Author Hope Tarr in The DM Zone Live From Lady Jane's Salon in New York ...

New Blog

Hi All,

September has always symbolized new beginnings for me, as though the crisp autumn air is somehow a caravan for change. And so it's appropriate that this month is the launch of my "new and improved" blog at www.hopetarr.com/blog.

Forget the "semi," we're talking full throttle, no holds-barred, and at least once a week. Promise.

I've even got Comments turned back on, so talk to me!

But most of all, savor.

Hope

Weekend Update

It's fall in New York, I'm telling you. The temperatures may not be appreciably cooler than they were pre-Labor Day, but autumn has landed in the Big Apple in a big way. At precisely 9:00 AM on Tuesday, September 2nd, an invisible switch was flipped back to "on," putting the sleepy summer to bed and powering the city to life again. The line outside the West Village's Magnolia Bakery is once again winding up 11th Street, clothing boutiques are thronged with Manhattanites jonesing to wear uber cool winter clothes and boots even though it's still in the 80's, and the vibe on the streets is once more high on flow, low on ebb.

Earlier in the week, I checked out The Brandy Library with fellow author--and intrepid social ethnographer--Liz Maverick and our friend, Bonni. If I had to settle on one word to sum up the Brandy Library it would be "civilized." Unlike so many Manhattan watering holes, here you can claim a seat at the back lit bar or one of the banquette style tables, order your aperitif, and savor it for hours. Located in the heart of Tribeca, The Brandy Library boasts an impressive array of not only brandies but classic cocktails, cognacs and single-malt scotches. If you're bored, you can even quiz the bartender, Jason, on the origins of your libation. If he doesn't know the answer, he'll look it up--really, he will.

Last night I attended a shared Virgo birthday party at Slate Plus, a sleek after hours club in Manhattan's West Village. The music was a mix of 80's, 90's and contemporary Top 40, rap and hip hop; the ambiance spartanly elegant; and the clientele...styling.

I rounded out the weekend with a maiden shopping expedition to Zabar's in search of some gourmet grub. The iconoclastic Manhattan food emporium has occupied its Upper West Side location at Broadway & 80th for seventy years--and counting. I went at peak on a Sunday because a) I was in the hood having lunch with a friend and b) after seven months in the city, I was getting tired of moving the Zabar's gift certificate, a housewarming gift from friends Mike and Lisa, every time I dusted my dresser.

Going to Zabar's for the first time on a Sunday constitutes a maverick move, somewhere between boldness and stupidity. To say it was a little bit crowded would be like saying super model Heidi Klume is a little bit pretty. The narrow aisles were stuffed to the point of thrumming. More than once I found myself manuevering around shoppers who'd suddenly slammed on the brakes mid-step to sample the free noshes. I couldn't blame them.

Trekking $100 bucks worth of perishables back downtown wasn't exactly a cheesecake and marble rye walk, but strappy soul that I am, I managed. My usually empty singleton refrigerator is now stocked with gourmet meals-to-go: Black Angus flank steak, poached salmon in dill, baked macaroni and cheese, and spinach souffle. For a person used to scrounging for scraps come week's end, one who's been known to make a meal of a jar of olives or a microwaveable bag of Orville's best--hey, it's all about the pairings--all this bounty is well...a little overwhelming.

But I'll deal.

Coming attractions...

September 5th was the kick-off to Fashion Week AKA Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week, a semi-annual event held in New York City with events staged in Bryant Park and other areas throughout the city. The collections being shown are the Spring 2009 lines, of course. In the rag biz, fall is, strictly speaking, a done deal, then again they don't call it "fashion forward" for nothing. ;) I'll be calling in my reports from the catwalk...right after I finish this piece of Zabar's cheesecake.

Hope

Absinthe Makes the Heart Grow Fonder?

When romance author buddy and fellow Manhattan singleton, Liz Maverick called me up last week and said, "This new absinthe bar just opened up in the Lower East Side. Wanna go?" there was really only one answer that sprang to mind.

YES!!!

Maybe Liz's um...maverick spirit is just contagious or maybe it was my own residual curiosity from high school Art Appreciation Class--Degas' painting, "The Glass of Absinthe" is well, pretty haunting--but either way I was totally game to go.

On Saturday night I met Liz and our mutual friend, Bonni at White Star on Essex Street. White Star isn't a terribly big place, but it packs a pretty powerful presence, sort of Prohibition era speak easy meets uber cool Manhattan "secret bar." Proprietor and yes, mixologist, Sasha Petraske patiently briefed the three of us on the history of absinthe before settling in to make our drinks.

