The Last Chance Saloon is NOT CLOSING. I repeat: the Last Chance Saloon (right before you get on the aqua highway to the Keys) is NOT CLOSING. Zeke went there to get a drink last weekend and found this out the hard way. He told the server he wanted to get one last drink before it was gone and she went off on him, saying it’s NOT CLOSING, that they’ve lost a lot of business due to that rumor, that the affordable housing that’s going to be built, is going to be built around them and that her brother is thinking about suing The Miami Herald for printing that the Last Chance Saloon property was sold. So, I got that out of the way. Go have a drink there if you’re so inclined, as apparently they’re losing business due to false rumors. Foodie in Miami regrets having helped spread this rumor. Ahem…

Another corrections corner, apparently the recipe I published as Jennifer Aniston’s Salad (June 21, 2022) was not the actual salad the three stars of Friends ate every day for lunch. Aniston stated the salad was a Cobb and that she wouldn’t have put as many garbanzo beans in her salad as the one published, for digestive issues. It’s still a good salad, though.

Emma had a bunch of ground meat of different varieties leftover from her Hello Fresh meals that she didn’t use that she deposited into our freezer, so I had a ground meat dilemma. Our freezer was already packed so, I desperately tried to think of ways to use up the ground meat. I’d picked up a section of the New York Times on food to feed picky kids, but surprisingly, many of the recipes sounded good and used ground meats so I picked out a couple recipes to try.

I made Korean Meatballs for dinner Monday night with ground pork. It was an easy recipe and I would make it again, but feel it would have been better with a little sauce on top. It said to serve with white rice, but due to the Great Weevil Invasion of 2023, I was all out of rice in the pantry, so used some Trader Joe’s brown rice from my freezer (another contribution of Emma’s). I usually don’t like rice from the freezer, as it seems wasteful and expensive, but it was easy. You just put the plastic bag in the microwave and cook a couple minutes. I served it with Ginger Miso Soup (Trader Joe’s) and an Asian Cucumber Salad.

The next day for dinner I made a Homemade Hamburger Helper with Ground Beef. It was a definitely a more gourmet version of Hamburger Helper, with smoked paprika and white wine, but I can’t say it was a recipe I’ll make again. While delicious, it had ground beef, bacon and cheddar cheese (so, high in calories) and it took a while to make. When the first direction was: carmelize onions for 20 minutes, I knew I was in for a cooking marathon. Zeke, who grew up on the actual Hamburger Helper, loved it. It also makes a lot and since it’s only Zeke and I, there’s only so many times you can eat the same leftover. I tried to pawn some off on Emma and Gui, but they said they already had a ton of leftovers.

I saw the play El Huracan at The Gables Stage on Thursday night, as a Villager’s Fundraiser for the preview before the play started its run. I went with Kelley and Allison and we had dinner at La Fontana. We all got homemade pasta, mine a ravioli with creamy pesto and split a Fritto Misto. It was all very good and we luckily sat inside as the rain started and it was a deluge, perfect weather for a play about a hurricane in Miami. I enjoyed the play, written by a Miami native and Academy Award winner (for Encanto), Charise Castro Smith.

Saturday was the Historic Hunt for The Villagers. I volunteered to be on the committee at Kelley’s urging, but it occurred to me I should’ve actually done the Hunt one time before volunteering. The theme was Florida Female Pioneers and it took place in the Gables, Grove and Downtown Miami at 3 p.m. Hunters returned to the meeting spot, a Villager’s Home, after 5, for cocktails and appetizers. Shorty’s catered a BBQ dinner of Ribs and Chicken, Cole Slaw and Baked Beans. Fookem’s Fabulous Key Lime Pies was served for dessert.

A side note about Fookem’s- this is a guy (Josh Abril) in the Grove who started his Key Lime Pie business when the pandemic hit, since his reality TV show job halted and he couldn’t get unemployment due to Florida’s crashed system. He started making the Key Lime Pies with their signature Sea Salt Graham Cracker Crust and selling them in front of his house on Oak Avenue and on his bike/cart in the Grove.

