The Lost Day
As has happened most of the week, problems with our internet provider prevented us from publishing a NOMenu Daily yesterday (Saturday, Jan. 27). On Friday, we were offline almost all day. The techs even shut down my desk phone while working on something about a mile upline. However, I did write all the columns for Friday and get them ready to go out. Here they are. And since this amounts to a Saturday edition, I also include today’s Food Almanac, which doesn’t usually come out on the weekend. Enjoy! And thanks for your patience.
Tastefully yours,
Tom Fitzmorris
Working Hard To Be Daily. Dinner At Willa Jean’s.
I’m waiting for a visit from the AT&T repair technician tomorrow. In the meantime, I write all I normally would, but without an internet connection I couldn’t publish the stuff online. So I go to the radio station early, with the idea of assembling the newsletter in my radio office. Trouble was, the radio computer is out of synch with my home unit. And compiling all the files I need to get the newsletter out is a daunting task. The hundreds of drawings and the thousands (no exaggeration) of photos. The links to specific pages.
It was rough, took hours, and the pages looked funky. But I did get a full NOMenu Daily out today. That will not be possible tomorrow. I have a remote broadcast followed by an Eat Club dinner, all on the North Shore. And I have no place to work over there until my regular connection is restored. I feel utterly incompetent, even though none of these problems are my fault.
Mary Ann is in town today, to keep Mary Leigh’s dog Bauer happy while our daughter attends a company party. She has been developing a social circle in the place where she works, which is apparently an enlightened place to be employed.
When I get off the radio, MA leaves Bauer to his rest, and she has dinner with the other dog in her life. The two of us meet at Willa Jean’s, Chef John Besh’s diner across from the downtown Rouse’s. The Marys both like the place. I have been there only once, about a year ago. It’s a spacious, pleasant L-shaped room that seems to have been caught in the process of deciding whether to be a coffee-and-pastry house, or a full-fledged eatery with a somewhat abbreviated menu. With such an oversupply of coffee cafes as we have around town, I’m voting for the diner.
But that word doesn’t quite catch it, either. There’s a burger, but only a few other sandwiches. A few salads. One soup (a high point; more on that in a mo). And three or four platters. But it all adds up to something pleasant enough.
We began with a cheese dip based on feta, artichokes, and a couple other ingredients, loaded into a crock and baked until the top layer is crunchy. MA–my dip expert–loves this. I like it too, with nice, crunchy, buttery crostini to scoop up the dip. So here is another John Besh restaurant with hearty, crusty bread of a kind we never get quite enough of around our town. The dip and fixings are easily enough for three people at least.
I followed that with oyster chowder. Big bowl, milky (as opposed to creamy) broth, chips of bacon, chives, potato dice, and, of course, oysters. I ask for Tabasco but find it was not needed by the broth. I love soups like this, and this was everything I hoped for. Just one complaint: not quite enough oysters. But at $12, it’s still a bargain.
Now another big bowl filled with arugula, tossed with little balls of white cheese and topped with thick slices of orange-colored beets. Also in here are some orange wedges with the rind cut away. And a few pieces of grapefruit. Unfortunately, grapefruit is incompatible with a medication taken by a lot of people. (I’m one.) I should pay more attention to menus to avoid such ingredients, because if I had I would have eaten the whole salad except the grapefruit. It’s up to the eater, I say.
I find my dessert at the pastry counter. It’s a tall muffin made of cornbread with something slightly creamy in the center and a butter icing over the top. And a café au lait that came out lukewarm. But the very pleasant server was quick to fix that.
If this restaurant had been in business when I lived five blocks away in the old Faubourg St. Marie, the revived neighborhood would be even more popular than it’s become.
Willa Jean. CBD: 611 O’Keefe St. 605-509-7334.
Wednesday, January 25, 2017.
Eat Club @ Impastato’s In Madisonville.
