Coolinary Sleeper: 3 Courses, $29 At A Place You Don’t Know
Vacherie is a cute little restaurant on the corner of Toulouse and Dauphine, named for the old town on the West Bank of the river. (The chef hails from there.) The people who own the place have been expanding and bettering their restaurant string in recent years, with this being the best of them. Vacherie’s summer menu looked pretty good to me, and the $29 price for three courses is a big step lower than the standard Coolinary $35. The only restriction: nothing doing on Sundays.
Shrimp Remoulade
Fried green tomato
~or~
Okra and Louisiana Seafood Gumbo
With a mixed green salad on the side
~or~
Broiled Brussels Sprouts
Bacon vinaigrette
~~~~~
Grillede Chicken Breast
Artichokes, tomatoes, mushrooms, and capers in white wine butter sauce over jasmine rice with fresh vegetables
~or~
Panneed Pork Tenderloin
Lemon mushroom sauce and roast potatoes
~or~
Fish of the Day
~~~~~
Dessert
Choice of house-made cakes, pies or bread pudding with whiskey sauce
Vacherie
French Quarter: 827 1/2 Toulouse St. 504-207-4532. www.vacherierestaurant.com.
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Friday, August 15, 2014.
Tony Angello’s, For A Change.
My day works out better if I send up the radio show from home instead of from the studio. That gives me the whole morning to write, and time in the afternoon to take a forty-five-minute walk around the Cool Water Ranch, followed by a nice nap. Then I go into town for dinner in late afternoon. What a great life!
The real impetus behind that schedule today is that Mary Leigh needs to deliver a batch of cupcakes to one of her regular customers in Carrollton. Then we meet up with Mary Ann, who has an unexpected idea for dinner: Tony Angello’s. I haven’t been there in several years, and I don’t believe that either of the Marys ever have.
My only concern is whether we can get a table at last-minute notice (the only kind MA ever offers.) But it’s the middle of August, the final approach to the slowest time of the year for New Orleans restaurants. I don’t have to appeal to Dale Messina (who runs the dining room), let alone Mr. Tony himself. There are lots of tables available.
A slow summer night at Tony Angello’s.
We couldn’t have picked a better one. To our right are Chuck and Rae Anne Williams, one of the two couples that own MeMe’s in Chalmette. But we just dined at their place a week ago! Another example of the New Orleans Incest Phenomenon, which proves that only 500 people live in the entire metro area. Or else things like this wouldn’t happen.
When we walk up, Chuck is enjoying oysters Rockefeller, one of the specials today. When the waiter arrives, I was going to ask for an immediate lock on those oysters, as well as some Bienvilles, which have always been a signature dish at Tony Angello’s.
But first the waiter has to tell me that a long time ago (he has been here for years) he waited on me in another restaurant. More New Orleans Incest! On the other hand, waiters move around so much that perhaps that’s the true explanation.
He also tells me that the man at the next table ordered the last half-dozen oysters Rockefeller. Oh, well. How about a martini instead? Haven’t had one of those since the cruise in April.
The man eating what should have been my oysters turns around. “Hello, Tom. John Jay.” The city’s most famous salon entrepreneur. He is with his lady, who is beautiful and well groomed. Of course she is.
“You took my oysters Rockefeller!” I tell him. He has only eaten half the order, so he passes the other three to me. The waiter intercepts the pass and takes it to the kitchen for a warmup.
Oysters Rockefeller at Tony Angello’s
I got to know John Jay in my early years of radio, when he was constantly showing up on talk shows to hold forth on his ideas of great haircutting. Then and now, he has the personality of a star.
Artichoke at Tony Angello’s.
Mary Ann–who had her hair cut a few times at John Jay–was ecstatic to discover that Tony Angello has stuffed artichokes, with lots of butter and garlic and herbs and bread crumbs. This is one of her favorite dishes, a taste for which she passed on to Mary Leigh, who also goes after it with gusto.
