A few years before her first son, Jules, was born, Rehak began to read more about food and food production – she read Michael Pollan and Eric Schlosser and Wendell Berry – and the more she read the more she wanted to learn, first hand, about the food she bought and cooked each day. That growing interest , coupled – at the birth of her child – with a growing person for whom she was (with her husband) responsible for feeding, brought her curiosity to a head:

“What really happened…was the unavoidable collision of two worlds of information—parenting and eating. To begin with, there, in the form of my baby son, was an actual person for whom I wanted to leave the planet in decent condition. That goal was no longer just a noble abstraction. Then there was the amazing fact that I had before me in a highchair someone who had literally never tasted anything, whose body had yet to be tainted by MSG in bad Chinese take-out, or clogged by palm oil ‘butter’ on movie theater popcorn, or compromised by pesticide residue. I was unprepared for both the sheer weirdness of this – was it possible that I actually knew a person who had never eaten chocolate?—and the huge responsibility I felt to get it right. . . .Some part of me resented the fact that something that should have been a pure pleasure, teaching a person to eat, was now so complicated. ”

Oh, Melanie, I hear you.

Now, some of us would spend more time at the library or bookstore, reading everything we could get a hold of about food, nutrition, parenting. Others might just throw their hands up in confusion and defeat, and continue feeding their kids the way, for better or worse, they were fed themselves. Some of us join CSAs, buy local, visit farms. But most of us don’t make the decision Rehak did, which was to volunteer to cook at a local restaurant, Brooklyn’s applewood (yes, applewood, “the lower case a,” Rehak writes, “being a choice the owners hoped would convey plenty in contrast to the sharp, aggressive point of the capital A they had foregone.” A small point, but to me, unfortunately, it never looked like a proper name no matter how many times I read it in this book, and always like a typo). She decides the best way to learn about food is to make it herself, in a small, family-run restaurant whose generous and amazingly accommodating owners, David and Laura Shea (the parents of two young children themselves) buy their restaurant’s meat and produce from small local farms. She also visits those food producers –a cheesemaker, a farmer, a fisherman, a food distributor – riding along in their tractors and trucks and seasick-inducing boats, not just taking notes, but hauling and picking and cleaning – to get a better understanding of the exhausting labor behind writing the restaurant’s menu each night. It’s a fascinating behind the scenes tour, and Rehak’s prose brings these individuals vividly to life.

The publisher, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, is offering ten free copies of Eating for Beginners to Learning to Eat readers. Just leave a comment below saying why’d you be interested in reading the book; the first ten to comment get a book!

Edited to add: For any of you on Goodreads, Melanie Rehak is participating in a Q&A there for the next couple weeks, so click on over to contribute!

When my friend Ursula moved to Portugal for a year and said she had room for us all to come stay, I started looking into airfares. When she started posting pictures of Portuguese pastry on her website, I booked the tickets. She wrote me about her favorite pastry shop in Lisbon, and said we could stop in on our way home from the airport.

Now I happen to think that all food is stories, but the story behind Pasteis de Belem is a particularly good one, involving nuns and a secret recipe over two hundred years old.

There was no way I was missing a trip to this bakery. But our flight arrived too late in the afternoon to go out for what’s really a morning pastry snack, and besides, there was a medieval fair to attend. We kept the pastry shop high on the to-do list and went to bed.

Not many hours later, Ben appeared at the side of my bed. Before I could even think to curse the jet lag which I assumed had woken him, his face startled me wide awake. He was grimacing in pain, sweaty, crying. He clutched his left side and moaned as he crawled in next to me. I thought at first that he’d gotten sick from his candy apple dinner the night before, but he insisted it wasn’t his stomach, but a spot lower down, on the left. I flashed to countless readings of Madeleine and Tony googled “appendicitis,” which confirmed everything we were witnessing. I woke Ursula, and her husband drove us into Lisbon, quiet in the pre-dawn hours, to visit the pediatric ER.

