Tuesday, November 25, 2015.
Thai Lunch. 60 Minutes.
I have long been of the opinion that going to an Asian restaurant for lunch is a bad idea. The curse suffered particularly by Chinese restaurants is that they compete with one another at the price level. So you get these big plates of cheaply-made food at very low prices. There will always be a market for that, but I am not part of it. I find that even when you order off the dinner menu, you get food distinctly less good than if you had held on to your hunger until dinner time.
Exception: If you are a well-know regular who gets dishes other than fried rice, chow mein, and Mandarin chicken, you have a fighting chance of getting careful cooking at noon. But even then, don’t count on it.
Today I lunched at the Thai Spice, where my luck at dinner has been consistently good. But I almost never go there for lunch. Now I know why. I ordered the pad prik king, an offbeat dish with an interesting, almost musky flavor background in its dinner version. But the under-$10 lunch, including a spring roll and a cup of hot and sour soup, is bell peppers, onions, light brown gravy, chicken. Ball of rice. Meh.
Todd at the radio station called to tell me that the last two hours of my program will be pre-empted by. . . a basketball game, I think. That doesn’t happen much on WWWL. Todd suggested I just stay home and phone the show in. Literally, not in the sense of my doing a careless job. There is no way that can happen when I have to do fourteen live commercials in one hour, on top of the many recorded ones. Too much for a one-hour show, but nothing can be done. We wind up having a good show, anyway, with many Thanksgiving calls.
The Marys and Jude are trying to persuade me to fly to Los Angeles so I can eyeball my first grandchild. I’d love to feel the freedom to do that, but I know I have far too much going on to take three days off, with the risk of being bumped by the chaotic Thanksgiving flight issues. Just this morning I heard on the CBS World News Roundup that something like forty percent of flights run late during this weekend.
Anyway, I’d prefer that my first impression of Suzanne and Jude’s first baby not be of the cute but unresponsive newborn, but the kid who might well give me his first smile. That’s how it happened with Jude. I’ll never forget that moment. Jude agrees with me, and says the first days of the New Year will work better for him, too.
At least I have a place to go for Thanksgiving dinner. Two of them, in fact. And I get laughs from the new kittens that it took to replace Twinnery’s role of keeping me company. Valencia somehow can jump from the floor to the top of the refrigerator. This must be some sort of trick.
Former Houston’s In Metairie Back Open, But Something Else.
Few developments on the restaurant front caused as much of a stir as did the closing of Houston’s in Metairie a few months ago. One of the national chain’s two local restaurants (the other one is at 1755 St. Charles Avenue, and is still open), the Metairie Houston’s was one of the oldest and was immensely popular, such that waiting for a table was likely for most customers. I thought it was better than most chain “dinner houses” (as the industry calls restaurant like this), but I never found it interesting enough to draw me there unless my wife and daughter–both big fans of Houston’s–wanted me to take them there.
But the closing will likely not be a disaster for most of Houston’s Metairie customers. It has reopened as Boulevard American Bistro, with Robert Hardie as manager and partner. Hardie, who was on my radio show a few weeks ago to discuss all this, was the boss of Houston’s on St. Charles. He gave me the distinct impression that the things most liked by Houston’s customers will persist at Boulevard.
The actual owners of the revised restaurant is the locally-owned Creole Cuisine , whose other restaurants include Broussard’s, Kingfish, Maspero’s, Royal House, and the Bombay Club. They give this as an opening menu for the old/new place:
Deviled eggs with sweet pickle relish
Wood-fired artichokes
Boulevard oysters (probably a la Drago)
Grilled chicken salad, honey citrus vinaigrette, Thai-peanut sauce
Seared tuna salad
Wedge salad with Maytag blue cheese dressing
Hamburgers
Gulf fish sandwich
Prime rib sandwich
Lobster roll
Rotisserie chicken
Slow roasted pork chop
Cedar plank salmon
Seared sea scallops
Prime rib
Filet mignon
Crab cakes
Barbecue ribs
Yep, sounds familiar to me, too.
I still don’t know why Houston’s closed this place. It surely was very profitable. What I heard was that the owners thought the concept had played out. I also hear that they may reopen further up Veterans in a bigger location.
Boulevard American Bistro. Metairie: 4241 Veterans Blvd. 504-889-2301.
Truck Farm Tavern Opens In Time For Thanksgiving
A couple of weeks ago Chef Brack May opened an interesting new on the River Road just past Kenner, self-descriptively called Truck Farm. For those too urban or too young to recognize the expression, a truck farm is a small operation that grows the kind of vegetables you’d find in a supermarket, and sells them at retail. It’s similar to a farmer’s market, but you usually have to drive farther to find a truck farm.
Brack May, chef-owner of Cowbell and Truck Farm Tavern.
