In case you forgot, this week I picked one lucky RSS Email Feed Subscriber to win a Butter Lane cupcake or two.

Well the winner actually winners, because during this unscientific selection someone’s finger moved, are in!

Fara, Hazel you won!!! Let’s plan a date to enjoy some delicious cupcakes at Butter Lane!!!

For everyone else who didn’t win sorry but please share The L-List RSS Email Feed with friends and family because maybe the next promotion will be a trip to Paris.

But until then a trip to Butter Lane will take the chill out of Fall and make anyone happy!

Enjoy!

Leslie

I’m turning 20 again! Or maybe it is 21…

It happens every year at this time and each year there is a birthday wish.  Under normal circumstances I would be wishing for a very expensive Canon lens but this year my list has been simplified.

Here are my 3 Birthday Wishes:

1.  Good health and affordable healthcare coverage to all my friends and family (noting that the French friends are already well covered on the later).

2.  For everyone to experience a Butter Lane cupcake!

Butter Lane is my coffee waiting room when I’m developing photos at my East Village lab and I have been waiting for the right occasion to enjoy my first cupcake.

Worth the wait!  Butter Lane offers both French and American buttercream icing in more than a dozen flavors to spread on your choice of moist daily cake flavors as chocolate, vanilla and banana.  Not to mention the icing shots.  Yum!

If you don’t live in New York, no worries visit the Butter Lane website to order.

3.  For you to share my blog with a friend or colleague and ask them to subscribe to the RSS Email Feed, especially if they enjoy what they see.

Finally to celebrate my birthday and help motivate more subscriptions to my RSS Email Feed I will randomly select one RSS Email Feed subscriber and treat them to a Butter Lane cupcake…okay maybe two! *

Enjoy!

Leslie

*Cupcake winner to be selected at my b-day party (for witnesses).  Sorry an out-of-town winner will have to come to NY to collect their cupcake, unless I happen to win the lottery next week.

I have a serious travel bug!

I’m ready for a trip but the only places I will be traveling to this month are accessible by bicycle or Vespa.

So to minimize my travel malaise I bicycle to Tarallucci e Vino, a small coffee house on East 10th Street and 1st Avenue to enjoy a fresh cappuccino and panino.  Yum!

The service is friendly and slow with outdoor seating and except busy weekends no one will rush you out of your seat.

Are we in Rome?  No, but the slow pace of the East Village combined with fresh Italian coffee and cornetti (Italian croissants), panini and other tasty delights and I am feeling better already!

So if you won’t be visiting Italy this month but would enjoy a quick escape, consider taking the 10th Street bike lane east to the doors of Tarallucci e Vino for a little Italian escape – no Euros needed.

Tarallucci e Vino 163 1st Avenue at 10th Street – Tel: 212 388 1190

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Enjoy!

Leslie

Biking has become very chic, with recent features in the New York Times Style section, ELLE, Harper’s Bazaar and not to mention store windows.

Who doesn’t want to ride a bike, especially when you have the right bike like an Electra Bike?

A recent study found that 71 percent of people wished they biked more but gathering the gear and know-how can be intimidating.*

I’ll bike anywhere…Paris, Rome, New York even Clermont Ferrand.   Biking not only allows me to eat the food I post about (especially chocolate from The Sweet Life), it’s convenient, there is always parking, it’s environmentally friendly and it’s free!

And above all it’s truly enjoyable!

In 2007 Paris launched a public bicycle program called Vélib with 10,000 bicycles and 750 automated rental stations, today the city has 20,000 bicycles and 1,450 stations.  Not only is the program a success, it’s the largest system of its kind in the world!

I’m patiently awaiting New York’s program but until then I continue to promote biking in the city, one person at a time… because the more bikers, the more bike lanes and with more bike lanes we can all bike to enjoy more sweets from The Sweet Life!

So if you looking for some free enjoyment, exercise included, consider a visit to your local bike shop to gather advice and information on the best bikes, gear and safety – and get biking!

Here are a few of my favorite NYC bike shops and a link to New York’s Bike Jumble on September 13th…

A Bicycle Shop 163 West 22nd Street, New York, NY 10011 - Tel: (212) 691-6149

NYC Velo 64 2nd Ave, New York, NY 10003 - Tel: (212) 253-7771

Sids Bikes 235 East 34th Street, New York, NY 10016 - Tel: (212) 213-8360

Enjoy!

Leslie

* SHAPE, May 2009

La Dolce Vita (The Sweet Life) in New York can be hard to find.  And I’m not refering to Fellini’s critically acclaimed film.

Finding, savoring and enjoying the sweet side of New York is not an easy task.  This isn’t Rome…

But I have found it!  Tucked away, almost hidden from sight on the Lower East Side of Manhattan is The Sweet Life.

An emporium to all things chocolatie and sweet.  From gummy bears and gumballs to hand made chocolates and hard to find worldly delights The Sweet Life is a veritable mood sweetener.

Their Softy Pops alone (chocolate covered marshmallows on a stick, milk or dark chocolate) can transform New York into a truly sweet place to be.

So the next time you are in need of a little dolce vita…head to The Sweet Life, a sure cure to sweeten anyone’s day.

The Sweet Life
63 Hester St. (At Ludlow St.)
New York, New York 10002
Telephone: 212.598.0092

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Enjoy!

Leslie