Some Sauce!

OUTSIDE ROOM
On Friday we go to Sarducci’s in San Juan Capistrano. Beautiful setting…it’s outdoors, there’s a fountain, live music... David and I order rack of lamb and a grilled selection of seafood. The boys order pasta and salmon. Their meal is swimming in oil. Ours, sad to say, is covered with a heavy dose of balsamic “sweet gravy”. David is reminded of when his mom used to put ketchup on his lamb chops when he was a boy. No offense to his mom. She was a wonderful cook aside from the ketchup.

PRIVATE ROOM
On Saturday we drive to Laguna Beach. I don’t know which restaurant we’re going to. I just want to take our chances. We park around Glenneyre. David finds us a restaurant. It looks really nice. There’s a table right at the crowded door that’s open, or as luck will have it, they have a PRIVATE ROOM for us if we can be out by 8:00 pm. It’s 6:45 pm. We have never been in a private room at a restaurant, and we gladly accept. It’s a table for 6. There’s a wine cabinet on one wall, a mermaid statue in a niche... This looks good! We order a bottle of wine. The waitress and the bus service are perfect. We order squash soup and spicy meatball appetizers. We all decide on the same entree – a fillet with polenta. The “3” boys order their mushroom sauce on the side. They hate mushrooms. It is soooo good, they end up straining the mushrooms, pouring the sauce on their steaks and asking for more! My youngest sips the leftover wine in my glass and remarks “this tastes a lot more expensive than the wine we have at home.” David laughs and explains to him, this isn’t your mother’s Manischewitz! The dining experience in our private room was wonderful. As we leave, the people sitting at the table by the door tell me “Your sons are so polite — they thanked the hostesses when they left.” That’s my boys!

STAIN COLOR CHOSEN
The office manager at our contractor’s says if we choose the stain color by Oct. 7th, we will have our cabinets delivered by Oct. 15th. In order to choose our stain color, we must first see our wood floor sample so we can see everything together. This is a long process, going to different flooring stores ourselves, and having our project manager bring us a lot of walnut samples. We finally decide. We go to the contractor’s operations in Anaheim on Oct. 7th and watch them stain and varnish a sample door for us. It’s beautiful. The 15th comes and goes. We are told it’s slower because it rained. Well, it rained one day. In fact, we don’t get our cabinets until the 27th! Seems like someone’s calculations are way off! We are then told the installer is coming the day the cabinets arrive. The installation is supposed to take about 3 days. No installer shows that day. No installer until the 10:45 am. the next morning. He was coming from Riverside and stuck in traffic. He has now moved to OC, so we don’t have any more problems. Installation has taken over 6 days, but what we see so far are beautifully crafted cabinets. The stain color is spot on. The installer has assured us we will be completely satisfied when they are done.

NEXT POST
Check back next Monday for more restaurant stories and our kitchen remodel progression! Scroll down for the photos.