Icicles, Followed By Crawfish King Cake.

[title type="h5"]Friday, January 24, 2014.[/title] Two days ago, Mary Ann decided that she would go to Los Angeles to spend some time with Jude, and to find out whether his life is on an even keel. That's what mothers do. She has no idea when she's coming back home. To add another layer of uncertainty, she's flying on buddy passes, which she gets from a friend of hers who works for an airline. The word on buddy passes is that they're great to give to people whose lives you want to knock off kilter. Mary Ann is immune to that. She thrives in dodgy circumstances. I'm writing this just after she got back home, a trip that required her to call a guy she didn't know to swap a buddy pass for the defunct one she had. She won't admit it, but she finds this fun. As long as she does it without me on the plane with her. She called me from the tarmac to say that her flight was delayed because it needed to be de-iced. There's a major spurt of cold weather on the way, and she is in the first wave of it. She doesn't like such irregularities. I told her to have a drink. By late afternoon, some blustery weather came though, kicking off some rain which, it was predicted, would turn to sleet later in the night. I didn't feel like messing with that, so I went into a spartan meal mode. A ham sandwich and a salad with my paprika and parmesan vinaigrette would have to do. I made café au lait and settled in for the evening, just me and the animals. [divider type=""] [title type="h5"]Saturday, January 25, 2014.[/title] When I awakened, I thought I saw something hanging from the eaves of the house through my bedroom window. I put my glasses on to see that it was not just one thing, but dozens--hundreds, really--of icicles, the largest ones about a foot and a half long, hanging all around the house. They looked like Christmas decorations--too perfectly spaced to be natural. The ribs of the tin roof did that magic. In the twenty-three years we've lived here, I've never seen anything like this. [caption id="attachment_40973" align="alignnone" width="480"] Icicles.[/caption] The sleety weather that caused this had moved on, and it became a pretty day--even on the warm side, melting the icicles away suddenly. I had a radio show to do, and then I took a forty-five-minute hike around the ranch, to get in all the exercise I could. A very nasty, cold, wet storm is supposed to show up Monday. They say it will be with us for almost a week. I can't get upset about it. This is what January is supposed to be like. Mary Leigh and The Boy showed up in late afternoon, and the three of us went on a dinner date at Bosco's. I didn't know until a couple of miles down the road that Mary Leigh had decided--without asking me--that we would dine at the Bosco's in the 1930s-looking Terra Bella subdivision in Covington, instead of our usual Bosco's in Mandeville. I don't mind at all, but it's moments like this when I wonder how it was that I lost control of the wheel. I'm starting to feel like my father, who never drove a car in his life, and just went where everyone else was going. Bosco's was on a waiting list. We took a table around the corner from the bar, which looks enough like a coffee-and-pastry stand that you're not sure whether you can get a martini there or not. I proved that you could, and had one. The Boy had a beer. Daddy's Little Girl had a glass of Champagne. Wait--she was the designated driver! No cause for alarm. She never drinks more than half a glass, and we would be here for at least two hours. [caption id="attachment_40974" align="alignnone" width="480"] Crawfish king cake.[/caption] The pastry chef at Bosco's has grabbed the king cake concept and run with it. We started with the first crawfish king cake of my life. It looked just like a king cake, all right. But in lieu of purple, green and gold sugar on top was purple, green and gold parmesan cheese. The icing was a savory cream sauce. The crawfish themselves were in a sort of etouffee, loaded between the two halves of the crosswise-sliced "cake." I thought it was pretty good, actually. ML even tried it, but was less sanguine. [caption id="attachment_40975" align="alignnone" width="480"] Chicken picatta.[/caption] After a round of Bosco's simple but excellent house salads, we enjoyed what I'd say was the best meal we've had at this location. (The Mandeville Bosco's, where owner Tony Bosco is in the kitchen, has always been the better restaurant.) The Boy had his usual chicken dish--picatta, this time. (I wonder what it means that ML's brother Jude also has this love for chicken dishes. Come to think of it, so do I.) [caption id="attachment_40976" align="alignnone" width="480"] Filet mignon at Bosco's.[/caption] They were running a filet mignon special that the waiter liked. Mary Leigh was taken in by that one, and I helped her with it. Sizzling in butter sauce, its aroma alone was a pleasure. My main was what they call fish scampi. Same sauce as on shrimp scampi, plus some of the actual shrimp, atop a piece of broiled or fried fish. I asked for it without the shrimp--that would have been too much food--and I enjoyed what was left. With a side of green beans, which every restaurant in town seems to be serving lately as the side for those who are past their potato quota. [caption id="attachment_40977" align="alignnone" width="480"] King cake cheesecake.[/caption] We began with a king cake theme, and ended with one. The pastry chef made cheesecake decorated with the familiar colors. This was even better than the crawfish pastry was. The dessert aspect was an advantage the crawfish thing lacked. [title type="h5"] Bosco's. Covington: 141 TerraBella Blvd. 985-612-7250. [/title]