My Dinner With Geronimo

Dear Citizens:

As a business traveler, it's not uncommon for cities, airports, hotels, conference rooms, and restaurants to blur together. Not Miami. It's multi-cultural, flavorful, and unexpected no matter how generic you try to make it.

For me, it all starts while boarding a 767 and not the usual DC-10 at DFW airport. There are no self-obsessed men in suits. Not a blackberry in sight. Instead there are vacationers clutching Group 4 boarding passes attempting to board with First Class and Executive Platinum. In my best flight attendant persona, I attempt to assist confused elderly passengers dressed tragically head-to-toe in pastel polyester and struggling with unsuitable carry-on baggage. There's a language barrier. They don't speak Texan even though I assumed "y'all" was universal. Smiling and hand gestures help.

We manage to get on the airplane. I am seated in an emergency exit aisle located next to an off-duty junior pilot. He reminds me of Leonardo DiCaprio in "Catch Me If You Can" and I begin to wonder if like Leo, he's a fraud pretending to be a pilot and whether he can really open the exit door in the event of an emergency.

At some point in the flight I remember to mind my own business and we land in Miami. I'm there to mediate a negligent security case. I immediately notice that the Miami airport has "negligent security" written all over it. Airport employees are few and it takes 55 minutes for the conveyor to shoot out the checked luggage. Not expecting to see my Samsonite ever again I had already said good-bye to my favorite pajamas and broken up with my dressy sandals.

Of course, the glorious weather totally makes up for it. Also I know of no other airport where you can get a Cuban sandwich to go with your cafecito at 8:00 a.m.

I usually stay downtown but mediation takes me south and I stay at the Hotel Indigo in Dadeland. The cab driver, originally from Haiti knows exactly where to go. He drops me at the hotel near a tree chocked full of wild parrots. I count at least 30 and they create a noisy ruckus knocking seed pods, leaves and small limbs from the tree. Several parrots are lined up on the hotel's roof as if on security patrol.

Hotel Indigo, a boutique-y Holiday Inn, promotes itself with Haiku. The Haiku at the front desk states:

"Colorful locales
Refreshingly different
Adventures Await"

There are haiku posted in the room that speak to bathing, the environment, and room service.

Inspired, I decide to compose a haiku about the wild parrots:

The Hotel Parrot
Wild Nesting and Foraging
Complimentary

I have dinner at Fleming Restaurant - A Taste of Denmark. I consider a Danish dish - the Frikadeller Dinner - A Danish meat patty served with sweet and sour red cabbage and a side of champagne cream sauce. I decide to forgo the meat patty and order Japanese-inspired sesame seared tuna. Because it is included in the Sunset menu, I have tiramisu for dessert. This is Miami. You never know what to expect.

The next day proves to be very good for mediation. Passover Seder and impending sundown motivates the mediator and 7 of 8 attorneys to settle the negligent security case in a timely fashion. I assure you that without Seder we would still be there arguing every inconceivable issue. The lone attorney passing Seder invites me for dinner at an outdoor bistro with his wife and their (his) dog, Geronimo.

It turns out that Geronimo is a well-trained German Shepherd. Geronimo is his American name. His German name sounds something like "Gesundheit" We meet. He is a bit aloof but sniffs and licks my hand. A good sign for such a serious dog. One sniff of Geronimo reminds me of my grandfather's garage and hunting dogs. I realize my eyes are closed and I'm 8 years old again. It smells just like Geronimo plus grease and oil.

At the "French Bistro" and still going with "anything goes", I order churrasco - as recommended by the Portuguese waiter and my dinner companions. It is served with all-American peas and carrots. Geronimo keeps a lookout from our table and drinks iced water from a high-tech, portable, fold-out water dish. He also shares the churrasco - without the cilantro-infused olive oil on the side. Geronimo dislikes sauces. I learn my companions' daughter, a Harvard-educated physician, also shuns all condiments. She doesn't eat salad dressing, mustard, jelly, or champagne cream sauce. She prefers basic food - even in salsa-spicy Miami. Go figure.

Geronimo consumes roughly one-half of the table's churrasco and drinks from the portable dish. A strong, silent type, he is as relaxed as possible. He skips dessert of fruit, ice cream, and pigeons. He is trained not to eat pigeons except on command. Impressive.

I head back to my poem-inspired, parrot-squatting hotel and try to sleep despite the wall-size seascape mural in my room. I want to phone the front desk and report that Jellyfish, other blobby sea creatures, and Haiku can cause nightmares. I don't.