There was no possibility that I would get a newsletter out today. My only accessible, usable computer is at the radio station. But we have an Eat Club dinner at Impastato Cellars tonight, preceded by a live broadcast from their North Shore location. The best I can do is write the whole thing, and send it out to subscribers tomorrow–if the AT&T technician shows up and can do the job. At least I’ll have proof that I am not just taking the day off.
The dinner plays out as usual on the North Shore. We have about fifty-five Eat Clubbers signed up, but we had about ten no-shows. This has been the case for every North Shore dinner for twenty years. No telling how many people will, while getting ready to drive ten to fifty miles, decide at the last minuted that it’s too much trouble. But Joe Impastato came to the rescue by having over twenty of his regulars attend.
Whatever the numbers said, the actuality of the dinner was thoroughly enjoyable, said everyone I talked with. Antonio Molosini, who markets the wines we will have tonight, is one of the funniest speakers I’ve ever heard. He had the whole room in stitches, starting with his standard line, “I grew up in an Italian town not far away–Bogalusa.” He pronounces the town’s name with a heavy Italian accent, which he comes by honestly.
The dinner began with the usual seafood appetizers: crab claws sauteed in butter, a Capresi-style shrimp salad, crab cakes, and–best of all–crabmeat cannelloni. There is almost always a fight over who gets that last one, which is terrific.
The second course broke away from the standard fettuccine Alfredo for which Impastato’s is famous. Instead, we had penne pasta arabbiata, a thick red sauce with a substantial red pepper component. “Arabbiata” means “in an angry style.” So, high heat making a dense sauce, and all that crushed red pepper.
Lots of variety among the entrees, with the pecan-smoked filet mignon leading the list. The pork spiedini is also popular. Where Mr. Joe gets soft-shell crabs this time of year I don’t know, but they were popular. There is braciolone, and pan-broiled fish with artichokes and mushrooms.
Mr. Joe tells me that he has nice trout with crabmeat and a cream sauce. He offered it to me, and I recommended it to some others. The servers for those people knew nothing about the dish. Just another one of those special deals Joe Impastato always has on his menu.
I’ve often said that I like the shared name of his wife and his daughter, both of whom are Mica, pronounced “meek-ah.” I should have noticed this before, but Mr. Joe told me as I interviewed him for the radio that the name was a one-letter contraction of “amica”–friend, female. That makes the name sound better still.
Impastato Cellars. Madisonville: 240 Highway 22 E. 985-845-4445.
Barbecue Shrimp and Grits @ Cafe Adelaide
Cafe Adelaide has the best breakfast in town outside of Brennan’s. This is not merely because the cooking is good, but because the menu includes a lot of classic local breakfast dishes that rarely find their ways onto other menus. Some of these are reworking of classic Brennan-family Creole breakfasts. For a long time, Cafe Adelaide made terrific grillades and grits. It fell off the menu, to be replaces by a version of shrimp and grits with spicy, dark, big New Orleans barbecue shrimp, with the addition of . The grits are stone-ground (when will all grits be made that way?) and chili peppers and prok belly finish up a dish great for a cold morning.
Shrimp and grits from Cafe Adelaide. Great for breakfast, believe it or not.
Cafe Adelaide. CBD: 300 Poydras St. 504-595-3305.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
Shrimp Fra Diavolo
Shrimp fra diavolo (“brother devil’) is the Italian answer to shrimp Creole. For reasons I’ve never been able to fathom, it’s a much better dish. Perhaps it’s because the sauce is lighter and other flavors rise in front of the tomatoes. The dish serves well either as an appetizer or entree. Resist the temptation to serve it over pasta. It can also be made to a different but equally delicious effect with lobster of any kind.
If you want to make this the best way possible, buy heads-on shrimp, peel them, and make a stock with the shells and a little onion, celery, and parsley. It only takes about a half-hour on a very slow simmer. Add the stock to the pan with the tomatoes. It’s a bit more work, but adds a flavor dimension I think you’ll like.
