Thursday, August 2, 2012

Food, always food.....

Ahh, what wonderful peace (and quiet). Izzy is asleep in Tom's lap; they're both laid out on the big old recliner exhausted from a morning of play. Izzy and I spent a few hours this morning at the pool while Tom played golf. A tough life, this...living at the resort. Last night Tom and I went over to City Grill for dinner. It's a little joint, frequented by 'locals', tucked into an obscure little strip mall on a secondary road. We had been to the Chinese joint, next door, a few nights earlier and having been pleasantly surprised, decided to try City Grill too. I had heard about their delicious sweet potato fries with bacon and bleu cheese, which I tried and found tasty. Unfortunately the scallop cakes I ordered were a total disappointment and Tom's Cobb Salad didn't pull his trigger either. I had toyed with the idea of ordering the rib-eye steak sandwich and wish I had gone with that. I wanted to love the place, I loved the decor, which was not fussy or 'beachy'; I've always liked the look of black table cloths and napkins with candles and we were greeted by live jazz. Tom doesn't want to go back, but I think I can talk him into at least trying lunch for a steak sandwich some time. Maybe it's just a matter of ordering the right thing. The menu read like the chef has some imagination. It just wasn't executed to my liking. Tom said he can get better at home...like that's a fair way to judge a place. Not bragging or anything, but it is tough to find a place that serves food as good as I can prepare at home. When we find one, you can be sure we will frequent it as often as our budget will allow. I'm not much into cooking for just the two of us, and we seldom eat at the table. When we do, unless I solicit a comment, nothing is said and since Tom eats so much faster than I do, he jumps up after cleaning his plate and starts cleaning up the kitchen (this is NOT the part I'm complaining about) while I'm left sitting at the table eating alone. Why bother? I say. I'm just as happy with a bowl of cold cereal or a yogurt and I've gotten bold enough to not worry about whether or not Tom is hungry, figuring he's a big boy and can certainly decide for himself if he wants something to eat, and fix it too. This is not to say that I never cook. When he came back from Alaska with 50 pounds of salmon filets and 25 pounds of halibut, our freezer was filled to capacity. I enjoy working with such wonderful ingredients and we've had "fresh" fish several times...but come on! How often can you eat salmon in a week? Right now veggies are beautiful in the market and just a few nights ago I turned 4 gorgeous avocados into guacamole and made a nice bowl of pico de gallo to go with it. Izzy was helping me and she decided we needed to add black olives to the pico. I think she was really on to something there. They really added a nice dimension. I'd never realized how compatible olives are with fresh cilantro and lime. Well, once again I've managed to fill another empty space with my rambling. I'm feeling the need to go do something. I think the little stirrings that I just heard from Izzy has triggered some kind of 'mom gene' in me and now I can't sit still. Writing about cooking also gets my kitchen calling out to me to get in there and create something, anything. Of course sweets always float to the surface and usually become the leader when it comes to fixing something while Izzy's in the house. What could be better than waking to the aroma of something yummy baking? See ya.....

2 comments:

  1. When I come for a visit, I'm going to want YOUR cooking!!!

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  2. There isn't really a restaurant out there that is as good as YOU!!

    ReplyDelete