The King Of Crawfish, Crowned Tonight, Feeds You.
Last year at the peak of crawfish season, the Louisiana Restaurant Association held a party to celebrate one of Louisiana’s best and most distinctive food products: the mighty mudbug. It was enough fun that the LRA is making it an annual event, with the second running tonight.
Chef Duke Locicero told me that this is not to be confused with a crawfish boil. “We have fourteen major chefs cooking original crawfish dishes of all kinds,” he says. There will be drinks, too. The price is $45 per person, with tickets available at the door or online.
After you eat your fill of the crawfish creations, you’re asked to nominate one of the participating chefs as King Of Crawfish. The festivities begin at six in the Chicory, a handsome events space at 610 S. Peters in the Warehouse District. (Next door to Ernst Cafe, corner of Lafayette and S. Peters.) Parking at nominal rates is easily available nearby.
King of Crawfish
Warehouse District: 610 S. Peters St. . https://louisianarestaurantlaassoc.wliinc16.com//events/LRA-Greater-New-Orleans-Chapter-King-of-Crawfish-978/register.
NOMenu invites restaurants or organizations with upcoming special events to tell us, so we might add the news to this free department. Send to news@nomenu.com.
Friday, June 5, 2015.
Livorno. Florence. Sienna. But Not For Me.
Today, Mary Ann accomplishes a feat. It is one I have jokingly reported as her standard practice when were in port on a cruise ship. But today it is no joke. She really is the very first passenger to leave the ship, at around six-thirty in the morning. Her mission is to get to the rental car desk on the dock before anyone else, to get a good automobile for the day. She can now navigate all over Tuscan creation, with Florence, Sienna, and a number of other possible towns of interest.
Part two of this accomplishment is that whe comes screaming onto the dock just in time to board the ship before it leaves Livorno. I have already taken two calls from the ship’s census takers, wondering where she is. Indeed, she is the last passenger to ascend the gangway to the ship.
The longest hallway of the Queen Victoria. There are two more like this, three on each side. Long walk.
I was reasonably sure that something like this would happen today. Which is why I decide to stay on the ship. This is the sixth consecutive port for the Queen Victoria on this itinerary. Three or four is about all I can stand of MA’s peripatetic, down-to-the-wire wanderings. I am exhausted, as I always am after a long day of following Mary Ann around.
Even though one can never get enough of Tuscany, we have been to all these cities numerous times before anyway. Nevertheless, MA’s list of must-see items is long and highly personal. Example: she has tried over eleven years to see the original David sculpture by Michaelangelo on all the four visits we’ve made to Florence. Today she finally succeeds at doing so. Good for her!
My plans made (and eagerly endorsed by my wife), I have a great day, even though it may sound boring. The ship is beautiful and comfortable, and I take full advantage of it. I have a cappuccino-and-pastry breakfast, then spend most of the morning writing and checking on things back home. (No problems.) I try to collect and touch up at least a hundred photos I have taken since our tour embarked. But my old laptop and the very slow satellite-fed internet makes that effort frustrating. Publication will have to wait until we get back home.
Good menu in the main dining room tonight. A salad of crabmeat, avocado and tomato. A vegetable bisque with truffle cream. A second salad of celery root, artichokes and hearts of palm can’t be resisted. Entrees: fillet of lemon sole with a shellfish-based sauce. It’s the best entree I have had aboard the ship. Also appealing are the mushroom-filled tortelloni (little ravioli). I ask the waiter for two extra orders of it and pass it around to the others at our table. There are still some who don’t know that you can order more than one entree at dinner.
My dessert is something I’ve heard of before but never eaten. Treacle is sort of a bread pudding made by soaking cake in a custard sauce, then serving it cold. My liking of this shows once again that I am a custard kind of guy, in both the literal and metaphorical senses.
This is our final night on the ship. There is much for the girls to do. I’m pretty well packed. I write one more cruiseletter for my fellow travelers, and deliver them. That’s always a wistful activity for me, and as I walk around the ship I remember past cruises, and the possibility of future ones. Mary Ann has made it very clear that she will not be joining me on any more cruises. Nor does Mary Leigh have any cruise-related bucket items left. Cruising will likely enter the same compartment of my travel pleasures that trains have occupied for years. The two modes are sort of similar, come to think of it.
Eat Club Tour 2015: Day 13. Saturday, June 5, 2015.
Going To Rome The Hard Way. Most Expensive Hotel Ever.