1/4 cup olive oil
2 Tbs. chopped onion
1 Tbs. chopped garlic
1 1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
24 fresh shrimp, 10-15 count to the pound, peeled and deveined
2 Tbs. Sambuca, Galliano, Strega, ouzo, Herbsaint, or some other anise-flavored liqueur (optional)
1/2 cup dry white wine
4 cups chopped Italian plum tomatoes, with juice
1 Tbs. chopped fresh oregano
8 leaves chopped fresh basil
1 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. white pepper
The Italian version of shrimp and grits. First, no grits. Second, spicy red sauce.
1. In a skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Cook the onions, garlic and crushed red pepper until they just begin to brown.
2. Add the shrimp and cook until they begin to turn pink. Add the Sambuca (or whatever) and the white wine, and bring them to a boil. When shrimp are pink and firm, remove them from skillet and keep warm. Lean a little on the undercooked side to make them perfect.
3. Add the tomatoes and tomato juice to the pan and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, add the oregano and basil and simmer until sauce has thickened to the consistency of a thick soup. Add salt and pepper to taste.
5. Return the shrimp to the pan and simmer another few minutes. Serve six shrimp per person with just enough sauce to make them wet, as an appetizer.
Serves four.
January 28, 2016
Days Until. . .
Mardi Gras–12
Valentine’s Day–17/span>
Gourmets Through History
Today is the feast day of Charlemagne, the first Holy Roman Emperor. He died on this day in 814, of natural causes, after a great life. He united much of western Europe for the first time since the fall of the Roman Empire, and set a new standard of civilization and government. His dining style was revolutionary, too. At Charlemagne’s banquets, roses were scattered over the tables and guests ate with utensils, not fingers. (The implements were mostly knives, the fork having not yet been invented.) One of the world’s greatest white wines is named for him: Corton Charlemagne, all Chardonnay, big and rich. He wasn’t a saint, but he was beatified.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Livermore is a rural hamlet of 450 people in the vast corn country of north central Iowa. It’s 124 miles north northwest of Des Moines. It was first settles in 1853 by one Henry Lott and his family. It was big enough to have its first school in 1857. Livermore may have come to your attention in 1968, when a grain elevator, filled with corn dust from a cleaning operation, exploded, killing two men. (I do remember this.) One of the big events in the summer is the annual pickup truck mud run. Here’s the town’s website for more goings on. There are no restaurants serving liver or anything else in Livermore. The nearest eats are at Big John’s, four miles west in Bode.
Today’s Flavor
This is International Lasagna Day. The cold weather likely on this date makes a big casserole dish full of meaty, saucy, cheesy, heartwarming lasagna seem perfect. Lasagna is a long time in the oven–what could be better than a winter day for that?
Like many dishes, lasagna is named for the container in which it is made. In this case, it’s unappetizing. The Greek word from which lasagna descends meant “chamber pot.” The first versions were baked in large, deep dishes. The ingredients and their assembly probably evolved from the many layered, baked casseroles (Greek moussaka is the most familiar) that are still found in the Balkans. Lasagna as we know it–with its layers of cheese, meat, and sauce–is probably not much more than a hundred years old.
However, recently a story broke in England claiming that the dish originated there. This is not entirely incredible, because layered dishes (shepherd’s pie) are also of long standing in the Isles. Here’s the story from the BBC.
The current controversy among cooks of lasagna in America is whether the dry noodles (flat, broad sheets, sometimes wavy at the edges) should be layered into the dish cooked or uncooked. Both seem to work, but we have a better idea: the best lasagna is made with fresh (undried) pasta sheets, uncooked.
Many sources report that today is also Blueberry Pancake Day. Fresh blueberries are completely out of season in America. They are, however, growing nicely and ready to fly or float in from Chile. They’re not even all that expensive. Still, this doesn’t seem like the right day for this. Not even the pancake part. Pancakes are associated with Shrove Tuesday (Mardi Gras to you and me), whose earliest possible date is eight days off.
