Labor Day we had to go for our “free” Hot Dogs at Riviera. Emma and Guillermo, A.J. Wyatt and Phoenix joined us for the buffet of Baked Beans, Coleslaw, Potato Salad, Pasta Salad and Chips and then A.J. took the boys swimming.

Dinner was an easy one of creamy Burrata, sliced Fresh Tomatoes (from Pennsylvania!) and Arugula with toasted garlic bread for dinner. We’d stopped to get tamales at our favorite tamale place in Homestead on the way home from the Keys on Monday, but alas, they were sold out. So, instead, we got Shredded Beef, fresh Corn Tortillas and salsa, which is what we ate for dinner Tuesday night. They weren’t tamales (my favorite!), but they were good. I served them with Spanish Rice and an Avocado Salad with corn and feta.

I used to belong to the Cookbook Book Club at Pinecrest Library, but it was suspended in the Pandemic, so lately they’ve been doing Virtual Events. This Thursday they had The Art of Charcuterie with Vegan author Ellen Kanner. While charcuterie is, by definition, meat, Kanner is vegan, so hers had different vegetables and a tahini dip. She also made a beautiful Foccacia, decorated with vegetables and a dessert board with S’ Mores and fruit. While I like the convenience of Virtual Events, nothing can replace in-person events. At our Cookbook Book Club we got to sample all the dishes the participants had made and talk about them. Hopefully, they will bring this fun group back into live events in the near future.

Friday I met friends at True Food Kitchen in the Falls for lunch. Since I’d already tried (and loved) the Turkey Burger, I got the seasonal soup (Butternut Squash) and the Edamame Dumplings. Both were delicious. My friends got a Chopped Salad with Shrimp and an Ancient Grain Bowl with sweet potatoes, avocado, charred onion with a pumpkin seed pesto. They both really enjoyed their dishes. The service was good and the place has a clean, fun vibe. When I return, I will definitely get the Edamame Dumplings again.

I was so excited to have my first Miami Spice of the season Friday night with friends I haven’t seen in a while at Michael’s Genuine. Alas, Foodie in Miami screwed up! Michael’s Genuine, newly remodeled and revamped, doesn’t offer Miami Spice on Fridays. Oh well- we still had a lovely night, with good conversation and food. Some of their signature dishes- Pig Ears anyone?- are still on the menu, but there are also new items. Prices, like everywhere else, have jumped, but that’s to be expected.

We ordered a bottle of Albarino wine, perfect for a hot night (and we were seated outside), which the waiter poured judiciously throughout our meal. I love when they do this, because the wine doesn’t get hot. Warm Sourdough Bread was ordered, with whipped butter and black salt, as well as Crispy Pigs Ears, which were thinly sliced and fried, for the table to share. They sound weird, but were good.

I got two appetizers- Prime Steak Tartare and Wood Roasted Octopus– for my meal. The tartare was chilled, came with an egg yolk on top and toasted bread on the side. The octopus was beautifully plated with cilantro sprigs and sliced radishes; while it wasn’t a big portion, it was delicious and perfectly cooked. We ended the night with a Sticky Toffee Pudding with Ice Cream we all shared (6 spoons please!), which was on the house because it took a while coming out. It was delicious, with refreshing, candied ginger topping the ice cream. Yum!

The next day, we went to our first U.M. game of the season. We got to go into the Black Parking Lot, that had a bunch of booths, a DJ, games to win prizes and free samples of food and drink. It was fun and then we went into an air-conditioned suite (thank the Lord) to watch U.M. beat Southern Miss. We met up with A.J. at halftime. She’d used our regular tickets to attend the game with Wyatt and Phoenix. We had to hurry home, because I had my Hy Vong pick-up at 5 p.m.

I drove over to the house where the pick-up was located, which is only a couple blocks from mine, and rang the doorbell. No answer. I called and texted the phone number. Still no answer. A van pulled up, with a woman in a headdress and a man carrying a small child. I assumed this to be the Afghan woman who is cooking with Tung and Kathy. Shortly after, the man emerged with a box filled with my order. The food came in paper boxes, which made it easy to heat up in the microwave, as per the instructions on the label. The sauces came on the side.

