Monday, June 23, 2014.
FAQs. Oyster Pizza?
A long time ago, after I gave a talk to the downtown Rotary Club, I sat down for a few minutes with Tiger Flowers. He was an insurance man by that time, but he had a career before that as a radio announcer and then a sportscaster on early New Orleans television. I forget how it came up, but he told me that in his disk jockey days, listeners would call and ask to have their favorite records played. He often replied that had already played that record an hour or two ago. The listener then said that he or she wanted to hear it again. Tiger explained that many different songs was better than a few repeating songs.
“Well, if I had only known that playing the same hits over and over was the formula that would become Top 40 radio,” he told me, “I could have become a very wealthy man!”
I thought about that as I began a new department in the NOMenu Daily. FAQ’s (frequently-asked questions) are the Top 40 of the publishing business. And of informative radio shows like mine, too. I don’t have to do anything special, because people naturally ask the same questions again and again. Which means a lot of people who don’t call are interested in the same questions.
I think.
Dinner at New Orleans Food & Spirits. I find out today why Mary Ann wants to dine here so often lately. Turns out she sold them an ad a couple of weeks ago. There is no faster way to get on her good side.
I was thinking red beans when we entered. But the notion of eating cold oysters on this hot day took over, so here came eight big bivalves on ice. The oyster bar is a new and welcome addition to NOF&S which, like every other restaurant with an oyster bar, is also grilling them a la Drago.
Oyster pizza.
But it’s only today that I notice a big Blodgett pizza oven behind the oyster bar. Pizza? Not only that, but an oyster pizza. I give that idea a one-in-eight chance of being good. I’m thinking that inside the oven, the oysters would throw off water, making the crust soggy. But they lay down so much mozzarella cheese on the crust and parmesan on the oysters that this problem doesn’t occur. The flavor is in the direction of Drago’s, with the herbs and garlic incorporated into the cheese. And I eat all but one slice. That one goes to Mary Ann, who also likes it, even though she’s only a lukewarm devotee of oysters.
New Orleans Food & Spirits. Covington: 208 Lee Lane. 985-875-0432.
Tuesday, June 24, 2014.
Auctioning “Brennan’s.” Namese.
An ad arrives by email inviting me to observe the auction of all that is left of the old Brennan’s on Royal Street. Most of the items are intangibles: the name, logos, website, recipes, etc. Also part of the lot is a collection of wines, which the ad says is over 1,000 bottles strong. What? Brennan’s cellar had tens of thousands of bottles. Where’s the rest of it?
I know that Ralph Brennan and partners–who own the building–are among the probable bidders for all the above. Seems to me we will have a restaurant named Brennan’s again at 417 Royal Street. The opening date is September, when Chanticleer the rooster may show himself to be a phoenix.
No Round Table show on the radio. Mary Ann was too busy trying to get Mary Leigh on a flight home last week to line up any guests. I match this nonperformance by accomplishing very little in my office after the radio show–unless I can call taking a twenty-minute nap an accomplishment. I’d feel like a lazy bum for that had I not started writing at 6:30 this morning, or kept on going after I got home until nearly midnight.
My first dinner at Namese has me sitting at the counter, a seat away from a regular customer who starts into telling me what he thinks are the best dishes. And how “authentic” Vietnamese food is limited to these dishes in those restaurants, and not those in these. I am reminded of the way fanatical customers of the early sushi bars in these parts would pontificate to total strangers as to what constitutes “real” Japanese sushi. I always found this offensive. I know it’s ironic for me to complain about that. But I never dispense advice unless asked.
Namese, a former Shell.
Namese is in a building I know was once a Shell station because a) it still has the 1960s design Shell used for its stations when they all still had mechanics on duty–in two hydraulic lift bays, yet–and 2) because back when the station was new I walked right in front of it every day after hopping off the Tulane bus en route to Jesuit.
