by Amy Thomas
What I immediately loved about it was that it wasn’t trying to be anything it’s not. I was still struggling to feel at home in Brooklyn, with its rash of twee restaurants and bars and dearth of normal, quality places to eat or drink. At Sharlene’s, there is no small-batch anything. No bespoke cocktail list. No visiting mixologists or bartenders in suspenders with groomed facial hair. And not a lick of reclaimed wood or taxidermy in sight. It’s no wonder, coming from Sharlene Frank.
Having grown up in Windsor Terrace and Sheepshead Bay, Sharlene is a product of old-school Brooklyn. She had been tending bar at Commonwealth in Park Slope when Mooney’s Pub, a popular Irish bar on Flatbush that had been around since 1986, closed. After years of bartending, she was ready to take the next step. She cashed in her savings, approached two former bosses to come aboard as business partners, and signed a lease to take over the space. And so, Sharlene’s was born.
We discovered it to be the perfect sanctuary that winter. A five-minute walk from our apartment, the dark and cozy, down-to-earth, friendly, and forgiving vibe of the bar gave us a place to take a break from wedding stress and strategizing. And an excuse to drink hot toddies.
Naturally, the toddies are nothing fancy at Sharlene’s. True to the original formula, it’s a squeeze of a few lemon wedges into the bottom of a glass mug, a drizzle of some honey, a pour of bourbon, some boiling water from the hot pot, and then a few cloves are tossed in for flavor.
Andrew and I sat at the end of the long wooden bar, watching the bartender make our drinks, taking in the room’s quiet chatter. Within two minutes, he slid them before us and gave us a nod before moving along. Comfort was served.
“Cheers, babe,” Andrew said, lifting his mug to mine.
“Cheers,” I returned. “To something popping up.”
“To something popping up soon.”
I took a sip of the slightly tart, slightly sweet, bracingly strong hot drink, knowing there was indeed a formula out there for a wedding that we’d love.
• • •
In hindsight, wedding planning wasn’t that bad. After the initial shock of prices and tail chasing on location and venues, things came together rather quickly.
Realizing we had to expand our search—again, just as we had in our apartment hunt—we were surprised to ultimately find an affordable venue that we loved in Manhattan: the New Museum on the Bowery, a once-derelict strip that now hops with acclaimed restaurants, karaoke bars, and underground clubs. One of the two caterers the museum partnered with auspiciously hailed from City Bakery, one of my favorite eateries in the city. Once we had those big decisions of venue and food made, it was easy enough to cull a list of vendors and start securing the remaining details.
We were so relieved to have some clarity and move forward and were just about to sign a contract for an August wedding when Milo, in his typical overly affectionate manner, head-butted me in the chest one morning as I loafed in bed. I gasped out loud from the pain—and then once more from the realization of what that pain meant: I was pregnant again.
CHEERS TO THE GOOD OLE BARS
As much as I love a fancy cocktail bar or the occasional hipster hangout, sometimes you just want…a bar. No fuss, no crowds, no drinks with more than three ingredients—just a place for a pint or G&T and a good conversation.
Cavernous and innocuous, Tom & Jerry’s is on the border of Manhattan’s Nolita, NoHo, and SoHo neighborhoods, making it the ideal meeting place. There’s sometimes a movie playing the back or a game on the TV, and there’s always space to hang out.
As spacious as Tom & Jerry’s is, Park Bar is small. Just off Union Square, it’s clean, considered, and absolutely nothing out of the ordinary—the perfect place for a quick rendezvous (or to meet your future husband).
The Half King in Chelsea isn’t just a bar; it’s more of a pub, also a restaurant, has outdoor space, regular literary readings and photo exhibits, and is co-owned by journalist Sebastian Junger. But for all that it is, it’s not overwrought or pretentious, which makes it a good ole bar by my standards.
Thanks to its candle lighting and narrow, intimate rooms, Von is a great spot for dates. Thanks to deep offering of beers, wines, and cocktails, and its location just off of Bowery, it’s also great for nearly any occasion.