And this is where the story suddenly improves. Not just because the walls of the ER were painted with a space theme that delighted my child, and not because the wonderful doctor addressed herself, in perfect English, directly to Ben as she examined him carefully, but because somehow his symptoms all disappeared. Two hours later, instead of sitting by a hospital bed while Ben recovered from an appendectomy, we were sitting in the just-opened, nearly empty Pasteis de Belem, enjoying a sleepy but amazingly delicious breakfast:

The pastry is like a cross between phyllo and pie crust, incredibly light, buttery and flakey, while the egg custard filling is light and not very sweet; the pasteis are served with shakers of cinnamon and powdered sugar (if you get the pastry to go, you’re given perfect little packets of the toppings). They look a little burned on top from being run under a broiler, which just caramelizes the sugar in the filling and gives the pastry topping an unexpected extra crunch. We ate plates full at the bakery, took more home to the rest of the family, and then resumed our vacation, just so grateful that we could.

after the ER

Over labor day weekend, I flew to Los Angeles to visit my friend, Melissa Clark,  the novelist (not the food writer). You can read her book about a girl impregnated by a lazy sperm or catch up with her on her blog.  Melissa is one of those friends you thank the world for every day.  She has kept me sane over many years, and as her blog attests, she is apparently connected to everything in the best way.  Every time I see her, no matter in what city or state, she’s always finding fun things to do, great places to eat, and amazing people to hang out with.  She’s also the one who connected me to my husband.   And on this, long-awaited, much-needed  trip, she not only re-connected me to myself, but connected me to picadillo, a classic Cuban dish of highly spiced, savory-sweet ground beef, with which I fell immediately, irrevocably in love.

Now, this is a little strange, because Melissa is a vegetarian. But she lives on the beach, in Marina del Rey (please don’t stalk her) and we walked to Venice for breakfast at a Cuban inspired restaurant, where I had Huevos con Picadillo.  Aside from the fact that we had a lingering, adult breakfast (imagine…), in the sun, on the Saturday of a long weekend, the picadillo was like nothing I had ever tasted before. It doesn’t look like much on the plate, but the flavors are rich and complex.

When I came home, I scoured the internet for recipes, emailed my friend Richard Fleming who wrote an amazing book about walking across Cuba. If anyone had an authentic picadillo recipe, it would be him. But alas, he did not (which is not, I promise you, a reason not to read his book, you should.)

Rich did write to me that regarding Cuban black beans, in the “Oriente, in the Santiago region, they are made “more flavorful” by the addition of a tablespoon or so of sugar near the end of cooking…”  I used this bit of information to adapt one of the many recipes I  found to come up with one that approximated what I had eaten in Los Angeles.  Almost all recipes call for raisins, but my husband hates raisins, so to add some sweetness, I used ketchup.  This also seemed in line with Rich’s advice to add sugar, and answered the complaint aimed at several recipes that called for the apparently inauthentic tomato paste.

The first night I served the picadillo, the kids stared at it with a ho-hum sort of chagrin.  Then they tasted it. Now, picadillo is one of those dinners that commands universal adoration.  I love it because it has introduced new flavors to our table.  I love it because it is fast, fast, fast to make.  I’ve had trouble getting through the week without making it…

If you prechop the ingredients, you can get from stove to table in under 15 minutes. (Especially if you have your kids set that table for you. )  Also, because we treat the meat more like a delicious side dish/accompaniment and less like the center of the meal (even though it really is the reason to sit down at the table) we can get at least a meal and a half out of a pound of meat.  We eat it with tortillas, rice, black beans, or under fried eggs…

I don’t know how authentic my version is, nor what part of Cuba it might represent, but I can vouch that it will not disappoint.

Picadillo

Ingredients:

• Olive oil
• 1 lb ground beef
• 1 medium onion
• 6-8 garlic cloves
• 1 small tomato
• 1/2 cup pimento stuffed olives
• 1 tablespoon capers, drained
• 1/4 cup ketchup
• 2 bay leaves
• 1/4 cup white wine
• 1 teaspoon cumin
• freshly ground pepper, to taste

In a mini-food processor, finely chop the onions and garlic. Set aside.  Then finely chop the olives, capers, and tomato.

You can do this ahead of time and refrigerate until you’re ready to cook. While many recipes will leave the olives whole, the dish I first had was of uniform texture...

In a saucepan cook onion, garlic, and bay leaves over medium heat until the onion is soft and translucent.  Add the ground beef and stir, breaking up clumps with a fork.

Okay, there are 3 bay leaves here….experiment

When the meat is cooked through, add the white wine and let simmer down, then add the olives, capers, ketchup, cumin and pepper and simmer until the picadillo thickens.

