late october, cobble hill.

Yesterday was just one of those impossibly lovely late October Sunday afternoons, where the leaves haven’t quite turned (still!), but the trees are slowly shedding anyway, and the sun peaks through the thinnest of cloud coverage, and the air is crisp but not yet brisk.  Too hungry to make the trek to Williamsburg for biscuits and gravy, Mark and I instead headed to Char No.4, where they serve a more-than-solid Biscuits Benedict with bacon gravy and country ham.   (At the bottom right hand corner of the food shot, you can see a little dish of their housemade hot sauce — should you go to Char No.4, do not miss this.  It is extraordinary, and while it should be applied sparingly, it should be used on everything.  Then again, I am not very good at following my own advice re: sparingly.)

Post-brunch, we headed to Cobble Hill Park, probably my favourite of all neighborhood parks in the city.  It feels more like a little square, like a mini version of Gramercy Park, less moneyed but still very genteel (and, unlike Gramercy Park, open to the public).  The park is bordered on all sides by residential houses, mostly brownstones, but on the southern side of the park there’s a little alleyway of sorts, Verandah Place, with a row of homes that are squatter, less august, more cottage-like than the majestic brownstones around them — a bit like Washington Square Mews, near NYU — that reminds me a bit of London.  Sitting in the park, making a valiant but ill-fated attempt at the crossword, I’d look up occasionally at the little row of homes, and it would feel like the city, and the impending workweek, and all of my worries (except trying to figure out the answer to 38 Across: Donut shape is apparently, frustratingly, toroid) — well, minus that, all of my worries seemed a million miles away.