I had a fantastic Mother’s Day with my family!  First I had this waiting for me at the kitchen table:

My husband knows that he can’t go wrong with the little blue box!  There was a peace sign necklace inside.  I wonder where he got the idea that I like peace signs…..

After a long walk with the dog, we went to a Mother’s Day Brunch at the brand new Loews Hotel in Midtown Atlanta.   The lobby was very nice, decorated in a modern, but comfortable way.  There were backgammon sets on the coffee tables, inviting guests to stay a while and have a drink from the lobby bar.

Restaurant eleven, where we had brunch, is located off the lobby and decorated in the same modern style as the lobby. We chose to sit outside on the balcony, which was pleasant, albeit with a pedestrian view.  Literally–we were practically on the sidewalk.

As with any buffet, my kids and I checked out the dessert station first and we were not disappointed.

In addition to the cakes and pies, there were small pots of creme brulee, custards and pudding.   The build-your-own-crepe station was divine.

The desserts were impressive indeed.   My husband also enjoyed the omelet station and my daughter loved the bread (as usual…she has never met a carb that she didn’t like).

The rest of the food was just okay.  The menu was a strange hybrid of traditional buffet offerings such as a bread station, salads and made-to-order omelets and also “small plates” ordered from a menu.  The small plates were included in the brunch price and could be ordered as much and often as we liked.  We ordered one of everything on the menu and except for the scallops, we didn’t order a second round.  The scallops were moist and tasty, but everything else was bland and uninteresting.

Here’s a gripe about some of Atlanta’s “upscale” restaurants: they don’t serve sweet tea.  If you have ever traveled to the south, you know that it is a staple item in the southern diet.   And with the exception of a few who manage to pull it off by serving tea so good that it doesn’t need sweetening (Watershed, Cafe Bistro at Nordstrom), there ought to be a law.   Our experience at Loews was made even more bitter–pun intended–by the fact that our waiter didn’t tell us the tea was unsweet.   There was no amount of sugar that could cut that bitter taste.  So we ordered lemonade.   It was even worse than the tea and clearly made from a powder.

Listen up Atlanta:  If your chef is an international food rock star, if your food has been listed on the most-try-before-you-die list of culinary delights, if your restaurant decor is photographed in every magazine in every major city in the world–get over yourself and cater to the regional tastes of your patrons.  Serve sweet tea, damn it!

Rant over.  Carry on…..

Despite the mediocre menu, I enjoyed the Loews Mother’s Day brunch.  The waiter was attentive and the desserts were delicious.   And any place with a candy station is alright by me.  We got a to-go box and filled it with Jelly Bellys and gummy candy to munch on the rest of the day.

Too bad we forgot to bring our box of candy into the movie theater.  After brunch we saw the movie Babies, a documentary that follows four different babies during their first year of life.  The babies are from California, Japan, Namibia and Mongolia.  Two babies live in a city and two babies live in rural areas.  Two babies have older siblings and two babies are only children.  And there are many other differences as well.

It was very interesting to watch how the dynamics of family structure, environment, economics, parental education, community, culture and parental involvement factored into how the babies were raised and when they reached their developmental milestones.    The audience’s observations and consequent conclusions are going to obviously be made from our own cultural biases, but as least for my family, our thoughts were not predictable.   There was no judgement about this baby who lived in a hut, versus that baby who lived in a fancy high-rise.   Or that baby who had medical care or this baby who didn’t.  That could be the documentary format, because our emotions weren’t skewed, but I think it more because of the subjects–the babies.   In as many ways as they were different, the babies were also so very much the same.  No matter where they lived or how they were cared for, they were all clearly loved.   They were all curious, full of wonder and happy.  And cute–OH MY GOSH WERE THEY CUTE!

(*All of the mothers nurse their babies in the movie and are topless quite often, so if your kids think that babies only drink milk from a bottle, you might want to have that discussion before you see the movie.)

It was the perfect movie for Mother’s Day, but it is great movie to see anytime as a family.  My 15 year old son loved it as much as his 8 year sister.   We all laughed and “aaaaw-ed” though out the whole movie.  Who doesn’t love babies?  I know I love mine!

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