Father Tony got a spot in Sunday's Pride parade for us New York City Gay Bloggers & Digital Activists. He wanted us all to dress the same so we could convey our groupness. He e-mailed us a logo to use
Last Sunday, my Dad came up by himself to visit me, and he stayed over until Monday. Granny wasn't happy about being left behind. When I called her and Dad that Saturday, I heard her tell Dad, "Tell Bill to tell you to bring me." Which was both funny and sad. I felt bad for her—and I always like to see her and Jean—but I was also glad to spend some time with just Dad. As I wrote on my Facebook wall—and I'm going to recycle it here, because I can only come up with so many good lines—"Bill Hawley's father is coming to visit. And he's leaving the womenfolk behind. The Hawley men are going to paint Brooklyn red! Well, we'll probably put down some primer, come back to my place, take naps, and THEN paint Brooklyn red. Woo hoo!"
And that's pretty much how it happened. Dad got up here around 11:15. We went to La Villa and got our Siciliana pizza with a shared salad. We ate outside in their little, flower-filled backyard, which was very nice. Then we came back here and had some of my homemade Coffee Ice Cream. And then Dad said he was going to go lie down for a little bit, and I said I'd do the same, with the woofers in the bed. I had trouble falling asleep and probably slept for only 10 minutes tops, but then I was ready to hit Cobble Hill/Carroll Gardens for a litle shopping and dinner, which is what I'd told Dad we'd do once he said he wasn't going to bring Gran.
And just before we left, I went back on Facebook,* aka the Blog Killer, and wrote, "Bill Hawley and his Dad had their naps. We're off to Carroll Gardens for shopping and dinner. I don't expect he'll buy much, though. He called himself 'Cheap-Ass Bill Hawley From the Sticks.'" The context for Dad's quote was the following: He mentioned getting breakfast on Monday morning at "that Sweet place" or "that place where you get sweets" or something like that. "Sweet Melissa?" "Yeah." Then I told him there was one in Carroll Gardens**; in fact, that's where the original one was. He said we could get a coffee there before dinner but he wasn't going to buy a $30 cake—"not cheap-ass Bill Hawley from the sticks." I told him I should get that put on a T-shirt for him. And he joked that he'd wear it to the next church picnic. Hah!
I'd wanted to take Dad to dinner at The Grocery, and we looked over the menu online together while we were on the phone the week before his visit. Usually you have to book a table well in advance, but what with these financially challenging times, I thought we might get lucky and get a spot, especially if we ate fairly early. Plus, TG doesn't take reservations for its outside tables, so I figured we could always sit outside at the garden bar and wait for a table to open, and that might actually have been the best way to go. Dad wasn't too enthused about the menu (as I've noted on the blog before, he's mostly a meat-and-potatoes kinda guy and doesn't like anything too unusual), but he said he would eat the pork entrée I had when I went there last month with Bob and Jen. And he saw a riesling on the wine list, which made him happy. When I called to make reservations, the guy who answered said TG is closed on Sundays. It says that as big as life on the restaurant's main Web page, but I was focusing on the menu page. *sigh*
I looked around on the Web for some other options and came across Fragole, an Italian restaurant that got overwhelmingly positive reviews on Yelp and New York magazine's site. I typed the address on my iPhone note pad.
I also considered taking Dad to Union Smith Cafe, which always looks so inviting from the outside, but I read a lot of mediocre to negative reviews online—including one horror story on CitySearch from a vegetarian who was given bacon bits inside his poached eggs and who had to complain three times before the problem was even less-than-satisfactorily remedied—and I didn't want to chance having a crappy meal there.
Dad and I took the F train three stops to Carroll Street. The area has changed a bit since I was going there for yoga classes at Jeffrey's former studio inside his apartment on Court Street. We walked down Smith Street over to Court and back toward Carroll. We looked in a few stores, including some that sold men's clothing and a new-and-used-books store, but I didn't find anything I needed/wanted and neither did CABHFTS. And we didn't go into Sweet Melissa after all because we didn't feel like we needed a coffee so close to dinner. We looked at the menu in Fragole's window (I'd forgotten to show it to Dad online earlier), and he said it looked good to him.
It was still early, so we walked back to Smith & Vine, a wine store we'd passed earlier that I told Dad I wanted to go in later. I knew I'd end up buying something there, and I figured I should wait until before dinner so I wouldn't be carrying around wine bottles all afternoon.