CHAPTER 8
Make Mine a Double (Scoop)
Back to the fertility clinic I went. This time around, my weekly check-ins were more fraught, as I kept waiting for something to go wrong. I’d hold my breath as soon as the wand of the ultrasound machine was in the doctor’s hand, not wanting anything to prevent me from hearing what I was hoping for: the sound of a little heart, beating upwards of 150 times a minute. And week after week, I heard it. It was detected at six weeks—the point which the earlier doctor had failed to hear it—and continued to beat strongly every week thereafter. My pregnancy hormones continued to rise. Soon, I cleared the critical twelve-week mark of when most miscarriages occur. I was then in the second trimester and could breathe easier—at least in theory. “It’s still early” became my tentative refrain as I shared the news with family and friends. The caution was for me as much as anyone else; thanks to my “advanced maternal age” and earlier miscarriage, I didn’t feel like I could fully trust things would work out. But once several genetic tests, including Down syndrome, came back negative and I discovered it was a girl—a girl!—who seemed to be growing, breathing, and developing normally, I started believing that everything was okay. As my girlfriend Elisa said, “This is your baby.”
With the radical changes coming our way, Andrew and I decided to bump up our wedding. I was due in October. August 23, the date we had nearly secured at the museum, would be pushing it. Who knew how I would be feeling at seven months—swollen, cranky, on bed rest?—never mind what kind of dress would fit my as of yet unformed baby bump. As luck would have it, the museum was still free two Saturdays in June, so we jumped on one of them, starting to plan for a wedding that was now just a few months away.
So there I was: forty-one years old, taking prenatal vitamins and obsessing about what I was going to wear on my wedding day. After all the years of dating and gallivanting, career tracking and traveling abroad, attending friends’ weddings and baby showers, and never knowing if and when it was going to be my turn, I was pregnant and engaged to be married. It was crazy enough to make me laugh out loud—or maybe that was the hormones.
Any ambivalence I had once felt about getting pregnant metamorphosed into joy. Maybe my earlier doubts had simply been a defense mechanism. Maybe all these new hormones surging around my body flipped a switch inside me to ensure that I felt like an elated mom-to-be. Or maybe it was exactly what Elisa had said. This was my baby. This pregnancy was for keeps, and it was exactly the way things were supposed to work out.
I let myself revel in these new feelings, modestly blushing when friends and colleagues euphorically responded to the news. “Omigod, you’re pregnant?! Congratulations!” they said with big hugs and electric smiles. It never ceased to amaze me how generous people were with their happiness and affection, even those whom I barely knew. It made me feel special but, at the same time, gave me pause for thought. It was like getting pregnant and becoming a mom was life’s crowning achievement. Didn’t they know that I had published a book? Had become a rare female creative director in advertising? Had found a good man in New York City? Talk about achieving the impossible. But even I, who proudly beat my chest about following my own path through life, had to admit it was fun having people cluck over me during this traditional period.
I was also filled with giddy disbelief when I caught my profile in a mirror. Me, pregnant! I loved watching my belly slowly inflate like a balloon. There was a joyful freedom to no longer having control over my body and what shape it was taking. I knew I was going to get bigger and bigger, and no one could say one word or raise an eyebrow—it is an invaluable carte blanche issued to pregnant women
. Considering the typical scrutiny our bodies get on an everyday basis, I gladly accepted the free pass.
There was a little person growing inside of me, and she was going to do what she was going to do. All I had to do was make the best decisions to keep her safe and healthy. I paid attention to what I ate but for wholly new reasons. Eschewing the Twizzlers and gummies at the office for the first time in my life had nothing to do with how many calories I had already had at lunch or how tight my jeans felt. It was all about regarding this little person’s needs. Knowing corn syrup has absolutely no nutritional value hadn’t been enough to stop myself from binging on sticky-sweet garbage for four decades, but I certainly couldn’t justify ingesting such crap when it went directly to her. I’ve always been mindful of what I eat (well, it’s all relative) and grateful for my healthy body, but this was a whole new level of appreciation. I found it amazing what a woman’s body, my body, was capable of doing. And finally, I had boobs.
