Author: Colleen Newvine Tebeau


Month of Oysters: Fort Defiance, Red Hook

Month of Oysters: Fort Defiance, Red Hook

Oyster happy hour at Fort Defiance is one of many things about this Red Hook bar that’s a little off the radar. Red Hook is a Brooklyn neighborhood that’s legendarily hard to get to. The closest subway stop is maybe a 15 minute walk and bus service can be spotty, even on a night when it’s not pouring rain on…

Month of Oysters: Delmonico's, Financial District

Crisscrossing New York to eat oysters is more than gastronomic exploration, it’s a celebration of New York’s history. In a story on the New York Public Library website headlined, History on the Half-Shell: The story of New York City and its oysters, Carmen Nigro writes: “the oyster reigned supreme as the quintessential New York City food long before pizza, hot pretzels, bagels,…

Month of Oysters: IchiUmi Cellar, Koreatown, Manhattan

Sometimes making Month of Oysters work is more a game of logistics and timing than taste and aesthetics. Tuesday night I had an evening meeting so I had to work around the timing and location of that commitment. It was an engagement worth accommodating. One of my favorite authors, Richard Russo, asked for my help rounding up younger writers and…

Month of Oysters: Desnuda, East Village

Venue: Desnuda Location: 122 E. 7th St., East Village, Manhattan Phone:  212-254-3515 Website: http://desnudany.com/main.php Oyster happy hour:  Sunday and Monday, $1 oysters all day. At their new location at  221 S. First St., Williamsburg, Brooklyn, oyster happy hour is the same thing plus $1 oysters 6-8 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday. When I started researching oyster happy hours for this series, it seemed Desnuda turned up on everyone’s…

Month of Oysters: The Wayland, East Village

Month of Oysters: The Wayland, East Village

Venue: The Wayland Location: 700 E. 9th St. (corner of Avenue C), in the far East Village, also known as Alphabet City, Manhattan Phone:  212-777-7022 Website: http://thewaylandnyc.com/happy-hour-menu/ Oyster happy hour:  Monday-Friday, 5-7 p.m.  oysters are $1 East Coast of the chef’s choice,  $4-5 beers, $6 wine, $7 cocktails, $5 oyster shooters One of the sad facts of life is that happy hours are more common during…

Month of Oysters: Blue Ribbon Brooklyn, Park Slope

Venue: Blue Ribbon Brooklyn Location: 280 5th Avenue, Park Slope, Brooklyn, NY Phone: 718-840-0404 Website: http://blueribbonrestaurants.com/rests_brass_brook_main.htm Oyster happy hour: Oyster of the bar’s choosing for $1.50 each, $8 for a glass of  l’Oiseliniere Muscadet, from opening to 6:30 p.m. seven days a week. Monday through Friday, they open at 5 p.m., Saturday and Sunday you can get started at 4 p.m. Several years ago, my husband and I…

What adventures call to your heart?

What adventures call to your heart?

How the hell do you do that? It’s a question my husband and I have gotten frequently since 2011. That’s when we first went to live in New Orleans for two months. Since then we’ve returned to New Orleans multiple times, we have lived for a month in San Francisco, then after that in a small town in southern Long Island close…

My husband has helped me become a better person

We just celebrated 21 years of marriage John and I got married 21 years ago today. I can confidently say I love him more today than I did back then. One of the reasons I love him more is that I love me more – and that’s in part because he’s helped me grow into a happier, healthier, more loving and generous…

Have you told yourself it’s too late?

Where did you get your ideas about what it means to get older? Are they serving you? Too late I have this vivid memory: I’m in middle school, that time when being cool becomes so intensely important. I get a too-short haircut I hate. I worry about how long it will take to grow my hair back out, because what if…

What kind of love do you love?

Getting clear on what you need can help you teach your loved ones what to do for you And you thought the Bernie memes were done … What is your ideal Valentine? If you watch Valentine’s Day ads, you would assume every woman is pining for roses, diamonds and a car. If they are moms in pandemic, they might actually just want…

Were you hoping 2021 would be easy?

Even though we knew a new calendar doesn’t fix anything, so many of us were looking forward to a fresh start. The occupation of the U.S. Capitol showed us the error of our ways. Are we really still only in January? Just this month, we’ve watched video of armed protesters overtaking the U.S. Capitol, read about a new more contagious…

Just make a choice that’s 1% better today

Even if the external environment stays as troubling as it is, we can make small tweaks to improve our day-to-day lives. In his book Atomic Habits, James Clear advocates for small improvements compounding over time. He calculated that if a plane takes off in Los Angeles bound for New York but it’s off course by just 3.5 degrees, it will land in Washington,…

Playing is not goofing off. It’s essential.

With all the extra work of staying on top of 2020’s challenges, have you lost the time and energy for fun? Girls just wanna have fun … I bet you do, too. Just like kids, we need recess, too. When you hear “play,” do you translate that to goofing off or wasting time? Do you feel you’re just too busy for…

What’s changed for you in the pandemic?

Do you know that adage about the frog in a pot of boiling water —  the frog doesn’t notice as the temperature slowly rises until he’s eventually boiling? If you’ve been too busy just staying afloat to reflect on how your life has changed during the pandemic, maybe it’s time to take the temperature of your water. What’s better? What’s worse?…

There is no status quo, life is always changing

We can get so attached to the way things are, which can mean working really hard to protect against any dangers we imagine. But who imagined the coronavirus pandemic and related recession rocking our worlds, followed by demonstrations for racial justice? Could you have planned for 2020’s many jolts to our before lives? The truth is: Life is always changing. Once…

I am the daughter of survivors

I am the daughter of survivors

We are here, you and I, because our mothers lived long enough to bring us into the world. And their mothers survived and their mothers before them.

We inherited the DNA of survivors.

Whatever your family suffered through, whether that’s slavery, war or the Holocaust, your bloodline was not snuffed out. The women who delivered you here endured.