We’re excited to announce that IN now has its own Twitter account: theINblog! Follow us for all the latest on IN, as well as all kinds of fun adventures in and tidbits about New York.
Also, in case you haven’t noticed, we’re based on Tumblr, so follow us here as well. That way, we can show up in your feed and you don’t have to click over to us when you need your IN fix.
Happy weekend!
The problem we were running into was where to go for a picnic. So, we asked you for your favorite picnic spots, all around the city. After all, it’s kind of a bummer to end up on a bench in the East Village - it’s not actually a park. We’d rather find somewhere with at least enough grass to spread a blanket on, and at least one tree to shade us. A view would be nice too.
As usual, you had opinions, but we didn’t get quite enough suggestions to run the contest. However, that doesn’t mean we’d deprive you of the suggestions you did offer. So, we’re sharing your suggestions, plus adding a couple of our own favorites, so that the rest of you can spend the summer checking out these grassy patches out, picnic basket in hand.
1. Tuesday’s interviewee, Village Voice restaurant critic, Lauren Shockey, recently released her first book, Four Kitchens: My Life Behind the Burner in New York, Hanoi, Tel Aviv, and Paris.
We don’t need to tell you much more than that - the title says it all, really, and more than enough to get us hooked. Cooking around the world sounds like a dream opportunity, and we’re happy that Lauren lets us come along for the ride. The book has already received praise from some of the world’s top food writers, so find out what the buzz is about for yourself.
2. Wednesday’s interviewee, Liz Wolff, runs the hot East Village vintage store, Cure Thrift Shop. In preparation for the store’s third anniversary, she brought in Small Girls PR (including In the Know-er and Cure fan Bianca Caampued) to throw a kick-ass birthday bash, with all proceeds going to the Diabetes Research Institute, of course.
Founder, Cure Thrift Shop
Professional Garbage Picker
Gramercy, Manhattan
Liz and Cure Thrift Shop are throwing a party tomorrow! See below for details.
Born and bred New Yorker? Born & bred - 4th generation
Favorite part about summer in the city: Beaching it at Rockaway Beach
Ideal first date? Hitting up a bunch of Salvation Army stores outside of Manhattan, followed by laughs over Italian ices.
Best pizza in NY: Mozarelli’s, Gramercy. They make the most amazing gluten free pizza - my husband has Celiac disease, so we scour the city for the best of the GF.
Where would you have your birthday party? Hot Skates in Long Island. Rollerskating + pizza + music = FUN
Author, Four Kitchens [Check out Lauren’s book - it just came out two weeks ago!]
Restaurant critic, Village Voice
Manhattan (currently Bowery, moving to Chelsea soon)
Born and bred New Yorker or transplant? Born and bred!
Favorite brunch spot: I am anti-brunch on principle, but if I do go to brunch, I generally end up at Peels because it’s near my house, and the pecan sticky buns are literally to die for.
What’s your local? I get drinks at Von a lot. It’s good for when you want something nicer than a dive bar but not a chic cocktail lounge.
Favorite market: Union Square Greenmarket for grocery shopping; the Brooklyn Flea for wandering about.
In fact, if it hadn’t been so off-and-on rainy this weekend, we’d been planning to indulge in one of our absolute favorite summer activities: the picnic. There’s little we love more than spending a long afternoon in the park enjoying fresh fruit, bread and cheese, and maybe some wine in plastic cups with our friends.
You too? Wonderful. Then that means we can ask you where your favorite picnic spots are, all around the city. It’s kind of a bummer to end up on a bench in the East Village - it’s not actually a park. We’d rather find somewhere with at least enough grass to spread a blanket on, and at least one tree to shade us. A view would be nice too.
Regardless, we’re pretty sure you have an opinion on this.
See these two images? They’re both from one of next week’s scoops (the same super awesome one), only we’ve wiped out almost any indication of the place’s name. Guess the scoop correctly and you’ll have a chance to win that scoop for free.
Sounds good, right? So here’s what you have to do:
Leave a comment here or on our Facebook page, or tweet at us with your answer, but just make sure you do it by 5 pm today. If we get more than five guesses, we’ll collect all the correct answers, put them in a hat, and randomly pick one of the correct guessers to get this super awesome scoop before the general public even knows it’s happening.
As we said, happy Friday.
We knew it would be a controversial debate to start. After all, this is New York, and bagels are iconic. We wouldn’t want to step on anyone’s toes. But, we also figured that some pretty awesome suggestions would come out of it, and that we might just discover our new favorite bagel shop that we’re willing to travel for.
Needless to say, you guys didn’t let us down. We had lots of suggestions, but a handful showed up enough times for us to have a definitive top five from you. Some of the others are included below - after all, we can’t always trek for bagels, and it’s nice to know there are more than five good bagel places in this sprawling city.
We’re warning you though - you might decide (like us) that you should really try all these bagels. Your stomach will thank you.
Imagine if you could have the best of NYC, from the best local deals to the best local content, at your fingertips? During the last two years, we’ve released a slew of new products for Scoop St. on the web, including Experiences and our totally revamped blog, dubbed “IN.” However, there was always something that our team and you - our members - missed: taking Scoop St. wherever you go on your phone.
Today, we’re proud to unveil Scoop St. Mobile on the iPhone for the first time. Over the last few months, our good friends at Koopla have been working day and night to present a whole new experience of Scoop St. in your hand. Together with our development team, they’ve created an API (fancy technical jargon for replicating Scoop St. core functionality across different interfaces and programs) to plug into the powerful Koopla framework that controls which deals you see at any time.
Freelance Art Director & blogger
West Village, Manhattan
Born and bred New Yorker? I’m a transplant. I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, but I’ve lived in New York for seven years and I heard somewhere that once you pass the five year mark the city is in your blood. Sounds crazy but I’m starting to think it may be true.
Best coffee in NY: Oren’s or Jack’s
Favorite happy hour: 8th Street Wine Cellar or La Palapa
If you had an afternoon to spend at a museum, which would you pick? The Whitney.
Favorite brunch spot: Clinton Street Baking Company. Without a doubt. I know, I know, you feel like a jackass waiting for an hour. But it’ll all be a distant memory when you’re shoveling their perfect biscuits and/or pancakes down your gullet.
