Keeping Busy

I haven't had much time for blogging these days. Yes, I'm done with marketing school, but I've been using my down time wisely. I think my TV remote is wondering if I'm seeing other devices.

One of the big things is that I am building a lot of momentum with my spirits articles. Here is the one I am most proud of to date:

And on the same bent, my article in Mezcal:

And tequila:

These were my agave trifecta. But there is much more to come this month about other spirits, some reviews, and a couple of fun topical roundups.

I am also working on another personal project which I will reveal in the coming months. It's still incubating. To me, posting anything about it now would be as tasteless as sharing sonogram images (sorry, parents. I think that's really gross). It's just not ready for its closeup. In due time.

But I'll be back soon! Enjoy your Leap Day. Do something good with it.

Cheers,
Amanda

Goodbye, H&H

I ended last week with a bagel-shaped hole in my heart.

The past year in particular has been very rough on Manhattan and Brooklyn mainstays. Mars Bar, Elaine's, Danal and Robin Des Bois, all gone. (OK, admittedly, I've never been to Elaine's but I liked knowing it was there.) Last week was especially painful. For the win: Holiday Cocktail Bar, Southpaw and Bleecker Bob's Records ... and H&H Bagels to close their last remaining location on West 46th Street. 

I have often said that one of the main reasons I could never leave the New York City area is that I'd miss the bagels too much. Sure, in the past year as I've been getting back in shape I've only allowed myself one every few weeks. But it's been comforting to know a good one is always within walking distance once that Defcon 5-sized craving manifests. If I were in Portland, Oregon or the Bay Area (no offense, to those kick ass cities) what I'd have to settle for would just make the carb monster in my belly angrier.

H&H is my benchmark bagel. Much like your first great pizza slice, or your first 6th Street Indian restaurant, or your first Menudo lineup, your first real New York City bagel is the one to live up to. Incidentally, it's named for Hector Toro and his brother-in-law, Hector Hernandez, who founded the business in 1972. Two Hectors in the H&H. Betcha didn't know that. 

I remember when my family lived in CT, my parents often had a date night in the city on Saturdays in Lincoln Center. On the drive home via the Upper West side, they always picked up spreads and fishes at Zabar's, then went next door to H&H for the bagels (like good New Yorkers, they knew you never buy it all in one place). Even at a very young age, due to lifelong insomnia, I was often up when they got home late at night. I watched as my dad would unpack the goods. I would salivate as I caught that sweet, yeasty scent emanating from the paper bag of fresh bagels (H&H baked them fresh all day and night) as it sat on the 70's avocado green kitchen counter. 

We actually owned a bagel tray. It was clear acrylic and long with a circular bottom, perfectly shaped to serve each half bagel upright. They didn't last long in there as my parents, my Grandma Nina and I snatched and slathered them with our preferred toppings. I was a picky eater then, hated smoked fish (this has since changed, but it took a long time), and didn't much care for cream cheese. But don't take away my Heeb license yet because I've always loved chopped liver. (I was not a petite child). Maybe I had an aversion to the other toppings because all three of the adults always seemed to be wearing their herrings and whitefish salad and lox on their cheeks and chins, so absorbed in their business that they couldn't be bothered to wipe it away until they were through. I had seen Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom. They were like a pack of hungry, Jewish wolves.

But the H&H bagels themselves could never gross me out. They were always fresh (even a day or two old), a modest size, with just the right amount of bite and give without being too dense or chewy, with a kiss of sweetness. The onion was never too oniony. The sesame was always toasty. Even the cinnamon raisin was perfect when served warm with butter, never too cinnamonny or dessert-like. Many cinnamon raising bagels are like icingless Cinnabons, and that is just wrong.

As an adult living in the city, you learn to live with your Bagel of Convenience. Back in the late 1980s and 90s, there was Munchy's on St. Mark's Place that us NYU'ers worshipped on a regular basis (only 1$ with cream cheese and 50 cents with butter, it was a diet staple. Yet I was somehow delicately slender in those days). Baked on premise, those came pretty close. There are decent stand-ins near where I live in Brooklyn. But too many bagel chains offer these humongous, cake-like things (Zarro, I'm talking to you) that are more like loaves of boiled sweet bread with a hole in them rather than a proper, chewy bagel. Some are even sort of, gasp!, square-shaped or barely have a hole in them. Those look like angry Muppets, not a bagel, dammit!

But I would still make an occasional, out-of-the-way pilgrimage to the Upper West to pay my respects to the King, H&H. As good as some are, there was a certain je ne sais fuck yeah about their bagels that even the good neighborhood joints couldn't top. I'm afraid the exact recipe is gone to the grave like Grandma Nina's pirozhki or O.G.'s Five Spice Chicken. 

I'm a fatalist. I knew the business was in trouble, but I never imagined New Yorkers would let a thing like this happen. Had I known it was for keeps, I would have been sure to stop by for one last toasted sesame with schmear. I wish someone with some cash  (if they really wanted to win people over) would see the worth in resurrecting H&H and preserving this bastion of New York City existence. Good bye, old friend. You really were like no other bagel in the world. We'll miss you. 

