Citrus In The Snow

Yesterday was supposed to be a snow day. We waited all morning, but nothing came of it except gray skies. We waited through the noon hour and again nothing but gray skies. At 1:30, my man (we shall call him Tostagielli or T for short) wanted to know what we should do about lunch. We decided on another of our favorite things to do - walk about 20 minutes to Southern Village, a mixed use neighborhood with upscale homes, townhouses, condos, a Weaver Street Food Market/Coop, the Lumina movie theater and decent restaurants. It's the closest place for a walk when you'd like food to be involved.

As we set out, the rains came. Not snow, but gray skies and rain. And a cold rain it was. But we were bundled up in yellow rain gear, underneath of which I wore this really great brown wool sweater my friend Storchy gave me the night before - no need to be totally uncool in the rain. A nice sweater made me feel cozy and T did say it "became" me. Of course wool is not the best rain wear since after a while it does actually start to smell like a wet dog or an old lady, but that is for a blog on another subject.

Now, when we walk to Southern Village, we don't actually go the way that takes 20 minutes since I have a way of trying to shave off time between when I start thinking about food and actually wanting to eat. And we like adventure. So, we head up the street, cross the road and enter the parking lot of the Gray Culbreth Middle school. As we head around the back of the school to the woods where at least 4 trails have been worn into the expanse of trees and rocks and today what was a lot of mud, trails no doubt left by excited middle-schoolers on their way to another exciting day of puberty, we locate the steepest of trails and descend, in the rain, to lunch.

Walking through the hilly neighborhood that has grown on me over the years, we talked about many things, as we always do on our walks. And then after only 10 minutes or so of walking and talking, we were at Citrus, a really attractive breakfast/brunch/lunch establishment that looks just like one of the houses surrounding it. You know it's a restaurant because there is a newspaper dispenser by the door. Now Citrus is one of those places I always think about when I say, "now why don't we come here more often?" It really is nice. However in the year or so it's been open I've been there only three times. Once with family, once with a friend instead of going to a yoga class and once with T. The other restaurants in Southern Village have seen me at least a half dozen times, even the ones I don't like all that much. I suspect it's because when I really think of going out to eat, it's later in the evening and Citrus is only open until 3pm, something that makes me very sad because I'd love to go there at night, have some wine and enjoy the surroundings.

Citrus. Colorful decor, lots of windows to watch the rain, a tasteful bar and a creative menu. Even the plates are colorful, the color of oranges, limes and lemons. Imagine that. Makes your mouth water before you even see the food. The place was really full of people, too, which I always think is a great sign when it's 2 in the afternoon and raining.

I got an Asian salad with beef and crispy noodles, radishes, cucumbers and a tangy Asian slaw style dressing and Tostagielli got a Salmon hasher, which was smoked salmon, fresh salmon, potatoes, onions and peppers and a couple eggs. The waiter asked if he wanted an "English muffin or something" to go with it and while we both thought that was really nice, he did forget to bring it. But he was nice and the fact that we almost forgot to pay before leaving made everything even out. The food was definitely good, although I thought the dressing on my salad could have packed a bigger punch to balance with the beef and T remarked his was a little salty, but when you're getting smoked salmon and capers in large quantities, the salt is a little hard to avoid.

So we're sitting there watching the rain and it starts to get heavier. We talked about family, about old journal entries from middle school years, and had tea and wine. We talked about the amazing speech I heard on Martin Luther King, Jr. by Dr. Julianne Malveaux, the President of Bennett College for Women. We sat there in comfort for more than an hour and slowly, definitely very slowly, the rain turned to a sticky, heavy snow. At that moment, nothing could have been more perfect.