Saturday, March 7, 2015.
First Breakfast. Last Supper.
On this chilly morning, Mary Ann says that she is busy, but that she will join me for breakfast if I can get moving early. Indeed I can. We are soon seated at Mattina Bella in an unusually sparse room. The flood of breakfasters that often prevents our getting an immediate table comes later. I have soft-scrambled eggs with green onions and a lot of pepper, with a side of bacon, two slices of Susan Spicer’s multi-grain toast, and half of one of MA’s three pancakes. These are the best pancakes in town, I continue to assert.
Our radio show doesn’t go on the air until three-thirty today. (I call it ours, not mine, because when people mention it to me they always say how much they like Mary Ann’s participation. For reasons I can’t dope out, at the end of it she says did didn’t think it was as good as last week’s. I thought it was better.
For example, She invented a new feature called “Pockets Of Pleasure,” in which we ask listeners to tell of little things they enjoy in life. It doesn’t create a backlog of callers, but enough people address the concept to make it worthwhile. (In fact, I got a few emails from people who say they like the idea.)
Dinner at a very crowded DiCristina’s. No surprise there. This is a restaurant with good basic Italian food served in enormous portions at low prices–the surest best in St. Tammany Parish. We have some fried oysters on angel hair, fried artichoke hearts with crawfish cream sauce, and fried chicken, which I have been touted on more than a few times. In the middle of the table is, of course, the big bowl of macaroni I and cheese in the style of Rocky & Carlo’s.
I try to keep myself from my eating heavily, but also know that this will be my last meal for the next thirty-eight hours, as I prepare myself for The Procedure on Monday.
DiCristina’s. Covington: 810 N Columbia. 985-875-0160.
Sunday, March 8, 2015.
The Day Without Food.
I can remember all the times when I did not eat for a full day or more. The first time was when I had my tonsils and adenoids taken out, when I was about ten. My two younger sisters and I all trooped to Mercy Hospital, and we all had those somehow offending tissues removed, one after another. I’m not sure I went a whole day without eaten then, but I think I did. Unless you count the ice cream they let us have when we got home.
The longest I ever went without eating was during the four days after a complicated emergency appendectomy in 1993. I wasn’t even allowed water until day five, when I was given clear liquids at the hospital. The orange Jell-O that was part of that first meal was, I believe, the most joyously delicious thing I ever ate.
Tomorrow, I will undergo an examination that is highly recommended for people over fifty. Today, I am limited to clear liquids again. I have coffee, cranberry juice, apple juice, and a big bowl of that beef consommé I picked up a few days ago from Tchoupstix. At five in the afternoon, I drink up a half-gallon of a solution that makes certain things happen. I am pleasantly surprised in that the stuff doesn’t taste bad at all. At nine, I repeat the dose. The inevitable happens, and that is that.
Monday, March 9, 2015.
No Problems.
At quarter after six, Mary Ann drives me to Ochsner. I am cleared for The Procedure by a very pleasant nurse (woman). While waiting, I hear another patient tell about how rough it is to spend time in China, and that he is a Jesuit graduate.
I am rolled to the operating room. The nurse (man) puts everything in position. The nurseman tells me my hand will now ache, but that wouldn’t last long.
And the next thing I know I am having a dream about asking for a cup of coffee. Then a blank spot in my consciousness. And then the nurseman is handing me a big cup of coffee. How did he know I wanted coffee? He says that I asked for it a minute ago. What? Where am I? Oh, wait! I’ve been here before! You’re all done, right? Indeed, they are finished, just waiting for me to come to, which I clearly have. No problems were found.
Someone is rolled into the carrel next door to mine. He starts babbling about how tough things are in China. He sounds a little deranged, but then so do I. “Euphoria is one of the side effects of the anesthetic,” the nurseman says.
My neighbor mentions Jesuit. I start singing the Alma Mater. That caught him by surprise. The nurse pull back the curtain and we meet. He was at Jesuit two years before me. He remembers the Alma Mater, though. Ah, but does he remember the first two lines of the Odyssey in the Homeric Greek? I ask. I start in on it: “Andra moi ennepe, Mousa, ploutropon, hos molla polla plangtheis, epeis Troieis hieron ptoliethon epersen.”
