Time and book promotion marches on!

First of all, keeping up with Tracey and me, especially in our promotion of Cocktail Therapy, is like a game of “Where’s Waldo”? Simon & Schuster flew us to Chicago in September, where we appeared on the show “In the Loop” with iVillage Live. Live being the operative word: no screwing up allowed. I was characteristically a nervous wreck, but we had a blast and everyone LOVED our segment. Then we did two amazing events with a non-profit called Fertile Hope (www.fertilehope.org), which we both heartily support, first in San Francisco and the next one in the cool city of Austin, TX, where we drank beer, listened to music and watched football. Austin is, according to one t-shirt, “a small little drinking town with a live music problem.” Just our style.

Speaking of drinking, last night, Tracey and I were enjoying (read: slugging back) some wine at a little place called Turks and Frogs with our friends Dale, Vida, and Katie. We started talking about how we’re getting older. It’s weird—we’re all in the vicinity of thirty (I turn the big 3-0 in February)—but instead of getting freaked out and Botoxed and sharpening our cougar claws, we all agreed that there’s a certain confidence and contentment that settles in around this age, when a person really knows who she is and what makes her happy.

“Would you ever want to be twenty-one again?” Vida asked.

“No!” we all answered in unison.

But then again, just because I’m almost thirty doesn’t mean I don’t enjoy dancing on the occasional table. I’m not saying I did or did not do that last night, but it’s a distinct possibility.

Happy Labor Day!

Where does the summer go? Amidst all of the exciting things that have been going on (more on that in a minute!), Tracey and I spent the last couple of weekends (since my return from my Parisian sojourn) out in the Hamptons. We always have the best time when we’re on the east end – and this weekend was no exception: barbecues, beach, water-skiing on Montauk Lake...

It’s funny, though—back in the day, we would have raged every night until 4am, been up bright and early and on the beach all day (perhaps even knocking back a few Bud Lights in between sets of frisbee, football and Kadima) until we had to had to go to work at the Star Room, Resort, and/or the Talkhouse. Now, our weekends are admittedly a little more staid—cooking huge, delicious dinners and drinking lots of wine with our significant others and another couple or two, and then playing Trivial Pursuit.

My, how we’ve grown!

But now back to the really exciting stuff. Cocktail Therapy (www.givemecocktailtherapy.com) is flying off the shelves, and we are over the moon! There’s been a huge media response: check out http://www.nydailynews.com/lifestyle/food/2007/08/10/2007-08-10_sips_and_the_city-2.html and http://www.foodandwine.com/blogs/mouthing-off/Cocktails?startRow=11 for starters. We also have a few events on tap, which promise to be amazing.

First, on September 20th, Simon & Schuster is flying us off to Chicago, where we’ll appear on the TV/online hybrid talk show “In the Loop” with iVillage Live (http://intheloop.ivillage.com/). If Tracey and I have our way, we will fit a little Q.T. with Oprah—keep your fingers crossed!

Then, we partnered up with Saks Fifth Avenue and an amazing non-profit called Fertile Hope (www.fertilehope.org), which was started by our friend Lindsay, to do two events in San Francisco and Austin (Oct. 19th and 20th, respectively). Basically, it’s a great shopping event where Saks donates a percentage of proceeds from sales to Fertile Hope. Then, in addition to the thrilling appearance/reading/signing by your two favorite authors, there will be DJ’s, food, and of course, cocktails. We will post more information on these events in the next couple of weeks.

Next, save the date: October 11 is our official launch party for Cocktail Therapy here in Manhattan. If you don’t receive the email invite in the next week or so, check back here—we will update with the party details.

Also, we have been guests on several Sirius radio shows. We had a great time drinking sangria with Candace Bushnell, while dishing about the book. And Maxim radio and Cosmo radio were both tremendous experiences – we are now campaigning for our own call-in radio show!

That’s all for now. Now that Tracey and I are back in business (and in the same city again), our updates will be much more frequent. Thanks for your support!!

It’s a Love/Hate Thing

I’ve been coming to the Hamptons since I was a kid. My parents used to drive us out on lazy Sundays in the fall and we’d get black-and-white ice cream sodas at the Bridgehampton Candy Kitchen, play on the beach, and come home with bushels of locally grown apples. My dad always hated the traffic, but it was so beautiful out there – the harmonious combination of lush woods, expansive farms, and long stretches of pristine white beaches – that I never seemed to mind sitting squished in the backseat between my brother and sister for the long car ride.

