So it has been a crazy couple of days. Thank God that Carroll Gardens has been spared the worst of the hurricane damage. We are on high ground so nothing was really damaged except for a several old growth trees that toppled in Carroll Park.
We had wrapped up the store and moved everything to the middle of the store and wrapped in drop clothes and plastic. We figured if the wind blew out the windows and whatever and water came in the clothes would be protected. But nothing happened and the store was bone dry.
We always close on Halloween so we were planning to be closed on Wednesday anyway. So when we came in on Thursday we had a lot of work ahead of us. Most of the employees couldn't get in since the subway wasn't working so it was just three of us who had to put the store back together. Lisa wanted to wash everything down and do a super cleaning so that is what we had to do. I had to wash all the storefront windows which was a disaster because of the wind and rain that kicked up all this dirt and mess on the windows. Of course the window washer guy was nowhere to be seen and busted my ass doing it on the ladder.
At five I went to the liquor store and bought a nice bottle of wine to start the festivities off. I mean there is only one thing to do when you cheat death and destruction. Get smashed.
After we finished off the wine we closed up and went to Enoteca for dinner. Now they have a new bartender there who is very weird. Some yuppie bitch who looks exactly like Velma from Scooby-Doo. She didn't know how to make the most simple of drinks. We decided to have cocktails first but I couldn't get what I wanted. I was really in the mood for a Tom Collins but I didn't want to chance it. So I decided to go full Titus and get an Appletini. People came out of the kitchen to see it. Nobody could believe that I would order that shit. And now I know why I don't. That shit sucks. It is so sweet I think three of teeth rotted out. Yeeech.
We had the usual great dinner of a cheese plate with some paticular piquant goat cheese spread over toasted bread with honey and figs that was subperb. An appetizer pizza with mushrooms and pepperoni. Then I had Pasta Fragole and the wife had a nice spinach salad. With a couple of bottles of a very tasty Cote De Rohne.
The only thing to do was to go next door to the new renovated Marco Polo for some real cocktails. I was able to get a great Tom Collins there. Actually I was able to have five or six great Tom Collins there. Then Marco sent over lemoncello shots of a new bottle he had just made. Then an old friend came in and bought a few rounds.
It was great night.
I tipped everyone extremelly well because we kept them past their bedtime. Now we are going back because it is Lisa's birthday and we have to stay local. I got her a cake as a surprise and all of the waiters and bus guys and kitchen guys will get a slice.
It is a rum cake so everyone will get wasted from just a slice.
Live is good. You have to grab it when you can. You never know when it will all wash away.
There is only one thing you can never wash away.
The taste of a fuckin' Appletini!
9 comments:
"Old growth" tree in Brooklyn? What is that, something bigger around than your thumb?
Live is good, indeed. Dead is worse.
Life is beautiful, happy birthday to your bride.
A Tom Collins isn't much more manly than an Appletini, paisan.
EBL posted a recipe for a vodka-based drink called a "Harpoon" which has become the drink du mois chez nous. We changed it up to gin natch:
3 oz gin
1 oz cointreau
1/2 oz lime jice
cranberry juice to taste
The cranberry juice reminds my wife of a cosmopolitan.
The harpoon is like a hybrid margarita/ocean breeze
As Joe Biden would say, two words: single malt whiskey.
The street I lived on, almost said grew up on but I didn't move there till I was twelve, Warwick Street in East New York (in Brooklyn, Sixty) was lined with huge London Plane trees (the mottled bark tree) on both sides of the street so that they made a magnificent arch under which we played all our kid street games in the summer. You'd be amazed at the number of huge old, maybe not old growth but plenty mature, trees in Brooklyn. I'm beginning to tear up, better cut off a piece of piquant goat cheese to wash down with my Pouilly-Fuisse.
I think those are sycamores.
Dude. How the heck do you even stand up after an evening like that?
And I'm glad that you are both safe and that your store suffered no damage. Or looting.
It's not easy.
I am out of practice.
I can drink a barrel of beer and be fine but cocktails can knock me out.
Somehow we survived.
Post a Comment