Last night, four friends enjoyed an evening of good food, friendship, and festivity.  It started as any ordinary outing might, with a time, and a place, and a plan.  But somewhere along the way we took a detour, and time disappeared.  Time moves forward, always forward, faster and faster it seems, but last night it slowed, or ceased altogether, as we settled in to enjoy the season and its gifts.  

We had driven up Noble Road to see the annual holiday lights at Nela Park.  “Nela” stands for the National Electric Lamp Company, bought by General Electric a hundred years ago.  The lights themselves were a bit less extravagant than I had remembered from the years when we took our own young children to see them, but the quality of the design did not disappoint.  Our friends had never before seen Nela Park, and we all stared, like children, at the wide waterfalls of red, green, yellow or blue light dripping down the large stone buildings, the blue-green Christmas-tree cones scattered on the front lawn alongside cartoonish images of small cars, and icicles dripped white on the branches of weeping cherry trees draped completely in pale blue.  Generations of families were arriving with babies in strollers to take annual holiday portraits before the spectacular backdrop.  

We passed through the Park, turned around, and headed out to eat.  We were on our way to Sarava, a Brazilian restaurant on Shaker Square.  Most of us ordered Bloody Marys, which arrived, as we had ordered them, smooth and spicy.  Perfect.  

I looked through the menu, and decided to try something I had never tried before.  I ordered two different salads, the first an appetizer and the second an entree.  I also ordered a side of rice, which, while tasty, turned out to be unnecessary.  The experiment was a grand success!  Both salads were really great — stunningly fresh and crunchy, and each with its own delicious, distinctive flavors.  The appetizer, cubes of mango and hearts of palm with spunky baby greens, arrived on a slender, bright white rectangle of a plate that offered up to me the bright yellow and green colors of the salad.  

The Bloody Mary was still great, even halfway through.

Then came a tasty, sweet salad decorated with long, dried plantains and crunchy, candied pecans. The best bargain on the menu had to be the heaping dish of Brazilian jumbo cashews, of which I ordered two, one for the table and one for me.  I dumped all the cashews on my plantain/pecan salad.  I might have saved some for the rice, too, but I didn’t think of it until afterward.  The Brazilian coffee, French-press style, was sweet, black, and fragrant.  Sergio, the owner, greeted us, and I was delighted to learn that his mother had once been a teacher of mine.  Our dinner was the centerpiece of a joyous evening.  

Almost two-and-a-half hours after we had arrived, we exited the restaurant for a stroll around the Square.  The hour was late, the air was chilly, and the streets were quiet.  Two very tall, handsome, and slender young men with good haircuts and pants reaching not quite to their ankles stood just outside the restaurant across the way.  They chatted quietly, their heads tipped together, waiting, apparently, for the rest of their party to join them, head home, sleep and then awaken to celebrate the remainder of the holiday.

Happy holidays to all…