Friday, April 20, 2012.
Suzy Homemaker Arrives. Chicken, Garlic, Broccoli, And Artichokes.
The UPS truck honked just as I was about to disrobe for a shower. It usually arrives when I'm fully shampooed, and Mary Ann is off on an errand. The dog Susie alerts me to his presence, as well as keeping the driver from getting down on the ground, or even advancing up the driveway to the house. Where I would not have had to use the truck's grab rails to keep from falling into the ditch to collect the package.
Which contained fifty copies of Mary Ann's first book, The Suzie Homemaker Chronicles (not named for the dog, who spells her name with an "s" instead of a "z"). The book looks perfect to my eyes. A few copies came by overnight on Monday, so she's already felt the thrill of holding the finished work in her hands. Now all she has to do is persuade some people to buy it. She's trying to get on the national talk shows to promote it. Says it will either be a huge phenomenon or a total disaster. That's Mary Ann, all right. All or nothing.
In a happy mood, we lunched at Dimartino's. A special for ten bucks consisted of a chicken breast in garlic and lemon butter and some interesting broccoli, sprinkled with bread crumbs and parmesan cheese and then steamed. Nice light lunch, which for the sake of her diet MA should have eaten instead of the eight or so stuffed artichoke hearts she had.
But that was a great dish, too. If it's not on the menu here all the time, it ought to be. It has all the flavor of a big stuffed artichoke, including the Italian bread crumb stuffing. But none of the inconvenience of eating. You eat the whole thing. Wonderful.
MA decided she needed a salad. The waitress said that since we already had an order served, she could fetch it for us at the counter. They're so close to having full service that I can't understand why they don't just go ahead and have the servers take the orders, instead of making customers look over the menu while standing in land. The food of a good Italian trattoria, and the service of McDonald's.
Since I have not done a show at home all this week, I gave myself permission to do so today. I have two big projects that need the commute time: my annual Jazz Festival food recommendations, and a page with the best restaurants for Mother's Day. That should keep me busy the whole weekend.
After the show, the dog Susie and the cat Twinnery joined me for a walk around and through the woods. You know a cat really likes you when he follows you for a half-mile, like a dog. I used to worry that he'd get lost, but I think Twinnery knows these woods better than either the dog or I do.
The sun was declining as a cool breeze came up. Suddenly, we heard a furious honking. I looked in that direction in time to see two Canadian geese make a rough, splashy landing in the pond. I have a feeling that the geese--which I often hear in the morning--may have had an encounter with Susie, one that she lost. She just stood there watching instead of barking and running at them, as she does for almost everything else. Including UPS drivers.
DiMartino's. Covington: 700 S Tyler St. 985-276-6460.
It's over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
