Author: Zachary A. Martz

The restaurant was dim and warm in that way that makes the outside world feel far away. A small candle sat between us, steady enough to pretend the night wasn’t moving so fast.

Two plates and a simple table: silverware set down with intention, glasses catching the low light, and food that looked like it had been given time. One dish was rich and dark, the kind that asks you to slow down and stay present. The other was lighter, scattered and textured, like comfort dressed up for an evening out.

There’s something quietly grounding about sharing a meal like this. Not a celebration exactly—just a pause. A chance to sit across from someone you care about and let the conversation wander where it wants to go. Between bites, the room fills in the silences for you: soft clinks, a murmur of voices, the candle doing its small work.

It’s easy to over-plan romance, to treat it like a checklist. But nights like these remind me it can be simple: a table, a little light, and the feeling that, for a while, nothing else is required of you.

The table looks like it’s been lived in for a while—water sweating in glasses, a pale cocktail with a red straw, silverware nudged out of place. In the middle of it all, an earnest brunch plate: eggs Benedict spilling over, a heap of greens, and the kind of crispy side that tastes like it was worth getting out of bed for.

4 gays 1 Straight Brunch wasn’t a punchline so much as a small weather report. Different energies circling the same table, everyone translating the same language of coffee refills and shared bites. There’s always a moment when the room settles—when the conversation stops performing and starts creaking like an old house, familiar and unforced.

That’s what I remember most: not the exact jokes, not who ordered what, but the quiet rhythm underneath it. The way brunch makes a temporary home out of a restaurant booth. The way a simple plate can hold a whole morning together.

Maybe that’s the trick—letting something ordinary become a little brighter just because you noticed it. A soft light on a yellow tabletop. Steam disappearing. Friends leaning in, then laughing, then pausing like they’re listening for something beyond the clatter.

Later, the day kept moving. But for a while, we were all there, gathered around Eggs Benedict Brunch Plate, letting the mundane turn gently mysterious.

Sunday lunch has a way of lowering the volume on everything else.

A bowl of tomato soup sat warm and steady, the kind that feels like it’s been waiting for winter to show up. Next to it, a grilled cheese—bread browned and pressed, cheese softened into that perfect middle place between melt and stretch. A small heap of greens on the plate, a bright pause against all the toast and comfort.

There’s something quietly ritualistic about this pairing. It doesn’t ask to be reinvented. It just asks to be eaten slowly, while the day drifts by outside the window.

Maybe that’s why it fits a Sunday so well: simple food, familiar shapes, and the faint sense that the hours are wider than they were all week. The soup keeps its heat. The sandwich cools just enough to pick up. The table holds the scene the way an old house holds warmth—without making a show of it.

If you need an excuse to take the day at its own pace, let it be this: Grilled Cheese & Tomato Soup kind of Sunday.

The year turned over quietly, the way a house changes mood when the heat clicks on and the rooms settle back into themselves.

On the table: two glasses catching candlelight, a small cactus standing guard, and a bottle of champagne waiting in its bucket like a promise you can hold. In the background, the TV glows and hums—one world pushing up against another—while the floor and furniture keep their familiar shapes in the low light.

“Welcome 2017 Hoping for the Best” feels less like a declaration and more like a small, steady wish. Not fireworks and spectacle, but the gentle ritual of staying in, pouring something bright, letting the night be ordinary and still meaningful.

I like the idea that hope can be this practical: a clean surface, a lit candle, a glass set down carefully. The past doesn’t vanish at midnight; it just becomes part of the room, like the creak of boards or the quiet history that clings to the corners. You can feel it, but it doesn’t have to haunt you.

So here’s to the best—whatever that becomes. To warmth in the middle of winter. To small lights. To the feeling that even in the mundane, there’s a slowly growing sense of possibility.

There’s something quietly perfect about the hours before New Year’s Eve—the part that doesn’t need counting down, just a small table, a low room, and the soft glow that makes everything look warmer than it is.

Pre-NYE 2016 cocktails felt like that. Two pale drinks arrived like little weather systems: one in a coupe, delicate and calm, the other tall with ice stacked like clean glass stones. A lime wedge leaned in, green and sharp, as if to remind the whole scene to stay awake.

