We drove down to Coral Gables for tea with a friend at Books & Books. Dara had spent a few years in Krakow, and learned basic Polish. “My favorite people to talk to were taxi drivers,” she said. “You don’t look them in the eye, and you never see them again.”
Afterwards we checked out the new Casa Tua food hall at Brickell City Centre. Animated diners filled the tables between food stations. We passed the ones for pizza, salads, raw fish, roasted chicken and walked by the bar – bottles of Zubrowka overhead – to the pasta station, where we ordered two different kinds of risotto. Then we took our numbered sign to a table with two empty seats at the end. The family sitting next to us was speaking Spanish. They departed just as our food arrived, mother and father both wishing us “bon appetit.”
The risottos were excellent, but just as impressive was the music: a medley of Doo-wop from my teenage years. It felt incredibly strange to sit in a trendy Miami eatery and listen to the “Bristol Stomp.”
