From the New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris August 2008 Back to July 2008    Forward to September 2008   Five-Star Edition Home Page Friday, August 1, 2008. Wetness. Manale's. Mary Ann is thinking about coming home late tonight--she's in Atlanta now, hanging out with her niece and her brood. By midday, the plans changed, and she'll make the trip tomorrow instead. Jude woke up too late for us to have breakfast together. He has a doctor's appointment at my only workable time for lunch. Oh, well. At least there's another human in the house now. The doctor confirmed my thoughts about Jude's back injury--that it's a muscular matter, not a bone issue. Nevertheless, the doctor thought it might be a good idea for him to have an MRI, and to check back Monday. I don't often have guests in the radio studio, but I had two of them today. Brian Landry--the executive chef of Galatoire's, who looks nineteen--came in to talk about the Great American Seafood Competition tomorrow. He won the honor of representing Louisiana in the cookoff, and he told me about the dish he's preparing with cobia. I said it's too bad he couldn't get lemonfish. "What I really wanted was ling," he said, keeping the joke going. We would wear that one out by the time the event was over. Next came Steve Russett, the sommelier from Emeril's. He wanted to tell everybody that Emeril's once again had an unqualified Grand Award from the Wine Spectator. He told me that two nights ago, when I was in there for dinner. Good news. Not many Grand Awards out there. I think the only other one locally is at Brennan's. After the show, and after a little production work, it was out to dinner. I thought of getting together with Jude, but he had his own program. He lunched with Alex Lanaux, extending that long-running friendship. (Jude and Alex were in the same Scout unit for over ten years, and went to the same grammar school.) At dinner time, he got with another bunch of friends at, of all places, our house. This meant he had to clean the place. I wound up at Pascal's Manale. I liked the sound of their Coolinary menu. I expected to have to wait a few minutes for a table, and was ready to have a martini in the bar in the interim. Instead, there was immediate seating. Summertime! But the martini urge would not be denied. I pulled up at the bar and told the young woman running it (where were the old guys who were always back there before?) I wanted a wet Tanqueray martini, up. "Wet?" she said. "What's that mean?" The opposite of dry, I said. In other words, instead of a few drops of vermouth (or none at all, as some places don't), use about a third of a shot. "I never heard it called 'wet,'" she replied. I told her I hadn't either, until a bartender told me about a year ago. The martini enjoyed, I retired to the dining room. Eric--the waiter husband of Linda, the Gourmet Aerobics Instructor, a long-time participant in the radio show--took my table. He touted me on a few things, but I knew before I walked in that I needed a half-dozen oysters Rockefeller and Bienville. Those were so delicious that I called for another round. Not a surprise: I've loved the oyster dishes here since the first time I tried them. They make them in the old style, the sauce well-bound with a blond roux. Antoine's also does that, but few other restaurants. I think it makes all the difference. The entree came from the Coolinary menu: panneed veal, Oscar style. Hardly anyone makes better hollandaise than Manale's, and with the crabmeat and asparagus it was just right. Homemade lemon ice box pie for dessert, a few words with Sandy De Felice (one of the owners), and the weekend was well begun. Pascal’s Manale. Uptown: 1838 Napoleon Ave.. 504-895-4877. Creole Italian. Saturday, August 2. Seafood Cook-Off. Girls Home. Acme. The Louisiana Restaurant Association's annual Food Expo is this weekend. The Louisiana Seafood Marketing Board has tied into that for the past few years, presenting its Great American Seafood Cookoff in the same hall of the Morial Convention Center. The connection is incompletely logical. While the hall is full of restaurateurs and chefs and other food people, the general public isn't welcome at the Expo. The Cookoff, on the other hand, invites everybody for a ten-dollar ticket. If one of the laity tries to wander away from the cooking demos--looking, say, for something to drink--he might be turned away by the security guards. Some of them were, and a couple of them were on the phone first thing on Monday's radio show to complain about it. They also weren't happy about the way the television crews got in the way of the cooking demos, such that they couldn't see anything from the chairs set up for the public. If the Seafood Marketing Board is going to keep this