Saturday, May 7, 2016.
Green Acre. Chimes. Café Du Monde.
Mary Ann becomes a whirlwind of clean-up energy when either of our children comes home for a visit. Mary Leigh will show up at the Cool Water Ranch–or, more likely, one of the Marys’ favorite restaurants–tomorrow.
I am not permitted to help with this project. MA doesn’t trust me to resist the temptation to throw away large amounts of what to me look like trash. But I have my own program. The Great Lawn in front of the Cool Water Ranchhouse is growing like weeds (come to think about it, it’s all weeds this time of year). It will take about an hour and a half to trim the Lawn. That must be done in the morning, because MA has plans for most of the evening. I’m in the sun almost the entire time. But then again, I am The Man Wears Only Long-Sleeve Shirts And Long Pants, No Matter What The Weather.
I have a radio show to host, for a change. We are in the short season (until August) when my Saturday program gets on the air reliably.
Mint julep for watching the KY Derby at The Chimes.
Mary Ann has moved into Mother’s Day Mode, in which she has the right (we negotiated this a long time ago) to do anything she feels like doing for the duration of the holiday. I meet her at around five at The Chimes. She wanted to watch the Kentucky Derby as well as eat the Chimes’ food. (The usual salad). I have a mint julep. And then, because “mint julep” is somwhat similar to “jalapeno-bacon burger,” I order that as a main, hold the bacon.
Bacon and jalapeno burger at Chimes.
I don’t think hamburgers and bacon go well together. Those who will now point to the immense popularity of bacon cheeseburgers will probably pooh-pooh my thesis that if a restaurant adds bacon to anything, it will sell more of that item at a higher margin. The restaurant business likes the effect even more than its customers do.
At some point, I ask MA when the horserace will take place. “It just did, about five minutes ago,” she says. I forgo asking who won. I don’t even have an imaginary horse in this game. I am, however, a card-carrying Kentucky Colonel.
The hamburgers at Chimes are among the few things I like there. I manage to eat only half of this one, so thick is the meat stratum. Besides, Mary Ann is now itching to get a move on to the LPO concert in Bogue Falaya Park. The main phalanx of the Louisiana Philharmonic is giving a free reading of the kind of tunes you’d hear at a Fourth Of July event, plus an assortment of other things. It entertains us until sundown, at which time we commence looking for MA’s car, whose parking location slips our minds.
Sunday, May 8, 2016. Mother’s Day.
Back Into Routines.
Mary Leigh’s flight from Washington, D.C. is due around noon. MA goes to pick her up without me because 1) she wants to maximize girl talk with our daughter and b) I am singing at St. Jane’s. I am also working on yet another computer glitch, one which before the day is out will have me on the phone with a tech for three hours. Next time I get a new computer, I’m going to hire somebody to move the data over. I don’t have the touch.
Our Mother’s Day lunch is at La Carreta. Of course it is. The Mexican place in Mandeville is a favorite of the Marys. The weather is so beautifully cool that the outdoor tables are especially inviting. On the other hand, we are not the only people who are celebrating Mother’s Day in a restaurant. We are also not the only ones who are in very casual restaurants instead of Commander’s Palace and Galatoire’s. It is, however, enough of an oddity that a crank poster emerges from the shadows of my web board every time the Marys and I go to Carreta, the Chimes, the Acme, Zea, New Orleans Food And Spirits, or the other restaurants we visit too often (sez he) because that’s what the Marys want.
Choriqueso would be good in an omelette.
In between the bean soup, the choriqueso, the tacos and avocado salad with cilantro vinaigrette, we talk about ML’s upcoming wedding. The menu, the band, and a few other details seem to be resistent to gelling. For the fifth or seventh time, ML tells me who the bridesmaids are (her cousins). I pretend great interest, which I do have–but it’s mostlly focused on the bottom line abuilding. As if it will do any good, the first computing I do after the tech finishes is to log in and pay the American Express bill before the wedding stuff kicks in big time.
I don’t need to eat anything more, but ML has a supper rendezvous with two of her three cousin-bridesmaids. They go to The Chimes.
La Carreta. Mandeville: 1200 W Causeway Approach. 985-624-2990.
Creole Corn Pudding
The inspiration came from VooDoo BBQ, but this is my version of that old-timey, little-seen side dish. You can use either fresh corn on the cob (if you do, par-boil it before stripping it from the ears) or frozen corn.
Corn pudding, with a few peppers floating on top.
2 cups milk
1 1/2 cups self-rising cornmeal
1/2 tsp. salt
1 Tbs. plus 1 tsp. sugar
1 cup corn
1/2 cup chopped red and green bell pepper
2 Tbs. butter
1/2 cup grated Monterey Jack cheese
4 sprigs cilantro, leaves only, chopped
1/3 cup finely sliced green onion
5 eggs
1 tsp. Tabasco Jalapeno pepper sauce
Salt, white pepper, and cayenne pepper to taste
Preheat over to 400 degrees.
1. Combine the milk with two cups of water in a saucepan over medium heat and bring to a light boil. Stir in the cornmeal with the salt and sugar and stir until it gets to the thickness of light grits. Add more water if necessary to keep it flowing.
2. Remove from the heat. Add the corn, bell pepper, butter, cheese, cilantro, green onion, and Tabasco Jalapeno. Stir to combine the ingredients well.
3. Break the eggs into a bowl and beat with an electric mixer until light and foamy. Add the eggs to the rest of the mixture, folding it in with a rubber spatula. Taste and add salt, white pepper, and cayenne.
4. You may bake this in small individual glass baking dishes or one large one. Butter the dish first before spooning in the pudding mixture. Bake in a preheated 400-degree oven until the top begins to brown–about a half-hour.
Serves eight.
