Thursday, August 25, 2016
A Meeting With The Director.
The radio show broadcasts from home so Mary Ann and I can have dinner with Alissa Rowe and her husband Adam. Alissa is the music director of Northlake Performing Arts Society, of which I am an enthusiastic member.
A couple of months ago I mentioned to Anne Honeywell-the publisher of Inside New Orleans and Inside Northside magazines-that Alissa might be a good subject for the magazine’s profiles of illustrious North Shore people. Anne loved the idea, and suggested that since I am one of Alissa’s directees, I would be the person to write the article.
So here we were, having dinner at Café Lynn. The Rowes live in Mandeville and knew about Café Lynn, but had not dined there. Perfect location for the interview, in more ways than one. We are served the best dinner I’ve had in Café Lynn’s ten or so years. Part of the responsibility for the deliciousness came from Lake Pontchartrain’s population of blue crabs. They are running extraordinarily delectable right now.
Soft-shell crab @ Cafe Lynn. It’s a cabdidate for best soft-shell in town.
So, among other things, we have two red snappers amandine with a great deal of crabmeat on top. I get the always-wonderful soft shell crab grenobloise (butter and capers; Chef-owner Joey Najolia probably picked this up from his years working for Chris at La Provence). And the chef wants us to try a crabmeat risotto, a new specialty at Café Lynn. All of this has the excitement, aroma, sizzle, and seafoody freshness of the kind we don’t see as much as we used to, now that chefs have given themselves permission to serve everything lukewarm. It all reminds me foodwise of a really good dinner at Galatoire’s, circa 1976.
Sidecar cocktail on the rocks.
Adam is intrigued by the specialty cocktails at Café Lynn today. He’d never heard of a sidecar, an underrated, citrusy, very old on-the-rocks job with brandy and Cointreau. We also have a couple of glasses of Mer Soleil Chardonnay, which I haven’t had in a long time.
I’m glad Mary Ann is here to help me with the interview. She’s not especially a music lover, although she does like classical music. But she is intrigued by the way the director of an ensemble keeps a lot of forces in line, and she brings up matters I wouldn’t have thought of. Of course, she has the advantage of being a girl. I get two pages of notes for the article. It’s a fine evening, even though MA and I are almost twice the Rowes’ age.
And the food, in case I didn’t make this point clear, was exceptional. This has been a week of extravagant dining for me.
Cafe Lynn. Mandeville: 2600 Florida St. 985-624-9007.
Friday, August 27, 2016.
Checking The Menu At Impastato’s. As If.
The Eat Club schedule has been feast or famine lately. That’s what happens when a host of other events are running. In this case, we have the cruise coming up in three weeks. And ML’s wedding. So the next two Eat Club dinners are on consecutive evenings: September 13 at Muriel’s and September 14 at Impastato’s in Metairie.
We have not been to either venue in awhile. We had a string of dinners at the Impastato’s on the North Shore, but the Metairie location hasn’t seen us. However, I do get a good deal of mail asking when we will do the original Impastato’s again. Well, here it is. With no funny new dishes getting in the way of the crab fingers, the fettuccine Alfredo, the fish with artichokes, mushrooms, shrimp and crabmeat, or the smoked filet mignon.
Soft-shell crabs at Impastato’s.
Even though our menu at Impastato’s is steady, Mr. Joe always likes me to stop in and run through the courses and the wines. It’s just a ritual. Also, every time I go I try to get a photo of the waiters or even Mr. Joe himself tossing the fettuccine with the sauce. It never seems to come out.
I have an abbreviated supper. First a salad I’ve not heard of before, named for former Saints’ coach Bum Phillips. It’s a romaine salad with a Caesar kind of dressing and hearts of two kinds (artichokes and palm).
Fettuccine alfredo and angel hair asciutta.
Then, of course, the fettuccine alfredo and angel hair pasta asciutta (peppery red sauce). The entrée was a soft-shell crab with artichokes and mushrooms, for which I ask for only one crab instead of the usual two. No dessert. One glass of wine.
Then I sing a few Sinatra tunes with Roy Picou, and head for home.