S&V was having a wine tasting, so we got to sip three selections while looking around the store. S&V has a $12-and-under table, so if you're feeling cheap ass, you can head right to it. I bought the 2007 Pago de Valdoneje Bierzo for $14. I tried a glass Thursday night, and Bob, Jen, and I finished it off Friday night with our pizza. I need to drink more to develop some more-concrete ideas about it, but we all enjoyed it. I got two bottles of 2006 Comte Jean-Baptiste de Monpezat from Cahors—one for me and one for Dad. B, J, and I tried and enjoyed that on Friday too. It was $10, and I'll be buying many more.
It was still pretty early, but we'd seen everything we wanted to see, so we went back to Fragole, which, as the Web site says, means "strawberry" in Spanish. The dining room is very inviting, and the menu says the food isn't meant to be fancy but rather "sensible, genuine, tasty, hearty Italian food."
I ordered the 2006 Juan Benegas Malbec. The label seemed vaguely familiar, but I haven't written about it on the blog, so maybe I've just seen it on a shelf. It was a fine Mendozan malbec, and Dad and I polished it off between the two of us.
The first course was disappointing. I got the Insalata Mista, which was supposed to be dressed with a basil-lemon vinaigrette, but I couldn't taste anything remotely lemony or basil-like. There was a little puddle of something that wasn't water in one of the pieces of endive, so I figured someone must have put vinaigrette on the salad. But the waiter had brought us oil and vinegar along with the salad, which confused me. I can only assume that patrons have complained about the amount of dressing before, so O&V are put on the table as a matter of course.
For my entrée, I ordered the Rigatoni alla Bolognese, and I thought it was fantastic. The homemade pasta was cooked perfectly, and the sauce was excellent. Dad got the Fettucine Rosmarino: In addition to a rosemary- and sage-spiked tomato sauce, the pasta came with crumbles of sweet Italian sausage. He liked the dish, but he fretted about getting the sauce on his white shirt while twirling the fettucine around his fork. I told him I wouldn't be offended if he cut it up. He wouldn't do that, and he got a couple of spots on his shirt. See, I told you we were going to paint
Brooklyn something red!
Over dinner, Dad told me that he loved me no matter what and that he doesn't care that I'm gay. And he said that my being gay never bothered Pop in the least. I knew both of those things, but it was nice to hear Dad say them. I told Dad that I miss Pop so much and think about him all the time.
For dessert, we split a tiramisu, and I got a cappuccino. I think that was the best tiramisu I've ever had and Dad thought it was great too, so it was a winning way to end the meal.
And speaking of winners, back at home, we watched the Tonys. My guy Hunter didn't win for best book of a musical, and they didn't even show that award live so I could see them cut to him in the audience as his name was announced as a nominee. They managed to squeeze in performances by out-of-town casts of Jersey Boys and Mamma Mia! though. And by Broadway stalwarts Poison. *rolls eyes* Other than Neil Patrick Harris's wonderfully fun closing number, my favorite moment of the show was when Dad remarked about presenter Susan Sarandon: "I like her. Old gal with big tits." Dad had another good line earlier in the day when he remarked, "There are more good-looking women here per square inch than in Bridgeton per square mile." Park Slope: home of densely populated MILFs. (And by "I," I mean "Dad.")
The next morning, Dad bought us coffee and treats at Sweet Melissa. Then he replaced the ancient air-conditioners in my bedrooms with ones Bob and Jen gave me that they didn't need anymore because they'd gotten central air-conditioning put in, which was the main reason why Dad came back up here again so quickly. He was going to do that job for me last month, but he didn't have his drill with him.***
Dad got the task done very quickly, which prompted his to say, in appreciation of himself, "You old dog, Hawley, I swear."
I'd told Dad he should count on staying for lunch and said we should go to Miracle Grill so he could get the Pulled-Pork Sandwich, which I'd been meaning to have him try for a while now. Bob joined us for lunch, and he and I both got MG's terrific Chicken Quesadilla. Dad enjoyed the pork. Then he took off for Bridgeton, with some sweet Williams I bought at the farmers market for Granny.
*It's not going to last forever, though. Just ask this guy.
**It's really Cobble Hill. I've been a little hazy on where the dividing line is, but I've now come to the conclusion that most everything I thought was Carroll Gardens was actually Cobble Hill.
***I was thinking about putting in a joke here that "I bet Tim Robbins"—Susan Sarandon's longtime partner—"always has his drill handy." But I wasn't sure that was funny. So I made this footnote instead.
more exciting for me, I finally got to see inside the Montauk Club, which I pass on the way to work and have been intrigued by since I moved to Park Slope. It was an additional stop on the tour (and an opportunity to use the facilities), and I went to see it by myself after the four of us had seen all of the houses; Jen and her parents wanted to get back to Bob and the kids. The Montauk Club looks really cool from the outside, and the inside didn't disappoint.
