Rosettes in 2013
Tomorrow is the day I’ve been waiting for – a crisp, cool, dry day when I can make thin, delicate rosettes. We have so many special occasions coming up and I want to be able to share them with others.
The weather here is so erratic – from hot with high humidity and fog to sudden cold and clear. I knew the weather was changing last night when the Qatari Cat came running in to snuggle up close to me. Today I ran errands so I would have tomorrow all to myself – it takes a major portion of the day; you make the rosettes one at at time. Bless his heart, AdventureMan will take care of the new happy baby for me tomorrow afternoon so I won’t even have to rush. 🙂
The Green Parrot on Panama City Beach
Our first day in Panama City Beach, I watched AdventureMan’s head swivel 120° to the left as we drove down the main drag.
“Did you see that?” he exclaimed! “A ‘Mediterranean’ restaurant!! Woooo HOOOOOOO!”
We’ve come to learn that ‘Mediterranean’ is code for comfort food. It is not Mediterranean-Italian, or Mediterranean-Greek, it is Mediterranean like Lebanon or Syria or Palestine . . . it is comfort food.
Sigh. Or close enough. There is no machboos, and sometimes the felafel aren’t home made. Still, we know we’ll give it a try.
On our last night in town, it is the perfect night to go. 
The owner is a delightful Lebanese import named Hani, and he is a word-of-mouth phenomenon on Panama City Beach. He has many fanatically loyal customers, and people recommend him all the time. We can see why. He loves what he is doing, and it shows.
Mixed appetizers/Mezze
His food is DELICIOUS 🙂
Everything tasted so good. We can understand how he is developing such a following – his food is really good.
Southern Family Thanksgiving
Oh, what fun!
Some photos from the gathering.
My daughter-in-law made these fabulous bacon-wrapped stuffed dates:
The kids dish up their plates first, and go to the Cousins Table:
These are all the desserts waiting to be unveiled:
AdventureMan did the roasted root vegetables on this table 🙂
Re-telling old family stores – so much laughing!
Uncle Woodrow introduces the cousins to farm-grown sugar cane:
Schooners For Dinner
We usually start our stay at Panama City Beach with dinner at Schooners, a very local beach bar with a aid back atmosphere. It is a cold cold windy night, the bar is packed, but there is a table for us.
We start with the smoked tuna:
AdventureMan has a Cuban with so much meat he can’t even eat it all:
I have the seafood gumbo, perfect for a cold night; sticks to your ribs kind of food, LOL:
A View from the Sunset Inn, Panama City Beach
We love this place, the Sunset Inn, a little Mom and Pop kind of motel, hard to find in over-developed Panama City Beach with its huge soulless condominiums towering over the white sands.
As we walk in the door, the view hits us and we breathe in the sea air and go “Ahhhhhhhhhhhh.” The minute we walk in the door, we start to feel relaxed.
We both have cooking to do, so we get busy, but busy with glances at the view, and trips to our balcony to breathe. It is COLD, with a cold wind, but so gorgeous, so breath-takingly gorgeous, and we are happy.
Soon, there are cranberries cooking for Mom’s Cranberry Salad and hot juice brewing for the punch, redolent of cinnamon and cloves and orange peel, wonderful smells filling our room – and that view. Life is sweet.
And then, just when you think it can’t get any better, the sun starts to set, the light goes all golden and soft and oh, life is sweet.
PF Chang in SanDestin: A Much Needed Stop
After you’ve been married so many years, your mate knows exactly what buttons to push, and not just in bad ways.
“Hey! Look at the time! It looks like we’ll be near PF Changs for lunch!” said AdventureMan, pretending to be excited. Chinese food is comfort food to me, and he likes it OK, but he is relatively – relative to me – indifferent. And while PF Changs is pretty good, it is also good relative, relative to Pensacola, Navarre, Crestview, Niceville, Destin, Panama City – pretty good. It is a chain, and it is not San Francisco, or Seattle, or other cities where good Chinese food is sought after and valued.
So he feigns excitement, knowing I will happily eat at PF Changs, because relatively speaking, I am yearning for some good Chinese food.
We get there just as the Thanksgiving lunch crowd is beginning to head into the restaurants to take a break from shopping. We are happy; we can see many empty tables still. There are times this restaurant has been so packed that we have chosen to go elsewhere.
“It will be about ten to fifteen minutes before I can get you to a table,” the hostess says, bustling by and barely giving us a glance.
Oh oh. I can see AdventureMan’s testosterone level rising. But he has learned a lot in his years, so he tackles the problem nicely: “But I can see empty tables,” he says, and gestures to the large assortment of empty tables.
She seems annoyed to be interrupted in whatever her busy-ness was, and annoyed at being questioned.
“I have the tables,” she said shortly, “but I’ve had to call in extra staff to wait on them. They should start arriving shortly.”
The wait is actually short, and that welcome was the worst part of our meal, and not even that was so bad. Actually, AdventureMan and her had a nice chat while I wandered off to find the ladies room. When I came back, he had been seated, and we quickly ordered a big pot of tea and lunch. It arrived quickly, was hot and beautifully presented, and was delicious, seasoned by our hunger.
Our server was attentive and efficient without being intrusive. He made excellent suggestions and made sure our orders were customized – AdventureMan wanted his extra spicy, and he got lots of fabulous peppers. AdventureMan had Kung Pao Scallops and I had Spicy Chicken. We both had the Hot and Sour Soup, which we thought was pretty good.
I think his was better . . .
I am thankful for a lunch at PF Changs AND I am yearning for Seattle, and the countless places to get authentic and tasty Chinese food.
Breakfast at CJ’s in Pensacola
We love the early service at our church; it is quiet, it is contemplative and focused. It is also the Episcopal service “lite;” with little music we are in and out in an hour. We occasionally go to the commissary after church, and one morning, on our way there, AdventureMan said “how about THERE for breakfast?” and swerved into the parking lot.