Discard the bay leaves and serve warm.

I cannot seem to do justice to the food styling on this one…a pile of ground beef looks like, well…so you will just have to take my word. Just try it.  If you eat meat, you will count the ways, too.

]]> http://www.learningtoeatbook.com/2009/11/picadillo-let-me-count-the-ways/feed/ 3 http://www.learningtoeatbook.com/2009/10/shaking-beef/ http://www.learningtoeatbook.com/2009/10/shaking-beef/#comments Wed, 07 Oct 2009 18:02:20 +0000 lisa http://www.learningtoeatbook.com/?p=1291 By Lisa

Before I was married, before San Francisco’s  Mission district became gentrified and way too hip for me, The Slanted Door on Valencia was someplace I went for lunch.  Lunch was affordable back then–even for a grad student of modest means, and you could get in without a reservation.  I absolutely knew how good I had it.

It was there that I fell in love with Shaking Beef, which my husband & I have since eaten in several restaurants, including one in Paris on our honeymoon. So I was thrilled a few years ago to find this adaptation of Charles Phan’s recipe in the New York Times.  It’s become a family favorite and I’ve made it for family dinners as well as for company. Everyone loves it. The kids beg for it if I haven’t made it in a while.  There’s something about the family-style platter and big bowls of rice and greens that accompany it that make the meal always feel festive.

We haven’t taken the kids to the restaurant yet, but we tempt them often with stories about how good it is, and one day, we’ll go together. Until then, we have a little bit of Vietnam in our own home.

**I should note, that I rarely use filet to make this. It’s just too expensive. But I have had terrific results with skirt steak.  Just don’t over cook it. If I don’t have red leaf lettuce, I’ve successfully substituted Romaine. And I portion equal amounts of salt and pepper into little dipping bowls, and pass lime wedges at the table so each diner can mix his own dipping sauce. This is a lot more fun for the kids. It also looks pretty.**

SHAKING BEEF

Adapted from Charles Phan

Time: 20 minutes, plus 2 hours’ marinating

• 1 1/2 to 2 pounds beef tenderloin (filet mignon), trimmed of excess fat and cut into 1-inch cubes
• 2 tablespoons chopped garlic
• 2 tablespoons sugar
• Salt and pepper
• 5 tablespoons neutral oil, like corn or canola
• 1/4 cup rice-wine vinegar
• 1/4 cup rice or white wine
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 tablespoon fish sauce
• 1 red onion, peeled and sliced thin
• 3 scallions, trimmed and cut in 1-inch lengths
• 2 tablespoons butter
• 2 bunches watercress, washed and dried, or 1 head red leaf lettuce, washed, dried and separated into leaves
• 2 limes, cut into wedges.

1. Marinate meat with garlic, half the sugar, 1 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon pepper and 1 tablespoon oil for about 2 hours. (Refrigerate if your kitchen is very warm.) Meanwhile, combine vinegar, remaining sugar, wine, soy sauce and fish sauce. Taste, and add salt and pepper if necessary. Mix about 1 tablespoon salt and 1 teaspoon pepper in a small bowl.

2. Divide the meat into 2 portions, and do the same with the onion and scallions. Put a wok or a large skillet over maximum heat, and add about 2 tablespoons oil. When the oil smokes, add the meat in one layer. Let it sit until a brown crust forms, and turn to brown the other side. Browning should take less than 5 minutes. Add half the onion and half the scallions, and cook, stirring, about 30 seconds. Add about half the vinegar mixture, and shake pan to release the beef, stirring if necessary. Add half the butter, and shake pan until butter melts. Remove meat, and repeat.

3. Serve beef over watercress or lettuce leaves, passing salt and pepper mixture and lime wedges at the table.

The Red Rooster is a small white place with a red and white striped façade, its steep roof topped by a giant sculpture of a soft serve vanilla ice cream cone. These days it has acquired some retro appeal; Jane and Michael Stern have reviewed it, and hip New Yorkers make pilgrimages for the Rooster’s fresh burgers and real milk shakes. But when I was a kid, before Route 22 was dotted with MacDonalds and Burger Kings, the Rooster was just a typical burger shack, the only place to stop for miles. There are two or three small tables inside, but they’re always taken up with people perched waiting for their orders; everyone eats at the picnic tables outside, or, in rougher weather, their cars. Friday afternoons would find my dad (my mom would join us later, after work) driving my brother Larry and me from our house in Westchester to my grandparents for the weekend. The Rooster was the halfway point, so we would stop to stretch our legs, use the bathroom and then, if the timing was right, buy hamburgers and root beer floats.

