Hawleyblog

The Last Flowers of Summer and the First Flowers of Fall

A few weekends ago, when Matt and Mike were visiting, I got some cockscomb and cosmos, because the guys both liked one of them. They went together better than this not-so-great picture would indicate.

The next weekend, I bought and "arranged" another example of the mishmash of sunflowers that I'm so fond of.

The next weekend was all about the peonies.

Then I got some gorgeous dark-red and white dahlias.

Two weekends ago, my usual flower people at the Saturday Greenmarket had a whole lot of dried hydrangeas.

I paired up my favorite combo of the summer, orange calendulas and yellow plumed celosia.

Some of the calendulas had bright-red centers. They brought to mind those butter cookies with the jam in the center.

They were my last flowers of the summer.

The first flowers of fall this past Saturday were these frilly marigolds.

A Post in Which I Turn 40, Part IV

Even I'm pretty tired of posts about my stupid birthday, but let me finish on a high note with a supercolossal photo post.

First up, Abbe's beautiful and delightful homemade card and little flower vase. I love the swirly shades of blue in the vase. And that's Abbe and me on the card.

And those are Zane's snazzy cards.

Some of the dozens of magnets on Gran's refrigerator. The words on the bear's belly-strained sweater are: "Today I diet!"

Several of the magnets are from places Dad, Tracey, and I have traveled to. Or a ship we've (I've) sailed on.

I gave Granny this magnet back when my ex Steve and I had the B&B/organic farm. That's a Nubian goat, one of two breeds of dairy goat we raised. "Take Time to Stop and Eat The Roses." There was a lot of wild rose growing on the farm, and the goats would indeed eat it, thorns and all.

And this is a magnetized picture on Dad and Jean's fridge: That's me with Suzie, one of our Alpine does.

Part of the stuffed-animal menagerie on Gran's bed, most of which were bought by Tracey and me.

And the other part of the menagerie.

And speaking of animal menageries, here are my woofers at the bottom of the staircase at Granny's house.

My steak and fries at 12th Street

And finally, my ice cream dessert at 12th Street, with a single birthday candle

A Post in Which I Turn 40, Part III

The next morning, Sunday, my actual birthday, Dad came over to Granny's with coffee. After a while, he said, "An 8?" And it took me a few seconds to realize he was questioning why I didn't give the Franklinville Inn a higher number. It wasn't the best meal I've ever had, I said, and I told him about some of my complaints. He came up with the analogy of figure skating judges who don't give really high scores to the skaters who come before the last few because they have to allow room for even better performances. Indeed. And, I should have pointed out to him, you don't think the FI's desserts are up to snuff, so even you shouldn't give it a 10.

After a while, I left for Brooklyn. But first I took a picture of Dad and Gran in front of my rental car, which was a fun-to-drive PT Cruiser.

And here's a photo of my co-pilot for the return trip.

Bob and Jen took me to 12th Street Bar & Grill, one of my favorite restaurants in the neighborhood, for dinner. First, though, we went to Big Nose Full Body, and they told me to pick out any bottle I wanted. A $1,000 wine was listed on a chalkboard in the store; not that one, Bob said.

I selected the 2005 Charmes de Kirwan Margaux, a Bordeaux that the shelf talker said was an amazing value at 57 bucks. It also said: "A big and bold wine from Chateau Kirwan's second label. Wonderful berry fruit with assertive tannins and a touch of spicy oak." Sold! (Although it turns out, $57, while not a bad price, doesn't seem like a steal for this wine, even in New York.)

Our next stop was Brookvin, a wine bar across the street from BNFB that was recently opened by the wine store's owner. I had a glass of 2006 Weniger Zweigelt that I enjoyed. Jen got a glass of 2008 João Portugal Ramos Loios, an "easy-drinking" (per the wine list) fruity wine that I enjoyed my taste of; it was made from three traditional Portuguese red grapes: Aragonés, Trincadeira, and Castelão. I wasn't too fond of the wine Bob chose: 2005 Château de Caladroy Les Schistes, a "concentrated, earthy wine with hints of leather and tobacco on top of black fruit."

Here's Jen at Brookvin:

And Bob:

After we'd finished our glasses of wine, we walked to 12th Street for our 7:30 reservation. Bob had told me that the original plan was to go to Double Windsor, a new gastropub on Prospect Park West in Windsor Terrace that's partly owned by the husband of Abbe's 2nd-grade teacher. But it hadn't opened yet. And you can never go wrong at 12th Street.

I started with a Boston lettuce salad with a red wine vinaigrette and continued with a steak—medium, please—and fries with the seasonal vegetable, which the waitress said she thought was a combination of spinach and escarole, which made for the third escarole encounter at a restaurant in three days. But I couldn't taste anything but spinach in the green stuff that came with my delicious meat and potatoes.

Jen got the P.E.I. Mussels in curry broth to start and Moroccan Spiced Lamb over cous-cous and carrots for the entrée. I didn't write down what Bob had for the appetizer, but his entrée was one of the specials: Shoemaker's Chicken, which had some kind of sausage and a risotto incorporated into it.

Bob had told me a little while ago that he had to stop looking at Dan's picture on my blog because he was digging how Dan looked a little too much. He joked that if his big bluegrass-singer crush Alison Kraus weren't available to jump out of his cake when he turns 40 next month, Dan can do it. :-)

Here's a picture of the three of us at 12th Street that our waitress took for me:

(I did the red-eye reduction thing, but I thought I looked sillier with jet-black eyes than I did with the redness, so I kept it the way it was.)

The wine that I'd picked out at BNFB was quite good. It was followed by another enjoyable red:(UPDATE on Oct. 3) that I selected from 12th Street's list and that I failed to make a note of. And 12th Street's Web site doesn't show its wine list, so I got no idea. Until I go back again, at which time I'm sure I'll recognize it when I read it. the 2000 Braren Pauli Frost Reserve Cabernet Sauvignon. I'd taken a picture of the label with my iPhone that I just spotted now.

