Savoring the Sweetness

I am still savoring the sweetness of Friday evening. Bennie and I drove down to Albuquerque to celebrate Flan's 21st with the kids. For starters, Oakley showed up in an elegant, double-breasted pinstripe suit, which he wore with a Kennedy-era narrow tie--a simple black affair, solid save for a single understated green polygon. (Bennie purchased the tie at a San Francisco thrift shop in the Eighties, and a couple of years ago, he passed it on to Oaks. Oaks got the suit at Buffalo Exchange in Albuquerque. Yes, thrift and chic do go together.) The tie was held together by a Masonic tie tac which belonged to my dad. The kid has style!

Flannery was lovely in a tapered long gray skirt and a white low-cut knit top, layered with a black lambswool cardigan with small white buttons. She wore classic black pumps and her recently acquired faux diamond hypoallergenic studs (from our ear-piercing adventure) and a choker that sparkled in the light of her birthday candles. Flannery's unique glamor combines the classic and the artful and typifies her fashion sense as well as her life.

We had a delectable northern Italian feast at Scalo. I had quail for the first time, and had Flannery not kept reminding me of those sweet little crested birds that frequent our property, I would have been in gustatory paradise. Seriously, it was a succulent treat--quite rich--the smallness of the species is a good thing when it comes to feasting. The golden quail was nestled in the center of a graceful arrangement of winter squash tortelloni. I never would have anticipated that squash could prove so decadent-tasting, but once that subtly sweet vegetable is encased in freshly made pasta dough, the result is dessert-like. Not terra-misu-dessert-like, but dessert-like nonetheless. We had terra misu too, and a cheese plate with currant jam, sliced pears, and strawberries. Oh well, a 21st birthday is a momentous occasion. To the vomitorium, shall we? Make room for more! ("More" would be a BIG cake at Flan's place.)

Flannery enjoyed her first legal cocktail, a pear gimlet. I tasted it and it was sublime. The real sublimity, though, was being in the company of my family. Dinner conversation sparkles all the more with each passing year. To see each of our children coming into their own as uniquely spirited individuals is sweeter and subtler than winter squash.