Sunday, June 17, 2012.
Father's Day: I Cut Grass, Eat Peculiar Soft-Shell Crabs.
Father's Day is a nice idea in principle, but only rarely a true celebration. The irony that fathers underwrite activities which are clearly planned more for the enjoyment of the other members of the family than for his own is something we dads must just accept. But we are built to not only absorb this slight but to enjoy it. Someday, someone will tell me that it's the vestigial female part of my brain that makes me even think about such things.
And my children are away. Jude will arrive from Los Angeles tonight, after midnight. Mary Leigh returns from her sojourn in the Washington, D.C. area tomorrow evening.
I think the best Father's Day I ever had was when the fam bought a lawn tractor for me some ten or twelve years ago. In the previous nine years, I wore out three standard lawnmowers (the kind with an engine, but that you need to push along) cutting the two acres we have under grass. Cutting everything required seven hours of pushing. That was absurd, and probably took a toll on my health. And even though Jude was well beyond the age at which I was cutting grass for $1.50 per suburban lawn, he wanted no part of this heavy labor.
Then came the best Father's Day gift I expect ever to be given. I started it and rode around for a little while before we were off for a Father's Day brunch. When we came back, Jude volunteered. "Gee, Dad, I can cut that grass for you!" Sure he could, now that it was no longer any real work. And, at age twelve, he was eager to drive a powered vehicle. I hardly ever used my Father's Day gift for the next five or six years. When Jude got tired of it and started driving an actual car, Mary Leigh found the idea of riding around on the lawn attractive.
Then her hormones kicked in, and the lawn job fell to me alone. I kept it until Lundi Gras last year, when that infamous accident made it impossible to do such things until after the grass-growing season ended. We hired our nephew to take over the job, at $100 a go. (He also made some repairs to the now-aging tractor, which had become very difficult to start.)
Today, I thought, was the perfect day to reclaim the task. I rode around for two hours, cutting everything. It was as if I had never stopped. All my well-thought-out patterns came right back.
It was the most fulfilling part of Father's Day.
Before that, though, we were required to have a meal. Mandina's in Mandeville has begun opening on Sunday. It was busier than at any time since right after the hurricane, when it was the only Mandina's location in the metro area.
I started with a Manhattan and oyster-artichoke soup, both of which hit the spot. Then salads. I lately have shifted my dressing preference to Italian. This one was had a red pepper component beyond any I could remember. I liked it.
We both had amandines--trout for her, soft-shell crabs for me. As soon as the crabs arrived, I noticed that these didn't look like standard Louisiana crabs. Where the local species has pointy spines at the extreme right and left, the shells on these were rounded. Hmm. They tasted good enough, but not as good as usual. I hope they shift back to the ones I've always had here in the past. But the Manhattan mellowed me out, and it's Father's Day. I rejoice in my being a dad!
Mandina's. Mandeville: 4240 La 22. 985-674-9883. .
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.