We pass on the multi-course feed for which Tony Angello’s is famous. I start with the oyster-artichoke soup, which taste the same as when I last wrote about it in 1977. Then the Rockefellers and the Bienvilles, both tasty and filling. The Marys split an Italian salad. Then eggplant Tina–sort of a lasagna made with eggplant in the place of the pasta–for ML. She doesn’t like it, or the red sauce. But this is the old-style, sweet, smooth sauce preferred by people three times ML’s age. And ML makes her own red sauce from scratch, so she has strong ideas on the subject.
Spiedini, the best dish at Tony Angello’s.
The waiter and Dale both say that by some miracle I ordered the best dish in the house: chicken spiedini. It’s the standard Italian stuffing with a bit of ham, all run up on skewers and baked. This is a Mr. Tony dish, all right.
Mr. Tony is pushing his nineties now. But he still shows up for work every day. I find him sitting alone in the bar, having a little snack. We exchange the hug he gives to everyone who knows him even a little.
And I remember the day, about two months after Katrina, when passing by I saw him standing outside his restaurant. It had stood in flood water deep enough to lap the roof. After the hug, he said, “I’d like to invite you in for dinner with me. I’d like to, but I can’t. Let me show you why.” He took me into the dining room, a forest of studs.
“Come in and have lunch with me,” he tells me now. I say I will, but I know I can’t. The radio show pre-empts lunch every day. I’m going to figure out a way, though.
Tony Angello’s. Lakeview: 6262 Fleur de Lis Dr. 504-488-0888.
Saturday, August 16, 2014.
Adventures In Thai Hot.
We have been rained upon with gusto all this week. The grass needs cutting, but the tractor would get stick in the mud. I am barely able to take my daily walk, the lightning is so threatening.
Mary Leigh and The Boy have decided not only that they like Thai food, but that they like it very hot. The three of us (MA is not a Thai eater) meet for dinner at Thai Spice in Mandeville. At least that’s what we do after they go to Thai Pepper instead. I don’t think I heard them wrong. Since I’m paying, they’ll have to come to where I am. But I agree that Thai Pepper is the better restaurant, if by a small margin.
Green curry at Thai Spice
Green curry, three-star hot (just below “Thai hot”) for me, with chicken. The next generation gets two orders of pad Thai. One each two-star and four-star. The Boy is not just playing macho by getting the latter. He says that it’s almost impossible to make food peppery enough for him. Indeed, he all but inhales the noodle dish. How wonderful to have the appetite of a twenty-two-year-old!
Thai Spice. Covington: 1531 US 190. 985-809-6483.
The Cream Of The Cream
Q.
What’s the difference between whipping cream and heavy cream? Seems to me that a lot of recipes use the two terms interchangeably. And as long as I’m asking, what do you do with half-and-half?
A. All of these are products in the milk line, differing only in their percentage of milkfat (formerly “butterfat,” a term no longer in vogue because often butter isn’t a factor). The “whipping” designation can be applied to any cream above about 20 percent milkfat.
The richest cream in daily retail commerce is heavy cream, also known as heavy whipping cream and (less often) double cream. Its percentage of milk fat is usually in the 30s, but sometimes as high as the 40s. This is the kind chefs like to cook with.
Next richest cream is just-plain-whipping cream, averaging 24 to 30 percent milkfat. You can cook with it or whip it. Both this and the above have a way of breaking if you either cook them or whip them too long.
Next is light cream, also known as coffee cream and single cream. For some reason, this product has nearly disappeared from markets in the New Orleans area, although it’s still popular in the Northeast and Midwest. It has between 18 and 24 percent milkfat.
It’s likely that what happened to light cream is that preferences shifted to half-and-half. That’s a blend of whole milk and light cream, with milkfat percentages in the teens.
From here we skip down to whole milk, which is milk as it more or less comes straight from the cow with nothing removed. This winds up with about three and a quarter percent milkfat. The other categories of milk are denoted by their milkfat percentages.
I’d better say something about buttermilk. There is no butter or milkfat to speak of in buttermilk, which is what’s left over when the milkfat is removed. So, counter-intuitively, buttermilk is as low in milkfat as skim milk.