Anyhow, thanks to everyone who made my birthday weekend so special! In the next few days, I'll create a part IV post with some more photos from that weekend. And then I'll move on to what's happened in my life since I became an old fart. :-)

A Post in Which I Turn 40, Part II

On Saturday morning, Dad brought us coffee from Dunkin' Donuts and danish from my high school employer, Century Bakery. Then I took a bunch of photos of things Gran had taken out of wherever she'd found them. Instead of leaving them in the back bedroom like she usually does, this time she'd put them on the stairs leading up to the bedrooms.

Here's an envelope containing ...

... hair collected from my first barber-shop haircut in April 1971.

One of my Dad's old trumpet books

Two photos of the original basset hound in the family: Murray

An article from the Bridgeton Evening News dated Sept. 30, 1963, with the headline "New A&P Opens Tomorrow at 9; Parks 200 Cars." It was the last store my Pop Pop worked in before he retired. I typed the entire story into an iPhone note, retaining the mistakes. The most-pertinent paragraph was the next-to-last one: "Manager Husted said the manager of the meat department is William Hawley; manager of produce department Ronnie Hildreth; dairy manager, Harry Hutchinson and a bookkeeper, Betty Ayars." The story, which was no doubt pretty much a reprinted press release, began: "The new, colonial-type A&P store at Irving avenue and Walnut street, with blacktop parking facilities for 200 cars, swings wide its self-opening doors at 9 o'clock tomorrow morning." The third paragraph: "The giant structure--140 by 140 feet -- is the most modern in merchandising display, featuring a golden-tray bakery section, a 70-foot frozen foods department. and a dietary center."

About 11:30, I called Mom to tell her I was going to be heading over to see her. She asked whether she should tell me what we were going to be having for dessert. Sure, I said. We were going to make banana splits out of Blue Bunny–brand Banana Split Ice Cream. Sounds good, I said.

All day, I'd been jonesing for a stromboli because I'd told Mom when I talked to her earlier that week that I'd like to get one of them when I was visiting with her. When Mom met me outside her building, she asked, "Did you have your heart set on stromboli?" "Well, yeah, I did." Then she said she wanted to treat me to lunch because "you only turn 40 once." And she wanted to try a new place called Cosmopolitan. I said that would be fine (even though I still really wanted a stromboli).

Cosmopolitan turned out to be a large restaurant just beyond Loyle Lanes on Delsea Drive in Vineland. And it seemed like the owners were at least somewhat trying to create the impression of upscale dining: a big sparkling bar and both a fountain and a big honkin' chandelier in the very large dining area where we were seated. And of course, that name. But the menu was pretty much all hot or cold sandwiches. I got a burger that was respectable, and it was served on ciabatta, which was a nice and unusual touch. And the fries that came with it were good. It just seemed to me like the restaurant didn't know what it wanted to be. Or didn't present itself according to the way it actually was, I guess.

Mom also got a burger, which came with soup, not the usual choice of soup or salad. Mom got the Chicken With Escarole, which continued the escarole trend that started at DiLisi. I didn't want both chicken and beef for lunch, especially since I figured I'd most likely be exceeding my meat-only-once-a-day quota at dinner that night as it was. And I didn't like the sound of the other kind of soup, whatever it was, so I got neither.

Back at Mom's place, we made our banana splits. I'd never had Blue Bunny ice cream before. The packaging said it's made in Iowa (as does the BB Web site), so maybe it's a Midwestern brand that's expanded.

I enjoyed my split. We added slices of banana, whipped cream, and maraschino cherries. But Mom didn't have any chocolate syrup. *sigh* The ice cream was vanilla flavored (even though it was colored pink) and had strawberry-banana and chocolate ribbons running through it. And that ribbon was the only thing bananay about it, which seemed a bit like false advertising. It also contained diced bits of pineapple and cherry, plus mixed nuts.

As I've noted before, Mom loves banana-flavored ice cream. And now I know why: She told me that her grandfather, whom I wrote about here—the lima bean–growing, sexy-time-wanting-into-his-90s, holy-rolling preacher man—used to make homemade ice cream, including a wonderful banana-flavored one. And Mom's father, Charles "Chick" Garrison—whom I unfortunately never got to know, because he died not even two months after my sister was born—also was fond of making ice cream. Mom; her sister, Lorene; and her brother, Chuck, would turn the crank of the ice cream maker, in that order, from youngest to oldest. Mom said they eventually got an electric ice cream maker but didn't make it as often after that. I guess they liked the old-fashioned way better. She said they'd make banana too, as well as chocolate, peach, strawberry, and even pineapple.

I'm glad Mom told me those stories about her family's ice cream–making past. It makes me proud to carry on my Grandpop and Great-grandpop's tradition.

I drove back to Granny's house to find that Dad had just taken the woofers for separate walks. While I was gone, he'd also played the trumpet a little bit. Just a little bit, because at the second note, Rudy started howling along. When my Dad stopped, Rudy stopped. And when Dad started up again, Rudy resumed howling. So Dad called it quits. I'm going to have to remember to ask Dad to play when everyone is down at Christmas, so we can all hear Rudy accompanying Dad.

The article about the opening of the A&P prompted Dad to tell some of his favorite stories about Pop and the people who worked for him in the meat department. Pop's best buddy was a man named Frank Bozarth, aka Bozie. (The o is long; his nickname rhymes with mosey.) One time Bozie and another butcher, named Danny Constantino,* stole the car of one of their fellow butchers as a prank and parked it in front of the police department building. A couple of days later, John McGee, the guy whose car was stolen, saw it parked outside police headquarters. He called the police and said to the officer who answered, "I see you found my car." The officer didn't know what John was talking about, and when John said he'd seen it parked in front of the building, the officer said, "Some guy's playin' a trick on you."

Don't feel bad for John. Pop had to intervene to stop him from being fired after he almost made a customer vomit from his shenanigans. A woman wanted some smelts, and John grabbed some from the display, stuck one or more in his mouth, and bit off the head so the entrails were hanging out and slapping him on the cheek. She retched, was understandably very upset, and vowed that she'd never shop in the A&P again.