It will take days or even years to decide which which were the best moments, most delicious dishes, nicest people, most interesting sights, and other superlatives of the cruise that ends today.
But there is no doubt as to the worst moment. That comes today, when we roll our bags off the Queen Victoria’s gangplank onto the ground in Civitavecchia, the maritime entry to Rome.
There we learn that there is no bus, car, or taxi waiting to take us to the Hassler Hotel in Rome. some fifty miles away. We ask numerous Cunard staffers as to how this missing link might be connected. Their answer is consistently, “there is nothing.” A few cabs were parked in a line, but all are reserved. We could have taken a shuttle to Civitavecchia and try to find a cab there, but the shuttles are running sporadically. There’s also a train to Rome–same outfit we got to know in Rapallo two days ago. But even thinking about getting our eight big, heavy bags onto the train is daunting.
Our situation seems only to get worse as the minutes went by. The only remote possibility was a grumpy driver with a van. He had three ladies in roughly the same situation as ours. He said he would accept sixty dollars per person, no less, for doing what he suggested was the impossible.
We signed on, but I know of a problem. I only have only €80 in my pocket. The three ladies had already riled the driver up by asking him to stop for something or other as he complained about how bad the traffic was going to be. In the hour that followed, I mentally went over all the possibilities. The most sensible is to ask the driver to pull over at a bank so I could get some cash from the ATM. But the road from Civitavecchia is mostly rural, and we didn’t see any banks until we were entering the legendary traffic jams of Rome. And there was also the possibility that an ATM may not deliver. Not for lack of funds (of that I was certain), but for repeatedly obscure reasons that made ATM use much less reliable on this trip than any we can recall.
I didn’t want to be thrown out with the Marys and our luggage in an unknown place. Or worse. I decided to wait until we arrived at the hotel. At the Hassler, the doorman said there was no ATM in his building, but there was another one about three blocks down the street. I figured that by the time the driver had our bags on the ground, I would be back.
I shove the card in. The first four screens display normally. Then the machine says that the transaction can’t be completed. I try my backup card, which is at least as flush with cash as the first one. But I get the same result. I try both cards a second time. A new wrinkle: the machine threatens to swallow my card if I don’t get out of there in ten seconds. Yikes!
Now what? We go inside the hotel and ask for advice. The front desk clerk says that he can negotiate the cash transfer as soon as we are checked in. He accelerates that process, then hands over two hundred blessed euros. I run out to the street and hand the cash and a big tip to the taxi driver. Who is starting to regard me as a deadbeat. I am saved from having a hit put out on me by the reputation of the Hassler as a hotel for wealthy, well-connected people. For once, Mary Ann’s love of luxurious hotels comes in handy.
The clock ticks by in the Hassler Hotel in Rome.
All that took a big toll on my nerves. I wanted nothing more than to relax, preferably with a nap. But our room wasn’t quite ready. And Mary Ann was–very much ready indeed to start exploring Rome. What has been cool weather since we left New Orleans is now in the high 80s. The three of us wander aimlessly through the neighborhood. After awhile, we find ourselves in a produce market. The Marys thread their way through the displays and the many customers and vendors for what seemed like an hour. At times I lost track of them. Again and again, we walk past the same displays of the same vegetables and fruits, plus large displays of dozens of dried herb seasoning. It was almost mesmerizing, but not in a good way.
The Marys take a break from the market and head over to a bread bakery that was also making pizza. Mary Ann hands me a piece and we returned to the produce market. Again we pass among the jars of the same old dried herbs and shouting vendors. Why are we spending so much time here? I wonder. It’s nowhere near as appealing or impressive as the markets in Barcelona or Valencia. But I just keep following.
Finally, the Marys escape the market’s gravity field, and we head somewhere else. We walk and walk and walk. We climb the Spanish Steps, all 139 of them, and enter the hotel. Thank God, our room is ready.
Room #222 is enormous and lavish, furnished with antiques. The Marys take their showers, then I mine. I pulled myself under the freezing, thick sheets for what I hoped would be at least an hour of sleep.
One side of the Spanish Steps in Rome. We went over the 130-170 steps. I get a different count every time I go over the summit, which I do many times in the next few days.
In the final Cruiseletter I sent the Eat Clubbers yesterday, I invited all who would remain in Rome for a few days to join me for dinner tonight. We dine at Ristorante Alla Rampa. It is well named, under a ramp leading away from the Spanish Steps. You could almost say that the restaurant is beneath the Steps, a fact that makes it very easy to find.
