Election Night

Four years ago, I was watching a live feed of the election in the middle of Q-Tip's album release party   at Santos. The night was emotional, triumphant, sexy, fun and totally unforgettable.

A lot has changed this time around. I was not sipping champagne with celebrities. And I was not having a quiet night in with my man or any intellectual friends. The day started with the realization that our cable TV and internet service were out because of the storm. My sister had no problem letting me watch the election results at her apartment, but could I babysit Ryan? Ok, fair deal. I could handle two kids. No problem. I packed a bag full off groceries to make the patriotic meal that I'd planned days in advance, cheeseburgers and homemade fries, and headed down to her house.

In hindsight, boiling hot oil in the tiny kitchen of a studio apartment with two toddlers running around while trying to pay attention to the election results was probably not the smartest idea. My mother walked in at 7pm to ketchup-covered kids running back and forth on oil-splattered, slippery floors peppered with pieces of meat and half-chewed slider buns and what seemed like hundreds of tiny cars and crayons.

By the time we dealt with the piles of dishes and the oily floors and the sticky kids it was 9pm and I was only paying attention to the tube peripherally. I could only see that Barack was behind in electoral votes. By the time the kids went down under blankets in front of the TV at 10, it was clear that Barack had the edge. Mike walked in from the restaurant at 11 with a bottle of wine, God bless his soul, and he waited up with me until 1:30am for the president's speech. This was probably the best part of the day, an unexpected bit of time together like the old days.

What Goes Down When Mama's Not Around

Since our recent move in to our new home and all of the Hurricane Sandy drama, I have spent very little time at Va Beh' during dinner service. Saturday night, I decided to go in. Michele opted to stay home with the kids. Cool. 

Now don't get me wrong. I am not a jealous person and I don't covet much. I have been cooking like crazy every night that I have been home, some pretty elaborate meals, whether it was just Jada and I or our extended family coming through. But, my husband and kids had a party without me! Look at the grins on these two girls over braised rabbit, fried branzino, polenta and my butternut squash soup to boot!

Look at Jada unapologetically going in on the "bunny rabbit"!

And this shot of Asia is just plain mean! The relish and the joy on this kid's face!

I think it was this last photo that sent me over the top. I replied back to my husband's smug photos and text, "Oh. This is what goes down when Mama's not around??" 

":)", is all I got back. 

SMH.

Pot Luck Precipitation

Just settling in to our new home...and Sandy strikes. After preparing all day Saturday (And by "preparing",  I mean shopping at the Park Slope Farmer's Market and hauling a small mountain of groceries home from the Red Hook Fairway. Candles and flashlights were only an after thought. The ideas of sand bags and generators seemed foreign and unnerving to both of us.), there was nothing to do on Sunday but to ride it out. 

Wide swaths of undefined time usually means cooking at our house and that is what we did, all day. We conserved most of of our focus and energy for dinner: roasted, whole black sea bass basted with soy, ginger, sesame oil and cilantro with a side of sautéed tatsoi. For lunch, we settled for a mishmash of leftovers (roasted chicken and butternut squash stew for the kid and pasta schiutta with beef ribs from the night before) and some first-time sides made with scraps of fennel and red pepper sitting around from the night before. 

This is a close-up of the my take on Julia Child's "Legumes a la Greque" with peppers...

...and with fennel...

Both are riffs on the same process, essentially braising the vegetables slowly over low heat with olive oil, lemon juice, celery, aromatics, herbs and spices. Julia suggests serving it cold. We ate it at room temperature and it was divine, perfect palate cleansers after the rich mains. The recipe will definitely get added to the repertoire because it is simple, satisfying and a great way to use odds and ends before they go bad. 

A couple of naps, some TV and an early turn-in defined the rest of the stormy night. Lights flickered once or twice, but by God's grace we never lost power or cable. With the worst behind us, I'm grateful for our private holiday. 

On Being Gypsies

So, since the closing of our house in Brooklyn we have shacked up temporarily in the following places (in chronological order): 

• a friend's apartment on 42nd St. 
• Piacenza, Italy 
• back to the friend's apartment on 42nd St. 
• Maui, Hawaii 
• another stay at 42nd St. (Until we just couldn't take the traffic, noise and degenerates any longer.)
• my mom's on Staten Island 

Now, craving privacy and space, we have resorted to hotel hopping. Our first night was at The Dream Hotel. The white room sprinkled with sharp cornered tabletops was not conducive to a relaxing night with a crayon toting, wobbly two year old. We checked out the next morning. We've spend the last few days at The Omni Hotel in midtown. Better because it is softer and warmer but there is not much space beyond the king size bed. Tomorrow, we check in to The Box in Brooklyn. Stay tuned. 

They say that problems are always hardest when things are about to get better. Our patience is definitely wearing thin and the adventure that we thought the summer would be is, day by day, decaying in to a kind of cold inertia. Hopefully, we will be able to close on our new home and put down our roots next week.

On the bright side, Jada is oblivious to it all. For her, home is wherever we are together. 

Jada's First Trip to the Staten Island Zoo

Jada's most persistent refrain, "Mommy, I ride a horse?" is only seconded by, "Mommy, I go see animals?" She asks almost every day. 

Ty suggested that we take the kids to the local zoo and make a day out of it. We all had a blast! Being a Park Slope/ city snob, my expectations were really low for this small zoo but it was just as good as the Prospect Park Zoo or the Central Park Zoo and, in some respects, even better. The children were allowed greater interaction with a bigger variety of animals. The petting zoo at the end of the visit was a very special experience because the children are allowed to roam in a corral with goats and llamas and sheep. Jada also loved the pony rides and has been asking to go back to the zoo every day since. We will definitely make another trip soon!

Barclay's

So the Barclay's Arena is open at long last. If there was always a soft purr of activity on Flatbush Ave before, now it is a roar! In terms of pure volume (people, cars, commerce), the physical space around the arena is almost unrecognizable.

The effects on us have been instant. Va Beh' is packed from 5pm through 1am, at least that was the case this weekend. We have all been working non-stop, and as a native Brooklynite, it feels good to be a part of the new energy and growth of our neighborhood in my own small way.

The newspapers reported that at Jay-Z's opening show on Friday, he talked about how Brooklyn's rags to riches story parallels his own and that immediately struck a chord with me. Many of us share the same essential and particular story. It is emotional and empowering to see an image reflecting our experience back to us. In this way, the Barclay's Arena is more than a building. It is a testament to possibility and an homage to us all.

Going to the Party

Ryan had his fourth birthday party at Chuck E. Cheese this past August and Jada was immediately enamored with the venue and with the concept of birthday parties in particular, but of all parties in general. 

So now, every time Michele and I take her to Va Beh' she points past the Barclay's Center and asks sweetly, "Mommy, we go to the party?" Most days, we are too busy working to spare a moment to take her across the street to the Atlantic Center but this Saturday I found the time and let her roam free for two hours. She had a blast! She even went crazy for some of the more advanced games like skee-ball. This game is an old favorite for me, from family summers spent on the Jersey Shore, and I was so excited to see that she was in to the game. We stood there and played together, enthralled, for thirty minutes: Jada tossing the balls half-way up the lane indiscriminately and me picking them up and throwing them in earnest to try to get enough points for a cool prize. We walked out with with a Dora notepad and four Sponge Bob stickers. Jada was thrilled!