They were a big hit and now he makes more flavors and also provides desserts to various restaurants. The Key Lime Pie was delicious- chilled, light and bright, with just a touch of salt and no eggs, for those with allergies (Kelley). My friend and faithful Foodie in Miami reader Peggy Rigsby sent me an article about this guy awhile ago and I’m so glad I finally got to try his pie! They are $25 and it’s best to order ahead.

Fookem’s Fabulous Key Lime Pies 3081 Oak Avenue, Coconut Grove 305 699-2122.

I went home, exhausted and got a good night’s sleep to recharge for Phoenix’s 2nd Birthday. As you may recall, Phoenix had his 1st Birthday at our house last year but Zeke and I were unable to attend due to the fact we both had Covid. We had to watch the festivities from the balcony above, so I was very excited to be hosting his party this year, IRL.

A.J.’s idea was to do a Pizza Party, with a bunch of toppings, where everyone makes their own pizza and we cook it on our Ooni Pizza Oven. I explained to her that making a homemade pizza isn’t as easy as it looks- it’s more of an art. The pizza dough and peel (the apparatus the pizza goes on) has to be room temperature, you need to make sure it’s not too cold or too warm, or it will stick. You need lots of flour and do a test run on the peel to make sure the pizza dough can move freely. Also, you can’t overload the pizza with toppings or it will be too heavy. So it’s a delicate balance and I didn’t feel like it was a good idea for strangers (and family) to be in my kitchen, willy nilly, throwing toppings onto pizzas.

I made four pizza doughs from scratch, bought three at Publix and made homemade pizza sauce (from the Ooni book). Justin grilled Chicken Wings, Sausages and Chicken Hearts (?) which he served with dipping sauces. They were really good and I had an appetizer platter of Pickled Eggplant, Pepperoncini and Caponata with crackers.

My first pizza was a Margherita (sauce, fresh mozzarella, basil and olive oil), keeping it simple. My second pizza was a Pepperoni with mozzarella, basil, Parmesan Cheese and Mike’s Hot Honey, modeled after a pizza I had at Krust in Tavernier. A.J.’s pizza was a fig jelly, blue cheese, caramelized onions and mozzarella pizza, with arugula salad tossed on after it came off the pizza oven. It was a fan favorite, as was my last one, modeled after Miami’s Best California Dreamin’. It had pizza sauce, artichoke hearts, goat cheese, plum tomatoes, spinach and mozzarella. Surprisingly, my party-goers preferred Publix’s Pizza Dough to my homemade one. I’m taking notes for my next Pizza Party.

Everyone had a great time at Phoenix’s Birthday, including Phoenix. I’d gotten him a Baby Shark cake from Publix Bakery which he LOVED. He squealed in delight when I showed it to him and then sat in a chair at the dining room table, right in front of his cake, looking at it in dizzy admiration. “Baby Shark, Daddy Shark, Mama Shark” he said, over and over. Wyatt showed him how to get a little finger full of icing to taste. That’s what big brothers are for! I made homemade Birthday Cake Ice Cream to go with the cake and another partygoer brought Ice Cream Sandwiches. We then sang Happy Birthday, which happens to be Phoenix’s favorite song.

It was a wonderful party, but soon everyone was gone and it was just Zeke and I. One of A.J.’s friends said “I guess next year we’ll be celebrating in Saint Augustine”. And soon they’ll be gone and I’m not sure what I’m going to do with myself. It’s not like I think being a grandmother is the end-all-be-all of my life, but I am happiest when I’m with my grandsons. I’ll adapt somehow, I’m sure, but for now I’m sad and the party was bittersweet because I don’t know when we’ll all be together like this again.

But, first things first. I’m babysitting Wyatt and Phoenix this Thursday, Friday and part of Saturday, while his parents go to a concert with another couple in Saint Augustine. You can be sure this Gigi will enjoy each and every exhausting moment spent with my two little charges.

