Lunch Lessons

I'd never set foot in Stronghill Dining Co. in daylight which made the new mural all the more striking when my friend and I got there today.

Painted on the right-hand wall as you walk in, it's an art deco-looking thing of beauty and done by a local artist Brett Bacon.

Let's face it, Stronghill's decor has always been noteworthy with those two-tone booths and sculpture hanging from the ceiling, but the addition of the mural adds to the visual stimulation in the best possible way.

I'm fond of their dinner menu, so I had presumed that lunch would be equally as interesting and it was.

My friend ordered the Cobb salad, the difference being it had lobster rather than bacon.

That turned out to be fortunate for me because apparently she's not much of a lobster fan, so it ended up on my plate.

I'd gotten the shrimp cake sandwich which had a creamy avocado aoili and fried shallots on it and came with a side salad.

Although the buttered roll was over-sized for the shrimp cake, I wasn't complaining because of the savoriness of the combination; avocado and shrimp belong together, a fact of which I had not been aware prior to today's lunch.

The hot topic for today was dating, which must be in the air, because it had been the subject of choice with the friend I'd spent last evening with too.

Last night's friend had decided that the way to meet guys was to put an ad on Craig's List with a list of what she's looking for in a guy and offer to buy him a nice dinner.

Her thinking was that, at the very least, she'd get a good story out of it and, with any luck, meet someone interesting or at least friend material.

She wants me to help her write the ad, which I'm happy to do.

My lunch companion today has decided to go the online dating route, albeit with strict parameters for both age (three years younger or older) and geographical distance (no more than five miles form her house).

A city-dweller, she has no interest in dating anyone who lives in suburbia (one guy she had a date with years ago had a big box store being built practically in his backyard, causing her to ask, "Why would you ever buy a house here?"). He did not call her for a second date.

It's funny, all the interesting uninvolved women I know want to be dating and yet everyone agrees that they must be doing something wrong or they'd be getting asked out.

Or maybe in our post-modern society, opinionated women are just not a hot commodity, no matter what they look like.

Nah, that couldn't possibly be it.

Or, as a male friend recently told me, "Just admit it; you're cute."

Luckily, opinionated and cute are not mutually exclusive.