Italian Food With The Ladies And One Man's Decision "Should I Stay Or Should I Go"

First off, my apologies for not blogging more frequently.

I'm just getting over a bad bout of vertigo. I finally went to my general practitioner and had him examine my ears earlier this week.

The good news is I've pretty much recovered. The bad news is that I also took the opportunity to have a complete physical done. Now all I have to do is wait and worry about the battery of blood tests.

The nice thing about feeling better is that driving my car is much less dangerous. Driving with vertigo is equally as bad as driving drunk.

To celebrate being able to safely drive, I took Christine and my cousin Beth out to one of Wilmington's oldest Italian restaurants for lunch.

Mrs. Robino's has been family run since 1940. Christine and I have been there a few times. This was Beth's first time. As always, the food was magnificent. Christine and I started off with a cup of homemade Italian Wedding soup. I've eaten Italian Wedding soup hundreds of times in restaurants and private homes dating back to my youth. With the exception of my maternal Grandmother's, Mrs. Robino's is the best I've ever had. It would be easy to make a lunch of a bowl of the soup and the fresh, crusty Italian bread they serve.

Beth opted for a green salad with the homemade blue cheese dressing. I've had their blue cheese dressing before. It's far superior to the stuff that comes in one gallon plastic jugs by a long shot.

For the table, I ordered an appetizer of fried calamari with a marinara dipping sauce. The calamari was 'melt in your mouth' tender.

When it came time to order lunch, all three of us went in separate directions on the menu. Christine opted for the lunch portion of cheese ravioli served with a meatball. She ordered a side of sweet Italian sausage to go with it. That was a good call on her part. They have excellent Italian sausage there.

Cousin Beth ordered Cappellini with vodka sauce. It wasn't available from the lunch menu so she ordered the dinner size. Her plate was huge and piled high. It was topped with a generous portion of fresh ricotta cheese.

How do I know the ricotta cheese is fresh? They buy it down the street from M. Fierro & Sons. The Fierro family makes fresh ricotta daily. There's a huge difference between ricotta sitting on a grocery shelf for three months and freshly made ricotta that's still warm in the container.

I opted for a dinner portion of their Porkette Platter. It was a generous portion of tender Italian seasoned roasted pork, served with real mashed potatoes, and sauteed broccoli rabe.

Beth and I only finished a portion of our meals. We had them boxed up to go. This was for no other reason than to save room for dessert.

For dessert Christine ordered a slice of Limoncello Cake. Cousin Beth and I both ordered Tiramisu. Our server bragged that the Tiramisu was the best in the city. I have to agree.

Since we were in the "Little Italy" section of Wilmington, we decided a post lunch walk would be a good idea.

We placed the leftovers in my car and walked across the street to Papa's Pastry. Cristine and I love their fresh made cookies and desserts. I told Christine and Beth to pick out what they wanted, it was on me. Christine picked out an assortment of cookies, Beth picked out a Key Lime Tart and a Tiramisu, I picked out a dozen Pignoli (Pine Nut) cookies.

It never hurts to have a dessert on hand at home, right?

After that, we walked down to Papa's Food Market. Papa's has the best meats in the area. The owner, Ralph Papa, cut me two 3 pound Porterhouse steaks to order. The meat is 28 day dry aged beef. In the mean time I also picked up four pounds of store made sweet Italian sausage, four pounds of hot Italian sausage, one pound of aged Italian Provolone cheese, three pounds of store made meatballs, and a fresh baked loaf of Italian bread.

It was a pretty good haul for a quiet Wednesday.

Well, quiet until after we dropped Beth off.

On the way home to South Jersey, as we neared the Delaware Memorial Twin Bridges, traffic slowed to a crawl. We were still five miles from the spans and only moving at a snail's pace.

Christine wondered aloud, "What could possibly be going on?".

I responded, "It's one of three things. An accident, construction on the bridge(they are in the process of painting both spans), or there's a *jumper* on the bridge.".

Imagine our surprise as we passed the top of the eastbound span and saw a guy sitting on the outside edge of the bridge.

Man Talked Down Off Bridge After Seven Hours

I've read many articles about people who have jumped to their deaths of the Delaware Memorial Bridges. This was the first time I've ever seen a person poised to do it.

I have to tell you, it was very unnerving to see him sitting out there.

I'm grateful to the bridge police, who through their calm demeanor and excellent training, were able to talk that poor soul into making a good choice.

Yesterday he was ready to end it all. Today he gets a chance to start over if he wants it.

There's a lesson to be learned there for all of us.

It's good to be feeling good again. Looks like a Fall trip back to Memphis for me.

Until the next time, all y'all take care of yourselves.

Air Traffic Mike, ret.