I wanted to visit with Mom last Saturday to talk about my recent vacation to San Francisco, show her my photographs and most importantly give her a gift I bought. She suggested meeting in Ocala, partly to save each of us some mileage and to give me the opportunity to dine at Ipanema Brazilian Steak House.

Located at 2023 South Pine Avenue, this Churrascaria serves food in the contemporary Rodizio style. Servers circle the dining room each with a long skewer of a particular food, offering their selection if you have your two-sided coaster turned to the “please, sir, can I have some more” side. They had pork, sirloin, prime rib, bacon-wrapped filet mignon, flank steak, chicken, lamb, sausage and pineapple all cooked over an open-flame of Brazilian mineral coals. Since some of the food could be messy to serve in this format, the silverware selection includes tongs so you can assist while the meat server carves.

There is also a salad bar with various side dishes like mashed potatoes and vegetables, but because of the quantity and quality of the food brought to the table, I did not try anything else. All the beef products were delicious though I did not try the flank steak, or “shoe leather steak” as Mom calls it. The sausage was good, I did not like the lamb and the pineapple was incredibly wonderful. Mom said the garlic-mashed potatoes are great as well. It was surprisingly good overall and I would go there again even at $36.95 per person.

Since it was too hot (the high was 96, heat index 100+) to hang out at a park as planned, we decided to grab a booth in the bar area of a local Chili’s restaurant instead. We had a few beverages and looked at my vacation pictures while talking and catching-up. It was really nice, but the part I had been looking forward to was giving Mom her present.

While in San Francisco, I was keeping my eyes open to anything that could make a nice, personal gift. Close to the end of my time there, I was walking through Noe Valley and finally saw a shop with potential. Chocolate Covered Sweets and Gifts, 4029 24th Street, has a vast assortment of chocolates, retro lunch boxes and the focus of my interest, metal tins covered with Japanese Washi paper and a street sign photograph applied to the lid using Cyanotype photo processing (see Cyanotypes and Chocolate: a Match Made in San Francisco). There is a tin for nearly every local street so I could not find Twin Peaks, a tin to match my sign, without assistance.

I did notice a small selection of local business signs, so after he found Twin Peaks for me, I asked shop owner Jack Epstein if he had a tin with the Tommy’s Joynt restaurant sign on it. Open since 1947, Tommy’s Joynt is a San Francisco institution I have enjoyed eating at on each of my now four visits to the city, twice on this trip. You can see the building in my photograph here.

Jack said he had been meaning to go there to photograph the sign but had not yet done so. After I took out my camera and showed him the picture I had taken days earlier, Jack told me it was perfect and to go around the corner to Walgreens and make a print. With a print, he could make a tin like the others by the next afternoon. In exchange for paying for the print and waving the typical customization fee, I would give him the print to use to make and sell more tins.

The tin turned out beautifully as you can see. I bought two (one for myself) and the gift went over as expected, quite well. I am proud to invite you to visit Chocolate Covered Sweets and Gifts to see or buy the Jack Epstein Japanese paper tin featuring my photograph of the Tommy’s Joynt neon sign, not to mention sample the sweets and browse the other gifts. If you do stop in, be sure to mention to you saw this article, and, if you could, snap and send me a picture of the tin on the wall so I can post it here.

Author’s Note: During the writing and editing process, this article was originally titled “The Meat from Ipanema” for obvious reasons. Although replaced in the final draft, I was compelled to share it anyway.

Thanks to my friend Keith, I now have a Panasonic TC-28WG25H GAOO Wide DDD 26-inch widescreen CRT television to replace the 19-inch set Chris gave me, which over time developed a green hue, horizontal lines and occasional flickering. Actually Omar’s old TV, the Panasonic was made in Osaka, purchased in Pakistan and moved to Dubai before coming to Tallahassee. It may not be new, but it is modern, well-traveled and the picture looks great.

The native 16:9 aspect ratio means that movies and television shows filmed in 1.85 nicely fill the entire screen without stretching or black bars. Movies filmed in larger formats like 2.39 (anamorphic widescreen) still look great, but with horizontal black bars. Interestingly enough, I found the picture of standard television looks good stretched to 16:9 from 4:3, although I have only been able to test this with my That ’70s Show DVDs.

Equipped with a Belling-Lee connector instead of the US standard F connector, I will have to use RCA if I ever get cable or an antenna. Otherwise, it is loaded with numerous S-Video and RCA connections perfect for my needs. All I have left to do now is rearrange my living room setup to accommodate it. Currently sitting on its stand, neither entertainment center I have can support the width, which has to be the best problem ever to have with a television.