Another Reason to Leave/Love Park Slope [Red Hook]

...Because going to very nearby Red Hook is like getting out of town for the day.

The Harbor alone is worth the trip—the incredible beauty and peace of just hanging by the Pier, watching the tugs, listening to the clanging of the buoy, Lady Liberty majestically hanging there with you, as you ponder why the hell you don’t live HERE (because there’s  no mass fucking transit) instead of where you DO live. 

“Awesomely cool” is what my younger said when asked what she thought of our Red Hook excursion last weekend, and I have to agree with her. I’ve been to RH often but only to either shop or to sneak a bottle of wine in and eat dinner on the back patio in Fairway with hubby as we watch the sun set over the harbor on summer evenings. Or to be held hostage, inside Ikea, desperately looking for an exit that doesn’t include having to first walk around and around the entire dimension of the hangar-like store, the way cows do while being herded through the slaughter shutes.  

Last weekend, for the first time, we walked around Red Hook and discovered some very cool spots. Beginning at the pier behind Fairway where, even with the chill of the wind whipping at our mugs, it was so great to be in the bright sunlight gazing out over the harbor. It was a beautiful day and we were happy to be there. 

Walking east (north?) on Van Brunt we happened into Metal and Thread, where Derek Dominy makes interesting and beautiful objects, furnishings, and jewelry out of old metal and old tools or other previously functional objects of metal; and his wife Denise Carbonell works with textiles, making quilts and silk scarves. She also designs the jewelry and hand paints on scraps of wood sculpted into the shape of hands for wall hangings. I loved just about everything I saw, and suggest you go there immediately to splurge on yourself or someone else if a special gift is in order. 

A few doors down from Metal and Thread, my daughter spied tiny harmonica necklaces in varying colors in the window of RedLipstick. We went in to find out how much they were because they were so up my kid’s alley (and mine). I thought for sure that they would be too much for my broke ass, but when we were told $12 we looked at each other with big fat smiles on our faces and ordered up the gold-toned one—so miniaturely perfect--it can even be played, sounding like the real thing, AND the chain is sterling.  

Hubby was happily basking in the sun on a bench waiting for us outside. Deciding it was time to eat, we headed across the street to Fort Defiance. Playing a fantastic mix of R&B, Soul, and Funk for Sunday brunch, the menu was wonderfully eclectic, the food good, and the vibe just right for kicking back. Kid and husband got eggs and biscuits with a side of “a little chicken” that came with some slamming sausage gravy. I got a goat cheese and shitake omelet that rocked. I ordered tea and expected the usual string hanging out of my cup, but was happily surprised to receive loose leaf, really tasty Darjling tea in a whole pot instead. It’s small unexpected things in restaurants like great music and potted real tea that make me infinitely happy.   

After we finished eating we decided that we MUST go back to the water, this time along Coffee Street where we ended up at Valentino Pier—the sun was just beginning to sink over the water and looked even prettier than it had earlier.

By then, freezing our asses off, we ended the trip at Baked where I had read about spicy chocolate brownies and the must-have salty and sweet cocoa brownies. Inside, it looked as though it couldn’t decide what it wanted to be with sleek blonde wooden booths that matched the paneled walls and post-modern hanging light fixtures; but hanging along with them was an antiquey-looking crystal chandelier. It sort of felt like a McDonalds only with excellent baked goods and a cool chandelier. The surly counter person barked at the line of us waiting to order to “move to the other side” which was a very unclear direction as we were lined up with little room to go anywhere else. It turned out that we were all lining up at the wrong end of where we were supposed to be lined up and she was obviously annoyed by having to say this all day long (a sign stating “line starts here” would have easily remedied the issue). But what’s most important is the way the brownies tasted, and that was: amazingly good. 

We left feeling sleepy and buzzed at the same time, contented, and ready to face another week of work and school. 

So people, the moral of this tale is: get your freezing lazy-ass butts over to Red Hook so you too can say you went somewhere other than your sofa this weekend.