T.V. shows I’ve watched lately: Pamela Anderson: A Love Story (Netflix)- interesting. Chris Rock’s Selective Outrage (Netflix) where he addresses Academy Award Slap. Rom/Com Your Place or Mine with Reese Witherspoon and Ashton Kutcher, which I thought was totally stupid and predictable. I was surprised, because Reese usually makes such good choices, career-wise. I guess they can’t all be gems. I watched the movie People Like Us, with Jonah Hill, Eddie Murphy and Julia Louis Dreyfus, which was really pretty funny, but I didn’t care for the ending. I started watching Working Moms (sitcom on Netflix), really funny and have been watching the first season of Arrested Development, which I always heard was funny but never watched until now.

Lastly, Zeke and I started watching Pretty Baby, a doc on Brooke Shields on Hulu. It’s good, but certainly sad to see how she was taken advantage of by her mother, Hollywood, the media, etc… A cautionary tale, for sure. I have to say I didn’t care for her movie- A Castle for Christmas– which I watched last Christmas. Totally predictable, Hallmark-esque. Not that Brooke was bad in it, it was definitely the script. It made me think I could write a better one, so maybe that will be my empty nester career move. Better Hallmark movie writer.

In good news for my writing career, the editor of Coral Gables Magazine emailed me that he was bumping up my pay for the Morris Lapidus article Lapidus Legacy because he thought I did an excellent job. I’ve gotten a lot of good feedback on that article and it was a labor of love, so I’m glad it’s finally been published. My story for Chicken Soup for the Soul: Get Out of Your Comfort Zone: “Yes, Lets!” (they changed the title) will be coming out in July of 2023.

I have a bag full of fresh Stone Crabs to eat (courtesy of John Schild) and a bunch of Tamales from Homestead (courtesy of Zeke), so we have good meals to look forward to this week. And I’ll have my two grandsons for the weekend. Life, as of right now (and what else do we have?) is sweet.

Up Next: My Spring Garden

All the leaves are brown and the sky is grey.

I voted early. I’d requested a mail-in ballot but decided it was best to drive it to Pinecrest Gardens, in the pouring rain last Wednesday, and hand-deliver it to a person who put it in the ballot box. They check your driver’s license with your signature on the ballot and easy, peasy, my civic duty’s done! And you can track it online, to make sure it arrived.

I also ate my first Stone Crabs on Saturday, two days after the season opened on October 15th. The weather wasn’t great so Zeke and I just lay on our boat, docked at the Sanctuary and listened to music. Around sunset, we took it out for a short jaunt, anchored and toasted to our first sunset cruise with Prosecco and cheese and crackers. After we returned, we went home to a feast of cracked Stone Crabs, hash browns and Joe’s tomatoes.

On Monday, my tennis match got rained out so I took the extra time to make a light and healthy lunch of a Sweet Potato, Egg and Broccoli “Rice” Bowl. Rice bowls are all the rage, but this one was made with “Riced” Broccoli. Since I didn’t have broccoli, I used the Riced Cauliflower that’s been lingering in my freezer from Trader Joe’s. It was actually very tasty and I would definitely make this recipe, from People magazine of all places, again.

I decided to make it easy on myself Monday night and picked up a Publix rotisserie Chicken (Peruvian?- must be a new flavor). I served this with Salsa Verde and smashed potatoes and a tomato and mozzarella salad. Delicious and easy. Tuesday I picked Wyatt up from school and did a Fall photo shoot with him at the entrance of Miracle Mile. They are trying to get people back to the Mile and have an old school truck, with bales of hay and decorations set up that made the perfect backdrop. As we walked down the street to look at the scarecrows, it started pouring so we made a beeline to my Mini Cooper and hopped in to listen to the Monster Mash, Men In Black and the Adams Family on my Halloween CD.

We came home and made Candy Apples. I couldn’t find the kit (normally located in the Produce section by the apples) so made them from scratch. Wyatt helped me make them and then wanted to taste one “for a treat”, which he did as I carved two pumpkins. One was a large one he’d picked from the grocery store. He also picked the design (kind of looks like Phantom of the Opera) and drew a face on his little pumpkin, which I also carved. I couldn’t let those pumpkin seeds go to waste, so roasted them with olive oil, salt and cumin. Next, we read some Halloween books, so by the time Zeke came home with Miami’s Best pizza, I was ready for a break.

