Gotham Gal

September Dinner Party

Lets get down to it.  Here was the menu I put together for the dinner party.

Corn Soup with a dollop of crab and sprinkled chives

Farro vegetable salad

Roasted heirloom carrots with sherry vinegar and crushed pecans

Slow roasted pork

Apple tart

Pumpkin seed brittle

Corn Soup:

1 cup chopped shallots

6 cups fresh corn kernels (+ one ear of corn)

6 cups chicken broth ( you could probably do vegetable broth too )

4 tbsp. unsalted butter

salt/pepper

Crab meat (optional)

Chives

Remove the corn kernels from the husks.  Keep the husks and break them in half.  Remove the husk from the one ear of corn and keep the corn kernels on it.

In a deep soup pot melt the butter and saute the shallots until they are really soft.  Add the corn kernels and stir until complete incorporated.  Let this hang out for about 5 minutes on the stove on low before moving to the next step. 

Add in the chicken stock, the broken cobs and the whole ear of corn, about 1 tsp. salt and a few pinches of fresh ground pepper.  Bring to a boil and then reduce to simmer for 10 minutes. 

After 10 minutes take the whole ear of corn out of the pot and set aside.  Let the soup continue to cook for another 10 minutes.  When done, let cool

In batches, put about 2 ladles full into a blender.  Blend until really smooth.  Return to a clean soup pot.  Continue until nothing is left.  My soup was thick.  If you like it thinner, just add a little stock to the soup and stir.  Taste too to see if you need a little more salt. 

Take the kernels off the corn that you set aside and put them back into the soup. 

I served this at room temperature.  You could serve this cold or even hot.  Put a few chopped chives on top and serve. I put a little crab too.

Farro Salad

1 cup farro (cook like pasta, in salt boiling water for about 10/12 minutes)

5 radishes thinly sliced ( I used regular radishes and watermelon radishes too)

1 pint cherry tomatoes sliced in half ( I used a few bigger tomatoes and cut them into small pieces too)

1 cucumber peeled and sliced into moon shapes

1 cup of loose arugula leaves

1 cup chopped basil

2 tbsp. red wine vinegar

1/4 cup olive oil

salt and pepper

Cook the farro and then set it aside to cool.  Mix in the rest of the vegetables right before you serve it and dress with vinegar, olive oil, salt and pepper.  Serve

Pork

Preheat oven to 250

I prefer boned pork shoulders but I ended up receiving shoulders with bones.  I butterflied them along the side of the bone to rub with the herbs and then tied it up with a string.  Make sure to get pork with the skin on the top.  Roast with skin side up.  I cut off the fat before I served the pork.  But it is key to the process.

Chopped Sage, Rosemary and Thyme - about 2/3 tbsp each

Fennel Pollen (you can buy this online and it is well worth it) - 2 tbsp.

1 tbsp. salt, 2 tsp. pepper

1/2 - 3/4 cup red wine or white wine

olive oil

Mix together the herbs, pollen, salt and pepper.  Rub the pork down with this mixture using olive oil all over the pork to evenly distribute the mixture.  Pour the wine over the pork and roast for 3 hours.  The pork should be coming apart when you take it out of the oven.  Let it sit for about 10 minutes before slicing.

Roasted Heirloom Carrots

I love the mixture of colors.  Roast at 400 after rubbing down the carrots with olive oil and kosher salt. 

Bake until the carrots start to caramelize.  Take out of the oven, splash some Sherry vinegar over the top.  Serve with crushed pecans over the top or not. 

I will save the dessert recipe for another day. 

 

 

Doni Belau, Girls Guide to Paris and beyond, Woman Entrepreneur

Our family spent the month of July in Paris a few years ago.  It was one of the most memorable trips and the aftermath is that we all now have an ongoing love affair with Paris.  It was that summer when I met Doni.  I connected with her immediately.  Her passion for politics and France was inspiring as well as her vision of Girls Guide to Paris.  That vision is now up and running and I am a huge fan.

