So fitting: amidst storms and turmoil, there is always the calming presence of Katy

It could not have been crazier. The minute I finished posting on the blog yesterday, the avalanche intensified: one car stalled, without power. One house showing cancelled, another on for early evening. Must finish straightening and tidying (it has to sell! The house has to sell! Hurry up and sell!). About done now. Crap! – the AC breaks down (we were never friends, the air conditioning and I but does it have to fail me completely now? I am trying to sell the house! I have another showing tomorrow! It is so damn muggy!)

Quickly, open the windows. Create a breeze. Leave the premises, the showing is about to begin.

The sirens go off. Tornado warning. Radio reports: touch down in Spring Green, just west of here, ten minutes away. Return to close the windows. Have to wait. Showing in progress. Finally, the people leave (did you write out an offer? No? What’s the matter with you – the house is perfect!).

Close the windows, head downtown. I do not care about sirens. So lift me up and swirl me in your funnel clouds! I know all about storms – I am not going to be freaked by this one!

There sure is a lot of water around me. Don’t stall, trusty-but-almost-dead-van, do not stall! SO much water. I wade through puddles, I feel the pouring rain on my bare arms.

And then – screw it all. I go to dine with Katy.

Katy is leaving town and as her last parting gift, she takes her blog partner and me out to l’Etoile.

Oh, l'Etoile, l'Etoile! I knew you when you were just a baby. You too have seen me through a quarter of a century of changes. I ate here through the events that have rocked the world, I cooked here during my most turbulent years. And so it is fitting to sit here now, with these two bloggers, these two friends, and to let go of the storms around me and indulge in the foods and services of this stellar place.

Tory, chef and proprietor, hovers.



We are winding down. I'm still reeeling over the charentais melon carpaccio with prosciutto-wrapped goat cheese and crazy jim's cucumbers, cippolini onions and baby arugula (in a honey-rice wine vinaigrette).



We stare at the dessert menus, but not for long. They are snatched away. We are not allowed to choose. Tory makes us all of them and suddenly, our table is filled with sweetness.

Katy

We linger. The evening cannot end.

Oh, but we are downtown! The loft! Of course. It is so easy to finish each evening at the loft. My daughters, elsewhere downtown this night, join us. The night is quiet except for the train that goes by outside the window. No storms now. Have a safe trip south, Katy.