Easter Sunday, April 16, 2017.
Nobody Is Available.
I intentionally refrain from remembering the many Easter parties we had at the Cool Water Ranch when the kids were little. Easter egg hunts were a big part of the program, of course, along with decorating eggs and knocking them later.
Even the food was good, if I may say so. One year, when we hadn't figured out what to cook, Mary Leigh was inspired. "I know what we can cook, Daddy," she said, with her beautiful five-year-old smile under her blond hair. "How about eggs?" she said. Why not? I spent the day making omelettes, quiches, and such like. Everybody loved it, especially me.
This year, the attendance was way off. There was me. And the two dogs and three cats. And that's it.
Not a bad day, though. A few years ago I asked to be allowed to sing the sequence at Easter Mass at St. Jane de Chantal. They let me do it, and every year since. But for the first time I got it perfectly today. No missed words, no obvious tone mistakes. Strangers approached me after the service with appreciative smiles. Made my day.
Then I had a radio show to do for two hours. I did it downtown, in the studios, so that I could perhaps meet up with Mary Leigh for dinner. But she has been working all day herself, and is tuckered out.
Well, I have to eat. So I walk down Magazine Street to the Chophouse. I had a steak the day before Lent began, at the Crescent City Steak House. It's just right to have another one now.
The Chophouse is better than I remember. That corroborates the reports I've had from listeners lately. The place is part of a small chain mostly in the Southeast. It has a classy look and a good menu. The beef is all USDA Prime, and is routinely seared Pittsburgh style unless you tell them otherwise. But this is the way I like it, all right.
I begin with crab bisque, in the creamy style. It had not yet appeared when a man from the next table gets up and heads my way, while asking everyone at his table to make toom for another chair.
It's Tommy Cvitanovich, son of the recently-passed Drago, boss with his mother Klara of Drago's restaurant, home of the original Char-Broiled Oysters. How had both of us not noticed the other for the first fifteen minutes we were each sitting there?
[caption id="attachment_53635" align="alignright" width="133"]
Tommy Cvitanovich.[/caption]
Tommy and Klara and I are personal friends of long standing. Klara always wants to know how things are going for Jude and, now, Jude's son Jackson. She always remembers their names. Klara lately has been telling me that my weight loss looks good, but that I should stop losing any more weight. I don't know why, but I'll pay attention.
The crab bisque needed Tabasco, but that was fixed directly. The sirloin strip steak was just what I wanted to end the Lenten season. I meet Tommy's son and daughter for the first time in awhile, and some other family friends at this happy table for nine.
Chophouse. CBD: 322 Magazine St. 504-522-7902.
