FEELING MY AGE 06/03/00

Date: Sat, 3 Jun 2000 19:05:13 EDT
Subject: Feeling my age

Old age crept up on me today.

John is off today and tomorrow to Pennsy Days at the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum in Strasburg (his paintings are part of an art show), leaving just us womenfolk at home.

Elsa invited me to go to Rollers for a delectable lunch of soft shell crab - and I turned her down. Don't have the energy to would take to be in Chestnut Hill, which always gets my juices flowing with lots and lots of happy memories and places to go and things to see.

Am still saying it to myself - I turned down soft shell crab.

Soft shell crab is practically my favorite shell fish, nudged out of 1st place by the Oysters Kilpatrick at the American Club in Sydney. And I was not up to the drive. Old age stinks. Instead, we headed to Newtown and lunch at Pat's Colonial Kitchen.

Pat's is a wonderful nook of a restaurant. We walked in and back to the upper level, which is do'ed up like a veranda. Judy brought over our coffee order without having to ask - my decaf came in a "MOM" mug. "Lisa's Salad?" But of course ~ my favorite.

It is not soft shells, but Lisa Salad is a glory all its own. I can order it in the middle of winter and one bite and my mouth thinks it is summer. Elsa would bring it to me when I was at St. Mary’s Hospital recuperating from my "episode" and it did as much for my recovery as any medicine or therapy. The salad is refreshing, a bed of beautiful fresh lettuce generously topped with raisins, sun flower seeds, bits of pickle, strips of turkey, with a wonderful slightly French but tangier dressing. A large salad, I ate almost every bit of it.

Not soft shells, but just right for today.

Have you ever sunk your teeth into a beautifully sautéed (fie on all who deep fat fry)soft shell crab? One bite, and I think I've died and gone to heaven. Lightly floured, delicately sautéed = culinary bliss.

At least there is no rush to get my annual soft shell dining under my belt - are in season until September (every month without an "r" is soft shell season on the East Coast). They are pricey because they have to be caught between the time the crab sheds its old shell and before it starts growing a new one. Hence the name.

I have an honor roll of places I have dined delectably on soft shells:
* the Crab Claw in St. Michael's, Maryland;
* the Robert Morris Inn in Oxford, MD;
* Monique's, an Alsatian restaurant in New Hope, PA;
* Louisa's, Cape May, NJ ~ the best I ever sampled;
* Under the Blue Moon in Chestnut Hill was our traditional haunt for many years, until the owners had the audacity to retire (many devotees went into mourning);
* now we go to Roller's, also in Chestnut Hill, for my annual gastronomical pilgrimage.

Wherever I am, if sautéed soft shell crab is on the menu, I am doing just fine.

Nite-nite and God bless - Kay


reposted in sweet memory of its author, KATHARINE REYNOLDS LOCKHART, by her scribe/daughter, Elsa Lockhart Murphy aka Deev, in celebration of the 05/14 centenary of Kay's birth