Saturday, January 9, 2016.
Moving Steaks Around.
It's a lovely day, even though I'm home alone. I spend the first half of it running my usual errands. I have all of a one-hour radio show to get on the air at two. Then I walk a five-lap ramble around the ranch, my first strut in six days.
No real eating occurs until I go to dinner at around six. I have a serious steak on my mind, but when I pass both Pat Gallagher's Covington place and Keith Young's Steak House, I find two packed houses. Good for them.
I wind up with the last available table at Forks & Corks. The people sitting next to me on the banquette are regular listeners to the radio show. She seemed more interested than he was. And people say women don't listen to me.
[caption id="attachment_49142" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Turtle soup at Forks & Corks[/caption]
I begin with the turtle soup, the recipe for which turns out the most strident bunch of flavors I've encountered in this soup lately. The combination of that and the large size of the bowl make it a bit overwhelming. If I were the chef (and I'm glad I'm not), I would chop up the meats a bit more and serve a cup instead of a bowl. Even so, this is one of the best versions of soupe a la tortue around.
After a Caesar salad I have a pair of petite filets mignon. Each is big enough to serve alone. I take the second one home--a practice I'm glad Mary Ann usually takes care of. Owner Osman Rodas says that these days every restaurant patron practically insists on having something substantial to bring home. I would call that a bad trend on the diner's part.
Dessert is made of slabs of extraordinarily rich chocolate sunk down into hillocks of intense, chilled pastry cream with cherries. The Marys would both love this, but it's way too much chocolate for me.
I go to the restaurant and return home by way of LA 21, which is ripped to shards for several miles as a new bridge over the Tchefuncte River is built, and the highway on both sides of it are widened. It feels dangerous, and probably is to people who don't come this way often. You can't see where the lanes are, and they veer well away from any straight lines.
It is much cooler when I return home. They say we're going to get some actual winter this week. I'm not looking forard to that, but I do wonder about the way the big lawn in front of the house is the greenest green I've ever seen in January. Not a single patch of brown breaks up the grass. By this time most years, the whole thing would be a the color of straw.
Forks & Corks. Covington: 141 TerraBella Blvd. 985-273-3663.
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Sunday, January 10, 2016.
While I Toil, The Marys Blast Across The Former Confederacy.
This is the day I would have returned home from my planned trip to visit with Jude and Suzanne and my grandson Jackson, whose face I have not seen in person yet. The terrible weather in Los Angeles aborted the trip. This motivated Mary Ann to jump into that breach and drive to Virginia with a load of Mary Leigh's stuff for the lovebirds' apartment, and then hang out with the soon-to-be bride. Who, I learned Friday, has selected her wedding dress, which we secured for$1700. I am told that this is a comparatively modest price. Ooooohhh-kay! But then, I will have only one daughter to escort up the aisle, and I may as well make her ecstatic. Which she seems to be.
Mary Ann left me with an assignment. She wants to deep-clean the kitchen floor. But she does a terrible job of this. Even worse, she complains about it. I tell her to leave it to me. My nine years of toil at the Time Saver, in which I mopped a floor just like this one every night, left me with great skill for this job. I spend the morning and early afternoon scrubbing, even getting all the crud out of the corners with brushes. I let it dry while I take a walk, lay down the floor finish and take a nap while waiting for that to dry, then put down the second layer while I go out for early supper at Zea.
[caption id="attachment_44188" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Freshwater trout with pesto.[/caption]
After a bowl of the good tomato-basil soup, I deviate from my usual order and get the delicious pesto-encrusted Idaho salmon trout with a side of spinach (new on the sides menu and very good) and red beans (better than they were last time).
I hate the background music at Zea, which I'm glad plays at low volumes. I can't even figure out what era it comes from. But I have known almost nothing about pop music of the last two decades, and I have no suggestions as to what they might play instead.
The Marys arrive home at around eleven p.m. Once again, Mary Ann started on this thousand-mile plus streak across the Southeastern states at four this morning, and traveled with almost no stops. Better her than me. I'm thinking about visiting ML and Dave ("The Boy") this spring by automobile, but I will take three days each way. I like to see where I'm going.
Mary Ann loves the look of the kitchen floors. Yay!
Turtle soup at Forks & Corks[/caption]
I begin with the turtle soup, the recipe for which turns out the most strident bunch of flavors I've encountered in this soup lately. The combination of that and the large size of the bowl make it a bit overwhelming. If I were the chef (and I'm glad I'm not), I would chop up the meats a bit more and serve a cup instead of a bowl. Even so, this is one of the best versions of soupe a la tortue around.
After a Caesar salad I have a pair of petite filets mignon. Each is big enough to serve alone. I take the second one home--a practice I'm glad Mary Ann usually takes care of. Owner Osman Rodas says that these days every restaurant patron practically insists on having something substantial to bring home. I would call that a bad trend on the diner's part.
Dessert is made of slabs of extraordinarily rich chocolate sunk down into hillocks of intense, chilled pastry cream with cherries. The Marys would both love this, but it's way too much chocolate for me.
I go to the restaurant and return home by way of LA 21, which is ripped to shards for several miles as a new bridge over the Tchefuncte River is built, and the highway on both sides of it are widened. It feels dangerous, and probably is to people who don't come this way often. You can't see where the lanes are, and they veer well away from any straight lines.
It is much cooler when I return home. They say we're going to get some actual winter this week. I'm not looking forard to that, but I do wonder about the way the big lawn in front of the house is the greenest green I've ever seen in January. Not a single patch of brown breaks up the grass. By this time most years, the whole thing would be a the color of straw.
Freshwater trout with pesto.[/caption]
After a bowl of the good tomato-basil soup, I deviate from my usual order and get the delicious pesto-encrusted Idaho salmon trout with a side of spinach (new on the sides menu and very good) and red beans (better than they were last time).
I hate the background music at Zea, which I'm glad plays at low volumes. I can't even figure out what era it comes from. But I have known almost nothing about pop music of the last two decades, and I have no suggestions as to what they might play instead.
The Marys arrive home at around eleven p.m. Once again, Mary Ann started on this thousand-mile plus streak across the Southeastern states at four this morning, and traveled with almost no stops. Better her than me. I'm thinking about visiting ML and Dave ("The Boy") this spring by automobile, but I will take three days each way. I like to see where I'm going.
Mary Ann loves the look of the kitchen floors. Yay!
