Dog day afternoon...

October 26, 2008

Well, it was a dog day afternoon and the event we were anxious to see... The Tompkins Square Halloween Dog Parade. Its a yearly event and when you reach Tompkins Square, where there is the major dog run, it is filled with owners and their dogs in costumes and people all around smiling, laughing and taking pictures. This is an event that has got to put a smile on the most grouchy person.

For some dog owners, it was all about them and the dog was the accessory. And for other people, it was all about the dog and they were front and centre, and either loving it or not looking too sure about it all.

And yet for others they were making a statement like the three nuns (two females and one male) and their bull dogs (also in nun costumes) with signs saying that they wanted to "Kick the Bush Habit".There were hundreds of dogs and owners that came out for their walk in the show arena, where a line-up of judges watched and giggled, all surrounded by spectators and media cameras. You could really feel that this is NYC and there is such a vibrant artistic community with so many highly creative concepts and costumes, and of course such a strong bond between owners and their dogs. Some of the dogs were nervous or awkward but you could tell that they were proud for the most part of all this attention and praise on them, which would surely in their minds translate into treats later.

If you didn't have a dog, it really made you feel like getting one to enter into this parade. Well, because I could go on for ever about this or that dog and a picture paints a thousand words, I'll just provide a link to my flickr photos and you can see for yourself and have a chuckle or two. Link:http://flickr.com/photos/zenkitchen/sets/72157608414703018/

This is not about food but one of my other passions - dogs - so it's close in that respect.

In the afternoon, we headed to a show and then had to make that difficult decision about where we would eat pulling out our long list of suggestions. Well, many had suggested Blossom (blossomnyc.com), a fairly new organic vegan restaurant in the Chelsea area, so there we were, and it was lovely and delicious... the Cape Cod cakes (with no fish of course), the seitan specials, the cheesecake. They have just opened another cafe on the Upper West side too.