A Map, Lunch, Some Decanters & A Cod

A Map

Yesterday my parents asked me to go to lunch with them. You see, I'd found a beautiful map of Cuba in my Etsy friend Maria's shop. It was perfect for our friend Desi, man about town, the face of the 401 Tavern in Hampton, New Hampshire (where I grew up and my parents still live) and who I affectionately call The Mad Cuban. Desi was born in Cuba and his parents sent him and his brother off to America when he was only a boy.

After the map of Cuba arrived from Montevideo, Uruguay (where Maria is), Dad was on a mission to frame it so he could present it to Desi.  Luckily, they have lots of old frames in the basement (from my cousin's days as a trash collector in Yonkers, NY.....Johnny snapped up the things that he thought were too good to throw away, hence the frame collection in my parent's basement). If you can believe it, he couldn't find one that worked from the collection and had to take one of the hall wall. It too was from Johnny and had held a family collage of sorts for about as long as I can remember. Well it doesn't anymore. Now it holds Desi's antique map of Cuba.

The "Presentation" by Dad (aka Jerry)



Mom (aka Marge) and Desi Share a Smile



Desi giving the map a thumbs up.



Another shot of Mom and Desi. Just because it's cute.



And finally a toast to the map. Rather appropriate.
Thanks to Maria  for making this moment possible!

I should mention that Desi took a moment to read the back of the frame, where my parents had included the provenance of the map........the year of the print, that Maria had sent it for Montevideo, etc. It's just like them.  If you're looking for a great gift or just have a love for vintage prints, be sure to check out Maria's shop Carambas. You'll be glad you did. I mean, just look at Desi's face!

Lunch

Onto the food...........my parents both ordered 'The Commish', an tip of the hat to our friend Jimmy who passed away last year and loved the lobster pie. Nothin' fancy here folks, just big hunks of lobster.




Lobster and butter topped with breadcrumbs. Simple and delicious.



They tried to convince me to get the same, but I had my heart set on a garden salad and the baked haddock sandwich.



See why? Yum.

Then my father proceeds to tell me that Brother Mike (no he's not a monk, he's just my brother) had stopped by that morning with fresh Cod from Captain Peter Lag (aka Peter Lagerstrom).  It's good to know people in the fishing business. They're big on sharing. So after lunch I stopped by my parents house to pick up a share of the Cod. Yup, we LOVE seafood round these parts (probably because we've got some of the best seafood I've had anywhere).


Some Decanters

When I entered my mother's dining room, all I could see were 'collections', reminding me of yesterday's post. Bells, plates, decanters...........so I got a couple of shots.



Don't you just love the gentleman on the left? So proper.




Part of their Norman Rockwell plate collection, and yes, more decanters.




Even more. They go all the way around the dining room at the top of the wall. They added this plate rail to hold their collections, after they raised the ceiling in this area years ago.

 A Cod

I got so distracted by the decanters and plates, I nearly forgot the Cod!! That would have been a tragedy.  Here's a tip. Want to know if fish is fresh? It should look just like THIS!!




Straight from the sea. Beautiful color, consistency and smells like the ocean.
There should be NO slime and NO fishy smell.

 
I'd love to show you pics of how it came out, but I did not take pics. Whoops. FYI, it was an easy fish dinner.  I layed the fillet on some tin foil, sprinkled it with some breadcrumbs and spices, then I added some frozen corn to the mix, topped it all with pats of butter. Folded tin foil over the make a pouch, and Gar popped it on the grill on low heat, with other side on high, for about 25 minutes (this was a big fillet!). So, so good. I really wish I'd taken a picture, it looked as good as it tasted. Thanks Cap'n Lag!

All in all, it was a pretty darn good day.

Happy Friday everyone.........Ah, the weekend!