Saturday, December 31, 2016.
The Traditionally Quiet New Year’s Eve.
The Marys spend the day in town and don’t come home after they drop off Jude and his family at the airport. The three of us, then, have less-than-jolly New Years Eves. I manage to make the television work (I turn it on only very occasionally), and I watch the continuance of Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rocking Eve. That’s pretty good, to have one’s name live on after something as ephemeral as a television show. Part of the broadcast originates from New Orleans, but it’s hampered by the severe rainstorms the weather guys have been promising for days. I am away from the two women in my life, and they from me. But who cares anymore?
Sunday, January 1, 2017.
Not Much To Eat On New Year’s Day.
The new year begins on the same lonely note with which the last day of the old one ends. This will not go down as one of my better years. Too many changes for my taste. And a few failures. On the other hand, when I think about it all, it seems more a case of underestimating what could not be called disastrous days.
There is one thing that I think should trouble a guy who does what I do for a living. I have a feeling that the thrills of dining and cooking do not bring as much pleasure to people who are about Jude’s and Mary Leigh’s ages. Since they are the ones who set the vogues and standards, this may take a lot of the fun out of the food world. I’ve written a few pieces about that, and I’m not the first or the only one. Somehow, there’s just not a lot of pleasure in being informed as to what strain of lettuce leaf from which nearby organic farm is being used in making the micro-herb salad with the three grape-size heirloom tomatoes.
Food that makes me laugh (not with it but at it) has a way of failing to be delicious.
It’s raining so hard as the clock passes Midnight Central Standard Time that the usual attack of fireworks from all around the Cool Water Range is barely whimpering. You can’t tell whether the explosions are from the Black Cat arsenals or are bolts of lighting. There are many of the latter, some of them so loud that one wonders whether the house has moved off it foundation.
Sometime around two in the morning the power goes out as another wave of tornado warnings pass over us. Things are very quiet after that. But somehow the Cool Water Ranch’s power returns after just a few seconds. It’s the neighbors who have to turn on their generators. It’s usually the other way around. I’ll take that as a good sign for the coming year.
After I sing at St. Jane’s, I get in contact with Mary Ann, who is on her way home from the south shore. We attempt to find a place to have a breakfast, brunch, lunch or dinner, and discover that this is one of those days when only the chain restaurants are in operation. I am forced to go to MA’s favorite eatery: the consarned Chimes. Sometimes I think she would eat there every day if she could. I have the Pontchartrain eggs from the brunch menu, one of the better parts of the Chimes’ usually-mediocre offering. I begin with a cup of their crawfish soup, which is too rich.
We eat hearty because there is no place else to go.I might even be forced to cook later.
Buster’s Place
Covington: 519 E Boston. 985-809-3880. Map.
Casual
AE DS MC V
Website
ANECDOTES AND ANALYSIS
Not long after my family and I moved to the North Shore in 1990, I got hooked on eating oysters on the half shell in the Covington outlet of the Acme Oyster House. Although the Acme had four locations around town, they managed not only to multiply their customer base but to keep the quality of the then eighty-year-old French vendor of oysters. Perhaps even more miraculous, the physically funky style of the old restaurant was duplicated. The Covington location was a particularly well-designed cave of roughness.
After quite a few years at that location, the Acme opened a second, more accessible restaurant near the new Wal-Mart. For a time it operated both Covington locations, but about ten years ago it moved exclusively into the Wal-Mart adjacency. Meanwhile, the old place became a series of other restaurants, notably Vic & Natly’s, the creation of cartoonist Bunny Matthews. Some five years later, it evolved into Buster’s Place.
WHAT’S GOOD
Buster’s looked and acted as if all its ducks were in a row when it took over the former Acme. The menu was solidly built of New Orleans cookery, but it wasn’t quite there. After not visiting the place for years, I’ve lunched there three or four times lately, and found particularly fine versions of red beans and rice, roast beef poor boys, fried seafood platters, and oysters both raw and grilled. Not only is all this improved, but the prices are significantly lower than in comparable eateries in Covington.
FULL ONLINE MENU
BEST DISHES
»Crabmeat stuffed jalapenos with crawfish tails, house sauce
Grilled yellowfin tuna over house or Caesar salad
Crab and corn bisque
»Poor boy sandwiches on French bread, dressed: fried catfish, fried shrimp, fried crawfish tails, fried soft shell crab, with remoulade
»Roast beef poor boy with rich brown gravy
Double-meat hot sausage poor boy
Half pound char-grilled hamburgers with a variety of dressings, sweet mesquite bun, fries
Grilled mahi mahi sandwich, mango pineapple dressing
Grilled oysters at Buster’s.
»Char-grilled oysters
»Raw oysters on the half shell
Red beans at Buster’s Place.
»Red beans & rice
»Fried seafood platters: shrimp, oysters, catfish, soft-shell crab, stuffed crab, or combo of the above
Grilled or blackened Pontchartrain redfish or grilled yellowfin tuna, steamed vegetables, side salad.
