Now in NY

Dietsch on August 7th, 2002 in NYC stories

I am now safely and happily in New York City, land of brave and/or stupid. I’m staying at my friend Josh’s place in Park Slope, a charming multi-ethnic [ha!, he snarks, five years later] neighborhood in Brooklyn. I arrived via Amtrak, and although the leg of my journey between Louisville and Chicago was hellish, the trip from Chicago to NYC was very nice, especially the run along the Hudson between Albany and NYC. We hugged the Hudson River for nearly that entire leg of the trip. The mid-afternoon sun shone brightly on the river, the gently rising Catskills, and the lush, verdant palisades across the way. A calm breeze rippled the waters of the Hudson, and the cool temperatures (mid-70s) made me envious of the boaters taking advantage of the perfect day.

In many ways, this Amtrak voyage was picture-perfect. In one northern Indiana town we passed through, two young boys bicycled past the train, pedaling in the opposite direction. As they passed us, they waved back at the train. I felt like an extra in a Cary Grant movie when I saw that.

Man, five years…

Riding the train every day is starting to have an odd effect on me. I got on the elevator in my building this morning and had to stand in the center of the car. As the doors closed, I immediately got nervous that I wasn’t holding on to anything. I actually had to remind myself that I was in an elevator, not a train car.

Man, I hate it when people bring bikes onto crowded trains at rush hour.

This morning, when the J stopped at Marcy Avenue, a man was there with a bike. Doors open and he says, “Everyone! Move into the center of the train!” Dressed in flip-flops, shorts, and a muscle shirt, he gets on and uses his bike as a battering ram to push people out of the way. He pushes in and stands next to one of the stripper poles and wraps himself around it, the doors close, and the train leaves the station.

A guy behind him, standing at the door, says, “Yo, son. You think you could move your bike offa my foot?” Muscle Shirt glares at him, shoves the bike into the ass of a woman standing in front of it, and wraps himself back around the pole.

A woman’s standing at the pole, though, trying to hang on. She’s only about 5’2″–too short to use the overhead, horizontal railings. She says, “Excuse me. I need to use this pole. Could you move off of it, please?” He ignores her, so she repeats herself. He says to her, “Yeah, just move over and use the other one.” To this, she replies, “No, I can’t. I can’t reach it. I need to use this one.” He ignores her. She replies, “You’re crushing my hand, please move.” He ignores her again. “You’re crushing my hand!”

At this, he turns around and glares at her, not saying a word. The anger, hatred, and menace in his eyes were palpable. To her credit, she stood her ground, stared back at him, and didn’t move away. Finally, he dropped his gaze and turned around.

I didn’t really know what to do. I mean, if a girl who’s 5’2″ can stand up to a guy who’s 14 inches taller and 150 pounds heavier than her, then I probably should have said something. But like everyone else, I stood there passively. Now, I was watching the guy closely, and I will say that if he had moved against her, I’d have stepped in. And to be fair, I think other people would have too.

To take a bike onto a crowded subway car is one thing, but to have an attitude about it, like everyone needs to vacate the train so you can fuck your bike in solitude or whatever, that’s infuriating.

Yesterday morning, I was heading into the city to do a little shopping. I approached the storefront church on the block and saw a man with a stroller just standing there, watching the building. When I got closer, I saw why. As a woman supervised him, a young boy of about 5 faced the building and pissed on the wall.

Now, I’m an atheist, but even I think there are things you just don’t do, let alone teach your children to do, and that’s one of them. Churches, schools, and libraries aren’t pissoirs, dammit, although I’ll admit I might allow that post offices, police stations, bureaus of motor vehicles, and taxation agencies might be okay for that.

So, I see McLaren’s gotten all ranty about escalators, and I’m pretty much with him on this, I guess, barring any physical limitations that require you to stand on the escalator. Shopping malls, movie theaters, airports (sometimes)–yeah, just use your legs, dammit.