To which my neighbor begins spitting out the same two lines, at least as well I as did. Now the doctor who had just performed The Procedure on my neighbor pokes his head in and also starts rattling off the Greek words. What are the chances that three ancient Jesuit students would somehow be in the same recovery room at the same time?
It once again proves there are only 500 people living in the New Orleans area.
The nurseman came in and says that our euphoria (a Greek word that made it into English, by the way) might be disturbing the other patients.
After all this plays out, I ask the nurseman–who is becoming one of my favorite people–what I should do next. “I’d go to breakfast, if I were you.” Really? Yes, I am clear to do anything other than drive or operate heavy machinery. Take the day off, he says. Have a nice breakfast.
I tell Mary Ann that it’s doctor’s orders that we should have breakfast now. She’s up for that, and has a new idea as to where. The Abita Coffeehouse is not in Abita Springs, but in Madisonville, near where the new Friends restaurant is under construction. It’s on what looks like a very old cottage. In fact, while the pieces of the place are indeed old, the building itself is of relatively recent construction.
They have a small kitchen and a small menu. You can get an omelette or scrambled eggs, but no fried or poached. The waffle iron isn’t working. But we find plenty of good makings of a pleasant morning. Excellent coffee (they roast their own). Muffins and cinnamon rolls. MA and I split a ham and cheese omelette, which is fluffy and good.
At home, I get right to work. I wrote today’s Menu Daily yesterday, but I left one big part out: today’s 33 Best Seafood Restaurant countdown. So I finish it. I shower and take a nap, then get back to my desk. When radio show time rolls around, Mary Ann–who was going to host the show today–tells me that I seem to energetic that I may as well do it myself. Which I do.
Broiled redfish.
Dinner at DiMartino’s. A reader tells me that the place has finally implemented full service in its dining room. When it opened and for years after, you placed your order in a Burger-King-style window, and sat down. The dining room staff brought the food. But why not also have them take the orders? The premises are very pleasant, and seem to cry out for full service. I have been telling the management this for some time. I don’t write to give advice to restaurants. I see my job as almost entirely addressing the needs of customers. But every now and then a restaurant actually listens to my gripes and does something about them.
I have the broiled redfish with a side of steamed broccoli and a salad. The fish is not only excellent in its butter-and-herb sauce, but it is a very large fillet. Crusty and well seasoned across the top, it’s as fine as one would find at twice the price in a bistro. We haven’t been here in about a year, but I think I’ll add it to our North Shore A-List. All they need now is a little more variety in the menu.
Mary Ann gets an enormous salad, riddled with the olives she loves. I finish dinner with a wedge of instantly recognizable Brocato’s spumone.
Mary Ann drops me off at the site of tonight’s NPAS rehearsal. I am not sure she will take kindly to having to pick me up tonight at nine-fifteen. Although I have done everything else in a normal day today, the doctor did tell me not to drive for twenty-four hours. But she kindly goes along. And my world is back to normal. With a very reassuring note about my health, to boot.
DiMartino’s. Covington: 700 S Tyler St. 985-276-6460.
#14 Among The 33 Best Seafood Eateries
Andrea’s
Metairie 2: Orleans Line To Houma Blvd: 3100 19th St. 504-834-8583. Website
ANECDOTES AND ANALYSIS
The restaurant identifies itself as Italian, and most of its customers think of it that way. But since its earliest days the most distinctive part of the kitchen’s work involves seafood. Chef-Owner Andrea Apuzzo makes much of the fact that, with few exceptions, all the fish he serves are bought fresh, whole and filleted in house. It is not uncommon for there to be six or more species of finfish on hand, with pompano, red snapper, trout, redfish, puppy drum, salmon, Dover sole, amberjack and flounder usually available. The shellfish offering is no less comprehensive, with crabmeat, shrimp, oysters (shucked to order), mussels, clams, lobster and scallops almost always to be had. The range of preparation is equally strong, to the point where it’s possible to say that the chef will cook his seafood in almost any imaginable way. It all adds up to a big enough seafood menu to stand alone. It’s better than any other part of the menu.
WHY IT’S NOTEWORTHY
The most useful aspect of Andrea’s is that it’s a white-tablecloth restaurant capable of serving a first-class repast made with excellent fresh ingredients, with excellent service and a seriously good wine list in pleasant surroundings. . . in Metairie. Where there are surprisingly few such restaurants. Another advantage: Andrea’s is open all the time.
