St. Augustine sounds like a very cool place, Opus 3

This was my grandmother's china. To my knowledge, my grandmother never saw St. Augustine, but her china came to live here and the story is in some ways quintessentially St. Augustinian. Connections, connections...

In the year of our marriage, I worked at the Booksmith (of blessed memory). We had an honored regular customer (the sort of person we thought of as a sort of Friend of the Store) named Marilyn, a smart, funny woman who valued fine writing and good books, and was an active patron of the arts community in St. Augustine. She'd been widowed fairly recently, though her husband had been an invalid for some years and I had the impression she'd been much younger than he was. I also had the impression that whether through his means or her own she lived comfortably after he died, as though money wasn't something she worried about. That seemed luxurious to me but I didn't give it much thought. Marilyn wasn't the kind of person to make you think about distinctions of class or money: she was warm and open and unafraid, with a ready laugh, rich enough to pull you into its circle. She was drawn, physically, on generous lines and dressed in bold, vivid colors, set against the brightest lipsticks. I liked her on sight and never changed my mind.

The summer of our wedding drew on toward the September date. We were an untraditional wedding couple in many ways. We were both long gone forth from the homes of our parents, and we'd lived together for several years. Neither of us had living mothers to create the framework (or hysteria) of some weddings. So our wedding, as I have mentioned here, was planned and executed by our own ingenuity and the breathtaking generosity of our families and friends. We were registered nowhere; there was no list of desired small appliances, no selected patterns of silver or china. In any case the only china I wanted was the simple pattern of my childhood - the cheery pink roses of my grandmother's Franciscanware. But my grandmother was gone and I had no connection with my father, and in any case, there were bigger fish to fry. My friend Tracey was making my dress; my aunt would make the lovely wedding cake. Rodney's brother would pay for the beer, and his oldest childhood friend furnish the limo. You know all this; I've told you the tale before. And it was pretty much all I talked about, as brides do, and there on the corner of Charlotte Street and Cathedral Place, I talked about it with all the Booksmith regulars. They listened, told their own wedding stories, wished us well, and bought their books.

In northeast Florida August steamed its way toward what I'd hoped would be a cooler late September. On one of those August afternoons, a stately burgundy-colored Cadillac passed through our neighborhood, the dust of the dirt road settling lightly on the polished paint of the car. It circled by once, and then approached again slowly, the driver clearly trying to locate a specific address in those days before GPS systems and in-car navigation. Suddenly it was in our driveway, and to my complete astonishment, Marilyn was getting out. And she was unloading packages, waving off my bewilderment: just dropping these off for you, dear, I know you're getting married, estate sale, great bargain, couldn't pass it up, wedding and all...

"But, but, wait," I babbled, "how did you know? How did you find our house? How..."

"Oh, you mentioned something about the china pattern, you know, and Diana gave me directions. It was such a great deal, I could hardly pass it up, and after all, you ARE getting married, and I hope you'll be VERY happy..." and in a cloud of dust and kindness she was gone. I stood in the doorway, looking around me at plates and platters and teacups, all bearing the small pink roses and green leaves of my grandmother's every day dishes. Here they were. Here they were, found, bought and delivered to me out of nothing more than kindness. It would have been lovely to have the actual dishes from Grandmother's cupboards. But I wasn't sure it wasn't somehow even more wonderful to have these pieces, conjured out of kindness.

After the wedding we spent a week in western North Carolina, where Rodney's Uncle Sam had what the family charmingly called a "cabin". (It was actually a modest but comfortable A-frame house, equipped with every amenity right down to a dishwasher.) On one of the days of that week, we drove over to east Tennessee to visit my Aunt Beverly, my father's sister. Like my father, Aunt Bev-o is gentle and sweet by nature and Rodney and I spent several lovely hours with her. And when we drove back to Crossnore, we carried a couple of boxes of Franciscanware across the mountains with us. Aunt Bev-o had been saving Grandmother's dishes and she gifted them to us. Close examination reveals the hand of my beloved little cousin, Aunt Bev-o's daughter, in the making of this arrangement. The beautiful pieces Marilyn had given me were united with the ones that had been taken for granted in Grandmother's kitchen. They've been in daily use ever since, but the story doesn't end there.

