New York is a shopper’s paradise, and not just in the holiday period. FAO Schwarz is the world’s largest toy emporium and is an unmissable experience for all travelers with children. There’s so much to see here from the huge dance-on piano featured in the Tom Hanks movie “Big” to America’s only Harry Potter store.
Situated in the heart of Manhattan’s luxury shopping district of Fifth Avenue, the three floors of FAO Schwarz cover nearly 50,000 square feet, and every one of them is filled with toys; from the classics, parents will remember from their own childhood right up to today’s latest high-tech must-haves.
If you and your kids are still in a shopping mood, head to Times Square, where you’ll find huge branches of the Disney Store and Toys “R” Us. The area bills itself as the crossroads of the world, and when you’re standing in the busy hub of the Big Apple, surrounded by the neon lights familiar from a thousand Hollywood movies, you won’t wonder why. Kids and adults alike will be enchanted by the buzz and color of this, the throbbing heart of Manhattan.
There’s no better place to catch a show than on Broadway, but in these troubling economic times, who can stretch to the price of theatre tickets for the whole family? If you’re looking for cut-price tickets to family shows like The Little Mermaid or Mary Poppins, visit the TKTS booth while you’re still in Times Square. Here you can buy same-day tickets for some of the most popular shows in the city, often at hefty discounts. Get there early, though, as lines can be long.
Among our most interesting and spectacular gluttons, here we go then to New York, in the undisputed temple of Cupcakes. Coffee gives you a hand to get out of bed, but a cupcake makes it worth it! Maybe not every day, given the sugars and fats it contains, but sometimes? Yes! I allow it. And, with bitter coffee, it is a real lust.
What does cupcakes have to do with romance? You may ask. Well, lately they have too much to do, so much so that it also gives me a bit on the nerves. Because the word cupcake, sometimes without any reason, ends up more and more frequently in a female narrative title.
Once arrived, we just open a small door that we like to always imagine a creaky streamline, to enter the paradise of sweets. In New York you know practically everything, statues, monuments, history, streets, clubs, museums, subway, but to talk about a greedy place seemed to us even more fun and original.
Among the various sweet bakery products that the shop has begun to sell in addition to extraordinary cakes and typical American delicacies, here are the spectacular and renowned Cupcakes. The store is so cute with antique furniture and soft colors, enlivened by the showcases where anyone will lose their eyes and open their mouths, even if it has been a long time since the age of adolescence.
If you do not believe in the possibility that there is something magical in cupcakes, you will never find out. My passion for cupcakes is not recent nor due to some reading of the type I mentioned above. They are so named for their shape, similar to that of a cup. It goes back to my first trips to the USA, around the end of the 80s. A love more than eyes for that palate, was born walking along the main street of this or that provincial town. All of a sudden I happened to be in front of the window of a bakery or one.
It was as if a lightning strike had hit me, cupcake strucked. So I pressed my nose on the glass (metaphorically), fascinated by all those colorful delights. It was a real pleasure for the eyes and the soul, before the stomach.
But, what was most surprising to me, was that the inside of those confectioneries/cafes, often as small as a candy box, was just as delicious, as if walls and furniture could not disfigure before the goodies that were sold there. I went in there, and something magical happened. Neon signs that shine, brings back memories of Christmas watching pine trees that welcome in front of the premises and bars.
Under pressure, men drink alcohol and invade other countries. The women eat cupcakes and go shopping. There are those who cuddle in a shoe store. I have cheaper habits, I just need a cupcake that, in my opinion, is a strictly feminine food. A secret between women whispered in a couple of mouthfuls. The complicity of a moment prohibited by the laws that want us anorexic and unhappy.
To taste a cupcake among friends is a bit like the slogan of mastercard. Somethings are priceless (just do not overdo it, of course as a cupcake can get to 250 calories). It is an experience to share with those who have a place in your heart.
By contrast, my method of eating a cupcake was direct. First step was to swallow a big bite at a time until there was more. That's all. Before eating a cupcake, I like to hold it gently in my hands and admire its features, and colors. I try to feel the soft and sensual shape, captivating decoration, even the paper cup. So much so that I ask myself if it is not a sin to eat it. Then I get convinced and rather quickly which will always remain perfect in my mind, and proceed with the other senses.
What can I say? I never met a cupcake that I did not want to deepen my knowledge. Only after having tasted it with his eyes, have caught in the olfactory cells the sublime scent of chocolate, or vanilla or strawberry or lemon (my favorite tastes). I close my eyes, approach the lips as if to kiss and bite, and my teeth sink like those of a vampire. And there fireworks explode.
Perhaps, after all, there is something erotic in a cupcake. I let the strength take hold of me, because cupcakes, like the Jedi Masters, possess strength. It is at that point that life begins to smile at me. Life is a journey that must be traveled anyway. But, no matter how hard the road is and how inclement weather, a cupcake can always help you.
And then if you take pleasure, just browse google to find a thousand recipes and advice, much more valuable than mine.
Chicago. Cold, sun and fog. Sun that when it comes out chases behind the shadows of the skyscrapers to get warm the winter that has been long. Snow on the sidewalks, music in the streets and air that smells like hot chocolate. A lake frozen by the colors of the sea and sunsets catapult me to understand in a jiffy because it's nice to live here.
The Navy Pier seems to come out of one of those 50s movies, where the girls have pleated skirts and eat vanilla ice cream in cream yellow cones, perfect parallelepipeds that are interspersed with chocolate chips that melt in the air.
The atmosphere emanates music, and at the corners of the streets there is always someone who intones his song. Small, well-groomed restaurants, gigantic CVS and Walgreens compete with each other on glossy shelves. The small cafés catch you with exciting apple pie smells. You can come across mini vans where you can taste extraordinary peanut butter cupcakes, served by girls with ebony skin and diamond smiles.
I still cannot say exactly what I think of in Chicago. To see, certainly. To know, to live, to understand its soul. I liked it? At times, certainly yes. What does not convince me? I do not know. Maybe I'm just in the wrong season, maybe summer and spring is another thing. I liked the energy, the people, and the smiles.
Cupcakes in New York are of all kinds and can be taken away in convenient boxes as seen in the famous American movies. Here's where I tasted one of the best red velvet cupcakes in the Big Apple. I had never been there yet, but as soon as I managed to set foot in the Big Apple, one of my first stops was just this little bakery.
Many come up here not only to eat a red veiled cupcake, my favorite, but also just to see the shops, see the location, admire the walls of sugary paper, super sugary sweets and sit down to chat a bit in this timeless atmosphere.
After trying the cupcakes in the first store in New York, I could not not even set foot in other stores and, given my passion for red velvet, I could not get into other stores scattered throughout New York.
Concluding this short postcard from New York we have a certainty, as long as there will be greedy travelers like us, this shop will exist. So we are convinced that you will hear about Magnolia Bakery for quite some time. Magnolia Bakery was born several years ago, even before the cupcakes went out of fashion, but it is with the television series Sex and the City that has had its success.
