March 31, 2012 Shopping - Jimmy’s Fine Foods; Lunch – Mai Restaurant; and Dinner - Wedding and Reception

March 31, 2012 Shopping - Jimmy’s Food Store;  Lunch – Mai Restaurant; and Dinner - Wedding and Reception

What a full day.  I am not sure I can do justice to it.  Billy, Suzette, Elaine and I started by going to the Farmer’s Market in downtown Dallas around 9:00 am.  The Farmers' Market is a series of open sided awning covered spaces where merchants display and sell their food stuffs.  The main reason for going was to fetch that week’s production of produce from a farmer from whom Bill and Elaine had purchased a share of his production.  When we arrived at the farmer’s booth, Elaine was given a large brown paper bag half filled with lettuce, spinach, radishes and a few other fresh ingredients.  It is still early in Texas for produce. Then Elaine bought fresh eggs and Suzette bought a small basket with five or six East Texas Sweet potatoes (these were the typical orange colored yams, not the white yams like those apparently grow in Pennsylvania in the spring). 

We separated then and Suzette and Elaine went to IKEA, while Billy and I went to Neiman Marcus’ to check on replacement Baccarat stemware.  Our parents bought Baccarat San Remy stemware in France in 1960 and we were both short a full table setting due to breakage over the years.  Tom Humphrey in the gift and bridal registry department was a joy to work with and said he could match anything if we sent him a picture.  Just like always at Neiman's; superb service and quality. 

Then Billy drove us to Jimmy’s Food Store at 4901 Bryan at Fitzhugh.  Jimmy’s is unique.  It is an over 45 year old family owned Italian food store.  When we walked in we were greeted by an indescribable array of Italian foods, pastas, wines, olive oils, vinegars, capers, olives and on and on.  In the back is the fresh meat department with its house made Italian sausages and imported mortadellas, hams, salamis and cheeses.  Jimmie’s daughter was pouring three wines and we tried them all (a Niro, an Anselmi and an Italian Syrah). Then a man started cooking a round flat pasta with a tube of pasta around the round flat piece of pasta with stewed fresh veal and we tried that.  A person next to me asked the man what the name of the pasta was and he started jabbering in Italian to one of the men behind the meat counter and after a minute of Italian back and forth, he said, "I don't know."  That is how many different types of pasta Jimmy's carries; "I don't know how many"!
Then we met the wine expert from Korbrand importers who was visiting from Bern, Switzerland, who suggested we buy a Nozzole Chianti Classico Riserva marked down from $25.00 to $20.00.  I aslo bought a bottle of the Niro for $10.00; which will bring back fond memories of Jimmy's when we open it.  Billy bought Italian sausages for Sunday's lunch.

Then we went across the street to the Mai Vietnamese Restaurant and I ordered a plate of flat noodles with shrimp and chicken and sautéed mung bean sprouts in a light hoisen and shiracha sauce and Billy got a bowl of Bun noodles topped with chicken curry. We could not finish the dishes so we got a box to go.

Then we were off to Central Market on Greenville at 5750 E. Lover's Lane around 12:00 noon.  If you have not been to a Central Market you shoul go.  It is like going to food heaven for a foodie, if you do not care about prices.  We bought corn and zucchini and yellow squash for calabacitas for Sunday’s lunch with Bernice.  I could not resist blood tangerines ($2.49/lb.), which I had never eaten before, because the tasted both sweet and citrusy at the same time (there was a plexiglass container with wedges to taste). 

Then we went to Goodies Goodies farther north on Greenville and I bought two bottles of pineau ($25.00 per bottle) and Billy bought a bottle of Deau Cognac.  Finally at around 2:15 we went home and I napped until around 3:30 p,m.

