It's the Best

I can't be everyone's guide to Jackson Ward, but I do what I can.

Tonight I introduced a relative newcomer to Catherine Street.

Catherine Street is the back side of my block, it extends into Carver and it was originally an alley.

Most blocks of it are now actual streets, but not all.

It's narrow, some houses are quite old and many very new and parts of it look like the kind of places where you don't cross someone's property line without knowing them personally.

A guy walked aimlessly down the street behind us. singing, "Can I tell you how much I love you?"

Now there's a soundtrack for a walk.

Plenty of C-Street residents were sitting on their porch or in their backyard and I nodded as we passed.

And (drum roll), it's got a duplex with a living porch roof.

That's right, the entire roof of the porch is planted with low-maintenance plants that insulate sound and temperature, siphon off rain water and do practically every other honorable environmental thing possible.

I consider it the highlight of Catherine Street, which was my reason for sharing it with someone.

The walk back eventually led us to dinner, but only after a discussion of why people of a certain age can't accept current bands that sound like the bands of their youth.

Let's just say that unkind things were said about A.F.I.

Bistro 27 was having a typical Monday night and we caught the end of it, taking seats at the mostly empty bar and ordering more Tempranillo, the wine that had originally led us down Catherine Street.

"Look what the cat dragged in," I heard a friend call to me.

We did a catch-up session about his new place, the frustration of people who don't know how to do their jobs and big spenders.

I was delighted to hear that the music was swinging nicely, set to the "Blue Jazz" station on Pandora and delivering a little kick, a little romance and some stellar vintage horn playing.

The meal began with two kinds of ravioli - lobster in sage butter sauce and beef/Fontina in a tomato cream sauce.

If there's a better house-made ravioli around here, I haven't had it.

Dinner was chicken, roasted shallots and artichokes in a lemon butter sauce, a classic dish so perfectly executed as to be a standard-bearer.

A couple joined us at the bar, him leaning in to her ear and kissing it a lot and her saying things like, "I need to have some corsets made."

Some?

Suddenly I felt lacking for having made it this far in life without ever owning a corset and here she is needing multiples.

Dessert was the only answer.

Bosc pear poached in Merlot with vanilla gelato and succulent blackberries the size of jawbreakers distracted me from my undergarment failings and provided a sweet richness that would have rendered me non-corset material tonight anyway.

Not that I ever was.

Fact is, I want someone who could love me un-corseted.

And, yes, that's a metaphor.