One more wonderful meal!

Why do I write about food? Because I love great food and vacations are times to investigate new restaurants and menus.

A few nights ago some friends and I dined at Cafe Edwige in Provincetown: an upstairs venue with al fresco seating on a small porch and an inside dining room of about 15 tables. Edwige is also open for breakfast, but not for lunch.

The salad I ordered was built on arugula and completed with fennel, endive, toasted pine nuts and goat cheese and four quarters of a lightly seasoned grilled portobello mushroom arranged like compass points around the plate. The dressing was a tasty but mild banyuls vinaigrette and the plate was crowned with a crouton with a generous dollop of tapenade. I especially enjoyed the goat cheese and wished there might have been a little more. The tapenade was good but I'm spoiled by the version offered with the bread basket at Acton's Number 5 Strawberry Hill.

Not to be outdone, the bread basket at Edwige was very nice: a mix of miniature zucchini muffins (warm and moist) and slices of foccacia. The two bread offerings were palate pleasers even without the dipping oil served on the side.

But the entree was the star of the evening: a Brazilian seafood moqueca. This dish is at least 300 years old and one taste will explain its longevity. This rendition was a stew based in coconut milk and dende oil and the ingredients included halibut, shrimp and scallops, all cooked in small cast iron skillets in which the meal was served, seated on a plate to protect the table and the diner. A side dish of basamati rice was perfect for spooning into the coconut milk and accompanying the seafood. Before ordering we asked our excellent server if the moqueca was spicy. He told us it "had some heat, but the spice did not define the dish" - a perfect answer and the proof was in the skillet. The stew was as mild as one would expect coconut milk to be - but that heat was there both in temperature and spice. The seafood absorbed but wasn't overwhelmed by the milky base: altogether as delicioius as it was different in taste and presentation (you have to love eating out of the pan!). Should you ever find yourself at this restaurant, ignore the other entrees and order this, their signature dish.

Believe it or not, I passed on dessert and enjoyed some port (Taylor Fladgate 20). However, two of my friends offered me a taste of their "seasonal berry shortcake" which turned out to be large, fresh, sweet blueberries generously poured over a flaky biscuit with a mantle of whipped cream. Next time, I'm skipping the port and ordering dessert.

Well, tomorrow is my last full day of vacation and I'm planning on returning to The Patio for a farewell caprese panini - bon aappetito!

A day at the beach

Last summer I shared in my bulletin letter some observations about people at the beach. Here are two short vignettes of the same kind from this afternoon…

A boy and his father approach the spot they’ll stake out as their territory on the shore. As dad spreads the blanket and other beach equipment, his 6-year-old stands, hands on hips, facing the water and announces, “Dad, we are going to play in the OCEAN!” Dad looks up from his chores and joins in, “Yes – We – Are!”

They head towards the water, hand in hand, and I wonder at the boy’s joy and the dad’s love for his son and the gift the beach has just offered them, and they each other...

Not far away from my own piece of beach, a mom, dad and daughter are enjoying the shade of a large orange sherbet umbrella. Mom’s in one of those chairs with stubby legs, just right for the sand. Dad and daughter are on the family blanket. The little girl, 8 or 9 years old, asks her father, “Dad, are you going in the water?” “No,” says dad, “I’m just gonna hang out here with you.”

A smile as broad as the shoreline breaks on the girl’s face as she settles into her father’s company and he into hers...

Years from now neither the boy nor the girl may remember these exchanges on a sunny, long gone August afternoon. Still, such moments of joy and contentment will have made an invisible impression on young hearts, an imprint of a time when, for a moment, all seemed right with the world.

May no storm or tide erase what was written in the sand at Herring Cove this afternoon...