Creole crawfish etouffee with fried crawfish tails on the side, crawfish tails over rice
»Jill’s crawfish fettuccine pasta with butter, cream, spices, crawfish tails, mushrooms & green onions
Slow-smoked baby back ribs or St. Louis ribs.
FOR BEST RESULTS
The portions of everything here are so enormous that you’ll want to limit entree portions to about two-thirds per person. The red beans are so good that they are good for lunch on days other than Mondays.
OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
The hygiene of the restaurant is fine, but it could use some renovation. The old space gives an illusion of being old and beat up.
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 1
Consistency
Service1
Value 2
Attitude 1
Wine & Bar
Hipness
Local Color 1
SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES
Good for business meetings
Open Sunday lunch and dinner
Open Monday lunch and dinner
Open all afternoon
Historic
Oyster bar
Unusually large servings
Quick, good meal
Easy, nearby parking
No reservations
Flourless Almond And Chocolate Cake
This is called torta di mandorle in Italy, from which it comes–through the hands of Chef Andrea Apuzzo and his talented, late pastry chef Lonnie Knisley. It’s not only a good dessert, but makes a marvelous breakfast. It’s so light and goes down so easily that you may as well make two of them at once. This recipe is adapted from the one in La Cucina di Andrea’s, which I wrote with Chef Andrea in 1989.
Chocolate and almond cake.
1 cup semi-sweet chocolate morsels
1/2 cup butter
1/2 lb. sugar
1/4 cup amaretto
3/4 cup cocoa powder
1 1/2 tsp. baking powder
3 Tbs. cornstarch
1 lb. finely crushed almonds
8 eggs, separated
Pinch cream of tartar
Powdered sugar
Preheat the oven to 275 degrees.
1. Melt the chocolate in glass bowl or measuring cup in the microwave oven. Start with one minute on high. Stir the chocolate with a knife. Repeat the process in thirty-second bursts, stirring after each, until the chocolate is just barely melted and smooth.
2. While the chocolate is heating, cream the butter and sugar together
with an electric mixer with a paddle attachment. (Or by hand with a wooden spoon if your mixer isn’t strong enough.) Keep going until the mixture has very little grittiness, and a very pale color.
3. Add the amaretto to the mixer bowl. Sift the cocoa powder, baking powder and cornstarch together and add, in two portions. Beat in thoroughly.
4. Grind the almonds to a fine powder in a coffee mill. Add that to the bowl, then the egg yolkss. Continue to mix until well blended.
5. Scrape down the sides of the cowl until clean. While running the mixer on medium speed, slowly add the chocolate. Mix just until blended. DOn’t overmix.
6. In a separate bowl, beat the egg whites with the cream of tartar until stiff but not dry. Fold this very gently with a rubber spatula into the mixer bowl.
7. Coat two nine-inch pie pans with shortening and fill them almost to the top with the batter. Bake in a preheated 275-300 degree oven for one hour. Cakes are done when the tops start to show small cracks. (This is normal.)
8. Allow cakes to cool on racks. Turn pans over onto plates. Dust the tops of the cakes with powdered sugar.
Serves twelve.
Scallops With Fennel And Orange Emulsion @ Rue 127
One of the lightest but also one of the best dishes from this small, brilliant bistro is a trio of enormous diver scallops, seared top and bottom but bulging. The flavor of the sea that releases on the first stroke of the teeth gets slowly ramped up by the orange and fennel flavors. The presence of oyster mushrooms lends a meatiness that satisfies. Chef Ray Gruezke has been known to bat out other fine rendition of scallops. I wonder if he’s ever thought about smoking them. (He recently opened a new barbecue joint at 4141 Bienville, is what makes me wonder.)
Yet another rendition of scallops @ Rue 127.
Rue 127. Mid-City: 127 N Carrollton Ave. 504-483-1571.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
January 3, 2016
Days Until. . .
Carnival Begins6.
Mardi Gras 57.
The Ninth Day Of Christmas
We have nine ladies dancing. They must be from Uptown. It’s time someone told them the New Year’s Eve party’s over. Or that they’re three days early for the traditional first Mardi Gras ball. From other versions of that song, we: Drove down Delery in the Lower Ninth Ward (Bennie Grunch), got a pair of teakwood shower clogs (Allan Sherman), a guardian angel for the Christmas tree (Andy Williams), and nine cups of rice (our own version; this will make more sense tomorrow).
Restaurant Anniversaries
Chefs at a lunch at La Provence in the 1970s. Front: Chefs Goffredo Fraccaro, Chris Kerageorgiou (holding out his hand), Warren Leruth. Sal Impastato is behind Chris. A few other media people populate the remainder of the picture.