Fast forward about 10 years, and I am on a long, driving business trip with a colleague and friend, Miss Inga. With miles to cover and a long-standing easiness between us, we talk the hours away with gossip and jokes and confidences. I ask her about how she came to live in St. Augustine, her marriage to a respected local musician, her family, all in very general terms. She tells me that she came to St. Augustine because her beloved father owned a condo here. (He is a story all on his own, but not my tale to tell.) When Miss Inga was extricating herself from a bad marriage, and dealing with her father's death more or less at the same time, she came to St. Augustine and lived in the condo. She felt comfortable here. She'd visited before and in fact had a treasured friend here, a woman who'd been a friend of Miss Inga's father for many years, going back into Miss Inga's childhood. A woman who had been almost a mother-figure to Miss Inga, herself. A woman named Marilyn.

St. Augustine sounds like a very cool place, huh? Everything comes round again on itself. Does this happen where you live?

Booksmith Recollection IV: Peter Bogdanovitch

This was the view he would have had, Mr. Bogdanovitch, as he set up a scene and began shouting at the young woman at the other end of the block. He was standing with the Cathedral on his left, looking down toward that very small, very last building on the same side of the street. This tiny block was home to so much of what was central to my life, for a long time and through much change.

I worked at the wonderful Booksmith, as many of you know. I learned the fundamentals of small business there, where it was closely tied to the magic of matchmaking though admittedly the matching of books with people is less fraught with disastrous possibilities than matches with no books involved. Some of the friendships that would frame my whole adult life were born there. We gradually began the long process of mourning the demise of the small, independent bookseller, and we figured out how to keep our professional affinities alive in times of drastic change.

Just up the block was the Cathedral. I was born with a love of singing and perhaps some small talent, but it was at the Cathedral that my voice found its wings, coaxed and nurtured and enriched by Sister Patricia. More friendship came to me, or (in the case of Miss Jo) returned to me, and here again, the architecture on which I was building my life was made strong. Here I learned how to be a friend and how not to. Here I learned about love, and about having sisters, an ironic lesson for one whose family includes 3 half-sisters. Here I learned that people really can love you forever, no matter what, and that you can love people in the same way. The lessons I would need to be a married person, to be a mother, to be a friend: too many of them to count were learned on this tiny block. At the Cathedral end of that block, they were all learned against a backdrop of musical scores. Standing in front of that very large congregation, I found some reserve from which I could sing week in and week out without being crippled by stage fright. So well-integrated is that lesson that to this day I'm able to talk in front of people without more than a gentle nervousness. Sister used to say, "As you rehearse, so will you perform..." and she usually added some reference to not goofing off, or working harder. She was right in many ways, not the least of which was repetition helps improve performance, and training shows, often just when you need it most.

In large measure I grew into the person I am in the tiny neighborhood described by that block. And one morning, as I stepped outside the beautifully embossed brass door of the Booksmith to hang out the "Open" sign, the street was deserted except for a handful of people all focused on the same job of work, a man in big glasses standing in front of the Cathedral shouted down the street, "HEY! You there! Get off the street!!" And then I saw the camera, and realized what the job of work was: they were the movie crew we'd heard about, come to town to shoot a movie. The shouting man was the director, Peter Bogdanovitch. (Another of his movies had enjoyed a summer run during the time of my first high school job at St. Augustine's drive-in theater, but that, my loves, is a tale for another long winter's evening.)

Back into the store I stepped, away from my closest brush with moviemaking, to wait for Gamble Rogers to browse through a copy of Wooden Boat, to wait for Mr. Montagnaro to pick up a stack of erudition and art books and tell me about the blue collar working person passion for opera in Italy, to wait for you, maybe, and all you brought me in that tiny, dusty, beautiful library of books and sisters and learning, down the street from the heart of music, emerging spiritual thought, sisters and music. What a block that was you shouted down, Mr. Bogdanovitch. What a street. What a town.

