I am a real sucker for an expertly concocted, deliciously dangerous cocktail.  The kind that dances around your tastebuds and might cause a sudden eyebrow raise or a guttural purr.  The kind you sip, savor, then swallow… and realize, depending on whether or not you ate before starting in, that you may not be prepared to finish because you’re already drunk.  Angel’s Share is my favorite place to get these kinds of cocktails, because they never, ever disappoint.  It also happens to be, among the “secret” “she-she” speakeasy cocktail bars, the oldest and most affordable.  Their drinks are also my baseline of comparison for whether or not a cocktail is worth its two shakes.  Why drink this, when you can drink this or even this?

However, no self-respecting restaurant with great food is going to ignore the drinks that accompany it, and one of my favorite boozy pastimes is to sidle up to a restaurant bar and snack while imbibing.  The older I get, the more I prefer a dimly lit restaurant with conversational ambiance to screaming over music that I usually hate in a crowded, standing-room-only bar.  Macondo, the dressed-down sibling of the fantastic Rayuela, is always a favorite, especially if you can snag an outdoor bar seat on a nice day.

I don’t remember which two cocktails these are exactly, because the drinks did their duty well…  But I do know that over my five years in New York, I’ve tried them all.  And most of the seasonal tacos (Hello, Short Rib!), and the skirt steak as well.  It has never let me down, and is always worth the wait.

Try something with a smoked salt rim.

Reunion – Day 5

Sunday was July 4 itself and my gracious hosts brought me out to the sticks to their family home for dinner.  Lucky for me, they ground their own approximation of the Pat LaFrieda burger mix and made St. Louis gooey butter cake to bring for dessert.  I pretty much ate only that the entire day.

That night at Essence festival was my very reason for attending.  Mary J. Blige was headlining, with none other than Jill Scott opening for her.  Two of the most incredible voices of our times.  Jill tore the house down and Mary built it right back up.  Jill channeling Isaac Hayes or George Clinton with crazy pychedlic 70s fashions and silhouetted go-go dancers, with a marvelous Afro, dancing and laughing and being her all around radiant self.  And being at a Mary J. Blige concert is like being in church.  Laughing, crying, celebrating, and most importantly singing along every single word.  The entire audience – all 50,000 concertgoers – clings to and sings every single word, probably just like they do in their cars, showers, or anywhere else.  I didn’t take any pictures.  I was literally caught up in the rapture of the moment. (Except when I was elbowing chicks in the VIP for the chicken satay.)  It didn’t disappoint!

La Frieda Burger + Fries @ Black Market, East Village

La Frieda Burger + Fries @ Black Market, East Village

I used to spend many a late night at the Tiki Bar in the basement of Niagara right next to Black Market…  As well as in the Pizza Shop next door that now houses Black Market.  I was worried that they’d gone all “grown up” at first, but then I had the burger. Delicious, although that’s the least I’d expect from a LaFrieda patty.  Not necessarily as “hypeworthy” as folks exclaimed in the beginning, but I’ll take it, especially to line my stomach before those delicious cocktails at Lovers of Today…  I’ll be back for oysters.  I appreciate these guys, all in all the upgrades seem only to contribute to that most elusive of nightlife goals…  to get the singleton laid.

Have you ever danced in the streets until 6:00 AM on the third day of a 72 hour binge of sleepless excess?  Have you ever gorged to the point of nausea, walked it down for a few hours and then – impossibly – eaten and drank again?  Have you ever spent days reposing in bed, postponing every thought of responsibility and care while you lazily nibble a lover’s affections?  Pushed the limits of your physical and emotional ability to feel and reveled in the frailty of the overextended nerve ending?

The dank humidity hanging from the lush gardens of New Orleans creates a mystical aura of slow, confident calm…  invincibility at times.  It is a place where time slips away unnoticed because you can see, hear and taste each minute in the bud of a magnolia flower, the cadence of a marching band, the juices of a crawfish head.  Subsequently there is a sense of detachment, in the moment, from the consequences of one’s actions that can be gleefully entertaining at best, and woefully tragic at worst.

While growing up as a local, there was always a mysterious allure to the nighttime that called for me even as my staunchly religious family resisted most of the secular traditions the city reveled in.  My great-grandfather was a jazz musician, a trumpet or trombone player if I remember correctly, and was perpetually partially-employed.  Great-grandmother was a shrew of a woman who never held her tongue and lashed with both words and physical objects, turning to religion as a respite from the hardships which came from a “sinful” life of pursuing a career in art or music.  While my grandmother and her brother were mostly obedient and pursued stable careers in teaching and public service, my grand-aunt took up the family mantle and plunged headlong into nightlife entertainment.

Listen: LaVergne Smith – Stormy Weather

My grand-aunt LaVergne Smith – the New Orleans Nightingale – was a celebrated pianist and songstress on Bourbon Street for many years, for whom my grandmother sewed costumes and in general disapproved of her lifestyle choices.  She recorded a number of albums with Savoy Records in the 50s and enjoyed a successful career until it was largely derailed by alcoholism and abusive relationships.  I never got a chance to meet her as she passed away shortly after I was born due to complications from years of alcohol abuse.  However, I was told that she held me once before she died…  and I’m sure that she imparted into me not only a fever for showbusiness that took me years to shake as well as an affinity for “the sauce”, but a curiosity for all of the things that the nighttime streets of NOLA could offer up.

And so, after spending my adolescence training to become a professional dancer and safely ensconced in a religious bubble of spiritual pursuit, even to the point of preparing for ordination, I moved onto campus at university and plunged headlong myself into challenging my own spiritual, emotional, and physical boundaries as I attempted to navigate my identity as a young adult.  I shaved my head, “lost my mind” many times over (abandoning a pre-ND biochemistry major for Dance and Women’s Studies), and indulged in experiences that challenged every notion I had of what was right and proper.  Eventually I became involved in nightlife promotion and made a career of going out, throwing parties, and the wasting of brain cells until such a point when I cried out for divine intervention, because the fruitless frenzy I’d whipped my life into had begun to take its toll.  That’s when Hurricane Katrina happened, and snapped everything back into perspective.

Moving to New York, I was exposed to a level of purpose and responsibility that I’d never known, and it was invigorating.  This is a place of limitless possibility, if only you can get through the first year without being “thrown off the horse”.  It was at this point in time that my entrepreneurial thirsts were rekindled, and managed to find gainful – a.k.a. salaried with benefits – employment while attending evening classes to get my MBA.  The luck of my opportunity was that I was able to work in marketing and business development for a hospitality technology company, meaning that I was able to get paid to research and stalk the owners of the hottest new restaurants and bars in NYC in hopes of selling them very expensive software before they opened the doors.  Not only was I getting paid to eat and drink my way through the city, but I was also developing an encyclopedic knowledge of where to eat and party in NYC.  After 3.5 years there, I’ve moved on to various and sundry things that are still unfolding in the most exciting ways, but my personal obsession with restaurants and nightlife persists in a way that has led me to writing this blog.

All that said, I’m 28 years old, skipping along on my merry way around the Capitol of the World, having the time of my life…  tag along!

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