Do Not Go Gently, or Ode to the Parenthese

Drinking ones’ way through The Bartender’s Guide needs, at some level, to be an exercise in moderation in order not to flame out. Once in a while, though, there needs to be an extravaganza like the one I had with my dear partner-in-crime (you know who you are) whom I will refer to as K. (the only acceptable single initial to use as an alias) the other night (okay, afternoon) at Piatti's, after both of us had finished our therapy appointments (we share one – therapists, not appointments). Piatti’s is actually a pretty decent bar/restaurant, and while the prices are nuts, at least they use good ingredients so that you don’t feel totally bilked. They also have full disclosure of ingredients, no surprise mint or bitters to leave you scratching your head.

It was a beautiful afternoon, reeking of mountain laurel, and we chose Piatti’s as much for its’ outdoor seating as its’quality. They also serve a basket of excellent bread with a fine olive oil, and don’t balk when you ask them to keep the baskets coming. I’d had an hour to kill before cocktail hour, so I’d stopped at the local Stein Mart to beat myself up a little (therapy hadn’t been enough), and what song was playing in the background when I walked in the door but Bruce Springsteen’s Dancing In The Dark, my anthem. Those lines about being tired and bored with myself? About wanting to change my hair, my clothes, my face? Those words are exactly why I’d gone into Stein Mart, after all, and I’m pretty sure the marketing mavens who choose the store’s sound track know that. So there I was, trying to calmly find the garments that would define and announce the new, and real, me, even going so far as to try a few things on, and all I could come up with was a navy blue t-shirt. Woo … now that’s out of the box! I left without it because it hadn’t been marked down enough times, no one near as many times as I’d been.

Cut to the chase: I was thirsty in every sense of the word when I hit Piatti’s, so it was easy enough to be seduced by their “signature” drinks – every one of them sounded like just the ticket, even, or especially, at $9.50 each. Rather than blindly asking the waiter to surprise us, we actually deliberated over our choices, and began with a Cucumber Gimlet and an Old Cuban.

The Gimlet was a revelation, refreshing beyond compare, with a fragrance so pure it knocked out the mountain laurel. And beautiful to look at, the merest fragments of cucumber suspended in the lime infused Tangueray Rangpur. And it had a beat that I could dance to! I already knew my way around Piatti’s Mojito, and so I knew the similar Old Cuban wouldn’t disappoint, and left it mostly for K. How is it that I know my way around their Mojito? Oh, that is the stuff of another post.

Second round included a Cosmocello (for me, the older, more dated of us), and a Dark & Stormy for K., who I don’t think would mind me saying that it suits her. We ended up trading, neither of us ultimately able to make peace with the Dark & Stormy. Of course we were fighting the beautiful day, but for K. it was no fun at all, and for me what began as odd but delicious ended up as the ultimate alcohol abuse – unfinished. Gosling’s Black Seal Rum isn’t kidding, and ginger beer is no ginger ale. Proceed with caution.

Just slightly sloshed (we both have excellent metabolisms), we ended up at the nearby Whole Earth Provision Company, once again with the idea of finding me, not a new style, but ANY style. We man-handled quite a bit of Flax, but Flax still reminds me of a Salon article that haunts me, “Do Not Go Gently Into That Eileen Fisher”, and I don’t think I have quite the attitude to pull it off. K. and I are not that different in terms of size and shape, but what looks like casual elegance on her looks on me like I just gave up entirely. Designers might call it the ‘just-shoot-me-now’ look, which suits me just a little too well.

Sigh. I wonder if that navy blue T-shirt has been marked down enough yet?  In the meantime, someone get me a cucumber.