One time Bozie took all of the guys in the meat department horseback riding. They gave Pop the biggest horse. Like my Dad and me, Pop wasn't fond of heights. He said "Woah" the whole time he was on the horse, as Bozie and the other guys would slap it on the thigh to get it to go faster. He and Bozie laughed their asses off about that day for years afterward.

Dad gave me a little bag with seven Sun Gold tomatoes inside. And some smelt entrails! No, just tomatoes. He said he could have given me three bags of them except almost all of them had cracked open. A lot of them had ripened before a rainy spell that week, and when the plants took up that extra moisture, the tomatoes split. I say Dad should have been out there picking them in the rain. Come on!

Granny said I should breed Rudy. I said it was too late for that but I agreed he would have fathered some great-looking pups. Gran said she'd loved to have one, and Dad told her she was full of shit. Granny does go back and forth between opinions about things rather easily, and it makes sense she'd do that now that she's gotten so forgetful. One minute she's telling you, for not the first time, that she wouldn't want a dog because she wouldn't know what to do with it when she went somewhere, which is silly because, as I've told her—also not for the first time—the only places she visits that aren't right nearby are my apartment and Tracey's home, and we probably wouldn't care if she brought her dog. And the next minute, she's saying she'd love to have a mini Rudy.

That evening, Dad was treating me to dinner at the Franklinville Inn. And I knew he was hoping I'd love it because it's his favorite restaurant. He especially raves about the pre-entrée chopped salad and the stuffed baked potato you can choose as your side dish.

I liked almost everything about my meal. I chose a tomato-basil vinaigrette for my salad, which I enjoyed, although I could have done without all of the shredded cheese. I ordered the petite filet, which was 6 ounces. It was just the right amount of meat, and it was cooked perfectly medium. I got the North Carolina mashed sweet potatoes as my side; it came with a little metal cup of cinnamon butter. I tried Granny's stuffed baked potato; it was very tasty and surely just loaded with dairy products.

For my wine, I had to try the Bordeaux-style blend of cabernet sauvignon, cabernet franc, and merlot produced by Heritage Vineyards in Richwood, New Jersey. My Mom had a cousin named Maier who lived in Richwood, which I just learned now is—like Mullica Hill—part of Harrison Township. Maier and his wife, Kathy, were good people. As was his mother, Hannah, who was Chick's sister. I wish we'd visited M&K—and they'd visited us—more often when we were growing up. They had three kids—Tommy, Terry, and Tracey—around our age (Tracey was in the same grade as my sister Tracey) and then had another daughter, Kara, maybe 10 years after Tracey.

Anyhow, I digress. I enjoyed the wine and got a second glass. Although the waitress didn't call it that, the wine must have been Heritage's Steel Rails Red. And btw, Heritage Web site people: The word you want is spelled p-a-l-a-t-e. What you wrote is something that's moved around with a forklift.

We skipped dessert because we still had plenty of my ice cream at home, and Dad said desserts are the restaurant's weak point. I'll have to try one at a later date. All of us older folks (this excludes Debbie, who turned 30 this year) got decaf. It was a good strong cup of java that I ruined with an immense cube of very light brown sugar; I should have dropped in only a fragment of the cube.

Over coffee, Dad asked me what I thought, and I said the meal was very good. Later, he asked me for a number grade. I said 8, but I would like to revise that to a 7. (Sorry, Dad. Your peer pressure got to me, and I inflated the grade.) And that's not a bad figure at all. I loved the steak and the homemade bread that came out before the salads/soup. And everything else was good or very good.

My qualms are as follows: The menu is overwhelmed by entrées that incorporate lump crab meat, and you're even given the option of adding it to the two chicken dishes! It seems like in South Jersey, when a restaurant is trying to convey classiness, they add crab. And the FI carries this habit to an extreme.

There's also absolutely nothing for vegetarians under either the appetizers or the entrées. And the only salad that's completely without animal flesh is the Spinach Citrus Salad.

I'd also like to see the FI dispense with the parsley garnishes, and I'm weary of the usual South Jersey thing—whether you're in a diner or a higher-end restaurant—of having to choose a side dish from a list. And it inevitably comes out on a literally separate dish, as though it were made in a different kitchen than the meat. I also found the decor to be mostly schlocky, with a few nice pieces of art and historical items mixed in.

That said, I'd really like to go again someday. Maybe next summer around Father's Day. :-)

Debbie drove all of us older folks home since the three of us who knew how to drive had been drinking wine. She turned out of the parking lot and came to a stoplight at the intersection of two roads with another road going off diagonally to the left. Dad was giving her directions from the back seat, and he said, "Go cattywampus." I immediately said, "What the hell does that mean? Go cattywampus!?" Dad indicated that Debbie should turn onto the diagonal road, not make a 90-degree left turn.

Because he'd used such hayseed-sounding language to give that instruction, I, of course, had to yell out my own goofy directions like "Go humpalumpa" or "Turn left at the geziggledyzoinks." Which I'm sure was very helpful to Debbie.

A few days ago, I told this story to Joe, while we were having dinner at Cowgirl; it was our second date. I decided I should look up the word on my iPhone to make sure I wasn't being terribly unfair to Dad. And sure enough, the definition listed for catawampus—which is the preferred spelling in every source in which I've found the word so far—when it's being used as an adverb, is diagonally; obliquely. So I'm sorry, Dad. You used the word correctly. When used as an adjective, it can mean askew; awry or positioned diagonally; cater-cornered. It's that first definition that came to mind for me, and I thought Dad was telling Debbie to drive crazily.

Debbie got a good laugh from everyone when we passed a "gentlemen's club" and she said, "Oh, I have to stop in and get my paycheck." Hah!

*Dad said Danny was as tough as he was short. He umpired a lot of games, and nobody argued much about his calls.

A Post in Which I Turn 40, Part I

I turned 40 yesterday. I wasn't horrified but neither was I terribly happy about that development. Thankfully, I had a busy weekend of fun activities to keep my mind off my age.

