Eateries offer zesty tastes of Mideast fare

BY ELAINE WALKER And SPENCER ROSE

ewalker@MiamiHerald.com

CANDACE WEST / MIAMI HERALD STAFF

Patrick Mascola and Jani Mucollari, owner of Avra Taverna, dine next to a mural of a Greek seaside.

Not many of us can afford a trip to the Mediterranean or the Middle East these days, so here's a culinary journey around Broward County that will satisfy your appetite for baba ghanoush and baklava.

AVRA TAVERNA

Avra Taverna in Fort Lauderdale is a cross between a Greek seaside tavern and a nightclub. It all depends on when you show up.

If you're in the mood for a quiet dinner, arrive early. By 8:30 p.m. on Friday and Saturday, belly dancers take the stage under the disco ball, followed by a Greek band.

Whenever you come, you'll find a vast menu of traditional Greek favorites plus pricier fresh seafood.

The Greek food works well on a budget because you can order a variety of generous ''small'' plates to share. The spanakopita has a light and flaky, just-baked quality, and the fried calamari is crispy with a bit of a peppery kick.

The best deal on the menu: a gyro platter that includes a generous portion of lamb, a Greek salad and piping hot, house-made fries. Our least-satisfying dish: a bland, overly oily breast of chicken Ladoregand, which had none of the promised lemony zest.

The house-made baklava, with a heavy dose of cinnamon and a finely chopped mix of nuts, is a great variation on a Greek classic.

• Avra Taverna, 3001 E. Commercial Blvd., Fort Lauderdale; 954-616-1514, avrataverna.com: Appetizers and small plates $5.45-$14.95, traditional entrees $10.95-$15.95, seafood $18.95-$32.95.

GIORGIO'S BAKERY & BISTRO

Giorgio's Bakery & Bistro in Hollywood is that rare South Florida find: a waterfront setting for an affordable, quality meal.

Just down the street from its higher-priced siblings, Giorgio's Grill and Taverna Opa, this deli and cafe is easy to overlook. Still, on a nice night, tables at the patio along the Intracoastal can be hard to come by. Inside, the atmosphere is like a European market café with an open kitchen and communal tables.

The menu, which offers breakfast, lunch and dinner, has Greek, Italian, French and American favorites, from moussaka and frittatas to grilled grouper and prosciutto sandwiches. The beauty is that the most expensive item is $16 (rib-eye steak), and most are under $10.

Save some of the complimentary, fresh-baked baguette for soaking up the flavorful tomato sauce of the frutti di mare pasta, a bowl loaded with calamari, mussels and shrimp -- way too much for one. Pair it with a Greek country salad featuring chunks of feta cheese, kalamata olives and a lemony vinaigrette, and you'll easily have a meal for two.

The long-simmered lamb shank is falling-off-the-bone tender. Served with tomato orzo, it's a flavorful dish for a hearty appetite.

Next time we plan to try the thin-crust pizzas made in a wood-burning oven that reminds us fondly of our Italian honeymoom.

Even if you're stuffed, it's hard to pass up the cases of fresh-baked chocolate layer cakes, tiramisu, napoleons and other desserts. Take one home for later or vow to return another night for coffee and dessert under the stars.

• Giorgio's Bakery & Bistro, 800 N. Ocean Dr., Hollywood; 954-929-5550, giorgiosbakery.com: Breakfast $1.25-$9.95, sandwiches and salads $6.50-$8.50, entrees and pasta $7.50-$16.

AL-SALAM

Al-Salam is one of those places you won't find unless someone sends you there. Tucked in a Plantation strip mall, the Middle Eastern restaurant is attached to a market that sells everything from spices to pita bread and desserts.

The family-oriented restaurant is no-frills, with a Middle Eastern version of MTV playing on flat-screen televisions. Large parties of regulars come for the family grill platter, a dozen kebabs on a platter almost the size of the table.

If your group is smaller, there are still an overwhelming number of choices. One great option is the Al Salam mixed appetizer platter, which includes baba ghanoush, moussaka, tabouli, kibbeh, grape leaves, lemony hummus and falafel that was crispy on the outside and light and creamy inside.