Doni grew up in Nebraska as the youngest of three girls by a long shot.  Her sisters, Bobbi and Dale, were 20 and 16 when she was born.  Her father was a judge and her mother taught dance.  One of her sisters owns a house in France and that was the beginning of her continued journeys to explore France. 

After graduating from high school Doni went to UCLA to major in theater.  Theater in Los Angeles, particularly at that time, was pretty minimal so she ended up not finishing as she found an agent that moved her to NYC to seek her fame and fortune.  She was 19, living in NYC, doing modeling and temp jobs before falling into the production side of the film business. 

In Doni's twenties, she worked for a bunch of the top companies doing the production work for television commercials.  Figuring the freelance work would be the key to be able to have kids and work at the same time.  She was 26 when she had her son (first kid) and found herself getting jobs in Florida and California so the dream of freelancing and being a Mom wasn't working too well.  It was time to pivot and stay home for awhile.  Her husband, Robert, was working like a dog so to have two people in that mindset was something that she didn't want to do. 

As most women who are driven organized producers and home with the kids end up finding themselves entrenched in the school world to keep their minds going.  Doni decided to take on the school system.  It was there that she got into the political game.  She met someone through her volunteer work at the school who said that Doni should go work for Hilary Clinton in her campaign to become a NY Senator.  She did and a new career was born.  This goes under the label: disrupt. 

Around 2001, she got a job working for Bobby Kennedy at River Keeper.  Doni worked on the campaign to shut down Indian Point.  Although they raised a lot of money, they never closed down Indian Point.  Her next job, always as a freelancer, was to work on Howard Deans campaign and then John Kerrys and then Spitzer as well as two Congressional county races in Duchess County.  Always involved in fund raising.  Doni has a great instinct for people and what is going to work and not work.  I know because she gave me some smart advice about a candidate that I was doing work for.

Doni is also a big believer that you are only human if you can help other people.  Her son headed up community service at his school and on one particular day she went with him to hear a woman speak.  It was Teens Aid Day.  The woman who spoke had gone to school at University of Cape Town and volunteered to help kids who had been orphaned because of their parents having AIDS.  There were 200 kids in the room and she didn't even know where to start.  She started changing diapers, giving kids medicine, anything she could get her hands on.  It was a metaphor for doing something, one person at a time.  The woman was Whitney Johnson and said she wanted to create something of her own in the area. Doni went up to her afterward and said she'd do a fundraiser for her. 

The organization is called Ubuntu.  They started out as an after school program for teens with HIV hooking up with Doctors without Borders to save peoples lives.  The organization provides programs for kids 7 - 18.  Ubuntu has been the most rewarding thing Doni had ever done next to politics.  Yet while she was helping with this organization she kept thinking about Paris.  She wanted to create a book but realized that really didn't make any sense but an online platform did.  This was the summer of 2007 and we met the summer of 2008.

Doni launched Girls Guide to Paris in 2009.  There are now 30,000 uniques a month and 200,000 a year.  There are walking guides, lead gen to hotels and they are in the process of creating an app.  Not only will the content continue to be free they are going to also offer a membership program for tours, hotels and different experiences that one can get as a member.  Hand selected value added opportunities. As everyone else who is figuring out content businesses, so is Doni.

Not surprisng that the success of Girls Guide to Paris caught the eyes of book publishers.  So in the end, Doni is going to do a book not only on Paris for also Girls Guide to New York and Girls Guide to London. 

As a rule I find that people go to travel sites when they are about to travel but as someone who loves Paris, I find myself going to Girls Guide to Paris at least once a week to check in and see what is new and happening in the city...just to keep connected.  Like I do in NYC, I like to keep on top of Paris too. 

I love what Doni has created and I am looking forward to see the next move in the Girls Guide to beyond and more...

 

 

 

why can't I always get greenmarket quality food?

