Which is right for you?

Lots of people thinking about joining our house are faced with options in Kismet and in Ocean beach.  If you’ve never been to Fire Island, it can be hard to know what the difference is.  Kismet and Ocean Beach are both popular towns for sharehouses and offer healthy nightlife. If you’re looking for a weekend share on Fire Island and you are social, either town could be a good bet for you. Understanding what is similar and different is key to ending up somewhere that you are happy.

Here are a couple of key facts to keep in mind:

• Both Kismet and Ocean Beach are primarily filled with straight people.  The predominantly gay communities are much further east.
• Ocean Beach is bigger than Kismet, there are more bars and restaurants and more houses; however, it is much more crowded as well.  Both towns have upscale restaurants,  bars with dancing and live music, pizza parlors, ice cream shops and grocery stores.  Only Ocean Beach has clothing stores and other trinket shops.
• For singles or young people without kids: Ocean Beach leans more in the low 20’s age group with lots of  groups of college kids or very recent post-grads (think ACE bar), whereas Kismet has a more mid 20’s – 30’s average age group.
• Since Ocean Beach is bigger and more crowded, it also has many more rules.  Often called the “Land of No” rules include: no riding bikes, no drinking outside, no food or water allowed on the beach, no throwing games or kite flying on the beach, and you must wear shoes in town.  For a full list of Ocean Beaches rules, see the code itself.
• Kismet is much more laid back and uncrowded, you will know everyone by the end of the summer.  Great if you want to feel connected, not as good if you’re looking for anonymity

The last thing that is often overlooked by first-time Fire Islanders is the water taxi.  Water Taxis are high speed boats the ferry you up and down the island from town to town.  Getting to between Ocean Beach and Kismet costs $8 one-way and takes about 10 minutes.  Taxis stop at the dock roughly every 20-30 minutes until around 1AM.  It is not at all uncommon to hop on one and head to the other town to hit some bars or go to a restaurant.  Every weekend there are groups that come from Ocean Beach  and other communities to Kismet to have a great meal followed by dancing at the Kismet Surf’s Out, or hear a jazz or rock cover band play at the Inn.

Toga Classic

Big fun last weekend, kids!  It all started out with a big bang on Friday night with the toga party at the Surf’s Out.  On the way over the ferry was full of folks in all kinds of greco-roman attire and thanks to our many white bedsheets, getting the whole crew geared up was no problem.  Of course the Out doesn’t get kicking until around 11:00 – 12:00 so Cat started us off putting gas in the tank by hand frying tortillas for a delicous meal of chewy nachos that got completely wiped out by the gang.

At the bar

The toga party ran late into the night with shares getting back to wind down at all hours.  Steve cut the rug so hard at the Surf’s out that the tiles were melting under the floor!  At the end of the night, we even had a very sweet and horribly lost dude walk out onto the balcony thinking he was at Brown Sugar until he closed the door to the deck behind him.  Spencer was kind enough to give Teddy a big red cup full of water and send him in the direction of his house.

Lauren's yoga class

On Saturday, Lauren helped the shares realign their alcohol soaked bodies and minds with a relaxing morning yoga session in the studio.  Ben finished up with the outdoor speakers so we now have stereo sound out on the upper deck and by about 11:30, Steve had transformed the studio into a relaxing massage room.  About 6 of us got a full massage and most of us that did needed a quick nap thereafter to fully enjoy the loosness.  When we woke up, Spencer helped us revive with Gouda-smothered hotdogs, one of the most delicous things ever.

Cocktail party

That evening, some of our friends in town came over for an impromtu cocktail party that turned out to be a lot of fun.  The Polaroid camera donated by Paul (C weekends) was a big hit and we took tons of fun snapshots for the bulliten board.  Tammy Lee, of Chance, made extra efforts to win the affection of Prozac, which (not surpisingly) were well recieved.  Steve and Joe made sure that martinis with a lemon twist were readily availible and Seven Seas loaned out beach umbreallas so that party-goers could make it home dry since it started to rain while we were all hanging out.