The bar top held its own history—grain lines, scuffs, and reflections that shimmered under the lights. It’s funny how a simple drink can turn a moment into a place you can return to later. Not a big memory, not a dramatic one. Just a settled, brightening kind of pause.

This is the part of the holiday that I always want to keep: the quiet ritual before the noise, the small clink of glass, the first sip that tastes like citrus and cold air, and the sense that the night is still opening.

If you’re mixing at home next year, aim for that same balance—something tart, something smooth, and enough ice to make time slow down for a minute.

There’s a certain quiet at the top of Fort Greene—where the city’s noise doesn’t disappear, it just softens into a steady hum.

The monument holds that feeling well: stone that looks settled, and a weathered green door that seems to have been there long enough to learn the shape of every season. The patina reads like time you can touch—salt air, rain, winter grit, all layered into a color that doesn’t try to be new.

I keep coming back to small details like this in Brooklyn: the geometry in the window grate, the heavy bolts, the way the steps meet the sidewalk with no ceremony. It’s not grand in the loud way monuments can be. It’s grand in a patient way.

Standing there, you can feel two worlds pressing up against each other—the formal weight of history and the ordinary pace of people passing by with coffee, groceries, dogs tugging at leashes. The monument doesn’t compete with that daily life. It just stays.

Maybe that’s what makes the top of Fort Greene feel so right: a place built to remember, sitting calmly inside the present.

Happy New Year 2016 to 2017.

There’s something quietly satisfying about lining up a year’s worth of small moments and seeing what rises to the surface. This little grid feels like a handful of snapshots pulled from pockets and desk drawers: a plate of sushi, a bowl of something warm and green, a clean martini with a twist, a bottle poured out into amber light.

There’s winter in it too—snow coming down hard enough to soften the edges of everything, a window half-fogged with cold, the world outside turning pale and hushed. Even the bright blue structure overhead feels like a year’s ambition captured from below: steel and sky, a sense of being on your way somewhere.

Then the year’s ordinary neon: a burger sign glowing in the dark, the kind of light that makes you feel briefly awake and wandering. And tucked among the food and weather, a small, playful figure at a kitchen table—proof that the year wasn’t only about going places, but also about being inside, staying still, letting the days happen.

I like that these moments don’t try to summarize everything. They just sit there, settled. Not cluttered. Not sterile. A few warm lights, a few cold mornings, and the sense that one world is always pushing gently up against another.

Here’s to 2017—whatever it becomes.

There’s a small kind of peace that arrives without announcing itself. It slips in the way snow used to—quietly, covering the sharp edges, softening the room until everything feels a little more forgiving.

Paws well that ends well.

In the photo, a cat has folded into sleep on a pale bed, one paw lifted like a tiny flag of surrender. The pads are pink and warm-looking against the washed-out light, and the rest of the body fades into a calm blur of fur and blanket. Nothing is happening, and that’s the point.

Homes have their own weather. Some days the air is busy with chores and conversation; other days it settles into a hush where you can hear the building breathe—fabric shifting, a distant creak, the soft proof that time is moving even when you aren’t.

A sleeping cat is a kind of metronome for that quiet. It reminds you to stop measuring the day by what you finish and start noticing what holds you. A paw, a blanket, the gentlest rise and fall of a small chest.

If your week has been loud, let this be the small ending that lands well: a pause, a nap, a soft place to put your thoughts down for a while.

A wooden board arrives like a small stage, and on it a single octopus tentacle curves in a quiet, deliberate arc. The char catches the light in little dark freckles, the suction cups lined up like punctuation, as if the sea learned to write and chose fire for ink.

In the middle sits a metal cup of green sauce, calm and glossy. It looks simple until you lean in, until you notice the way it holds the room’s warmth and the smell of the grill. This is the kind of plate that makes you slow down without asking.

Octa-awesome Lulu & Po fits, not because it’s loud, but because it’s playful in that restrained, neighborly way Fort Greene does best. You take a bite and the texture shifts from crisp edges to tender pull, and suddenly you’re paying attention to everything: the grain of the board, the low clink of the cup, the wood table under your elbows.

Some meals feel like upgrades. This one feels like a small memory you didn’t know you were making until it’s already gone.