Creamy cauliflower soup with spicy oil and fried black pepper at Hawks in Granite Bay

So much alliteration going on with Hawks in Granite Bay and Hiatt at Harris, still a great way to enjoy a rainy March Sunday evening, if you’re not outside in the rain. Granted, I was not the one barreling down Business 80, windshield wipers furiously whipping against the glass to little avail. I was the one sitting in the passenger seat trying to have my weekly chat with my sister in Minneapolis, as the cellphone towers handed off signals, which reduced much of our conversation to snips and pieces. My mind did not need to focus on trying to stay out of the way of bozos nor did I need to grip the steering wheel so hard my fingers turned purple.

I should have known better than to attempt to engage in a cellphone call in that corridor because I routinely traverse this route when I take listings in Citrus Heights, Antelope, Roseville or Lincoln. Mostly I listen to buyer’s agents talk and pretend to understand what they are saying. Hey, sometimes you can figure out tiny parts of conversation and put together the bigger picture without hearing every single word.

When they seated us at Hawks in Granite Bay, we were sandwiched between two groups of lively and engaged diners whose conversation I did not want to listen to. People sometimes think they are the only ones in the room and it doesn’t matter if everybody is forced to hear their words. If I wanted to listen to some obnoxious voice, I’d turn on Talk Radio . . .. OK, I really would NOT do that because I never want to hear anything that irritating. My ears are precious. My time on earth limited. If I can enhance my evening, upgrade the experience, I will, so we moved to a quiet booth, even though I suspect my husband was perfectly comfortable where he was. He is grittier than I.

Sunday evening is Sunday Supper at Hawks in Granite Bay. Prix fixe menu. The only thing left to choose was the wine, and much to my excitement I could order a 2013 Kistler Chardonnay. I’ve dined at only two other restaurants where I could get this wine, Le Mer in Honolulu and Sante in Sonoma. Kistler tells me that I can’t buy this particular vintage directly from Kistler Vineyard because they sell it exclusively to restaurants; however, I did finally get my January release order confirmed a few days ago, a month later than last year, and let’s just say 2013 Kistler Chardonnay is finally on its way to my front porch.

The best thing about our dinner at Hawks in Granite Bay, apart from the wine, was a toss-up between the Lychee Panna Cotta moat surrounded by rhubarb sauce, which I have no idea where they sourced rhubarb, and the creamy cauliflower soup dotted with fried black peppers and spicy oil (pictured on this page). The Frank Late chardonnay with the dessert added an additional layer of delight.

We don’t often drive further than Midtown from Land Park when dining out, but since my husband surprised me with front row center tix to John Hiatt at Harris Center in Folsom, this was our chance to try Hawks. It’s a long ways to drive from Land Park. They also have a more casual restaurant in Midtown, which we will now need to visit. Except for the annoying television screen projected from the bar area onto the wine room glass doors, making it visible from our booth, it was an extremely wonderful experience at Hawks in Granite Bay.

John Hiatt performed for more than 90 minutes at Harris Center in Folsom.

Due to the torrential rain, we were late by two minutes at Harris Center. The usher made us stand in the hallway after yelling at me to turn off my phone. He carried on about the spotlight, the spotlight, for a good 30 seconds after I had put it away. He’s lucky I didn’t stick out my foot and trip him. He also kept talking to me, and I couldn’t hear half of what he said, yet there was no cellphone tower and I was not on my phone. This was person-to-person, and I just wished he would shut up. I couldn’t hang up on him.

When the warm-up guy stopped for a moment between songs, the usher scampered down the aisle and motioned for us to follow. We settled into our seats. Finally, it was just John Hiatt on stage. Him, guitar, harmonica and microphone. He stood for the entire show. At one point he tried to do a song suggested by an audience member, one of my favorites, Blue Telescope, and forgot the words. The guy ran up to the stage with the CD sleeve, which Hiatt stuck it into his microphone stand and finished the song. It doesn’t matter how you get there at his age, although, gotta say, he is younger than this Sacramento Realtor by two months.

I just wish older guys didn’t feel the need to have to wear a hat. You might have to wear glasses to see where you’re going, but you don’t really need a hat. Even a cool funky hat, like somebody in Hiatt’s life probably told him he had to wear. Seriously, guys, you earned every lost hair follicle. Be proud of it.