We started with the Papaya Salad. It was a huge portion, with jullienned green papayas, carrots, cilantro and peanuts. Next, the Barbeque Pork with Vermicelli Rice Noodles. It made me so happy to eat this! Besides being delicious, with complex flavors, it reminded me of eating at Hy Vong. Lastly, we sampled the Mantoo– Afghan Meat Dumplings. The meat in question was lamb and it came with garbanzo beans, a tomato sauce and fresh mint leaves. Very interesting and the dumpling skin was the most delicate I’ve ever tasted. We finished everything off but the salad, which I ate the next day for lunch. I will definitely order Hy Vong pick-up again. Zeke was already asking when the next pick-up date would be.

On Sunday, I had my Mom over for a Belated Birthday Dinner. She was in Steamboat Springs, Colorado for her actual (undisclosed) birthday. I set the table with my wedding china and the flatware setting of Newport Scroll my Mom has gifted me over the years. I got flowers at Trader Joes- daisies because that’s what my mom carried in her wedding bouquet- and put out a framed photo of her as a toddler in cowboy boots. Our first course was lobster-topped deviled eggs. We’d had them at a restaurant in Maui (it was their signature dish) and since I had two lobster tails in the freezer, I thought- why not? Surf-N-Turf Dinner.

Zeke helped me broil the lobster, which I chopped up and chilled. I made my Mom’s Deviled Egg recipe, topped them with lobster chunks and sprinkled them with Old Bay. An easy, yet impressive, appetizer. Since the U.S. Open Men’s Final Tennis Tournament was on, we went into the Family Room to watch it, bringing the Deviled Eggs with us. Zeke grilled the New York Strip Steaks (a tad too much) and I assembled the first course- a Romaine Salad with grapefruit wedges, avocado slices, feta cheese and a Dijon Viniagrette. It was a recipe from a catering company in L.A. and is one of their signature dishes. It was very good- a summery salad with delicious creamy avocado, refreshing grapefruit, some salty feta and. a punch of Dijon.

Dinner was New York Strip Steaks with Ina’s Coffee Rub, Baked Potatoes with butter, chives and sour cream and Cheesy Stuffed Mushrooms. For dessert I served Lemon Delice, a pound cake frosted with Lemon Buttercream, and Raspberry Swirl Ice Cream. It was the perfect combo!

You’ve made this before.

My Mom said about the cake.

Yes, I had, more than thirty years ago for another Birthday Dinner for her. It’s a dessert that looks pretty, isn’t too sweet but is easy to put together because you use a store-bought pound cake. My Mother loved her Birthday Dinner. I think cooking for someone is an act of love and spending time with them, the best gift, for all involved. So Happy Birthday Mom! And many more…

Up Next: Lemon Delice

Besides Vietnamese favorites like Green Papaya Salad and Barbecued Pork with rice noodles, made by Tung Nguyen, there’s also Mantoo. Mantoo is a meat dumpling with meat sauce and quark (a soft cheese), made by Naijai, an Afghan mother of four. She is now cooking with Tung and Kathy Manning, the founders of Hy Vong. The website to order is hyvong.com>collections>pick-ups.

Monday I tried a dish everyone’s been raving about- Ina Garten’s Cauliflower Toasts. I’d made a delicious Vegetable Soup (from Cooking Classy), with carrots, celery, tomatoes, potatoes, corn and peas; I used her suggestion to use a Parmesan Rind to add flavor. You know the rind of the Parmesan Cheese that’s hard and you have left after you’ve grated it to the end? Save and freeze them! You can add them to Red Pasta Sauce or soups to add a delicious depth of flavor. I love to make a big pot of healthy soup on Monday, to eat that night and have on hand for lunch and snacks throughout the week.

Anyway, I made a big pot of the Vegetable Soup, but since we were having Emma and Gui , I needed something more substantial for dinner, so I made the Cauliflower Toasts. You first trim and chop up the cauliflower into florets, roast them with olive oil and red pepper and then add them to a mixture with Marscapone (Italian cheese similar to cream cheese), Gruyere cheese, prosciutto and nutmeg. I didn’t have prosciutto, so used smoked ham and I reduced the amount of cheese.

You then heap this mixture onto 6 large slices of country-style toast and broil them until the cheese melts. You were supposed to then sprinkle them with salt, Parmesan and chives, but I skipped the salt and cheese, because they were cheesy enough! The verdict? It was the perfect accompaniment to the Vegetable Soup, adding crunch, salt and richness to my virtuous soup. They were VERY rich and cheesy! Zeke and I were saying crab meat would be good instead of the cauliflower, but honestly an old shoe would’ve tasted good with all that cheese! They would make a lovely, hearty appetizer with a glass of wine, but I would make the toasts smaller, in that case. Look for the recipe on the Food Network website.