St. Augustine sounds like a very cool place

Because of a comment Michelle made on a post here ("St. Augustine sounds like a VERY cool place..."), I'm inspired to offer a view using points of intersection I can actually describe, many of them connected by threads of music and family history and, for me especially, Sister Patricia Eileen, the Cathedral, and the Booksmith. So: a couple of glimpses into the coolness of the place.

It's fair to say that Gamble Rogers was in many ways the godfather of modern folk music in this region. He used to come into the Booksmith, turn toward the counter where I was usually perched, incline his head and acknowledge me and visit for a bit, usually ending up with a copy of Wooden Boat magazine. He lost his life in an effort to save a swimmer in trouble off one of the St. Augustine beaches and sometimes I think this heroism sometimes allows his accomplishments as a musician and storyteller and the definitive Florida troubadour of his generation, to be obscured in shadow. But I can tell you for sure that he is the teacher to whom many current musicians in and around St. Augustine refer with affection and credit with inspiration. His wife Nancy once honored me by asking me to help her learn to sing. That ties the tale back to SPE, and my invaluable voice lessons with her. Perhaps it also manages to show you a tiny glimpse of what a cool place it is, really. For there are so many, MANY times friends and acquaintances look at each other and say, "Only in St. Augustine..."

There is a middle school here named in Gamble's honor, and for many years they've sponsored a folk festival which also bears his name. If you look at the site for the Festival, you'll see the graphic art of Joe Mark featured, Joe, who along with his wife Patty, has been a stalwart musician for many years at the Cathderal...it all just keeps turning in on itself, you see, and is one of the million tiny reasons St. Augustine IS a very cool place. There's so much more to tell you, my little ones, but it's and endless joyful task, like trying to describe the colors of glass refracted in a kaleidoscope. Stay with me, though. We'll look at them all sooner or later.

Booksmith Recollection II: The Blue Max

In another life, I worked in an independent bookstore, when St. Augustine still had one; it was called the Booksmith and it was without any doubt a magical place. It sat in a picture-perfect spot, on the corner of St. Augustine's central plaza, overlooked the beautiful bay and Bridge of Lions, and had as a sort of back door (this has its own stories) the famous Trade Winds, where more or less everyone in St. Augustine has gotten drunk at least once. There are so many Booksmith stories that I have a list of the ones I want to tell you sooner or later, in this here blog.

But tonight's tale, my little ones, is about one of the Booksmith's frequent visitors. Like most of the other almost- or once-famous people who frequented the store, he was humble and quiet about his accomplishments and we were always glad to see him. He was the author of several books, the most famous of which was a novel called The Blue Max, which was made into a movie. Like the stupid young person I was, I never got around to reading the book, but today, I happened to see the movie. It was good. And I found I was a little ashamed of myself for not having paid attention any sooner.

When he came into the Booksmith, he was always called "Mr. Hunter" and he never corrected us or encouraged any more familiarity, though as I've said, he was quiet about his own accomplishments. He was unassuming, friendly and kind. By the time I knew him his big moment of fame had passed, I think. He'd served in the second World War and had published his famous book perhaps a decade later; the movie of the same title was released in 1966. Twenty years and more had passed, and he'd continued to write and had also re-invented himself as a fine artist, building a sort of second or third career as a painter of historic aviation. I only knew this in the sketchiest of ways. Diana, who owned the store and was (and is) a master at The Art of Detail, knew it well and understood how it all fit together. I relied on her for cues. But basically Mr. Hunter was an ordinary-looking person behind whose average face I was too young and ignorant to see. And there's a sub-plot.

Mr. Hunter was married to a sweet, smart lady named Tommie. By the time the MadriGalz began their affectionate career at The Cafe Alcazar, I'd developed my own love affair with Miss Tommie's antique shop. It was called The Blue Max and was located, along with our beloved cafe, in what was once the swimming pool of the Hotel Alcazar, around the turn of the last century. Tommie had a collection of some of the most beautiful pieces you ever saw, and most of the ones I bought came from a jewelry case at one end of the shop. She had a small lamp of the sort you might have on a bedside table, and under this magical light you could look at her collection of jewelry. She would give you the most astonishing discounts, and would keep things for you for MONTHS while you figured ways to trim your grocery budget...oh, but these are other stories, my dears: this is only a sub-plot, after all.

