Mode. We paid for our dietary transgressions by cleaning up our diet for the same number of days as we were travelling. It was a small price to pay for a fantastic vacation.
In Defense of Random Drips on New York Streets: Neither of us returned home with mystery illness. Nor did we develop superpowers. Whatever it was that kept splashing us from above was evidently harmless.