I became spoiled this summer with the array of farm to table food that we ate daily.  As silly as this sounds, a tomato tastes like a tomato, arugula tastes spicy and delicious, an apple tastes crisp and juicy.  No need to go on. 

We through a dinner party last night (recipes to come) and I blocked out some time to go to the Union Square Greenmarket on Friday.  Fred even ran out on Saturday morning to grab a few more ears of corn at the Abbington Square Greenmarket.  So two trips to the Greenmarket. 

I texted with Emily later in the day.  I told her that I could have brought a U-haul with me to the Greenmarket.  LOL.  I filled my cart to the brim and then carried a few other bags. 

Here is my haul home in the taxi.  I just wish that I could only buy produce like this every day of the week without having to make such a commitment to finding it. 

Let's talk Women Entrepreneurs

This week in NY Magazine one of the articles is called Bubble Boys.  A piece on a few young men men who hope to be the next Zuckerberg.  The knee jerk reaction from many people is why just men, aren't there any women out in Silicon Valley building businesses from scratch and coding until 3am.  But more to the point is when is NY Magazine going to actually write an article about all the women entrepreneurs in NYC who are growing businesses, gaining traction, getting funded and creating local economies here in the town they write about.  Is it that difficult to do that piece? It sure as hell would be a lot more powerful and create a significant buzz in the street.  Maybe the editors at NYMag believe that going out to Silicon Valley and finding young men who are coding until 3am at Stanford University isn't that hard to find so it is an easy article.  Guess what, it isn't that hard to find impressive women entrepreneurs in NYC either.  We were easily able to fill 30 seats of panelists at the Womens Entrepreneur Festival for January.  Maybe NY Magazine should send one of their writers out to cover it.  

There was a tweet this week that caused quite an uproar in the womens community.  A woman tweeted out that she wanted women to stop making start-ups around fashion, beauty and making babies.  There is no doubt many.  I have seen plenty myself.  Many of them in the fashion world are doing the exact same thing attempting to build a better mousetrap or help the old school retailers do a better job of selling their products.  These businesses make a small percentage for that lead gen which does not compute into a large scale revenue model.  That is the part I find frustrating. 

Women tend to build businesses that fill voids in their lives.  Doesn't mean there aren't women thinking about disruptive businesses that affect people globally but in general women do lean towards creating platforms that they want to use themselves.  I am a huge fan of the woman entrepreneur.  Many are great managers, create good environments, think deeply about the brand and the product and I could go on and on.  After all, women are different animals than men which is why I like to see balanced gender businesses regardless of who is the entrepreneur. 

Would I like to see more women create businesses that are not fashion or beauty based, yes.  Are we seeing any men dip their toes into that vertical...not really.   Yet if women don't, who will.  Look at Birchbox, Gilt, Net-a-Porter and Rent the Runway to name a few that were all started by women and are substantial businesses.  Let's not forget that. Who will be the game changer in the home decor business? 

I so applaud what many women have created in the areas of fashion and beauty but I am very excited about many of the women that I am seeing now who are dipping their toes in to the water where men are not going like some content businesses and am also excited to see women businesses that have nothing to do with fashion, beauty or babies.  

Here is my response to that tweet, does anyone ever tweet out that they want to see men stop creating large data driven back end tech platforms?  The beauty of capitalism is that the cream will rise to the top.  Women should keep creating new businesses because no matter what the vertical, there will be a few winners or perhaps many with niche businesses and that is what is going to help grow our economy. 

As for NY Magazine...seriously, come on.

 

my short lived life helping politicians

I have always been a political junkie.  Grew up on it. At dinner, we sit around the table discussing the coming of a nuclear holocaust.  At one point, my brother who was probably eight, decided it wasn’t necessary to go to school since the world was coming to an end soon.  My mother bit the super intense political conversations in the bud.  We continued to read the paper daily and converse often about what was happening in the world just not with an edge towards Armageddon. 

