Friday, November 11, 2016
Andrea’s Again?
For the second time this week, Chef Andrea Apuzzo told me something that made me curious–enough for me to return to his restaurant for dinner. Among the musicians in Andrea’s Capri Blu bar on weekends is a lady singer who goes only by her first name Margarita. Hers is a very fine soprano voice, accompanied by karaoke music. Although I know many singers who sing to recorded tracks–I do it myself often enough–there’s something missing. The background musicians can’t respond to the live singer, so it’s not quite right. I hope I get to hear this lady sing with a live pianist one day.
Fries in need of more frying.
I begin my supper with a Negroni cocktail and an order of fries. I can’t remember seeing fries on Andrea’s menu before, and I wanted to get the word to Mary Ann, our official Fries Editor. These were made with fresh-cut potatoes, but they lacked something in crispness. A little oily, a little soft. A quick second fry at about 400 degrees would have made them perfect–but the kitchen would need a fry station at that temperature.
Seared scallops @ ANdrea’s.
I have two appetizers in lieu of an entree. The better one is a lineup of big scallops, served with a brown butter. That was just right. I ask for a small dish of angel hair pasta bordelaise (or aglio olio, for those who prefer Italian momenclature. (Tossed with olive oil, herbs, crushed red pepper, parsley and garlic.) It’s very good, but I am served three times too much of it.
Italian baked oysters.
The other demi-entree is Italian-style baked oysters. Too much water issued from the oysters and the bread crumbs descended into a slurry. This may be the result of having too many oysters in there. A paradox.
Andrea disappears for a long time, which means that he has a private party in the banquet rooms. I am getting itchy to leave. When Margarita takes a break, I drop a tip in her jar, and ask her what such a warbler as she is doing in a place like this. She ought to sing in the Symphony Chorus or something.
Meanwhile, on the home front, Mary Ann left early this morning with her ultimate goal being Washington, D.C. There she will pick up our daughter and her stuff and move it all back to New Orleans. MA at first was considering making the drive from N.O. to D.C. in one shot, but she changes her mind and goes to Charleston, SC instead. She has a hard time finding a hotel there, and when she does it’s very expensive. But she falls in love with Charleston, as I did a few months ago. We try to assemble an Eat Club trip there. I’d love to do it by train, but the logistics aren’t good. Oh, well. MA would not want to hear of trains in any case.
Saturday, November 12, 2016.
Too Much Fancy-Eggs Breakfast. Far Too Much Mexican Dinner.
I’m up a bit early, and wonder whether the Fat Spoon is open for breakfast at eight. Long gone are the crack-of-dawn breakfast hours that used to obtain when the North Shore was largely rural.
It occurs to me that the resurrection of Brennan’s on Royal Street might not be as remunerative as it once was. If I can go to the Fat Spoon for eggs Sardou–a dish created at Antoine’s and popularized by breakfast at Brennan’s–does that gainsay the Brennan’s specialness and brunch prices? Can Brennan’s add enough verve to its famous egg dishes to keep people from having such thoughts as these?
Eggs Sardou @ Fat Spoon.
In fact, I have eggs Sardou this morning, for $12. Two eggs with an artichoke bottom at the bottom (where else?) of a mound of spinach-artichoke dip topped with hollandaise fill a boat-shaped plate. It rests in a bigger plate that bears five half-slices of thick, toasted whole-wheat bread and about half-cup of fried potato cubes. Even though the farmers and ranchers are not to be seen, I have just as much food as they were reputed to devour.
Is it just me, or are the dining room staffs of many more restaurants coming at us with more cheer than, say, a year ago. The servers at the Fat Spoon are almost too friendly.
After breakfast, I go shopping for shirts. For some reason (probably, it’s because I buy most of my stock of oxford button-downs from the same source (LLBean) at the same time (five or six years ago for the current supply). I have bought the same kinds of shirts since I was in high school (when the brand was Gant), and I know how to keep them whole.
Today, I buy other kinds of shirts. I will get the verdict on the new ones from the Marys when they come back home next Wednesday.
My WWL radio show is only an hour long, what with LSU playing football. My time comes and goes quickly. I consider cutting the grass, but I think it can wait. I take a five-lap, ninety-minute walk around the Cool Water Ranch.
A new menu item called Vaqueros on Habaneros’s menu.
To dinner at Habaneros, which continues to show itself to be the best Mexican restaurant on the North Shore. The menu is exciting and new–I have three shrimp tacos with a barbecue sauce and bacon wrapping the big shrimp. Also on that plate are guacamole and a cup of bean soup. Before that comes, I have queso with chorizo–enough for four people. All of this is not only vividly delicious and bold in the pepper levels, but the platters are presented handsomely.
