Oh My Sagra

Just before noon today, having a lunch meeting cancelled at the last minute, I found myself with an unexpected block of time. If I'd had more notice, I'd have figured out a way to get back home to have lunch with Tracy and the kids, or figured out some way to use the time to cross one more thing off the to do list. But it was lunch time, and I was hungry, and there really wasn't a lot of space to come up with a new plan. I'd seen that Sagra, the little Italian place down the street from my office had a specials board out front, so I decided to give it a try.

Oh my. This is a brilliant place.

Sagra is in the same old house where Mars used to be; a little off the beaten path on San Antonio street between 16th and 17th, on the westernmost edge of downtown. Walk up onto the big front porch and in the glass-paned front door, and you get enveloped in the warmth. There are butter yellow walls with old wood floors, black chairs, and white table cloths. To the right is the open kitchen, anchored by a wood-fired brick oven. Large windows cover the outside walls, and let in light filtered and reflected from the buildings to the east.

My waiter expertly ticked off the litany of specials, which I wish I could remember. Many featured Boggy Creek farms (about the best local organics you can get here); all were innovative. I opted for the pizza special: spinach, olive, roasted garlic, artichokes, and pepperoni.

To compare this to Tallahassee Pizza is to compare a sunny day to the human genome: They are completely different things. The crust was hand formed into a loose circle, with a thin, light texture that veered almost to flaky around the edge. Pepperoni were hand cut and had a cured flavor that reminded me a little of prociutto. There were large clumps of flavorful spinach, silky roasted garlic, and mild black olives. I didn't even realize these olives existed: they had the texture and thickness of kalamatas, but there was none of the bite, perfectly mated to the rest of the pizza. In Italian tradition, there was no sauce outside of a hint of flavorful olive oil. The flavors all came together with a blend of fontina and mozarella in this flash of rich, deep, flavor. It was a little overwhelming, and I found myself completely full halfway through.

Every last bit of this place clicked. The service, the spirit, the food, the smell, the people. It was 30 minutes out of the middle of my day, and it was beautiful.

Closed: Fusion Cafe and a Decent Avocado

I've been getting a lot of really bad avocados recently.

A good avocado is a thing of beauty, geode-like in the contrast between inside and outside; between butter and lizard-skin. The texture of a good avocado, matte and silky, just invites you to slice, to split it into smooth-sided little slivers or cubes or crescents.

And then there is the bad avocado: brown streaks, goopy bits, rough chunky edges and stringy filaments threaded through.

Twice in the last two weeks, I've been served inedible avocado. Once at the Doral Marriott in Miami, and once at the Bonefish Grill up here in Tally. And my question: What gives? I mean, it'd be one thing if they served the thing whole, skin side out, fruit still a mystery, but this is prepped food with the evidence splayed out for the world to see. It got me thinking that maybe the delineation between a kitchen that cares and one that does not is the avocado. If the prep guy, seeing the oozy, icky brown bits, sends it on; if the chef drops it on a salad, or atop a chicken sandwich; if the room service guy picks it up and brings it to your room; and if none of them do anything to stop the horror, something is amiss. Bad avocado = bad kitchen.

I also had one good avocado, at Fusion Cafe in Tallahasee. Trendy and quiet, with a mostly-black, concrete-floor and square-plates metro aesthetic, Fusion does a good job balancing an upscale feel with a cheap, funky menu. They do a nice gumbo - thick and rich, if a little under spiced. Salads are excellent, with good field greens and house-made dressings. They have good crab cakes, they do a flashy spinach lasagna, they have hamburgers. The Cobb Salad I got this week, containing the aforementioned avacado, was excellent - each element distinct and crisp, avocado lush, bacon crispy, balsamic subtle and sweet. The impressive thing about this place, though no individual item rises to the level of epiphany, is that they do everything well. This is a competent restaurant with a creative bent and decent service. I wish they'd managed a little more oomph into the dishes - a little more spice, a little more creativity, a little more precision, but those wishes don't change the fact that this is a place that looks, feels and tastes well above the norm.

Peeps arrive!

Bang bang shrimp at Bonefish. Artichoke Pizza at The Loop. A blueberry muffin top at Atlanta Bread Company. This has been a seriously dull food week here in Tally. But earlier today, while strolling through the local CVS, I spotted them. Five beautiful, marshmallowy, sugar coated, peeps. As much as I wanted to bring them back to my desk to savor for the remainder of the afternoon, they didn't make it past the car ride back to the office.

Every other childhood treat I once loved has failed to hold up to its memory. I used to crave Nestle Crunch, Twinkies, Ding Dongs, McDonalds Apple Pies, Soft Batch Cookies. One by one, I've tried them again in my adult life, and winced in pain at the sheer awfulness. These things are off the list, for good.

But Peeps made it. I love the rough feel of the sugar on my tongue combined with the soft give of the marshmallow. I love that they look almost random - like someone switched on the marshmallow spewing machine and said - "hey, that thing looks like a chick!" I love the unadulterated sweetness. I love their little brown dot eyes. I love the size - just bigger than a bite, but not so big that the pleasure fades before you're through.

This isn't to say there's not limits; there is such a thing as getting over-Peeped. Two years ago, when word of my predilection was leaked to my clients here, I started to get mystery boxes delivered to my cube in Tallahassee. I'd walk in on Monday afternoon to find a small stack of Peeps Christmas trees, Pumpkins, bunnies. And I found that when faced with a mountain of Peeps it's hard not to just see them as a 5 pound bag of sugar.

But I took this year off - save for a couple of quick nibbles at Christmas - and the magic is restored. The first box of Peeps, like a crocus poking its head up from beneath the melting snow, like the green warm breeze, like a birdsong - proof that Spring is here.