Impastato’s. Metairie: 3400 16th St. 504-455-1545.
Hard Crabs Southeast Asian Style
You can do this with picked crab or crab claws, but the best way of all is with whole Lake Pontchartrain crabs cut into quarters. It’s a mess to eat (although no more than eating boiled crabs), and the flavor is incredible. You see this sort of thing in Vietnamese and Thai restaurants.
4 large live Lake Pontchartrain blue crabs
1/3 cup vegetable oil
4 cloves garlic, crushed
1/2 tsp. crushed red pepper
1 1/2 Tbs. sesame oil
2 Tbs. chopped fresh ginger
1/4 cup Tabasco soy sauce (or regular soy sauce with 1/2 tsp. Tabasco)
1/4 cup pineapple juice
2 Tbs. fish sauce (nuoc mam)
1/4 cup finely chopped ripe tomato
8 sprigs cilantro, leaves only, chopped
Juice of two limes
1. Cut the claws off the crabs. Cut the crab bodies into quarters, and remove the “dead man fingers.”
2. Heat the vegetable oil over medium-high heat in a large skillet until it shimmers. Add the garlic cloves and crushed red pepper, and saute until the garlic just begins to brown. Add the crabs and cook until the shells turn red, tossing constantly to let the flavored oil hit all parts of the crab.
3. Remove the crab pieces and set aside. Pour off the excess oil, lower the heat to medium, and add the sesame oil and ginger. Cook until the pan contents are very fragrant, then add the pineapple juice, soy sauce, and fish sauce. Bring to a boil and stir until the liquid is reduced by about a third.
4. Return the crab pieces to the pan and add the tomatoes. Cook for about five minutes, until the crab is heated all the way through. Add the lime juice and cilantro, and serve right away with cold beer.
Serves four.
This dish shows up on many Thai menus under different names, although the word “jungle” is often included. The reference is to the quantity and variety of vegetables used. It may well be everything in the house: broccoli, carrots, peas, string beans, onions, bell peppers, as well as Thai herbs like basil and galangal. It’s a Thai curry, about which two things must be said. First, the flavor is not like that of Indian curry, although it has a few spices in common. Second, it is very juicy, even brothy–something they emphasize at the Equator more than in other restaurants. Best made spicy, it’s a marvelous summer dish.
Cafe Equator. Metairie: 2920 Severn Ave. 504-888-4772
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This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
August 29, 2016
Days Until. . .
Coolinary Summer Specials End 3
Memorable Weather Reports
Hurricane Katrina–one of the two or three most powerful Atlantic hurricanes in history–swept across New Orleans this morning in 2005. It changed everything, in ways we’re still discovering. Everyone who was here then, will talk about that event the rest of our lives. And take pride that, even in our sometimes raucous way, we lived through it and kept our identity.
As unlikely as it may seem to people who have never been here, our eating culture was one of the strongest forces that pulled us back together into a coherent city. We saw that in the very earliest recovery, when the first thing most returnees wanted to do was to eat some real New Orleans food. It started with red beans and poor boys and gumbo, but we were very quickly back to oysters Bienville, soft shell crabs, slow-roasted duck, and all the rest of it. If all that and the restaurants that served them hadn’t come back as quickly as they did, many people who came back would have wondered why they did, and left again.
The day that New Orleans becomes Anywhere, USA is the day she dies.
Our Famous Restaurateurs
On the other hand, some wonderful things happened this date. It’s the birthday, in 1960, of Ti Adelaide Martin. She and her cousin Lally Brennan own and manage Commander’s Palace and Cafe Adelaide. Ti is the daughter of Ella Brennan, one of the most accomplished of American restaurateurs. Ti clearly learned a lot from her mom. But even her mom learned a few new lessons in their struggles to reopen Commander’s Palace after Katrina. It took a year and a half–much longer than anyone ever imagined. But when it open, it resumed its position as the city’s top restaurant.