I have made sure our kids keep up on local, state, national and international politics.  They can come to their own opinions of what they believe in but knowledge is essential to make those decisions. It is pretty gratifying to see them keep up on what is happening in the world at large and converse about it. 

There came a point in my life when I actually got to meet the politicians I had read about for years. We had our first political fundraiser in 2000 and I got bit by the bug. That bug has died for so many reasons starting with the frustration of the system that is probably directly linked to the fact that people in office spend roughly 80% of their time there raising money to keep that position.  There is clearly something wrong with that as it is evident from the front pages these days that being in power is more important than making the right decisions for our country to move forward. 

Yet when I started raising money for politicians I did it for several years. We had fundraisers off and on to raise money for a handful of senator hopefuls. Not sure why I am using “we” here because then it was more “me”.  As time went on, the more money I raised, the more frustrated I got.  Why?  Because at the end of the day, I wasn’t acknowledged, Fred was.  The politicians wanted to talk to Fred because they thought he was the man behind the money. 

Did you know that when you give money to a politician, you have to fill out a form stating what your occupation is?  It used to annoy me to no end.  My occupation?  Chief bottle washer?  It was no different than someone asking me at a party what I did.  I was raising all this money for this machine and the Government was concerned with my occupation.  Over time, I came up with the perfect answer to fill in the box, superhero.  Funny enough, to this day nobody has ever called me on it.

I became involved in the whole political scene during the heyday of the Internet craze in the mid-90s. We all thought we were going to change Government like we were changing the world with the Internet…wrong. Senators would come up from DC to “the alley” to talk with our group.  Silicon Alley was the term at that time for New York Internet industry.  Supposedly, the politicians wanted to learn about how they could use the Internet as a tool to interact better with their constituencies. In reality, they figured they would grab on to a new group of leaders in a blossoming industry who were influential and could raise money for them. 

After much conversation, the politicos decided that the Silicon Alley group should all come down and talk on Capitol Hill in some type of hearing.  The Government was trying to figure out how to understand the impact of the Internet.  When they left, we all laughed, because that is the last thing we wanted to do.  We were trying to teach them how to use the Internet for change in Government and they were trying to get us to join the system. Certainly a lot has changed since then. 

Through my political involvement in the alley, Fred and I were invited to a small dinner party to raise money for the DNC (Democratic National Committee).  There were fifteen people from the Internet industry, 15 senators and Bill and Hillary Clinton sitting around a large rectangular table.  Here we were sitting in a room, dining with the top senators and the President of the country having an open forum about the state of the union.  I was totally wowed.  Our conversations ran the gamut but were mostly geared toward how the policies put in place would help or affect our industry.

The majority of the people in the room were men.  I sat next to Hillary. I got to engage her in comments around what we were listening and participating in.  When the conversation was about immigrants, we would briefly speak to each other about the topic while it was being discussed around the table.  I liked seeing her hands, the rings on her fingers and what she drank and ate.  This was the first lady of our country who was making a run for a New York senator position.  I was loving my up close and personal moment.

What was amazing was that every one of us, who were all relatively young, had no problem speaking freely about what they were really thinking. Nobody held back.  You could tell from the tone of the conversations that everyone respected each other.  It was just a bunch of smart people sitting around the table trying to figure out the world.  That is one of the things that I have always enjoyed about the Internet industry.  Lots of synapses flowing.  

At one point, Bill spoke about something that was one of the landmarks of his administration.  I turned to Hillary and whispered in her ear, “and I bet you had nothing to do with it, did you”?  She looked at me and just laughed.

In the end, after 10 years, I stopped being interested in raising the cash for politicos. They would reach out to Fred and I’d be the sucker to show up. Why?  To the Senators and the handlers around them, Fred represented power and cash. You are only as good with the politicos in the terms of what have you done for them lately.  Although I am still a huge fan of Christine Quinn who I continue to support locally and there is something about Chuck Schumer that just keeps me entertained because I like him personally, I scratched the political game from my to do list.

