Brooklyn in Love

by Amy Thomas

  Later in the day, I found some privacy to call the doctor I had seen earlier that year and she had me return to the fertility clinic for blood and urine tests. There, my pregnancy was officially confirmed. Because of my “advanced maternal age,” the term given to women who seem to have prioritized work and independence a decade or two before getting pregnant, I was to return to the clinic each week until I was three months along. Routine blood work would track the levels of my pregnancy hormones and an ultrasound would monitor fetal growth.

  After my appointment confirming the news, everything was different—and yet the same. As major as this news was, it still belonged only to Andrew and me. In the meantime, the rest of the world still had its demands and expectations and wasn’t slowing down. Besides, getting pregnant hadn’t preoccupied us. It happened relatively quickly and easily. It had been an active choice yet a passive pursuit. Now that it had happened, now that I was pregnant, it mostly just felt surreal. It was weird having such a big secret and not being able to tell anyone about it because it was so early and uncertain. Anything could still happen. Anything—like being told there should be a heartbeat when there wasn’t.

  “Are you sure about the date?” asked the doctor during what was estimated to be my sixth week.

  “Yeah, pretty sure,” I said, thinking back and calculating when the ovulation kit had given us that smiley face to go forth and procreate.

  “Well, we should be able to detect a heartbeat at this point,” he said.

  On each of my three visits, a different doctor had conducted the appointment, which made it somehow easier to believe that this one might not know what he was talking about. He could be missing or overlooking something. “But we’ll give it another week before we make any decisions,” he said before wishing me a good day and leaving me to get dressed. His curt words weren’t exactly a ringing endorsement, but the blood tests from that same morning acknowledged that my pregnancy hormones were still going up, which was an important sign. Maybe this guy was somehow misinformed about my status. Maybe the ovulation kit had been wrong and I had conceived after the window I was counting from. Or maybe karma was responding to my relative indifference to the news of being pregnant. In any case, I had to live with this secret—as uncertain as it was—for another week.

  • • •

  More eager than ever to move into our apartment, Andrew and I returned to it that Saturday to check again on how the renovations had progressed. I had been slowly packing up my apartment and pawning furniture, clothes, housewares, and books. With each trip to a consignment store or charity drop-off, it felt like I was dismantling my life: my antique cast-iron bed from my grandfather’s auction days that I’d slept in since the age of six. The giant Restaurant de la Machine à Bougival print by Maurice de Vlaminck I bought at the Musée d’Orsay as an exchange student in Paris and had hung framed in my bedroom ever since. The electric juicer and rice cooker, appliances that had made me feel so adult in my twenties and that I had toted from San Francisco to two apartments in New York and never used, not once. All these objects conjured different chapters of my life and varying levels of sentimentality. But the more boxes I packed, the less I allowed myself to be emotional about parting with anything. It was time to be doing this.

  Unfortunately, when we got inside our apartment, it didn’t look like we’d be living there anytime soon. There was debris—splintered wood and plaster from the wall that had been torn down, bits of metal, dismantled boxes—in different-sized heaps everywhere, covered in a layer of dust. Drop cloths were down in the living room and bedroom, but the paint was yet to go on the walls. The kitchen cupboards were installed, but the lack of counters and appliances still left gaping holes. Wires poked out of the walls. Bare bulbs dangled from ripped-out fixtures. The floors, which had long ago been stripped, sanded, and stained dark ebony, were covered with butcher paper that was torn and fraying along the edges but hopefully still protecting the new finish. Shouldn’t the floors have been the last thing to get done, anyway?

  Andrew put on a bright face to counteract my own crestfallen expression. “Why don’t we go somewhere for brunch and then walk across the Brooklyn Bridge?” he asked. It was early October: cool, crisp, and sunny. I couldn’t get the contractors to step it up. I couldn’t get the doctor to offer certainty about my pregnancy’s viability. And I sure didn’t feel like facing another afternoon of schlepping pieces of my life to secondhand stores, so they could tell me how little it was all worth. But I could let Andrew call the shots. So we set out for eggs and pancakes and another Brooklyn ramble.