It hasn’t been a gas station for a long time, though. Hieu Doan’s parents are of the generation of Vietnamese who fled here after the war. They operated a seafood and grocery store with a deli serving sandwiches in the gas station from the 1990s until recently. Hieu and his sister thought that the appreciation of Vietnamese food in New Orleans was great enough to support a restaurant, so they remodeled the Shell station and opened shop about nine months ago.
Hieu is a young man and speaks uninflected English. His perspective on Vietnamese food is logical: he doesn’t have to cook the same dishes that the first generation of Vietnamese Orleanians did.
Fried squid.
I started with fried calamari, rings cut from big but not colossal squid, with a couple of dipping sauces. I was just beginning to think about how these would be better still with smaller squid when the entree came out. I should have asked not to get everything at the same time.
Bun with everything at Namese.
But it was not a big deal, because the main was bun, a dish I much prefer to the more popular pho soup. It’s the same idea, without the broth, and with cool (not cold, just cool) noodles. The pile of pasta is covered with an assortment of interesting items: a shrimp cake, an egg roll, grilled beef and pork, and the usual stack of fresh herbs and greens. The serving was far beyond being finishible, but I got most of it down. The platter looked and tasted great.
By this time, the dining room was full. This has been a routine condition in the early months of Namese, and holding firm enough that Hieu is talking about an expansion. I hope not only that he goes through with it, but also that it’s a trigger for other restaurants at this corner. Which not too long ago was the home of the long-running, excellent Korean restaurant Genghis Khan.
Namese. Mid-City: 4077 Tulane Ave.
Shrimp Boil How-To
Q. I can’t seem to settle on one method of boiling shrimp. I always heard that you bring the water to a boil, add the shrimp, let the water come back to a boil and then cook for three minutes. My shrimp always seem to stick to the shell using this method because it can take a long time for the water to come back to a boil. How do you boil shrimp where they don’t stick to the shell?
A. When shrimp are hard to peel, it’s because they’ve been overcooked. Shrimp cook very quickly, and if you have the feeling that they need just a little more cooking, they’re probably perfect.
You have the basic technique almost right–except for one detail. When you boil shrimp, start by holding the pot of water (a lot of water works better than a little) at a rolling boil with only the crab boil and other seasonings in it for about five minutes.
Boiled shrimp.
Next, add the shrimp, keeping the fire on high. When you see the first bubbles come up as the water returns to a boil, turn off the heat completely and immediately. Let the shrimp just sit in the hot water for three to five minutes (depending on size). Then dump them into a bowl of ice water, or rinse them with cold running water.
The only exception to this are very large shrimp, which you might need to cook a minute longer. But you shouldn’t be boiling those anyway. They’re better on the grill for making barbecue shrimp.
Hot Bacon Shrimp
Near as I can tell, this dish infiltrated New Orleans from the West Coast, and caught on in a wide variety of restaurants. Its goodness owes much to the quality of the shrimp we have in New Orleans, but it’s a great party dish: big shrimp butterflied and stuffed with a mixture of mozzarella cheese and jalapeno chips, wrapped in bacon, and broiled till the bacon is crispy. Make a million of these: once people start eating them, they won’t be able to stop.
24 large (16-21 count) shrimp, peeled and deveined
8 oz. mozzarella cheese
2 chopped jalapeno peppers
12 slices bacon, cooked until browned but not crisp
1. Wash the shrimp and pat them dry. Butterfly the shrimp, leaving the tail section intact.
2. Cut the cheese into pieces a little smaller than the shrimp. Cut each piece of bacon in half.
3. Fill the center of each shrimp with about 1/4 tsp. chopped jalapeno. Place a piece of cheese in the center. Wrap each shrimp with a piece of bacon, and secure with a toothpick.
4. Place the shrimp on a baking pan or pizza pan and broil until they turn pink. Turn the shrimp and return to the broiler until the cheese begins to melt. Serve immediately.
Makes twenty-four.
