Pizzeria Solario is okay in my book.....

and here's why. It's cheery, comfortable, and TASTY!!!!!! There is outside seating that looks very nice, waiting for cooler weather to give the patio a try.

My friend David recommended the place. I was skeptical, because sometimes his choices are a bit limiting, but he hit the mark with this place. The first time I went, I met David and Lisa. The  6" lunch pizza was offered up as the way to go by David, but I looked at the menu and opted for the Smoked Salmon on flatbread. It is a delightful sandwich, toasted flatbread with smoked salmon, roma tomatoes, arugula, balsamic vinegar and feta. I optioned out of the feta due to lactose problems, but Lisa had the exact same sandwich with the feta and she said it was excellent. I thought it was excellent without it. So there you go. David stayed with the 6" pizza and I have to say it looked mighty appealing, so when David and I met for lunch today, I decided to give the pizza a try.

 It is cooked in a wood burning oven, so it's hard to go wrong there.

There are four choices for the lunch pizza: Margherita, Marinara, Pepperoni, Bianca. Of course, if you are not having the lunch pizza, there is a much wider ranch of toppings. The good thing about the lunch pizza, for $9 you get a great pizza, a salad and a soft drink or tea. I have to tell you not to miss out on their salad. It is mixed greens with the most heavenly vinaigrette. The greens are fresh, downright perky, the dressing is made in house out of roasted garlic, olive oil and lemon. I could drink the stuff, actually took my pizza crust and sopped up some of it. Oh my, how nice.

A quick note about the crust. It is not a thin crust, but not a thick thick crust either. It is well prepared and perfect in its form. The sauce is thick and stands to attention on the crust. I had the pepperoni pizza without cheese, of course. David had cheese on his.

This is David's with cheese.

 He's crazy about the place. I am in agreement.

Back to the Smoked Salmon flatbread sandwich, David told me that the smoked salmon was caught in the pool of water on the patio. If you can catch salmon in Yemen, why not smoked salmon in Houston. You never know.

This is David. Great hair!!!

This might be a great place to go before or after a movie at Edwards or after shopping at Costco. Heck, it's worth a trip, just to enjoy lunch with my friend David on a Sunday.

Check out their Web site
http://pizzeriasolario.com/
Pizzeria Solario
3333 Weslayan #100
Houston, TX 77027

Here is their tag line: If pizza and wine is your religion, Pizzeria Solario is your Sistine Chapel.

Quote of the Day: When the moon hits you eye like a big pizza pie
That's amore
When the world seems to shine like you've had too much wine
That's amore
Bells will ring ting-a-ling-a-ling, ting-a-ling-a-ling
And you'll sing "Vita bella"
lyrics by Jack Brooks.

What to do, what to do, with those pancakes....

..... left over from breakfast. The ones that you made lovingly from buckwheat, egg, butter, ginger, cinnamon. The ones left on the serving plate. Oh what to do with those?

Bag 'em, freeze 'em, then toast 'em. How good is that??

I say, if Pilsbury can do it, so can I!!!

Take your left over pancakes

Cut up some parchment paper

Stack the pancakes between the parchment paper

Put them in a bag

Toss them in the freezer.

When you are feeling like a tasty pancake(s), just grab your bag out of the freezer, take your pancakes and pop them in the toaster. This only works if the pancakes are not the size of Texas. I usually make three to a pan in a 12" cast iron skillet. The parchment paper makes it easy to grab individual pancakes. They tend to stick together other wise.

Quote of the day:

The Garden

By WE Benton

A rose and a ragweed, side by side,

Stood enjoying the sun.

Each of them sharing the selfsame soil,

Neither envied the other one.

Both would be gone and forgotten so soon.

What matter their color or birth?

Together they'd wither and fade and return

Again to the dust of the earth.

Would we could walk in the garden more.

There's something the caretaker knows:

Nature plays no favorites there

Whether ragweed, thistle or rose.

The Restaurant Man views The Colored Man...

in 1952.

The poem "The Colored Man" was included in a collection of poems published in 1952, by my great, great, great uncle W.E. Dad Benton. I never met him, in fact just found out about him in the last few years. I met him through my cousins the Crooks. Their mother Sarah was the sister of my grandfather Stephen. W.E. was Stephen and Sarah's uncle. I don't know much about him, but I do know that he left Kansas and made his way to California, settled there, opened a cafe, observed life and wrote about it in his poems.

The Colored Man

By

W.E. Dad Benton

I am not wishing to open a row,

  I just can't figure it out somehow.

A colored man comes in my place to eat,

Behaves like a man and is cleanly and neat.

But I shouldn't seat him along with the rest.

He should have "left-overs"--never the best.

He pays for his breakfast, without a word,

Nor seems to resent the remarks that he heard.

He quietly leaves as he quietly came

And no one but me seems to feel any shame.

But me--I'm inside that man as he leaves--

And something within me suffers and grieves.

Why should this stigma of color remain?

Why do we relish another man's pain?

What can he do to atone for his sin

That we were born white--and the black was for him?

It worries me--baffles me--maybe I'm crude,

Maybe I'm soft when I ought to be rude,

But sometimes I wonder how we would feel

With US on the dark colored end of the deal.

I want to know more about this man. This long ago uncle of mine. He lived with food and words, combined them, blended them and made a life. I want to know how he did that, I want to learn.

Quote of the Day: For life to me, without its fun, Is like the sky without a Sun---A rainbow with no pot of gold, No candlelight, when I am old. W.E. Dad Benton from his poem "Just a Restaurant Man"