 

 

how is technology changing the food system?

The Food + Tech Connect group asked me to answer the question, how can information and technology be used to hack the food system?  I have seen so many start-ups in the food space that I can't help but be excited. 

Let's start with the food chain.  As more consumers are learning about the realities of the food supply they are looking to purchase more of their food that is coming directly from the farm.  They want healthy products delivered to their door.  We are seeing more CSA's in urban areas pop-up as the farmers are providing the products at the Greenmarket and through door to door delivery systems.  Most of these farms have antiquated systems such as note pads everywhere to take in their orders from the direct consumer but also the restaurants.  There are a handful of companies that are working on technology platforms that will allow the farmers to keep better controls of their inventories and in turn sell more of their wares.  Look at Freshocracy that has quickly grown to be able to provide their service of farm to table grocery and recipe delivery to homes throughout Manhattan using an online platform. 

Take a look at Windowfarms that has not only created a community around growing your own food but has tapped in to the consumers desire to know where their food is coming from.  This is a global issue. Windowfarms has made a product for people to grow their own organic food in the comfort of their own home.   

There is a company working on taking the restaurants and purveyors from the world of note pads and phone messages for the order of the day to fill their refrigerators and freezers to ordering everything online while still having the ability to discuss the beautiful mushrooms of the day.  They don't want to lose that personal touch you get from a phone call to create relationships but they want to provide the ability to be more efficient.  There is no doubt that technology will help both sides of the table run their businesses more efficiently.  More efficient businesses make for higher margins. 

Food has become central to communities.  Look at places like Food52 who have provided a place for the best home chefs to post their recipes, speak with each other, get questions answered, discover new products and buy them.  Look at all the food bloggers.  Check out FoodPop where you can see all the activites of your friends and chefs around food, think Facebook for food.  

Chefs have become taste makers.  We want to follow them, read their recipes, see what they are doing and eating.  There are companies like Eater that are providing daily information across the country in local markets on the latest restaurant openings, the trends in food including what happened on Top Chef this week. 

Even the food game is changing.  Products geared towards niche markets from gluten free to vegans.  We will see more start-up companies making bread, chocolate, alcohol or even pretzels.  Products that are being created from new brands that are healthy and local.  Ricks Picks saw the pickling revolution happening and was able to grow their business selling healthy low sodium savory condiments at local Greenmarkets eventually growing into stores and restaurants across the country. 

Technology is helping what is already a blossoming industry, the industry of food.  Food has become a major part of the US economy and I would hope that through technology and awareness we will see more farm to table, more communities around food, more small purveyors with a strong loyal customer base and more people sitting around their table with friends and family enjoying a good meal. 

spaghetti and meatballs

Spaghetti and meatballs is just a treat....at least as far as I am concerned.  I had to make dinner a day in advance and this is the perfect recipe for this. 

Sauce:

Two large veal knuckles

2 large carrots - diced into small cubes

2 large leeks - sliced into thin pieces

3 cans of chopped or crushed tomatoes

3/4 cup red wine

1 cup veal stock

1 1/2 tbsp. tomato paste

wrapped in a spice bag - 2 bay leaves, 2 twigs of thyme, 2 tsp. peppercorns

In a large deep pan cover the bottom with olive oil.  Once it gets hot add the veal knuckles and brown them.  Take them out once browned and set aside.  Add in the carrots and leeks.  Bring the heat down to medium and saute until the leeks start to brown.  Put the veal knuckles back.  Add the wine, bring to a boil and then turn down the heat to medium high and let the wine boil down until there is very little  left.  Add the spice bag, 3 cans of crushed tomatoes, veal stock and tomato paste, mix well.  Bring to a boil, add kosher salt to taste and then bring this down to a simmer.  Put a top on that is kind of askew so that just a little air gets in.  Let this sit on the stove for hours.  Honestly doesn't matter if it is 2 hours or 4.  Once you are ready to put it to bed, take out the veal knuckles and pull off whatever meat is on there and put it back in the sauce.  Salt to taste, cool and refrigerate. 