I was off on Friday and again today. That's one of the pluses of working for the same company for more than 11 years: lots of paid time off. So suck on that, 25-year-olds! :-)

On Thursday evening, I made the base for my Coffee Ice Cream, which I was going to take to South Jersey mostly for my Dad, who turned 69 seven days before my birthday. He doesn't seem overly freaked out about turning 70 next year, but he's hating the idea that in 11 years, he'll be 80. That's a Hawley for you, worrying about things far in advance!

My original plan was to do my usual Friday pizza night with Bob and Jen, drive to South Jersey on Saturday, and drive back to Brooklyn on Monday. But B&J, forgetting that I was going down to visit family, asked if I was free for a dinner out on Saturday. I asked if they were free on Sunday, and when they said they were, I suggested I could move everything forward a day and so get to share my birthday evening with them. The big meal out Dad was going to treat me to was scheduled for Saturday and couldn't be any other night because that restaurant, the Franklinville Inn, is closed on Sunday and Dad and Jean were going to the train station in Philadelphia on Friday to pick up Jean's daughter Debbie. And I really wanted a nice night out on the actual birthday. Preferably with much imbibing.

On Friday morning, I ran the custard through my ice cream makers and put it in a large plastic container in the freezer so it would completely solidify. So that I could then put it in a soup pot with a bunch of ice cubes and what was left of the Lemon Verbena Ice Cream (that I still plan to write about in my next all-food-and-drink post) and drive it around in the trunk of a car for about 3 hours.

I finished my Labor Day blog post, cleaned up a kitchenful of dishes, ironed some clothes, packed for the weekend, loaded up the car, and got on the road about 3. Which was later than I'd wanted, but I'd ended up having to squeeze everything I wanted to get done "all day Friday" into "Friday before I got on the road."

After I put the ice cream in Granny's freezer and got the dogs fed and settled in at Granny's house, I took her to dinner at DeLisi. I ordered a half portion of Chicken Francaise for each of us, but the waitress brought us two full portions instead. I was very hungry and managed to eat all of mine, plus the roasted potatoes and escarole that came with it. Granny got broccoli instead of escarole because, the waitress said, they had only enough of it for one more plate. Granny was relieved as she had no idea what escarole was. I told her it was an Italian green that's often used in soups, and the escarole on my plate also had some white beans mixed in that I didn't eat because I think beans should replace meat, not accompany it. Because I'm strange that way.

Look at that huge portion of food on Gran's plate. There's no way she could have eaten even half of that. (And I really had no business eating all of mine.) The waitress was somewhat apologetic about having gotten the order wrong, but she still charged me full price for both meals.

After dinner, we went back to Gran's place to retrieve the ice cream and take it over to Dad and Jean's house. They'd actually gotten home from Philly before I arrived in Hopewell.* Dad enjoyed his coffee ice cream, and Jean fed Debbie a spoonful of each of the flavors as she sat on the couch as if she were a baby bird. Debbie was really sleepy because she'd gotten up at about 5:30 that morning. Like Dad, Gran and I both had coffee ice cream only. Dad thought it seemed stronger than usual, and I said I'd used more beans this time—because I had a few more left in the bag than I normally use and figured I'd throw them all in—and a little more sugar than usual because the little extra sugar had made my Mint Chocolate Chip Ice Cream noticeably better.

Dad said something about getting Granny "some kind of plate" at the Franklinville Inn, and I teased him that he literally meant "Yeah, just an empty plate for the old lady." I said, "I know you're Cheap-Ass Bill Hawley From the Sticks, but damn, man."

Jean mentioned that Tom DeLay was going to be on Dancing With the Stars this season, and I said he should be in goddamn jail, not on TV. Jean said we shouldn't talk about politics, and Dad said the old saw about not discussing politics or religion. "Jesus hates Tom DeLay," I said. "Discuss."

*ARROHK, I grew up in Hopewell, which is a suburb of Bridgeton. Our house was on the street behind Granny and Pop Pop's house.

A Post About My Labor Day Weekend and the Day After

I took off last Friday so I'd have a very long Labor Day weekend. I had a very enjoyable date on Friday evening: drinks at a bar in the Village with a guy whom I'd met through an online dating site. He's cute, funny, and interesting. And he's from Milwaukee, so if there's ever a temporary lull in the conversation, we can fall back on singing the theme song from Laverne & Shirley: "We're gonna do it!"

I got back to Brooklyn just in time to have the usual 9-ish pizza dinner with Bob and Jen. The next day, B&J and the kids went to Greenwich, Connecticut, to hang out with their friends who'd moved there just a couple of weeks ago. I was left in charge of feeding B&J's cats, Simon and Mr. Peterson.

That morning around 10, my buddy Glenn texted me to ask whether I wanted to go with him and "two furry guys" to Sandy Hook at noon. I asked him whether that meant, specifically, the nude beach at Sandy Hook. He assumed as much. Chub! I said I'd try to get a dog walker lined up on short notice and I'd get back to him. Rebecca, my fantastic backup dog walker who is often able to humor my last-minute requests because a) she's a doll, b) she lives in the neighborhood, and c) she truly enjoys hanging out with my woofers,* was able to humor me again, so I called Glenn back to let him know I was in. He said I actually had until 12:30, which was when the Zipcar his friend was renting would be available. I ran to the health food store to get some Odwalla Bars, which are my go-to beach snack; washed up; packed my backpack; grabbed my beach umbrella; and headed for the subway.

Glenn's "two furry guys" actually ended up being one furry and cool guy, also from Wisconsin, named Mike Pickles, whom Glenn calls Pickles. The car was supposed to be at a parking lot in Chelsea, but we couldn't find it. While Pickles called the Zipcar people to make sure we were looking for the right kind of car, Glenn and I watched and heard one of the parking lot attendants zip like a bat out of hell toward us in the area where the rentals were parked. The car he was driving was our car.

