Soulard

After getting World's Fair donuts, we headed to Lafayette Square, St. Louis's oldest park and one of its oldest neighborhoods. There's a sculpture in the park of Missouri's first senator, Thomas Hart Benton, dressed in a toga, holding a map (he was an advocate of westward expansion). (Theodore Roosevelt wrote a biography of Benton.) The sculptor is Harriet Hosmer, one of the first American female sculptors.

Next, we headed to the Soulard Farmer's Market.

There were some cage-free eggs for not much more than regular store-bought eggs cost, so I bought them, since Laurie Colwin and Hopkins would approve. I honestly can't tell much difference, but Francisco says they're far superior.

We finished the day at Zia's, an Italian restaurant on the Hill (the Italian part of St. Louis, complete with red, white and green fire hydrants), with Norleans and her husband and new little baby, who slept all the way through dinner. Zia's is quite popular and takes no reservations, which meant that although we arrived at 5 (an early dinner time to suit the baby), we still had to wait for half an hour to get seated. And when we left, the bar area was filled with tons of people waiting for tables. We had, among other things, toasted ravioli, a St. Louis special (there seem to be many, many special St. Louis foods).