Meatballs:

1 large sweet onion chopped up

1/2 lb. ground beef

1/2 lb. ground pork

1/2 lb. ground veal

2 cups panko

1 cup bread crumbs

1 cup milk

1 egg

1 tsp. dried thyme

1 tsp. dried oregano

1/2 cup grated Parmesan

1 tsp. kosher salt

Preheat oven to 350. 

Saute the onion in a small frying pan and cool  Mix together the bread crumbs and panko in a small bowl and pour the milk on top.  Mix it up with your hands.  Separately, mix together the meat until thoroughly combined.  Add the egg, dried spices and panko/bread crumb mixture to the meat then mix.  Add the  onions and mix again.  Really mix it up again with your hands.  Add the egg and mix more.  Add the Parmesan and salt, mix thoroughly.

On a parchment lined cookie sheet lay medium sized meatballs about an inch apart.  Bake until browned.  Cool and refrigerate.

Next day, take both the sauce and meatballs and mix together in a large pot.  Warm over a medium high heat until the meatballs are warmed throughout.  Serve.  This could probably stay a few days in the refrigerator.  Serve over pasta or even solo or in a sandwich.

 

Dina Kaplan, Blip.tv, Woman Entrepreneur

At every turn, Dina has figured out how to get what she wants.  We have crossed paths but never really spoke before and I so enjoyed hearing how she came to Blip.tv particularly since I watched Psuedo in the 90's that was the same thing but way before its time. 

Dina grew up in Pittsburgh but in the last years of high school her father, who was the Dean of Carnegie Mellon business school was offered a job at Harvard Business School that he couldn't turn down so the entire family up and moved.  She felt disconnected at the school she went to so found a school Rome to finish her studies.  Although she graduated from the school in the Boston area she was going to school in Rome.  It was at the school in Boston where something happened to her that has kept a carrot dangling in front of her nose for years.  A woman teacher asked her not to take the AP test in European History because she would bring down the average of the school.  She was so pissed off that she made a personal commitment to herself to show him differently...and I don't know if he has watched her career but there is no doubt that she has shown him.

Dina went to Wesleyan University where they gave her the flexibility to work on the Clinton campaign.  On a side note, when she was 14, her family was at the Renaissance Weekend that Clinton was part of.  At that time he was the Governor of Arkansas.  After meeting him, Dina turned to her parents and said that guy is going to be the President one day and when he does I want to go work for him.  They laughed but her instincts were right on and her instincts have been one of her greatest assets. 

After graduating she attempted to get a job at MTV where she really wanted to work but they only had an internship so instead she got on a payphone the day of graduation hunting down a job.  Her friend who was now working in the transistion team for the Clinton administration said there was a job available but she'd have to get there by tomorrow.  She left all her stuff with her parents to bring home and headed to DC.  Cleaning up in a McDonalds at Foggy Bottom before asking directions to the White House to start a new job. 

Dina worked in the Clinton administration for less than two years working in the office of the White House counsel vetting people who Clinton was hoping to smoothly put through the confirmation process.  She worked for a great woman there.  But at the end of the day, she still wanted to go work at MTV.  Dina went up to NYC and made a call to someone at MTV and said she was in town and would love to come by and talk.  It was the perfect shoe in.  Dina was hired. 

At MTV, she worked on a show called Unfiltered which was way before its time.  They would send people cameras to tell their stories.  People would send the cameras back, they would edit them and then put them online.  It was the early days of the Internet.  It was an amazing time to be there and work with so many interesting stars and innovators.  She also helped coordinate the "choose or lose" efforts of MTV where people drove a bus around the country getting young people to register to vote.  It was a herculean effort.  Yet she knew in her gut it was time to move on.  After four years at MTV, someone said to her "you have to get out of here and do something else". 

