Louisiana Trip, Day 2……

I stand corrected. Although the trip is 90% interstate, there is significant construction so the “lady” who does navigation sent me mostly on state roads. I don’t mind as driving slower is okay. That would make Hubby slightly crazy except he does know the “lady” selects the fastest route so he might agree had he been with me. Anyway, the only traffic was understandably in the Baton Rouge area. We’ll see what’s recommended in the morning.

My sister did get in with no problem and this was the first time all three of we siblings have been together for a while. Brother wasn’t able to be at Daddy’s funeral because of respiratory problems. Not COVID, but infectious nonetheless. We went to Vera’s, a local seafood place and yes, I had catfish and shrimp. Crawfish will come later. Sis had shrimp, brother had blackened shrimp tacos and sister-in-law fried oysters and catfish. The day’s bread pudding was caramel apple.

I had forgotten as cute as Marvilla Guest House is in Mandeville, they don’t have an elevator and parking is across the street. Well, I needed a bit of a workout anyway. We walked down in search of cold beverages as they don’t really have those either and the cafe next door is just breakfast and lunch. Will hit it in the morning. Found Tandem, lovely little coffee and cocktail place. (We are close to New Orleans after all.) Lucious looking pastries I did resist considering lunch. Tonight is the lovely Nuvolari Italian restaurant. This is all in the historic Mandeville section. It’s a mix of old houses, old houses converted into businesses (mostly boutique type) and some new places done in the older style. Sis has not been here before and if she hadn’t had to walk so much earlier today, she would go up to Lake Ponchatrain. Depending on what time we’re up tomorrow, I might drive her the short distance. None of the houses are on the lake itself as there is the road in between. They do all have a clear view of the massive lake.

Louisiana Trip, Day 1…..

Well, the day did have some glitches. They aren’t that important except for the fact I didn’t have the chance to actually eat a meal until dinnertime. There were enough delays so all I could do was grab snacks and still get to the flight on time. I thought that might happen and I was a little careful with what I selected. Anyway, weather was good and when I finally picked up the rental car – a Malibu this time – and got on the road, I was pretty sure I wasn’t going to go beyond Natchitoches. If all had been well, I was going to try to make it to Alexandria, the next major town on I-49. It was a little after 6:30 though and the sun was ready to set and I decided not to push it.

This is the weekend of the Classic Car Show and I wasn’t sure if a motel room would be available. There are multiple motels at the I-49 exit and one of my preferred ones did have a room. The IHOP is next door and while that’s hardly the type of place I ordinarily pick for dinner, it was the most practical. Basic Salisbury steak with salad and broccoli to help off-set my less than nutritional fare of the day. It was interesting though to see several people had breakfast foods for their dinners. That’s never been a “thing” for me, but if I had been craving pancakes it would make sense.

Okay, if I can get on to sleep – which is happening in about twenty minutes – I’ll start early tomorrow for the longer drive south to Mandeville. It’s not quite 300 miles and is interstate 90% of the trip.

In Praise of Tea, Too…..

I do love coffee for my mornings and after a meal when I am out. And yes, depending on one’s definition of “too much”, my standard 3-4 mugs each morning, might be considered in that category. Also, since I work from home, there are times when I meet people “for coffee”, which means I will usually have that. Unless someone specifically asks for another place, my “go-to” is our local Panera. (That actually allows me to pick a chocolate croissant which Hubby loves.)

Anyway, Daddy was the only coffee drinker at home and interestingly, my maternal grandfather drank hot tea while my maternal grandmother drank coffee. Being raised in the deep South, we of course drank copious quantities of ice tea. In reality, I didn’t drink hot beverages much growing up. Even though I didn’t start drinking coffee until I was in the Army, my tea experiences came even later. When I say that, I mean anything beyond basic Lipton. It might even have been during my first trip to London. The tour didn’t include a “high tea”, however, there was always afternoon tea. I can’t recall my first herbal tea which was probably something like lemon or orange. My brother, who never drank coffee, became the first person I knew who was really into tea. He got to the point he would buy different loose teas and blend his own. He and my sister-in-law do “afternoon tea” and there is also condensed milk involved, but that’s another thing.

Basically, I usually have afternoon tea now if I’m home; herbal unless I need the extra caffeine. Publix carries a nice variety box with Earl Grey, Jane Grey, English Breakfast and Irish Breakfast. For herbals, I range from the citrus through others, and of course chamomile in those early morning hours when I’m dealing with insomnia. So when I created the “Small Town” quilting-themed cozy series, I decided to make the main character a tea lover even though she does drink coffee, too. I admit I don’t bother with loose tea, so I’m not sure if I can be considered a “true” tea person.

And Here We Are……

Probably other than my 18th birthday (back when the federal government didn’t intervene with the states so that was the legal age for alcohol in Louisiana), I haven’t marked any of “the big ones”.  Today as my 70th isn’t an exception other than to reflect generally on birthday celebrations. I don’t go in for them much anymore and I have certainly worked on more than one occasion. I like doing things for other people’s birthdays though and for me, it’s kind of a sure, let’s have a nice dinner either going out somewhere special or doing something special at home.