Duck And Pistachio Paté @ Brigtsen’s
Paté is such a big deal in France that it’s no wonder the country rules the category. The one everybody likes best is paté de campagne–country-style paté, chunky and meaty, eaten with a fork, not spread on bread. The all-time champion in the making of that kind of paté in New Orleans was the late Gerard Crozier. In the modern day, Frank Brigtsen makes a duck pate very similar to the one at Crozier’s. He serves it with pickles he makes himself (not even Crozier did that), and a homemade red onion marmalade. Great start to a meal.
Brigtsen’s. Riverbend: 723 Dante. 504-861-7610.
This dish is ranked #78 in NOMenu’s list of the 500 best dishes in New Orleans restaurants.
July 1, 2014
Days Until. . .
Fourth Of July 3
Tales Of The Cocktail 18
Eating Around The World
Today is Canada Day, that country’s equivalent of the Fourth of July. Is there Canadian food? Yes. A good deal of the beef we eat is Canadian. Most of the lobsters that turn up in our stores and restaurants come from Canadian waters, which produce the greatest number of homards in the world. Also setting a standard of excellence are the mussels from Prince Edward Island (often noted as P.E.I. mussels on menus.) Their scallops are good, too. On the West Coast, Canadian salmon and halibut are classy enough that they’re widely distributed. One culinary horror story has been expanding from Canada lately: poutine. That’s French fries topped with brown gravy and cheese curd (something like rubbery ricotta). Yuck!
Today’s Flavor
Today is the beginning of the following: Lasagna Awareness Month, National Baked Bean Month, National Culinary Arts Month, National Ice Cream Month, July Belongs to Blueberries Month, National Picnic Month, and National Pickle Month.
Most worth celebrating, however, is National Hot Dog Month. Although the hot dog is pretty close to the bottom of the gourmet scale, only the ultimate food snob would say he doesn’t get a twinge of pleasure once in awhile from indulging in a frank. It seems an essential gustatory act when one is in any kind of ballpark. There’s something magical about hot dogs: we learn to love them when we’re little kids, but we never become immune to their charms.
A hot dog is made with pork or beef or both. I prefer pork, although all-beef hot dogs are often more expensively made. The meat is ground finely with curing ingredients. The smoke flavor some hot dogs have usually comes from another additive. A small percentage of hot dogs are covered with a natural casing; those are among the most expensive, and usually among the best. Hot dogs are pre-cooked, but enough incidences of listeria food poisoning have come from eating them right out of the package that it’s probably a good idea to cook them again.
The hot dog as we know it was popularized at the World Fair in St. Louis in 1903. But the antecedents of the hot dog are numerous and go back in history a very long way. Here’s a web page devoted to the genealogy of the hot dog. It’s full of stories you’ve probably never heard before.
New Orleans has not been a good place to find hot dogs until recently, with the advent of Dat Dog and imitators creating a new hot dog world here. Before them, however, thinking about hot dogs here was a thought about the Lucky Dog cart–and then you try to forget it as quickly as possible. A few stalwart restaurateurs have attempted over the years to incite interest with a first-class Chicago or New York-style dog with interesting garnishes, but most failed dismally. But we have a few local hot dog traditions. Many people like hot dogs with red beans and rice. The pepper wiener poor boy–a specialty at Juneau’s and (in the old days) Domilese’s–is another local version that need expansion. The only long-running hot dog sandwiches of excellence are the split, charcoal-grilled Numbers Seven through Nine at Bud’s Broiler.
Deft Dining Rule #561
A hot dog that doesn’t make you want another one right away is not a very good hot dog.
Food In Manufacturing
Today in 1910, Black and Decker opened for business. The company started out making food-related machinery: a gizmo for capping milk bottles, and another for dipping candy. But their name became famous for construction tools. My first power drill (which I still have, after thirty-eight years of regular use) is a Black and Decker. So it seemed funny when they started their line of kitchen appliances in the early 1980s. My first food processor was a Black and Decker. I still have and use that, too, after twenty-eight years. Pretty good stuff these guys make.