It was a fun ride toward the shore. We talked a lot about our dogs; Pickles has two and Glenn and his partner, Derrick, have one. And we debated Apollo vs. Helo. Pickles said he'd rather do Helo, and Glenn and I said it was the Bamber all the way. That bod, those eyes, that accent. That bod. Quick, give me somethin' to bite on. *chomps on Rudy's tail as Rudy continues to snooze on the love seat* Grrr!

As we approached Sandy Hook, we saw electronic signs along Route 36 East saying that the park was closed and that you had to go to a different beach. We kept heading toward our goal, hoping that it would have reopened by the time we got on the scene. Then there was a sign indicating that Sandy Hook was closed but would reopen at 3. It was a little after 2. Since I was the most familiar with the area, having gone to SH more than Glenn or Pickles, they asked me what I thought we should do. I suggested we could park somewhere, kill some time walking around a town or a strip mall outside SH, and head back in time to hit the entrance to SH at 3. G&P were eager to get to the beach, a beach, and time was a factor because the car had to be back at the lot in Manhattan at 6:30. I said that if we kept following 36 as it made a 90-degree turn and headed south, we'd come across a series of beach towns. The very first town is Sea Bright, and at first, there were a bunch of private beaches with no public parking. And then we passed some public parking lots that were blocked off because they were supposedly full even though you could see some open spots in them. Pickles parked on the street in a two-hour spot, figuring that we shouldn't stay longer than that anyway or risk getting back late, what with the inevitable traffic.

We had to pay $8 apiece to go on the beach. And we had to wear, like, clothing. So I didn't get to see Pickles's pickle.** Or Glenn's gherkin. As I posted on Facebook, "ending up in Sea Bright when you meant to go to Sandy Hook is kind of like ending up in Fresno when you wanted to go to San Francisco." But I still had fun hanging out with the guys. Even if we weren't able to let it all hang out.

 

The guy visible in the background above Pickles's hat had the craziest set of man boobs I've ever seen. He wasn't heavy overall, but he had some low-hanging breastages, let me tell you.

I can't remember whether it was on the way to the shore or the way back to the city, but Pickles mentioned that his father's name was Richard. And that he never went by the name Dick. How could you not call yourself Dick Pickles if your Pickles-last-named parents chose the first name Richard for you?! OK, I understand that would be pretty ludicrous to have as your everyday name. But it sure makes for a fun porn-star name. If I ever achieve my goal of doing porn fall into the porn biz, I'm so gonna call myself Dick Pickles.

The next day, I went to the Gamesters group for the first time in many weeks. Well-traveled Gamesters host Mark had spent several of those weeks in his native state of North Dakota. I made a Blackberry Coffee Cake, aka just Blackberry Cake, which is the same thing as the much-mentioned-on-here Peach Cake, a blueberry version of which I made and took with me when I visited Paul and Dan in Cape May in July. The cake was a hit. When I took it out of my pie holder (so used because I'd baked it in a glass pie plate), I babbled something about the topping not running because I used raw sugar that was much heavier than refined sugar. Only I couldn't think of the words "raw" or "refined." *sigh* You drop globs of the spicy, buttery, sugary topping onto the cake when it's almost done baking, and then it runs over the rest of the cake to cover it completely. This time, the topping hardly spread at all, which actually made it look quite purty. Unfortunately, I didn't take a picture of the completed cake, though my friend and regular Gamester Jack took pictures of the Gamesters ooh-ing and ah-ing over the cake—at Coppola-wannabe Gamesters host Mark's direction. Mark always has everyone do that whenever someone brings something homemade to the gathering. So when he sends out the pix to everyone on the Gamesters e-mail list, I can add one of them here.

Gamester Bill made fun of me for mentioning, in a not terribly erudite way, the topping issue. And later, when I had to leave, I said, "Well, I'm gonna run." And he said, "Like raw sugar." And I said, "No, like refined sugar. You can't even mock me right!" Zing! I mocked the mocker for not mocking me well. Man, I'm such a dork.

I didn't do much on Labor Day itself. Bob and Zane came over for a little while after I ran into them on 3rd Street and Zane insisted that he had to see the inside of my apartment. Even though, of course, he'd seen it before. And of course, once I let Rudy and Emme out of their crates, Zane spent most of his time running away from Rudy's eagerly sniffing nose.

I also made some more meatballs like I made with the Gerber guys. We'd used only a pound of ground beef, so there weren't many left over after our Saturday dinner. I'd finished up the rest and was hankerin' for more.

On Tuesday, after I got done work, Missy and I went to a Kathy Griffin book signing at the Barnes & Noble in Tribeca. This may get my embossed and laminated Officially and Totally Gay card revoked, but I've never seen her Emmy Award–winning reality show on Bravo, My Life on the D-List. I always record and thoroughly enjoy her comedy specials on that gay-friendly network, however, and I loved her as the host of the Joan Rivers roast on Comedy Central. Although I gotta say, I think I laughed the hardest during that show when Greg Giraldo referred to Griffin as "Tranny Bonaduce."

Anyhow, I met Missy, who'd taken that day off, at the store a little before 6:30. She'd already bought me a copy of Griffin's book, Official Book Club Selection, which entitled me to the same green paper wristband Missy had, which said we weren't guaranteed to get to meet Kathy. Those with purple wristbands were guaranteed to meet her, and the group of purple people ended not long before us in the line that snaked throughout the store, though there were also a few of those people behind us. *shrugs*

We waited on the line for a looong time. The store employees said that Kathy was scheduled to leave the store about 8:45 or 9. While we were waiting, Missy and I were able to read good chunks of the book, and it's really a lot of fun. I've continued jumping around in it, and my favorite chapter so far is the one with a bunch of e-mails she and Steve Wozniak sent back and forth to each other when they were sort of dating.

The line was full of the gays. So instead of trying to figure out Which Guys Are Gay Here?, I'd have had to play Spot the Heterosexual Men. Here's a picture of Missy reading while on the line.

We weren't allowed to take photos after we reached a certain point in the line, and the store employees had announced that Kathy would only be signing her name, with no personalization, so she'd be able to get to as many fans as possible. Here's the closest photo I was able to take of her.