Completely accidentally I stumbled across The Blue Max, the movie, today. It starred George Peppard and Ursula Andress, the latter of whom was dressed in a fabulous early 20th century wardrobe, which is, admittedly, what caught my eye, about halfway into the film. I'd missed the beginning, where the writing credits had appeared; thank you, The Internet (as your Aunt Becky would say)and Matt Cribbs, for giving me imdb.com. According to good old imdb, Mr. Hunter's personal dream of being a fighter pilot did not come true because he was green/red color blind. Color blind. Imagine. So he became a respected writer (he continued to serve as a writing coach to local writers well into his 70s) and painter (his original work continued to sell, and he considered The Blue Max cover art, which he did himself, to have been his first sale). Beyond my imagining when I was a young bookseller was a complex life, built brick by brick and lived in fullness, and this was Mr. Jack Hunter.

It's almost a better story than The Blue Max. Almost.

Julia Child and Claude Sinatsch, remembered together

In August 2006, long before Julie and Julia renewed public interest in Julia Child, a small group of friends gathered to celebrate the anniversary of her birth. We knew we were slightly off a milestone (the 100th anniversary of her birth will come in 2012) but we all admired her, we love good food and almost any excuse for a party, and I'd recently found a battered and beloved copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking and wanted to try it out. It's become a more-or-less annual event in my circle and each is its own story, but this one was something special and I've wanted to share it since the day I started writing Eat Here. I beg your indulgence for its length and hope you'll be rewarded by the stories nested within the little story of this party.

I am far too cowardly to host A Real Dinner Party. In fact I often wonder who IS brave enough to consider such a thing without a staff to clean and help cook? But I do love to cook, and I trust the affectionate indulgence of my friends and the fact that they love to cook, too. It was Katie's idea. We asked a tiny group because we can only seat about 8 people at our table, and you can't host people outdoors in the August of north Florida without risking the possibility of melting people into little puddles. So, a small, safe crowd. And then somehow we invited Claude and Giselle.

They are owners, and Claude chef de cuisine of one of St. Augustine's favorite restaurants, Le Pavillon, where European cooking has been done excellently for more than a generation. It seemed perfectly crazy and perfectly natural, in equal measure, because the points of intersection were so many, and so intriguing.

When Rodney was a teenager he delivered restaurant supplies to Le Pavillon; when I was younger I had many dinners with an extended circle of friends practically in the kitchen of the restaurant. Pablo and Sue had separate connections as writers, video producers and members of various national culinary and cultural organizations. Lon and Lis, known to most of our small community for their astonishing musical range and connections, were old friends of the restaurant and the dedicated family who'd owned and defined it. Claude had known the Cafe Alcazar as a fan and a customer and therefore loved its owner, Lorie. And when Rodney and I bought our place some years ago we discovered to our delight that Claude and Giselle were neighbors. The friendship was renewed, with much of the kindness coming from Claude's side of the fence. I don't know if that all hangs together for you, but the point is we live in a funny little old town, and the circles are small, small, small, my loves, and the losses are poignant.

So Claude and Giselle were invited. Giselle was working at the restaurant that night, but Claude dropped by before the party really started: Giselle had sent a quiche and he was charged with dropping it off; couldn't stay more than a moment, had to be off, oh, but he would LOVE to see Lis for a moment...perhaps he would stay for just a few minutes. Claude had one of those personalities that fill rooms, but not in the bad way. He filled a room so that you wanted to just squeeze in and get in on the fun, because people were generally either loud or laughing or both and there was something interesting going on, something with people and food at its middle, something you didn't want to miss. In all honesty, I think Tommy Willis told this part better than I ever could. He's a priest and he was talking at Claude's funeral, but his story was perfectly balanced and a terrific snapshot of Claude. I'll make you a deal: I'll tell you what Tommy said later, maybe in a Part II. Suffice it for now to say that Claude was a force of nature, perfectly suited to running a great kitchen with one hand (that hand probably belonging mostly to Giselle and her brother, their late, much-lamented business partner Fritz), and making every customer feel as though they lived in his kitchen with the other. And not just as though they lived in his kitchen, but as if they'd been made welcome at the king's kitchen table, had set up housekeeping and couldn't bear to think of leaving.

