The Fourth Be With You

I have to finish this fast because it’s the Fourth of July and I’ve got to call my niece, Olivia, in Colorado and my sin-in-law in LA to wish them happy birthday (they are both Yankee Doodle Dandies). Then I leave for the airport to exchange my three weeks out of the 100 to 118 degree heat for 100 to 118% humidity in New York, after a stop in Seattle to spend my brother’s 75^th birthday with him. The two of us are the same age for two weeks every year, having been born 11 months apart.

Before I leave I have to tell you about cilantro. On Friday night I went to see my dear friends, Jerry and Ginny, and their wonderful new house.  They took me to El Encanto Dos, a large picturesque Mexican restaurant not far away. I had been to the first El Encanto in the center of Cave Creek, AZ many times.

When the very good waitress came to take our order, Jerry asked if what he was ordering had cilantro in it. Truth is that almost everything made in a good Mexican restaurant has cilantro.  He ordered accordingly.

When my Tortilla Soup arrived, Ginny took a taste and we both wanted Jerry to taste it, but of course, we had to determine if it had cilantro. The waitress said she would find out, but she was busy and the soup was losing its heat. The manager stopped by to ask how everything was. During a brief discussion we told him we were waiting to find out if Jerry could taste the soup until we found out about cilantro. David, from Missouri, excused himself and returned in a minute to say he had spoken with the chef who was on and he didn’t know if the soup had cilantro because the other chef made it. David had called the other chef and wasn’t able to reach him, but he assumed the soup had cilantro because just about everything on the menu does.

I was most impressed that the waitress and now the manager went to such lengths to answer Jerry’s question and commented to David-the-Manager that I had never witnessed such service in any restaurant.

I was about to suggest that he call the Food and Drug Administration, but remembered the Federal Government was taking plenty of time off since Monday was the Fourth of July.

Speaking of the Forth, I leave you with one question. Why would the State of Arizona allow the sales of fireworks, but have a law against setting them off?