Monday, December 27, 2010. Away They Go. More Panang Curry. The family awakened in the dark at around five-thirty. It was freezing outside. Airports were closed all over the Northeast, making Mary Ann glad she decided to drive to Virginia. They took their good old time packing the car and looking for non-existent cold-weather clothing. Jude had no idea when he came to town that he'd be off to ski slopes a few days later, but who among us did? At seven, they were off and I was waving bye-bye.
I thought of going back to bed, but just got to work. Spent a couple of hours with mindless labor, moving recipes into the new-era web site, one at a time. Otherwise, it was a normal workday.
After a few hours of writing, I took a break for lunch at went to Thai Thai. I wanted to try Ricky's version of Panang curry, which I'd enjoyed so much across the highway last week. This one was just as good. "We grow all the herbs for that," Ricky said, when he got a break in a busy day. "It has galangal, which is that gives it the taste. In some places they make Panang curry sweet, but people here like it not sweet."
How a restaurant can make a complicated dish to order and precede it with a free spring roll and cup of soup for eight dollars is beyond me.
After the radio show, I thought about going out to dinner, but didn't. Mary Ann called from Atlanta, where they decided to break up their marathon into two days. After checking into a hotel, they went in search of a cool place to watch the Saints. Our team was, coincidentally, playing Atlanta. They walked into a restaurant called Taco Mac wearing Saints jerseys--a brave move. Not because of their attire, the hostess said that there would be an hour and a half wait before--get this--they would be given a pager. After which it would probably be another hour before they would get a table. Reason: after people finished eating, they stayed at their tables and continued to watch what this day was a full slate of football games on the big-screen television. My gang never did get a table, after waiting two hours. Another reason to believe that a sports-free restaurant is better for dining than one with a lot of sports.
