A little quilt + tables for three

This past weekend was the first in about two months where I didn't feel terrible when it ended. We've been too busy in the week and I've packed too many hopes and dreams into our weekends (a sure way to build yourself up for disappointment). This time we walked along the boardwalk with coffee and our little running boy, I got a few things done and we had quiet time to relax Sunday evening.

This little doll-size quilt has been in pieces for about two months now, and it's so satisfying to have it all come together. It has some of my favorite, happy, reproduction feedsack fabric in it and I just turned it the easy-peasy way (it's a doll quilt, after all) and eyed the diagonal quilting. It's going in the little shop as soon as I have time to add it!

So on another note, I really am trying to introduce more variety, better ingredients and new recipes lately. Our New Yorker usually comes on Friday afternoon and I get a deep, odd pleasure from turning directly to the restaurant review (Tables for Two) in my first quiet moment. I don't think I'm really that into food but I love the New Yorker restaurant reviews. They're snooty, include obscure references to the atmosphere of a place, describe at least one other customer and they write about the food in the most unique, elaborate language. What a great gig... Imagine getting paid to flip through your thesaurus and go out for incredible food (on someone else's bill) with friends. Aside from maybe a birthday or our anniversary we don't go out to eat. Anyhow, there's something so odd and satisfying about these reviews. What if one of the reviewers stopped by our humble eatery?

Tables for Three
Kitchen Table Mama

The green cabinets are a bit 70's avocado but the eclectic family-farmy table at Kitchen Table Mama is inviting if cluttered. Frequented by a few loyal diners the site is long on offerings for the short and short on offerings for the tall. On a late weeknight a thirty-something waitress seemed a bit harried with a customer's request for "MORE, MORE" but variety (banana? rice? chicken? frozen peas?) keeps coming for the younger set. The fajitas were without panache but left memory of a spicy kick with yellow, orange and red peppers (a splurge) mixed with chicken. Juice, flecked with spices and dripping from mouth and wrap, leaves a neighboring patron flustered. Tortillas, though sufficiently round, lack heat and "oomph" and seem, somehow, to come directly from a grocery store bag. Grab an crunchy, delightfully orange carrot stick to quell the torrent of dull from the salsa. Drinks fail to delight but the water is filtered.

Stick with the brownies and ice cream. It's hard to do a brownie wrong and Kitchen Table Mama does it right. When plates are cleared and the lights are low you may find yourself with the inkling of an idea to return the following night. Explore your options. (Open Sundays through Saturdays for breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks. Entrees very cheap.)