Just off our anchorage on Long Boat Key was a restaurant called Mar Vista.  We pulled Sea Alice up on shore and found a table on the patio under lit up, twinkling trees.  We were at the end of our provisions which means I had sausage and eggs, salami sandwiches and kielbasa growing out of my ears for the last few days.  The fridge is really a glorified top loading cooler with a cold plate.  You eat your perishables first and then end up with things that keep well like sausage and sausage and sausage.  I was really looking forward to this meal.

Before I can tell you about my yummy goodness I have to veer off course.  Are you becoming accustom to these side trips?   A little over a year and a half ago our oldest son, Jackson, brought home a girl, Mary K.  (M.K., Mary Kat, The Beauty, The Eater.)  She slipped into our family as if she’d always been there.  More importantly, she brought with her something I didn’t even know I was missing, herself.  She is special.  And she likes to eat and drink wine.  And we like to cook and eat and I sell wine part time I love it so much.  Can you believe it?  They actually pay me to stand around and talk about wine, and sometimes to drink it.

My mother-in-law, Caryl, is my favorite cook.  If I get to choose my last meal it will be made by her.  It might be her chicken and dumplings and for sure her butter-horns.  Anyway, Caryl, John and I love to cook together and we especially love to cook for people who love to eat.  A simple mmm is music to our ears.  It is Thanksgiving weekend and we are in a cooking splendor and Mary Kat is purring.  Caryl and I are shooting glances at each other with small, sideways smiles.   Later, Caryl whispers to me, She’s an eater!  Where this petite, skinny, dark haired beauty puts all of this food I cannot guess.   By the end of the weekend she was not just an eater, she became The Eater.  This title is the highest honor.

The Eater is sitting next to me at the dinner table and there are several conversations going on among the many people celebrating with us.  I turn to her to say something and she gently raises her hand to stop me.  With her eyes shut she says, Pardon me.  I am having a moment.  Her chin is slightly lifted, a hint of smile plays on her lips.  She chews reverently.  She swallows and in slow motion takes a sip of wine, swishes it around her mouth and swallows.  She pauses and then turns to me and says, I’m sorry.  What did you say?

Now lets go back to our table under the twinkles at Mar Vista.  There is a chilled bottle of St Supery Sauvignon Blanc sweating at the table.  In front of me, floating in bubbling butter is a baseball size crab cake.  It is merely held together by  bliss, not by mayonnaise, bread crumbs and filler.  Just crab soaking in the butter bath next to shrimp and scallops.  I take a bite and look imploringly at John.  Oh!  He says, Are you having a moment?  I shut my eyes and nod yes.  I lift my chin and chew gratefully.  I am grateful for each of the thousand plus crab pots I’ve had to steer around, even the ones in the fog.  I’m grateful for the crab fisherman.  I’m grateful for the salty, life giving sea.  I am grateful for the crab who gave up his life.  I am grateful for the chef who prepared this.  I am grateful for the man who brought me here.  I am grateful to just be eating this.  I am grateful for The Eater.  I had a moment.

Jackson and Mary K having their own moment.

Fast forward to the present.  John just asked me what I was writing about.  I had a moment,  I replied.  And he said, Will you follow that one up with, I had a movement?