Now, the Rooster marks the halfway point between JFK Airport and the house my parents built for their retirement, a little north of where my grandparents lived. And so just as when I was little, a trip to Grandma and Granddad’s house involves, for my kids, a stop for ice cream. We have to leave home early to make our flight, so Tony and I scoop the kids up out of bed while they’re sleeping, and somehow the chance to eat ice cream in pj’s after 11 hours of travel makes it all the sweeter. They should be eating a proper meal, but sometimes nostalgia and sentiment are stronger than nutritional values.

We decided to drive to San Diego so my husband could attend ComicCon, and once we figured out that it was too late to reserve a camping spot halfway down, we decided to stop in Solvang.  For us, if it’s a toss up between a tent and a great deal on a hotel with an excellent restaurant and spa, we’ll take the hotel any day.

We left at 5 AM. That’s right, before dawn, because 1) we wanted to be in Solvang for breakfast and 2) Ella gets carsick, so we figured the more hours asleep in the car, the better.  I had a bag packed with boxed milk, strawberries, and bagels to tide us over until breakfast.  Of course, the kids were so excited that once we were in the car there was No Chance in H— of Sleep.   To combat Ella’s carsickness, I gave her Seabands, which proved miraculous. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a pair for Finn, and about halfway into the trip he moaned, and turned green, and threw up.  So that was the end of the food on that leg of the journey.  He eventually slept, and we did, in fact, arrive in Solvang in time for breakfast at Paula’s Pancakes. I was basically underwhelmed by the restuarant, but the kids quickly got over the sleep deprivation and Finn bounced back from the queasiness, and they loved this place. They both ate impossibly huge stacks (adult servings, actually) of pancakes and blueberries…

which kept them fueled for the rest of a really fun day visiting the Hans Christian Anderson Museum (ok, not their most favorite part of the trip):

riding a bicycle surrey with  fringe on top(really!):

and taking funny pictures of windmills and other such Germanic-Scandanavian things:

We tried to think about eating ebelskiver, and fudge, and ice cream, which everyone around us seemed to be enjoying, but we had no appetite for anything after all those pancakes, not a single one of us.

That evening, we had a really lovely meal at the Hadsten House, which I enjoyed all the more after a terrific massage/body treatment, and then it was on to San Diego.  The kids ate breakfast at the hotel, which made me quite nervous, naturally, but we got Finn a pair of Seabands at the local CVS, and they worked miraculously for him, too. No carsickness for either child for the rest of the trip, which left them free to munch on the granola bars, plums, and piles of pistachios I had packed.  Yes, the car was a mess, but they were happy & not too junk filled.  On the way home, we ate lunch at In ‘N Out burger, the one fast food we allow ourselves, and for which we all, admittedly,  have great weakness.

The trip was not supposed to be about food, but it was about me not having to cook for nearly a week (which was an excellent vacation in itself, mind you).  I was wary of theme park food (which was only truly horrible on one occasion), and I had brought cereal, milk, juice, fruit, bread, peanut butter and jelly, and snack crackers for our hotel room, which proved a really efficient and economical way to deal with breakfast and the occasional lunch.   The food at San Diego Zoo was more than tolerable, at SeaWorld was abysmal (and you can’t bring a lunch in), and we avoided the crowds and junk at Disneyland by making reservations for 2 sit down meals (Blue Bayou and Big Thunder Ranch BBQ, both of which were pricey, but we found worth it for the decent quality food and the down time both places afforded us).

For most of the rest of the trip we visited with beluga whales & dolphins:

where the kids (& I) were truly smitten at the Shamu show:

enjoyed very cute pandas who really did eat bamboo:

met various Superheros & other denizens of the 2 & 3-D world:

consorted with fairies in Pixie Hollow:

rode rides with abandon (including every roller coaster at Disney & Space Mountain (twice), with both kids, and no, for some inexplicable reason, Seabands were not necessary…):

and just generally enjoyed watching Finn vanquish Darth Vader (which video I can only link to for size restrictions, but below is a preview…):

But we did have a few absolutely memorable family food experiences, which will be chronicled here in the coming days, including two excellent local San Diego spots, the kids’ first exposure to truly fine dining, and then the antidote to fine dining:  room service.

