Cultural and Culinary Adventure in Provincetown!

Having spent Thanksgiving in Provincetown, with all its associated Portuguese heritage, I noticed that there is an Annual Blessing of the Fleet and weekend-long Festival at the end of June (6/25-28/2020) More information can be found here:
https://provincetownportuguesefestival.com/

It's never to early to plan your time in this seaside town, especially bc it fills up so quickly in the summertime. See you then!!

Interviewing Paige Lipari of Archestratus

As part of the amazing Food Writing class I took with Devra Furst, we were encouraged to interview someone within the food industry.  Something that would make a good story.

As a sheer coincidence that night, Paige casually mentioned that it was the 4th anniversary of the store.  Of course I had to follow up.

So before the last class, I sat down with her for a quick chat that turned into one of those amazing conversations.  Here I was expecting her to blow my mind with recommended cookbooks-which she did. But I also got a larger conversation about life and how it can lead you in funny directions.

The gist of it all, and the thing that has stayed with me, is that she has always wanted to create a space that was about bringing people together to do their thing. To create a container. It's not that her passion is NOT cookbooks, or creating a food store, it's all that and MORE. She's facilitating a way for people to express themselves. Creating a community. The books, the cooking are a way to get there. And the best rainbow cookies in NYC don't hurt either. ;)

(Actual interview still to come!)

Collecting the Best Breakup Restaurants in Greenpoint

If you really want to get distracted by amazing fries while your Soon To Be Ex is crying into their avocado toast, check out my new series on Breakup Joints in North Brooklyn!  On the lookout for sweet & semi-romantic, with enough of an edge to these hidden gems to make the both of you laugh over your shared dessert.

PAULIE GEE’s

Take your former beloved to your once favorite pizza joint.
Nod and smile as you mentally try to deconstruct the Neffy’s Porkpie White,
with sweet Italian fennel sausage, basil and ricotta. 
You were never able to take out a whole pizza here-
something about violating the crust by putting it on cardboard.
But shrug and smile, knowing you’ll never have to listen
to your ex complaining about his Mom
and her weird obsession with always wanting to do the laundry.

You know the secret ingredient, Mike’s Hot Honey,
will fix any pizza mistakes you may make when you experiment with pizza-making at home.
Besides, PG recently opened up a slice shop for freshly single people
like you
who don’t have the time to waste on frivolous conversation.

PAULIE GEE’s

https://pauliegee.com/greenpoint/

347-987-3747

60 Greenpoint Ave @Franklin St

Brooklyn, NY 11222

Dine In Only

Paulie Gee’s Slice Joint

110 Franklin St @Noble St

Brooklyn, NY 11222

A Single Ingredient: Sugar

A summer evening festival, a blur of white skipped past me in the under the string of lights,

dressed like it was her first communion or her wedding day. 

But she was only 6 years old and so was I.

And I stopped her for the most important of reasons,

“You’ve got sugar on your face!” I said.

Stopping, she looked me and right in the eye and then said something of grave importance. 

I didn’t understand her.

Her voice was Portuguese,

familiar but just out of reach.

A lullaby language, words my mother and aunts used, but not as items I could understand.

They were just sounds, as familiar and as foreign as the Festa, or festival,

the same kind they had multiple times of year. 

There is a Christmas kind of gathering,

and one for Easter,

and one where they parade a statue,

and one where they cover the streets with flower petals,

and one where you wait in the hot sun to share soup sitting on picnic tables.

But most every festival had malassadas (“under-cooked”) also known as fried dough.

Our grandmothers wouldn’t make it at home, at least not MY Vovo.

She saved her dough for Massa Sovada, fresh every week,

for the family to eat for dessert with butter.

Grown-ups were even harder to understand than Portuguese words,

but butter seemed like an adult’s version of sugar; a coating for the basics. 

I put my hand to my cheek and then- so did she.

It was like looking into a mirror.

She brushed her cheek and said something else.

“Obrigada,” she said in Portuguese and then “Thank you,” with an accent I wished I had.

And then she skipped off, comfortable in two languages, with a little less sugar on her face.

And left me standing, alone.

Thoreau/Twain in Concord

I'm happy to report that the performance of Thoreau/Twain: Brothers in the River for the Thoreau Society was a tremendous success.

Brent Rinalli, Tammy Rose and Joel Hersh

The main performers were Brent Rinalli, who has been in and around Concord giving lectures and historical interpreting as Thoreau for the past few years and Joel Hersh, a local actor known for his varied musical ability-played Twain.