WHAT’S GOOD
Chef-owner Andrea Apuzzo is a classically trained chef who can rise to the heights of Italian cookery. He buys superb ingredients and makes many items from scratch (pasta, bread, cheeses, house-butchered meats). But with the exception of the seafood side of the menu, many preparations are unexciting, too far removed from the chef’s own roots in Capri, and sometimes careless. When the place is on, it can’t be beat in its specialties. But the inconsistencies can be maddening.
Pompano.
BACKSTORY
Chef Andrea spent the first half of his long career as a hotel executive chef, winding up in New Orleans in that position at the Royal Orleans. In 1985 he and two cousins opened Andrea’s in the former Etienne’s in Metairie. In its early years, it became unquestionably the finest Italian restaurant ever to open in the area. Chef Andrea bought out his cousins after a few years, and the restaurant began to change and grow. Andrea’s is now a very large restaurant, open lunch and dinner 364 days a year (closed Labor Day, because nobody dines out then). On top of that, it has a bar that has its own menu, and a lot of inside and outside catering. It’s too big an operation for the fine points of old to be counted upon. In recent times, Andrea has turned over the everyday kitchen to Christian Rossit, a Venice native with a great track record around New Orleans.
The bar at Andrea’s.
DINING ROOM
The restaurant feels distinctly suburban, but after importing Italian art and furnishings for many years the place has personality. The main dining room is bright and glittery, in a somewhat old-fashioned way. Private dining rooms, some capable of serving a hundred people, line up one after another. The new Capri Blu Bar is striking and comfortable, serving a menu of wood-oven pizza and appetizers. It has live entertainment many nights. The service staff is low-key and widely varying in competence. Chef Andrea himself spends a lot of time in the dining room, schmoozing the regulars.
FULL ONLINE MENU
BEST DISHES
Starters
Prosciutto di Parma, melon
Antipasto platter
Frutti di mare portofino (seafood salad)
Filet of beef carpaccio, Parmigiana reggiano, white truffle oil
Shrimp caprese (sautéed with white wine, herbs, angel hair pasta
Calamari, fried or sauteed with wine, olive oil, herbs
Mussels marinara (steamed in a white wine sauce or tomato) Baked oysters Italian style
Pasta e fagioli soup
Minestrone milanese
Stracciatella di Medici (beef and chicken broth, spinach, egg drops, parmesan cheese
Insalata Caesar made tableside
Arugula salad, tomato, shaved parmigiano
Tomato and fresh mozzarella salad Capresi
Pasta
Crabmeat ravioli, Alfredo sauce
Porcini mushroom ravioli
Ravioli with veal, beef, cheese, meat sauce
Linguine pesto Genovese
Potato gnocchi with four-cheese sauce
Risotto jazz (shrimp and crabmeat
Littleneck clams aglio e olio
Capelli de Andrea (angel hair, smoked salmon, vodka cream sauce, caviar
Entrees
Grilled salmon, white wine, sautéed spinach, lemon herb sauce
Speckled trout with crabmeat, lemon cream sauce or amandine
Red snapper “aqua pazza” (light tomato and herb sauce)
Cioppino (light stew of mussels, clams, scallops, shrimp, crabmeat, squid, wine, herbs, tomatoes, linguine)
Shrimp scampi arriabiata (spicy red sauce) or garlic butter
Veal scaloppini piccata or marsala
Veal scaloppini Maria Louisa (crabmeat, béarnaise)
Roast chicken grande
Veal osso buco Milanese (light brown sauce)
Chicken or veal saltimbocca (prosciutto, ham, sage, fontina cheese)
Filet of beef tenderloin, cognac-black peppercorn sauce
T-bone steak Fiorentina ai ferri
Ribeye steak pizzaiola
Veal chop Valdostana (stuffed with prosciutto and Fontana)
Desserts
House-made gelato, lemon or raspberry sorbet
Praline pecan cheesecake
Chocolate mousse
Zuppa inglese (trifle of sponge cake layered with cream, berries, Grand Marnier
Tira mi su
Cannoli siciliano
Strawberry cake
FOR BEST RESULTS
Find out whether Chef Andrea is present. He usually is, but when he’s not, things can slip. The restaurant is overambitious, and often fills the facility with more people than can be served at the restaurant’s best level. Overbooking occurs on holidays. The dining room staff seems always on the brink. If something isn’t right, make a fuss and they’ll start paying attention.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
This would be a better restaurant if the menu were pared back at least by half. It shows over 100 dishes now. Most of the deleted dishes should be on the Creole side of the menu, which are the worst eats on the menu. Don’t we have enough restaurants making gumbo, stuffed eggplant, red beans and bread pudding?