Brack’s main restaurant is Cowbell, also more or less on River Road. He read somewhere that the River Parishes (St. Charles, St. John the Baptist, St. James and Assumption Parishes) were once loaded with truck farms. I can vouch for that. When I first started making retreats at Manresa, its land held had many acres of truck farming. My group would be there during the broccoli, cauliflower, and cabbage season. The soil around there is spectacularly fecund.
Brack’s Truck Farm serves lunch Tuesday through Saturday and dinner Wednesdays through Saturdays in the town of St. Rose, just upstream of Kenner. (It occupies the former space of St. Rose Tavern, a longtime neighborhood café well-known for its poor boys.) Truck Farm has a barbecue emphasis, and a Cajun quality too. The availability of raw materials from the farmers dictates what will appear on the menu, but it’s basic fare, including the likes of red beans and poor boys.
And they have wine and beer, indoor and outdoor seating (on wooden benches), and a stronger take-out and cartering service than one might expect. Probably not a bad place to beef up your Thanksgiving menu. (Although I don’t know whether the place will be open Thanksgivng.)
Truck Farm Tavern. River Parishes: 11760 River Rd. 504-699-0099.
White Bean And Roasted Garlic Dip
My wife loves dips. (No wonder she married me.) We always have plenty of different kinds when we have people over–especially on Thanksgiving. This is one of our favorites, inspired by an appetizer at Del Porto, the excellent Northern Italian trattoria in Covington.
1/2 lb. cannellini (Great Northern) beans
1 quart chicken stock
2 small carrots
2 ribs celery, cut up
1 tsp. crushed red pepper
1 bay leaf
1 head garlic, peeled
2 Tbs. olive oil
3/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 cup red wine vinegar
1 Tbs. salt
1. Sort the beans and soak overnight.
2. Put the beans in a pot with the chicken stock plus a quart of water. Add the carrots, celery, red pepper, bay leaf, and half the garlic. Bring the pot to a boil and lower to a simmer. Cook the beans for an hour, then cool for about 15 minutes. Add more water to the pot if the beans begin to look dry.
3. While the beans are cooking, heat the 2 Tbs. of olive oil in a saucepan over the lowest possible heat. Crush the reserved garlic cloves and add to the saucepan. Cook for about 30 minutes, stirring the garlic now and then. Do not allow the garlic to brown, although the color will get tan after awhile.
4. Remove the carrots and bay leaf from the beans, and drain the remaining water. Puree the beans in a food processor; it may be necessary to do this in batches.
5. Add the roasted garlic from the pan to the last batch in the food processor, along with the extra-virgin olive oil, vinegar and salt. Puree until smooth. If you pureed more than one batch of beans, combine them with this last batch and stir well in a bowl. Check seasonings, and add salt and Tabasco to taste.
Serve barely warm with pita chips. A nice garnish: anchovies or capers.
Serves 12-16.
Green Salad With Pumpkin Seed Brittle @ Restaurant August
Not many dinner salads show up on this list, but it figures that one of them would come from Restaurant August. John Besh and his chefs give as much attention to the little courses as to the big ones. This starts out with organically-grown greens from local farmers. The blue cheese sprinkled thereupon are from somewhat father away–Point Reyes, just north of San Francisco. I don’t know where the pumpkins were grown, but they supply seeds for a brittle that rests on top. Pumpkin seed oil works its way into the vinaigrette. Ideal for anytime between Halloween and Thanksgiving.
Restaurant August. CBD: 301 Tchoupitoulas. 504-299-9777.
This is among the 500 best dishes in New Orleans area restaurants. Click here for a list of the other 499.
November 25, 2015
Days Until
Thanksgiving–1
Christmas–29
New Year’s–36
Eating Across America
This is the birthday, in 1758, of Pittsburgh. It stands where the Monongahela and Allegheny Rivers combine to form the Ohio River, from which comes most of the water in that river we have here in New Orleans. Culinarily speaking, Pittsburgh is famous for a style of steak grilling. “Pittsburgh style” is very dark and crusty on the outside and cold rare in the center. (It’s also known as “black and blue.”) This requires a very thick steak and a lot of heat. The result, in our opinion, is the best steak imaginable.
Annals Of Prohibition
Carry Nation was born on this date in 1846. Her first husband was an alcoholic who died young, and it infuriated her so that she began a crusade against alcoholic beverages and saloons that lasted the rest of her life. Her modus operandi made her famous: she’d enter a saloon bearing bricks, clubs, or hatchets, and would start breaking everything in sight. She was arrested thirty times for these activities. And she was only one of many people who resorted to violence in their quest to rid the nation of alcoholic beverages. Oh, the spilled Cognac!