  • • •

  It didn’t take long for certain things to start clicking. Andrew is not a big planner; he usually waits for my lead. But he had been very confident about the idea of walking across the Brooklyn Bridge—as if he had been thinking about it for more than the two seconds it seemed when he suggested it. And he was carrying his Jack Spade messenger bag, ordinarily reserved for work or picnic outings. If I really wanted to analyze things, he seemed inordinately smiley, but also just a little on edge.

  We had shopped for engagement rings together several months earlier, and he knew I was starting to chafe at how long it was taking for the actual proposal to happen, especially now that I was maybe-maybe-not pregnant. So after our nondescript brunch at a Fort Greene restaurant with requisite reclaimed wood floors and Edison light fixtures, when we were about a quarter of the way over the bridge and Andrew ushered me out of the way of the bicyclists barreling past and the throngs of Italian and French tourists, my stomach began to lurch.

  “Hi, babe.” Andrew turned to me as if we hadn’t been together since waking up hours earlier. He wore a big smile and just a little bit of a tremor.

  “Hi.” I grinned back at him, knowing this was it. He was about to propose. We were both filled with jitters and glee. We knew this moment was inevitable—we had been talking about getting married for the better part of the year—but it was still nerve racking. It was another huge step in a short period of time. He reached into his jacket pocket and took out a piece of paper and began telling me the story about why we were standing together where we were.

  The Brooklyn Bridge was designed in the 1860s by John A. Roebling, a German immigrant and civil engineer from Pennsylvania. He was renowned for the suspension technology he used to build such bridges as the one over the Niagara Gorge at Niagara Falls and the Ohio River in Cincinnati. But after designing the Brooklyn Bridge using that same progressive technology, his involvement was short-lived. As he was taking compass readings on a dock, his foot got crushed by a ferry. His toes were amputated, but within weeks, he died from tetanus. Before he passed away, Roebling placed his son Washington, also a civil engineer who had worked with his father on several other bridges, in charge of the project. But Washington, along with dozens of other workers, was soon also stricken with a debilitating illness: the bends, the result of surfacing too quickly from the compressed air chambers used to lay the bridge’s underwater foundations. Washington escaped death but was inflicted with paralysis, deafness, and partial blindness. Determined to still be involved, he turned the responsibilities of the project’s completion over to his wife, Emily, and watched the bridge’s slow progression via telescope from their home in Brooklyn Heights.

  Emily, Andrew emphasized, was no slouch. She had taken it upon herself to learn suspension technology and construction guidelines, while also tending to Washington’s medical needs. She took over the daily chief engineer duties, relaying information from Washington to his assistants and reporting the progress of the bridge back to him. She developed an extensive knowledge of the strength of building materials, stress analysis, and cable construction. She dealt with politicians, engineers, construction workers, and everyone even tangentially associated with the project. She carried on with devotion for the fourteen years it took to complete the Brooklyn Bridge, the nation’s first steel and cable suspension bridge. It spanned 1,600 f
eet from tower to tower—3,460 feet in total—and was built with as much love and devotion as engineering and ingenuity. And in the end, because of the combination of Washington’s and Emily’s perseverance as much as the elder Roebling’s technology, it was a bridge that was six times stronger than it needed to be.

  This was the kind of man I was going to marry. Andrew had chosen the Brooklyn Bridge to propose less for how beautiful and picturesque it is, or even for its symbolism in linking our two worlds of Manhattan and Brooklyn together, but for its auspicious origins in love and partnership. While we hadn’t endured physical catastrophes or urban bureaucracy, we had weathered a few of our own modest tribulations and setbacks.