California Dreamin’ is our favorite pizza at Miami’s Best- artichoke hearts, goat cheese and spinach and I was hoping Wyatt would like it, but according to A.J. he’s “very picky about his pizza”, vegetables on it are no bueno, so we scraped them off for him. He then wanted to play Candyland (beat me twice) and then it was time for The Bachelorette. I turned a show on for Wyatt, as Zeke and I watched our inane show, then came upstairs and said “Ok Wyatt, it’s time for bed.”

“Oh fine, I’ll watch your boring show,” he said so I turned on The Bachelorette. Claire, the Bachelorette, was on a one-on-one date with Blake where they’d been instructed to write down every bad thing that people had said about them. As they read their lists to each other, Blake said “I have a lot of demons.” Claire said: “That doesn’t scare me. Nothing scares me.” To this Wyatt said: “What if a bear ate you? Would that scare you?” And, at this, we both cracked up for a while. The next Group date was Strip Dodge Ball. “What does strip mean, Gigi?” And it was time to turn off The Bachelorette (which is becoming stupider by the minute) and go to bed.

Speaking of scary, Coronavirus cases hit an all time high last Friday, with 83,000 cases being reported. Experts are worried about the winter, with cooler temperatures sending people inside and at greater risk. We’re lucky in Miami that this isn’t as much as a factor as it is in other states, but it’s still troubling. Didn’t we all think it would be over by now?

I met A.J. for lunch Wednesday at Lan Pan Asian, in Dadeland Station. It was the first time I’ve been since the Pandemic began and there was a wait to get in. It’s already a very small restaurant, so with Social Distancing, even more so. The menu was a scan-able one on your phone and we both ordered the Lunch Special with Salmon for $11.95. It comes with miso soup, a green salad of soft greens, a bean sprout salad, California roll and your entree. Although I don’t like baked salmon normally, I love the one at Lan Pan, which comes in a teriyaki sauce with pineapple chunks. I also like the Tamarind Shrimp and Chicken Dumplings for lunch special at Lan Pan. The lunch specials are big servings of fresh food for a good value. They also offer curbside pick-up and weekly specials.

Wednesday night I turned my leftover chicken from the rotisserie into Chicken Enchiladas with an easy recipe called Easiest Chicken Enchiladas Ever by Stephanie Wilson. The recipe called for flour tortillas, but I was curious to see how they would taste with different tortillas and besides that, I had a hankering for corn tortillas. So I made the batch with three different kinds of tortillas- flour (100 calories), corn and wheat (90 calories) and Carb-savy Whole Wheat (45 calories). The flour tortilla was my favorite, but the other two were also good and once you stuff the tortillas with chicken and other fillings and smother them with enchilada sauce and cheese, who really cares? I served it with a simple avocado salad. It made enough for 10 so I froze the rest for another dinner.

I’ve been having political discussions with my son Christopher (always a mistake) and as he makes one point after the other, I tell him “a tuna fish sandwich”, “as in I will vote for a tuna fish sandwich over your candidate.” Which, truthfully, is a disservice to tuna fish sandwiches everywhere, which are a very tasty lunch. My sister Kelley claims she could eat a tuna fish sandwich for lunch every day. I wouldn’t go that far, but paired with a cup of soup, it is one of my favorite lunches. The beauty of a tuna fish sandwich is the ingredients are usually on hand- tuna, mayo, celery, onion- so whipping one up is always an easy and filling option.

For the occasion of my tuna fish sandwich, after a tennis loss on my first Beta team, I tried Tuna Salad Sandwich, Julia Child Style. The recipe was conveyed by Dorrie Greenspan, a women that helped her write Baking with Julia, a cookbook my Dad got me for Christmas signed by Julia herself. The woman said Julia liked to make this tuna salad for lunch and served it, either with Pepperidge Farm sandwich bread or, open faced, on a Bay’s English Muffin. I served it in half a pita bread with soft lettuces and a slice of Vidalia onion. It was perfection- the salty capers, chopped onion and celery mixed with the creamy tuna. I would’ve changed nothing about it, not even the chopped cornichons in place of my normal sweet relish. Yum!

