The Baseball Hero Ate Broccoli and other notes

After an uncertain season, Jacob’s Little League team won their play-off game last night. He came out to the cottage afterwards, bearing a hot dog on a plate, and I gave him the buttered broccoli I had fixed. I cooked it out here partly because he likes the way I cook it—mushy beyond belief—and partly because his dad really does not like broccoli, so I thought I’d spare Christian the cooking odor. Jacob ate the whole crown by himself. So wonderful to find a vegetable he likes. Tonight, he came out when my dinner company was just leaving. Jacob was polite and cute, and when I turned around he had disappeared. I called his phone and asked if he had something on his mind, and he said no. I guess he just came to be here, and I’m so sorry I missed that opportunity.

My dinner guest, a colleague from TCU, brought me a chopped sandwich and potato salad from Heim’s Barbecue, a relative newcomer to town. I had been there once really liked the bbq and was overboard about the potato salad. It’s twice roasted potatoes, far superior to the potato salad usually offered in barbecue joints. Good dinner tonight.

I had an intimidating lunch guest today. She didn’t mean to be, but Heather is a lunch-time lead cook at Café Modern in the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art. (I’ve been mistakenly promoting her to sous chef.) She’s also an old friend, who brought lunches and conversation to me when I couldn’t get out. I figured it was my turn to cook, but what do you fix for someone who daily cooks in an upscale restaurant? I settled on bean salad on toast, a recipe I’d found in Bon Appetit, I think.

Dishes on toast are quite the thing these days, and it makes me smile. When I was a child, my mom frequently served asparagus on toast or mushrooms on toast. She would not, I admit, have thought of beans on toast. I wanted cannellini beans but settled for pintos. I doubt my thoroughly midwestern mom even knew what a pinto was. But I made an oil and vinegar dressing, with lots of assorted herbs, mostly what I had on hand or in planter boxes, and soaked the beans overnight. Today I salted them, which made a huge difference. They were delicious. Served with a tangy avocado and cucumber and feta salad. Quite good.

The result of all this food activity is that I have more scrumptious leftovers than I can deal with, and I will be out for several meals in the next couple of days. Jordan and I thought we’d have a girls’ dinner tomorrow and make a dent in some of it, but Christian has a church meeting and Jacob has another play-off game. I’ll be eating leftovers alone. That’s okay.

Some days don't start out so well...

 This morning, halfway to the dentist’s office, I realized two things: they hadn’t called me to remind me of the appointment, so did I really have one this morning? And, I only had a hearing aid in one ear, the result of talking to my younger son on the phone. I arrived at 9:40 only to be told that my appointment was at 9:10 and did I want to wait until 11:30 when she could take me? No, I didn’t. So I drove home, called and rescheduled., double-checking the time.

It wasn’t a bad start to a bad day. The rest of the day went fairly well, and ended more than nicely with two friends at a new café. I had been there once before and found it too noisy but today was so balmy—84 or so—that we could eat outside. The restaurant was semi-empty inside and fairly quiet; outside almost every table was taken, and it was noisy.

But the patio is by a green expanse and, beyond that, the river with a walking path. We watched children playing, families walking by with strollers and dogs, even two people on horseback. It was a bit breezy but really nice being outside for a pretty sunset and lovely fresh air. I had a swordfish sandwich—delicious, but I brought half of it home—and potato chips, which I never eat but these had such a good dipping sauce. My companions had chicken salad and steak salad-the latter a salad with a good solid chunk of steak next to it, apparently cooked just the way she wanted it. Our other companion  licked his bowl clean so I guess the chicken salad was a hit. I was a bit tempted by the blue cheese in it.  These days I’m always leery of salads in trendy restaurants—I don’t like kale, but there was no kale in either of their salads. But delicious tangy watercress—and in my sandwich too. Lovely dinner, and lovely evening.

All’s well that ends well.