Bloody Marys and Blue Eyes

When I ask Aunt Trudy if she would like a glass of wine with lunch, she says, “Oh, honey, you know I don’t drink,” and then proceeds to order a Bloody Mary from our waitress, Sandra, who, like all the other servers at the Ramos House Cafe, is wearing denim overalls and a white T-shirt.

Aunt Trudy says the Bloody Marys at the Ramos House don’t qualify as a drink, “since the waitress said they don’t have hard liquor in them.” So when Sandra comes out carrying a Mason jar full of tomato juice topped with pickled green beans and a crab claw, I ask her what’s in this soupy cocktail.

Sandra tilts her head back and rolls her eyes, like she is a 5-year-old child asked to recite the Pledge of Allegiance. “Let’s see,” she says, looking up at the little iron bird cages with candles in them hanging from the branches of a tree overhead. “Clamato juice, Tabasco sauce, olives and fermented vodka.” What, I ask her, is fermented vodka? She frowns and purses her lips, stumped. “I’m not exactly sure,” she says. “I think it’s vodka that has been sitting around open. Or something like that.”

It doesn’t matter. It’s splendid tasting and Aunt Trudy is thinking of having another. And our fried-green-tomato appetizer hasn’t even arrived yet.

“Excuse me,” says a young woman in a sky-blue sweater sitting at the table next to us with a slightly older man who is holding her hand. “Is that as good as it looks?”

“Oh, honey, it’s the best darn Bloody Mary you’ll ever have in your life,” Aunt Trudy says. “Try it.” And before anyone can say anything, Aunt Trudy has pushed the Mason jar of Clamato juice with fermented vodka into the hands of the woman in the blue sweater. Aunt Trudy discovers that the couple is celebrating the man’s birthday and insists on buying them both a Bloody Mary. “As my treat,” she says, putting her hand on her chest and smiling.

I have brought Aunt Trudy to San Juan Capistrano to visit the mission because it is where, she claims, she fell in love with her husband, Vincent, and because it is Valentine’s Day weekend and Vincent died on Valentine’s Day many years ago. It’s funny about Aunt Trudy. She never visits Vincent at the cemetery in Long Beach where he is buried. Instead, she likes to go on special occasions--his birthday, their anniversary, Valentine’s Day--to the places they went together. Like Felix’s, a little Cuban restaurant in Orange, or Mission San Juan Capistrano.

According to Aunt Trudy, my Uncle Vincent, who was a professional boxer and a fisherman and worked for the Southern Pacific railroad, proposed to her in the ruins of the mission’s Great Stone Church. “I was 15,” she’s told me. “He brought me a bouquet of forget-me-nots that he’d cut from his mother’s garden. I was very, very late getting home and my father was waiting up for me, reading a book at the kitchen table. He started to say something to me in anger, but before he could, I said, ‘Poppa, I’m engaged!’ And he cried. That’s the only time I ever saw my father cry.”

A lovely story. And it might even be true. But she has also told me that she was married on a ship sailing to Panama, which I know is not true, and that she dated Charles Lindbergh, another fabrication. So who can say. Aunt Trudy is in her 90s and veracity is not her strong suit. Not that it matters.

We didn’t actually go inside the mission to the Great Stone Church. Aunt Trudy wouldn’t permit it. There were some picketers at the gate with a big sign that said, “Labor Dispute: Shame on the Mission!” and because my uncle was a member of one union or another his entire life, Aunt Trudy refuses to cross picket lines. Even though there really wasn’t a picket line, just a couple of dour-looking women, bundled up against the cold, sitting on folding chairs.

Neither one of us had the faintest idea what the labor dispute was about. Even after one of the unhappy-looking women tried to explain it to us. Still, Aunt Trudy shook their hands and gave them each a dollar. “Vince would never forgive me,” she said solemnly as we walked away. Instead, we spent our morning walking through the historic Los Rios District, admiring the little cottages and adobe houses with their cactus gardens before Aunt Trudy said she was getting tired.

I suggested we stop for lunch at the Ramos House Cafe. We are sucking on our pickled green beans and sipping our Mason jars of Clamato juice and fermented vodka when the railroad-crossing bells start chattering and the silver Superliner from San Diego comes purring into the depot, halting on the other side of the stick fence surrounding the patio where we are enjoying our drinks.

The big train idles while passengers get on and off. A bunch of young kids, pressing their hands and faces against the smoky glass of the observation car, make goofy faces at us; Aunt Trudy smiles and waves. “I like this place,” she says emphatically, and I’m not sure if she’s talking about San Juan Capistrano, Los Rios or the restaurant. Maybe all three. Aunt Trudy considers ordering the crab cakes with a chili remoulade until Sandra says, “Now, those are pretty spicy. Did you want something that spicy?” And Aunt Trudy puts her hand over her chest again and says, “Oh, no, dear. Thank you for telling me that.”

She settles on the macaroni and cheese, which comes with bits of asparagus, ham and morel mushrooms. I go for the buttermilk crab cakes, which are just as spicy as Sandra warned. For dessert, we split a plate of warm berry and banana shortcake. Aunt Trudy puts a hand up in the air, trying to get Sandra’s attention, and when she comes over, Trudy tilts her head and whispers, “I think we should get that handsome young man over there some of this delicious berry shortcake, don’t you? You know, it’s his birthday!”

When the dessert arrives, the man, who looks to be in his 40s, comes over to our table. “That was awfully kind of you,” he says, giving Aunt Trudy a kiss on the cheek. “Thank you so much.” Aunt Trudy blushes.

As we are walking away from the table, she glances over her shoulder and then leans into me, giving my arm a squeeze. “He has the same eyes,” she says. “Deep blue. Just like Lindbergh’s.”

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The Ramos House Cafe, 31752 Los Rios St., San Juan Capistrano, (949) 443-1342

Open for breakfast and lunch, Tuesdays through Sundays, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. David Lansing’s column is published on Fridays in Orange County Calendar. His e-mail address is occalendar@latimes.com.