Claude made some early noises about leaving as we waited for people to gather. I said, "Claude, really, you've brought this lovely quiche and Giselle is at work, and anyway, you have to eat. How about a cocktail?" He tilted his head as he considered. "What do you have?" he asked, clearly not interested in the red wine that was more or less going around. "Vodka," I answered, which was pretty much all I had, since I'd assumed Julia Child revelers would all drink wine of one description of another, and most of them had kindly brought bottles.

"Perfect," he said, "but just one." He settled at the table with Pablo and Lon. It didn't last long, but here they are in a regrettably dark photo with Claude to the left, dressed in tennis whites, Pablo and Lon.

I had game hens or chicken roasting on the grill and when I brought them in, Claude stepped capably into the kitchen and cut them into serving-sized pieces and I made him a second drink. Katie's French onion soup was simmering on the stove and we shaved Gruyere and pretty soon we all were more or less in the kitchen together. I think this was when Claude realized that the point of the party was to celebrate Julia Child: her influence on us as people (watching her on TV) and cooks (reading her cookbooks and using her unflappable steadiness to brave French cooking). He shoved his glasses onto his forehead as he worked with the chicken, sipped his vodka martini and said, "Ah! Julia! I knew her, you know." So the tiny crowd drew in closer, excepting one or two who'd already heard the story, and Claude described his first meeting with Julia Child. He had been a sous chef at The Four Seasons, and she had just walked into the kitchen one day. Laughing, Claude put his hand out above his own head to indicate how tall she'd been and even imitated her voice, which was funny on Saturday Night Live but for various reasons even funnier when Claude did it, leavened by genuine respect and affection, and his persistent Swiss-German accent. Apparently she'd made more than one stop at the famed New York restaurant, and each of his recollections led him to another. We made stops via Claude's memory at the White House, where he once cooked, and finally ended back in St. Augustine.

In the late 70s, Jacques Cousteau was here, his famed ship Calypso undergoing work at one of the local shipyards. Claude shared his European sensibilities and taste in food with Cousteau, and it sounded as though Cousteau was quickly welcomed to the king's table I described above. Whether sitting in the kitchen at Le Pavillon or eating Claude's bouillabaisse aboard the vessel he was loathe to leave untended, an important friendship was apparently forged. More than 30 years later, our tiny circle welcomed these memories and warmed its collective hands as they were recollected. Claude stayed until the very end of that party, drinking and laughing and eating and telling stories. Giselle's quiche, it turned out, was a Quiche Lorraine, bound by a creamy cheese and egg flavor she claims is a snap but which I've never been able to replicate.

And though we've continued to celebrate this special (en Francais) anniversaire, its inaugural will stand in our memories forever. If you can see the delicate web of connections between us at which I have hinted, you'll understand why. There are many more stories beneath this surface, my loves, but they will have to come another night. Sooner or later, I'll tell you about the impact of Claude, Giselle and Fritz on the family of Tommy Willis and about some of the other connections we share. Thank you for keeping your drooping lids open with me for this recollection, for listening carefully to all that needed saying, all that didn't need saying, and all that lies between.


Credits: Photo by Rodney
Umm, I had no copy editor tonight, so any typos are completely the fault of Dylan. He does promise to proof for me tomorrow so stay tuned. :)

Booksmith Recollection I: St. Augustine is for book lovers

This is the view down Stokes Creek yesterday afternoon, looking through the live oaks and Spanish moss, through the wind-bent trees limned with moss, adorned with resurrection fern. When we first moved here my husband's brother said it looked like a little slice of Old Florida. Like Cross Creek, maybe. We thought so, too; this disappearing old Florida was what we'd fallen for when we bought the place.

Years go, there was a marvelous independent bookstore in St. Augustine called The Booksmith, carefully and affectionately run by Diana and Bob Smith, and it was my first real career-job, the first job I loved and didn't just go to so I could collect a pay check. In fact, The Booksmith was the first time it had really occurred to me that such a thing was possible: to go to work and be fulfilled by how you'd spent your day.