The subway’s different, though. I ride. Well, sometimes. If the escalator is short, about 20 to 30 feet, I walk it–up or down. If it’s long or it’s at a really steep angle, I ride. I stand aside so folks can pass, of course, but I ride.

And we do have some long, steep escalators. At 53rd St. and Lexington Ave., underneath Jen’s building, the escalator descends 80 feet vertically, at a fairly steep pitch. (80 is the height. I don’t know the hypotenuse, but I’m sure it’s easily 100 feet or more.) On such a long, steep escalator, I’m likelier to walk up than I am down. I have a slight fear of heights, so if I’m riding it down, I look straight ahead to avoid the vertigo. Walking down requires looking down, and that makes me dizzy. You don’t want to be immediately in front of a 240-pound man who gets dizzy on a long, steep escalator.

If I’m going up, the vertigo doesn’t kick in, so it’s easy for me to walk.

Also, in the subway, it’s not just a matter of walking–it’s a matter of walking at everyone else’s pace, which comes in three speeds: fast, faster, and get the goddamn hell outta my way. If you can’t or won’t keep up, it really is better for everyone if you just stand there.

I’ve seen folks sprinting up or down escalators. If you’re just walking, you really do need to step right to let them pass. That’s if you can. If every step is occupied, then suddenly you either sprint yourself or keep your normal pace and listen to them cursing you out behind you.

So, yeah. When I’m on an escalator that carrying me eight stories down into the earth, I don’t want to get shoved by someone who thinks I’m not walking fast enough. I stand.

It’s Opening Day at Yankee Stadium. Yer thinkin’, “Dietsch! I never knew you to care about baseball! What gives?”

Well, I don’t give a shit, really. But day games at Yankee always start at like 1:00 or something, and they end a little after 4. My old job let out at 4:15, dumping me into the Yankee Stadium subway stations at the same goddamn time as 57,000 motherfuckers.

Every day game carried the same hope–extra innings, extra innings, extra innings.

Even now, slacking at the desk of the new job, posting to a blog that was blocked at the old job, I’m feeling some of the old apoplexy as I remember the clogs of pinstriped morons blocking mezzanines, turnstiles, and platforms. Ah, how fun it is to have a drunk from Long Island rocking left and right in the seat beside you, calming himself only upon feeling your elbow in his ribs.

Watching dudes throwing up or starting fights–so classy. Hearing the fans loudly recap the same goddamn game they all just watched. Fun!

How fondly I remember the day some dingbat chick and her friends were goofing around on the platform. She stepped backward directly into my path while I was walking to the end of the platform–since of course the fans all thronged the middle section. I had a wall to the left of me, a crowd to the right, fifty people on my heels, and suddenly a feathered-hair bimbo directly in front of me. What do you do? I said, “Excuse me, please,” while I reached up, placed my left hand on the back of her shoulder, and nudged her to the right. She got the hint and apologized.

Happy Opening Day, Yankees. You won your opener, but I hope you finish at the bottom of your division. You’re just one more thing I don’t miss about the old job.

Oh, yay! Brooklyn, yay! So cool you can’t step outside on the Fourth of July because your hooplehead neighbors are shooting their guns into the air! I’m so sure that when Jonathan and Nicole go to see Paul and Siri and Sophie on the Fourth, they all five of them go out onto Prospect Park West to shoot their guns into the air and pop caps into their neighbors’ heads! Yay Brooklyn!

(Seriously, follow my link, scroll to the bottom, read Jonathan Safran Foer’s entry [it amuses me that the authors misspelled "Safran"], and see if this guy is living in anything resembling reality. And then come back and tell me that–oh!, you really like his novels!)

And that’s my problem with the tone of this Brooklynites piece. The photos are great, but the project feels really false, like a Marty-approved puff piece for Brooklyn. Hey, I love living here, but in the same way that London hit the Cool Britannia PR bullshit 10 years ago, I feel like we’re in the middle of Cool Brooklyn PR bullshit now.

Not all of Brooklyn meets the hype. That’s all I’m sayin’.