FACTORS OTHER THAN FOOD
Up to three points, positive or negative, for these characteristics. Absence of points denotes average performance in the matter.
Dining Environment +2
Consistency -2
Service+1
Value +1
Attitude +1
Wine & Bar +2
Hipness -1
Local Color
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
Live music some nights
Romantic
Good for business meetings
Many private rooms
Open Sunday lunch and dinner
Open Monday lunch and dinner
Open all holidays
Open all afternoon
Good for children
Free valet parking
Reservations accepted
Leruth’s Green Goddess Dressing
Warren Leruth was regarded by gourmets as probably the greatest chef to work in New Orleans in the last half of the 1900s. Before and after he ran his magnificent restaurant in Gretna, he was a consultant to many food companies, and developed countless recipes for commercial products. One of those was the Green Goddess dressing for Seven Seas. Here’s the version of that he made in his restaurant.
5 sprigs flat-leaf parsley
3 green onions, tender green parts only
2 large cloves garlic chopped
2 anchovies
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon white pepper
1/2 cup whipping cream
1 cup mayonnaise (preferably homemade)
1 cup sour cream
1. Put the parsley, green onions, garlic, anchovies, salt and pepper into a food processor and chop into a puree, stopping to scrape down the side of the processor bowl and top. Add two tablespoons of water and process until the mixture is nearly smooth.
2. Scrape the puree into a non-metallic bowl and add the remaining ingredients. Blend with a whisk until uniform in texture. Whisk in a little bit of water if needed to bring the sauce to a very thick but pourable texture. Refrigerate.
Makes two cups.
Cabbage Roll @ Lebanon’s Cafe
You don’t have to be Irish to eat cabbage. Cabbage rolls are almost universal in Greek and Middle Eastern restaurants. The ones at Lebanon’s Cafe are stuffed with beef with a bit of tomato and enough seasoning to make them mildly spicy and herbal. Although this sounds heavy, in fact it’s served as an appetizer, and leaves room for an entree. Great cool-weather dish.
Lebanon’s Cafe. Riverbend: 1500 S Carrollton Ave. 504-862-6200.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
March 17, 2015
Days Until. . .
St. Joseph’s Day 2
Easter 19
French Quarter Festival 23
Jazz Festival 39
Top O’The Mornin’ To You
St. Patrick’s Day brings forth little in the way of Irish food to New Orleans. Restaurants have corned beef and cabbage and perhaps green beer, but that’s about the extent of it. Of course, one of the reasons for this is that Irish cuisine is nearly an oxymoron. The main food concern of the Irish seems to have been limited to having enough of it. Only the worldwide interest in dining well has brought advanced cooking to the Emerald Isle.
This does not prevent lots of people from celebrating the day. The restaurant that long ago emerged as GHQ for St. Patrick’s Day is Parasol’s, a long-running poor boy joint and bar on the corner of Second and Constance, well within the Irish Channel. But that party has split in two since last year. The former operators of Parasol’s now operate Tracey’s, two blocks away. You have a choice: the old guys at the new place, or the new guys at the old place.
Restaurant Anniversaries
As appropriate as anything could be, today is the thirtieth anniversary of the opening of Clancy’s. An old neighborhood bar in an increasingly spiffy neighborhood received a light gentrification from the original owners, who were united in being Republicans–rarer then in New Orleans politics than now. The chef was Chris Canan, fresh from a stint at K-Paul’s. He and his successors latched onto one of the most pervasive trends ever to sweep through the restaurant scene: the Gourmet Creole Bistro. Clancy’s first stroke of originality was its mesquite pit. It was the first non-barbecue restaurant here to smoke food in-house.