Matchmaking happened every day, for one thing. Every day someone came in and said they needed something to read, but weren't quite sure...every day, one of us said, "What's the last thing you read that you loved?," and then, "What's the last thing you tried to read but hated and could't finish?", and we could always put a book into their eager hands. If they hated the book, we'd let them bring it back. Perhaps these were the questions later co-opted into the algorhythm I imagine whirring and whizzing under the hood at Barnes & Noble and Amazon and places like that. And we did magic, too. Regular, everyday magic, like finding obscurities in Books In Print, which we owned in multi-volumne hard copies we had to buy every year or so. But we did some modestly exotic white magic, too, more complicated but still more art than science. Like this, for instance: a man came in and said to me, "I was reading this book, and I loved it, and I couldn't wait to finish it, and you won't believe this, but I came home and the dog really had eaten it. The cover is gone, and I can't remember the title." He looked at me sadly.

"Who was the author?" I asked hopefully, but he looked sadder than before. "I can't remember," he said, "not for the the life of me."

I thought for a minute and then asked, "Well, what was it about? Can you describe the plot or characters, or anything?"

"Dear me, yes," he said. "It was about a kind of crazy guy who lives in New Orleans with his mother...." and while he talked I walked to the shelf and handed him his replacement copy of John Kennedy O'Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. He stared at me. In all modesty, as I said, it was a kind of simple magic we did, a lacing together of shared knowledge, for I certainly hadn't read every book we had. But there were Diana and Maggie, Sue and Katie and many others whose shared knowledge encircled the little store like a gently cast magic spell, and mostly we could find those lost things for people if they were stories or books. Sometimes, we could find things even more unexpected, but that is another story, my loves. Remind me to tell you about the OED, Unabridged. This is the Oxford English Dictionary, and as I mentioned, unabridged, and in those days ran to more than a dozen volumes and was (I am not making this up) about $2500. Really. But you must remind me, my dears, for that story on another cold night by the fire.

Famous people breezed in and out, usually without our realizing; occasionally with our unspoken agreement to ignore their fame and treat them like everyone else. And of course there were also those people whose fame was important to them, or who were only marginally famous and wanted more attention, or whose 15 Andy Warhol minutes had passed despite their best efforts. The view of our little creek in the golden sunlight reminded me to tell you about this one. Mr. Baskin used to come into the store now and then, and more often would call and order something someone had mentioned and which he thought he ought to read. He always expected to be recognized, and liked to be fussed over a little. I had to ask Diana who he was, and for some local context.

(Bear with me for a momentary geographic digression to help make a better picture, won't you? The location of the store doubtless played a role in its guest list, at least sometimes. And it might help you, when I come round to tell you Booksmith Recollection II, or III, or what have you. Rocky will be in one of those. Lis will be in one. Gamble Rogers, Jimmy Buffett...those are fine stories, my dears, still to come. For now, it's enough to tell you this, and to thank you for being patient.)

The Booksmith's tiny back storage room shared a wall in common with its neighbor, a local landmark and famously, realistically seedy and universally loved bar called The Trade Winds. At other end of our small block was The Cathedral of St. Augustine, and our front yard was the Plaza. The Cathedral and the Plaza and perhaps their proximity to one another often reminds visitors of Europe. And right across the Bridge of Lions was the picturesque neighborhood called Davis Shores. David Nolan wrote a book about it, favored among locals, called Fifty Feet in Paradise. Lots of us have lived in that beautiful old neighborhood over the years; some close friends still do.

And sometime between the 1940s and 1960s, so did Norton Baskin and his wife, Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings. Here is a photo I took from an uncredited photo in a book from Rodney's St. Augustine collection, with some unnamed folks and the new-made Mr. and Mrs. Baskin on the far right; they have just been married at the St. Johns County Courthouse, itself only a two-block walk from The Booksmith. It's not a good picture, of course, but you can look it up for yourself if you like. By the time my path crossed Mr. Baskin's at The Booksmith, he was quite elderly but he did like to be remembered, and I think he liked people to know he'd been the husband of Ms. Rawlings.

