Frying Pan

Dina commands the Cafè Seville bar which is where I sit, watch, and learn on a Saturday night just off the A1A in Ft. Lauderdale. Arriving, I'm puzzled by meters along one side of the parking aisle within the shopping strip but not on the other. I opt for the free. 

Mike, the maître d', is there to welcome all with a "where ya from?" He Pittsburgh, me Carmel, leading to his tale of the now closed Keystone Grill in Indy during the Colts' Pagano era. See, Mike is a friend of former Colt defensive tackle Tony 'The Goose' Siragusa.  Après game, Goose weekly would command the Grill tantalizing players and spouses with invites to his secluded estate pool in Carmel. As seasons wore on only players were invited. Not that women were not participants, just the wrong ones. Corralled Colts learned to stop swimming. 

Mike is soon off to other customers. I order the Paella, which Dina pairs with a Torres Celeste Crianza from northern Spain. It has a spicy chocolaty oak edge.  

Paella combines fish, shrimp, scallops, calamaris, mussels, clams, boneless chunks of chicken, chorizo, and pork with Spanish saffron rice. It is named from the wide, shallow pan used to cook the dish on an open fire. ¡Qué milgaro! What a miracle!

Cafè Seville is the sort of place where staff notices - an orchestrated on-time whisking in of plated meals and beverages and out again of emptied vessels.  Waiters signal to the bar for a complicate array of customer beverages. Dina is precise and generous in her pours.  Two bar backs porter bottles, polish glasses, and prepare garnishes under Dina's correcting eye.

One waiter slips behind the bar as Dina is asked to present herself for compliments from a repeat customer. He announces as he decants a glass of wine that he is out of his bounds. Dina accepts this compliment as she returns.  She falls in and out of conversation with others at the bar all the time mixing and pouring, focused and watchful. One couple admires the hand painted tiles surrounding the back bar while recounting the tawdry legend of their failed accountant. A gaggle of embellished women jangling their jewelry lament their daughters.

The cafè security guard with puppy dog eyes comes to exalt Dina's prowess. She demurely accepts while shaking yet another martini to strain into a chilled coupe.

Not wanting to stare, I turn my attention to a televised little league championship game. Puffy near-teens not nearly as good at the game as their cheering mom's believe them to be. 

The night wanes. I settle up. Outside, I realize Cafè Seville is next door to the LaBare Ultimate Ladies Club. I gain a dim understanding of why the parking meters are there.  As I pull away a thin blonde knocks on my window. I look away. She knocks again and says: "Hey, you may want to turn on your lights." I comply.

May I draw near?

May I draw near?  Welcome and step into my night. Just after dusk in French Quarter Charleston where the Ashley and Cooper rivers join and flow past Southern tradition into the Atlantic  So much history here as seen in the corbels, cornices, and iron balcony that decorates the recreated pink stucco Mills House, my quarters along Meeting Street. It bustles with a wedding party celebrating in the Best Friends Lounge and on the pool deck even as other guests spill out to low country restaurants, galleries, clotheries, and, of course, history.

This evening I decided on 167 Raw Oyster Bar, a cobblestoned zig and zag away.  A short wait outside for my bar seat is aided by a friendly concierge and his recommended tulip of Revelry Poke the Bear Pale Ale.  At the bar a couple, who met on a dating app, adopt me. Once I see the algorithm working as their chemistry’s match, I cheerfully decline their further southern hospitality and turn to the chalkboard listing of oyster selections.  I had no idea: salinity, region, size. I settle on Rhode Island oysters, specifically Island Creek, Watch Hill, Moonstone and Ninigrets. Each is delicious straight up or anointed in a curry infused oil.

I am intrigued by an entree named Shrimp Toast. I order it. It is wonderful. Shrimp nestled in a flavorful tomato reduction mounded on an absorbant slice of pumpernickel. I vow to recreate it once home.  Toward the end of my dining I am again embraced by a young couple. These southerners. We chat and laugh and then depart. Until this weekend I had grown weary of urban haunts. Too familiar. Too geometric. My eyes needed new horizons. Yet, even as I avoided  the plentiful horse drawn carriage tours, I fell in love again with the charm of this town.

Night leads to day.  Holy Smokes is this town's bike share. So, all day today on a powder-green basketed bike I pedaled the by ways of this low country kingdom inhaling hints of brackish fresh water and taking rest from time to time in brick walled gardens lined in live oaks.