  After Andrew pulled the ring out of his bag and we admired it on my finger, he opened a half bottle of champagne. It was more for ceremony than to drink as I was still holding on to the idea that I was pregnant, but still, we held our glasses of Veuve Clicquot and stared at the Manhattan skyline, staying in the moment for as long as possible. So much had happened since I had come home from Paris, so much remained still unknown—who knew what the future held next?

  • • •

  As we carried on with our walk after Andrew’s beautiful proposal, he told me we were going out to celebrate that night and to wear something nice.

  “Sweet! Where are we going?” I asked.

  “I’m not telling.”

  “Have I been there before?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Have you?”

  “No.” I considered the possibilities. Il Cantinori and al di la, both dark and charming Italian restaurants, the first in Greenwich Village and the latter in Park Slope, were out, as we had celebrated anniversaries there. So too were Balthazar and Minetta Tavern, Keith McNally restaurants that we both loved for their buzzing brasserie atmospheres. It had to be elegant enough to get spiffed up for, but I didn’t think Andrew would pick somewhere superextravagant. “What neighborhood?” I continued prodding.

  “The Village.”

  “Is it the Waverly Inn?” I guessed after a moment.

  “Nope.”

  “Two if by Land?” I asked, botching the name of One if by Land, Two if by Sea, the restaurant within a candlelit carriage house that is most notorious for its volume of marriage proposals.

  “Nope,” Andrew said. I thought to keep pressing, but instead I left it at that, delighted that I was going to be surprised with a special dinner reservation.

  That night, donning a silk top and kitten heels, I was confused as Andrew and I walked near Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village. All I could think of was Babbo, but I knew Andrew had been there before. Il Mulino? Fedora? I was still trying to guess where we were going when he guided me down three steps of a townhouse and I saw the stately letters spelling it all out: Blue Hill.

  Blue Hill was opened in the spring of 2000 by Chef Dan Barber; his brother, David; and sister-in-law, Laureen. At the time, they had modest expectations, humble self-regard, and the simple intention of opening a neighborhood bistro that would showcase Dan’s talents. Sixteen years later, they—Dan in particular—have changed American dining.

  Though Dan went to Tufts University and studied English and political science, he was interested in food and even started a supper club in his dorm room. After school, he leaned into his passion, going on to graduate from the French Culinary Institute. He spent a brief time baking bread at Nancy Silverton’s acclaimed La Brea Bakery in Los Angeles, and then went to France, where he staged, or interned, for a year. These were logical progressions to opening his own restaurant, but “the original inspiration for Blue Hill actually came much earlier,” Dan explains. “Growing up, David and I spent our summers with our grandmother on her farm in the Berkshires. She had this sense of responsibility about preserving the landscape, and that translated into my feelings about food, which is to some extent the responsibility attached to the way we eat or the place that we eat. The restaurant became a place to explore those ideas.”

  Asparagus season hit not long after Blue Hill first opened, and when Dan walked into the refrigerator that was filled to the gills with the chubby green spears after already cooking with it for days on end, he nearly lost it. Almost in a fit of rebellion, he decided that every dish served that night, from soup to ice cream, was going to have asparagus in it. It ended up being a seminal decision for the chef and the restaurant, as the critic Jonathan Gold was dining there that night. The review lauded the restaurant and its devotion to seasonal ingredients, declaring it the epitome of farm-to-table dining. It was the start of Chef Barber becoming recognized as the most important voice in seasonal, sustainable farming and eating. “When we first opened Blue Hill, farm-to-table wasn’t the established movement that it is today,” he says. “In the last decade, diners have become a lot more curious—and a lot more demanding—about the food on their plates. People want to know where their food comes from and how it was grown. They’re starting to engage with a new kind of recipe—the kind that begins, not in the kitchen, but in the fields and pastures.”

