My favorite restaurant is the Bridge Turkish & Mediterranean Grill (kosher) on Raritan Avenue in Highland Park, New Jersey. The staff makes me feel at home. The decor, inside and outside the restaurant, welcomes a painter — there is so much to paint! And I enjoy my food.
I asked a few friends: Have you eaten at the Bridge Restaurant in Highland Park? What is your favorite dish? Can you tell me what you like about the restaurant?
Here are the responses. I interspersed paintings of the restaurant:
“The food is always fresh and flavorful, the staff is very friendly and accommodating. Always a great experience. Favorite food: doner kebab. And the rice on the side is amazing.”
“Always consistently good! they allow you to enjoy your meal–you never feel pressured to rush. Friendly service and knowledgeable wait staff.”
“The food is always fresh, at the right temperature. The staff does not try to rush you and the decor is absolutely perfect…”
“I particularly enjoy the lentil soup, Mediterranean salad, tahini and their bread is amazing!”
“Love the stuffed roasted eggplant! Rice is amazing! Love the decor: all the vases, plates, etc. Love being greeted by Michael Garber!”
I hope you enjoy this series of paintings and sketches that I have done of the restaurant.
Outside the restaurant there is a little booth where one can be served and eat the delicious food. The hanging flowers are attractive and warm my heart.
The theme for Thursday Challenge is SIGN (Commercial, Traffic, Funny,…), so I decided to highlight a favorite store in Highland Park, New Jersey. I have bought a fair amount of clothing for my daughter this year at this Covered Girl Clothing shop. Recently, we bought her a black skirt so she could dress as Mary Poppins for Purim. I have bought nothing for myself this past year, as my father died in October, and it is Jewish custom not to buy new clothes for one year after a parent dies, in memory of the parent. The owner is quite friendly; you can enjoy chats with her while you shop the dresses, skirts and blouses.
In an unrelated news (or perhaps it is related, as everything is connected, no?), we had the first meeting our newly-formed artist group today. A few of us got together at my home, talked about art, and sketched together. I’ll write more about that soon, in a separate post.
I’ve been following Phyllis’s blog about her son, Sam, who has acute myeloid leukemia. Refuah Shlayma – healing wishes and prayers to you, Sam.
Jewaicious wrote about Nora Ephron‘s books and movies: “but no matter the genre, they always speak of women, independence, perseverance and realizing potential.”
Photo by Mason Resnick: Smashed window of Park Place in Highland Park, New Jersey
Yesterday a friend posted online that she had just finished reading The Book Thief and then she discovered five Jewish businesses in Highland Park had their windows smashed overnight. Shortly thereafter Mason Resnick posted these Kristalnacht like photos on Facebook. The end of the story was a disturbed individual was arrested.
I will be visiting the Judaica Gallery today because I need to make a purchase for my daughter – at least those of us that are local can support the businesses that were targeted. Rutgers Hillel and Chabad in New Brunswick also were targeted with smashed glass, as well as the restaurant Maoz. The Highland Park businesses were Jerusalem Pizza, Park Place, Judaica Gallery, Trio Gifts and Jack’s Hardware. Maybe I should go buy some light bulbs at Jack’s.
A big thank you to the Highland Park police for their quick and decisive action regarding this crime.
Update: A Letter from Mayor Steve Nolan (it ends with: “As a community, we are much stronger than a pane of glass could ever be.” – bravo)
Update: An excerpt from a letter from Rutgers Hillel director Andrew Getrauer:
Wednesday morning at 2 AM a Jewish Rutgers student, very
involved in Hillel, was at the kosher Dunkin’ Donuts in Highland Park,
when a man approached him and started a conversation about Jewish
issues. He identified himself as Jewish. This deteriorated into a rant
where the man also declared himself a neo-Nazi and told the student he
should be in a camp and killed like his ancestors, and that he would
start a ‘second Kristalnacht.’ At this point the Dunkin Donuts staff
threw the man out of the store.
Wednesday morning Highland Park woke up to find 5 Jewish-owned
stores with windows broken; 2 Judaica stores, 2 kosher restaurants, and
a hardware store owned by an Orthodox man. A Jewish-owned falafel
restaurant in New Brunswick was also targeted. Hillel staff contacted
the student who had encountered the man at Dunkin Donuts and made sure
he was in touch with police. Hillel staff contacted the ADL and New
Brunswick police to help connect the dots between the various incidents.
There was wide spread anxiety throughout the local community, expressed
thru constant phone calls, emails, Facebook and twitter messages. To
give you a sense of the feeling at the time, people were calling it
“Kristalnacht in New Jersey.”
More details were reported in the Star Ledger, New Jersey Jewish News and other press.
Mime performing on the boardwalk in Asbury Park, New Jersey
It was fun to watch this mime perform on the boardwalk in Asbury Park. He would start to move towards you and then suddenly stop and freeze. When I gave my daughter some money to put in his bucket, he motioned toward her, but she didn’t know why. You can see what happened next in the photo at the bottom.