That night was the last Presidential Debate. I drank too much and yes, those two statements do have a relation with each other. Since Zeke and I are supporting different candidates, watching the debates together is never a good idea and usually ends disasterously, with us screaming at each other. I sometimes doubted we were watching the same debate. “Can you believe he said that?” I ask. “What? I thought that was a good point,”answers Zeke. Oh brother. This election can’t be over fast enough.

I made Salted Caramel Popcorn Bars, a recipe out of Oprah magazine, which plugged it as a “grown up version of a Rice Krispie Treat.” It had air popped popcorn, marshmallows, caramel sauce (homemade), chocolate chips and Maldon salt. It didn’t turn out great (the caramel didn’t completely coat the popcorn) and was a pain in the a**, making it a recipe I wouldn’t repeat. I do find, in general, Oprah’s magazine has good recipes. I sent a tin of it with niece Allison when she went to visit her Grandpa Dick at an Assisted Living Facility and he said it was the “best popcorn he’s had in 90 years”, so I guess it was worth making it after all.

I played a fun tennis match on Friday and, on the way home, ordered Shorty’s take-out. I don’t eat Shorty’s that often, but sometimes, I really get a craving for it and, on this day I was starving. Shorty’s has tables set up outside, under tents and inside they are Socially Distancing, blocking off some tables, so it seems quite safe. My order was ready so I paid and took the steaming styrofoam container into my car. I opened it, dumped some salt on the crinkle-cut fries and frantically dipped them into the Shorty’s Bar-B-Que sauce and munched away as I drove home. They were delicious, as was my Pork Sandwich and coleslaw. If I ever moved away from Miami, Shorty’s is one restaurant I would truly miss!

I got to babysit my Great Niece Gracie Friday, who didn’t have school. We colored, did puzzles, played with play dough and when I took her to do an errand in my Mini Cooper, she asked me why my car was so little. “This is the littlest car I’ve ever seen in my life,” she commented. “Well, it’s usually only me and Wyatt in this car,” I told her. But soon, I am going to need a bigger car. Courtney and Chris’s baby is due in November and A.J. and Justin are expecting a little boy next April. Three grandsons! If I have all these babies in my two-door Mini, it’s going to look like little clowns coming out of a circus car. I need to start looking at four door options and trade in my ten year old car.

We went to the Keys for the weekend. After tennis and Gracie, I was so wiped out on Friday night we ordered take-out from The Key Thai and Sushi; I could barely move from the couch. On Saturday, we sat under the chikee hut for sunset with other owners, enjoying a cocktail. The subject of kitchen remodeling came up and someone mentioned granite as a surface and how hard and impenetrable it is. When we designed our kitchen five years ago, I found a marble that I loved but was warned it would chip, stain and scratch, as it is a soft stone. “But in Italy, they believe all those imperfections make the stone more beautiful,” the stone guy told me. Well, maybe he was making a sales pitch but, nonetheless, I decided to “Be Italian” and got the marble. I mean I am 13.9% Italian, but I needed to think like an Italian in relation to my marble countertop.

On CBS This Morning, my favorite show on Sunday mornings, one of the segments discussed how patience and resilience were important qualities to possess when dealing with the Pandemic. The resilience part made me think of my Aunt Josie, who was 100% Italian and lived to be 99. She had to watch as each of her sisters and many of her friends passed away, leaving her behind. But, she always found a way to bounce back and found things in life still engaging. Like the movie said, she believed “Life is Beautiful.” As proof of this, my transplanted rose bush from my neighbor Maggie’s house bloomed for the first time this week. I will take this as a good omen.

No matter happens in this election, I have to still believe life is beautiful and, with resilience, we can bounce back from anything. Please vote!

Up Next: Orange Crush Cocktail