Ristorante alla Rampa, our favorite casual eatery in Rome.
Chef Duke Locicero of New Orleans’s Café Giovanni fame turned us on to this place a couple of years ago. It was a big hit with that group of Eat Clubbers, and it would be even more popular tonight.
The Eat Club dining with abbondanza in Ristorante alla Rampa.
The first to arrive were longtime Eat Clubbers Marilyn and Carroll Charvet. We top out with thirteen people, nearly filling the entire big table set for us. The waiter is exceptionally accommodating. I place orders for appetizer. They include insalata Caprese, fried calamari, prosciutto, stuffed zucchini flowers, fried green beans, and a few other things. I distribute a few bottles of Collio, an excellent white wine from the little-known Friuli department of Northeastern Italy.
The most popular dish in Roman restaurants these days is pasta cacio di pepi–a peppery answer to fettuccine Alfredo, tossed inside a big, hollowed-out wheel of Pecorino Romana cheese, with cream and pepper. We also have large piles of spaghetti carbonara and spaghetti all’amatriciana–both considered distinctive Roman dishes, although there is some question as to their roots.
Only a few of the Eat Clubbers order on after the pasta to have a secondi (entree to you) course of veal, chicken, or fish. I have the most offbeat of these: grilled swordfish, a spectacular treatment thereof. The last time I had it this good was the last time I dined in Rome, a year and a half ago.
When it turns red wine time, I find a Primativo, the ancient Southern Italian wine that’s said to be the ancestor of Zinfandel. We are having a ball. The waiter, with a pleased expression, tells me that we eat like Italians, much better than most Americans he serves. Maybe he says that to everybody, but I accept it as truth.
The waiter further wins my appreciation in his handling of the check. We split the price evenly among us, about €47 each, tip and wine included. It may be our best meal in Rome. But it is certainly the best bargain we make during in our three days in the Eternal City.
Ristorante alla Rampa. Rome: Piazza Mignanelli 18. (Adjacent to the Spanish Steps.) 06 678 2621. www.allarampa.it/home.php?language=English.
Soft-Shell Crab with Crabmeat Meuniere
Few dishes inspire the eye-popping anticipation that a large, golden brown soft shell crab does. It has such intrinsic excellence that any elaborate preparation diminishes it. The standard (and best) preparation is to dust the crab with seasoned flour and fry it. All it really needs in the way of a sauce is a little brown butter, and perhaps a topping of some extra jumbo lump crabmeat.
4 large soft-shell crabs
1 tsp. salt
1 tsp. white pepper
2 cups all-purpose flour
1 cup milk
1 whole egg
Vegetable oil for frying
1 stick butter
1 Tbs. freshly-squeezed lemon juice
1/2 tsp. Worcestershire sauce
1/2 lb. lump crabmeat
Soft shell crabs meuniere.
1. Wash the crabs and shake out any water from inside the shell. Remove the “dead man’s fingers” (the gills) from underneath the shell. With scissors, and cut off the eyes and mouthparts.
2. Heat vegetable oil in a large heavy kettle to 375 degrees.
3. Blend salt and pepper into flour, and coat each crab lightly with the flour mixture.
4. Combine the milk and egg, then dip the floured crabs into this mixture. Coat crabs again with the seasoned flour.
5. Place a crab top side down on the end of a long-handled cooking fork. (Do not skewer it.) Let the legs and claws dangle. Lower all but the body into the hot oil. Hold that position for about fifteen seconds, and then carefully flip the crab backwards into the oil. Fry two at a time until golden brown, and drain. (Let the heat of the oil recover before frying the next batch.)
6. In a skillet, cook the butter over low heat until it stops bubbling, and the milk solids at the bottom just begin to brown. Carefully add the lemon juice and Worcestershire (this will cause the butter to foam!) and cook until the foaming subsides. Add the crabmeat and sauté 30 seconds. Spoon butter and crabmeat over hot fried crabs.
Serves four.
Salted Corn Flan, Caramel Ice Cream, Vanilla Milk Foam @ Root
A typically complex dish from the hand of Chef Philip Lopez, this is not made to puzzle you with its unique ensemble of ingredients, but to use each ingredient to heighten the flavors of the others. Homemade “cracker jacks” complete the sensation with a fascinating mouthfeel and flavors that come from other ingredients as well.