thing going, they ought to bust it out into its own venue, and enhance the hospitality a great deal. Probably have to raise the price, too. I was there to broadcast a radio show from the event. Lots of people to talk with. One of them was John Currence, who owns three restaurants in Oxford, Mississippi. After the hurricane, he came down here (he's a New Orleans native) to help several restaurant revive. He wound up adopting Willie Mae's Scotch House as his personal crusade, and worked personally as a carpenter to rebuild not only that little neighborhood place, but also the home of ninety-three-year-old Willie Mae Seaton. Although I talked with him yesterday, Brian Landry from Galatoire's appeared again. "I'm cooking cobia," he said. Too bad you couldn't get lemonfish, I told him. "Yeah, or ling," he deja-vued. Not all the interviews were easy. Sponsors of the event were brought to me for a few moments of air time. I had to think hard to relate food with a cargo manager for Southwest Airlines, but we found a way. Southwest ships thousands of pounds of fresh shrimp to people around the country who recognize the excellence of the local product. The guy also gave me a whole sack of the bagged peanuts they hand out on the airline. As it turned out, Currence won the Cookoff. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy. Jude turned up at the Expo. He got into the hall, including all of the Expo, without any kind of ticket or pass. "If you look like you're supposed to be somewhere, it's never a problem," he said. He's good at that. I never have been. Maybe that's why I'm constantly being pulled over by police for no reason at all, and let go. Mary Ann says I give off a suspicious aura. We toured the Expo for awhile, and ran into Jude's former classmate and friend Ryan Pearce. His dad is Harlan Pearce, who runs LA Fish, one of the biggest seafood wholesalers around. Ryan was sort of working the booth, and wore his dad's company's uniform: a powder-blue fishing shirt with logos. "I love it," Ryan said, fully sarcastic. "It says very effectively, 'Gay!'" We ran into Melvin Rodrigue, who runs Galatoire's. What's your chef cooking in the competition? I asked, setting up the running joke. "Cobia," he said. I'll bet that dish would have been great with lemonfish, I retorted inevitably. "Or, even better, ling," said Melvin, not knowing how well he performed in what was now a polished--if nearly dead, now that it had been used thrice--shtick. There being no significant food at the Expo (although an outfit making Natchitoches meat pies had a great product), Jude and I left after a look around. We thought of going to Mother's for a real lunch, but the line was down the block. We wound up at Stein's Deli instead. Stein's is a raggedy old space on Magazine Street near Jackson Avenue. Dan Stein seems to like it that way. It does resemble some delis in New York City in its worn-out lack of decor. Jude said he did not eat cold food. Any sandwich must be hot. This is a new quirk--but, come to think of it, I don't remember ever seeing him eat a regular ham sandwich. They wouldn't make a Philly cheese steak sandwich, because it wasn't Tuesday. Instead, he had a hot turkey panino. For me, a sandwich called the Fernando: prosciutto, fresh-milk mozzarella, and pesto, on something that looked like a hamburger bun but had the texture of French bread. Delicious. I washed this down with a genuine sarsaparilla. On our way out, Dan Stein handed me a couple of slices of a very fatty, well-cured prosciutto variation. I don't think I've had better, not even in Italy. This guy buys fantastic cold cuts and makes the best deli-style sandwiches in town, hands down. Jude had plans for the evening. He would be joined by his fellow Georgetown Prep alumnus Trevor and several girls to do White Linen Night. He was not dressed for it, but he never listens to my sartorial advice. (With good reason.) I dropped him off downtown and headed home. I called the girls, and learned that they were in Hattiesburg, and planned on stopping at Leatha's Barbecue for lunch. Good! Not only would I beat them home but I could take a nap and tidy the house. I usually clean it spic 'n' span, but there's not been time this week, what with three remotes, two Eat Clubs, and a computer on the fritz. I was not quite finished with the kitchen when they pulled up. A reunion after one month. This would have been extraordinary five years ago. Now it happens all the time. Mary Ann and I met in a lovey-dovey embrace, and for the next two days were like honeymooners. The barbecue notwithstanding, Mary Leigh was hungry a couple of hours later. I was happy to hear that. She and I went to the Acme Oyster House, so she could renew her acquaintance with its wedge salad. As usual, way