The chicken kebab was nicely charred yet moist inside, flavored by a tangy, vinegar-based marinade. One kebab was enough for two with a side salad and a serving of rice seasoned with cardamom, tumeric, coriander and other traditional spices.

• Al-Salam, 1816 N. University Dr., Plantation; 954-916-5193, al-salamrestaurant.com: Appetizers $3.49-$6.99, sandwiches $3.49-$6.99, platters $9.99-$14.99.

Diary of the last debutante: A son's discovery of the mother he never knew

Comments (15)

The date was March 18, 1958 - 50 years ago this week - and 17-year-old Susan Sutcliffe was in a state of high excitement as her taxi threaded its way through London?s West End towards Buckingham Palace.

This pretty, vivacious girl, who had grown up on a Cumbrian farm, was about to experience the fruits of 18 months of training at finishing school to join the cream of London society.

She was one of an elite group of young women chosen as debutantes to meet the Queen - and the occasion was given extra poignancy because it had been decreed this was the final time debs would be presented to the monarch.

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Lost era: Susan Sutcliffe in her debutante days

But Susan was not any society beauty - she was also the mother I never knew.

She died nine years after that day in 1958, of heart failure brought on by asthma, as I lay in a cot next to her, not even two years old.

My father found her cold in her bed when he arrived home late from work at 10pm.

I was fast asleep, unaware of the tragedy - she had been seven months pregnant with a baby girl who didn'?t survive - unfolding beside me.

And I was to know nothing of it for years. In fact, I grew up in almost complete ignorance of the woman who had given birth to me.

A year later, my father married for the second time, and the new Mrs Pamela Chapman became my stepmother. To me, however, she was my mother.

I had no recollection of Susan, and my parents - desperate for me not to be different in any way from my friends - happily let me grow up thinking they were both my real parents.

It was only when family friends of my age told me, presumably after hearing their own parents discussing it, that Pam ?isn'?t your real mother?, that my parents told me the full story.

I was about eight or nine. My father and stepmother told me they loved me, and being a child, I thought very little more about it.

Christmas and birthday presents from Susan'?s mother and father - grandparents I had never met - had been explained away as coming from distant family friends, and there had been no photographs of Susan around the house to prompt any ?difficult? questions.

When I finally met Susan?'s parents, my ?third? set of grandparents, in 1975, they were utterly alien to me - sweet, ageing, but totally unknown.

It was rather like meeting any new friends or neighbours of my parents.

I was only ten, a little boy who enjoyed playing on his bike and watching TV, and I remember thinking that although they were very friendly, I wanted to get back outside to play.

However, when I went for my first summer holiday, later that year, at what had been my mother'?s childhood home, the sorrow of what had happened was laid bare to me for the first time.

My parents drove me to Scotch Corner and handed me over to Colonel Richard and Betty Sutcliffe.

I had been told they lived on a huge farm, and I was very excited to be going there. I remember being thrilled as my new grandfather drove us to Brampton in his big car.

Just before we arrived at their home, we pulled up at a tiny rural churchyard, and I was shown my mother'?s headstone.

My grandmother, obviously, found the whole moment extremely moving. I didn'?t know what to do or where to look, and especially not what to say.

I remember trying to feel genuine sadness, but it just felt uncomfortable. I had never known Susan, and this slab of stone in the neatly cut grass - and my grandparent's? attentive gaze - didn?t bring us any closer.

As the years passed I grew close to my grandparents, but by the mid- 1990s they had both passed away and, as their effects were slowly sorted out, boxes full of Susan?s childhood things came to me.

At first, I put aside the tightly tied bundles of musty letters, scrapbooks and photo albums.

But as the days passed, curiosity overcame me and I started to read them.

The letters were weekly reports from the 18 months my mother had spent at Paddock Wood Finishing School in Surrey, and were utterly intriguing.

I spent an afternoon putting them in chronological order, and then read them from start to finish, fascinated.

For the first time, I felt I'?d actually lived a portion of my mother'?s life with her: the highs and the lows, the frustrations and the exuberance, the wit and the pathos.

It was extraordinary to hear her voice, her expressions and observations, and to piece together the puzzle of when her friends had first made an appearance, and when she had experienced - often mundane - things for the very first time, such as eating fish and chips out of newspaper.