But I saw the other side too. Months of weekly visits to the fertility clinic had opened my eyes, sparking new compassion for the entire female species. The clinic buzzed in the wee morning hours with hopeful patients of every age, size, color, and sexuality trying to get pregnant. I may have been ambivalent about having a child for years, but witnessing all these women in different stages of desperation and hope, fear and determination made me realize how thin the line is between indifference and insensitivity. We are surrounded by so many women without knowing who are going through the pain of miscarrying or not being able to conceive. So many women who want to become mothers but who don’t have partners or stability or healthy eggs and feel the pressure of time running out. Women who graciously smile upon hearing your news or seeing your belly but who are crying inside. There are so many complicated situations and imperfect choices, and until you face your own obstacles, it’s just assumed that you can, and will, get pregnant.
It wasn’t just the strangers at the clinic. I had married friends attempting IVF, both successfully and unsuccessfully. Single friends vacillated between feeling grateful for their independence and worrying about if they’d ever meet anyone and whether they should freeze their eggs—feelings I had experienced firsthand. Some of their perspectives were calm and matter of fact: “If it happens, it happens.” Others expressed their deep angst and pain during raw, vulnerable moments. I understood it all, and there were moments when I felt guilty about how relatively easy I had it. It’s one thing to not know if you want to have children, another being told that you can’t. Now that I was pregnant, I felt beyond lucky for my good fortune. I understood nothing is guaranteed.
After the twelve-week mark in my pregnancy, I had switched from weekly check-ins at the fertility clinic to less frequent appointments with an obstetrician. The waiting room at her practice was calmer and emptier, despite there being actual babies everywhere. I also noticed all the new moms and pregnant women seemed about my age—it all seemed very Brooklyn. When I brought up these observations to my OB, she confirmed that there is indeed an uptick of older women having kids, which can make her job tricky. Women in their thirties get sensitive when she brings up their age and fertility, she said; they don’t want a reminder or pressure about their biological clocks. Yet as a doctor, she has to be clear about the risks of waiting. She has more and more clients in their late thirties and early forties for whom getting pregnant is a challenge or rife with complications, and then they desperately wish they had done something about it when they were younger—the independent woman’s catch-22.
And at the other end of the spectrum, my OB shared all these crazy success stories: The forty-eight-year-old, pregnant with IVF twins. Women who conceive naturally at forty-five after multiple rounds of failed IVF. And then there are the growing number of patients like me: technically single and pregnant, having rolled the fertility dice before committing to a man and marriage.
• • •
I know it’s a cliché, but ice cream was one of my top pregnancy indulgences. Whereas splitting a pint used to be an occasional weekend activity for me and Andrew, we were suddenly killing one on a near-daily occurrence. It didn’t help that the days were getting longer and warmer, and the best ice cream shop in all of Brooklyn, Ample Hills, was within dangerous proximity of our apartment.
Ample Hills was started by a husband-and-wife team: Brian Smith and Jackie Cuscuna. At the age of forty, Brian was a screenwriter of “bad monster movies” for the SyFy Channel. He and Jackie, a high school teacher, had a four-year-old and a one-year-old. Every summer, they vacationed with family in the Adirondacks in upstate New York. Throughout it all, Brian was slightly obsessed with ice cream. “It always sat in the back of my head,” he says of his lifelong relationship with the frozen dessert. Which is partly why he looked forward to these summer vacations: they were filled not only with quality family time and relaxation, but they also added motivation to dig deeper into his passion. “We had ice cream socials,” Brian remembers of the summer trips. “We’d make ice cream for dozens of people, very idyllically cranking on a hand-crank ice cream machine, testing out flavors on people.” Brian was knowingly, not knowingly, planting the seeds for a midlife career change.
After a few of these summers, the couple agreed that opening an ice cream shop was viable. With his career not exactly stalling but also not taking him to Steven Spielberg levels of success, Brian felt it was time. The itch wasn’t going away. All kinds of wild and wacky flavors begged to be made. He’d been taking his son on expeditions around New Jersey, Staten Island, and other surrounding towns, checking out ice cream parlors: the ambiance and styles, the flavors and menus, all the while trying to figure out what they could do different. Once he and Jackie felt they had a business plan, the space, along with the critical mass, they decided to go for it.
Brian’s recon helped inform several things he knew were essential to making his vision a success. Almost as much as creating ice cream, he wanted to foster a sense of community. He wanted his brand to be old-timey in execution. And he wanted all the ingredients of the ice cream, from peppermint patties to pistachio brittle, to be homemade. “From the beginning, I knew I wanted to make everything from scratch, and to do it in front of everyone, so they’d be invited into the narrative,” Brian says, clearly influenced by his initial career as a storyteller. And, true Brooklynites, Brian and Jackie insisted on dairy cows that are grass fed and hormone free.