On My Blog
The BIG GIGANTIC news today in our household is that the RPRY team of middle son (5 of them) won the Torah Bowl Championship. They previously won the New Jersey division, and today they beat New York schools SAR and HALB. Torah Bowl is sort of like Jeopardy – they get asked questions about certain parts of the Torah, and they have to answer quickly.
Elsewhere in the Blogosphere
I got a kick out of this video of the preparation of a health salad. But he never does explain why he doesn’t think you should wash vegetables if you grow them in your own garden.
Here’s my daughter and the mime – he had motioned toward her so she could get her picture taken with him. He did that to anyone who put money in his bucket.
I posted these mime photos as part of Straight Out Of the Camera -I have a bit of time online on Saturday night. On Sunday, I’ll be marching down 5th Avenue in New York City with my kids’ school.
Three Thursdays at Three Libraries in Central New Jersey
Eva Abreu Presents, Adam Wolf (at laptop) and Jessica Levin (standing)
Last night was the “inaugural” presentation of our Social Media Networking Talks with Eva Abreu as our “Social Media Tour Guide.” Annie Boccio talked about the many friends she has made via social networking. We had a presentation by Paul Grzella about Getting Published in Daily and Weekly Newspapers and MyCentralJersey.com. I presented “Twitter, Blogs and Websites” — more about my presentation in a separate post. Adam Wolf showed ways to target audiences in Facebook; he used his wife’s business, Places Everyone, as an example of how one can attract attention to your site using Twitter and other social media. Jessica Levin taught us how celebrities used traditional media like television and magazines to brand themselves; one can now use social media as a way to brand one’s business or organization.
Thank you to Graham Gudgin for his important role in arranging last night’s talk at the Edison Public Library.
One woman asked a question about poor spellers. Can one advertise one’s business via social media (Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs) and misspell words? If it’s a small business, what do you do? Suggestions?
Sky Watch Friday is a photo meme with photos of sunrises, sunsets, blue skies, gray skies, pink skies, dark skies and any other kind of sky posted by bloggers all over the planet.
I took this photo standing in Highland Park looking across the river at New Brunswick last month in early December. I believe that steeple is in Cook/Douglass Campus of Rutgers (Voorhees Chapel?).
These last two photos were taken this morning. Much bluer sky, right? The above shows the contrasts of old and new architecture in New Brunswick.
This is Easton Avenue in New Brunswick, one block from the College Avenue campus of Rutgers University. I was visiting my favorite computer fix-it folks: Cyber Knight Computers.
Mimi left me a note for my stuffed nose (I haven’t tried this yet, but I’ve got sage growing outside my kitchen):
For your stuffed nose, try making a steam tent out of a towel and a bowl of steaming sage tea. About 1 Tblsp. of sage to 2 cups of boiling water. Simmer the sage for 10 minutes and bring it to a table. Lean over the pot or bowl with the hot sage tea in it. Drape a towel over your head and the bowl. Try to stay in for 5 minutes. Your stuffed nose will start clearing up right away.
I put four art cards for sale here: http://www.cafepress.com/leoraw/
This is rather experimental; if I make some sales, maybe I will think about how to develop this further. If you want to offer any marketing advice, I’ll be happy to read. Can’t say I’ll take it, but I’ll read.
Thanks for reading my blog; that’s really what I enjoy most, sharing with the public and exchanging ideas. I don’t expect this to take over my web work as a means of income, but rather a fun, experimental supplement.
Update: Thanks to triLcat, I added two shirts, one 3/4 sleeve, one long-sleeved. With garlic. Broccoli Update: I added a broccoli t-shirt, especially for nutrition nerds.
I hate shopping for school supplies. I hate picking out all the notebooks. I hate it, I do, I do.
For the past few years, I’ve taken my sons. They hate it, too. This year, I left my eldest home, and my middle son was traveling on a bus home from camp (he’s now back), so I took my daughter. She didn’t seem to mind it that much, though when I asked if she wanted to look at skirts, she clearly just wanted to get out of the store.
Since we were close to my favorite plant nursery, Livingston Park Nursery on How Lane near Livingston Avenue in North Brunswick, we rewarded ourselves by going plant shopping. And taking photographs.
One of the reasons my daughter is happy is I bought her that purple costume she is wearing, a belated birthday present. Among my plant purchases were two of those little evergreen bushes behind her. Hopefully, we’ll have something green in our backyard in the dead of winter.
This is how the nursery looks:
I could have held unto this one until next Tuesday, so I could post it for Ruby Tuesday, a fun photography meme in which you post a photo that has red, but I like it too much to wait:
Finally, one good purpose for going to nurseries is that you find out the names of the plants that you already own. I don’t think I will forget Andromeda now:
On the other hand, I’ve already forgotten the name of the tall purple perennial I planted in my backyard. Is it loosestrife? lobelia? salvia? penstemmon? If it lives through September, I’ll take a photo of it and post it with a “please identify”.