Edible Dictionary
Crottin de Chavignol, (French) n.–A goat’s milk cheese from the tiny town of Chavignol, in the Loire Valley. Originally, this cheese was made in balls. Their size and the fact that the rind sometimes turned a light brown gives rise to its name, which also means “horse manure.” However, the Crottin you will encounter now is more likely to be made in cylindrical shape, with a white rind. It looks like a taller, smaller Brie. The tiny mushrooms that forms the rind turns brown with a hint of greenish-blue as it ages. A well-aged Crottin de Chavignol is delicious, with a firm, surprisingly crumbly interior and a very full taste. Don’t eat the rind of an old one.
Deft Dining Rule #834:
You should never be able to finish a restaurant serving of lasagna comfortably.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez:
The perfect lasagna has exactly twice as much cheese–both in kind and in quantity–as it has meat.
Music To Dine By
Today in 1830, Daniel-François-Esprit Auber’s opera Fra Diavolo opened in Paris. It was about a reprobate from Naples bearing the same name as the opera. Fra Diavolo means “brother devil.” It appears on Italian menus as a spicy dish of shellfish (shrimp and lobster, most commonly) and a peppery red sauce.
Annals Of Food Writing
This is the birthday, in 1873, of Sidonie Gabrielle Colette, a French novelist who wrote under her last name alone. She was highly quotable on the subjects of eating, drinking, and loving. Here are a few of her memorable lines:
“The three great stumbling blocks in a girl’s education are homard a l’Americaine, a boiled egg, and asparagus.”
“As he chops, cut, slices, trims, shapes, or threads through the string, a butcher is as good a sight to watch as a dancer or a mime.”
“If you aren’t up to a little magic occasionally, you shouldn’t waste time trying to cook.”
“If I can’t have too many truffles, I’ll do without truffles.”
Food Namesakes
Today in 1945, General “Vinegar” Joe Stilwell reopened the Burma Road from that country to China, a victory in World War II. . . Jackson Pollock, the painter famous for dripping paint on canvases, was born today in 1912. (Pollock is the northern Pacific fish used to make fake crabmeat.). . . Marty Fried, drummer for the 1960s rock band the Cyrkle (who opened for the Beatles when they toured America) was born today in 1944. . . Jan Lamb–Hong Kong stand-up comedian, radio personality, and voice-over artist–bleated his first today in 1967.
Words To Eat By
“Voluptuaries, consumed by their senses, always begin by flinging themselves with a great display of frenzy into an abyss. But they survive, they come to the surface again. And they develop a routine of the abyss: ‘It’s four o clock. At five I have my abyss.'”–Colette, French playwright and author, born today in 1873.
Words To Drink Zinfandel By
“Someone is putting brandy in your bonbons, Grand Marnier in your breakfast jam, Kahlua in your ice cream, Scotch in your mustard and Wild Turkey in your cake.”–Marian Burros, New York Times food writer.
Days Until. . .
Mardi Gras–31
Valentine’s Day–18
January 27, 2017
Today’s Flavor
It is National Chocolate Cake Day. It’s no longer enough to make just chocolate cake anymore. It must be Chocolate Suicide cake. Or Death by Chocolate cake. Chocolate Devastation Cake is at Arnaud’s. Chocolate Suicide Cake, Brennan’s. I’m relieved that no Chocolate Genocide Cake has been put on any menu. Then there’s Better Than Sex chocolate cake, a Bing search for which brought up three and a half million leads. Are there that many people who hold chocolate cake in greater regard than a roll in the hay?
Isn’t it enough for chocolate cake to just be good? It seems essential now that it give one a headache to be taken seriously. Although it will not do that to serious lovers of chocolate. My wife and daughter, for example, recognize no limit to the richness of a chocolate cake.
Chocolate cake’s makeover came in the 1990s, with the advent of the flourless chocolate cake. All of a sudden, every restaurant with a pastry chef was serving the new, shallow, intense dessert. Waiters spoke of it with a pride previously reserved only for one’s newborn child. They made it seem like a magic trick. Not that magical. It’s basically a chocolate mousse stiffened with an unusually large amount of eggs, then baked in a water bath so slowly that the egg foam dries out and hardens.
