A Bag and a View

The tag on the bag said it all. "Enjoy your lunch."

As if that were ever in doubt.

A sure sign that Spring has arrived is when Acacia does their first softshell-to-go lunch of the season and that day was today.

Before I could even place my order, I got an e-mail from a friend saying, "I'll order and pay if you pick up and deliver."

What poor writer would turn down that kind of offer?

So there I was pulling up to the curb at Acacia (they only give you a half hour to do so, although I was told the line had begun fifteen minutes beforehand) to grab and go.

Oh, but such grabbing!

A fried local softshell sandwich with curry slaw and cilantro mayo came with a creamy cucumber and pasta salad, all exactingly prepared by Chef Dale Reitzer this morning.

I hate to think how early he had to be in on a Friday to have our lunches ready but I loved the fact that he was willing to do so.

Even better, I was told that more bagged lunches are in the plans for this year than last and I enjoyed every one they did in 2011.

With bag in hand, I hightailed it to my friend's office overlooking the Lee statue on Monument Avenue to enjoy my second softshells of the year.

April is turning out to be a great month for crabs for the first time in my life.

Or anyone's, I'm willing to bet.

The perfectly fried velvet softshells and slaw were oozing out of the chewy baguette, making for messy and of-the-moment flavorful eating.

The creamy pasta salad was almost unnecessary given the girth of the sandwich. Almost, but not quite.

One change from last year was that there were no cookies to end the meal.

Instead, we admired the view out the windows of the preparations for Easter on Parade; a stage had been set up at the base of Traveler's hooves.

Friend told me had just ordered a print to hang next to the window's view; it's the vintage Dementi photograph of tobacco growing right up to the base of the Lee monument.

It should make for the picture-perfect accompaniment to today's sunny view.

Not that we needed anything other than the contents of the bag to follow the directive on it.

Rest assured, Acacia. Lunch enjoyed.

Acacia Awesomeness al Fresco

It's been over three months since Acacia had done one of their "too good to be true" bagged lunches, so I didn't even have to think about it for a nanosecond before reserving two bags, one for me and one for a friend for today's offering. Scuffletown Park, here we come. The cooler day and gray sky were a bonus for our al fresco eating plans.

I still had fond memories of that last bagged lunch of soft-shelled crabs, here. back in May, anticipating, as it did, the summer ahead. Now, on an overcast day just before Labor Day weekend and with autumn (unfortunately) breathing down our necks, Dale was doing brats for lunch.

The menu included house made bratwurst with braised red cabbage, slathered with Acacia mustard, all on a house made pretzel roll. House made brats alone would have been enough, but with that wonderful sweet cabbage and shiny pretzel roll, it had every element necessary for the ultimate taste combination.

And, like last time, and probably even more important this time given the sandwich, Miller High Life pony bottles were available to complement the meal. Beer and brats, they're like yin and yang, right?

For the side dish, Dale had made the best potato salad I've had in my entire life (it wasn't just me; my friend enthusiastically agreed). The combination of skin-on new potatoes, bacon, green onion, fennel seed, grainy mustard and sherry vinaigrette made us both wish we had a quart of this stuff to take home and stash in the fridge for later. Of course, me being the non-fan of mayo that I am, a potato salad like this one was tailor-made for my taste.

Dessert was a tartlet cookie, sweet but not overly so and the loveliest way to wrap up such a savory meal. A $10 meal, by the way, and that even included tax.

My sincere hope is that I don't have to wait three plus months for another bagged lunch from Acacia. I will, make no mistake, but I wouldn't mind a monthly bag. Or would that be just too good to be true?

View from the Water

My photographer friend messaged me this morning, saying that the beautiful day called for a picnic. I one-upped him and suggested we picnic on one of the canal boat cruises (food + fun). It worked out that we ended up picnicking on the canal walk and then taking the cruise, so we did get to enjoy lunch outside.

We stopped by Tarrant's for a couple of picnic salads, one Cobb and one Tuna Nicoise. Our picnic basket was a plastic bag, if that tells you something about us (if it doesn't, try reading my tongue-in-cheek picnic piece at my former employer's website, here.) Anticipating a lot of sun on the water, we'd both brought hats and, for a change, he'd remembered his camera.

When I took my first canal cruise a few years ago, I remember being struck by the views from the water, so unlike any other of Tobacco Row and the hills to the west. I'd come back for a second cruise just to take pictures of it all.

So if my untrained eye was impressed with it, surely someone who makes money taking pictures would be. And he was, snapping furiously the whole time. Hell, he was even taking pictures of us while we sat there waiting for the boat (shall I look pensive?).

We enjoyed our shady lunch chatting with the boat captain ("I'm not normal, so I'm going to make this fun!" he promised. Probably just as well that we were only going to be in three feet of water...) and a woman visiting from upstate New York with her speed-skating champion grandson (sunglasses, iPod, sullen).

In fact, it turned out that we were the only local residents on the cruise, accompanied as we were by visitors from England, NC, NY, and and a boisterous group from Philly.

Our captain regaled the guests with stories of Tropical Storm Gaston's fury, the perils of the Mighty James and an encyclopedic listing of long-forgotten cigarette brands. The visitors got the critter sitings they wanted with snapping turtles and great blue herons putting in appearances.

His tangents meandered, but he showed a lot of enthusiasm for the city and its offerings. He warned us that 5:00 is the bewitching hour for Richmond museums to close up, suggesting an early start for museum visiting. "Don't think you can go in at 2:30 and see everything," he warned ominously.

Since the captain knew it wasn't my first cruise, he made a point of asking me when we disembarked if I'd heard anything new this time around. Honestly, I'd been sort of lost inside of my own head enjoying the views for most of his spiel and what I did hear I had heard before, but that wasn't what he wanted to hear.

"I had a great time," I enthused. Which was entirely true, if not exactly the answer to his question.

Bag Me a Lunch, Acacia

When I get an e-mail saying "too good to be true," I sign up immediately and when it turns out to be as good as it sounds, I call it a score. For an hour today, Acacia's Dale Reitzer was making soft-shelled crabs, one of his personal favorites, and creating a lunch-to-go around them. I couldn't think of a single reason not to avail myself of such an offering; I immediately thought of a friend who likes softshells as much as I do and invited him along.

The menu was simple: a softshell sandwich with slaw (say that three times fast), housemade potato chips and a cookie. The e-mail said, "Take Acacia home with you, to the office, or enjoy your bagged lunch in the park." There was never any question that we'd be eating ours anywhere but in the park.

Stopping at Acacia to claim our reserved bags, we were delighted to discover that a limited array of beverages were for sale, mainly soda and water, but also chilled Miller High Life ponies. Can you imagine a more ideal brewed accompaniment for an outdoor lunch? Just a little beer to wet your whistle with your softshells; I thought it was brilliant and told our server so. She explained it by saying, "It's just what I'd want to drink with my lunch in the park."

So we were off to Scuffletown Park with our aromatic white bags to see what Dale had wrought. The sandwiches were large and on the most divine flour-dusted chewy roll you can imagine. The crab and slaw were arranged generously within that show-stopping bread. The housemade chips came in their own lined bag with just the right amount of saltiness. The cookie was molasses and rolled in sugar, providing the perfect sweet (but not too rich) ending to a lovely lunch.

I'm not so foolish as to wish that Acacia did bagged lunches all the time. But when a delicacy like softshells are in season, it's like a gift from the food gods to have someone willing to bag them up to be enjoyed in nature. And at only $10 (including tax, btw), it does border on too good to be true.

Luckily, some things (and people) are too good and true. Those are the things and the people I'm more than happy to experience.