It's one thing to enjoy visiting friends who have kids, but it's another thing entirely to cook for kids when you are geared to cooking for adults. Sometimes a slippery phrase can spell unintended trouble. For instance, on our lunch menu we use Robiola Bosina, the due latte (or double milk because it blends goat and cow milks to make a gorgeous little brick of cheese that's molten inside, dreamy, and just such a grown up's pleasure), on our Crab Melt sandwich. It's a real crowd pleaser, and for years I served it instead of brie because, well, it's a far sexier cheese. At the D, I developed my own patter for the cheeses, almost like a stand up comic/poet of fromage with my mental shorthand notes about each of the rotating cast of 30+ cheeses, and in my mental shorthand Robiola Bosina = sexy cheese. We used to serve a little streak of our own rosemary infused honey just with the due latte, too.

So anyway, a few weeks ago some friends stopped by with their adorable kids in tow. The fair daughter has grown before our eyes and is moving into her teenage years with real grace. The rambunctious son is always hilarious, just a cut-up, yet he was a bit overwhelmed at the age of 9 by all our esoterica on the menu of The Green Goddess. Names are somewhat protected because I doubt he needs a publicly archived little blog about how he was turned on to the idea of "sexy cheese" at the age of nine. So rambling son asks if we can make him a grilled cheese sandwich. I didn't have my Cahill's Porter to make the Father Pat's available, so I turned to another dependable standby, the Robiola Bosina. Really nothing to it, but he really liked it (and it does melt with gusto) and here's where in my excitability, I forgot to edit my longstanding mental shorthand and accidentally blurted out something along the lines of, "oh, it just such a sexy cheese!" Little son absorbs the phrase like manna from heaven, so much so that when his parents try to cover for my blurt by saying that "sexy" means "really good" the phrase adheres to his brain like a cotton candy memory. Nowadays with the rambunctious son, everything good is "sexy" and I didn't even realize what an unintentionally intense vibe I had put out there in such a tossed off phrase I wasn't really carefully thinking about; actually, I had no idea until last weekend that I had ignited a "sexy cheese" firestorm.

I guess I'll just have to be much more careful in the future, and perhaps I should stick to Father Pat's should a kid ask for a grilled cheese next time. I have thus far never associated Father Pat with sexy, no matter how oozing and deliciously melty goes the Cahill's. It's kinda funny to speculate on the long-term obsessions that such a ridiculous phrase as "sexy cheese" could have for the son of my good friends, but I hope it doesn't last too long as his "it" saying. I suppose there are far worse obsessions that could drive a kid than what was his first brush with amazing cheese and who was the loutish cook who dubbed it sexy.

So this weekend was marred by the realization that I was so busy with running the restaurant that I let my driver's license lapse after my birthday earlier in the month. I finally got the license today, opting for a drive to the new office in St. Bernard Parish where the line was indeed much shorter than other locations. I still caught the bridge on the way back, then had to scramble to get some pork to cook tonight as we had a busy early set of lunches now that the weather is cooler. The rest of the day saw me knocked around like a pinball running other errands, fending off the phone, discussing menu changes, and figuring out what we could pull off this first week as we make the transistion from summer to fall.

PZB made me some very, very lovely roasted figs wrapped in Serrano ham when I got home, doused with a touch of blended Averna Amaro and St. Germain. So I hope this post-midnight snack indicates that tomorrow will be more satisfying than the hectic bounce around day that was today.

We are starting to put together a little cheese list now that it's cooling off, and this week will finally allow us to put oysters on the menu. I am also going to put a fish dish on the menu, with my Old-Fashioned Meneiure featuring Bourbon and Orange Brown Butter finished with Fee Bros Whisky Barrel Aged Bitters. The fall menu is in transition: a few ideas we will soon pursue are in the waiting phase, as ingredients arrive from afar, and we make certain that these perfect cooler temperatures seem to be turning our way here in New Orleans.

The first signs of a cold front, as we have had this week, really get folks fired up to dine outside and it turns everybody's appetite up a notch. We hope to be able to entertain all our guests now that tangible signs of Autumn are in the air, but I will promise to make a special effort not to say anything about "sexy cheese," as the last thing we need is to corrupt innocent minds here at The Green Goddess, right?

Right;) Catch ya soon...