I was saddened to learn of the passing of our old friend Amanda Green, restaurateur, raconteur, mother extraordinaire and just all around good person. She died of complications resulting from her long bout with pancreatic cancer this last weekend. The last time I had heard word of her was in the winter, when she called my wife to tell her about her life and troubles and declare herself a survivor.
When I say “old friend,” understand that this is how anyone who came in contact with her felt. Amanda worked the front door at the old La Bouillabaisse on Atlantic Avenue, back when dining in downtown Brooklyn consisted chiefly of pizza and calzone. Her partner, Neil, was the genius in the kitchen but he was a temperamental type who depended on her relentless good cheer to fill the place, and fill it she did. They didn’t have a liquor license and encouraged customers to buy wine from the Heights Chateau next door, but she was happy to pour you something from one of the bottles she had open in the back. There was always a wait but the time passed quickly in her presence.
Amanda was a British expat whose obit said she had been a dancer and exotic bird importer, neither of which surprises me; she had a dancer’s body and was a rare bird herself. She was a bit of a chanteuse as well; I remember hearing her singing to the accompaniment of an electric piano one night, not long after the restaurant had opened. The location had been a Bermuda Triangle for restaurants for years; I remember the proprietor of one short-lived curry joint telling me his business was improving “thanks to the gods” before they failed him and that joint closed too. What he needed was Amanda.
La Bouillabaisse was the site of a few key events in my life. It was there that we hosted a party celebrating the arrival of our daughter, Franny, from Paraguay on one unspeakably cold night in January 1994 and Amanda was there, sharing the joy. (Her first child, Nick, was born not long after.) And it was after one particularly drunken evening there a year and a half later that I concluded that I could drink no more. I remember feeling embarrassed when I told her, a few months later, that I had quit; she liked a glass herself and I was afraid she would pass judgment. But instead she made me feel welcome and clucked about her own intake while pouring me a nonalcoholic beer.
She had some hard times after that: a nasty separation from the father of her children, her bouts with cancer. But she always seemed literally indomitable. Her latest venture was a wine bar on Henry Street that she single-handedly made a destination in Brooklyn Heights, bringing in music and readings but that was not what made it hot. She made anyone who walked in feel welcome, made you feel in fact that your whole life had been leading up to your arrival at that particular spot. It was hard to see that it was she that was exceptional when she went about making you feel so special. It’s a gift, that, the real art of living.
There will be a memorial service for Amanda at Grace Church on Hicks Street, Monday (Bloomsday!) June 16 at 3 pm. Hope to see you there.