Today’s Flavor
By coincidence, Today is Eating Away From Home Day. That’s what most of us in the New Orleans area had to do on this distressing day in 2005. And it’s what an increasing number of people across America do every day. Just before the 2008 recession, more meals in this country were eaten out of the home than in it. That reverted to the opposite statistic during the slack years. But dining out is once again edging towards a majority of U.S. meals.
It is also More Herbs, Less Salt Day; Lemon Juice Day; Chop Suey Day (see below), and Swiss Winegrowers Day (the Swiss drink almost all of their wine themselves, so to hell with that).
Edible Dictionary
Oysters Bienville.
oysters Bienville, n.–Baked oysters–usually on their shells, but sometimes in a small casserole–topped with the thick sauce made with mushrooms, shrimp, bacon, green onions, a light roux and bread crumbs. The sauce usually makes up two-thirds or more of the dish. Named for the founder of New Orleans, the dish was first introduced at Arnaud’s, There is some controversy as to where it was invented, however. Antoine’s claims that its chef came up with the idea, but felt there was no room for the dish on the enormous menu, and so passed it along to Count Arnaud. (Arnaud’s denies this.) Other restaurants have made it a specialty, notable Commander’s Palace, Pascal’s Manale, and Delmonico. No small number of New Orleans eaters consider oysters Bienville the best of the many baked oyster dishes found on local menus.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Shoulderbone is a rural crossroads in south central Georgia, ninety-eight miles southeast of Atlanta. A historic plantation house–originally built in 1850–is kept in fine conditions for weddings, parties, and meetings. An organized hunting program goes on all year long. They also raise cattle nearby. Large orchards of peach and pecan trees are all around. Perhaps the wood is used to smoke pork shoulders, in the unique style of barbecue found in that part of the country. The most likely place to get this is Mary’s Kuntry Kitchen, seven miles away in Sparta.
Annals Of Dieting
Dr. Nathan Pritikin was born today in 1915. The diet plan that bears his name posited that a high-carbohydrate, low-fat regimen would not only result in weight loss, but also prevent heart disease, from which he believed he was suffering. The thinking these days is that the opposite is true, but dieting vogues swing as often and popular style of cooking. But in the 1970s it was all the rage, enough that some restaurants opened with menus the kept to the Pritikin Plan. I went to one such, and found it among the worst I ever reviewed. Losing weight is a laudable goal. Eating with pleasure is also important. Tricky to achieve both goals with the same meal.
Annals Of Chinese Food
Today in 1896, Li Hung Chang, ambassador and military hero from China, visited New York City. Things Chinese were very much in vogue, as that country’s opening to the West for the first time revealed a fascinating world. Chang was feted with grand dinners, but he rejected all that, insisting that his own chefs cook for him. This was allegedly the moment when and where chop suey was invented, but that’s unlikely. “Chop suey” translates idiomatically into “mixed food in small pieces,” which describes a great deal of Chinese food. So it was probably pretty generic when Americans first encountered it when Chinese people began appearing in large numbers. That was in California in the 1860s, during the building of the Central Pacific Railroad. Now, think about this: when was the last time you saw the words “chop suey” on a menu?
Deft Dining Rule #524:
Never eat in a Chinese restaurant that specializes in chop suey, unless the place is over fifty years old.
Books About The Table
Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr., the father of the Supreme Court Chief Justice, was born today in 1809. He wrote The Autocrat Of The Breakfast Table, the first in a series of novels with the words “breakfast table” in their titles. They were about life in New England.
Food Namesakes
Actress Rebecca de Mornay was born today in 1962. (Mornay sauce is a bechamel with cheese added). . . Edward Denny Bacon was born today in 1860. He was a British author and the curator of the King’s stamp collection. . . Kyle Cook, lead guitarist of the American rock band Matchbox Twenty, was born today in 1975.
Words To Eat By
“You don’t get ulcers from what you eat. You get them from what’s eating you.”–Vicki Baum, Austrian-American writer, who died today in 1960.
Words To Drink By
“Work is the curse of the drinking classes.”–Rev. William A. Spooner, for whom the expression “spoonerism” is named. He died today in 1930.
Another Problem With Buffets.
But at last you can see this coming from a long way off. Yuck.
Click here for the cartoon.