For the last five summers, I’ve gotten share houses with friends and have continued to enjoy the East End. But lately (especially on busy holiday weekends), I’ve been feeling a little turned off by the “Hampton-ness” of it all. I may be over a hundred miles away from bustling Manhattan, but Main Street in East Hampton during a holiday weekend is more congested and obnoxious than any intersection in New York City.

Yesterday, on my way to East Hampton Gym, it took me forty minutes to find parking and once I was inside (after paying the hefty $25 daily fee), the gym was so packed that all of the equipment was taken. Eventually an older woman with an insanely in-shape body, vacated a stair-master and I climbed on. I was about three minutes into my workout when I looked up and realized I was exercising right next to Karolina Kurkova. Trust me, there is nothing like being in the presence of a Victoria’s Secret model to make you go that “extra mile” so to speak. Plus, all the women in the gym were decked out in designer workout clothes, and I felt like a real rag-a-muffin in my decades-old t-shirt and Old Navy shorts.

Then on my journey back to my car I watched an older man (at least seventy-years-old) trying to back out of his coveted parking space near Citarella. A thirty-something man in a flashy Maserati pulled right up behind him to make sure he got the spot, but he was so close that the old man couldn’t back out. “Can you please back up a few feet so I can get out?” The old man asked.

The guy in the Maserati shouted back, “Go fuck yourself!”

I couldn’t believe it. How disgustingly rude, inappropriate and uncalled for. I was finally understanding why so many people say they hate the Hamptons (one good friend of mine actually owns a t-shirt that says “FUCK THE HAMPTONS!”)

That evening, a group of my friends and I boarded the ferry bound for Shelter Island so we could check out Andre Balaz’s hotel bar, Sunset Beach. The place was a mob scene. We had to park literally a mile away and when I asked the hostess if I could put my name in for a table she said, stone-faced, “Reservation?”

“No,” I said.

“Hotel guest?”

Again I said, “No.”

“Not in this lifetime.” Was her reply.

I called my husband to tell him that I, too, am starting to hate the Hamptons and never want to spend another summer out there again. “Why do we come here?” I implored. “We should just stay in Manhattan. It’s crowded and the people here are so rude and entitled and I HATE IT!”

He calmed me down, saying that it’s only because it’s a holiday weekend and that it will clear out soon enough. He also helped me to realize how ridiculous I was being, and urged me to gain some perspective. If my biggest problem is that I have trouble finding parking when I go to the gym on my weekend in the Hamptons, than I am a very lucky person indeed.

That night, some friends and I got a bottle of Pinot Noir, some cheese and bread and tiny grape tomatoes from the farmer’s market and had a picnic on the beach. The sun was setting, the sky was lavender, and the beach was surprisingly empty. As I sprawled out on the sand, staring out at the ocean, I got it. This is why we all come here. The trick is to avoid East Hampton town and Sunset Beach at all costs!

BONJOUR FROM PARIS!

I am spending a couple of months, all alone, in this tres magnifique city, doing some writing and research for my NYU thesis, and Tracey and I thought it would be fun if I did a couple of dispatches about life—and the world of food and drink—from across the pond. Right now, I am sitting upstairs at a café on the Rue Vieille du Temple in the hip Marais district (sort of a mix between New York’s west and east villages, with old-world European architectural grandeur and narrow, windy, cobblestone streets thrown in!), sipping tea, enjoying the light breeze wafting in through the French doors I am sitting in front of.

Speaking of cafes, the very first thing I noticed about Paris was that no one here walks around with a disposable cup of coffee. And I mean no one—I haven’t seen a single soul carrying one in the week I’ve been here. In New York it’s de rigeur for every other person I see on the street (including me, admittedly) to be carrying a cup from Starbucks or their local coffee shop, but not here. Why? A slower pace of life (c’est possible, even in a big, cosmopolitan city!), less of an inclination for disposability, but most importantly, the preponderance of a serious café culture.

