Saturday, August 1, 2009.
Mellow Mushroom. Meet The Far-Away Family.
For the first time in many weeks, I didn't have a radio show to host today. The Saints are in training, and WWL has wall-to-wall coverage of it. There's no way of knowing, but I wonder if that actually pulls in more listeners than my show.
I used the time to dawdle with my Saturday projects, and to have lunch with Mary Leigh. (She now rises too late for our old Saturday breakfast.) She was excited by the opening in Covington of The Mellow Mushroom, the first local "store" of a chain of over a hundred pizzerias with a sort of Flower Power, 1970s theme. The Marys went to a Mellow Mushroom somewhere in their many sojourns away from home, and loved it.
The place was full at noon. New restaurants do that now. Especially chains. Especially on the North Shore. We sat at a tall bar-style table in the bar area, and ordered garlic bread, salads, and a half-pepperoni pizza. The music was of the period when the Beatles were coming to an end and everybody else was trying to improve upon them. We got to hear a lot of it, because--predictably--the new staff didn't have all its moves down yet. (Were it not for the girls, I wouldn't have darkened this door for many months. But the Marys get whatever they want from me.)
The garlic bread was okay, but there was too much of it, and we stuffed ourselves. The Caesar salad on my side of the table was beyond reproach. Mary Leigh took the place up on its offer to let you build your own salad from a list of several dozen ingredients listed on the menu. She said it wasn't very good. I wasn't surprised. I believe that when you build your own anything--omelette, pizza, salad, Mongolian hibachi grilled platter--you usually wind up with something much less good than if you'd just stuck with the menu. This is even if you're a tasteful person with good cooking skills. The problem is that the person making the concoction won't have the same image of the finished product that you have, and will likely botch it. They know how to make their own stuff a lot better.
The pizza was too bready and underbaked a bit. The girls said it wasn't as good as other Mellow Mushrooms. Didn't Daddy tell them not to go to new places? Aw, shut up, they said, almost in unison.
The evening was spent at a party at the home of my big sister Judy and her husband Walter. I don't see them often, but this is the third time in a week--what with last Saturday's hundred-year birthday for our late dad and the funeral this past Tuesday. The occasion was a visit from the West Coast of my nephew Andy, his wife, and her parents. I'd not met any of the new members of our extended family, nor had several of the others there. In fact, I haven't seen Andy--who has quite a career in the computer industry--in years.
His bride's mother was fascinated by what I did, and I promised to send her a cookbook. I spent most of the party, however, talking with the sons of Walter's brother Carl's three sons, all of whom are involved in careers that touch lightly on mine. Meanwhile, many small children moved about the room. It reminded me of the parties Mary Ann's parents used to have, when we and her siblings had lots of little kids. The second generation behind ours is well underway, even though we're still years away from being grandparents. If my count is correct, there are eight of them already.
The Mellow Mushroom. Covington: 1645 N Highway 190 985-327-5407. Pizza. Sandwiches.
