Good food

This was my lunch Thursday--chicken piccata, bowtie pasta, green beans, and a wonderful melange of sauteed spinach and cherry tomatoes in a cup of purple cabbage. All this at Z's Cafe 2 in the hospital district of Fort Worth. Owners Janet Z. Capua and her son, Carlo, specialize in fresh, pure, healthy food and do a lot of cooking for Cuisine for Healing which provides health meals to cancer patients.  They also have an active catering business (see http://www.zscafe.com/) , but you can still find Janet in the kitchen. This day she said she wouldn't touch a paper I showed her because she had olive oil on her hands, but she told me the secret of the spinach--olive oil, garlic, scallions. I tried "spinach a la Janet" the next night but mine wasn't quite as good. If you're in Fort Worth, watch for my book signing there June 29. Come get yourself a delicious lunch--the chicken salad is classic--and also get your signed copy of the latest Kelly O'Connell mystery, No Neighborhood for Old Women.

That night Betty and I had supper at the Cat City Grill--we had a coupon, so for an amazing $20 we each had 8 oz. of chicken-fried lobster bites, a cat stack salad (like a wedge only sliced), and a glass of wine. Wonderful dinner--lobster bites came with a remolaude sauce with just the right amount of zing.
My Thursday orgy wasn't over. Tuesday night I'd gone to the Old Neighborhood Grill for meatloaf--Tuesday night is always meatloaf night and it's also when several of my neighbors gather for supper. But tragedy--they didn't get the meatloaf made that night.So Thursday night, on the way home from Cat City, I stopped to pick up a piece of meatloaf.
Had great meals Friday--half the chicken piccata for lunch and half the meatloaf for supper; Saturday, half the meatloaf for lunch and dinner at the Grill with Jacob tonight.
And then there was Wednesday--steak tartare at Sapristi's. I usually like it a lot but this was too spicy for me, maybe even too many capers. Anyway I had to have chocolate mousse to soften the taste in my mouth--a necessity, you understand.
I'm afraid to look at my checkbook or step on the scale after this week of indulgence, but I highly recommend Z's Cafe 2 (the first is in the Community Arts Center), Cat City Grill, Sapristi's, and, of course, the Old Neighborhood Grill. I"ll forgive them for one night without meatloaf but if it happens again....