Macaroons at 2am

I was in New York this week. My first business visit there in three years - I have been sailing merrily to Brussels and back on the Eurostar ever since then, crowing to everyone I knew that I could make it to the European Commission for a day's committee meetings and still make it back to North London in time for tea.  New York, in spite of the number of flights to JFK each day, is really not the same bag. It requires planning, more than one outfit, a bigger wheelie, something comfortable to wear for the flight including Special Socks, extra food to counteract appalling aeroplane meals, and most of all, Jet Lag. It's been years and years of business travel, you think I would have conquered jet lag by now. But I haven't. I've been to South Korea on business. To Thailand. To Sri Lanka. To Washington. Every sodding journey includes weird nights consisting of 1 hour asleep, 3 hours watching a movie, 1 hour doze, 2 hours playing endless Scrabble. I meet people who tell me it's OK going East but murder coming back West. I find it all merges into a Chinese torture-like 24/7 sleep/wake/sleep/wake scenario. Kind of like a newborn baby who doesn't know day from night - sleeps all day and wails all through the dark hours. This New York visit was a really jampacked week of meetings, business dinners, speeches, conferences etc. I absolutely love New York City so it was also smattered with dashes into Bloomingdales and quirky boutiques, a late night visit to a hairdressing salon for curly haired people only, a foray into Dean and Deluca, drinks in bars with Wifi (American friends, you have NO idea how far behind your world London still is  on Wifi connection...). I stayed in an apartment in Yorkville, where three walls of the lounge had floor to ceiling windows facing the skyscraper views of 2nd Avenue and the eighties. Every night I woke up, despite all assisted means of sleeping through, at 2am. I rose, walked through to the lounge area, stared at the relentlessly urban, skyscraper view, and excavated my Dean and Deluca macaroons. I relapsed into the corporate sofa, prised open the macaroon jar, took out a scarily green coloured pistachio variety, bit into it, and stared at people still into their gym workout in the building opposite.  Bakery goods hit the spot after work, over tea, on Sundays, in a posh hotel brunch. None come close to a sweetener of night time jet lag. Hold the Nytol and the arnica. Macaroons and a view of uptown make my New York business visit complete.