We helped my dad clean out his gutters, patch a few holes in his roof and bring down a broken limb in a maple tree out in front of their house. I climbed a ladder with a running chain saw in order to accomplish that last one, something I would rather not do again. We finished around dinner time and my father suggested a few places we could go to eat. We chose Nick’s Sea Breeze Inn. It is one of our favorite places mostly because Nick is such a great host. He always greets my dad with a long Leeeeeeeooooooo.
Nick’s location is stellar, the end of a dead end road, in the summer that is when the bay bridge is closed, just down the road from the oldest miniature golf course in the county and right across the street from a hundred year old amusement park, the parking lot has a sensational view of the Lake Ontario. Inside Nick has decked the place out with a lifetime’s worth of memorabilia from the days when he managed a nightclub on the heavyweight circuit, Armstrong, Ellington and the great Scott LaFarro who was in Nick’s high school class.
Tonight the four of us went for the buffet dinner and we each filled our plates two times. The pea soup was thick, the salads and antipasto were delicious and the Eggplant Parmigiana was fantastic but this one mystery dish knocked us out. It was sweet and sour with celery and walnuts. Nick told us it was a Sicilian dish called “Caponata,” mainly eggplant with onion, celery, plum tomatoes, vinegar and sugar, pine nuts or walnuts, capers and olives with fresh parsley. He said it is often sold more finely chopped in small jars as a spread for toast or bread. I plan to do my own batch when our eggplant matures.
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