A Cannoli!

This is a cannoli (it rhymes with "roly poly"). It is Part Two of my demonstration of interesting new foods only to be found on the East Coast (Part One was the Knish, look back a few posts if you forgot). It is an Italian pastry that is crunchy on the outside and has a cheese filling on the inside (ricotta, I think). Very delicious. I even dreamt about one, which is why I bought this one at a very nice Italian bakery in New Jersey.

Snow in West Caldwell

Last weekend I went to New Jersey for a couple of days, arriving right after a big snowstorm (perfect timing!). This is the town Jason lives in, West Caldwell.

National Zoo

Last weekend we went to the National Zoo, and I liked it so much that I returned again today. It is fairly close to my apartment and is completely free - you just walk in, no lines or tickets, and are immediately face to face with a sloth bear, a fishing cat, or a scmitar-horned onyx. Amazing!
I like how this lizard looks so relaxed. I set it as my laptop background, but had to remove it immediately because it looks scary when it's any bigger than this.
THIS is a wallaby! It looks like a rabbit-sized kangaroo. It lives with an emu, which was obsessed with getting through the fence and into a holly bush. The emu had tiny red eyes and a frighteningly strong looking beak.
Isn't this panda cute? It was very contently eating a piece of something that looked like sugarcane.
This toucan and I spent a long time looking at each other. He kept turning his head to the side in a very cunning way. He is from somewhere between southern Mexico and Venezuela.

The Met

New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art, which I visited Saturday for the second time, is the most incredible place. Over and over you find yourself saying "Wait, is that really THE -- ?" These are a few of my favorite pictures. The one above is St. Joan of Arc (you can see Sts. Michael, Catherine, and Margaret, her "voices" in the background). The picture below is a portrait of the Swanson family :-)

A Knish!

This is me eating my first knish in midtown Manhattan on Saturday. Yum! They are made of potatoes and dough and deep fried and you eat 'em with mustard.