too much blue cheese and dressing--and they also brought more on the side! I started with a half-dozen raw oysters, followed it with crab and corn bisque, then finished with oysters remoulade. Mary Ann stayed home to start the unpacking and laundry, which would occupy her for the next several days. Sunday, August 3. Reunion Dinner Fails. Mary Ann and I began the day--while the kids kept on sleeping--with breakfast at the Courtyard. As usual, she ate nothing. As much as she was looking forward to returning home, she felt anxiety about something she couldn't put her finger on. Trouble breathing and swallowing. And she said how much she missed me and appreciated me. I told her that as soon as she got mad at me again, her symptoms would go away. This business of thinking I'm wonderful must be very stressful, the kind of guy I am and all. After breakfast, we went to the store with the idea of planning a big welcome-home dinner tonight. I thought whole tenderloin and mashed potatoes--Mary Leigh's favorite. We wound up buying chicken breasts (because they were on sale) and a pound of lump crabmeat (whose price made up for what we save on the chicken). Mary Ann said that Jude loved crabcakes. Okay--sounds good. Mary Leigh left early to spend the day in town, driving around with her cousin Hillary. Just thinking about that scenario brings a smile to my lips. Two beautiful sixteen-year-old girls gadding about with the sunroof open in a snazzy car, going to lunch and then to do a little shopping. To the feller who marries my daughter some day in the distant future I say: sorry she learned that it's possible to act rich when she's not. And: girls just gotta have fun. In the background of all my other plans is the need to move all my data from the virus-infected computer to the new one--an endless task, it seems. But Jude has a scheme. He came up with some super-duper virus-fighting program that was a complete defense for all the computers in his command at Georgetown Prep. He installed it, and, as if by magic--nothing. The virus stood right up to it and refused to allow the program to be installed. The grass needs cutting, but Jude says it would hurt his injured back. Mary Leigh liked to cut grass on the riding lawnmower, but now that she's a full driver she doesn't seem as interested in driving a tractor. Why didn't I do it, then? Too much else to do. Mary Ann has discovered that during her month on vacation in New York, her advertising clients on the web site were not being well enough served. This is my fault, of course. She's feeling better already. Mary Leigh called to say that she would spend the night at Hillary's. So much for our family reunion dinner. I remained in my office plowing through everything, and made do with a hot dog with sauerkraut. I worked until my eyes burned, around midnight. Monday, August 4. Into The Slough Again. I stayed home today, and it's a good thing, because I'm terribly backlogged again. Must be the time demands of having everybody home again. The progress was impeded by a stern morning lecture from MA about how I'm doing everything wrong, as proven by my failure to find enough easy money to pay for their month in New York without difficulty. Absence may make the heart grow fonder, but the growth doesn't seem to be permanent. The family reunion dinner, then, was a chilly affair. Everybody wanted to have grilled chicken, but nobody bothered to light the grill while I was busy doing the radio show. In the new ESPN format, I now have at most three three-minute breaks in each hour. That's not enough to get a drink of water, let alone start a charcoal fire. So I roasted the chicken breasts--the biggest I've ever seen, each the size of an entire Cornish hen--in the oven with a good crust of Creole seasoning. That took thirty-five minutes at 350 degrees, but it came out juicy and tasty enough. To make sure it was special, I made a batch of bearnaise sauce. Jude likes that as much as I do, and I've always thought bearnaise with chicken is a wonderful combination. I thought I had some ham, and was going to turn the chicken into Pontalba, but somebody must have eaten it. Also on the table were mashed potatoes made a little too soon, so we had to reheat them--not something that works very well. And a salad with an alleged Caesar dressing, made so far ahead of time by the salad girl that it was wilted by the time the chicken was ready. We ate at the kitchen counter, which when I built it in 1994 was the perfect size for the four of us. Now that we have four adults in the family instead of two, this is no longer the case, and if there's any clutter at all on the counter (and how could there not be?) somebody will wind up with his or her plate in his hand or lap. But at least we're all at home