What a day. Really long, but good. A quick reminder about why we’re here. The kids’ Spring Show closes out their regular studio season and all the different classes perform. That’s kinderballet through their seniors (five of them graduating this year). The longest segment is always a ballet – this time it was Aurora’s Wedding – then the intermission and the other dance forms of modern, jazz and tap follow. Granddaughter was in one part of Wedding, then the next to the last number of tap. She had also done two numbers; the same ballet and one modern at the Friday night show. The place was almost full and the older students are quite talented. The younger range from adorable to just fun to watch. It was about 5:30 when everything was over and of course there was some close-out to be done.

Oh, backing up to lunch, Hubby and I went to a Five Guys. We don’t have one in Homestead yet, which makes it kind of a “must” when we’re here. As it turned out, it was a good thing we had a heavy lunch. The close-out tasks for the kids took a lot longer than expected and we brought granddaughter back to the hotel where our good friend and the two of us hung out in the hotel breakfast room while Hubby went upstairs. As 8:00 was getting close, we decided to walk over to The Casual Pint where the kids were to join us. It’s a tap room with a limited “bar-plus” menu and we ordered drinks and their version of nachos  – “bratchos” which meant sliced bratwurst for the meat. The kids made it a little after 8:30 and we decided what to order. Now for the “Say what?” moment. The guy behind the bar didn’t usually work Sunday afternoons and didn’t know the kitchen closed early In other words, at 8:45, we find out we can’t get food. As son called a couple of other places, it was the same story. Friend had to break away, but at least we’d had plenty of catch-up time.

We then proceeded to drive over to a nearby town to the Silver Diner which is a place they often go to. We now understand why. Yes, they do have diner food, but also farm-to-table, an extensive menu, and serve beer and wine. Son and granddaughter went with breakfast dishes, Hubby had a chipolte turkey sandwich, daughter-in-law  had shrimp scampi and I had crabcake sandwich with lobster sauce. Of course it was nearly 10:00 by the time we got food into us. Ah well, we all survived. Oh yes, and a decadent bourbon pecan pie to share around.

Granddaughter does have school today and we’re meeting the kids at a fancy place for lunch to treat them. Granddaughter gets to pick where for dinner tonight and we’ll see what that is.

The flight was full, but landed on time and next time I book us into t hotel near the airport, it won’t be this one. Issues getting the shuttle and some other things, but it is comfortable, the towels are nice, and there is a coffeemaker in the room.

Our friend picked us up to go into Old Town Alexandria and boy did the drive bring back memories. Lots of familiar places still around; others changed out of course. One of Hubby’s favorites, Murphy’s Irish Pub is doing well and in fact, that was where our friend and her husband had their first date and returned specifically for their first anniversary.

Parking is always difficult, but the weather was pleasant so we used one of the garages and walked the three blocks seeing the usual crowd, folks with dogs, aromas wafting from the different restaurants. We were dining early so it wasn’t too crowded yet. The Warehouse is very historic and has an extensive menu. One of their “signatures” is New Orleans cuisine as well as other seafood and dishes. Since Hubby will not be able to make the trip in November with me to the dive show, he did a dish with two fried oysters, shrimp, and crawfish in an etouffee sauce.  I had crab topped pecan crusted haddock with a sauce and our friend had salmon with some kind of sauce. We did share a flourless, dense dark chocolate cake although we had to leave some of it on the plate.

It was great getting caught up and we’ll relocate to Falls Church this morning after we pick up the car and then all meet at 2:30 at the theater for the dance performance.

No, I don’t mean we’re going on a hunting trip. A Wild Fork store recently opened here and we’ve made about three trips already. (https://wildforkfoods.com/) They have an incredible array of meat and seafood because it’s all frozen. That way they can stock more for longer without spoilage issues. Anyway, Hubby picked up elk last week. He had it back when he did the photography workshop in the Grand Tetons. I like bison and venison so it was a pretty good bet I would like elk. Yes, although it is so lean, it does need some kind of sauce. We’ll work on that for next time.

We leave tomorrow for the short trip to see the kids and there is an extra bonus. A dear  friend of mine – she’s known son since he was three and she’s been a “surrogate aunt” – lived in North Carolina, but frequently comes up for business. She is often able to schedule to see the kids’ shows and she’s coming a day early this time to coincide with us having dinner tomorrow night. We aren’t going to see the kids until the Sunday afternoon performance because they’ll be running around like cray tomorrow with pre-show prep. The first performance is this evening and I think it’s a full crowd, too.

We will play Sunday by ear. If everyone is up for it, we’ll go out for an early dinner. If everyone is dragging, we’ll do some kind of carryout (probably BBQ) and go back to their place. Monday will also be flexible because we don’t know if granddaughter will have school or not. The school year ends next Wednesday, so not much important is likely to be going on for Monday. On the other hand, they may have some fun activities planned. As usual, I will post each day of travel.

Yes, the gap in posts is because of all sorts of overlapping matters. On the “upside”, two pressing things have been successfully completed; one is on the way to completion; one is looking good; and we’ll see if the coming week brings more progress.

Now to the title of the post. When we lived in the small, lovely seaside town of Tirrenia, the assignment I had meant we often hosted visitors with an interest in the project. (That is a way more complicated topic). Hosting often included taking the visitors to lunch or dinner. Among the other charms of the town, we had 3-4 favorite restaurants and almost a dozen others when we decided on a change. Gulliver’s however, was the hands-down favorite for taking out-of-town visitors, especially large groups. A dish they were known for was their grilled pork chop; a wood fired grill of course. What made me think of this yesterday was watching an episode of Bobby Flay when he did a double-bone chop. It was almost as good looking as what we would get at Gullivers. We never asked, but he either had someone in his family or a good friend as a supplier because no one else in town could match him for this particular dish. Everything else was good, too.

Like most of the restaurants, the house wine was not served in bottles, but from pitchers. You simply ordered red or white. We were in Tuscany after all and the house wines were not something mass-produced for export. Our personal go-to place was Cocoriba, a wonderful trattoria/pizzaria a ten-minute walk from the house. This was where I fell in love with wood-fired pizza and because we began going there when we first arrived, we became regulars during their off-season. Tirrenia is a tourist town for Europeans and Asians. We had been told the place surged with tourists June through August and it certainly did. We were always assured of a table though because we were regulars.