Tag: food

Hungry While Passing Through Catalina AZ?

Catalina is a rural village, just north of Tucson on Hwy 79. We have a beautiful view of the Santa Catalina mountains and are far enough from Tucson that the only signs are the bedroom community aspects of traffic and new construction. As is usual in communities like ours we don’t have all the dining options a metropolitan area would have.

However…

We do have a little gem called It’s Greek to Me. It is the best. The food is fresh, and prepared with love. The atmosphere is like sitting in the dining room of a Greek family home, with wonderful smells, laughter, children’s voices, and people enjoying the music. It is a place where you can sit at your table for however long you want, no rushing your meal. The wait staff, which can include the couple who own it, are super friendly and accommodating. 

Hubby and I we there last Friday for a late lunch. It is like visiting with friends. The owners David and Kaitlyn are hands on, cooking, serving, and going out of their way to  make the best dining experience possible. Their toddler son, was asleep in his playpen while his pregnant mom cooked – this is the way it goes in this family oriented place. She is due in June.

Kaitlyn had told me, whenever I came in, to ask if they had mussels, which I did. I was thrilled to hear an affirmative response! Yep, I ordered them in red sauce, along with a glass of a dry Greek (Skouras Saint George) red wine. Perfect!!

The lovely Rebecca was an attentive and friendly server. She enjoyed how much we loved our food, which feels wonderful to a customer.

Hubby had the Gyro Platter, always a favorite, for his meal. We started off with the hummus (so good) and warm pita bread, cheese and olives. They don’t scrimp on the portions so I had to go easy to make room for my mussels.  

We dug in and had a wonderful and extremely filling meal. I highly recommend the honey yogurt cake😋. It was my mother’s favorite. A side note, they have very fresh and wonderful vegan/vegetarian options as well.

This place is worth making a special stop in Catalina. Check out their website to see a menu, and don’t blame me if you get hungry.  https://itsgreektomecatalina.com/

Cheers!

-N

(no compensation was received for post)

Memphis, Yeah I’ve Been There😎 part 2

Memphis…music, people, food, music. It is a remarkable place. Yes the Mississippi River is muddy, broad, and moves forcefully past this amazing city.

But it is the inside of the town. The guts, the brain, the voice of a place filled with the passage of people and time that grabs you. I really dug it.

The sidewalks were well worn. The stores and club fronts showed the appearance of years of bodies leaning against them to get out of the heat or rain and watch humanity pass by. Beale Street had the character and style of an old railroad car with a fresh coat of paint. While we were there part of the street was cordoned off for a mass of bikers, a bikers meet and greet if you will. 

There were dozens of bikes, with riders milling around, laughing, drinking, smoking, and calling out to people passing by. It was friendly and fun.

I was raised by a man who loved motorcycles, and when I see one, especially a Harley, I am warmed by memories of riding with my dad. I wanted to get right down in the middle of them. 😍

Beale St is full of music.

Passing clubs, pubs, and bars the music pours out, drenching the sidewalk with jazz, blues, rock, and country. The first three are the ones I wanted to hear. I craved sittingt near the stage listening to live musicians give it their all. We popped into several establishments on our way to the place I wanted to be.

BB Kings House of Blues. Yeah dog! I did that. That’s me and BB Kings guitar. The food was good, we took our time, and then Corey Osborn and his band took the stage. It was a religious experience.

Corey was a teenage prodigal guitarist when BB King discovered him. We sat through two or three hours of food and music. Hubby and I were loving it. We met him and his band, bought a CD and had it autographed by them all. Looking back it was a special moment in time because only a few years later Corey was killed in a car accident. It’s hard to find his music now. That CD is really special.

Elvis was there too, in music, and memorabilia.

Even a musical note on the sidewalk bears his name. We left BB Kings and walked around in the evening, lots of lights shining and people milling around, such atmosphere in this city by the Mississippi River.

We asked for a random guy to take our picture together, he laughed and told hubby to cozy up to that woman!

He did and it was a wonderful memory of the park across the street from the House of Blues.

I would love to go back and spend more time there. The food, music, and history of this city is compelling, exciting, and covers you in mood. That mood is up to you.

 

Cheers!

-N

 

No cure for travel bug

I was born into a military family. When I was six months old my father was transferred from Harlingen, Texas to Yuma, Arizona. This began a life of travel for our family, thanks to the US Air Force. It was all I knew and I adapted well to this transient lifestyle. I made easy but not lasting friendships, and I looked forward to the next assignment my father was given.

