Friday, January 16, 2009. Lunch At Keith Young's.
I worked at home, with a lot of work to do. That gave me time to have lunch with Mary Ann, who will be leaving with Mary Leigh tomorrow for another multi-day trip. Her suggestion: Keith Young's Steakhouse. That's more involved than I was thinking, but I've never had lunch there before. Why not? 
In fact, I haven't been to the excellent Madisonville eatery since Keith completed his latest round of construction. He moved the entrance to expand the main dining room and build a much bigger bar. That's the second major addition since he opened--and he's only open four years. The place is attracting much more business than he thought.
Standing at the new bar when we arrived was Dan Scott, who persuaded me in 2002 to start doing cruises with the Eat Club. Dan's travel agency had a meltdown in 2003, and he's out of the business now. I'm sorry about that, for a variety of reasons. He and his wife were great fun to travel with. He'd been everywhere, and knew his way around. You could always find him on the ship by listening for a group of people laughing.
Dan went off to have lunch with his son, and Mary Ann and I settled down at our table and into a testy conversation that we managed to snap a lid over before it became unpleasant. I learned the full story behind this weekend's excursion, to take a look at the Savannah College of Art and Design. I encourage this career path. Mary Leigh she is both talented and enthusiastic about painting, and always has been. On the other hand, in this ambition I hear the echo of female characters in The Forsyte Saga. In it, the women need not bother with money, and use education to enrich their lives. I'd be concerned (mainly because of the lack of riches in our family) if that weren't what I did with my own life. And I'm happy enough.
I started with fried oysters with remoulade. So good that Mary Ann--who rarely goes for oysters--even ate a few. I'm glad: this was the size of an entree. The soup-and-salad lunch special sounded appropriately light for the remainder of the meal. It was a vegetable soup made with beef trimmings, something I've loved since my mother made it when we were growing up. The salad was three times bigger than I was expecting, and I couldn't finish half of it. 
Mary Ann had something even more formidable: a hamburger so thick that it would take the likes of Joe E. Brown (dated reference; look him up in Wikipedia) to take a decent bite of it. It was really a knife-and-fork burger, but MA went after it doggedly. (I think our daughter gets her hamburger-loving genes from her mom.)
When the radio show was over, the girls were busy packing, and I just went back to working at my desk. That lunch was big enough to keep a dinner hunger away. I wisely went along with my appetite, for once, and went to bed a little earlier than usual.
Keith Young’s Steak House. Madisonville: 165 LA. 21. 985-845-9940. Steak.