Tex-Mex Chili Sauce
This is half a chili con carne recipe. It has the seasonings and the flavor, but not the meat. You use it as a sauce, not as a finished dish. It’s good on chicken, pork, and cheese-and-onion enchiladas. But triple all the ingredients, add three pounds of cubed or ground beef chuck at the end of Step 1. and you’re on your way to a good, heart-warming (and heart-stopping) bowl of red.
1/4 cup vegetable oil
2 Tbs. chili powder
2 Tbs. paprika
1 tsp. cumin
1/4 tsp. turmeric
1/2 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. cayenne
1/2 tsp. black pepper
1/4 cup chopped onions
1/2 cup tomato puree
1 cup beef or veal stock
1/2 tsp. salt
2 Tbs. Tabasco chipotle pepper sauce
1. Heat the oil in a small saucepan over medium heat until it shimmers. Add all the seasonings through the black pepper, and cook, stirring, as if you were making a roux. Cook the seasonings until they’re noticeably darker than they were at the beginning.
2. Remove from the heat and stir in the onions. Keep stirring until the onions are soft and browned–about a minute.
3. Add the tomato puree and the stock, and stir to blend completely. Add all the other ingredients and blend in.
4. Return to medium-low heat, and cook the mixture until all bright red color from the tomato puree is gone. Lower the heat to a simmer. Cook for another ten minutes, stirring now and then. Add a little water if necessary to get a sauce consistency. Add the salt and Tabasco Chilpotle sauce.
Makes about two cups of sauce.
Fresh Scallop Sashimi @ Wasabi
In a sushi bar as good as this one, the best eats are likely to be found among the specials on the markerboard behind the bar. Someone here must love scallops, because on many occasions I’ve found fresh scallops–as in never frozen, never treated with that gunk that gives supermarket scallops their month-long shelf life. When eaten raw, the slightly sweet flavor and seawave aroma all but submerge you in the green-blue ocean. Get it as sashimi, and go easy on the soy sauce.
Wasabi. Marigny: 900 Frenchmen. 504-943-9433.
||West End: 8550 Pontchartrain Blvd 504-267-3263. We find this dish to be among the 500 best in New Orleans area restaurants.
August 25, 2014
Days Until. . .
Coolinary Summer Specials End 6
Roots Of Creole Cooking
On this date in 1718, several hundred French colonists showed up in Louisiana to secure the French claim to the territory. Many settled in what was soon to become New Orleans. They wanted to eat food like what they had in France, but had to make do with the local vegetables and animals. A new cuisine was born.
People We’d Like To Drink With
Sean Connery was born today in 1930. His order of a “vodka martini, shaken, not stirred” in the James Bond movies altered the classic martini recipe forever. Gin was the original spirit component of the drink. The “shaken, not stirred” aspect may seem like pure perfectionism on the part of the Bond character, but it recognizes a decline in the quality of ice. If you have good, really cold, pure, hand-cut ice, a martini should definitely be stirred.
Food Calendar
Today is National Martini Day. Martinis went out of vogue in the 1970s, when everybody started drinking wine. But they’re too good to be kept down, and a new appreciation formed in the 1990s. In New Orleans, the Bombay Club kept the flame alive and continued to glorify the drink, putting some real effort into making them well.
Martinis are so popular that the name has become a synonym for cocktail. Anything served in a slant-sided martini glass is now called a martini. Some of these aren’t even drinks. Seafood martinis–shrimp, crabmeat, lobster, or crawfish in a martini glass with some kind of cold sauce–are especially popular.
The original martini, according to a number of sources, consisted of gin and white vermouth, stirred with chunks of ice, strained into the famous glass, then garnished with an olive. The proportion of gin to vermouth was between 50-50 and 75-25. The large presence of vermouth in the early martini is confirmed by something obvious: vermouth is the primary product of the Martini and Rossi company, for which the drink is named.
The vogue now is for dry martinis, the vermouth component approaching zero. I’ve seen menus that say their dry martinis are made with gin shaken with ice in front of a bottle of vermouth, or some such joke. But I think the taste of vermouth is essential to the drink–more so than the olive.