Mazorca @ Baru Bistro & Tapa
The description of this Colombian dish doesn’t ring a dinner bell. In fact, it sounds like a curious collection of ingredients: corn, cheese, and fried shoestring potatoes, topped with what the menu (and the waiter) only identify as pink sauce. Yet something about it makes you want to order it. And the first taste gives new respect for your subconscious and its way of picking winners for no apparent reason. It’s an appetizer at this fine little Central Ameican-South American-Caribbean cafe.
Baru Bistro & Tapa. Uptown: 3700 Magazine. 504-895-2225.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
May 10, 2015
Days Until. . .
New Orleans Wine And Food Experience 17
Food On The Road
Today in 1969, the second (northbound) span of the Lake Pontchartrain Causeway opened. The idea of taking the twenty-four-mile trip just to go to dinner had not really been hatched, but it soon would be. Three years after the bridge expansion, Chris Kerageorgiou opened La Provence in Lacombe, and found that a lot of his customers came from the South Shore. Now lots of people do it every day. La Provence, now owned by John Besh and Chef Erick Loos), keeps up the standards from the era of Chris.
Today’s Flavor
Today is National Shrimp Day. Shrimp are probably the favorite seafood of Americans. They’re found on menus of every kind, all over the country. The Louisiana shrimp industry recently supplied more the eighty percent of the American shrimp eaten in this country. That is way down because of ungrounded fears about the oil spill’s effect on our shrimp (there was actually very little), and because of a flood of imported shrimp from Southeast Asia. Why anyone would turn away from Gulf shrimp–arguably the world’s best–to save fifty cents a pound is a mystery to me.
You can cook shrimp thousands of ways. Here in New Orleans, the best shrimp dishes are New Orleans-style barbecue shrimp and shrimp remoulade. I can’t get enough of either of these two dishes. The two main species are white shrimp and brown shrimp, in alternating seasons. I prefer white shrimp, particularly for broiling, but the distinction is not great.
Shrimp are sized according to the “count” of shrimp per pound. This ranges from under 10 count for grilling and barbecuing, down to 40 or more count for frying, salads, gumbo, and stews.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Juice Creek runs in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, a wilderness area in south central Washington State. The creek drops from some bogs at the 2500-foot level down to the Panther River, where there’s a campground. From the campground, the Panther and Wind Rivers afford some thrilling whitewater rafting. Mount St. Helens is visible to the northeast from stretches of Juice Creek. All this is sixty-nine miles northeast of Portland, Oregon. You won’t have to go that far for a bite to eat–at least not if you don’t mind the twenty-mile hike through the woods and hills to Trout Lake, where you’ll find KJ’s Bear Creek Cafe.
Edible Dictionary
satsuma, n.–Satsumas are the first citrus fruits of the Louisiana season, and herald the arrival in a month or two of the world’s best oranges. Satsumas are native to the archaic Satsuma province on the island of Kyushu in Japan, where they seem to have mutated from a kind of orange. They came to this country in 1878, and are better known as mandarins (a reference to their Far Eastern origins) or tangerines. The satsumas in Southeast Louisiana are different from those found in most other parts of America, and remain very similar to the original Japanese variety brought here by the Jesuits. They have very thin skins with very large oil pockets. As we all discover as children, the skin is very easy to remove, and the sections usually come apart without breaking open. The flavor is distinctly different from that of an orange.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez:
Whenever you cook shrimp, the moment you have the first thought as to whether they’re cooked well enough is the time to remove the shrimp from the heat, immediately. Overcooked shrimp stick to the shells.
Food Through History
The ten-day Battle of Hamburger Hill began today in 1969. It was a disaster all around, and was the last major ground offensive in the Vietnam War. The tide of American opinion turned against the war as a result.
French king Louis XVI, for whom a very fancy New Orleans French restaurant was named, ascended the throne on this date in 1774. He would be the regal victim of the French Revolution eighteen years later. His namesake restaurant is still here, but only for hotel breakfasts and private parties.
Annals Of Herbal Beverages
Thomas J. Lipton, tea merchant and avid sailor, was born today in 1850, in Glasgow, Scotland. Lipton is the leading name in tea in this country, but it was one of many until it started advertising on radio, with the medium’s most persuasive spokesman: Arthur Godfrey.
Charles Hires began selling a bag of roots, herbs and berries with instructions for making root beer today in 1869. You steeped the bag’s contents in hot water, then strained, sweetened and chilled it. It was the original root beer. Later, soda fountains began dispensing it and adding carbonation. Hires Root Beer, which is still around, is recognized as the first branded soft drink.
Deft Dining Rule #412:
The worst cold root beer is better with a roast beef poor boy sandwich than the best red wine.
Music To Eat Bouillabaisse By
Donovan Leitch, was born today in 1943. According to one of his hit songs, he was mad about saffron. He started out as a Bob Dylan soundalike, but evolved into the ultimate hippy-dippy singer, using just his first name.
Food Namesakes
Movie producer Jeff Apple fell from the tree today in 1954. . . Mike Butcher, a pitcher for the California Angels in the 1990s, took The Big Mound in 1965. . . Another baseball pro, Ken Berry, hit The Big Basepath in 1941. . . Ollie Le Roux, who plays rugby professionally in South Africa, kicked off today in 1973.
Words To Eat By
“The term ‘jumbo shrimp’ has always amazed me. What is a jumbo shrimp? I mean, it’s like Military Intelligence. The words don’t go together.”–George Carlin.
Words To Drink By
“I drink only to make my friends seem interesting.”–Don Marquis.
Cool Beverages Around The Pool.
It’s time for the annual competition between iced tea and lemonade. The teabags and the lemon wedges are ready to chill.
Click here for the cartoon.