Ample Hills opened in May of 2011 with twenty-four flavors. Within four days, they’d sold out of their entire inventory, shutting the scoop shop down for a week. “It’s a good story in hindsight,” Brian says, “but at the time, it was terribly stressful.” By the time Andrew and I lived in the neighborhood, a year and a half after Ample Hills’ dramatic debut, they had found their footing. They adeptly balanced supply and demand, and when they did periodically sell out of a flavor, it was just because it was new and that delicious.
“The goal of flavor creation is to reach the seven-year-old inside the forty-seven-year-old,” Brian explains of their instant connection with customers. While other ice cream start-ups in the city—and there have been plenty launches since Ample Hills, including OddFellows (2013), Morgenstern’s (2014), and Ice & Vice (2015), to name a few—have found their success in offbeat flavors like avocado, extra virgin olive oil, red bean, and chorizo caramel, they aren’t made in the same spirit of evoking the fun and play of childhood that Brian finds essential. It’s a different brand of creativity.
Even though it inevitably meant waiting in a long line, I loved being the one to go to Ample Hills to pick up a pint because it also meant sampling the flavors. Each one is sweet and creamy, über-rich, and totally original. They’re loaded with so many ingredients you never tire of taste testing them. There’s Ooey Gooey Butter Cake, a full-flavor vanilla that’s studded with chunks of rich, dense Saint Louis–style cake; The Munchies, a salty-sweet pretzel-infused ice cream chock-full of Ritz crackers, potato chips, M&M’s, a
nd more pretzels; Nonna D’s Oatmeal Lace is brown-sugar-and-cinnamon ice cream chunked with homemade oatmeal cookies; and their signature flavor, Salted Crack Caramel, which involves caramelizing large amounts of sugar on the stove top until it’s nearly burnt, giving it a bitterness that distinguishes their version from all the other salted caramels out there.
When I was pregnant, it was easy to rationalize bringing home two pints instead of one, since it was always so hard to decide exactly which flavor to get. And then it just seemed efficient to buy three at a clip—ostensibly the three would last for the week, though they never did. As we compulsively pounded the decadent dessert night after night, I hid behind my baby bump, where I happily couldn’t detect those hundreds of extra, creamy calories, wherever they might be landing, and hoped I wouldn’t have to do major damage control after giving birth.
Meanwhile, as my belly ballooned, Ample Hills’ success skyrocketed. Brian and Jackie opened a second location that summer in Gowanus—not far from Four & Twenty Blackbirds. They were touted on the Food Network and as one of Oprah’s “Favorite Things.” The following year, they published their own cookbook, and within five years of opening their first scoop shop, Ample Hills had expanded to six locations between Brooklyn and Manhattan and had a seventh shop, operated by Disney, on Disney’s BoardWalk in Florida. They started distributing their pints in supermarkets and later secured funding to build a giant factory in Red Hook to sustain a constantly expanding distribution plan.
You wouldn’t know it by their rapid ascension to ice cream dominance, but caution has guided their way. “The goal is to build out an anti-chain chain,” Brian explains, fully aware that the charm of Ample Hills is that it’s small, independently owned, and has quirks that locals appreciate. Every time they add a new scoop shop, they’re mindful of creating at least one flavor that’s unique to that location, like It Came Out of Gowanus, “the deepest, darkest, murkiest chocolate ice cream,” in Brian’s words, that’s chock-full of white chocolate pearls, a nod to the waterway’s once-prolific bivalves; chocolatey “crack cookies” made with hazelnut paste; and Grand Marnier–laced brownies. To foster community, they always include an experiential aspect—a playroom for kids, a party room, commissioned artwork—that is “not cookie-cutter.” Jackie has designed all the custom tables, which are collages of vintage ads and ice cream photos, mixed with contemporary photos of their own family and fans from the different neighborhoods, each one unique. “It’s terrifying because we’re growing pretty quickly. The fear is that we’ll implode from the pressures of it and destroy the very authenticity of what created it to begin with.”