First and Ten. Hours.

I've never understood football. Growing up in suburban CT, this was a pretty important sport. But I didn't come from a very culturally sports-centric family. I remember attending a game or two, I think because my dad thought we should go just to get in the town spirit. Maybe as one of the only Jewish families this was something we had to do occasionally to pay dues for owning property there. I remember being cold. And bored. But pretty happy when one of the cheerleaders wore her uniform to school the next day, got the skirt caught in the potters' wheel in art class and went face first into the clay. If football could have been like that all the time, I was so there. But it wasn't. All that stopping and starting didn't seem to have a point. I knew they'd do just fine without me while I read a book or listened to Siouxsie and the Banshees instead. 

Admittedly, I'm a bit girlie sometimes. But I do like sports. I've always liked tennis and later in life I came to appreciate basketball, baseball, hockey and soccer. But football has always left me as cold as I felt in those bleachers. No matter how many times it was explained, it never connected. 

I'm one of those people who only watches the Super Bowl for the commercials and the halftime show if it's someone interesting. Prince was on fire that year, wasn't he? Even if a New York team is in it, I've never cared much. I've been happy for them and NYC!! NYC!!! and all, but actually WATCHING the game never interested me. It's a fantastic night to get into a good restaurant without a reservation. 

I've been persuaded to buy boxes at bars. I am such a great candidate for this tradition because I want to support the bar and hell yeah I want to win the pool. But even if you tell me what box # I have I will have no clue whether my score matches anything that happens in the game. I could totally win and have no idea. 

But last Sunday changed all that. What was meant to be a quick afternoon lunch at the Lobo, with maybe one or two margaritas for the when-in-Romaness of it, ended up being ten hours of community football watching. My pal Stephanie was there explaining the plays and the purpose behind them. The bar patrons were listening in and adding their pointers, joining in conversations until the action on the TV demanded an "OOOOOHH!" or "YESSSS" or "AWWWWWW." It was all starting to make sense and I got sucked in. There was tequila involved. And mezcal. It was a long ass day. Plus our bartender, Tim, was playing Siouxsie and the Banshees! Suddenly football and goth weren't mutually exclusive! 

The big game, of course, was the playoff between the New York Giants and the San Francisco 49ers. It advanced in little tense increments, and at a certain point it definitely could have gone either way. But the way this game works, apparently, there's a moment where it is definitely up to one team. Do or die. Make or break. Hail Mary. And that moment came with a field goal attempt by the Giants. That kick had to be perfect. Stephanie got us all to hold hands around the bar at that moment. No one breathed.

When the cheering subsided and the tequila was slammed, people who didn't know each other before this night were chatting, laughing and bonding (and slurring) together. We've just been through something. NYC!! NYC!!! It was fun! Giants in the Superbowl, baby, yeah! I'm definitely going to watch, even the actual game this time. 

Ow. OK, maybe not with quite so much agave distillate involved. 

It Was Hard, But Didn't Suck

In case you're wondering about that title, no, I haven't branched out into the world of writing for the one-handed reader.

Although I've had worse ideas.

But when I go back into my mind's time capsule of 2011, that's what I would say. "It was hard, but it didn't suck."

Every year I have the pleasure of attending the same New Year's party at the home of some excellent friends, with yet more excellent friends. It's a tradition I look forward to. But one aspect of that party I dread is the inevitable moment after the ball has dropped, the bubbly has been clinked, the auld langs have syned and all the kisses and well wishes have made the rounds. The "now what" moment that begins the new year. I am usually very pleased to kick the old one to the curb, have hopes the next one is better, but never really sure how that can actually work in my favor.

This year is different. I did a hell of a lot to turn things around for myself. These were not merely resolutions. I personally think the term "New Year's resolution" is an excuse to do something half-assed. It's as ritualistic as walking down a familiar block and passing an empty gym on a cold February morning.

So here's my 2011 Top Whatever:

1. Lost 30 pounds. Still have an awesome chest.

2. Finished grad school without quitting, destroying my laptop in a fit of rage or attacking anyone's sensibilities. This required lots of walking and muttering to myself.

3. The fine folks at Snooth giving me a creative outlet that actually lets me put skills I've gathered over the years to good use. I am forever grateful for the opportunities they have given me and will hopefully continue to nurture.

4. The Lobo for all-week brunches, friendly, worthwhile discussions and MacGyvering cocktails to indulge my whims. And for putting Crema mezcal in my coffee.

5. The friends who are still speaking to me after falling off the grid, and partaking in my days of sanctioned indulgences. You know who you are.

6. @ElBoombito and @RuthBourdain. Woody Allen realized Duck Soup was his raison d'etre in Hannah and her Sisters. These complete strangers kept me going in as little as 140 characters on a near daily basis.

7. RIP box television. All hail HD.

8. Passing a group of white, middle class teenagers in Tribeca and overhearing, "You can't argue the facts, Moses."

9. The fine ladies in my writing group. Whoda thunk we would actually get stuff written, gather with great food and wine and bother to actually read and critique things instead of just eating, drinking and chatting? AND, best part? We've kept up the good work and didn't fizzle.

