I'm No Social Butterfly But...

In the last week, I've caught up with two friends, one of whom is now retired due to medical issues. In the first instance, she and I were to meet up with a third but that did not happen. We took matters into our own hands and went for lunch at Outback in my neighborhood. It wasn't crowded or overly noisy and the service was great. We caught up and laughed, always important. This friend was a Fulbright Scholar and is very engaging. The next chapter of her life is a huge transition and I hope she will be happy.

The other friend is someone I see more often but in shorter bursts. She works full time and has a family and an equally busy life beyond her job. We made plans to go to an eatery neither of us had visited before and I treated her. She does a lot for me and Lukas and is a wonderful friend. We had a reservation for 6:15 and wanted to arrive with plenty of time to find parking.  As it turned out, she dropped me off, then had to park her car in a grass lot across the street.

Ella's Folk Art Cafe, in the heart of Seminole Heights, offers its own twist on Chef-prepared southern comfort food. Besides meat loaf and chicken pot pie without the traditional pastry crust, there was blackened fish over grits, a curry dish, several pizzas, salads and burgers. I can recommend the fish over grits with greens and tomato jam. It was perfect! My friend had a another chicken dish and was quite happily stuffed, too. I got the chicken pot pie to go and it made a fabulous change from the sandwich or salad I often have at mid-day. The top is actually seasoned bread crumbs, very similar to those used for stuffing but baked and more crunchy. The sauce and vegetables were well seasoned and the chicken chunky and plentiful. While not something I eat often due to my childhood trauma over the Swanson's frozen variety of pot pies, I would gladly eat this creation again.

Though it got noisier over the time we were there, we were still able to talk and generally had a very nice evening. The one drawback was having a bar in the middle of the downstairs section. We were seated close enough to pick up both the noise from patrons and draw the eye of a gentleman who came over to our table twice to kiss my hand and try a pick up line. Wobbly, whether from his eighty years or too much beer, he was at least polite and went his way without a fuss. He wished me a long life and I wished him a happy one.

On that note, I'll wish you all a relaxing weekend. 

Cheers.