Ownership over the years devolved upon former waiter and manager Brad Hollingsworth, who still runs the place. His passion for wine brought Clancy’s one of the best wine cellars around–certainly for a restaurant of its small size. Since the hurricane, Clancy’s has been one of the busiest of the Uptown restaurants. Getting even a spot at the bar to have dinner has become a challenge. The food of Steve Manning is more than a small attraction.
Today’s Flavor
It’s International Corned Beef And Cabbage Day, of course. Not as emblematic a dish in Ireland as we consider it here in the U.S., every Irish restaurant in and out of Ireland serves it, mainly because American tourists expect to find it. I have a great trick for making corned beef from my friend and fellow barbershop singer Sherwood Platt, who’s only half Irish (he’s “-ish.”) It’s simple enough: when you boil the corned beef brisket, add a tablespoon of liquid crab boil to the gallon or two of water. You won’t taste the crab boil flavor, but you will taste something good.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Cabbage Creek is a low-lying bayou in northeastern Florida. It runs through wetlands , beginning on the western side of the Marsh Landing Country Club’s golf course, then meandering north until it flows into Pablo Creek, which separates Jacksonville from Jacksonville Beach. The nearest restaurant is Jacks or Better, about two miles as the crow flies east of the creek.
Edible Dictionary
A hallmark of the Irish home, soda bread is a quick-rising bread made with baking soda (sodium bicarbonate) as the leavening agent. It’s something like American buttermilk biscuits, except that no baking powder is used–just soda. Soda bread is also made larger than biscuits. In order to get the greatest release of carbon dioxide (that’s what makes the dough rise and become light), soda bread is usually made with buttermilk, whose high lactic acid content reacts with the baking soda. It’s traditional for a cross to be cut with a knife on the top of a soda bread roll. This is to allow the bread to heat and then rise more evenly. Of course, it had taken on a religious significance, too.
Food Inventions
On this date in 1806, Norbert Rillieux was born in New Orleans. He was a free man of color who became an accomplished inventor. His most important work from our point of view was a vacuum evaporator that removed the water from sugar cane juice much more efficiently than any previous process. It was patented in 1843, and he made so much money from it that he was able to move to France, to escape the increasing political pressures on black people in New Orleans.
Music To Eat Frim-Fram Sauce By
Nat “King” Cole was born today in 1919. He was my mother’s favorite singer, a brilliant jazz pianist, and a sparkling, funny personality. The longer he’s been gone, the greater his creative gifts seem. His music still sounds fresh to my ears. By the way, in the song he asks for the frim-fram sauce with the aussen fay, with chafafa on the side. And if he can’t get that, just bring him a check for the water.
Food And The Law
Today in 2002, McDonald’s settled a lawsuit by various vegetarian organizations and religious groups by paying out $10 million. The beef was that the hamburger chain didn’t disclose that its French fries were flavored with beef extracts and fat. We’re still mad at them for ceasing their use of fresh-cut potatoes in the 1960s, but lawsuits give us heartburn.
Food And The Environment
On March 17 in 1997, the Army Corps of Engineers opened the Bonnet Carre Spillway into Lake Pontchartrain. The cost of that is often an upsetting of the natural balances of life in the lake, and so everybody who makes a living from it complains whenever it’s opened. It seems to have little permanent effect, however, and some beneficial effects on the flora. Still, the crabbers use it as an excuse to raise prices.
Food Namesakes
1996 Olympic soccer star Mia Hamm was born today in 1972. . . Comedian Phil Baker, the Armour Jester (for his sponsor, the Armour Meat Company), began a new radio show today in 1933 on the Blue Network. . . British Antarctic explorer Lawrence Oates was born today in 1880. He also died today in 1912, when he went out from camp on the freezing continent and never came back. . . Robin Cook, a member of the British cabinet, resigned in protest over his country’s military involvement in the Iraq War today in 2003.
Words To Eat By
“Laughter is brightest where food is best.”–Irish proverb.
Words To Drink By
“May the enemies of Ireland never eat bread nor drink whisky, but be tormented with itching without benefit of scratching.”–Unknown.
Not An Acceptable Proper Food For St. Patrick’s Day.
There’s green beer, cabbage, green sno-balls, green fro-yo. But this may be a step too far, after too long.
Click here for the cartoon.
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