Hello from New York City!

We arrived safe and sound, and thanks to the nicest staff in history, we were able to check into the Maritime Hotel a little early...like 7 hours early. It's such a cool hotel, and features a nautical theme (to say the least). You can see from this photo, all the windows are portholes.

Here's the view from our room, which looks exactly like a cabin on a cruise ship. You couldn't pay me to go on a cruise, so this is the closest I will ever come to the experience (by the way, if you're a cruise ship company, and were actually thinking of paying me to go on a cruise, I was just kidding).

In what I'll take as a harbinger of things to come, this beautiful pear, balsamic, and blue cheese salad was placed down on our table at the Green Table, in the Chelsea Market, and we were told it was compliments of the house.

Of course I assumed they had recognized me as the minor web celebrity chef I pretend to be, but when asked why we'd been given this lovely treat, the server said, "because we just had a bunch of guests who were very demeaning to the staff, and so we just felt like doing it for you." Okay then.

Stay tuned for updates, and maybe even a few of those beloved reruns. Oh, and to the rude, insensitive jerks who ate lunch just before us, thanks!