In Paris, cafes are as ubiquitous as Wal-marts are at home. Actually, probably way more so, but you get my point. And it gets better: once you sit down in a café, you never, ever have to rush—it’s commonplace for a person to savor a café au lait or an espresso for an hour or more. That happens so rarely in New York and the rest of our country. People in big U.S. cities seem to be in so much more of a hurry, and there’s also the factor that servers in America rely upon tips for their income, so it’s in their best interest to turn tables over as fast as possible, after, of course, inflating checks as much as possible (“What before dinner cocktails/bottle of wine/after dinner drinks/dessert would you like?”). In Paris, there is a service charge included in every check (although much to the chagrin of my French friends, I always tip more!), and people in the service industry here make a set salary, which is even higher than the French minimum wage (which in turn, suffice it to say, is much higher than the appallingly low U.S. minimum wage). All of this makes for happier, more relaxed servers, and more importantly, gives Le Parisienne license to linger.

At home in New York, I only have one place downtown where I feel the freedom to sit for hours, drinking only tea, bothered by no one, and before I left, it became my daily breakfast and lounging go-to. Of course it’s called Les Deux Gamin!

Each café in Paris has a slew of as many chairs as possible squeezed into one area, most of them facing out toward the street, and people sit in them all day along; Everyone has equal access to the energy of passersby, of which there are what seem like hundreds, even on tiny, quiet side streets. And yet another great thing about Paris I've noticed, too, by the way, is that when you sit at cafes and have a coffee, tea or glass of wine, they always bring you a little bowl of something delectable to snack on. Forget peanuts or chips or pretzels. Last night it was little squares of home-made spinach and cheese quiche, and the other night at another cafe it was warm olives and little potatoes with toothpicks in them. Yum! It makes the wine taste so much better.

Also, here, wine and champagne are cheap and damn good: a kir is the same price as a Coca-Cola (3.50 euros), and a glass of vin rouge is the same price as a Lipton the vert (4 euros). Even the cheapest wine in a dive bar is inexplicably good. I wouldn’t walk into Spring Street Lounge or the Hog Pit in Manhattan and order a Cotes du Rhone or a Rose, but here, I do, and it’s delicious. Whether that’s me or the wine, I don’t know, but does it matter? I am happy.

Maybe that’s the reason for the café culture: it’s affordable for everyone to drink wine for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Yet, I regularly walk by plenty of people happily sipping on just cokes and coffees amidst the wine drinkers. I think part of this, too, is that Parisians certainly like their vin et bierre—I can bear witness to the fact that they drink it all day long—but the café culture supersedes day drinking or over-the-top imbibing. It is about socializing, sitting around comfortably, and lapping up life. So the reason I have yet to see a person carrying a to-go cup of coffee is simply that a staple of life here is having every beverage out somewhere, preferably with friends, even if it’s when you don’t have tons of time; in other words, taking (at least) a few minutes to enjoy something. Living in Paris, I am starting to understand the meaning of joie de vivre. And I am drinking it up!

Can't Keep My Mouth Shut
by Tracey Toomey

Everyone that knows me will tell you that I like to talk. A lot. Part of the reason why I enjoyed bartending was because I could interject my opinions into other people’s conversations. I always had a captive audience. Well, my bartending days are now a whiskey-soaked memory, but I still feel the urge to put my "two cents" in when I overhear a conversation. I realize this sounds obnoxious – not only am I eavesdropping, but I also think my opinions are so valid that I’m doing someone a disservice if I don’t share them. To avoid not coming off as an insufferable know-it-all, I’ve learned to keep my mouth shut, but sometimes it’s downright painful for me.

Case in point: this weekend I was on the North Fork with my husband, Matt, visiting some vineyards and doing a little wine tasting. It was a seventy-degree day filled with radiant sunshine, and the verdant farms of the north shore stretched as far as the eye could see. I was in an excellent mood – relaxed, glad to be out of the city, and (full disclosure) more than a little buzzed. After visiting several vineyards and (much to Matt’s chagrin) a goat farm where we tasted a variety of different goat cheeses and even goat fudge (yes, I realize this sounds gross), and purchased some over-priced handmade goat soaps and goat lip balm, we headed over to the North Fork Table and Inn where we had a reservation for dinner. Housed in a residence that dates all the way back to 1771, we settled in for some of the best food I’ve had in years (if you make it out there, don’t miss the duo of beef with truffled mashed potatoes – it’s amazing). Anyway, seated at the table right next to us was a young couple dining with an older couple (presumably the young man’s parents). They sat down after us, and when the waiter came over to take their drink order, the older man ordered a bourbon and ginger ale, and I heard the young man say rather authoritatively, "You know what makes bourbon, bourbon, right? It’s made in Kentucky."