I’m surprised to find I haven’t written about dessert yet in this forum, since I have a lot to say about the subject. And despite how healthy I try to keep my family, we certainly don’t avoid dessert. We’re just as likely to make an afternoon project of making cookies as making paintings, and if we have a bowl of apples, I’m just as likely to bake them into a crisp than to slice them up to feed the kids.

Today, after a late-afternoon romp in Golden Gate Park with frisbee and soccer ball, we walked up to one of our favorite local restaurants, a casual place where they bring the kids mason jars full of crayons and the silverware waits for use in repurposed cans of Hershey’s chocolate syrup. We eat there often (despite some memorably bad evenings there, no fault of the restaurant). After a simple supper (a roasted artichoke to share, pasta of various sorts all around, a nice salad of roasted beets, arugula, endive and manchego), Tony slipped in a quiet dessert order. The ginger cake here is so good we don’t even order the excellent chocolate cake anymore, which might be all you need to know about it. The cake is spicy and moist, a little crispy round the edges, and sits next to a generous scoop of homemade pumpkin ice cream, all surrounded by a pool of rich dark caramel sauce. It might be my favorite restaurant dessert in a city that’s rich in excellent desserts.

Tonight when the waiter put the dessert down, the boys fell on it. Eli practically snarled at me when I used my spoon to force his back down onto the plate and reduce his giant bite by half. Ben, with longer arms, snuck in for bites from the side while Eli stood up to get better access. “Eli!” I cried, appalled at his manners; “Do you even know what the cake tastes like?” He didn’t even pause to answer; didn’t, in fact, even swallow, but answered by shaking his head no. When it was gone, he took a deep breath and sat back, satisfied.

The subtlety of texture and flavor was lost on him; it was sweet and good and for now that’s all he needs. But in the interest of refining his palate, we’ll keep ordering this cake. In fact,  I think next time we’ll order two.

In Paris, we rented an apartment, went to the market and fixed nearly all our own meals. But we wanted to take the kids out for a meal, just once, pretty much just to say we did.

We carried several guidebooks that included sections on kid-friendly restaurants, but too often kid-friendly meant a chain like Le Hippo, which has a kid’s menu offering (for about eight euros) a choice between steak, burger, ribs, chicken nuggets or fish filet, plus drink and dessert. Not bad, but not so great for vegetarian kids. (The one exception to the kid friendly = fast food thinking was in Karen Uhlmann’s wonderful Paris for Kids, where the Restaurant section begins: “I use my museum method for taking children to dinner in Paris (one museum, then one park). One pasta night for you; one bistro night for me.” I like the way this woman thinks! Maybe when the kids are older we’ll manage this, too.)

Although our kids actually handle restaurants pretty well, we were a little worried about the pace of the typical Parisian bistro meal, the need to order courses, the inability to make substitutions. So we went for Italian. In fact, we found pretty much the Parisian equivalent of our local Pasta Pomodoro. The boys ordered fusili with pesto, Tony had a pizza, I ate a terrific salade nicoise, and we all shared a couple bowls of excellent chocolate ice cream for dessert. It was quick, it was tasty. Everybody left happily.

The next night we gave ourselves a break from teaching anybody how to eat, and left the boys with my good friend Susannah so that Tony and I could go out on our own. We went for Italian, again, but this time a small and cozy place with tables far too small for our standard restaurant accessories of view master and coloring books. We walked past the beautiful seafood and antipasto bar on the way in:

And started with an antipasto plate and a rocket salad:

(The zucchini on the antipasto plate was a revelation: thin discs which seemed to have been dried slightly before marinating, to give it a fabulous chewy texture.) Then we moved on to a black truffle risotto and pasta with scallops. We had cocktails to start, wine with dinner, and lingered; we didn’t need to remind anyone to sit up, or not stick a fork in your hair, or to try three more bites because you’re three… It was peaceful and quiet, and the food was delicious, too.

Our next big restaurant meal was in the south of France, where after almost a week of meals cooked for us personally by Charlie the Chef (much more on this to come), we — the 4 of us, my parents, my siblings and their partners, my niece and nephew — all went out to a local auberge to eat.