The main conceit of the show is that an Academic is trying to summon the spirits of the authors, to have them discuss a major, and underexplored parallel of their lives.  Both of them had a deep relationship with a brother on the river of their childhood, and both of them lost that brother to a sudden event. This happened before either of them began to write-but both found inspiration in their brothers and documented the influences strongly in their writings.

The authors -who had never met in real life- get deep into conversation, about their lives, commonalities they share-and especially their brothers. Most of the text of the play is taken directly from journals, letters and the formal published writings of the authors-and their contemporaries. They argue with each other using their own words and get a chance to recount a major emotional moment in their lives. (No pop-psychology or therapy here-the drama comes directly from their own words and existing texts).

Thanks to the Thoreau Society and to all the amazing and attentive attendees!  Especially those who took pictures and gave me feedback on new areas to explore between the two!

And extra special thanks to my fellow Tourguides who make all the research and the entire experience of Concord SO MUCH FUN!!!

Thoreau/Twain: Brothers on the River at the Thoreau Annual Gathering, Semi Annual Thoreau Play

Thoreau/Twain: Brothers on the River

Masonic Hall, 

58 Monument Sq, 

Concord, MA

Wednesday, July 10, 2019

7pm

(immediately after the performance of "HDT's Heroic Journey")

https://www.thoreausociety.org/annual-gathering#Wed

"Be thou my Muse, my Brother--,"

A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers

Both Henry David Thoreau and Samuel Clemens were by the deathbeds of their beloved brothers.  What happens when one brother is left on the river, and the other has to complete the rest of the journey in life alone?

Come see Henry David Thoreau and Mark Twain meet under new and unusual circumstances; a meeting that never happened in history. Finally, both have a chance to recognize and reconcile their parallel journeys. 

Primary texts of the play are taken directly from primary sources including A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers & Life on the Mississippi, as well as from journals & letters from the authors themselves.

Written by

Tammy Rose

and Henry David Thoreau

and Samuel Clemens

One

Vulnerability

=======

Maybe Writing is Being a Goldilocks

Imagine a writer, thinking herself into insanity. Trying one thing after another-too hot, too cold. Waiting until she can find the thing that is Just Right:

"Okay, so at one point after college, I realized I was a Writer-I had always identified myself as one, always did research and readings, kept a journal, etc-but I realized I hadn't WRITTEN.

So I literally began at my beginning.

I started doing Blogs. And Plays. And Short Stories. TV Pilots, Novels. And lately, I've also started doing Satire.  Short pieces which focus on humor, on a good idea that gets developed-and also gets workshopped among you and your closest writing partners.

New York has hosted several of my pieces, and I've been proud to help others bring theirs forward (helping to produce is helping to pay it forward in your own "work")

Everything feels natural to each of the medium (media), but it's about persistence.  And if something is not working, not breaking through, I'm willing to try the NEXT GENRE-the next pattern of storytelling.  Because it IS all the same urge, just coming out in different frames and formats."

NYC fights back against Amazon!

I think it was everyone's secret hope-I know it was mine-that Amazon would change its mind about moving its headquarters to NYC-specifically LIC.

Not just one area, not just LIC-but Greenpoint, and the 7 train and the G, and the LIRR-and all the other parts of the city that would be overburdened by YET ANOTHER wave of young hopefuls heading to the city, wanting to work for a tech giant.

Prayers were answered.

Now we get to go back to the normal pace of complaints about general decline. ;)

Documenting the Decline

At one point in the future, Greenpoint will have become the neighborhood it is growing into.

As of today, it is still in a weird transition.

On the same day, they listed 2 pieces of news in the hyper-local online sites.

First, our favorite restaurant is closing after 20 years (because that is the life expectancy of a joint in this hood?).
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/enids-in-greenpoint-to-close-at-the-end-of-march/
This is a year after Matchless closed, another great bar that defined the nightlife of this neighborhood.

And second, there was a piece of hate mail sent to a couple who are running a business out of their home.  It was anti-semitic and anonymous (of course), and the funny part is-the couple isn't even JEWISH!!!

So what does that mean-were they targeted by stupid bigots (yes-that's certainly contributing), were they assuming that because one of them was Mexican/Cuban and the other was Italian. was it sheer terror or foreigners? In a Polish neighborhood?-With Williamsburg next door, can they not even IDENTIFY who they hate-or are they trying to target hipsters?

is the neighborhood shifting in ways that are freaking people out? Yes. But go to one of the local places and celebrate, while you still can. And be nice to your neighbors. Please.