10. Ladies and gentlemen, my parents. They continue to be the tops of my Top Ten. Boy, do they put up with a lot.

Have a great 2012, everyone!

No More Pencils! No More Books!

I did it! As of today, I have earned my graduate marketing certificate! Eleven months, 34 papers... Hang on. Is that? Yup. 34. Let me spell that out. Thirty-four, THIRTY-FOUR, papers. In eleven months. Which is almost 34,000 words. Thirty- Never mind, you get the enormity by now. 

(And two final exams.)

I did it. Done. Over. I'm all Alice Cooper up in this biotch.

I'm proud of myself. You have to understand, before this, the only other thing I'd ever seen through was Saran Wrap.

OK, OK. I graduated high school and college (barely). And wine school. But this feels a lot more serious because, as I've discussed before, there have been some decisions that weren't very thoroughly measured before I made them.

That said, I don't feel the way I thought I would today. I was expecting to feel lighter, more free. Cathartic, like I've attended a Viking style funeral for 34,000 words sent blazing down the East River.

But the thing is, I'm worried. I pushed myself really hard. I exhumed fancy marketing lingo and business-minded promotional schemes from buried places within me that my 17-year-old, hell 30-year-old self would have called the poseur police on. I did it all hoping I've finally done something useful for a change.

What if it isn't?

What if I spent this whole year stressing out, shutting in, losing sleep, growing in pure white hairs, missing all the fun and...

...nothing changes?

?

Ok. Let me have a couple of drinks. This is cause for celebration, right?

These things will sort themselves out.

Right?

Like a cat, I always land on my feet.

I'll try to ignore the fact that for the first time in 11 years I just saw my cat miss a landing.

Look, I Wrote Things!

Aaaaaaand once again apologizing for a long silence as I complete my graduate marketing certification, only 3 more weeks to go! But I've also been busy with my booze writing. Here's a link to my WhiskyFest 2011 roundup in The Spirit. OK. So this signage is from last year. Couldn't get a good shot this year thanks to the glaring bulbs above the sign.

And last month I reviewed the new Auchtentoshan and Glen Garioch releases, also for The Spirit. 

Hopefully there's time again soon to get back to my regularly scheduled blogging. 

Cheers!

Sound the Alarm

For someone who is such a light sleeper, I seem to be deaf to alarm bells. They've gone of all around me, my whole life, in almost every aspect. But I always seem to hit a proverbial snooze button, denying the inevitable until something reaches that moment of unavoidable confrontation.

I was thinking about this as I took brisk sunset walk to the Promenade last night. At that moment, even though my Frankenpod could only seem to function on the "shuffle all" setting, it somehow knew what sort of soundtrack fit the mood: David Bowie's "Wild is the Wind" played just as the orange sky darkened over the Brooklyn Bridge. Arcadia's "The Flame" played as I took the scene in (oh, shut it, you purists). Siouxsie and the Banshees "Spellbound" sped up my walk home. And Robyn Hitchcock's "Dark Green Energy" accompanied me to my door.

Lately I've been pondering my single lady status a lot. Even with all the distractions from my busy academic and booze writing, I've had moments where I've been feeling this empty space where a male companion should be, like a phantom limb. Oddly, this is most often when I am in public settings. When I'm around my couple-y friends. When I'm the one who went solo to the gathering. When people have stopped even bothering to put a "plus one" on my invitation.

These thoughts were egged on by an online discussion yesterday about this article from the NY Times. Last weekend, I started reading it, thinking it might contain the answers to why so many women like me live like this. But instead, it was just another piece written from romantic inspiration. Words that never would have been strung together if the writer hadn't found her fucking "soul mate." The exchange with friends today, made me ponder my own path to being 40 and single. Well, 40 and single and clambering for a self-sustaining direction.

The article's message, that being single isn't necessarily someone's fault or choice, doesn't ring true to me. After all I am a person who pursued a degree in Medieval History with no follow up plans and never thought about why there is no such thing as a famous Medievalist. I'm the one who married someone two years after he checked the construction of waterproof boots by drowning them in the bathtub. Then had the nerve to be surprised when this translated into 45 minute teeth brushing twice a day and 6 hour car washing on weekends.

But for all these mistakes, I have done some things right. And even as I wanted to walk through my own self pity party, I could consider the good coming of all this. Being single again introduced me to a new solar system of friendships, adventures and knowledge that never would have been a part of me. I've finally started taking "sensible" directions even though I'm scared shitless of what it will take to reach my new goals. I've been in a bit of a cocoon stage this year. But I am emerging with a better sense of direction, better priorities, and a smaller waistline.

Yet I still have a 36DD chest. Score.

But I don't believe that Times article, that finding a partner isn't about me. That it's just dumb like and people just need to find a partner that appreciates them for what they are. That article is written from the perspective of someone who thinks they won the lottery and wants to gloat without sharing the wealth.

I'm realizing it's about finding someone when there is a better me to share. And that it's likely not this cinematic happenstance. I know now that a snooze button still sounds an alarm. And when to run from it.