It is the tail end of another Manhattan winter, and my boyfriend and I have started hunkering down on extravagant costs. Everyone, as we know, is in a bit of a financial panic, but for us, it’s just a fact that after the holidays and before the advent of spring, we have to reign in our budgets. When we forego seeing Broadway shows or buying concert tickets, one thought still remains supreme: The belly feeds the mind. Financial constraints cannot possibly mean a want for good food. For me, cheap eats is really all about more bang for your buck. Sometimes that means quantity can outweigh quality, but in a city like New York, that fortunately never has to be the case.
My perfect fix came by way of a suggestion from my Alex (the boyfriend), which turned into a ritual Sunday activity. Before we would hit up the Chelsea Cinema for a matinee show, we would grab two everything bagels with scallion cream cheese and tomatoes from Murray’s Bagels on Ninth Avenue. Now, we hit up Murray’s at least three times a week, but instead of purchasing a twelve dollar movie ticket all the time, we sometimes just watch pre-recorded movies on the IFC channel. The bagels, not the entertainment, really do the trick on their own.
If you are a foodie visiting New York, you're probably planning on visiting Mario Batali's 
The word on the street is that Mario Batali has been losing sleep. He’s been seen pacing up and down in front of his various restaurants, wringing his hands and sighing – all because he heard I’ve been visiting Eataly, the Batali/ Bastianich Italian food extravaganza on 23rd St. and Fifth Avenue, and that I’m finally ready to weigh in with my considered opinion.
The Big Dog and I lunched this afternoon at 
My dad was a two job guy. We lived in a representative, working class
neighborhood in Brooklyn, which was to me, the paradise of the world.
Representative I learned years later meant not just Jewish people, like
us, but an equal mix of almost everything else. The working class is
obvious.