Sunday, June 4, 2017.
Scrambled. With Marinara Sauce. For Breakfast.
Tomato Soup. Three Crab Cakes A La Key West.
The Cool Water Ranche welcomes ML's dog Bauer, who is taken to the lakefront and allowed to swim into the surf to his heart's delight. The Marys then take him to La Carreta, where the configuration of the patio allows the pup to be tied up to our table. There he causes no problems for other customers while eating one tortilla chip after another until a bowl has been consumed.
The Marys also called me, but not soon enough for me to join them. Today I perform an annual ritual: singing the Sequence of Pentecost. The St. Jane musical organization allows me to go solo in parts, along with a few others.
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Mattina Bella's avocado and bacon omelette. This is what an omelette should look like. [/caption]
From there I got to Mattina Bella, where I indulge in one of the best of their egg dishes. Soft-scrambled eggs atop Italian sausage, marinara sauce, and hollandaise at the peak, with English muffins underneath all. This is excellent, and also comes in a poached-egg version, which shows off just how deft are the cooks under Vincent's oversight.
It's raining again, although the promise that we will get at least three sunny days this week is encouraging. But it's discouraging that I can't get my daily walk, what with the deep puddles everywhere and the near-certainty that trying to cut the grass will leave me stuck in the mud on the back forty.
But the day I have been hoping for arrives. I can now build a new web page that will allow readers to read me from their mobile gadgets. And it's working almost perfectly. I am very proud of myself. It's the first time I've rebuilt the NOMenu front page in years. I'm most proud that I can still do it, what with the otherwise general waning of my skills.
Mary Ann shows up in time for dinner. She owes me one, so we won't have to go through the roll call of the few places we both like. She tells me up front that Zea will be fine. She will have oysters and I will have tomato-basil soup, followed by a trio of crab cakes. The latter is part of a long-running but ever-changing seafood special. This one plops the miniature crab cakes with a zing from lime juice and a few other sharp ingredients. It's like crabmeat West Indies, but fried. Not all these specials have been brilliant, but I hope they hang onto this formula for awhile.
One of the topics MA and I consider at the table is where we will go with the Eat Club cruisers next year. (It's much too late to start considering the matter for this year.) For a few years now, we have entertained the idea of a river cruise in Europe, but done nothing much about it. Now we're looking over China as a possible itinerary, beginning with two or three days in Beijing, meeting the boat on the Yangtze river, and continuing downstream to Shanghai. MA, of course, wants to add Hong Kong to this route, bringing the stay to sixteen nights. MA is always over the top. Much more planning is needed before we start assembling our group, but we're already getting a few nibbles.
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Monday, June 5, 2017.
First Hamburger Steak In 40 Years. Dakota Leads The Chorus.
A busy week, with even the routines feeling strange. MA and I can't agree on where we told one another to show up for lunch. She says we agreed on Lola, which I'm not sure is open in Monday (but it is). I could have sworn we said we'd try Meribo. If it wasn't open (and it isn't), we'd go the two blocks to our usual Monday eatery, New Orleans Food & Spirits.
We wound up there, mainly because I go there first. We were able to stay because a new special is on the board, one I haven't ordered anywhere for something like forty years.
Hamburger steak? I ask the waitress what she thought. "We do have a great burger," she said. "And this is that, with brown gravy and sauteed onions. Everybody has said they like it."
How bad could it be? It isn't an equal of the greatest hamburger/chopped steaks in my experience. (Like the ones at the long-gone Steak Pit on Bourbon Street, or the one at Da Rabbit in Gretna.) But that may be overstacking the competitors.
Mary Ann does like the hamburger steak, but she has already decided upon sort of the same thing: spaghetti and meatballs. Ground meat controls the menus of the world.
Tonight is dress rehearsal for the NPAS concert tonight. As usual, nobody actually dresses up for this rehearsal, but we will tomorrow, when it's tuxedos and long black dresses. As has consistently been the case, I don't understand the method by which the singers get onto and off the risers. You get a number the veterans tell me, and then you know when to move. But I never seem to be in the right place going the right way.
On the other hand, I have managed to learn most of the music. And, if I say so myself, in some songs I am decidedly adding to the sound. "My Girl," for example. On the other hand, I'm still deficient on Michael Jackson's three songs. But after tonight I'll never have to sing them again.
If you like to sing and you wouldn't mind doing it on the North Shore, go to the Northlake Performing Arts Society at NPAS.info. If they'll take me in, they'll probably take you.