Karen shows her chops

Once the crown subsided, Karen was quick to start handing out her mushroom crostinis and searing the honey glazed porkchops.  The dinner was fantastic and the porkchops were sweet and tender.  For dessert, sweetened peaches in red wine were served as the share helped clear up the dishes.  Spencer and Kate got the medal of honor Saturday night for valliance in cleaning, knuckling down and leaving the kitchen completely spotless – 100% clean for the next morning.  Ben and Steve pounded the drumheads for a while to fiery music and by the end of it., the team was ready to hit the bars again.

Sunday Scrabble

Sunday was a recovery day for the most part.  Hearing of Seven Seas legendary Scrabble players, John Blesso headed over to challenge Spencer and Kat in a threeway duel that ended very closely in a victory for Spencer Beggs.  With this victory, it seems that Spencer now has top billing over Blesso and O’Leary and is the one to beat for bragging rights.

After the 8:00 boat, only Gabe and Steve were left at the house and Lauren reported a clean kitchen on her arrival on Monday so way to go Gabe and Steve!  Thanks for heloing her out!  Cat’s Birthday party is coming up next weekend so get ready for the Big Kahuna!  See you all next week in Kismet!

Aaron at the table

Tricia

Drum line

Toga chic

Ben, Spencer and John

Cocktail party

'Toga'-lates pays off, wow!

Steve, Tammy, dry martini

Gabe entertains

Mushroom crostini

Cocktail party guests

Karen, Tricia

Prepping the 'shrooms

K'OB and pal

Steve gets some love

Prozac relaxes

Gouda dogs!

Goofing off

Toga dancer

Toga dancer for real!

Lovely ladies

Tammy wins Prozac's affection

Toga on the deck

The silly shot

Cat, Yujin, Tricia & Kat

Marinated in magic

Undaunted by perpetual NYC showers, members of C series braved the LIRR and ferry and continued arriving at Seven Seas all the way until the very last boat.  Cat and several other of the lovely lady members made it out earlier on Friday, and prepared a feast of ginger-soy marinated sirloin and veggie kabobs, chicken thighs, salad and spicy rice. After dinner, members and their guests mixed and mingled, and despite the loss of our E string, Big Dave, Medium Dave, Lauren and Ben serenaded us as we sipped our after-dinner drinks.

Saturday on the beach

Waking up on Saturday morning, Mother Nature had made a complete 180.  It was cloudless, warm, and sunny with a pleasant breeze coming from the west.  The bold once again suffered the slings and arrows of Cat’s gut busting Pilates workout.  The breakfast that followed consisted of Ben’s banana-choco pancakes, bacon, scrambled eggs with cheese and hot sauce and OJ.  Ben had to lag behind the beach go-ers to make a few quick upgrades to the accommodations including dimmers on the upstairs lights (thank goodness he survivied the shock), and picking up and assembling our new bikes!

Cheering at the race

Down at the beach, the weather was perfect.  Like many first weekends at Fire Island, some folks overlooked the sunscreen, but thanks to our stocked coolers, it didn’t much seem to dampen the mood.  Cat and Ben brought a spread of grilled burgers, dogs and other goodies to the beach for lunch before everyone headed home to shower off before the Belmont Stakes.

Money shot

Right around 6, we all piled into the neighboring Chance House and were treated to Belmont Breezes, the official drink of the Belmont Stakes.  Bettors from Chance and several other neighboring sharehouses hoped they’d drawn the right $10 horse.  When the dust settled after the exciting race we learned our own Cat and Rachel both had the winning slip, and we walked out of there with everybody else’s money!  Ha!

1st course

As soon as we got home, Paul started up on the most complicated Saturday dinner to date- from scratch asparagus ravioli with shrimp alfredo sauce and butter sauteed summer squash.  The meal was to consist of 3 courses – a large antipasto round with cheeses, breads, mozzarella, peppers, artichokes, olives and lots of other stuff followed by the main event.  The spread was pretty breath-taking.  They say presentation is half the battle, and thanks to our many talented sous chefs, the platters had people leaning over the counter getting sneaky hands smacked out of the way right from the start!