I cringed. It took every iota of discipline in me to not shout back, "No, you’re wrong! While most bourbons are produced in Kentucky, bourbon can legally be made anywhere in the US. As long as whiskey is made with at least 51% corn and is distilled to no more than 160 proof and aged in new charred oak barrels for a minimum of two years, it can be called bourbon."

I shared these facts with my husband. Now it was his turn to cringe. "You’re just dying to go over there and set him straight, aren’t you?" Matt commented.

He knows me too well.

I turned back to my beef (which was so tender it was literally falling apart on my fork), and my big glass of Zinfandel, just as I heard the young man say, "And you know why some whiskey is called rye, right? Because it’s made in Canada."

Also wrong! I gritted my teeth and tried my best to ignore the misinformed man when I heard him tell the table that there really "is no difference between Johnny Walker and McCallan, because they are both scotch."

I restrained myself from loudly proclaiming the enormous differences between blended scotches and single malts. Matt, noticing my strained expression said, "So he doesn’t know what he’s talking about. Why do you care?"

I took a generous sip of the velvety Zinfandel and responded, "If you were standing at a bar and the person next to you said that the Declaration of Independence was signed in 1775, wouldn’t you be dying to correct him?"

Matt just laughed and rolled his eyes. Apparently not everyone is as eager to share their knowledge as I am. I did my best to tune out the neighboring table’s conversation for the rest of the evening, which was easy to do once our waiter delivered a warm chocolate caramel tart and I had something far more worthy of my attention.

Before the onslaught of the monsoon last weekend, I, along with the boyfriend, went to visit some friends in the wilds of western Connecticut. At first it was downright shocking: my lungs had forgotten what it was like to breathe clean air, and my ears rang for the first few hours for the lack of cars, buses, sirens, and people screaming in them. And as I was getting out of the car, my feet landed on something besides concrete (grass!) and my poor, confused legs almost buckled. (But after I got over the astonishment of experiencing actual relaxation for the first time in many months, I really enjoyed myself!). Anyway, all this is to say that sometimes we New Yorkers at times hold the mistaken conception that the world revolves around the Big Apple: but once again, I was pleasantly surprised.

On the second day of my journey to Wonderland, I mean Washington, CT, we ventured out (after a rain-soaked hike!) to have a Bloody Marys and burgers at this beautiful little inn called the Mayflower. The bartender was warm and professional…and served us a little slice of heaven (see below), which immediately made me forget my waterlogged shoes and sopping jacket. I took a sip and felt like I was on the beach in Miami, where, incidentally, Tracey and I will be reposing together in one week!

The “Double AA”:
Combine about 1/3 can of cream of coconut with ice, and a few generous splashes of tropical juices (I loved the combination of papaya, pineapple, cranberry and tangerine). Don’t forget the Bacardi, blend, and serve.

Cheers: April showers bring Miami flowers!

SAINT PATRICK'S DAY!

Saint Patrick’s Day is like Christmas for us. We get a chance to celebrate our Irish heritage, eat corned beef, and drink green beers to our heart’s content. The weather doesn’t seem like it’s going to be cooperating, but after a few Irish whiskies, no one seems to mind if a wintry mix of snow, sleet and rain is pouring from the skies.

When it’s truly freezing and you need a remedy for the chill, we suggest an Irish coffee. They’re easy to make and so warm and delicious, it will immediately put you in the St. Patty’s spirit. After all, everyone is Irish on March 17th!

IRISH COFFEE
1 ½ ounces of Jameson Irish Whiskey
4 ounces of strong brewed coffee
½ cup of heavy whipping cream
1 ½ tsp of sugar (or to taste)
In a mug combine hot coffee and whiskey. In a cold shaker pour in heavy whipping cream and sugar and shake until cream becomes thick – don’t over-whip or you’ll end up with butter! Top the coffee mixture with the sweetened whipped cream. Enjoy!
ERIN GO BRAUGH!