Western Meal

Late, from the other coast ... Lunch with Sweetser at Costa Azul on
Coronado Island.

Sat outside and had very nice enchiladas, probably the best Mexican
food of my four days in Southern California.

Very little talk about Grady and no relevant conversations about lemon
bars, aside from a mentioning of the vegan ones from Frick. Sweetser
refused to believe they were any good.

Walked around the downtown area for a while. Forgot to buy a book on
The Del again, second time I've done that in 14 years.

Sent from my iPhone

Gobble the Cobbler

Ate alone at TFC. Veggie day -- corn (canned), green beans (canned) and mashed potatoes (one prays not from a can). And apple cobbler.

With every bite of good cobbler, one should be prompted to ask: "How many sticks of butter died for this dessert?" Dairy must be present, butter must drip from every loving spoonful. TFC cobbler is light, not quite so buttery. Subtle, perhaps? Not a Zen moment, nothing like the nearly impossible hint of lemon one strains to find in lemon bars, usually with no success, but it does make you work.

I'm starting to believe desserts are what TFC does best.

Crabby

Grabbed a quick lunch at TFC, tried "Crabby Cakes" on a whim. Not the kind of crab cakes I'm used to, more of a casserole tasting vaguely of shellfish. There may have been actual crab in the mix but I doubt it. Could be they served vegan crab. Vegan, of course, is Latin for tastes kinda like real food. Or maybe it's Greek for tofu surprise. I've forgotten my classical languages.

As the husband of a Cajun I'm picky about seafood, so I won't eat the crabby cakes again.

Oh, favorite TFC seafood menu moment: cajun cod. They actually served this a few years ago. You don't find many cod in the Gulf or migrating up the bayou, so I was impressed they located so many that had lost their maps and swam to Louisiana. Dumb fish.

A New Level of Lemonicity

My plan was to avoid campus this week. Which was going fine, until I remembered I had to help set up the GSPA photo students on Monday. And then I had to go in to get something out of my cage for another faculty member ...

But that's not what I'm going to write about. When I returned home for lunch on Monday, my wife's newest bestest friend was here, delivering ... lemon bars. 

And not just any lemon bars, but vegan lemon bars. I was concerned, for a moment, but it all passed with just once sniff.

There was obviously a high level of lemon in these bars, though I have to admit the top level looked more gelatinous than any other lemon bar I'd seen of late. (Surprising, really, since there would be no gelatin in a vegan lemon bar.)

The taste was heavenly. A citric assault on the senses. The crust was crusty, a crunchy under-layer of support rarely experienced. 

I ate two. If we are blessed with them again, I will not share.

Some Menus Remain the Same

Friday is the untouchable menu: fried chicken or meat loaf, mashed potatoes, turnip greens. Very nearly the perfect meal and, thankfully, the wise folks at the FC recognized this and left the Friday options alone. Ate with Hume, discussed vacations and dog kennels and the lack of air conditioning in Memorial Hall (which is a positive since lunch doesn't get cold quite so quickly).

A significant lack of Johnson, meaning no multimedia moments. Sorry, LATFC fans. We'll work on it.

New Menu

Here's my lunch for the day, the first in the new menu scheme:

Stuffed Pasta Shells

Mild ricotta cheese, some might say subtle, others might describe as lacking any hint of cheesiness. Bit tepid on the plate, but the pasta okay. Overall a passing grade, but the Kraft Mac & Cheese I made kids for lunch a couple of days ago tasted better.

Spinach

Good to have it back. Goes well with the pasta shells, a bit of green to dress up the plate and health-up the meal. I'm not a huge spinach fan but this worked.

Lemon Bars

Different -- slightly crunchy bottom, crumbly top. Nice texture, an improvement.
The Same -- an almost fanatical lack of lemonocity. Sweet, but flavorless, as if the creator once had a dream about a lemon and that's as close as the fruit ever came to the bar.

As an aside for you menu fans, the alternative for me was Crabby Cakes, but I just spent a week at the beach and ate lots of seafood, so passed.

New Menu!

As expected, the Faculty Center has changed their menu. And the first report says it is more than palatable. 

Handed out the course evaluations to my students and told them I'd be back in 30 minutes. Dashed across the street to find two other regulars staring at the menu board. I snuck by them, grabbed a tray and sidled up to the stainless. I ordered a sausage and peppers over rice dish, grabbed a little cherry cobbler and hit the checkout line.

One advantage to new menus and new people - she couldn't find the button for my meal, so she rang it up as two side dishes and I saved about a buck. (Which I would normally point out, but remember the help had issues making the right breakfast sandwich a few weeks ago and then overcharging, so I figured it balanced that out nicely.)

Sausage had just a little spice to it, the peppers were just about perfectly soggy. Rice was rice, hard to screw up unless you're being sabotaged on Top Chef or something. 

Sat with Willett, who allegedly retired last semester but is teaching a Maymester course, as well as a class for the art school in the fall on the history of graphic design. (I suggested that would be easy - first there were pencils, then there were Macs. He said he'd enroll me in the class as I needed some help in the area ...) I suspect his "retirement" was just a ploy to get some free cake.

He is a smart man.