Sunday 15 December: Dinner with Fast and Lucienne at Hearth Restaurant in East Village. My roasted Massachusettes cod with smoked chickpeas, black cabbage and garlic confit, right, is absolutely delicious!
Fast's swordfish poached in olive oil with cauliflower, trout roe and olives - subtle but intense.	Lucienne's cacciucco (stew) with prawns, mussels, clams, black bass and squid.
© Fast Forward	Monday 15 December: Fast takes us shopping in the afternoon. It's a very cold day, so we're all well wrapped up. Left: Usakousa pose in front of a round speaker in the Bang & Olufsen shop window midtown.
An animal plate purchased at Chelsea Market.	A mini purple cauliflower. © Fast Forward
We hit the Happy Hour at Cull & Pistol oyster & seafood bar, also inside Chelsea Market...
First we tye 6 different oysters from Nebraska, Maine, New York, Massachusettes, Rhode Island, Washington and California. All with very different tastes, all very yummy.	Then we went for repeats of what we each liked - and a couple of clams each, from Maine. They're very fresh and tasty too. We've had 30 pieces altogether, for $35 inc. tip - very good value indeed!
Back at our hotel, Usakousa have the crab apples we bought at a vegetable shop at Chelsea Market for supper...	...while Akiko eats a big salad from our favourite organic shop, LifeThyme on 6th Avenue.
Fast has tried baking some non-gluten, non-sugar, low-carb bunny cookies for us, but they turned out to be very fragile and impossible to transport without breaking. So all we got is this photo - and the bunny mold, so that we can bake some ourselves. Thanks :-)
And so went our two and a half days in New York very quickly... Many thanks to Fast and Lucienne for their time, help and company.