So here we are, Rodney and I, on our tiny corner of the land that must look much like the tiny outpost of Florida Marjorie Rawlings found, profoundly grateful to share it with you and remind you that it may be much smaller, but it's still here.

Brief but tasty, and a preview of things to come - updated

I'm working on a post about The Cafe Alcazar, a restaurant beloved of St. Augustinians and visitors alike, charming for its location in the deep end of the swimming pool of what was once (circa 1890) the Hotel Alcazar and now houses the Lightner Museum as well as the offices of the City of St. Augustine. But I need to find some pictures and think about what to say, and as I was working on those things, the recipe for Cafe Alcazar's famed Curried Chicken Salad happened to arrive and it seemed unkind to make you wait for it. So through the brilliance of its original chef, Maureen, and the generosity of its last-but-one owner, our dear Lorie, Eat Here is delighted to share this little taste of perfection.

Some things to keep in mind before you mix up what might seem to be a simple chicken salad, and is, but needs a thoughtful touch: the quality of the curry you use is critical to the outcome, so use a good one. Lorie recommends Frontier, and it's a brand you can find in most health- or whole foods stores. And before you start, you need about 6 cups of cooked, finely chopped chicken, but you could also make this with tofu. If you want to do that and don't know how, please email me and I'll help you figure it out. Also, the original recipe is halved here for your convenience, to serve a regular-ish number of people rather than thousands.

Put the chicken into a large bowl and add half a rib of celery, finely chopped,
1-1/2 fresh green onions, finely chopped, 1/2 cup finely chopped fresh parsley, 1/4 cup raisins (I like golden ones), 2 cups of mayonnaise, 2 tablespoons of honey, and 2tablespoons plus two teaspoons of the aforementioned curry powder. Mix well, and serve with fresh fruit, green salad and pita bread or crackers. Flavoring tips from Lorie, exclusively for Eat Here readers: if it's too bitter, add a little honey. If it's too sweet, add a bit of curry. And if it needs flavor, add both! And if you want the MadriGalz to come and sing at your Christmas event, you pretty much just have to tell us you'll have wine and some of this amazing salad. Odds are, we'll show up. Stay tuned for more Cafe Alcazar later this week.

Pictured: The Cafe Alcazar, St. Augustine, Florida (photo credit to Rodney Christensen); taken at the shallow end of the elegant, turn-of-the-century pool. Those shadowy figures at the back of the shot, one floor above the restaurant, are the MadriGalz, completely drunk on Curried Chicken Salad.

Welcome to Eat Here Eatery

Eat Here is the name of a mythical restaurant, one that exists in the mind of my family, where real, honest, homemade food is served to real hungry people. Real food is a fine thing, more easily prepared than some people think, and eagerly sought after in today's world. There's more to the myth, of course, but that's a topic for another blog post. At its best, good food is served fresh, seasoned by good conversation, complemented by good wine and warmed at a big table surrounded by interesting people. With a little luck, that's what I'll serve up here, more or less, so for now the Eat Here moniker belongs to the virtual space, where we don't really eat but we feed ourselves, nonetheless.

Eat Here, inspired by beloved bloggers like Pablo (http://pablonotes.blogspot.com/) and Ms. Moon (http://www.blessourhearts.net/), aims to serve an eclectic menu, including thoughts about family, friends, the beach, dogs, fossils, music (need I say more than "Deep"? Well, maybe the MadriGalz...), writing and the beautiful Golden Hour that descends, most evenings, through live oaks and Spanish moss, spilling indescribably beautiful light into my back yard. We can go to the Lake Country, where music is made and lifetimes of friendship are shared.

Often I'll try to show you the sea through the stunning, tiny, fragile view at Guana/Tolomato Marine Estuarine Reserve.
Sooner or later there will be a remembrance of Julia Child including recollections of our late friend Claude Sinatsch, questions about political mysteries (why on EARTH should gay people not be able to get married?), and warm affectionate gossip about What People Are Up To.

Come along for the ride; I'll be so honored if you do. There's much to tell, much to figure out, much to talk about. And it's always nice to sit by the fire with a glass of wine with a friend, as the fire dies down and the restaurant closes up for the night. Here's to many more.