Evansville, IN

It doesn't matter how early you rise from slumber; in Evansville, a fresh pot of coffee is always awaiting your cup. High school yearbooks from days of old make for ideal morning browsing.


Come hell or high water, the Official Weisling Menu du Semaine reigns supreme. Handmade Amish-style country sausages sizzle their way through stress.

A mess of eggs is soft-scrambled with care, not crisis.

Southern grits bathed in butter and toasty bagels awaiting cream cheese and black raspberry jam round out the gorgeous morning spread. Beautiful breakfast presentation must run in the family; Earlham Sunday mornings were never quite complete until the final perfect batch of pancakes.

Immediately after eating, it is time to prepare to eat again (we have our priorities in order). Le Menu dictates: braciole. Giada's version is a good starting point, necessarily modified to fit the extra-creative palate for bonus points.

Chef and Sous-Chef concoct two distinct fillings for the thinly pounded flank steak, each robust with several cheeses and fresh parsley. One is blended with prociutto and black pepper; the other gladly mixes with anchovy paste.

Each is then rolled into a trussed-up cylinder of steak and then throroughly browned. The final pass is a soak in pre-prepared Grandpa's Fantastic Tomato Sauce, and the two beauties are popped in the oven at very low heat for the remainder of the afternoon. They make the entire downstairs reek.

Golf happens for two of us. The wiser bunch kicks it at Westlake Drive, munching picture-perfect cherries and sharing travel plots.

A jaunt around the loop occurs. John captures a few choice sound clips. We further augment the collection back at the house through a few good rounds on the pinball machine.

Janet arrives! She is dressed to the nines in a fabulous flowy red frock, which she is quickly ushered out of and into shorts for Casual Cocktail Time. The golfers return and are similarly thirsty. We chatter. Cooking is imminent.

The whole gang scoots into the downstairs kitchen and into braciole domain. It takes four hands to move the twin beautiful beasties to a cutting board.

This is better than Christmas!

The braciole falls apart much more than anticipated, probably due to a combination of acidity levels and extended cooking time. However, the stringy texture of the flank steak pairs perfectly with the curly bed of egg noodles, and the caramelized vegetables on the side provide a foil of sweetness.

The tomato season has been taxing this year, making a decent Indiana mater somewhat of a rare find. Luckily, Janet has hauled over a giant cooler full of Eric's garden lovelies from Illinois. It is a veritable feast.

The night wraps up with "just one hand" of Clabber, in which I get clobbered. It reminds me very strongly of the Galician card game Tute, although the point system is distinct.