Bravo!!

The freshman boys lost. 17 to 6. Personally I consider that a success, since our JV team was beaten by the Rockhurst JV team 63-0 on Monday. So, the freshman keeping the score a tad lower and at least SCORING was quite a success in my book!! Son #2 sadly didn’t get to play—I guess his lumbar injury and being forced to not practice for 8 days hurt his standing on the team. He only got one full practice day (Monday) and the light practice that they do for pre-game (Tuesday). He wasn’t happy about not playing either.

I possibly had one of the best restaurant meals EVER last night. Now, please realize that I don’t live in an area with fine dining. I doubt I’ve ever been to a TRULY fine dining establishment---well, maybe once on the “HILL” in St. Louis……but seriously..I’ve been to some nicer places in my life, and I do very much enjoy good food, but I strongly suspect I don’t KNOW good food. My budget is not a ‘fine dining’ budget and around here, if it’s not fried and smothered in gravy, then it’s not worth eating. We live in a very meat and potatoes community.

I am accustomed to a decent Italian place around here, but it’s predictable and reliable. It’s one of the ‘nicer’ places in town. When we go out of town, we do try to go to nicer places, too, but obviously, not on a $150 per person price tag…….

Anyway, Rockhurst High School is on the state line of Kansas and Missouri. We got in quite early, and perused over to the Overland Park, Kansas area to shop. We found an ‘upper’ shopping area---at least stores we don’t have around here. Pottery Barn, Crate and Barrel, Williams Sonoma. I’ve never been to ANY of these stores……..if it’s not Dillards, JC Penney or Sears, we don’t got it around here. Oh, or Wal Mart. If we go to the Lake of the Ozarks, there is an outlet mall with some specialty type shops, but still nothing on the line of Williams Sonoma.

We saw Dean and Deluca, and I’ve heard the Martha Stewart Wanna Be in our office talk about Dean and Deluca, but was not POSITIVE what it was. I thought they specialized in gourmet items, but the establishment LOOKED like a restaurant. At the football game, we decided to try them for dinner since they were close. Well, for those of you not in the know (like us) Dean and Deluca DOES sell sandwich-ish foods, and you can eat there, but it apparently (according to Perfectly’s dad) is more of a gourmet grocery. Since we wanted dinner and not sandwiches (even if gourmet) we left and started driving around the high end shopping area. There were a couple of places, but nothing that looked awesome, and suddenly we saw an Italian place. We all LOVE Italian, and decided to give it a shot. It was a chain (which Perfectly’s dad generally HATES), called BRAVO! Cucina Italiana.

I ordered the Grilled Georges Bank Scallops “sea scallops grilled and served on a bed of spinach Ricotta gnocchi, roasted sweet potatoes and sherry lobster sauce”

I chose this dish because I’d never eaten gnocchi. I’ve wanted to TRY it for ages, and have been too chicken to make it myself, and OMG……was it good.

Their prices were reasonable (my large, rich scallop dish was $18.99), and the food was quite good. They had $2 off martini’s too! I also know this isn’t ‘fine’ dining, but it certainly was good dining! And I now know I love gnocchi.

Lastly, I need advice. From ALL OF YOU that read me…..you know the 5’s of you!! Mr. Perfectly and I are waffling on a puppy. Specifically THIS puppy. Should we or shouldn’t we? Remember, we’ve got a houseful now. His name is DASH.

He's a Dachshund/Chihuahua mix. Approx. 12 weeks old.



Happy Thursday, my gnocchi loving friends!!