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Red Hook Is Out, So Baja Mexico Will Have to Do
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/24/red-hook-is-out...
By MICHAEL WILSON
September 24, 2010
When LeNell Smothers’s landlord would not renew her lease and she reluctantly closed her beloved liquor store in Red Hook, taking her Alabama
chandelier and little-boy-urinating fountain with her, her predictions for the future, however cryptic, proved prescient.
“If I’m not in Red Hook, I’m not interested in Brooklyn,” she said in a 2007 interview. “This is where I live. I don’t like the idea of opening a
business and not being part of the community where that business is. I’m kind of old-fashioned that way.”
She left Brooklyn, all right. After a period of near-radio silence, Ms. Smothers reached out to her old customers this week with an electronic
dispatch from her new home: La Paz, in Baja California Sur, Mexico, where she just opened a bar-and-bed place called Casa Cóctel.
Heartbroken after the closing of LeNell’s in Red Hook, she visited Mexico as a wedding guest shortly after. She met a handsome local bartender, Demián
Camacho Santa Ana, who flat-out asked, “Do you want to be in a relationship?” She said yes, and shortly after, when yet another attempt at finding a
new storefront in Red Hook fell through, she moved to La Paz.
She and Demián, now her fiancé, opened Casa Cóctel in the same brassy vein that will be familiar to regulars at the old Van Brunt Street shop. “True
to our ornery nature, we refuse to publish room rates,” Ms. Smothers, 40, wrote in her e-mail. “We plan to offer each guest a custom package depending
on the adventures in food, drink and local life you’d like to enjoy.”
“Casa Cóctel is tiny and plans to appreciate all budgets, too,” she wrote. “We offer memorable drink experiences for those pinching their pesos to
those whose wallets billow with bills.”
She returned a call to Mexico on Friday morning, and she said she saw some similarity between her current and former homes: “In the scene of New York,
Red Hook is like a small town that’s sort of isolated in its own world, and so is La Paz.”
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BajaNews
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Posts: 1439
Registered: 12-11-2005
Member Is Offline
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5@5 - LeNell Smothers
http://eatocracy.cnn.com/2010/12/08/55-lenell-smothers/
December 8th, 2010
05:00 PM
We all remember that first sip. It was probably Chardonnay and probably from your mother’s glass, and you probably gagged on the fermented wine and
clamored back toward your juice box. “It’s an acquired taste," said mommy dearest.
Well we hate to say it, but our parents were right - and we’ve acquired that taste quite well, thankyouverymuch.
It should come to no surprise that your sense of taste changes as you get older. (Yup, we're looking at you neon hair scrunchies.) And for LeNell
Smothers, what better time to reflect on such changes as your fortieth birthday?
LeNell Smothers is a bona fide c-cktail icon. She owned the liquor store, appropriately called LeNell’s, in Brooklyn, New York for over five years
where it was recognized by GQ magazine as one of the "Best 50 Stores in America," by Whisky magazine as "US Retailer of the Year" and by New York
magazine as "Best Liquor Store.”
Unfortunately, she had to close shop in February 2009 after a landlord-lease kerfuffle. From there, she did what any tequila-toting girl should do:
pack her bags and head to La Paz, Mexico - where she now runs the libation refuge, Casa Cóctel, with her fiancé, Demián Camacho Santa Ana.
Ch-ch-ch-changes. They are a-coming.
Five Things I Love at 40 That I Hated at 14: LeNell Smothers
1. Tomatoes
"My mom was a 'clean the whole plate' kind of woman, whether you liked what she put on it or not. Just to give you an idea of how much I hated
tomatoes, I had a favorite sweatshirt I used to wear to the dinner table. The tomato slices on my plate would clandestinely be placed in front pouch
of the sweatshirt and later flushed down the toilet. My dad made traditional Southern bacon grease gravy for biscuits, but added stewed tomatoes. It
disgusted me as a youth, but now I wake up some lazy weekend mornings and crave it as comfort food with a batch of my buttermilk biscuits. We recently
juiced five bushels of heirloom tomatoes to put away in Ball jars to make some of the best Bloody Mary's in Baja."
2. Onions
"I hated the texture and the taste of onions as a kid, but for some reason I could devour a bag of Funyuns, the onion-ring-shaped, cornmeal-based junk
food, in a heart beat. My dad was not happy about this ever. Now, I love cooking with onion and even pickle onions."
3. Anise/licorice
"I was one of those kids who didn't eat the black jelly beans. I couldn't stand the strong flavors of anise or licorice. Now, I keep natural licorice
root in my pantry for making herbal infusions. Absinthe, an anise-flavored beverage, is a regular part of our lives."
4. Spinach
"My mother used to open cans of spinach as a healthy addition to dinner. This, like tomatoes, ended up in the sweatshirt pocket for toilet disposal
later. I hated the slimy, stringy cooked spinach. I eat spinach regularly now and love it sautéed with garlic, creamed, and especially fresh in a
salad. I'm still not a fan of the overcooked, stringy slime found in most canned spinach brands."
5. Booze and boys
"I was a good girl, believe it or not, and didn't dabble in the double devilish combo of booze and boys as a teen. I remember accidentally picking up
my dad's Greyhound, a vodka and grapefruit highball, and chugging it thinking it was simply juice, much to my disgust. I saved myself in more ways
than one until 21 years old when I became a bartender. Now two of my favorite things are Manhattans on the rocks and men, straight."
http://www.casacoctel.com
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