Living here, I do try to make it a point to go diving, although I have a “window” of about ten days to count that as a “birthday dive”. The span is in order to allow for weather and boat availability. In fact, because I have two kind of complex articles for next week’s paper, I’m working this weekend in case Mother Nature is kind enough to allow me to go dive tomorrow afternoon. We shall see.

Okay, back to celebrating. I don’t feel as keen on driving down into the Keys as we have in the past because weekend traffic has gotten much worse and a few of our restaurants do qualify for special occasion. I wanted lobster last night and we would have gone to Capri, but they were having a huge party in and I knew it would be hectic for them. Hubby was puzzled when I told him I wanted to go to Red Crab. It is nice, although no tablecloths. Anyway, I didn’t explain that when I was in there Wednesday with friends, the waiter told us about a special of exotic meats with bison, ostrich, and venison. I was surprised and I knew Hubby would love it. I didn’t explain that to him because I wasn’t sure they would have it. He does love whole fried snapper, which he didn’t realize they had and was all set to order it. Our waitress remembered us from a previous time and I asked about the specials. They did still have the exotic meats although they were out of bison. He was quite happy and now understood why we were there. They doubled up on the venison, my lobster was delicious, and I do use my birthday as an excuse for dessert. We shared a key lime pie because I have chocolate cake for tonight.

More Leftover Ideas…..

Restaurants often have some kind of a “mixed grill” and seafood places will have “Captains Plate” with different items on it. When we do Sonny’s BBQ, one of us frequently gets the Pork Three Ways which comes with some ribs, pulled pork, and sliced pork.

Last night I carried that idea into a leftovers dinner. We actually used some leftover steak on Monday to make carne asada. We also had a portion of chicken paprika and some grilled pork tenderloin in the fridge. Either could have been used for a lunch, but I had decided to do a combination instead. There was enough sauce in the chicken to be able to just slice it and reheat in the microwave. The pork was not sauced and would have dried out too much with re-heating. Jars of roasted red peppers are a pantry staple for us, so I took one out, added chicken broth, and white wine and blended it up for a sauce. I put that in a skillet, added a little salt and cracked black pepper, reduced the sauce by about half to give it more depth of flavor, then added the slices of tenderloin to cook on low heat for about eight minutes, turning it a few times.

There is a brand of frozen crispy green beans we like as well as red roaster potatoes with onions; both items bake at the same temperature. The potatoes go in ten minutes before the green beans and it all comes together nicely. It made for a nice-looking plate. While we normally drink red wine with grilled pork, Hubby agreed to Chardonnay in this case since we also had the chicken paprika.

 

New Owners of Red Crab……

Other than when we need fast food we prioritize dining at family-owned restaurant, but do have some franchises we frequent at times. I posted last year about how all of a sudden we were seeing the trend of crab places. We went from none to three in a couple of years. The first one is still good (Krab Kingz) and we use them for carryout. They aren’t exactly a sit-down place though and they don’t have wine or coffee. Then a Crafty Crab in Homestead and a Red Crab in Florida City both opened within months of each other. Red Crab is a little closer to us and we tried it first. It was okay, but they didn’t serve coffee so my friend and I tried Crafty next. The menus were almost identical, the ambience was better even though they didn’t serve coffee either. We tried Red Crab a couple more times, then decided not to bother with it again.

Maybe four months or so ago, I saw it was closed and wasn’t surprised. Then about six weeks ago, it looked as if they were open again. I didn’t think anything about it because there might just have been a building issue they needed to take care of. An individual contacted me recently and said friends of theirs owned Red Crab and could I maybe get them some publicity. I cautiously sent a text asking if they were new owners. That was a “yes”, so Hubby and I went for dinner. The ambience was like night and day. They also had an expanded menu and indeed have coffee as regular, espresso, or cappuccino. Service was fine and prices were essentially the same. It was a pleasant surprise and later this summer, I’ll do an interview for a  write-up for the paper. I have another one to do before them.

Burgers on the Menu….

This is one of the rare Fourth of July times Hubby doesn’t have to teach/guide scuba. On the other hand, he does have to go to the big Race to the Fourth the city puts on at the Homestead-Miami Speedway. Not a car race; music, vendors, fireworks later. In years past, they had a special event where people could go into the Champions Club and we would attend that usually with a few friends. I would stay there as Hubby ate quickly, then went out to get “cute kid pictures”, and re-set for the fireworks. The population has increased so much, they can’t have that event any longer and quite frankly, I’m past the stage where I want to spend three hours in the heat basically by myself. It is a fun time though for those that go.

So, we’ll do our burgers at lunch – potato salad and coleslaw as the sides and Hubby will go later for the photo shoot. I can see the fireworks from the house and I will put the apple pie in the oven to where it is still warm when he gets in probably around 10:00. I will try to still be awake although there is not guarantee of that.