Onward to get into local news.  Starting out in New England as a local news producer and then a move to Boston and eventually Louisville, Kentucky where Dina stayed for a few years to be a local reporter covering politics.  Kentucky wasn't for her and in her own way she kept sending information to the NY office of NBC hoping that a job would become available.  NYC NBC hired her to report on really low level stuff like reporting on bodies in dumpsters. Kentucky politics to NYC body bags.  It was time again to reevaluate lifes options.

She had stayed in touch with Mike Hudack, one of her co-partners at Blip.tv.  Mike was involved with a group of guys who knew each other through Geeks New York and were working on a software product.  They wanted to create a product that was an information software system, a back end for large companies.  It didn't sound that interesting.  Mike mentioned that they could take what they built and apply it to video to create web shows.  She was still freelancing at NBC and someone asked if she could go out to Cannes and cover the festival.  Dina went out to cover the festival using the software product that the team had created.  Spending 10 hours each day attempting to upload what she had created in an internet cafe.  Those were the day of dial up.  She was blown away by the reaction of the pieces and how many people tuned in.  There was something very powerful here.

Mike was thrilled and so was the rest of the group.  Dina joined them and went out to raise the money.  That was not so easy.  The first round took a year and they raised $550k. 

Luck and timing are key.  Blip.tv went from 100 million this past November to 300 million this past May.  The top show makes $500K a year and that number will probably hit $1 million this year.  What I love about Blip.tv is that there have been over 50,000 shows uploaded on their site and about 5% of them are the key performers.  They sell ad space across the platform to create the revenue structure.  Yet anyone can upload a show.  Blip.tv is totally crowd sourced shows watched by viewers and Blip.tv primarily sells ad space in the videos to create revenues.  To me, this is what makes the Internet so amazing.  We aren't being fed content with fingers crossed from cable companies but we can make our choices about what to watch.  Total niche audiences.  Maybe I should start a show?  Only kidding.

Dina is a dynamo.  I love her story and her drive.  She has figured out at each pivot of her career how to get her foot in the door.  A lesson to be learned for anyone.  If you want it, go out and get it...and Dina certainly has.

 

9/11...ten years later

I can't believe it has been ten years since that awful day that changed the course of history, 9/11/01.  It is certainly a day that I will never forget having watched one of the planes ram into the second tower while I was standing in the middle of Fifth Avenue and 10th Street with many others with tears streaming down their faces and their jaws agape.  I can still see the man standing next to me making the physical cross across his chest as if he was in church.  In my head the day is as clear in my head as it was ten years ago.  It is like walking through a movie in my brain. 

Each year I write a post and each year I reflect as all of us do.  Since that day the world has changed in so many ways.  Today I want to write about the things I remembered that will always stick in my mind.

Walking up Sixth Avenue holding on to Josh's hand seeing people covered in ash and him asking why would someone fly a plane into a building?  My only answer was there are bad people out there who are angry at the society we live in.  What else do you say? 

Going down to St. Vincents with Jessica later in the day with a huge bag of t-shirts for survivors and speaking to the head of the hospital who was pacing in front.  He was so nice and both him and I knew that no news was not good news.  

A week later I was driving by the wall at St. Vincents that was covered with pictures of lost loved ones as people were desperately trying to find them.  My kids and a few of their friends were in the car and one of the kids looked out the window and said, those are the pictures of the missing people.  I said to her, they aren't missing; they are gone forever as tears sprang immediately to my eyes.

Going to the grocery store after we got home from our walk up Sixth Avenue with the kids in tow and people from one of Fred's company who were in town to get food.  The bars were packed to the gills and people were pouring out into the street.  After all it was a gorgeous day.  The people at the grocery store were a mess and the conversations were so upsetting.  It was like everyone was clinging to each other. 

