Texas menu highlights.

Visited home this weekend.

Highlights from the menu follow.

Upon arriving at 11:30 PM my mother served me freshly chilled poached salmon with pickled beets and homemade tartar sauce with herbs grown in her yard in the space in her backyard which she has converted into a private entertaining space, as the mimosas were in full bloom. Perfect light menu for a late-night arrival, complete with tryptophane to put me right to sleep.

The following day, for breakfast, she fed me a homemade lemon poppyseed cake with strawberry preserves made by her very talented -- and very dedicated canner of a freind who's currently recovering from a mastectomy.

For lunch, we visited a *very* fine Italian restaurant -- new -- which features its own fresh-made mozarrella each and every day. The young woman who served us, winds up, had sung as a child in the "rainbow choir" I was part of, which my mother directed -- she's never waited tables before, but you see, since she's now taking care of her ailing father, she needs a good-paying job with flexible hours, despite having a degree.

I was glad to make her acquaintance once again, as I never thought I might *ever* be glad to ever see anyone again from my youth in the now utterly bigoted Presbyterian Church, U.S.A. The creme brulee at this place was absolutely, without question, worthy of *any* restaurant with a Michelin star. Thus, and sometimes only thus, are longstanding wounds healed.

The following day we had a nice lunch at what I'd now easily call El Paso's "second best" Italian restaurant. How far, indeed, El Paso has come since the days of "Cappetto's" and "Via Napoli", which all tasted the same! I count this place as "second best" only because they seemed so utterly fixated on the details of presentation that all other considerations tended to go, more or less, by the wayside. Of course, they might yet considerably improve, and certainly, their attention to detail is admirable. Their asparagus tips were utterly second to none. And the veal -- yes, veal -- I would call it "en roulade" -- but being an Italian restaurant, I think it wasn't that, exactly -- was to *die* for. Yes, the baby calf died for art. But the attention to detail rather flagged, if only a bit, in some other particulars. Still, I wholeheartedly appplaud their aspirations and wish them none but the best.

Then finally we ate at Sam's -- the new Chinese restaurant. They clearly have excellent staff in the kitchen -- their food is second to none -- but they clearly suffer from scrimping on the front end of the house. It's clear the waitstaff are overworked, even as they desperately *want* to please you. At the same time, though, the owner of the place makes the rounds, himself, repeatedly, so I *don't* seriously think he means ill -- I think he merely means to cut costs wherever he thinks that he can. I, personally, think he might do quite well to double his waitstaff. It would hardly cut into his bottom line, and could only improve their tips, as well as customer loyalty.

But that's one of the quandries facing small restauranteurs in marginal markets.