My Book Club for the book Bittersweet was at my house Wednesday night. On a whim, I e-mailed the author, Susan Cain, telling her about our meeting and she e-mailed me back, saying she was touched and to have fun. Her website (https://susancain.net) made it so easy to plan a Book Club meeting on her book! It had Questions for the Book Club, a Writing Prompt and even a Bittersweet Playlist on Spotify. I’d already started my own playlist of Bittersweet songs, but this was a no-brainer. She posted photos of our Book Club meeting on her Facebook page.

As an added treat, Sumita (who started our Book Club) brought a rep for Scout & Cellar, a wine club, to do a wine tasting before the meeting. Scout & Cellar wine was founded by a female lawyer who was tired of getting headaches from the wine she drank. When she researched it, she discovered the FDA doesn’t regulate the ingredients that go into wine. She then went to different wineries, seeking out clean-crafted wine, without pesticides, artificial ingredients or added sugar. These are the wines Scout & Cellar sells.

Emmy, the Scout and Cellar rep, served us three wines- a bubbly, a rose and a red blend. She showed a chart of how Scout and Cellar wines compared, sugar-wise, to popular wines like Santa Margherita and La Crema. The difference was eye opening! The wines were delicious and three of us signed up for the delivery service. I even got a donation for Vinos at the Venetian– a wine auction for the Coral Gables Community Foundation on September 23rd.

Of course I had to think about what foods were “Bittersweet” to go with the theme of the book. The signature cocktail was a Passionfruit Martini (see previous post for the recipe), which I served with dessert. I served three cheeses (all purchased at Trader Joes) with bittersweet fruits of starfruit, blackberries and Granny Smith Apples. I wanted dinner to be “Summery”, so I made Roasted Lemon Pepper Chicken, Zucchini Casserole, an Arugula and Cherry Tomato Salad and Corn on the Cob. Guta brought a delicious Pound Cake made with Creme Fraiche and eggs from the Hudson Valley (where her daughter lives) and garnished it with yellow kiwi slices and blackberries. I made Semi-sweet Brownies (Wyatt helped) and homemade Raspberry Swirl Ice Cream.

It is true That this world of dew Is a world of dew But even so …

Issa

We had a lively discussion about the book (which everyone liked) and then, everyone left and it was quiet; it was 10 p.m. and I was tired. Although I’d tried to do as much as possible ahead (set the table, marinate the chicken, make the charcuterie plate), I’d also picked up Wyatt from school and watched him for a couple hours that day. I also feel that no matter how much you plan, there are always things you need to do at the last minute (light candles, fill water glasses) whenever you have guests over for dinner. Our next book is The Year of Dangerous Days, Riots, Refugee and Cocaine in Miami 1980. Many of us were living in Miami at that time (it was the year my son Brad was born), so it should be interesting.

The Hungry Post (another food website) listed the “Hot New Restaurants” in Miami. Of those she listed, I would like to try Lion and the Rambler, Vinya Table (both in Coral Gables) and Amal (Coconut Grove). And, believe it or not, I’ve yet to try a Miami Spice this summer. That will be remedied Friday night at Michael’s Genuine.

It is HOT here in Miami, but apparently also hot in many other places that it normally isn’t. In Europe, they’ve been having record heat waves, causing an olive oil shortage. Spain is the largest producer of olive oil, supplying 1/2 of the olive oil in the world and its supply has been greatly reduced. Italy, another big producer, is experiencing the worst drought in 500 years. This has caused an olive oil shortage, because the olives are falling off the trees prematurely and the amount produced may decrease by 20-30%. The price of olive oil is destined, like everything else in the grocery store, to increase substantially.

While we have so many streaming services now and so many viewing options, I’ve found myself watching Parks and Recreation reruns (T.V. series with Amy Poehler) lately. There’s something about the world being in constant crisis that makes me want to watch a good comedy. Call me crazy. I find all the characters in this series hysterically funny, in their own quirky way. It’s kind of like escaping to Mayberry for half an hour, but in Pawhnee, Indiana.

A little light looks through her bedroom window. She dances and I dream She’s not so far as she seems Of brighter meadows, melting sunsets Her hair blowing in the breeze And she can’t see me watching

I’m thinking Love, love, love, love, love

It’s bittersweet, more sweet than bitter Bitter than sweet It’s a bittersweet surrender

Big Todd Head Todd and the Monsters

Up Next: What’s fresh at the Farmer’s Market