Blackbird II

One of my favorite things about my home is the street I live on. It has a creek running through it: one lane to the left of the creek, one lane to the right. There’s a footbridge in front of my home and many people walk their dogs across it, as it’s the only spot to cross the creek for about four blocks in either direction. Aside from the promenade of hounds, there’s almost no traffic that goes by my home.

So when my sister and mother arrived to visit for this weekend, we had a lovely walk along the creek, then a few blocks over to a French restaurant. Whenever my sister visits, we make it a point of going there, as it has a nice mixed Pâté sampler served with cornichon. We also started with a bottle of the house champagne.

I had the special, steak au poivre. My sister had a thick-cut pork chop with leeks and apples in a calvados cream sauce. My mother had a beet chèvre tart and a butternut squash soup with a bacon chèvre garnish. (She likes chèvre.) For dessert we shared the saffron panna cotta. Everything there—as usual—was superb.


The next afternoon, after returning from the grocery store, we took another walk. This time continuing through the park for another eight blocks to a Mexican restaurant. I’m not normally a fan of corn chips, but I love them at this place. They’re thick and crunchy and seasoned with something more than just salt. It tastes like a mixture of celery salt, lime juice, and a bit of cumin, but I don't know how you’d season a chip with lime juice. The salsa—which I like because it’s all freshly crushed tomatoes—was livened up by my sister who poured nearly a bottle of hot sauce into the dish.

I had the ahi tacos, my sister the veggie fajitas, my mother a flank-steak caeser-salad wrap. My mother’s steak was too salty, everything was otherwise quite good.


We enjoyed our walk back through the park and that evening had dinner at home with my friend the Marquee.


The next day for lunch we grilled the hot Italian sausages we forgot to serve as a pre-dinner snack. We also heated up a can of Campbell’s tomato soup, pouring it into demitasse cups I rubbed with fresh sage. We had refills, but it took a remarkably small amount of soup to satisfy us.

Then they got in the car and returned to Miami.