Today in 2007, John Besh bought La Provence from its founder, Chef Chris Kerageorgiou. He said that he’d leave things the same for awhile, and during the summer he’d perform a renovation. But that plan was short-circuited when Chris passed away. We like thinking that Chris was so pleased that his baby was in the hands of his protegé (Besh had worked at La Provence in his early career) that he was at peace. Besh did the renovation in the spring and opened again with a new chef, a new menu, a new bar (La Provence never had one, really) and a new waitstaff–save for “Just Joyce,” who continued writing poems and acting as mother hen. Four chefs later, the place has finally stabilized into one of the best restaurants on the North Shore.
Food Through History
One of the many people who claimed to have invented oleomargarine got a patent for it today in 1871. Henry Bradley of Binghampton, New York followed on the heels of Hippolyte Mege-Mouries, the French inventor who made the first margarine a couple of years earlier. . . Another invention that had more than one father was the drinking straw. Marvin Stone patented his today in 1871. It was made of spiraling, wax-saturated paper. Anyone remember paper straws? The shift from paper to plastic occurred in 1966. At least, that was the year we made the change in the straws we used for Icees at the Time Saver.
Food On The Air
Today is the birthday of Betty Furness, an okay actress in the 1940s and 1950s. During her performance in a live television drama, she was asked to read the commercial for Westinghouse appliances. The company liked her so much that she became their spokesperson. For years, she demonstrated to all the young American women who were building households at that time everything they needed for their kitchens. Her famous catchphrase was, “You can be sure if it’s Westinghouse.”
Edible Dictionary
juicy lucy, n.–A variation on the cheeseburger in which the cheese is enclosed inside the hamburger patty before grilling. It’s popular in the Midwest, particularly in the Minneapolis area. Matt’s Bar, one of the claimants to have invented it, spells it “jucy lucy.” The idea has such appeal that most restaurants offering it also make version in which mushrooms, chili peppers, and other ingredients get into the middle of the patty. Here in New Orleans, a two-location restaurant called “Ms. Jucy Lucy’s” sold the sandwich for a few years, but it has left the scene..
Gourmet Geography
Parsnip, California is in the extreme northeast corner of the state, up in the arid mountains near the Nevada border. It flows into Cedar Creek in a canyon whose bottom is about 5000 feet above sea level, with the 7000-foot Tule Mountain towering above it three miles west. Beautiful but tough hiking country. It’s named for the cow parsnip, which isn’t related to the kind we eat. So you’ll be hungry. The likeliest nearby place to find food is the Likely Cafe, five miles northwest on US 395 in the town of Likely. Water is more likely: several lakes and reservoirs are nearby.
Food Calendar
Today is National Chocolate-Covered Cherry Day. That makes me realize how long it’s been since I had one of those, filled with some kind of white, sugary creme and a juicy liquid around a maraschino cherry. They were the last word in candy when I was a kid. I never questioned that until a girlfriend pointed out something I knew but ignored: they’re sweet enough to cause near-pain in the eating. And if the chocolate shell cracked, the runny insides would flow out into a sticky mess, and let the cherry dry out. My mother, who recognized nothing as too sweet, loved and expected boxes of chocolate-covered cherries for all holidays.
Deft Dining Rule #213:
It wouldn’t be a bad idea to refrain from eating anything sticky. They’re almost never good.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez:
Why would you believe anything a skinny food writer says? We had better food writers when they weren’t all on television.
Forty Years
The first issue of this publication–all four pages of it–appeared today in 1977. The New Orleans Menu began as a biweekly print newsletter full of restaurant reviews. It expanded over the years into 40-page monthly magazine, then into a quarterly 100-page book. The evolution into this daily internet newsletter occurred in 1997. Three subscribers have been on the rolls the entire forty years. Thank you!
Food Namesakes
American sculptor Larkin Goldsmith Mead was born today in 1835. . . Jaak-Nikolaas Lemmens, a composer and organist who lived in Brussels, Belgium, was born today in 1823. . . Apple Computer Company was incorporated today in 1977. . . William Tucker, believed to have been the first African-American, was born today in 1624. His parents were from Africa, but he was born in the American British colonies. (“Tucker” is Australian slang for food.) . . .The final Peanuts comic strip appeared today in 2000, when Charles M. Schulz, its creator, retired.
Words To Eat By
“This special feeling towards fruit, its glory and abundance, is I would say universal… We respond to strawberry fields or cherry orchards with a delight that a cabbage patch or even an elegant vegetable garden cannot provoke.”–Jane Grigson, British cookbook author.
Words To Drink By
“Anti-alcoholics are unfortunates in the grip of water, that terrible poison, so corrosive that out of all substances it has been chosen for washing and scouring, and a drop of water added to a clear liquid like Absinthe, muddles it.”–Alfred Jarry, French writer of the late 1800s.
The New Style Of Service Is Always Ready To Be Imposed.
And here is it, an entirely new array of unique service pieces, most of which has been sitting there waiting to transform the savors of dinner!
Click here for the cartoon.