Sunday, May 13, 2012.
Mother's Day. And That Other Day.
Mary Ann restated her long-standing preference for Mother's Day: to stay at home. She insists that motherhood is all about home, and going out to eat is antithetical to that. Fortunately, someone else in our family is able to cook.
She left in early morning to help Mary Leigh pack and transport the contents of her dorm room back home. It seems like last week, not two years ago, that we moved her into Tulane. Now it's all over. To Mary Ann, this is the unambiguous onset of adulthood for her little girl. That ML just turned twenty only chisels the notion deeper in bigger stone.
Meanwhile, if Mary Leigh feels any wistfulness about the end of her formal education, schooling, she is not showing it. Nor does she seem happy or even relieved. But that's the way she is.
Even though both Marys said they would not be eating today, let alone in a restaurant, they reconsidered. At around eleven, they called to tell me to meet them at La Carreta, our default Sunday lunch spot. The Mexican restaurant--the best on the North Shore, we think--was not doing a big Mother's Day business, although a few tables were full of moms and little kids. Mary Ann basked in the atmosphere of family they brought to the courtyard, and visited a couple of table to say how cute she thought the kids were, thereby embarrassing her own daughter a little.
La Carreta, whose menu is always in flux, had a new-old dish today. Shrimp brochetas are skewered, bacon-wrapped, grilled shrimp with pepper jack cheese stuffed in the center. Too much bacon, I'd say. But for most people there is no such thing as too much bacon.
I call it new-old because my first encounter with the dish came in the late 1980s. La Cuisine--the old-style Creole-French restaurant that was the best place to eat in Lakeview until Katrina got it--had the very dish on its menu as an appetizer. Joe's Hot Shrimp were named for La Cuisine's owner Joe Saladino, and were better than anything like it I've had since. They used bigger shrimp, for one thing, butterflying them and stuffing the center with mozzarella and chopped jalapenos. Then the bacon. They'd either fry or broil them. I liked them so much that we did a piece on Channel Eight about them (back in my brief television days), and I included them in my first cookbook.
The rest of the day was relaxed, as Mary Leigh--tired not only from moving but from exams, the final one of which was just yesterday--flopped into her familiar spot on the sofa and watched movies while keeping an eye on something on her computer screen. I think it's the boyfriend, but I didn't pry.
I also didn't mention--until I was asked directly--that today is the forty-fifth anniversary of my junior prom, an even that ranks only behind my birth, my wedding, and the births of my children as the most important day of my life. But I've explained that before in this space.
La Carreta. Mandeville: 1200 W Causeway Approach. 985-624-2990.
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.