Root. Warehouse District: 200 Julia. 504-252-9480.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
June 18, 2015
Days Until. . .
Father’s Day 3
Food Calendar
Today is alleged by many Web sites to be National Cherry Tart Day. More interesting is its designation as International Picnic Day. The food at picnics has changed a lot since we were kids. It was just hot dogs and hamburgers then–if you were lucky. If you were unlucky, it was potato salad, cold fried chicken, and bologna sandwiches. Now food magazines tell us to pack a fantastic gourmet feast, including wines, into a picnic basket. It’s not really hard; the trick is to go cold with everything (it’s usually warm outside when you picnic, anyway). Or to bring along one of those Cajun kettles for boiling crawfish, or something else. (Even that seems a lot of work for the laziness that a picnic connotes.)
The best picnic I ever attended was set for 1500 people at the Napa Wine Auction in the early 1990s. The food was prepared by the excellent Tra Vigne–all cold Italian fare. on the lawn of the magnificent Meadowood resort. With, you may well imagine, incredibly wines. What an evening that was!
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez:
Picnics are magic. They make cold fried chicken taste good.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Cherry Creek is a town of 1200 people in the western extreme of New York State. It’s a dozen miles from the shore of Lake Erie, and fifty-one miles south of Buffalo. A stream called Cherry Creek flows north of the town, and both it and the town got the name from an abundance of cherry trees in the area. The first settlers in 1815 saw those, and formed the town in 1829. It’s mostly flat, perfect for small farms. But a steep 1922-foot mountain rises just north of town. The best place to eat in Cherry Creek is the Trillum Lodge, right in the middle of town.
Edible Dictionary
gravlax, Swedish, n.–Fresh raw salmon, cured for several days with salt, pepper, sugar, dill, and sometimes aquavit. It looks like and is served in much the same appetizer presentations as smoked salmon, but the flavor is very different. Gravlax has a distinctive, translucent appearance. The garnishes include capers, lemon, parsley, herbed sour cream, and thin slices of toast. It’s most often served cold, as finger food. It’s also called gravad lax, which means “fish in the grave.” This is a reference to the oldest way in which the dish was made, when it really was buried in a hole in the ground to ferment a bit. The current method is a great improvement.
Annals Of Popular Cuisine
Today in 1898 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, the Boardwalk opened. This is the Boardwalk of Monopoly fame, also known as the Steel Pier. It replaced an earlier Boardwalk opened in 1870. The Steel Pier is nine miles long, and offered no end to the assortment of food, drinks, music, sideshows, and hawkers selling all sorts of things. It’s where Ed McMahon got his start. Imagine nine miles of Bourbon Street, and you have an idea. Speaking of that, have you noticed a new style of barker on Bourbon Street? Used to be that enterprise was the preserve of croak-voiced, thin guys trying to get you inside a strip show. Now every restaurant and bar has its people–often young women–walking around with signs telling how you can get this beer or that pizza. My wife and daughter hate even crossing Bourbon Street, and ask me whether this is what I love about New Orleans. I answer, quoting Louis Armstrong: “If you have to ask, you’re never gonna know.”
Food Namesakes
It’s the birthday, in 1960, of Barbara Broccoli, daughter of Albert Broccoli, producer of the James Bond movies. She took over the job when her dad died. . . Speaking of Bond, the stunt coordinator on License To Kill, Barry Champagne, was born today in 1952–in Louisiana. . . Early film actress Blanche Sweet, who was well named, made The Big Debut today in 1896. . . Today in 1914 Oscar Egg, who made many records in the early years of bicycle racing, set one of those–44 kilometers in an hour. . . Mateus Galiano da Costa, a professional soccer player from Angola (the country, not the prison), kicked off his life today in 1984. He mostly goes by his first name only. Mateus is also the name of a Portuguese blush wine in a flagon, very popular in the 1970s. It would make a good picnic wine.
Words To Eat By
“The man who has nothing to boast of but his illustrious ancestry, is like the potato—the best part under ground.”–Sir Thomas Overbury, born today in 1581.
Words To Drink By
“Let’s drink the liquid of amber so bright;
Let’s drink the liquid with foam snowy white;
Let’s drink the liquid that brings all good cheer;
Oh, where is the drink like old-fashioned beer?”–Unknown, 1800s.
Dinner In Hell.
It’s a lot like dinner on Earth, except that the food never gets cold. Both other annoyances persist. For example. . .
Click here for the cartoon.
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