Jen’s got a photoset up of Gary Regan’s visit this weekend to LeNell’s. Imagine seeing Dale DeGroff, David Wondrich, and Gary Regan in the same week! Wow…

Anyway, Gary Regan is so charming and fun in person. He discussed mixing techniques, cocktail ingredients, and bar equipment, all while mixing drinks and passing them out to the crowd. He started with the sidecar. He discussed his theory of mixology–how everything reduces down to several basic recipes. The sidecar is cognac, triple sec, and citrus juice. The margarita–tequila, triple sec, citrus. The kamikaze–vodka, triple sec, citrus. The cosmo complicates things, but only barely–citrus vodka, triple sec, cranberrry, citrus juice.

This is a powerful idea, and Gary attributes it to Ted “Dr. Cocktail” Haigh. But whomever the originator, it’s an idea worth remembering–a strong spirit, a liqueur (or other sweetening agent), and citrus juice. The spirit is your base; so many of Gary’s recipes are in the proportion of 3-2-1. Three parts spirit, two of liqueur, and one of citrus. Add other ingredients, maybe some vermouth, an additional liqueur, but keep the spirit as the predominant flavor, and just experiment.

On the subject of experimentation, Gary talked about coming down on the train to LeNell’s and thinking, Hmmmmmm, I love an aviation cocktail. (That’s gin, maraschino, and lemon juice–oh look! spirit, sweetening liqueur, and lemon!) Could you make an aviation with tequila replacing the gin? Well, why not try it. So he tried that with us. We got a Gary Regan original.

He said, well, you know that lime is traditional with tequila, so why are we using lemon? It seems that one night he wanted an aviation but was out of lemon. He tried lime juice instead, and it was vile in the drink. Just doesn’t marry well to the maraschino apparently.

So he mixed up this new drink and sampled a little. Not bad. Not bad at all. He poured up some and passed them out to the crowd, dubbing it the LeNell–which flattered and charmed the hell out of our hostess. And it’s a good drink.

Jen doesn’t like the maraschino (Stock) that I’ve used for drinks, but Gary used the Luxardo, and she liked it. Her only quibble was that the drink might be better if were drier, with a bit more citrus. Gary overheard her telling me that and mixed up a bit more lemon and added it to her drink.

He then said that a good bartender will, if he or she has enough time and isn’t in the weeds, remember a regular’s preferences and, for example, mix my drink with less lemon juice and Jen’s with a little more.

And that’s Gary Regan. Smart, accommodating, charming, drinker-driven, and damn good behind the stick.

Cocktail king Dale DeGroff and Esquire columnist David Wondrich educated 40 happy cocktail geeks, bartenders, and other spirits-industry types on Tuesday evening at a Garment District bar called The Balance. My ticket in was a Valentine’s Day gift from my lovely wifey, and I can’t think of a better present.

I arrived early, before The Balance opened, and waited on the sidewalk. Another guy was lingering on the sidewalk as well. A woman approached us and began friendly conversation: Are you here for the mixology seminar?

She asked if I was “in the industry” and I said, No, I’m just a cocktail geek. The other guy, Ted, was also a geek like me, but the woman, Hanna, does PR for the food and wine business.

Hanna also knows Dale DeGroff, from her time in wine PR, so she very graciously offered to introduce me to him as we entered Balance. So we walked up the stairs, went around the corner, and saw on the bar an array of full champagne flute. The bartender said, “Please! Have a champagne cobbler.” We each grabbed a drink (YUM!) and with flute in hand, I met Dale DeGroff.

Aside to mko: Eeeeeeeeee!

Hanna had already told me what I’d heard from so many others–that Dale is warm and friendly and a very damn nice guy, and that his wife, Jill, at least equals, if not exceeds, his charm. I didn’t, unfortunately, take the chance to talk to Jill, but Dale is down-to-earth, friendly, and approachable.