Deft Dining Rule #854
If you don’t know what brand of gin makes the best martinis for your palate and why, you’re just drinking them for the aftereffects.
The Old Kitchen Sage Sez
A martini without vermouth is like gumbo without filé, fish and chips without malt vinegar, smoked salmon without capers, a roast beef poor boy without mayonnaise, Champagne without bubbles, barbecue without dry rub, escargots without garlic butter. . . [This might go on for hours. Let's stop now.--Tom.]
Food On The Air
This is the birthday of television cook Rachael Ray, born today in 1968. The first time I saw her on television, I thought it was a cooking show for kids, starring a teenage chef. She was around thirty then. She still seems like a teenager on the tube, which probably explains her success.
The Saints
Today is the feast day of St. Louis IX, the king of France from age eleven (1226) until he died on this date in 1270. He was in the thick of the Eighth Crusade, was captured, and had to be ransomed. St. Louis Cathedral and the city of St. Louis, Missouri are both named for him. He’s the patron saint of that city and of New Orleans. He is also the patron saint of distillers, which strikes me as very appropriate, given his New Orleans connection.
Kitchen Accidents Through History
Today in 1857, a Chinese cook was blamed for burning down the Gold Rush town of Columbia. Chinese immigrants had already established their cuisine in California, but this was a setback, because the town banned all Chinese after the incident. Too bad. The guy made an unforgettable moo goo gai pan.
Food And Drink In The Movies
Today in 2006, a movie premiered with the name How To Eat Fried Worms. The same day, another film called Beerfest hit the screen for the first time. How interesting. Paired food and beverage movies.
Gourmet Gazetteer
Chip, North Carolina is an isolated place in the wooded hills of central part of the state, about sixty-five miles east of Charlotte. It’s on Chip Road, itself just a local highway, near a dam and reservoir on a tributary of the Pee Dee River. The nearest restaurants are in Troy, about six miles away. Zeno’s Italian Restaurant sounds good, but don’t try to drive just halfway there, then half the remaining distance, then half the remaining distance after that, or you’ll never get there. (Anybody get this reference?) A more promising destination may be Hometown Bar-B-Q, because this is barbecue country–open pit, the sauce likely to be vinegar-based.
Edible Dictionary
raclette, n.–This is the name of a cheese made in Switzerland, as well as a method of serving it (or other cheeses). The name means “scraped,” and that tell the story. The small wheel of cheese is place in a spot where a candle or even a wood fire makes the cheese begin to melt. You then scrape it off and spread it on bread or right onto a plate, and eat it warm. Sometimes it’s served with potatoes or relishes, and you combine all the elements. So it’s sort of a halfway fondue. I don’t think anyone has ever served it in New Orleans, but you may well find it in places where a roaring fireplace seems right.
Food Namesakes
Hal Fishman, who was a television news anchor for many years in Los Angeles, made his very first appearance today in 1931. . . Lise Bacon, who held a number of high offices in Quebec and nationally in Canada, was elected to life today in 1932. . . Janet Chow, who came in second in the Miss Hong Kong contest in 2006, was born in Canada today in 1983. . . Captain James Cook sailed from London on his first expedition today in 1768. Read this department daily and learn where he went on this and other voyages. He’s the most-mentioned person here.
Words To Eat By
“Happiness is finding three olives in your martini when you’re hungry.”–Johnny Carson.
Words To Drink By
“All the charming and beautiful things, from the Song of Songs, to bouillabaisse, and from the nine Beethoven symphonies to the martini cocktail, have been given to humanity by men who, when the hour came, turned from tap water to something with color in it, and more in it than mere oxygen and hydrogen.”–H.L. Mencken.
The Future Of Restaurant Service.
For starters, you won’t have to scan the room to find your waiter anymore. Because there won’t be one. And yet, your order will go to the kitchen and be delivered by a being for whom a good tip will be a nickel. (Or perhaps a lithium.)
Click here for the cartoon.