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Susan with her baby son Giles, who was not even two years old when she died

I thought of them again this week, knowing it was the anniversary of her presentation to the Queen, and went through the letters once more, trying to imagine the mother I never knew.

The letters offer a fascinating historical snapshot of life in the Fifties, in that very specific environment: one which no longer exists.

It was in September 1956 that, having paid the £128 fee, my grandparents waved their daughter off as she headed south, 200 miles from home, to the Paddock Wood Finishing School, run by Mrs Rosette Savill.

It was safely detached from the dangers of London, but close enough to Sandhurst, and its blue-blooded cadets, to tempt those with ambitions for their daughters to mix with the military and royal Establishment.

My mother's first letter home was on September 27, 1956, and told her parents how lovely she thought the school and the other pupils were. ?

Among the various nationalities are French, Belgian, Danes, Swedes, Brazilians, Norwegians etc and someone from Trinidad,? she wrote.

?"We have lights-out at ten and we are allowed wirelesses from 6.30-10pm. I am the youngest, the average age being 17. I am in a room with a Swede named Ulla and a Belgian named Yvette. We call Mrs Savill?s sons, Val and Dick, nicknames Miss Valencia and Dicky Ducky. It is very difficult to tell who are the staff and who are the girls.?"

The more I read, the more it seemed we shared characteristics, both good and bad. I recognised an anxiety about getting things right, and trying to please everyone.

I felt admiration for her, and wondered how nervous she must have felt being delivered by her parents to an alien environment where she was one of only six English girls thrown together with the petulant offspring of contemporary Eurotrash, spoilt minor royalty from the Middle East and haughty diplomat's? daughters.

The lacklustre performance in her end-of-term reports seemed familiar to me, too.

I could imagine my grandfather reading her the riot act about not applying herself properly. It was the kind of could-do-better assessment my teachers regularly gave me.

I frequently found myself wishing she was here to explain the background to some contretemps or nuance in her letters, but then sadly resigned myself to the fact that her secrets went to the grave with her.

The regime at Paddock Wood was strict, it emerged. Early starts at 7.15am and lights out at 10pm bracketed a full day of classes and, for Susan, afternoon outplacement at a secretarial college.

There were also trips to Windsor or London to take in a show, dinner and shopping.

With war-time rationing only recently over, the meals as described by my mother at Paddock Wood sounded basic to say the least.

Susan'?s letters home were full of pleas for food, such as in her letter of October 19, 1956. "?Could you possibly send me some more food??" she writes. "?Here is a list, if you could get it for me: a tin-opener; lots of sweets; 1lb biscuits; tins of oranges and one of raspberries; 2 tins condensed milk; 2 boxes Kraft cheese; 2 boxes dry prunes; 1 bottle of Kia-Ora. Please pack them very well so as not to get bust up.?"

Her letters exuded teenage exuberance as one new experience followed another: fencing lessons, a demonstration of make-up techniques and going to see Swan Lake at Covent Garden.

She even invited two Iraqi sisters home to Cumbria for Christmas after protracted correspondence between her parents and their father, a Mr Ali Raouf Al-Tai, who owned Baghdad?s United Cement Co.

What they made of three weeks in a draughty country house, though, my mother did not record.

Then there were the Sandhurst boys. Pupils were banned from seeing them, but that made little difference to my mother, who wrote home in February 1957: "?I met an extremely nice Sandhurst boy who explained the whole of the army film to me. ?He said that he would probably see me next Sunday at the films. The army film took place in Catterick, where this boy had been stationed for a year.

"By the way, I don?t know his name but I know that he lives in Lymington, and also that he was one of the wags that locked us out of school after the dance last term. ?I hope you do not mind me going to the cinema each Sunday, but it is such fun. The pocket money is going round all right. But I am a bit broke at the moment as I have just bought a skirt and a jersey".?

But soon, my mother?'s fraternising with the Sandhurst boys had landed her in trouble, with a letter home from Mrs Savill which said: "?Susan has not worked quite as well as I had hoped this term. This may have been because her mind appears to be occupied with matters other than lessons.

"I was distressed to discover that Susan has been meeting Sandhurst cadets while out for walks on Sunday afternoons. I am putting Camberley out of bounds next term for this reason, and I would be grateful if you could emphasise to Susan that it is against the rules to meet boys without my permission.?"

