Red Hook

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Coping with quarantine

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Lunch on the sidewalk, there are no rules anymore.

After months of just straight up ignoring this blog, and writing nothing but quippy little photo captions on Instagram, I wish I was here with something more profound to say, something funny even, or amusing in some way.

:: Shrug:: I got nothing.

I’ve been dealing with a pretty stubborn case of writer’s block for a while now, and it turns out that being quarantined in my apartment while the whole world seems to go to shit actually has done nothing to alleviate that.

Yet somehow, through the personally tumultuous second half of 2019 (when I went through several job changes and dealt with a stress fracture that sidelined me from running and therefore my main source of therapy) and this totally bizarre 2020 we’re all living through, food’s remained a small source of goodness in my life. Sometimes it’s been out with people, sometimes ordered and eaten on the couch, sometimes made at home with the help of a cookbook and an under-my-breath prayer to please not mess this up, but it’s consistently been my small form of escapism, distraction, relief.

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My favorite distraction

Yesterday,  after a long run (something I’m eternally grateful to still be able to do, even if it’s with a mask that makes breathing a complete nightmare) the bf met me on his bike and we stopped by Red Hook Lobster Pound, for a late afternoon lunch. Obviously, like whatever other places that remain open today, they’re only doing delivery and take-out so we took our lobster rolls and fries, and a pile of thick-cut fried pickles about a block down the road and ate them on the sidewalk, sitting up against the corrugated metal wall of what was probably an auto body shop or a garage. It wasn’t exactly comfortable (and my often whiney boyfriend complained about dirtying his jeans) but with the last of the afternoon’s sun on my face and butter glistening on all of my fingers, we happily wolfed down our food, pausing only occasionally to marvel at just how good the lobster rolls were or to wonder why we’d never once thought to order the fried pickles before when they were clearly such a sleeper hit. I was busy and pleasantly distracted, happy and full by the end of it, content with a great meal from a favorite place even if in a somewhat new setting, comforted by good food once more in my life.

Who knows when all of this will end or what things will look on the other side or what any of the answers will be to the many questions in my personal life and outside of it, but right now, since food is something I enjoy, I’m going to lean into it, like I did on that sidewalk with that lobster roll. I don’t have any great advice for you, other than to suggest maybe you should try to enjoy it too.

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How I’d like to survive summer

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Hello, summer.

How any of us musters the will to do anything at all in this sweltering, suffocating, New York city summer heat is beyond me. Showing up to work, going to the gym, running errands, riding the God forsaken moving sweat lodge that is the subway— I don’t wanna do any of it.

All I feel like doing from now till October is sitting in the shade with a frosty drink in my hand and a spread of summery food in front of me and some good company to enjoy it with. That’s not so much to ask for, is it?

It’s what I did recently at Red Hook’s Brooklyn Crab and let me tell you, it was pretty freakin’ spectacular. It was what every summer day should be like.

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THIS! This is how I wanna do summer.

A couple of friends and I sat on the top deck of the open seafood shack, where there was enough sun that we needed sunglasses but also a breeze coming off the water to make it bearable. We had frozen margaritas out of bendy straws, a cold pitcher of beer and lots of delicious, garlic-buttery seafood: a whole platter of Alaskan king, Snow, and Dungeness crabs, and lobster, too, with coleslaw, corn on the cob, roasted potatoes and jalapeño cornbread to go with it. There were oysters and peel-and-eat shrimp and fried calamari, as well, because sometimes, well… it’s summer and you have to celebrate.

It’s too hot to do anything else, really.

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Ready for sunshine and lobster rolls

Knowing myself, I have no doubt that I will very soon regret ever having said the following statement, much less putting it down in writing, but I’m gonna go with it, regrets be damned: I am ready for summer.

:: Sigh ::

I know, I know. It’s not the oppressive humidity I’m ready for, nor the ever present trickle of sweat running down my back on the subway on my way to work, nor the aggressive growl of my AC window unit adding to the cacophony I already deal with, and it’s definitely not the constant stench of garbage baking on the sidewalk. I’ll never be ready for any of that.

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Is it summer yet?

But after a recent sunny (yet still crisp) early spring Saturday spent walking around Red Hook, I’m ready for something other than grey skies, heavy coats, and frigid gusts of air drying out my eyes and turning my nose into a cherry.

I want long afternoons and late dinners after sundown. I want to hide behind sunglasses and feel the sun on my shoulders. I want to throw on a dress, slip on some sandals and be ready. And after lunch at Red Hook Lobster Pound, I want frosty beers to wash down pink, perfect hunks of lobster meat toppling out of warm buttered buns. I want to lick seasoning spices, butter and mayo off my fingers, and think, “Mmmm, tastes like summer.”

Red Hook is one of my favorite parts of town, mostly because be it summer or winter, it always feels quiet and far away, a break from the rest of the city. When you do find a pocket of people and activity, it still feels laid back, cool without trying super hard. That my favorite lobster roll in the city is also found there just makes Red Hook that much better.

While I know I don’t have to wait for summer to go down there and have that buttery, delicious lobster roll, if there’s one thing to make that experience better, it’ll be just a smidge of summer, a warm, sunshiny day and maybe a light breeze. Yup, that’s what I’m ready for.

 

*Note: Yes, I did skip right past spring, because spring in New York is mostly just Winter Lite. It also lasts all of about five minutes, while summer stretches out and feels like an eternity by the time fall rolls around.