The sign in front says ‘BEIGNETS.’
CJ’s, at the corner of Garden and Pace, is not undiscovered. We have never walked right in and been seated, there is always a wait, but as early as we go, the wait is not too long. There are seats at the bar almost always, but we prefer to wait for a table. Service is excellent; I don’t know how they serve so many customers so quickly and accurately, but everyone leaves happy.
My photos are not representative of the breakfasts most people were eating because AdventureMan and I try not to pig out. We got the smallest breakfasts. Most people had platters laden with eggs and ham and sausages; this is a breakfast feast.
The beignets come in 1, 3 or 5. I am not supposed to eat beignets, so I only ordered one. 🙂
You can shake some of that sugar off. It’s powdered sugar, so there aren’t so many calories. And I shared half of it with AdventureMan. Oh man, these are beignets! These are like light fluffy yeast doughnuts, so light. . . so delicious. They could become a very bad habit if I don’t exert extreme self discipline.
Here is my breakfast, which is the two egg breakfast:
and here is AdventureMan’s omelette breakfast:
I know. It’s a lot of food. You should see the other platters, LOL!
CJ’s is a great value for the money. Delicious local foods at reasonable prices.
CJ’S Kitchen & Grille
2100 W Garden St, Pensacola, FL
(850) 435-9543
A First For AdventureMan
You may think this is ‘just’ a beautiful pecan pie, but it is better than that. This is AdventureMan’s very first pie, ever. He debated even making it for the Great Gathering, because there are so many truly gifted cooks in the family, but in the end, being the courageous soul he is, he tackled it. It looks exactly like the photo of the pie in Southern Living magazine which inspired his effort. I don’t think I have ever seen a more beautiful pecan pie. 🙂 Bravo! Bravo, AdventureMan!
Clean or Unclean?
This is one of my favorite readings in the Lectionary. People often ask where it is that Jesus declared all foods “clean” and this is one of the scriptures. To me, it is the why of it that makes it interesting – and convicting. There is enough in my heart to make me unclean without worrying about food rules.
Matthew 15:1-20
15 Then Pharisees and scribes came to Jesus from Jerusalem and said,2 ‘Why do your disciples break the tradition of the elders? For they do not wash their hands before they eat.’ 3 He answered them, ‘And why do you break the commandment of God for the sake of your tradition?4 For God said,* “Honour your father and your mother,” and, “Whoever speaks evil of father or mother must surely die.” 5 But you say that whoever tells father or mother, “Whatever support you might have had from me is given to God”,* then that person need not honour the father.* 6 So, for the sake of your tradition, you make void the word* of God. 7You hypocrites! Isaiah prophesied rightly about you when he said:
8 “This people honours me with their lips,
but their hearts are far from me;
9 in vain do they worship me,
teaching human precepts as doctrines.” ’
10 Then he called the crowd to him and said to them, ‘Listen and understand: 11 it is not what goes into the mouth that defiles a person, but it is what comes out of the mouth that defiles.’ 12 Then the disciples approached and said to him, ‘Do you know that the Pharisees took offence when they heard what you said?’ 13 He answered, ‘Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be uprooted. 14 Let them alone; they are blind guides of the blind.* And if one blind person guides another, both will fall into a pit.’ 15 But Peter said to him, ‘Explain this parable to us.’ 16 Then he said, ‘Are you also still without understanding?17 Do you not see that whatever goes into the mouth enters the stomach, and goes out into the sewer? 18 But what comes out of the mouth proceeds from the heart, and this is what defiles. 19 For out of the heart come evil intentions, murder, adultery, fornication, theft, false witness, slander. 20 These are what defile a person, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile.’
El Tenampa in Kissimmee
“So where are you eating tonight? asked Alessandro, and we told him El Tenampa. His face lit up with a huge smile. “You’re going to love it!” he said. “Do you like spicy food?”
Oh yes. Yes, we do.
El Tenampa is a challenge. It is the highest rated Mexican restaurant in the Kissimmee/Disney/Lake Buena Vista area, but commenters on Google and Urban Spoon have complained about the service, the waiting time to be seated, the long wait for dinner, not understanding what was on the menu . . . as good as the food is, there were a lot of complaints.
It’s Orlando. Running a restaurant in Orlando must be a nightmare. Thousands of people from all over the world, and everyone wants service. What incentive is there to provide top-notch customer service when you know these people are passing through and you will never see them again? What incentive is there to be first-rate when many of them are poor tippers – by US standards – or just plain cheap? We went to El Tenampa fully aware that it might be problematic.
It was anything but.
It is hard to find, even though it is right on the main drag, it has poor signage. It shares a building with La Hacienda Meat Market and is next door to the India Diner and the Rodeway Motel . . . it all kinda looks low rent.
“Don’t mind how it looks from the outside,” Alessandro warned us. “It’s different inside.”
Marco, at the door, greeted us warmly and sat us right away. There was a lot going on, family parties, one of nearly twenty people, several large groups, but lots of booths and tables. The place LOOKS chaotic, but we got our drinks and menus right away, chips, salsa and guacamole very shortly and our dinners within a reasonable time. The wait staff was hopping – very busy – but we never felt slighted or neglected.
The menu was inclusive, and the food was fabulous. Marco told us it was a slow night, which meant that you could walk right in and have a table, no waiting.
AdventureMan ordered a la carte, a carnitas tostado and a tamale and salad; I had the pescado Veracruz, steamed in foil with spices and vegetables, oh wow.
Well worth the trip. Great food, great service and a great atmosphere, all decorated for the day of the dead/Halloween.
Our bill was a shock. All that great food, and the bill was under $25. Amazing.
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