After we milled about and chatted, Dale opened the seminar. He made a few brief comments about his champagne cobbler recipe and introduced David Wondrich. David discussed very briefly the history of alcohol and drinking, explaining that among the first “cocktails” was beer or wine fortified with a little spirit. From there, he described the history of the punch and provided a recipe that he says approximates an old-fashioned spiced rum punch, from British-controlled India.

From punch, he moved on to the birth of the Gin Cock-Tail. To oversimplify his explanation a bit, the cocktail seems to have arisen as a way to make bitters more palatable. As the name implies, bitters are bitter-tasting–they’re a compound of spirit and botanicals used for medicinal purposes and to aid digestion. The idea arose to make the bitters more palatable by diluting them. To paraphrase a certain dotty nanny, just a spoonful of gin and sugar helps the medicine go down.

This idea has pedigree: British sailors fought scurvy by consuming limes and their juice; cutting the bitter lime with gin–hence the gimlet. The same happy breed of men quaffed quinine-laced tonic water in India, to fight malaria. The tonic was so bitter, they cut it with gin and citrus–hence the G&T.

Getting back to the point, a Cock-Tail was initially any strong spirit, sugar, and bitters, shaken over ice.

Wondrich is a crazy man. The bitters he used Tuesday were Stoughton bitters, a common sight in the 1800s, but virtually unknown since at least Prohibition. His batch was a brew that he’d cooked up himself, adapted from recipes found online.

Wondrich’s cocktail The Enchantress comes from a rare bartenders’ manual by a fellow named Charles Campbell. How rare? Only one copy is known to exist, and that’s in a rare-book room at a library in San Francisco. (mko, if you’re still reading, you have homework.)

Holy God, but I could go on and on talking about Tuesday’s seminar: how charmed I was by the space, how much I liked sampling each cocktail, how I talked LeNell‘s ear off after the seminar, asking her tons of questions about how and why she got into this business. (I’m still embarrassed that I inadvertently broke up her conversation with Jill DeGroff, but they were both gracious about it.)

But David and Dale were great–funny, open, super-knowledgable, open to questions (lots and lots of questions). I can’t wait to do this again [that's a PDF--be careful].

Jen and I have been taking the long ride on the B61, every so often, to trek down to Red Hook. We both love that area. A Brooklyn-waterfront neighborhood, Red Hook was known for freighter shipping until the industry went into decline. Its shipping inspired Elia Kazan’s classic film On the Waterfront.

Red Hook is, to put it simply, a neighborhood in uneasy transition. Ikea and Fairway are both planning mega-developments in the area, and a number of high-rises and conversions are planned to bring in a wealthier residential base.

But Red Hook is currently known for great restaurants, a wonderful bakery, and a charming-but-funky bookstore. We’ve been to all of these places. We went to 360 when I still lived in Park Slope, and Valentine’s Day 2005 featured Baked’s chile-accented spicy brownies. We’ve been to Freebird a couple of times, and I never fail to walk away with something cool.

We’d actually probably seriously consider living down there, except for the fact that it’s pretty much out of the way of reliable transportation. The B61 is fine, as are a couple of other buses, but it’s a real schlep past the public housing projects, to get there from the F train. Also, the neighborhood isn’t really convenient yet for grocery shopping (although I do think it gets Fresh Direct). It’s really a place that rewards car ownership. If you’re Jen, working late and walking home from the train at 10pm, it would be nice to have your hubby there in a waiting car.

But our favorite Red Hook spot is LeNell’s, a charming boutique devoted to well-curated wines and spirits. I don’t remember how I heard of LeNell’s, but we’ve now been there a few times. LeNell is a southern gal, who relocated to New York to open this shop. She told us it’s exactly the kind of place she always wanted to shop in but never could.

LeNell specializes in whiskeys, but her selections of gins and bitters are quite impressive as well.

She offers regular wine tastings, bourbon classes, and cocktail lessons. She had David Wondrich in recently, and Gary Regan is scheduled for this month.

LeNell runs a great place, and she and her staff are supereasy to talk to, so I know we’ll be back. I just wish we could go daily.