Tasty Food Wednesday...

I woke up to a sunny day off, yesterday. Considering the strange weather we have been having lately, a trip down to the beach for lunch was high on my to-do list. I used to live in Abbotsford, high up on a hill. My backyard faced North, and NEVER did I feel like sitting back there. My mom and I moved to Abbotsford in 1976. More like my father dropped us off there and said that he would be joining us soon. He never did. We managed. She drank a bit. I learned to do everything you have to do when you are stuck in a strange little town with a mother that drinks a bit. Cooking, sewing, school, boys...Looking back now, I can't fathom why I stayed there so long. The P-Man and I moved to White Rock in 2001, just after my mom died. It has been almost 10 years now, and I still can't get over the ocean, and the smell of this place. I kind of feel like I moved to California. On days like yesterday and today, I can't sit inside. It's like I'm making up for the 20 or so years I lived with a North facing backyard.
I went to Slainte by the Pier for lunch. It was so good...my bad lunch the day before, just drifted away on the warm spring breeze. I got the last small table on the patio, and ordered a glass of wine and opened my magazine. ( FROM DECEMBER 2009!)
As I read about cute ideas to decorate your trendy flat in London for the Holidays...I decided to have the Sea Side Caesar Salad with grilled prawns. What arrived was a beautiful white plate piled high with crisp Romaine lettuce dressed with a creamy sharp dressing smelling and tasting of lemon and garlic and anchovies. Sitting proudly on top were 4 fat plump lightly grilled prawns with cute little salmon coloured tails. Another great thing about this salad is the croutons. They are SOFT. I believe they use real bread...not old stale bread. They spread it with a bit of garlic and a bit of pesto, and grill it until it is slightly charred. Then they chop it into nice sized chunks, and lovingly mix it into the salad. Crispy lettuce, with a tangy dressing mixed with soft bread, lightly toasted is a dynamite combination. This salad is delicious. Lick your plate kind of delicious! The prawns are like the icing on the cake. Slightly smoky from the grill, but with a sweetness that makes the whole plate into something of a treat! I don't normally order Caesar salad in a restaurant. Weight Watchers frowns on any menu item that contains the words' creamy dressing'. I also think I have been traumatized by years of eating the Caesar salads at Earls. A most horrible concoction of limp bagged lettuce, with the hardest, stalest croutons, smothered in a gloppy/mayonnaisy dressing that had so much garlic in it, that it killed the flavour of anything else I put into my mouth for days! If you too have been the victim of a BAD Caesar salad...The Sea Side Caesar at Slainte will heal you... I had 2 glasses of wine, and the salad and spent only $30.00. The sun was FREE! You should go...

My little friend in the photo is perched upon some of the best bagels in the whole world...Until next time...