The next morning I leave Miami. My work is done.

CitizenB

Candlestick Salad

Today is April Fool's Day and this could explain why a few of my family members got a little silly late this afternoon with e-mail. Much of it started with comments about Mother being a "Tomahawk" from the prior post. This led to a story from my cousin and sister about the time as children they escaped raging flood waters only to be punished by Tomahawk and her evil sister, Aunt Nan (we're still thinking of a nickname...for now, I'll go with "Arrowhead"). They were forced to stay indoors and make an inedible cake from Bisquick. Even the dumbest dog on earth at the time, Bo Bo, wouldn't eat it.

All of this led to the question of whether it was possible to make a cake (not a pancake) from Bisquick and somehow that reminded Aunt Arrowhead about the time she made Candlestick Salad in Home Economics class in the mid-1960s. Here's how it went:

CitizenB: You can make a cake with Bisquick?

Aunt Arrowhead: Sure you can make a cake out of Bisquick. You can make one out of mud too. Tastes about the same. When I was in school I made donuts out of biscuits. I also made a candlestick salad. Take a plate, put a lettuce leaf on it, then a slice of pineapple, stick a banana in the center of the pineapple, whip cream on top of the banana with a cherry on top. Lake Worth High School home economics in action. Sorry, I got carried away with all my cooking expertise.

CitizenB: Curious…was the banana supposed to represent the candlestick?

Aunt Arrowhead: Of course it represented the candlestick. What else?

CItizenB: I don’t know…? I was just trying to get the salad construction and name to match….never heard of a candlestick salad until now. Very good to know. I think I could make it.

Aunt Arrowhead: ... We were only in high school and never thought about things like that. I'm pleased I could teach you something you never knew before. Yes, YOU CAN DO IT.

CitizenB: I guess I was mixing a little World History in with Home Ec. I was visualizing the banana as an ancient Egyptian obelisk (for some reason) and not a candlestick... Thank you for your confidence in me. Let’s pray I can keep the banana erect.

Aunt Arrowhead forwarded a recipe to me but there was no photo. After work, I researched and found the below depiction of Candlestick Salad in all it's glory. Of note, the whipped cream is supposed to represent the melting wax and the cherry the flame. Sigh. I'm sorry but it cracked me up to think about a bunch of 1960's high schoolers trying to make bananas stand up on pineapple rings. Thankfully by the time I hit Home Ec. in the late 1970's, Candlestick Salad had been replaced by a basic Waldorf Salad. Mayonnaise on apples was risque enough for me.

All of this got me wondering about the 1960's and why housewives were obsessed garnishing everything with pineapple and shaping food into weird objects..like candlesticks.

For the five minutes I've been thinking about it, my opinion is that housewives were bored silly, and canned goods and advanced packaged foods opened up new culinary doors and excitement. I decided to take a quick look into my very cool 1967 Better Homes and Gardens "Jiffy Cooking" to see what I could discover. From the book, it's clear housewives were obsessed with the color orange, molded gelatin, glazes, and all things elegant with "an Oriental flair."

Here's a sample of words used to describe various recipes:

Saucy, frosty, royal, zippy, peppy, spiced, lazy day, easy-do, meal-in-a-bowl, instant, hurry, jiffy, easy perfection, creamy, minted, velvet, quicky, time-saving, fruit-glazed, "a la", party, tropical, Hong Kong, fizz and sparkle.

And a list of Menus:

"A Robust Meal for Crisp Evenings" (Skillet Potato Salad with a 14 ounce bologna ring)
"Fit for the King of the Household" (Canadian Bacon Stack-Ups with canned sweet potatoes)
"Treat Your Guests Elegantly" (Pampered Beef Fillets with Royal Mushroom Sauce)
"An Informal Teen-age Record Party" (Tamale Hero Sandwiches and Pickle-Sickles)
"A Light Brunch for the Ladies" (Orange-nut Ring and Berry Parfaits)
"A Main Dish Inspired By Old Mexico" (Taco Salad with Crusty Hard Rolls)
"Be Creative With Convenience Foods" (Yam and Sausage Skillet)
"Three Open-face Salad Sandwiches" (Tuna Tugs, Corned Beef Captains & Chef's Salad in a Roll)

Gosh, I miss the good old days when the only fish we ate was canned tuna (in oil), and we consumed hundreds of 14 ounce bologna rings, saucy sausage links, tins of luncheon meat, and cans of high-sodium Veg-All and Pork-n-Beans. Much like the Candlestick Salad, it was all so elegant!

CitizenB