Bustin out!

After the main course, we busted out a pot or two of industrial strength coffee which we thought would be the prelude to dessert, but was instead the prelude to bigger things.  Once Lauren got up and showed off some of her samba moves, the gauntlet had been thrown down and the whole house joined in a dance party and (despite Milda’s sage advise that lap-dances are best served before cheese platters) some spirited lap-dance performances .  That didn’t stop Blakeley from putting the rest of us to shame with her butt dropping hair-flipping combo moves.

Big Dave = Cat/2

The party didn’t stop heating up there though.  In classic fashion, we all marched out to the bars and had the warm up round of drinks out on the deck at the Inn.  After being there for about an hour, we headed over to the Surf’s Out, which by this time had converted into a full on dance party, and stormed the gates.  The Out held a few real prize winner this week.  First, Sean from Chance House laid down the law about who the next break dance master in Kismet would be complete with several splits and floor moves while wearing sandals. Matt B and Ben held their own, dropping to the floor with grinders and spins. Of course it was Rachel and Tammy who redefined dirty dancing in an enthusiastic and explosive bout of down low gyrations.  Rumors of late night oceanic nudity remain unconfirmed.

Sunday was just as beautiful as the day before.  Lauren helped us get back to our centers by starting us out with a yoga class in the studio. She also spearheaded the production of french toast with maple berry butter sauce and bacon. After grabbing some breakfast, the beach was populated pretty early on.  It was great to just chill out on the beach, playing cards and joking around.  Paul mixed up a Fire Island Iced Tea (which was inexplicably renamed “God Water” at some point later on) that packed a surprisingly solid load of liquid levity.  When you looked over and saw that massage chain had gotten going, leaving early was no longer an option.  Multiple plans to head out on one ferry or the next were postponed and put off on account of it being so pleasant out.

On the deck

There were 10 of us left when we sat down for a Sunday dinner of Monte Cristos made on the grill with homemade french fries, tomato and baby mozzarella salad in balsamic vinegar and cold keg beer.  After we finished, 7 of us left on the 8:05 ferry, leaving only 3 of us for the night.  We headed home after a quick stroll to a couple of neighboring houses to have a sunset glass of wine and chat with the other holdovers and to introduce Michael (who was planning a week on the beach) to a few other people who would be around that mid-week.  After loading the dishwasher, we busted out the dessert that had been untouched since Saturday and finished off the night with Sambuca.  All in all a lovely end to a very, uh, ‘potent’ Fire Island weekend

Saturday on the beach

Cheering at the race

Money shot

Big Dave = Cat/2

Dave and Ben jamming

Ladies of the Belmont Stakes

Sous chef

Antipasti

Ben and Cat

Homemade ravioli entree

Latin hips

Everybody dance now

Break it down

Breakfast on Saturday

Blakeley in the kitchen

Paul and Elias

B and B's beach R and R

Lunch by the sea

Setting out the spread

Antipasta

Olives and cheese

Chilling on the deck

Prozac finds an open lap

Lady of the house

Dancing fools

Sunbathers

Kara getting a tan

Cards on the beach

'God Water' on the table

Love Dominos

The scuttlebutt is that the new Surf’s Out will continue to have bands and DJs and space for the active nightlife to continue after the polished restaurant closes for dinner.  We have been walking by the place every weekend while getting ready for the season and the renovations look great!  This is a marked change from the shabby state of the place before, which only highlighted the persistent buzz kill of endless DJ ineptitude.  Happily, we are assured that this major complaint has not been tossed aside and we should be looking forward to a grooving good time at the Surfs Out this summer!

There is a big grand opening next Wednesday night and we promise to get back to you with all the details and reviews of the food when we get the 411!  Also, you can check out their flashy new website at www.surfsoutfireisland.com.

Hooray for Kismet!

Rendering of the new Surfs Out

A dish pictured on the Surfs Out's site