Habaneros’s queso fundido.
I think there may be some family connection between the guys at Habeneros and the people who own La Carreta. The salsas and a few other dishes, seem to have elements in common. It might be my imagination, but I don’t think so. The Habaneros people also own a place Uptown called Rosa Mezcal. (Uptown: 1814 Magazine St. 504-304-7063).
Through dinner, I drink a frozen, tall glass of Modelo Negro Mexican cerveza. It is very welcome when so many highly-spiced forkfuls are heading my way. For dessert, I have a nine plop of flan with a brilliant, clear caramel sauce.
I have eaten far too much food today, in both meals.
Fat Spoon Cafe. Covington: 2807 N US Highway 190. 985-893-5111.
Habaneros. Covington: 69305 LA Hwy 21. 985-871-8760.
Savory Bread Pudding with Mushrooms
In New Orleans, bread pudding is usually a dessert. But not this one. Out come the sweet ingredients, replaced by mushrooms, onions, and cheese. It’s my wife Mary Ann’s idea, and we often use it as side dish. It’s a Thanksgiving fixture now. This is at its best with meaty, wild-tasting mushrooms: portobellos, criminis, shiitakes, chanterelles, porcinis, etc. The best cheeses are the ones that melt well and have an interesting tang: Gruyere, Fontina, Swiss, Provolone, mozzarella. (If you use the latter two, use a little Parmesan, too.)
Savory bread pudding with mushrooms
3 cups half-and-half
4 eggs, beaten
1 tsp. Worcestershire
1/4 tsp. Tabasco
1/4 tsp. salt
1 Tbs. butter
18 inches of a loaf of stale poor boy bread or French bread
1 1/2 cups sliced mushrooms
3/4 cup thinly sliced green onions
1 1/2 cup shredded Gruyere, Fontina, or other easy-melting white cheese
Preheat the oven to 300 degrees.
1. Combine the half-and-half, eggs, Worcestershire, Tabasco, and salt in a bowl and blend well.
2. Slice the bread into thin (about 1/4 inch) slices. Butter the inside of a 9″x5″x4″ baking dish or casserole. Place a layer of bread along the bottom. Sprinkle one-third each of the cheese, mushrooms, and green onions over the bread. Pour one-fourth of the milk-egg mixture over this, enough to soak it well. Push down gently until the bread is soaked.
3. Repeat the layers in the same order as above, following with a dousing of liquid. Finish with a layer of bread and the last of the liquid.
4. Place the baking dish in a pan of warm water and put the entire assembly into the preheated oven. Bake for an hour and 15 minutes at 300 degrees. Let it cool for at least a half-hour before serving. It can be sliced, but it’s perfectly fine to spoon it right out of the dish at the table.
Serves eight.
Pot Stickers @ Trey Yuen
Almost all Chinese restaurants make dumplings. They’re similar to ravioli, but the stuffing of pork, onion, spinach, and a few other things is folded into the pasta wrapper, instead of being sandwiched. They are usually available either steamed or fried. The latter are more popular, perhaps because of their fun name “pot stickers.” They’re steamed first, the put in a hot wok with a little oil. The bottoms of the dumplings brown to a light crispness, and as they do they stick to the pan. They’re served with ponzu sauce–soy, rice wine vinegar, garlic, red pepper, and green onions. My son fell in love with them when he was about six, and often ate several orders every time we went to Trey Yuen, which makes them better than anybody else.
Trey Yuen. Mandeville: 600 Causeway Blvd. 985-626-4476.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
November 14, 2016
Days Until. . .
Thanksgiving: 10.
Christmas: 41.
New Year’s Eve: 48.
Food Calendar
Today is National Guacamole Day. The word translates from the language of the aboriginal Mexicans as “avocado sauce.” They were eating it and avocados–a pure American food–long before the arrival of the Spanish. Although guacamole carries with it a sort of secret-recipe cachet, in fact it’s easy to make. The key is in limiting the recipe to ingredients that the Aztecs would have used. The originators seem to have had it down cold. So we’re talking about native American plants: avocados, chile peppers, cilantro, onions, and tomatoes. No dairy products. No black pepper. Two ingredients of non-Aztec origin that can pass are olive oil and lime juice, both used in small proportions and mainly to keep the concoction from spoiling too fast.
