Zoe Jensen with Chef Joey DeLucia and his vegetarian wings (center). The advertised draw of Wednesday’s Alder Around Town night at The Crooked Goat was the brand-new “Alder Parm,” a four-layer concoction of eggplant, chicken cutlet, meatballs, parmesan, and red sauce. The experimental v egetarian wings, however, stole the show — and encapsulated the connections and friendships, old and new, abounding in the bar. East Rock/Fair Haven Alder Caroline Tanbee Smith had reserved the back part of the Upper State Street bar for her first Alder Around Town event, a planned series of get-togethers designed to “discuss ideas, bring neighbors together, and support our small businesses.” Guy Fieri played on the bar TVs, and New Haven memorabilia shared the walls with Guinness signs and liqueur posters as people trickled in. It quickly became apparent that this was a bar where everybody knows everybody’s name. Connectic*nt maven and communications guru Zoe Jensen, who now works part-time as a videographer for Smith, is the vegetarian who asked if the bar could make vegetarian wings: “I. Love. Archie Moore’s,” she said, pausing to emphasize each part of the sentence, “and I’m sad that I can’t have their wings.” Chef Joe “Joey” DeLucia, drawing on his experience making a tofu-based General Tso’s dish while working as a chef for Hilton Hotels in Orlando, got to work. The key? Freezing, thawing, and pressing the tofu before battering and frying to achieve a more chicken-like texture.  Jensen, whose “heart was fluttering” and whose “hands were clammy” with excitement before trying, declared the “wings” a success: “My only critique? I want even more delicious buffalo sauce.” Said DeLucia, “If this works, maybe we’ll add it to the menu.”  DeLucia runs The Crooked Goat with John “JT” Torello and Joe Neagle. All three have deep Westville roots. DeLucia and Neagle worked together at Delaney’s Restaurant Tap Room, and Torello was a regular. As Neagle tells it, at a certain point in the night, Torello asked him, “Do you want to buy a bar?” Neagle’s response: “Sure, I don’t have any money.” And that, Neagle said, “is how it transpired. It was one night at Delaney’s.” The vision of The Crooked Goat, which will be a year old on Jan. 1, is to be a true “neighborhood bar,” Torello said. Neagle echoed the sentiment: “It’s an elevated dive bar. Homey, if you will.” Torello lived in East Rock in his 20s, and loved J.P. Dempsey’s, which, until the pandemic, operated where The Crooked Goat now stands. “You sit in here,” Smith said of the bar, “and you feel like it’s been here for 40 years.” What kind of a name is The Crooked Goat? Well, Torello said, “I knew I wanted to have ‘goat’ in the name,” as a tribute to the East Rock-encompassed Goatville neighborhood. One of Neagle’s favorite New York City bars is The Crooked Knife, and so the name was born, along with an apocryphal backstory about goats getting into fermented oats and wandering “crookedly” along the streets of East Rock.  Permittee Joe Neagle: “[The Crooked Goat] transpired one night at Delaney’s…” Beaver Hills Alder Gary Hogan came out to support Smith — and to see Neagle, his longtime friend. “I watched him grow up,” Hogan said. “Gary’s known me since I was 10,” Neagle added. “I’ve come to support him wherever he works: Delaney’s, Stone Hearth, Regal Beagle.” Hogan congratulated Smith for organizing this congregation of neighbors: “She’s a good egg. There’s so much sadness in the world and here we can all laugh and joke together.”  Alder Gary Hogan (right): “Woah, that flash. I felt like I was back in disco!” Vin Amendola drank a Workhorse Pilsner from Counter Weight as Sam Winfield leaned on the table next to him. The brother-sister duo occasionally play as a more acoustic duo at The Crooked Goat, but their main act is a five-piece band called Modern Refuge. “Indie rock, I guess is what you’d call it,” Winfield said. What is their sound influenced by? “Led Zeppelin, Jeff Buckley, Manchester Orchestra. Fleetwood Mac,” she continued. Her favorite of their songs is “Teething” — “we add a 70s intro when we do it live,” Winfield told the Independent, “and it hits hard live.” Amendola and Winfield, New Haven natives, were two of the key organizers of East Rock Porch Fest, a street music festival whose first iteration was held earlier this fall. They credited Smith for helping to make it happen: “Caroline was instrumental in bringing it to life,” Amendola said.  The pair started playing music together in Sam’s kitchen during the pandemic. But even before that, Amendola and Winfield’s now-husband Brian played music together as teenagers. New Haven’s music scene is “a very interconnected scene,” according to Winfield, and its strength is the diversity of genres available.  “What could the city be doing more [to support its artists]?” Alder Smith asked Winfield and Amendola. “Pop out to shows,” Winfield said enthusiastically. Amendola added, “We have to bring that spirit [of live music] back to New Haven. It’s coming back.” For Winfield and Amendola, live shows are the beating heart of a lively artistic world — it’s where you “meet like-minded people,” said Amendola. “Talking, talking, and having conversations: that’s how the music scene grows,” Winfield agreed.  Vin and Sam: the brother-sister duo started playing music together during the pandemic. Chris and Kris moved here almost two years ago for Kris’s new job at Yale’s Center for Language Study. They’ve attended other of Smith’s events: one was at El Coqui on Grand Avenue in Fair Haven; another was a trash pickup; a third was a tax code discussion at Spruce Coffee, right next door to The Crooked Goat. Kris, who’s been featured in the Independent before for his film-making escapades, said he came to hang out, but also to bring up the issue of arts funding with the alder.  Toward the end of the night, the Independent caught up with Smith to get a sense of how she felt the evening had gone. As she bit into her Alder Parm, she reflected on her conversation with Amendola and Winfield. “What does it mean to build a city that invests in its talent? A city of builders, entrepreneurs, creatives, and advocates. The secret sauce is places like this [The Crooked Goat], where people get together and a little magic happens.”  Oh, and how’s the Alder Parm? “Super delicious,” said the alder, as she took a bite of “pure meatball.”  The post Alder Eats “Alder Parm”; Zoe Eats Veggie Wings appeared first on New Haven Independent. ...read more read less