We prepared for this meal as we’d prepared for our Eiffel Tower trip, making sure the boys were well-rested and fed before we headed out, for although by now our boys were thoroughly on French meal time (ie, dinner at 8), we still hadn’t asked them to sit through several courses. And in fact, we didn’t even arrive at the restaurant until 8, ordered half an hour later (yes, I was checking my watch), and the food didn’t come for thirty minutes after that. So the boys colored, and looked at view master discs, and Tony and I took turns taking them out for walks, which — given the scenery–was actually quite pleasant:

When our meals arrived, we were delighted: scallops and vegetables for me:

a beautiful vegetable plate for Tony:

And pasta for the boys. It had only been a week since they’d seen the stuff, but they fell on it like… well, like picky eaters who’ve been denied plain food for a week. I didn’t take a picture of their plates, but scribbled on the side of my menu Ben’s response: “I am going to delect this pasta!” Eli scooped it up into his mouth by the handful. I wasn’t about to spoil his happy reunion with comfort food by insisting on a fork.

There was dessert, and there was wine, and maybe there was coffee, too, but I really don’t remember, I was so distracted by my growing sense that yes, they would make it, we would make it, and two and a half hours after we sat down, we were heading home again, tired, contented, and well-fed after our family dinner out.

We love Plantation Gardens, where we stayed last year for a week. The condo was extremely pleasant, but the real revelation were the grounds and the restaurant, which is one of the best places we’ve found to eat out on the south shore of Kauai.

The Moir gardens, which border the restaurant are spectacular–hundreds of orchids in bloom…

and long paths to walk before and after dinner. Here, it’s not just about the food, but about where you get to eat the food: on a spacious lanai, in the middle of lots of cultivated, lush beauty. It’s clean and modern, but has clear ties the long history of the plantation and surrounding gardens and old Kauai.

This was one of the very few times we eat out during our vacation, so there was some ceremony to it. We dressed up. We made sure we were all hungry. We booked an early seating so that the kids would be in good spirits and we would get a seat on the lanai.

Ella and Finn , newly introduced to pu-pus and the glories of Shirley Temples, were festive when we arrived. They were excited and eager to sit down and eat. They understood what was expected of them regarding manners and appropriate behavior. Kory and I had looked forward all year to the sweet li hing mui margarita,

with li hing mui powder on the rim, mixed with salt. For my money, it’s the perfect island drink. Maybe the perfect drink period.

We ordered our drinks, a lilikoi lemonade for Finn and a Shirley Temple for Ella, and we waited for our appetizers.

The kids drinks went down fast.

Which is I guess what happens when you’re soda-deprived 310 days a year.

Thankfully, the appetizers came right out and were were excellent. Ella had choosen pot stickers, which are a staple for her at any restaurant with even a whiff of Asian influence.

Finn was adamant about imperial roles, which he had discovered a few days earlier.

And Kory and I ordered the kalua pig lettuce wraps because they just looked too good to pass up. And they were. Normally, we’ll share one, or two very small first plates.

However.

They finished their plates.

And even though, on this one particular night, they had great manners, mostly used appropriate implements instead of fingers, made good conversation, ate with gusto and great appreciation, and generally functioned like little humans and not the beasts-at-the-table that they can sometimes be, still we had a problem. Because of course, they were no longer especially hungry, and we still had dinner coming.

Plantation Gardens’ has an excellent practice of NOT offering a printed children’s menu. So Ella and Finn had no idea they were missing out on the chicken nugget-thing when they were brought their small plates of rice, grilled opa, and a sweet, coconut milk fortified sauce on the side. They didn’t touch the sauce, but they did muscle and squirm their way through some of the fish and a bit of the rice. It was a struggle though, and not so much fun, even though the fish was quite good. And this was entirely our fault. Too many pu-pus.

I had the same fish as the kids, and it was sweet and rich and filling, even for me. Kory chose more wisely, the much lighter ahi, and it was superb.

Of course, the three sugar fiends wanted dessert.

There was really nothing about the dinner that was done in moderation. Especially not the second margarita.

But after we walked in the garden until it was dark, looking at plants, searching for the nocturnal toads which squat like sentinels all over the grass and paths. The kids love them. We love that the kids love them.

We loved our dinner. And we’ll do it again. A little differently.