Exploring a Medieval Castle and a Farewell Newsroom Toast

Today marked the start of my last week at The New York Times (well, kind of, depending on if you count the Saturday and Sunday I worked as part of this week). Anastasia, Evan, and I (Anastasia and Evan work in the print hub) got a newsroom-wide sendoff, featuring cake.

My mentor this summer, Valencia Prashad, a fellow editor on the Flex desk, delivered a standout toast about my love of strange food and Broadway, but most of all editing skills. I will so miss her, and everyone on this desk.

Today’s adventure before work took me up to Fort Tryon Park and the Met Cloisters in Washington Heights. It was about a 90-minute journey from my apartment to the Cloisters, including a 10-minute hike up a STEEP, winding hill through the park. But I scored a great view of the Hudson River at the top!

Many people have heard of or visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art on Fifth Avenue, but the Cloisters, a.k.a. the Met’s uptown medieval castle outpost in Fort Tryon Park, is a bit less well known. The Cloisters museum is full of European medieval architecture, sculpture, and decorative arts, including the famous Flemish “Hunt of the Unicorn” tapestries (and, as I discovered, a 10-foot “unicorn” (narwhal) horn).

Fortunately, this is yet another museum I get into for free with my New York Times ID — I’ve used this badge to death at NYC museums this summer. In addition to the museum inside the castle, there are four cloisters — the Cuxa, Saint-Guilhem, Bonnefont, and Trie — also known as covered walks inside a convent, monastery, or cathedral. Think the open-air walkways with an arched colonnade open to a courtyard in the Harry Potter films.

This de-facto European monastery also holds about 5,000 works of European art and architecture from the Byzantine to the early Renaissance periods (mainly the 12th to 15th centuries). We’re talking tapestries, illuminated manuscripts, reliquaries, panel paintings, altarpieces …

The illuminated manuscripts were especially beautiful. The one below is supposedly in Spanish, but of course it’s medieval Spanish from Toledo and in fancy script, so I couldn’t decipher a word. Elegant, though!

This one reminded me of Dumbledore’s office guard in the Harry Potter films. “Lemon drop!”

The Cloisters museum is also filled with stained-glass windows too gorgeous for their own good.

A personal favorite: This set of luxe playing cards. Imagine the time it would’ve taken to make a full set of these!

Here’s a full German monastery communion set from around 1250, with chalice, paten, and straw. Straws became popular in the thirteenth century to avoid spilling any of the wine, which was consecrated during the mass as the blood of Christ.

This is a priest’s liturgical comb — holy men once combed their hair with one of these as part of their pre-mass preparations.

This reliquary was designed to hold the arm of a saint.

The unicorn tapestry room (what I was really here for)! Again, I can’t imagine how much time someone would’ve had to invest to make all these. Having these on your walls would be like being enclosed in your own personal forest. Bonus: A 10-foot “unicorn” (narwhal) horn!

And tonight’s editing note: I handled a digital “front-page” story today about how President Trump has used Facebook ads to amplify his “invasion” claim regarding immigrants.

Also on deck were stories about extremism as a new reality of American life and leaks in a decontamination system at a leading biodefense center halting research (plus, as usual, a fleet of newsletters, Instagram posts, captions, etc.).

And my latest edit prompted a few questions: A) The NYPD has a beekeeping squad?! and B) It took how long to vacuum up eight pounds of bees at the Staten Island Ferry Terminal?! (Think you know? The answer is in the story.)

Finally, today in food: This week will be sort of a ‘greatest hits’ week for my favorite NYC foods, with a few newcomers thrown in. (And also with the caveat that I can’t just take a 90-minute round trip in the middle of the day to grab my Brooklyn faves. And to acknowledge that the rainbow bagel store, home to quite possibly my favorite item I ate in NYC this summer, is still closed after being seized due to unpaid taxes.)

First up: the Chicken Jawn bowl from Minigrow on Madison Avenue, which I’ve ordered too many times to count. You’re looking at egg white noodles, chicken, caramelized onions, roasted corn, and chives. Plus my own modifications (easily done when you order ahead online for pick-up): I sub feta cheese for the pecorino romano and add chickpeas, multigrain breadcrumbs, and bacon.

Coming up tomorrow: A visit to the Statue of Liberty (it’s about time, I know), then a Broadway show with Jesse Green!