When pastry chefs began moving back toward more normal chocolate cakes with flour, they were much moister and riche than they had been, with layers of ganache or solid chocolate and molten centers. The latest wrinkle is to make them as cupcakes. Chocolate cupcakes on this day rule the dessert world. What a world!
Gourmet Gazetteer
Fruitland is a town of seven hundred people in east central Iowa, thirty-seven miles west of the Quad Cities. It’s bounded by the Mississippi River on the east and US 61 on the west. Both of those connect Fruitland directly with New Orleans. The town is on a sort of island, with a former route of the Mississippi wrapping around the west side. Fruitland’s post office and city hall were destroyed by a tornado in 2007. The place to eat is Good Earth, a mile from the center of town.
Edible Dictionary
(For those who don’t live here in New Orleans, or in France.) The New Orleans-style king cake is a ring of sweet yeast dough–often made in the style of brioche–decorated with coarse granulated sugar colored purple, green, and gold. (Those are the colors of Mardi Gras.) Sometimes the dough is braided, with cinnamon between the layers. The cake is frequently topped with white icing, and some versions are filled with fruit or custards. An essential ingredient is a small plastic baby. The person who gets the slice with the baby inside is required by tradition to give the next king cake party.
King cake is traditionally served on January 6, the Feast of the Epiphany, commemorating the visit of the three Magi kings to the newborn Jesus. However, king cake has become such an icon of New Orleans eating that king cakes are baked and consumed long before King Day and every day through Mardi Gras. Thousands of them are baked and shipped throughout the year to people elsewhere who want a piece of New Orleans culture, but don’t know the exact tradition.
There will be many king cakes coming your way this year, since Mardi Gras is on the late side of the calendar. One thing to watch out for: a lot of bakers are turning out king cakes with very dense textures, adding to the dryness aspect that has become common in recent years.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez:
When you melt chocolate in the microwave oven, the chocolate can hold its shape even after it’s melted. To avoid burning it, stir it with a dinner knife every thirty seconds or so during the melting.
Music To Eat A Midnight Snack By
Skitch Henderson was born today in 1918. He’s best known as the bandleader on the Tonight Show during the early years of the Johnny Carson era. When the show moved from New York to Burbank, Henderson stayed and went on to many other projects, of which the last major one was the New York Pops Orchestra. He and his wife wrote two delightful cookbooks based on the goings on at The Silo, a farm and cooking school they ran in New England. One of them had a Christmas theme, and I pull it out every year to get me into the spirit. Skitch died in 2005 at 87.
Music To Dine Expensively By
Speaking of musicians: today is also the birthday (1756) of Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. How many restaurants have played how many thousands of hours of his works as background music?
Sounds Like Food, But Isn’t
The Diet of Worms began today in 1521. It’s not what you think. Look it up. Clue: Martin Luther was there.
Inventions For Finer Dining
On this date in 1880, Thomas Edison received a patent on the incandescent light bulb. Think about this: Antoine’s, Tujague’s, Bruning’s and many other restaurants were open before the light bulb existed. Try to imagine what that was like. If you can’t, go upstairs at Muriel’s, where they still illuminate some rooms by candles alone.
Food Namesakes
Pro football kicker Matt Stover was born today in 1968. . . Union Brigadier General Samuel Allen Rice was born, 1828. . . Bobby “Blue” Bland, a Memphis blues singer who played around New Orleans a lot, was born today in 1930.
Words To Eat By
“Research tells us fourteen out of any ten individuals likes chocolate.”–Sandra Boynton, greeting card writer and artist.
Words To Drink By
“Give strong drink unto him that is ready to perish, and wine unto those that be of heavy hearts.”–Proverbs 31:6
When Restaurant Dress Codes Geot Ridiculous.
The history of style in dining out ever changes.
Click here for the cartoon.