By the time I started high school in Tucson I had lived in Texas, Florida, Georgia, Arizona, Japan and the Philippines. In 1971 my father retired at Davis-Monthan  AFB in Tucson.

I was not happy about it. My sisters felt very different than I.

2There were so many places I wanted to see, but my dad was done. His retirement after 20+ years was what he wanted. Before his service in the Air Force he had spent active duty in the Navy then post WWII in Navy reserves as a very young man. So to him his military career was completed.

However, I had acquired an incurable case of travel bug.

I love going someplace I have never been, finding my way around, and fitting into life in that locale. Becoming acquainted with the locals who give you tips on the best places to eat, shop, and relax is enlightening and empowering as a traveler. Regularly I get what I think is a sort of travel depression from longing for the sights and sounds of a distant place.

My dilemma is the disposable cash to fulfill these desires.

So I study photos, history and literature, immersing my mind in what is still left to discover about places like Istanbul, Edinburgh or Budapest. Amazing as it may seem I’ve never been to New York City and count on it, that it’s on my bucket list. I would love to travel from Tuscany to Sicily trying local wines and food. I want to hike the Appalachian trail, spending the days finding the secrets of the mountains. I would love to sit at a bistro in Paris within sight of the Eiffel Tower, watching humanity pass by. Diving in the Florida Keys or the Red Sea, walking a forest of Blue Bells in Kent, waiting for Civil War ghosts at Gettysburg and riding the train from Tokyo to Misawa in Japan. You get the drift.

Desiring the unknown, compelled by different culture and language, finding out what I need to collect for understanding from the next stop and pushing myself toward discovery, I dream of skies, stars, food, faces, and an understanding that my journey will ultimately bestow on me is thrilling.

Immersing yourself in a new environment and culture is the best way to accept the differences and similarities in all of us.

Cheers!

-N

(P.S. My father was movie star handsome!)

 

 

I want humans to find me

I have been blogging for a while at blogspot and here at wordpress. My ideas and inspirations have been a variety of things that come to me in big splotches of thought. I was reading a post on Facebook that was talking about what would be the highlights of my life story.

Shit!@! I don’t have highlight’s of my life story. Not something I think anyone would want to know.

Ok, my dad was in the Air Force and my family lived in lots of places in the US as well as Japan and the Philippines. When he decided to retire I was kind of pissed because there were tons of places we hadn’t been to and he seemed to think he was done with his military career. What!! We hadn’t been to Europe and I really wanted to go to Greece and Italy.

Watching food and travel shows make me jealous.  I know I would be a great host on one of those shows.  Let me go from northern Italy to the Mediterranean eating local cuisines and drinking wine while taking along the viewers on an intimate visit and it would be a blast. Sitting in a provincial kitchen or a picnic by the sea sharing olives and cheese while locals tell stories about they way their families established themselves in the area is enchanting and fulfilling.

I want to wander slowly through the bluebell fields of Kent, stroll the tumultuous shore line of Wales, drink the best cappuccino at an alfresco cafe in Paris, let the sun toast me while I eat olives and drink orzo in Greece, and drinking wine and eating my fill of Parmesano Reggiano in Tuscany.

I can’t even tell you of all the other places I want to experience around the world.

But first and more importantly I have the absolutely coolest kids in the entire world.

My daughter, Melissa, is amazingly brilliant. She is sophisticated and cultured with an understanding of the whimsy of humans and their eccentricities. She went from being an expert in the retail culture, to immersing herself into the high end real estate of Beverly Hills to becoming a teacher and mentor for high school and middle school students. She is over the top so cool. Her students are in awe of her and she is a wonderful friend. I take no credit for the outstanding human being she is. Her genius is unique.

Then there is my son, Aaron. When God decided to make a template for a human with a heart of gold and a musical gift that those in the music industry would covet, he made my son. He is a person who makes you feel special and important. He is affectionate and compelling. He is overwhelmingly talented. Oh and my God can he sing! His voice is soothing, perfect and comforting. I love having him hug me and tell me he loves me. He married a woman who encourages him to be the best he can be and she is his perfect match.

I want to live in a place near water. I would prefer the ocean, salt water and I are simpatico. I also could handle a lake I could float around on. How the hell do I make that happen? Give me a place filled with every green in the world and water, with incense burning and candles lit, a kitchen I can cook anything I want in and a filled wine cabinet.  Give me prisms and crystals, fairies and dogs, my husband who loves me more than I deserve and I can keep going.

I would love for my readers to encourage others to follow my blog.  I would love to have my blog start trending!! Yes, I want to be trending. Let’s make it happen.

-N