My Spring Break - part one
My longtime friend Pam invited me out to her home in Kentucky for Spring Break, and Southwest Airlines just happened to be having a sale, so here I am!
I slept like the dead last night--my VERY early start saw to that. It's about 11 am KY time (that's 8 am CA time) and I am reading email and LiveJournal while being rapidly de-zombified by Pam's excellent coffee.
Trip out was very smooth--the airports along the way (Oakland, Phoenix, and Louisville) were all weirdly deserted, so baggage checks and security all went lickety-split.
Pam was waiting for me in the baggage claim area of the Louisville KY airport, which was a pleasant surprise, since we were indeed about 45 minutes early. Pam was able to change our dinner reservations to 5:30 pm from 7:30 pm, so we had just enough time to browse through the bookstore and hang out at the local cafe before dinner time.
Dinner was superb. It was at the restaurant run by students of a Louisville culinary academy, and our waiter was a cheerful young Bulgarian man who was a graduate of the academy, and now working as a floor supervisor of the current set of students.
We couldn't decide what to order for dinner--it all looked terrific--so Pam and I decided to do a small plates tasting menu from the extensive appetizer list. We ordered glasses of wine (a California Pinot Grigio for me, and Merlot for Pam):
- smoked salmon served over a smooth egg salad on toasted rye bread
- a salad of roasted beets, fresh greens dressed with a vinaigrette, and nut-encrusted goat cheese
- crab-and-crayfish cakes paired with a "corndog" of shrimp and lobster chunks deep-fried with a mango salsa on the side
- tuna two ways (peppercorn-crusted and tempura) accompanied by a sweet teriyaki sauce and sauteed greens
- a dish of wild mushroom ravioli in a cream sauce with more mushrooms, chunks of ham, and fresh English peas
- seared giant scallops on a bed of tiny black lentils
It was all delicious, and beautifully plated and presented. And when we were done eating, we didn't have any room to try any of the desserts, which were all of the rich variety--cheesecake, creme brulee, or a chocolate cake filled with orange buttercream.
Then, stuffed and groaning with repletion, we rolled ourselves out to Pam's Rav4, and drove to her place, listening to the soundtracks of the Buffy musical and "Dr. Horrible's Sing-along Blog."
Once we got there, we changed into comfy clothes, and watched a few anime episodes before I finally crashed around midnight. It was an excellent start to my spring break!
Later this week, we'll be driving to Asheville, North Carolina and touring the Biltmore Estate. Should be fun...