Home Away From Home

One of my favorite things about being a year-round Hamptons resident is finding these out-of-the-way places that are far outside of the average outsider's view. While the celebrities and the like are off partying at places I couldn't get into even if I knew where they were, I can often be found at Tugboat's North Sea House. Now, Tugboat is a good friend and he's careful to keep my favorite libations and snacks on hand, so I'm probably a little biased, but I just love this place. It might have something to do with the fried macaroni and cheese.

Tugboat will tell you that he designed the place to be like hanging out in your friend's living room. He's really done a good job with that - there's mismatched but comfy furniture, a big TV to watch movies on, books and games scattered around, and the like. The advantage over someone's living room, of course, is that there's a kitchen and a bar right there.

Tugboat's is a great venue for local music. He'll let just about anyone play music there (even me!), which leads to some very eclectic and unexpected stuff. The Open Path Gathering Open Mic last Thursday night was an example of this at its best, with a fantastic group of accomplished musicians (and then there was me and my bandmate Jan) who were there just to jam and have fun.

Mind you, these guys play in various projects all over the East End and beyond - there was some serious talent concentrated in this room. And believe me, some of the best music you'll ever hear is a bunch of friendly (and possibly slightly tipsy) musicians showing off for and with each other. We had a keyboard player backing up vocalist Caine on a Stevie Wonder tune. We had Jessie Haynes' original music. We had musicians sitting in with people they've never met before on songs they didn't know. Caine's dog even got in on the fun, sneaking up on stage to steal some of Jessie's White Russian.

I don't know if this is a real Hamptons moment - more of an anti-Hamptons moment, I guess. But it was a lot of fun.

Veritas

There's slow food, and there's the "eat local" movement. Why not extend that to drinks as well?

I was very surprised to discover that Long Island has a rich farming tradition, including a great many vineyards. Most of the wine is grown on the North Fork, the far east section of the Island that is north of the Peconic Bay, but there are several here in my little corner of Hampton-ness.

My favorite is Channing Daughters just down the road in Bridgehampton. I love this place. And I love the marketing brilliance that created the the Wine Club.

The way tastings work here at most places, you pay a nominal fee either per wine or for a flight of wines. So after you've been standing around in the tasting room for a while, when everyone is getting a little chatty and everything that's getting poured starts tasting pretty darn good, well, someone in the group is bound to ask "So what's this wine club anyway?" And your friendly wine guide will happily tell you about how you can sign up to buy the two bottles of wine that they select for you every two months, and you'll get a discount on that wine and all the other wine you buy there, and - here's the kicker - that wine tastings are free for you and your guests. Not only that, rather than just the ordinary 6 wines that the uninitiated are permitted to sample, you get to taste pretty much anything they have.

All I can say is that after even a mere 6 wine flight, this sounds like the best deal anyone ever offered you.

3 shipments of wine later, I can tell you that this is one of those rare decisions made while slightly tipsy that turn out to be very good. The wine is consistently wonderful, and the staff there is an amazingly friendly bunch, and I'm learning a lot about wine - most importantly, that Chardonnay is way tastier than I ever would have dreamed (move over, Napa Valley). And, I have to admit, I get a secret little snobby Hamptons thrill from being part of the "in" crowd and being recognized by the winery people.

Best of all, as I now always have a chilled and lovely bottle of white wine waiting, I've discovered one of the simplest pleasures to be had here - spending late Sunday afternoons on the front porch of the house with a book and a glass, watching the joggers and dog walkers pass by, as the sun sinks behind the tree line. These quiet times are some of the moments that I will always treasure from my time here.

Drink local!

Independence Day

Of COURSE there was a parade! Southampton Village holds the only 4th of July parade on the East End, and it's very popular. The parade route, conveniently enough, goes directly past my home in the Village, so we sat on the front porch to enjoy it all. With Nantucket Reds in hand (champagne and cranberry juice) - hey, this is the Hamptons.

This parade has a long history - the people in the house across the street have had an annual party since the kids were small to gather and watch. Those kids are in their late 50s now, and have grandchildren of their own. It has all of the standard small-town parade features, including handmade floats, a few marching bands, antique tractors, and what seemed to be nearly every fire truck and ambulance on the the East End.

Appropriately enough for an Independence Day parade, there were multiple groups of veterans participating, including WWII and Vietnam Vets. In addition we had several groups of protesters, the local Democratic Party Committee, a memorial to a local soldier who was killed in Iraq, and a few anti-Bush activists. I found it interesting that the soldiers and the protestors received approximately the same response of subdued applause. It might not have been the same people clapping for each group, but I couldn't discern a measuarable difference in volume. All of the participants seemed to get an equally polite response. I wonder if that means that opinion was equally divided, or that everyone was equally indifferent? On the other hand, everyone seemed to agree that the fire departments deserved some serious love.

Nonetheless, the day itself was just a lot of fun. For the biggest NYC parades, you take the subway there and get to the route early, stand for hours packed in with lots of other spectators. The whole time, you watch the people around you for pickpockets, bemoan your aching feet, and wish you had gone to the bathroom before you left. Eventually you get watch a combination of fancy costumes and corporate floats blow past as quickly as possible.

This had more in common with some of the smaller neighborhood parades I happened upon from time to time in NYC, things like processions for a saint's day through Little Italy. The lawn chairs, the homemade decorations, the parade participants waving to their neighbors, the slightly less than perfect marching bands gave a great down-home neighborhood feeling to the whole thing. Not to mention at this version we could have cocktails on the front porch without attracting unwanted attention from the NYPD. All together, a great way to spend the day.