When we got up to the signing table, Missy told Griffin that her husband is a big fan of hers but he had to work. Kathy replied something like, "Well, he's straight, though." And Missy said that his friends say he's the gayest straight man they know. Nate does like him some musical theater, it's true.

I greeted Kathy with "Hey, hon." She thanked me for coming, I thanked her for coming to sign her book, and she thanked me for buying the book "or stealing it. Whatever got you here." And I gave her a little wave and a big smile and let her sign the next book. She was very cute in person. Someday, Missy, Nate, and I will have to catch her live.

And to wrap up this post, here, via Joe. My. God., is a clip of Kathy on Jimmy Kimmel's show presenting a trailer for her upcoming Lifetime "film" Kate Is Enough. Hah!

*And why wouldn't she? They're awesome!

**It took me and a team of writers hours to come up with that line. :-)

UPDATE on Sept. 15: Here are the photos of the cake that blackberry-loving Gamesters host Mark sent out at the end of last week.

And here's one he took of me with Bill and Jack before I headed home to the woofers.

Another Fun Weekend With the Nephews, Part III

Here's one of my favorite photos from that weekend. The boys watching The Prince of Egypt while eating cupcakes as Rudy looks to maybe get a handout from Mike:

Words of wisdom? This message was written within the Temple of Truth:

Of course I made Matt and Mike pose at the center of the temple sculpture:

I also made the guys pose in these red chairs located near the Governor's House:

A cool house on Governors Island:

More cool buildings/scenery on the island:

And still more:

And finally, a shot of Water Taxi Beach just before we got lunch:

Another Fun Weekend With the Nephews, Part II

On Saturday morning, Mike and Matt said they liked the idea of getting a croissant at the farmers market for breakfast, so that's where we went first. It had been rainy on Friday, and it was supposed to rain off and on until sometime in the afternoon. We had planned to go to Governors Island that day to play miniature golf and look at some art and the cool old buildings (well, I was the one who was most interested in doing the latter two things), and I hoped we'd get the break in the rain that was being called for.

At the market, we got some tomatoes called Chocolate Cherry. "These don't really taste like chocolate, do they?" I asked the farmer. No. They get to be very dark when they're really ripe. They're an heirloom variety that's a little bigger than cherry size, and they tasted very nice—even if they didn't have even a hint of cocoa flavor. :-)

I also bought two bunches of spearmint, one for each of the guys. I'm glad they're as enthusiastic about mint as their favorite uncle, even if they are weirdos for preferring spearmint to peppermint. ;-p They nibbled on the leaves while they were here; I set the bunches upright in glasses of shallow water to keep them fresh. And I figured Tracey could make some tea out of them when they got home. Mike and Matt both liked the peppermint tea I had in the fridge.

When I saw these big-ass cabbages at another farmstand, I asked the boys to pose with them over their heads. For old times' sake. But they wouldn't do it. If they hadn't already watched the Wizards of Waverly Place movie, I could have threatened them with all of a sudden not being able to receive the Disney Channel unless some cabbages went over heads. But that spell had already been cast. Dammit! :-)

At the Wilklow Orchards stand, my usual spot for buying meat, they were giving out samples of jowl bacon they'd fried up on a hot plate. My nephews are being raised Jewish—their own bar mitzvahs will be here before we know it—but they don't keep kosher. I wasn't necessarily going to try the bacon, but the gal had three pieces on toothpicks and I didn't want to look like a wuss. It was basically hot pork fat. Mmmm. Hot pork fat. *drools like Homer Simpson*

Moments after I took that photo, rainwater that had collected on the roof of WO's tent slid off and drenched the left side of my body. At least my right side still had some dignity. *sigh* The gal and guy from the stand were very apologetic, and I knew it was just one of those things of being in the wrong place at the wrong time without my umbrella up, so I shrugged it off and bought some ground beef.

We ran into my friend Eugene, who does public relations for the Prospect Park Alliance. He was going to be working that day because of a huge birthday celebration for Michael Jackson—he would have been 51—in the park hosted by Spike Lee. The Brooklyn Vegan blog has about a bajillion photos of the party. And that's only part 1! And BV, if you happen to follow my link back to this post, sorry for all of the meat and dairy references that have gone before and sorry in advance for the ones that are bound to come after this.

After I bought some flowers, which I usually buy last because they're the most cumbersome thing to schlep, we went back home and ate our breakfasts. The boys requested butter for their croissants. I gave it to them even though I told them that, of course, croissant dough is already loaded with butter. I suspect they won't be turning into vegans anytime soon.

The guys brought some of their newly favorite Wii and DS games with them, and they played a lot throughout the weekend. And they also played LocoRoco 2 and—after Michael requested it—the original LocoRoco on my PSP. They were disappointed that I didn't have my Wii hardwired to the Internet and hadn't figured out how to access the Web with it using my wireless router, if that's possible. So they couldn't download a bunch of new Miis for me. They ended up using my Mii and the one Bob created. Matt even said, enthusiastically, "I want to play as Bob." It was fun watching them make Bob and I beat up on each other in Swordplay Duels in Wii Sports Resorts. Mike got to the end of the Swordplay Showdown for the first time ever using Bobby. And because performances are saved to the Wii itself and not to the game disc, if I ever buy WSR, Bob's Mii will already be an expert swordsman. You know, like in real life. :-)

I was a little bit anxious about taking the guys on the ferry to Governors Island because I knew people weren't being allowed to go into the water at New York City beaches and I didn't know whether the Water Taxis to the island would be affected by the remnants of big storms out in the Atlantic. I looked on the Internet, and as far as I could tell, the ferries were still running regularly, so off we went.