Annals Of Junk Food
On this date in 1917, Coca-Cola changed its formula. Nobody complained. That formula is the one still in use for Coke Classic, although almost all other forms of Coca-Cola use the New Coke flavor. . . Wally Amos Jr., who created the “Famous Amos” chocolate chip cookie, was born today in 1936. . . Forrest Mars, who created M&M’s and the Mars Bar, died today in 1999. He was a driven, no-frills businessman who permitted almost nothing to be known about himself. His history is presented in a great book called The Emperors of Chocolate.
Cheese Of The Day
Cheez Whiz appeared on shelves in grocery stores for the first time today in 1953. It’s cheese and milk emulsified with oil to be spreadable. The name alone is enough to keep the tasteful person away. But Cheez Whiz does have one tenuous claim to culinary interest: it’s the traditional cheese used on the Philadelphia-style cheese steak sandwich. At least that’s what some purists claim. I use provolone on mine. Original recipes are often far less good than the improvements that follow them.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Crab Branch flows about ten miles north into the Wabash River at Wabash, Ohio. Its waters then make a U-turn south down the Wabash, which runs in turn into the Ohio and the Mississippi before flowing in front of St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans. The confluence with the Wabash is near the Indiana state line, about 110 miles northeast of Indianapolis. Crab Branch, which almost certainly contains no edible crabs, runs through the flat, endless cornfields in that part of the Midwest. The nearest restaurant is the Chatt Bar in Chattanooga, six miles away. Who would think there was a Chatttanooga in Ohio?
Edible Dictionary
boudin noir, n., French–A sausage made by stuffing a casing with pork and pig’s blood, cooked until it thickens. Its texture gives rise to one of its nickname, “blood pudding.” It’s found in numerous cuisines, especially in Europe, where it goes by a variety of names. The Cajun version differs from most of the others in being quite peppery. It’s very different from the much more common Cajun boudin blanc, which is stuffed with rice and various pork products. Cajun boudin noir is made by some small butchers, who often keep that fact a secret because the health authorities aren’t crazy about the idea. A milder version is seen here and there on country-style French menus, here and in France.
Food And The Law
Today in 2007, restaurants in New York City were prohibited from using trans-fats in their cooking. This affected Hispanic restaurant more than most, but many recipes had to be changed. Trans-fats are everywhere Crisco or margarine were present, and that’s a lot of dishes. The health benefits are hard to ignore. And better-tasting substitutes for trans-fats are easy to find.
Music To Eat Beans By
Dan Ackroyd, Canadian-born comedian and actor, was born today in 1952. He was one of the Blues Brothers, first on Saturday Night Live, then in the movie. From the latter the House of Blues chain of music clubs and restaurants was born. The HOB on Decatur Street here in New Orleans is always packed, but the food has only rarely been memorable. A statue of Ackroyd in his Blues Brother attire stands in the Louis Armstrong International Airport.
Food Namesakes
Evelyn “Champagne” King, who sings dance music, is forty-five today. . . Claude Berri, an actor and director known best for the movie Le Sex Shop, is seventy-one.
Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de Rochambeau, was born today in 1725. He is the man for whom one of the best dishes at Antoine’s is named. Poulet Rochambeau is a roasted, deboned, cut-up chicken atop a thick slice of ham, topped with a slightly sweet brown sauce and bearnaise. It’s the first entree I ever ate at Antoine’s, and still one of my favorite dishes there. Chicken Rochambeau is also served at Galatoire’s and Arnaud’s, though not as well as at Antoine’s. Rochambeau the man was a French aristocrat who participated enthusiastically enough in the American Revolution that he deserves the honor, and then some.
Words To Eat By
“I once served a steak to Janis Joplin at Max’s Kansas City. She was quiet and very polite. She didn’t eat her steak but left a five-dollar tip.”–Deborah Harry, singer in the group Blondie, born today in 1945.
Words To Drink By
“Eat well is drink well’s brother.”–Scottish proverb.
Assertiveness In The Kitchen.
Once the chefs became the new stars of the era, the door was opened to many more examples of self-importance in the food world. Machines are on the verge of surpassing food writers.
Click here for the cartoon.