Guacamole is everywhere in restaurants, and much of it is even good. Only recently has the spectre of pre-made guacamole reared it’s ugly head; avocados have until recently resisted all efforts at packaging. On the other hand, some restaurants now make their guacamole to order, sometimes right at the table. In Mexico, guacamole is almost always made to order, even in the tourist-pitched restaurants.
The only problem with guacamole is that good, ripe avocados are not always available. One must plan ahead, buying the avocados days before you’ll serve them. If I can only get Florida avocados or stone-hard, underripe Hass avocados, the dish is off the table. Guacamole is a house specialty of mine. My guests expect to find it when they come over, even for Thanksgiving.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Peach, North Carolina is just south of the Virginia state line, in the northeastern corner of the state. It’s fifty-two miles south of Norfolk, on the Atlantic coastal plain. Large farmed fields in the area wedge between equally large woods. This looks like tobacco country to me. Peaches are grown widely in North Carolina, but there don’t seem to be any orchards in the fruit’s namesake place. It’s not much more than that: a crossroads. Ask about what’s going on and have a bite to eat at Peggy’s Country Cafe. Maybe they’ll have some open-pit pulled pork barbecue, smoked over peach wood, with that sloshy vinegar-based sauce.
Edible Dictionary
Among the three hundred or so varieties of peach grown in the United States, the best are in the clingstone category. As the name implies, the flash of the fruit sticks to the seed pit and shreds when you try to pull it away. That inconvenience is small price to pay for the superior flavor and juiciness of clingstone peaches. They’re good for both eating and baking. However, more eaters are concerned with convenience than flavor, and so clingstones are harder to find in stores than freestone peaches. You’re more likely to find them at farmer’s markets.
Deft Dining Rule #523
Adding a layer of guacamole to a Mexican dish that already has three or more ingredients inside the tortilla cannot be guaranteed to make the dish better.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez
When making guacamole, combine all the ingredients except the avocado first. Then scoop out the avocados and add them as quickly as possible. Mix only until the avocados are chunky, not a mash.
Annals Of Food Writing
Prosper Montagne was born today in 1865. He was one of several brilliant French chefs who remade French cuisine in the early 1900s, and streamlined kitchen operations by organizing cooks better and simplifying presentations. But his finest legacy is the creation of Larousse Gastronomique, an encyclopedic treatise of French cookery, still being published in many languages. It’s considered the last word on the subject.
Today’s Worst Flavors
Today in 2003, a bunch of people were sickened with hepatitis A after eating at restaurant in Pittsburgh. Three died. Green onions proved to be the vector. Always wash your vegetables and your hands before eating. And never eat your hands. . . On the very same day, a man in Chennai, India ate two hundred live earthworms in just over twenty seconds, beating the previous record of ninety-four worms in thirty seconds. That achievement was by an American named Hogg–no joke. C. Manoharan’s feat was performed in front of official observers for Guinness. Earthworms are edible, but who would want to? Some years ago McDonald’s was accused of substituting earthworms for beef. It disproved the charge by noting that earthworms are much more expensive than beef is.
Food Namesakes
Today is the birthday (1954) of Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State in the Bush II admin. . . Prince and the NPG had a number one hit on this date in 1991 with a song entitled Cream.. . . Accordionist Stanley “Buckwheat” Dural of Buckwheat Zydeco was born today in 1947. . . John Steuart Curry, who was a painter and maker of lithographs, was born today in 1897. . . Harrison Salisbury, long-time New York Times journalist, was born today in 1908. . . British wrestler Shirley “Big Daddy” Crabtree, who had a sixty-two-inch chest, wrestled his way into the world today in 1930. . . Leo Hendrik Baekland was born today in 1863. He was the inventor of Bakelite, which is considered the first plastic.
Words To Eat By
“To be always intending to live a new life, but never find time to set about it–this is as if a man should put off eating and drinking from one day to another till he be starved and destroyed.”–Sir Walter Scott.
“In the last analysis, a pickle is a cucumber with experience.”–Cookbook author and wit Irena Chalmers. Today is alleged to be National Pickle Day.
Words To Drink By
“When I find someone I respect writing about an edgy, nervous wine that dithered in the glass, I cringe. When I hear someone I don’t respect talking about an austere, unforgiving wine, I turn a bit austere and unforgiving myself. When I come across stuff like that and remember about the figs and bananas, I want to snigger uneasily. You can call a wine red, and dry, and strong, and pleasant. After that, watch out.”–Kingsley Amis.
The Winner Gets The Gold Shell.
And then he will meet the winner of the nautilus/escargot battle.
Click here for the cartoon.