Suzette and I got dressed and drove to the Residence Inn in Fort Worth to meet Amy, Marta and Vhal at 5:00 p.m.  and they drove us to the wedding a Ted and Tina Gorski’s house in old Westover (Valley Ridge Road).  When we arrived just before 6:00 p.m.the garden was filled with chairs and people.  The 6:00 p.m. relatively short wedding ceremony went off like clockwork and afterward we all proceeded into the house for dinner.  I was thrilled to see some of our old friends from Fort Worth, Wendy and Clay Hook, Tom and Karen Reynolds, Fred and Laura Harrison, and, of course, our hosts Ted and Tina Gorski. Helen McCrimmon and Rick and Cissie Goggans (Nick's parents and my brother and sister in law from my marriage to Amy) and about 160 other folks were also in attendance. 

One of the most wonderful events of my year occurred while we were lined up making our way through the house to the bar on the deck beside the swimming pool.  I found myself beside Nikki Holland, who had flown in from San Diego, and she told me that my mother was not only one of the greatest cooks but one of the greatest people she had ever met.  That kind of tribute will warm my heart forever; as will Cissie's emphatic statement on Friday evening that she thinks of mother fondly almost every day. 

How does one merit that kind of praise and how does one transmit some of that essence to others?  I hope this small effort to share my thoughts about my food experiences will transmit that grace and spirit passed to me by mother to others.

We sat with Wendy and Clay Hook (Clay was my oldest friend at the wedding.  He and I car pooled to second grade together and have been friends ever since) and talked for about thirty minutes until Ryan Goggans, my nephew, came up to talk to me and Suzette and Clay and Wendy went to fetch plates of BBQ.  Ryan, who is 21, told me he is taking a break from the Berkeley School of Music to learn electronic music production.  I am hopeful that he will be a brilliant musical genius or producer.  Nick, the groom, my other nephew, who is 38, is CEO for @umbell, a social media consulting firm, that tracks social media and advises clients on how to manage their social media marketing campaigns.  Nick and Brooke Botello (Goggans) will live in Austin where @umbell is currently located.

One of the interesting conversations occurred after we ate.   We were on our way out to the dance floor that had been erected where the chairs in the garden had been placed during the wedding, when I saw Ted in the living room and stopped to ask him about the art.  There were lovely portraits of Ted and Tina and several other pieces that Ted told me were painted by James Blake, who is a well know Fort Worth artist, and one of their friends and I believe is married to Amon Carter’s daughter.  There were also paintings and watercolors of their children by Carol Ivey, who also did a portrait of Luke years ago.

There were two other men standing in the living room and one them was Randy Partin, who was a roommate of Rick Goggans at Amherst.  Randy was talking to a lawyer from Boston, whose name I missed, but I introduced Suzette to Randy and she told Randy that she had been married to Harold Lott.  Harold’s brother, Kennon, has worked for Randy’s family's railroad for years, so there was an immediate connection. 

I then asked Randy to tell us abut his family’s support for John Henry Faulk during the McCarthy era and the lawyer from Boston told us something amazing.  That the whole McCarthy era was a shakedown to extort money from those who were accused of connections to the Communist Party and that if you paid $75,000 you would not be blacklisted.  Of course, John Henry did not pay and his trial ultimately led to the famous “Point of Order” documentary film in which Mr. Welch exposed Senator McCarthy and said, “Senator McCarthy, have you no shame?” which ended the McCarthy era witch hunts.

Randy told us about hanging out with John Henry Faulk and Molly Ivins and lots other interesting East Texas populist folk for a few more minutes and I then excused myself and Suzette, so we could dance a few dances.

We then went into the dining room and examined the food and talked to Scott and Mossy Guinn from Monroe, Louisiana.  Mossy is a lawyer and Scott or she are related to Rick’s mother’s family in Monroe.  I ate several mouthfuls of brisket and four or five more chunks of BBQ'd hot links and was charmed by the large platter of peach cobbler with a pastry shell topping with Nick and Brooke's initials on it, instead of a wedding cake.  A very nice Texas wedding touch.

     

We danced for about twenty minutes and I talked to Tom Reynolds for a few minutes, but about thirty minutes later Vhal and Amy were ready to leave, so we left and picked up Marta at her friend, Marjorie’s house, and they took us back to the Residence Inn to fetch our car and we drove back to Dallas to Billy and Elaine’s.  

A great evening in Fort Worth with a festive wedding and seeing many old friends.