Food Calendar
This is National Home-Baked Bread Day. Making bread from scratch is perceived by most home cooks as a major undertaking and risky. It’s not as hard as all that, but it is different from other kinds of cooking, and requires much more attention to detail and patience than most other edible projects. To make good bread of any kind, first find a good source of recipes. My own favorite is Bread Alone by Daniel Leader and Judith Blahnik (one of several books with that clever title), but there are many others.
The critical instruction for good bread baking is: Follow the recipe exactly. Measure with precision. Better still, weigh the ingredients. Then time each part of the process. Bread baking cannot be rushed. It should be done with a mood of calm and serenity and trust. When you’re done, you will feel good. Have faith in the recipe. Indeed, there’s something about the best bread bakers that suggests a certain spirituality. (No wonder monks make good bread.)
Gourmet Gazetteer
Cranberry is a small farming community in northern Maryland, forty-one miles northwest of Baltimore. The place is well named. It’s dominated by an expansive array of cranberry fields, as well as a few pods in which the berries can be corralled for harvesting. (Ripe cranberries pop off the bush when they’re ripe, and float to the surface of the bog or pond, ready to be scooped up.) The rolling landscape and well-kept farms make Cranberry a pretty place. The nearest restaurant is the Dutch Corner, three miles north in Manchester.
Edible Dictionary
Montmorency, [moh-moh-ranh-SEE], French, adj.–This name is attached to a wide range of dishes that include cherries, including both savory and sweet creations. The most famous is duck Montmorency, in which the duck is seared in a pan in its own fat, then deglazed with cherry brandy (which is sometimes flamed) and cherry juice, finished with stock, and reduced down. Pitted cherries come in at the end. The name is that of a suburb of Paris, where a particular sour cherry grows in enough profusion that many sauces and dishes used them.
Deft Dining Rule #508:
Don’t eat sourdough bread in New Orleans, and don’t eat poor boy bread in San Francisco.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez:
If you need a warm, moist place for dough to rise, and you can live without your microwave oven while it does, heat a cup of water to boiling in it. Put the bread dough in the microwave. Leave the cup of water in, away from the dough. Close the door. Don’t turn it on. Let the dough rise according to the recipe.
Food Inventions
On this date in 1715, Thomas Masters was granted a patent on a method of cleaning and drying Indian corn (as it was known back then). His method evolved into popcorn, much later. . . Another American, Swiss-born John B. Meyenberg, earned a patent today in 1884 for two new processes for making evaporated milk. His company now is a specialist in making goat’s milk products. He has quite a story, here.
Annals Of Food Research
Nikolai Vavilov was born today in 1887, in Russia. He was a plant geneticist who was far ahead of his time. He believed it was important to keep a collection of seeds from major food plants, especially those with strains that were becoming less common. His thought was that they my be needed if a plant disease were to wipe out important food crops. His collection in St. Petersburg, still maintained scrupulously, is probably the largest in the world.
Today’s Worst Flavor
On this date in 2003, a series of hepatitis incidents traced back to green onions grown in Mexico caused a shortage of green onions everywhere. The problem was isolated and the Mexican farmers recovered (they took quite a hit for awhile).
People I’d Like To Dine With
This is John Larroquette’s birthday, here in New Orleans in 1947. His career on television and in movies was big-time, but he never forgot his roots. He often talked about working for a radio station here called WVOG, the Voice Of God. That is, in fact, a real radio station, still on the air. I remember hearing his big voice on it. (Words cannot describe what a radio geek I always have been.) Very funny guy. Hey, John–Dickie Brennan’s Steakhouse, us two old radio guys?
Music To Suck Mints By
Incense and Peppermints, by the mock-psychedelic band Strawberry Alarm Clock (there was a lot of such silliness around then) hit Number One on the pop chart today in 1967. It was one of two Number One songs with a reference to peppermints.(The other was Peppermint Twist, recorded by Joey Dee and the Starliters, a band named for those red-and-white mints.)
Food Namesakes
Anthony Peeler, a professional basketball player, was born today in 1969. . . Sugar Ray Leonard won the welterweight boxing championship in the Louisiana Superdome today in 1980, when opponent Roberto Duran threw in the towel. Really, he couldn’t stand to wait any longer for some chicken-andouille gumbo. . . Joey “Jaws” Chestnut opened his jaws for the first time today in 1983. He is a competitive eater, showing up at the likes of hot-dog eating contests. His record: sixty-six dogs in twelve minutes.
Words To Eat By
“The first man gets the oyster, the second man gets the shell.”–Andrew Carnegie, born today in 1835.
Words To Drink By
“To all the readers of the New Orleans Menu Daily, may you eat and drink well and have much to be grateful for. And may you give me the day off tomorrow so I can cook Thanksgiving dinner. I’ll write to you again on Friday.”–Tom Fitzmorris.
Good Exercise Before Thanksgiving Dinner.
Especially if you get a cart with a can of cranberry sauce stuck in one of the wheels. But who can do it all in one repetition?
Click here for the cartoon.