Sauced In New York Sometimes the food is in the sauce, sometimes we are
Note to self: Never start thinking you are too cool.
After declaring my utter joy at driving Monster Jeep, the swing up and into the driver’s seat, the rumble to life, and the ever so distinctive entrance into traffic, I started to notice that shifting was becoming increasingly difficult. “Turn the car off, and it will slide right into gear,” advised Stephen. That works if you are stopped at an intersection with [hopefully] a long light, but when you are in moving traffic, the idea of flipping the key to off does not seem the best of options.
Of course, there was a teenaged driver who can will be blamed.
One of the few positives of surviving life with teenagers is that you can, yes, blame just about everything on them. Kind of like one of the few positives of moving into middle-aged years as a female is that you can travel throughout Europe without being bothered by men. I maybe should search for a better word than “positives”.
So the Jeep, back to the Jeep. She is now at the shop, and she may well need a new clutch, after one was just put in less than a year ago. (Insert blame on teen driver.)
We dropped the Jeep off at the shop Thursday after work, leaving the keys in the lock box. Stephen followed me over in the truck, and we went to grab a quick dinner. We landed at Cafe Calabria on Western Avenue. (Click here for their website.) In Albany Italian dining, and in the Ziamandanis family in particular, you play the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon game, but instead substitute out celebrity for celebrity: Cosimo’s for Kevin Bacon. Anyone who is anyone in Italian dining is somehow related to Cosimo’s on Western Avenue, back in the 60s and 70s.
After establishing sufficient pedigree both in our waitress and in the owners in the kitchen, Stephen ordered linguini with clam sauce, the dish he uses to evaluate Italian joints, and the dish he most clearly and dearly remembers from Cosimo’s. Dinner was excellent and left overs were packed for Dennis at home. We paid and went to leave.
Rrrrr, rrrrr, rrrr, uh.
Rrrr, rrrr, uh.
The truck wouldn’t start.
This is how you go from cool to idiot in the period of 1 1/2 hours.
Mike, the co-owner, gave us a ride home. Their website says “when you eat with us, you’re eating with family.”
Even the ones that need a lift home after dinner service!