Spending the weekend with our friends because none of us wanted to be alone.

Walking the dog every night and smelling the stench of death that changed depending on which way the wind was blowing.  Every night for weeks I'd hope that the smell would be gone and then one day it just disappeared. 

Going on the subway the day after the towers came down because I thought it was important that we didn't let this event change the way we live in our city.  There were tons of cops down there.  Josh went up to one of them and asked if they caught the bad guys yet.  He answered, not yet son but we will, we will.

The girls sleeping together in one room because they didn't want to be alone. 

A year later to the day Josh woke up that morning and the first thing he said when his eyes opened up was, did they ever catch that Osama Bin Laden guy? 

They finally did catch him and there was closure for this country and definitely closure for my kids.  Emily went down to the site where the World Trade Towers stood the night they killed Bin Laden. She felt she had to be there.  How could she not?  It made as much as an impact on her as it did on us, maybe even more. 

What has changed these last ten years is the fear that always sits with us now, intense security at the airports, and most important politics.  That event was not used as an opportunity to bring this country and others together but as a political opportunity to push an agenda through that sits with us today from the debt that has been created and the destructive way politicians go about being elected.  Although we have fought back terrorism, that one act was so huge that it changed everything.  I am not sure what the terrorists were hoping for but they changed the world.  I doubt this outcome is what they were expecting, not sure anybody was.  How could you.

I hope that today, now that ten years has passed and the area where the Twin Towers stood is finally being rebuilt (again another political nightmare), we will move forward into a good place, a place where we can agree to disagree, a place where we can live in peace and a place that moves us forward into the 21st century not backwards into the 20th. 

talking about this generation

The headlines these days aren't exactly positive.  There is an air of change on some continents yet an underlying fear of what comes next and then there are stagnant economies and frustrated citizens elsewhere.  If we look back and wonder how did we get here, there are a million reasons but as history has shown us we are ever evolving based on the need for change. 

Our world has become flat, for lack of a better word.  We are all connected and the internet has been the link.  Social media has changed the game.  The strength of the internet has changed the way we shop, the way we communicate, the way we connect with other like minded people across the globe.  It has always changed the way we have started to think about how our lives should connect in real time, face to face, within our local communities.

I look at my kids and the young entrepreneurs I meet as well as recent college graduates and I am incredibly bullish on this generation.  Many of them are focused on changing the world for better.  That means anything from disrupting education to building new products that will replace old ones to creating local restaurants that are smaller and more intimate for community, they are thinking about the environment and new technologies, they are rethinking the way we are going to live in the future.  I could go on and on but I like what I see.

What I see more than anything is the desire of this generation to find happiness and balance in their lives.  It isn't so much about making money but finding happiness in the field each of them choose.  There are ones that want to change the world with a non-profit that can be sustainable through their mission to embracing and changing volunteerism, there are others who want to build the next biggest media company but making sure there is a social cause connected to their mission.  I have met people who want to be cobblers, jewelry makers and chocolate makers too. 

Many of the kids appear to be more in tune with who they are.  Many see what is in the inside of each individual person not on the outside.  There will be many mixed marriages of this generation because they embrace everyone just as gays and lesbians are applauded for being able to marry because why shouldn't they.  We are becoming a true multi-racial world.  As social media is helping break down barriers in the Middle East, it is working at home too. 

So regardless of all distrubing news on the front page of the paper every day, I am very excited about this generation of kids.  I know that many of them are having a hard time finding a job but perhaps it will force many of them to be creative and become scrappy entrepreneurs because they have no choice but to be creative in their job pursuits. They seem to have looked at the world around them and are taking the good and tossing out the bad to create new communities, economies and environments.  The next ten years will be interesting to watch and I believe life changing. 

Perhaps I am too much of an optimist based on the political landscape but the one thing about America that keeps us coming back is the ability to create from within.  We are always trying to build a better mouse trap and in the end that is the key to our success.