  Indeed, after their grandmother passed away and her farm fell into disrepair, the brothers strategically looked at how they could resurrect it. The answer was essentially bringing animals back: from dairy cows and goats to chickens and pigs, the symbiotic relationship between these free-ranging animals and the grass, grains, and land started producing rich, flavorful ingredients. This method is the gold star of farming practices. And at both restaurants—in 2004, the team opened Blue Hill at Stone Barns, a working farm and restaurant thirty miles north of the city that couldn’t be a clearer example of what farm-to-table really means—the relationship the chef has with his farmers, the land, and ingredients comes through in every dish. “Chefs now have the opportunity to agitate change, creating trends that trickle down to almost every level of the food chain. So the question is, can chefs help us to see nature in a more enlightened way? Our role is always to pursue the best-tasting ingredients for our menus. What I’ve learned, though, is that if you are pursuing the best possible flavor, you are, by definition, also seeking the right kind of nutrition, the right kind of soil health. As chefs, we have the chance—and perhaps stronger still, the responsibility—to make those connections clear.”

  I felt so lucky to eat at this legendarily principled restaurant the night Andrew proposed. With our emotions sky high, yet also tinged with dark uncertainty, it was reassuring to be somewhere with a mission and message to the world—not to mention some of the city’s best food. Blue Hill had just won the James Beard Outstanding Restaurant Award (in 2015, Blue Hill at Stone Barn would receive the same honor). It was also classically elegant and old-school New York: taupe banquettes, white tablecloths, and hushed tones. We were able to sink into comfort and decadence, enjoying our three-course dinner enveloped in our own private world within this greater one.

  First up were these dainty heirloom vegetables, speared like lollipops on a “fence” of fine metal pricks. “I’m not a minimalist by nature,” the chef explains of this simple yet exquisite dish, “but sometimes the stuff we get from the farm is so perfect, I feel like I shouldn’t do much with it: just vegetables, naked, with salt and a little lemon vinaigrette.” Andrew and I plucked the carrots, fennel, radishes, and greens one by one, relishing the powerful flavor contained within each, along with the snap, crunch, and wholesomeness. So simple and pure.

  But it wasn’t all so austere. We moved on to luscious potato gnocchi, fresh tilefish from Montauk, and my favorite, duck. Blue Hill gets its ducks from a local farm called Garden of Spices, where they’re raised on grass, something that is rarely done in this country. “We cold smoke the legs for several hours—tenderizing the muscles from all that activity—and roast the breasts on the bone.” The succulent meat, as decadent as it gets for me since I don’t eat red meat, took me back to Paris, where I started really appreciating how sublime a piece of fowl could be. But that nig
ht, I was happily in New York, happily sated, firmly on the cusp of two worlds.

  • • •

  Although Andrew and I were both elated through the weekend as we shared our engagement news with family and friends, there was still a shadow hanging over us. All of this excitement was muddied with not knowing the status of my pregnancy. It felt almost dishonest to gush about our engagement and remain mum about the fact that either I was pregnant or had miscarried.

  But the uncertainty wasn’t long lived. When I went in for my next appointment, the doctor confirmed the fetus was no longer viable. Naturally we were upset, even though miscarriages are actually quite common, especially, as we had been warned, for someone my age. But the pregnancy was so early on—still “theoretical” in Andrew’s words. I reached for the despair and sadness but instead got detachment. While I felt like I should have been more shaken up, the pregnancy hadn’t affected our lives yet. We had so many things going on—finishing the apartment, moving in together, my new job, and now, our engagement—so much to be thankful for. We had our lives together before us. And though it seemed strange at the heels of loss, we were actually happy and encouraged by the fact that we could get pregnant. With this stew of contradictory emotions, Andrew and I did what was really our only option: we put on brave faces and cracked on.

  DATE NIGHT!

  Whether it’s your first, fifth, or fiftieth, a great date brings you ever closer to your lover—and the city. It’s that magical formula of romance and charm, food and drink, mystery and certainty. Like every couple who’s been together at least a couple years, Andrew and I had some especially memorable date nights, along with our simple, everyday favorites.