We took a 3 train to the Clark Street station in Brooklyn Heights and walked to the Fulton Ferry Landing. The ferries run every 20 minutes between the landing and Pier 101 on the island so I didn't really try to time it so we'd get there right before one arrived. But as luck would have it, one was due 5 minutes after we made it to the landing. And it came on time. I asked one of the two people manning the boat whether the trip was any rougher than usual, and she said it wasn't. I needn't have worried. The boat ride was shorter than the subway ride, and it wasn't at all rocky. And despite my urging them to look at the Manhattan skyline, the boys had their noses stuck in their DSes the whole way. Before we got to the ferry landing, I took a picture of them with the skyline in the background, though.

The first thing we did when we arrived on the island was call my Dad and Granny since it was right at the time I usually call them on a Saturday anyway. Then we started walking toward our main goal, the miniature golf course, which was about as far from Pier 101 as you could get on the island. The guys were hungry for lunch, and we serendipitously talked to a cute, young park ranger outside the entrance to Water Taxi Beach, which he said was the only place the island had to eat that was a step above a snack bar.

All three of us got burgers, and we split two orders of fries. I was quite impressed with the quality of the food. The burgers were irregularly shaped, so you could tell they were made by hand and weren't long-frozen, bought-by-the-case patties. The fries were good too, with a little spice to go along with the salt. The best part was the fixings bar. They had several kinds of ketchup and mustard plus relish. I put pineapple chipotle ketchup on my burger (it had tomato in it too), and M&M got honey mustard for their fries. Mike said he liked this food better than what he's gotten at 5 Guys. Matt liked it a lot, but he thought 5 Guys' was better. Both still thought the best burger they've ever had was at a Bobby's Burger Palace. They liked the unusual things you can get for your burger at that place, and they said I'd like it for that reason too. At Bobby's, you can get potato chips on your burger; it's called crunchify-ing it. At the beach grill, there were bits of potato chip at the fixings bar too, and M&M were convinced they were there so you could crunchify your burger. And maybe they were; the bits were pretty small.

By the time we were done lunch, the rain had completely stopped. Yipee! And we set out for the golf course. There were some cool sculptures near the course:

This one is called Hivemind.

This creepy-looking one, from front and back, is The Agony of Man.

Figment's City of Dreams Mini Golf Course was certainly challenging, even though Michael got a hole-in-one on the second hole. He hit the ball right up into the Maneki Neko Japanese cat sculpture. In fact, he got four holes-in-one altogether.

We all got holes-in-one on hole 17, which was purposefully designed to allow everyone to feel "a few moments of victory and the assurance that we are capable of greatness." Now look here, mister hippy-dippy artsy-fartsy mini-golf-hole-creating guy! If the world had wanted me to feel that way, I would have been born into the Bush, Russert, Cheney, Goldberg, Bayh, Casey, Kristol, or Hastert families. I'm a Hawley. I'm supposed to work for my holes-in-one—and my political/media jobs.

I think I can speak for the guys when I say that our favorite hole was the one set up like skee ball. You shot the ball three times and took the lowest-point hole you were able to get it into as your score. Matt got a 2, and Mike and I both got a 4.

Hole 8 was cool looking but crazy difficult, and the score card listed it as a par 1. I was going to file a complaint with the governing body for American mini golfers, but I see on the Web site I linked to above that it's meant to be a par 4. That's more like it. I got it in the hole in 5, and both of the guys took a 10 on that.

After we were done with the golf, we decided to head back to the ferry and not look into any of the art galleries on the island. Maybe some other day.

I was really digging the old buildings on the grounds. I'll put up some more photos of them in a part III of this post.

Mike posed with the sign marking the Governor's House, which was right near Pier 101. The text says, in part: "The name 'Governor's House' is a misnomer as no New York State governor ever occupied the building. In 1698, the British officially acquired the island, and English colonial governors established a headquarters here, resulting in the name 'Governors Island.' The house may have been called 'the Governor's House' due to its proximity to the location of the original English colonial governor's residence, which no longer survives."

I posed in front of the house itself.

I'd told the guys I planned to make spaghetti and salad for dinner, and they asked me to make meatballs like I had for them the previous time they spent the weekend with me. They'd complained that they were a little too spicy at the time, but this time, they specifically asked me whether I had red pepper flakes to put in them, so they'd taste like they did before. Winna!

The guys helped me make the meatballs and some citrus vinaigrette, which we also had two years ago. We used a combination of orange and grapefruit as the main juices, plus a tablespoon of lemon. I heated up jar sauce, the Seeds of Change brand, and cooked fresh pasta from Breezy Hill Orchard that I'd frozen. I did up a package of regular and a package of whole wheat pasta, which were shaped like fettuccini. It was a lot of food for the three of us. The boys wolfed down their salads, and they ate all of their meatballs and made good dents in their pasta.

After dinner, I wanted us to watch The Prince of Egypt, the first cartoon DreamWorks made. I'd recorded it for us to watch two years ago, but we didn't get a chance to see it then. It'd gotten good reviews, and I thought the boys would get a kick out of watching a movie from the year they were born: 1998. Eh, what do I know? M&M weren't too enthused, but I pulled rank. We weren't going to have time to watch the whole thing before they had to get ready for bed, but I said we could catch the last half hour in the morning.

The guys thought the animation was bad, and it was—when compared with what they're used to watching. I thought the parting and unparting of the Red Sea were very nicely done, though. And they didn't seem to think the movie sucked too bad overall.

I love the movie's trivia page on imdb. The producers consulted "roughly 600 religious experts to make the film as accurate as possible." And yet, as the movie makes clear at the outset, they took liberties with the Biblical story of Moses, some of which I recalled and some of which I had to read about to remember. For instance, it was Pharaoh's daughter—not his wife, as shown in the movie—who pulled Moses from the bulrushes and adopted him as her own child. Making that change allowed for the rivalry between Moses and Pharaoh's birth son, who'd become Egypt's leader by the time Moses demanded that the Egyptians free his people. The movie also made Moses's brother, Aaron, a wuss who didn't do much of anything to help the Hebrews get out of captivity, even though both he and Moses went before Pharaoh in the Biblical account. And he, not Moses, turned the Nile to blood. And I remembered that Moses deliberately and passionately murdered an Egyptian who was mistreating the Hebrew slaves; in the movie, the killing is shown as mostly accidental.