We generally swap around three standard menus for the Fourth – burgers, BBQ, or fried chicken. They all work as traditional and whether just the two of us or if we have others over. There will of course be neighbors out on the street for the fireworks and the folks on the gate will be really busy as this is one of the holidays with lots of visitors. Fireworks will be going late as well and some of the internal displays are pretty extensive. Hmmm, that means I probably will still be awake when Hubby gets in.

Happy Fourth of July!

Got Behind Again……

So much for a calmer week. I’m not going to get into how the week became so jammed, but it’s not the first time and probably won’t be the last. Hopefully, the extra things thrown in will have positive results and we’ll leave it at that.

Skipping forward to the Food and Drink part, that’s not the usual sharing of a recipe. The oldest (or second depending on how you count a couple of factors) continuously serving family restaurant in Miami Dade County will change hands next week. We’ve know this if coming for a while as a couple of different offers have been working. The Capri in Florida City was opened in 1959 and carried on by the second generation. As I have posted before when it comes to family businesses, it is common for the third generation to be the one that walks away, or in some cases, fails. This time it’s that the third generation did work in the business for a while and have chosen not to continue with it.

COVID was so difficult for businesses and the Capri was determined to try and provide some normalcy during the months of closures and ever-changing restrictions. They complied with each new edict and we patronized them even more than usual in support of their efforts. The government financial support was no where near what has often been lauded although it was of some help. The follow-on inability to get staff is what was an added difficulty. And so, there comes a time when you make a logical choice even if it is not the one you would have preferred.

For all of its years, this was the special occasion restaurant and hundreds – probably thousands – of special memories were made. It was also the “nice” restaurant where celebrities and VIPs were taken when they were in town. While we will very much miss it as a place, we hope the family taking it over will be successful in their own way.

 

Whole Fish on the Grill……

There are certain meals we do that are multi-step and/or time consuming which means we don’t make them very often. Whole fish on the grill is one and I’m not sure exactly why we decided to do it last week. I think it was because it had been a while.

Step one of course is to get the whole fish and the market that does them changed ownership several months ago. There weren’t many changes inside and it was later on a Saturday so the selection was limited. They did have some nice yellow-tail snappers. Next step is waiting for the lady (in this case) to prep the fish as we don’t do that. Prepping the fish when it’s time to cook is a process, too, with seasoning, then putting fresh herbs, and lemon slices. Hubby did dill, parsley, and rosemary as the herbs. Salt, pepper, and a little seafood seasoning for that part. The fish is scored although I don’t remember the reason for that step. Next is prepping the grill to try and keep the fish from sticking. Yes, this step can be by-passed if you do them in foil packets, but that wasn’t the plan this time.

Okay, grill and fish are all prepped and Hubby has the extra special spatula he uses to turn them and did manage to do so with leaving them intact. Now, the whole fish is on the plate and it’s being very careful with eating as there are the bones to deal with. I managed to only get stuck once. It is a delicious meal although not everyone likes looking at a whole fish on a plate. We did small whole potatoes and corm as the sides. I don’t recall the brand, but Publix has the potatoes in a package that has a seasoning pack and they are done in the microwave in like seven minutes. You cook them, then stir in 1-2 TBS of butter and the seasoning mix until the potatoes are coated. They are excellent and easy to do.

Lamb in Different Forms….

As I’ve mentioned before, I did not grow up with lamb as a food in the Deep South. I would have read about it books I’m sure and I suppose you could get it in the big city of Shreveport although I never heard anyone mention it. Although I did have a number of different things during my time in France, lamb was not one of them, nor did I have it when I was in my first few years in the Army. I was in Maine with my first husband’s family for Easter so of course it was roast leg of lamb with mint jelly. I was pleasantly surprised even though it wasn’t like I enjoyed it to the point of deciding we should routinely add it to the menu. It seems as if Italy was where we began to see lamb more often in restaurants and have access at the commissary (military grocery stores). Roasting was still the common way to prepare because Hubby was deprived of a grill until we were later assigned to Hawaii. Once again, lamb was not exactly a staple on the island. Being in the Washington, D.C. area was where it was plentiful and grilled lamb chops became the fall back. It really is much quicker than roasting a leg.

A few years ago, Hubby got the idea to use lamb shoulder as a substitute for veal in Osso Bucco because the store hardly ever has veal shanks. It works remarkably well and we always have broth and veggies left over as well as some lamb. That’s when I make a soup adding in another meat; often chicken, turkey, or sausage. We haven’t used ground lamb for anything, mostly because we have it often enough in other forms. When the kids come to visit, we make a point to do lamb chops since daughter-in-law loves them and son can’t bring himself to eat lamb. He acknowledges that dates back to enjoying the cute little lambs that belonged to one of the neighbors who lived close to his grandparents in Maine.