Up until Saturday night, I was an absinthe virgin. I remember absinthe being illegal in the US "back in the day" but beyond vague allusions to blindness and brain function loss, I really didn't know much about it. The official Webster definition of absinthe is "a green liquor flavored with wormwood or a substitute, anise, and other aromatics."

After Saturday night, I strongly recommend Webster and Company update their definition. As it turns out, there are various types of absinthe. White Star serves the traditional green "Parisian" variety as well as a slightly less fortified clear type.

The flavor didn't shoot me over the moon but it wasn't bad, either, quite pleasant in point. To me, absinthe tastes like licorice only without the syrupy consisteny of sambucca. But what I really dug was the whole ritual of preparation and presentation, complete with 1930's-esque bar gatchetry. That Sasha kind of looks like Brendan Frasier in the Mummy movies didn't hurt, either. But I digress...

Preparing absinthe is fairly labor intensive. You do it by the glass and there is absolutely no rushing the process. Basically, about three-fingers' worth of the actual liquor is poured into a glass. Ice water is then drizzled over a single sugar cube set atop a strainer, slowly infusing the absinthe with an almost fairylike foaminess.

I didn't experience any Green Fairy sightings, I'm happy to say, though the absinthe I drank was the clear variety and I only sampled one before switching to a tried-and-true clear alcoholic beverage--champagne. Still, White Star stands out as the highlight of the evening.

But like intrepid cultural anthropologists, our data collection and cataloguing didn't end there. Afterward, there was a dinner at a nearby Afro-French bistro, Les Enfants Terrible (the grilled calamari with chick peas are to die for), followed by dancing and people watching at The Cellar in the Bryant Park Hotel. The near naked chics, The Cellar's answer to the Solid Gold Dancers, had me swearing to pull out my yoga mat and weights the very next day. I could say more but better yet, check out Liz's blog at the Rebels of Romance for the um...unexpurgated story.

Happy (post) Labor Day,

Hope

Blog-o-licious

Hi All,

Tomorrow, August 26th, I'm over at Elizabeth Kerri Mahon's "Got It Goin' On" blog--and boy does she ever. Along with being an uber-talented author, British history buff, and president of the New York City chapter of Romance Writers of America, Elizabeth finds time to blog--every day. Her Scandalous Women blog is one of my favorite places in cyberspace, especially on those days (and you know "those days") when I really need to remember that "Well-behaved women don't make history."

And then repeat it like a mantra.

Also, I posted more photos from my Ireland trip to my Facebook page, so when you find two ticks, check it out.

Happy Monday,

Hope

The Road Well-Traveled

In the spirit of a picture saying a thousand words (at least!), I'll let these vacation pictures from my last week's Ireland trip do the talking for me. Who knew that trekking through flood waters, cow paddy-laced bogs, and pelting rains could be so much fun--but it was! But then Ireland's West Country boasts some of the most breathtaking scenery I've ever before experienced in any weather.

The three pictures shown here are from the Connemara leg of the journey. The group photo, taken after completing the last walk of the trip, is from left to right, Linda L, Bill A, Ron L, Pol O'Colmain (artist, storyteller, musician as well as Guide Extaordinaire) and Yours Truly--with the wind-whipped hair.

I'll be posting photos from The Burren/Galway Bay walks as well over the next week. In the meantime, if you have a moment or better yet two, "nip on over" to Facebook.com where I've posted all sixteen photos (so far) to an album.

Hope

More Photos from the RWA Conference in San Francisco

Hi All,

I'm back from hiking Ireland--okay, not exactly the whole country but The Burren and Connemara. Despite an unfortunate lack of gills or fins--can we say "record rainfall"--I managed to stay afloat without floating away. But more on that later this week when I post my vacation pics.

Yummy news: I got back to find a "wee giftie" waiting in my email mailbox--more photos from the RWA Conference in San Francisco courtesy of fellow Washington Romance Writers (WRW) member, Yvonne Yirka. Thanks Yvonne!

Unfortunately being the Shutterbug means not being in so many pictures, at least not your own. The Fab Threesome, taken on a "real live" San Francisco streetcar which we actually rode is (from left to right), Terri Ridgell, me, and former WRW prez, Deborah Barnhart.

Girlfriend time, take time to savor.

Hope