And the most outrageous misrepresentation to me was that in one scene, some of God's Chosen People are shown paying retail. You expect us to believe that? Come on! :-)

On Sunday morning, Matt, Mike, and I went to La Bagel Delight for breakfast. Then we watched the end of the movie, and they were going to teach me how to play Garbage, but their parents showed up just as we were starting to deal the cards.

Rudy and I went out to the gate to greet Tracey and David. M&M stayed inside, which gave me a chance to jokingly tell T&D, "The last time I saw the boys, they were running like hell down Flatbush." Later, when Tracey asked me whether they'd been good, I said, "After I managed to get them back from the white slavers, they were so glad to see the apartment again that they were perfect angels." Hah! It's always funny when you kid that you were totally incompetent at keeping someone's children—and your own flesh and blood—safe.

The five of us went to La Villa, so David could try the world's best Sicilian pizza. Then we stopped at the 5th Avenue Farmers Market, where I bought some more pasta and both David and I bought several bars from Daisy May Natural Soap. I also loaded up on peaches and nectarines.

On the walk back to the apartment—where we were going to have some more of the chocolate-and-mint cupcakes and Tracey was going to try my lemon verbena ice cream, which I'll write about in my next all-food-and-drinks post—we talked about my possibly selling ice cream under the Huge Pooch brand at that farmers market next summer. Tracey said I needed to create a Tricolor Basset flavor that had something white, something black, and something brown in it. And somebody else—was it Matt or Mike?—suggested a Basset Tracks flavor along the line of Moose Tracks. Michael offered to create any art I'd need. And David asked whether I planned to take Rudy to the market with me. I said I might. He said I should announce it ahead of time to generate excitement for his visit: "The Huge Pooch himself will be at the market in three weeks!" All good ideas, for sure.

After dessert, when it was time for the guys to go, they said they were going to miss me. And I said the same thing. We had a great time. And we have to do it again next year, if not sooner.

Another Fun Weekend With the Nephews, Part I

My now-11-year-old nephews stayed with me this past weekend. Their birthday was last Wednesday, and they start sixth grade next week. Holy crap, they're growing up fast.

Tracey and David went to the bar mitzvah of the second son of David's former business partner out in Connecticut on Saturday. And since T&D knew they wouldn't be getting home until late that night, I had sole possession of Matt and Mike from Friday afternoon, when Tracey brought them into the hood, until lunchtime Sunday.

Two summers ago—as regular readers of Hawleyblog may recall or, then again, may not—I hosted M&M for a fun-filled weekend during which we went to Coney Island and the New York Aquarium. That coincided with the bar mitzvah of the oldest son of David's former business partner. That guy and his wife have four sons, the next of which will be 13 in two years. I told Tracey that I want to have the 'phews here for a weekend next summer anyway, regardless of the lack of an out-of-state bar mitzvah.

I took both Thursday and Friday off so I'd have time to get the apartment cleaned and some birthday cupcakes made before the hooligans arrive. I decided to make chocolate cupcakes with mint icing because M&M and I enjoyed that kind of cupcake when I visited them, Granny, and Dad in New Jersey in July. And because I wanted to try the Mint Buttercream icing from the Martha Stewart's Cupcakes book I mentioned in this post.

The icing was quite a bit of work, made more difficult by the recipe maker's assumption that I had two and possibly three bowls for my KitchenAid mixer. I was determined to get enough mint flavor into the icing without resorting to the 1/4 teaspoon of peppermint extract called for at the end of the process, so I put a lot more fresh mint leaves and stems in the milk than was called for. They overwhelmed the milk, which never did rise to the temperature it was supposed to before I took it off the stove out of fear I'd end up with too little milk in the pan to do its job in the icing.

When I got to the end of the process, I tasted the icing, which seemed fine texture-wise, and found it sorely lacking in the mint department. So I went out and bought peppermint extract. You could taste the mint in the finished icing, but it was by no means in-your-face.

The cake part of the cupcakes turned out perfect. I again used the One-Bowl Chocolate Cupcakes recipe, which was supposed to make 18. I ended up with 20. Here are some of the finished cupcakes. I put sprigs of chocolate mint on top of a few of them. Fancy!

I'm still learnin' about cake icing. When I hear "buttercream," it sounds like something I ought to put in the fridge. The book said you could leave it out of the refrigerator for 24 hours, but once I got the cupcakes iced, I put them in the fridge. When the boys and I had one apiece after dinner, the icing was pasty. When we ate them at other times throughout the weekend, I allowed plenty of time for them to come to room temperature first. M&M, but especially Matt, said they weren't that crazy about the icing on Friday night, but Michael ate all of his cupcake. They seemed to like the icing better after that first night, eating all of the cake and the icing, and I thought it was much improved when it wasn't chilled.

Before we had our dessert Friday, Tracey took us to Miracle Grill for dinner; it's always good. And before that, when Tracey and the guys arrived, Rudy made some weird noises I'd never heard him make before. He knows T&M&M by now and shouldn't have been making what sounded like a negative fuss. Tracey suggested that he was wondering where Molly was, and I said that had to be it. Maybe you'll think I'm crazy, but he really did sound like he was perplexed at the failure of his girlfriend/cousin to appear with her mommy and big brothers.

That night, the boys wanted to watch Wizards of Waverly Place: The Movie on the Disney Channel. I'll get into big trouble with Michael if I don't say that he thought it was the best movie ever. When Matt said he thought it was a little cheesy, I agreed with him, but I said that I had fun watching it. I'd never seen the TV show, and I was curious to find out who plays the father because he looked familiar. I looked up the show on imdb, and found out it was David DeLuise, a chunky but cute son of Dom DeLuise. The guys couldn't believe the page listed everyone who's ever been on the show, even in a bit part such as Large Boyfriend. Oh yes, my 'phews, such is the magic of imdb.

I'll wrap up the first part of this post with a photo of the guys at Miracle Grill. From left to right, it's Matt and Mike.