Sometimes, aided by the vagaries of life, good things happen. Sometimes, the good thing is enough to make me sing, or at least murmur with pleasure.
My husband, Ace, and I had such an evening recently.
It was Friday night, and I -- as my father used to say -- felt as though I had been drug through a rat hole. Some weeks are like that.
"What's for supper?" I ask Ace when I finally hit the door at home. He looks startled. The end of the week must have sneaked up on him, too.
He makes a quick recovery. "Want to go out?"
We go through a litany of cuisines, a list of eateries near and far, two hungry, wiped-out writers looking for a culinary miracle. Another night, another mood, another inch of snow, we might not have found it.
And it was snowing, dropping enough that Ace had to scrape before he could bow me into the passenger seat. But the rush-hour traffic had thinned, and neither bridge nor tunnel loomed.
Do you have a radius emanating from your house that you're willing to drive for edibles? We have two: one for road trips on the weekends; a second much shorter radius for weeknights, especially those of the drug-through-a-rat-hole variety.
We decide on a place we had visited one other time, a place on that circuitous continuum of time and space -- the Green Belt, North Hills segment. When we pull into Hartwood Restaurant, we see a few cars among the flurries.
"Name?" the hostess asks.
"We don't have a reservation," we say, embarrassed a little.
"No problem," she says.
If you've never been to this place, it is Ace's and my idea of heaven. It's a bookstore, it's a restaurant, it's a place to read, it's a place to eat.
"Look at that!" I say to him. He is deftly dressed but tieless -- one of his big restaurant selection criteria. I point to a table for two, beautifully set with linen and real flowers, surrounded on three sides by bookshelves. A fire burns in the alcove's fireplace.
Sorry, it's already reserved, the hostess says. We set up camp nearby, separated by a bookcase. (There's also a cheery, more traditional dining room plus an adjoining cafe and, in summer, outdoor seating on the patio.)
By happenstance, Betsy Kline, who works with me on the Thursday Food section, had recently dined in the adjoining Bookworks Cafe, which was also a big favorite of former PG fashion editor Georgia Sauer, who lived in Fox Chapel before she moved to St. Louis.
Once serendipity starts, it's hard to get it stopped.
Betsy said she'd always wondered where women from the Fox Chapel/O'Hara side of the world lunched. "I had a hamburger made with 100 percent ground filet mignon. It cost 9 dollars, but it was the best hamburger I've ever eaten." (Four bits extra for the bleu cheese, she said.)
Her friend's tuna salad sandwich, ample and a bit messy, dripped down to her wrist.
That's what we like: food we can get into. On our Friday night there, Ace ordered a filet mignon enclosed in a croissant and I believe he liked his sweet potato side dish before he even realized it was a vegetable.
As my entree, I ordered a fabulous appetizer -- scallops, fried shrimp and satay with peanut sauce. The salads are some of the most beautiful we've ever seen, probably the influence of hiring chefs Eddie Myers and Alison Crispin, who once cooked in that food-as-art spot, Maui, Hawaii.
Just after we ordered, our thoughtful hostess reappeared to tell us the people who had reserved the spot by the fireplace had called to cancel. Scared of snow, maybe, or down with the flu. Their loss was our gain.
The crackling fire, albeit ersatz, the wonderful food -- including a fabulous lobster ravioli the chef was experimenting with that night -- and all those lovely, eclectic books.
Owner Don Montgomery, who partners with wife Molly and Karen Guthrie, says the ever-changing menus come off the computer every night, depending on what looks good in the market. It might be anything from baby bok choy to the signature butterfly-shaped jicama in the salad.
Of course, there can be a downside. Mid-course, maybe even mid-bite (mine, not his) Ace arises from the table to check out the bookshelves behind him. Was my conversation flagging? Was my repartee lacking? Were my blue eyes blurred by a long hard week of being ridden hard and put away wet?
No, Ace just likes books. But don't say I didn't warn you.
On this serendipitous night, we didn't even require dessert. Food for the mind and fire for the romance was all we needed.
Besides, on this occasion on the Green Belt, on the Hampton/Indiana line, our credit card was earning us air miles to Maui, whence the chefs had come. It couldn't be much better than that.
Hartwood Restaurant: 3400 Harts Run Road; 412-767-3500. Open Tuesdays through Saturdays, closed Sundays and Mondays.
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