Brunch, Biking and a Fancy Cocktail
John Leland, New York Times
John Leland, New York Times
Six days a week, Sheila Lewandowski, 46, and Brian Rogers, 38, run an adventurous performance space in Long Island City, Queens, called the Chocolate Factory theater. On Sundays they forage for cholesterol and watch “Battlestar Galactica” on Netflix. The couple, who are married, live next door to the theater with their dog, J. R., a pit bull terrier and Labrador retriever mix that they found on the Jackie Robinson Parkway. – JOHN LELAND
WAKE-UP TIME (Him) Hopefully afternoon, if we can help it.
(Her) Typically between 10 and 11. I wake up first, because our dog gets to my guilt more quickly than she gets to Brian’s. She certainly makes sure I know that she needs to go out.
FUEL (Her) We like to go to brunch on Sunday. It’s usually an hour of discussion and argument about where we should go.
(Him) We put on a huge restaurant tasting called Taste of LIC, so there’s always a political aspect on where we decide to go to brunch. So we always have to go to a place we haven’t been to for a while.
(Her) We usually like to go to Tournesol.
(Him) We’re not eating heavily. I’ll have a drink.
(Her) We usually have a mimosa and the eggs Benedict. We don’t have our coffee there. We go to Sweet Leaf for coffee and say hi to folks there, then kind of wander back and putter around the house for a while.
SEPARATE CORNERS (Her) I love to garden, so it’s usually a direct shot that I go outside and fill the bird feeder and prune plants.
(Him) I just do a lot of mindless Internet surfing. I don’t have time to do that during the week, so that’s when I catch up on the Internet — preferably things that aren’t related to my work.
WHEELS (Her) Then we get on our bikes. We’ve gone as far as riding out to Red Hook and Fairway.
(Him) There’s a place called Marlow & Daughters in Brooklyn we like to go to. They’re butchers, and they churn their own butter and they buy organic produce from local farms.
(Her) This weekend we bought bunches of red carrots, a couple of potatoes, pink cauliflower, short ribs, and we made a Dutch oven feast.
SHAKEN AND STIRRED (Him) At 5 or 6 o’clock we always make a cocktail. We don’t do it any other day of the week. I have a cocktail app on my iPhone, and we’ll dig around and we’ll find some fancy cocktail.
(Her) Mercy, Mercy is one that we like to make.
(Him) It has gin and Aperol and Lillet and bitters in it. It’s great.
(Her) Then there’s another in the past called the Paper Plane. We stay away from vodka drinks. We like to do things with bourbon, whiskey, gin. A lot of the apps now let you punch in something you have in your bar and then they come up with lists. And we put the cocktail glasses in the freezer and make our cocktail when we’re prepping dinner.
(Her) The other drink we make all the time is called the Hoopla. Brandy, Cointreau, Lillet and fresh lemon juice.
COOKING (Him) One of us always takes the lead, but the other tries to help.
(Her) One has to be officially in charge, personality-wise.
(Him) Last week you made beef Bourguignon.
(Her) That was so good. It was one of those dishes where you taste it and go, Wow, I can’t believe I made that.
EVENING OF AVANT-GARDE? (Him) The opposite, no. We’ve become addicted to streaming “Battlestar Galactica” on Sundays. We try to watch something a little less challenging on Sunday nights.
TO BED (Him) We tend to lay around until midnight, 1 a.m.
(Her) That’s when the real avant-garde performance art begins.
John Leland for the New York Times – July 8, 2011