July 16th - Dely, Gail, and Jenn Penn

Every year, Mike and I get the crazy notion that having a yard sale in the middle of Cafe Davis is a good idea. Today was that day. I was up at the crack of dawn, driving around putting up the yard sale signs that I stayed up half the night making. Then I sat outside in the muggy heat, peddling my wares. We didn't have any big items - really only junk - and yet, people bought it. Amazing.

The evening's guests were Dely Kotlan, Gail Anthony, and Jennifer Pennington. I went to high school with Dely and Jenn, and Dely and Gail live in lovey-dovey bliss in nearby Decatur. Interestingly enough, Dely and Gail attended Cafe Davis 2003 on their first date, where I had too much wine and started divulging secrets about Dely that I'm sure she didn't want divulged on a first date. I couldn't have been too bad, though, because Gail stuck around, and now they are remodeling their kitchen. Cafe Davis is going to be at their house next year (ha ha). Jenn lives in the Augusta-area where she is a real estate agent, and a hobnobber of professional golfers. She has Jack Nicklaus's autograph, so she's got that going for her (forgive the cheesy placement of the Caddyshack reference!).

The menu that night was mostly vegetarian Mexican, with Mexican pasta salad; soft vegetable tacos; and grilled vegetable tostadas with two salsas, one tomato-chili based, and the other tomatillo. I also made tortilla chips again, and intended to make guacamole but I couldn't find any ripe avocados anywhere. Oh well. The beverage of the evening was Negra Modelo, but I also bought Negra Especial for the non-dark beer drinkers. Dessert was abundant! Dely and Gail brought a blackberry cobbler and vanilla ice cream, while Jenn supplied us with 12 slices of strawberry amaretto cake and chocolate mousse cake. Fantastic!

What else is there to tell? The plumber came in the middle of cooking to fix a leaking pipe. Up until this point in Cafe Davis, we had a Rubbermaid tub in the basement for the drainage pipe from the kitchen sink to leak into. Every 20 minutes or so, Mike had to dump it out the back door of the basement - very inconvenient. Having the water turned off for an hour or so in the middle of cooking was also a hassle, but I managed to get the food on the table relatively close to on time.

After dinner we played three games of Scene It!, with the home team (me and Mike) versus the away team (Gail, Dely, and Jenn). The away team swept the home team - I think Jenn has Scene It! at home and has memorized all of the questions. That's the only possible explanation for being able to beat us that resolutely! In all seriousness, though, we had a good time as usual, and I hope that these Cafe Davis regulars keep coming back on the same night for years to come (oh, we missed Melanie, by the way... but she was off getting ready to get married or something!)