My mother doubtless had a dressing down from both her teachers and parents after this and her bubbly personality in her letter-writing ended.

Her notes home became routine and factual. Only half-jokingly was her first letter home after Easter 1957 sent from ?Prison Camp!?

It seemed my mother had learned a tough lesson of her own about discretion.

From then on, in her letters at least, she buckled down to her shorthand and French, while keeping any battles with Mrs Savill to herself.

What is certain is that the asthma and eczema from which she suffered all her life plagued her.

Her letters are full of mention of chesty coughs and sore skin; alternately making light of the days she was confined to bed, or assuring her family she was coping with a wheezy chest or painful itchiness.

Growing up, it never occurred to me to wonder why I was the only member of the family - I have a half-sister, too - who suffered so badly from asthma and eczema.

But now I knew: I had inherited it from my mother. And the asthma had killed her.

Treatments for asthma are now so vastly more sophisticated than they were in 1967. Mine is under control, and I know which triggers to avoid.

My own five-year-old son gets eczema, but we know how to minimise its miserable effects. Susan wasn't so lucky.

However, her illness seemed worse when she was in the Cumbrian countryside than back in Surrey, and at the finishing school it didn't seem to debilitate her too much.

My mother's time at finishing school changed her from happy-go-lucky schoolgirl to refined husband-hunter.

Again, it's hard to imagine now, but that was the pinnacle of her aspirations - no matter how clever she might have been.

She would be "coming out" as a debutante at the Court of Queen Elizabeth II, armed, it was hoped, with the social sophistication to make an impact on the busy 1958 London "season", and attract Mr - or, if she was really lucky, Lord - Right.

Her anxious parents had certainly invested everything they could to ensure her success, and it was in her November 1957 letters that my mother started talking about Presentation to the Queen - her coming out at Buckingham Palace.

She was due to be presented by her godmother, Ann Weldon, four months later, but was already fretting about the details, writing: "Ann and I discussed Presentation in March. She says I should get to know another deb, as I will be partnering her at the Palace. What about curtseying lessons? And clothes?"

My grandmother can only have been delighted with Mrs Savill's final report on my mother: "She has worked hard and her manners have always been good. I feel sure her charming personality will be of great assistance in any career she may follow."

In the process, my grandfather had spent around £810 on fees and extras, with more on parcels of food, clothes and cosmetics, settling the family account at Harrod's for dressmaking and make-up, plus an allowance to keep his daughter's head aloft in the company of rich foreign heiresses.

For my mother, the time between Christmas 1957, when she left Paddock Wood, and March 1958 was a whirlwind of dressmakers and hairdresser's balls and parties, leading up to her big day.

I don't know many details of what happened to my mother that day, or afterwards, as her letters ended when she left Paddock Wood.

I do know that she worked in London as a publicist, working for the D'Oyly Carte Opera, and promoting variety acts such as Russ Conway and Ruby Murray.

It's possible she may have disappointed her parents by choosing not to marry one of the "deb's delights" she no doubt encountered.

Instead, in 1964 she married my father, Peter Chapman, a newspaper reporter whose family were prosperous, if un-aristocratic, trawler owners in Grimsby.

Almost immediately they quit London for a quiet life in Hampshire, where she gave birth to me in 1965 and was pregnant with a daughter when she died on April 7, 1967, aged 26.

Having got to know her through these letters, I felt her loss even more acutely when I married in 1999 and when my son - her only grandchild - came along three years later.

I've always found it difficult to feel a genuine love for the woman I know as Susan.

But one of the hundreds of old Basildon Bond envelopes I reopened this week broke my heart.

On the front, in very faded green ink and what I recognised as my grandmother's handwriting, was written "Susan's first curl"; inside was a tiny lock of blonde hair.

I keep it with my son's first curl, and suppose my own must have got lost in the turmoil of my mother's death.

As a writer on car culture and design, I never thought I'd find myself lost in the perplexing world of emerging society girls, or the last gasp of a terribly British tradition.

The year 1958 had always been redolent to me of the first Austin-Healey Sprite and Mike Hawthorn becoming Britain's first F1 champion driver.

But now it is inseparable with my mother's extraordinary coming of age.

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