I was lunching with a friend when some woman leaned over and said,
“Do you realize you’ve been talking about food for an hour straight?”
“I can’t help it,” I replied. “I’m from New Orleans. We’re all like
this.”
Honestly, where I come from, it’s perfectly normal to plot lunch
while eating breakfast, to discuss past and future meals while having
lunch, to treat every supper as if it were the last, to call friends
and ask: What’d ya eat today?
Back in ’05, my dad was hospitalized – a routine procedure for a
stomach hernia. Unfortunately, this resulted in post-operative ileus:
his intestines refused to return to work after the anesthesia wore off.
And while I too have been tempted to not return to work after a little
R&R…come on, you’re intestines, you have to go back to work.
Otherwise, nothing that goes in can come out.
One week passed. Two weeks passed. Slackers. I flew home to New Orleans.
The good thing about having a sister who owns a restaurant – and The River Café is a great one in my opinion – is that when she’s cooking my son is allowed to order ‘off the menu’. In his case it’s a plate of the most wonderful creamy pasta carbonara. Made special for him with egg yolks the color of oranges, peppered pancetta and the parmesan cheese hand carried from Parma, I suppose. The bad thing is that my sister won’t let me have any. “You don’t need it”, she says looking at my waist. So it’s the regular menu for me.
My sister and I have a pretty terrific food store called The Green Spot we have owned or more accurately been the worker bees at for many years., It has an energy all it's own. It’s a gathering place for people to come to when they are happy and it is a place people run to when they need good solid honest advice of the non-food type, if you know what I mean.
Fall has arrived in San Diego. This morning on our hike Jeff and I could see our breath in the blustery morning air. We loved it.
A roasted chicken goes a long way in our house. It is one of those easy dishes that requires very little prep. Stuffing the cavity with a whole lemon cut in half, a whole garlic bulb cut in half, some thyme, salt, and pepper creates the simplest of flavors. Smear the body with soft butter, lots of kosher salt and fresh ground pepper, toss in the oven for about an hour and a half. Serve it with some roasted carrots and some sort of green and dinner is on the table for just a few bucks.