together. Tuesday, August 5. Peristyle and Calas End. La Petite Grocery. Two rumors of decay filtered my way today. Both proved true. Tom Wolfe is going to close Peristyle this Saturday and turn it into a Creole restaurant with a new name and style. It will reopen sometime in September. Probably a good idea for the survival of the restaurant, but it's hard not to think about it without feeling a sense of loss. The other rumor concerned the closing of Calas Bistro in Kenner. That didn't surprise me. Although I liked the place, and we had an excellent Eat Club dinner there last year, it seemed to have too many things going against it. The invisible location, the sparse gourmet population of Kenner, the unwillingness of gourmets from other parts of town to go out to Kenner for upscale dining (which includes drinking, and who wants to drive ten or fifteen miles after that?), and the small size of the handsome place--all these have killed many fine restaurants over the years. With seventeen percent more restaurants now than before the storm, I expected some fallout this summer. In sheer number of restaurants, it hasn't happened. More new places opened than closed. But both Peristyle and Calas were major dining venues. Making up for their loss is a trio of neighborhood cafes and sandwich shops. After the storm, out-of-town journalists lamented the alleged loss of such mom-and-pops, usually without investigating the reality. But it's the little restaurants that have fared best. Dinner at La Petite Grocery, for the first time in awhile. The menu is much shorter than I remember, but the dining room was busier than the last time I was here. All local regulars, if I can judge by the number of people who stopped me to introduce themselves in my walk from the table to the bathroom. The hostess was not one of those. I prepared to be offered a choice of bad tables. (Hostesses love to seat singles at the worst tables in the house, as if the neglected belonged together.) I picked a deuce next to the windows, thinking it would help me take picture of the food. It didn't; it got dark quick. Shortly after I sat down, two women took over a table on the sidewalk just on the other side of the pane. One of them lit up the first of many cigarettes, as they commenced what looked like a serious conversation. I'll bet it wasn't about men. Men seem to have fallen out of vogue with women lately. But I'm only guessing. I was insulated from both the smoke and the conversation by the window glass. On the way back from the rest room, I noticed that the bar was equipped with the traditional, ornate glass ice water dispenser used for trickling water over a cube of sugar into a glass of absinthe. I checked with the waiter, who confirmed not only that absinthe was here, but that it was available from several different makers. I'm not up on my absinthe research, so I let the bartender choose. He sent a glass with a bright green liquid, aromatic of anise and other herbs, in a quantity about the same as you'd get if you ordered a Sazerac. But it was at room temperature. It should have been chilled, even if ice weren't part of the service. I added ice from my water glass, which improved the temperature but diluted the drink. I can see why people liked this stuff. But also why it's not for everybody. I started with pork cheeks on toast. Tender, tasty, nice demi-glace sort of a sauce, the kind that makes your lips stick together from the gelatin. I love that effect and the flavor that always comes with it. That was followed by a hanger steak with fresh-cut pommes frites. Neither part of the dish was especially good, and for the same reason: it came out tepid. The steak as a shade undercooked, to boot. That's a problem for that cut, since it's chewy enough that most chefs (and this one, too) slice it in the kitchen before bringing it out. An aioli for dipping the fries (an idea gaining in popularity, although I've eaten fries with mayonnaise since I was a very young boy) came out in a cone-shaped metal cup, the kind you see in chain restaurants full of sauces, salad dressings, and other things that ought to be combined with the food instead of in a cup. The only thing worse is the plastic throw-awau version of the same idea. Dessert was corn ice cream. Strange as that sounds, this was mellow and tasty, like the sweet-corn tamales they make for dessert at Pupuseria Divino Corazon. The corn was invisible, apparently pureed and strained. A keeper. La Petite Grocery. Uptown: 4238 Magazine. 504-891-3377. French Bistro. Wednesday, August 6. Chilly Home. Little Tokyo. Everybody in my family hates me right now, for some reason. Could it be because they've been forced to live with me at home for four consecutive days without another long trip in sight? The spousal unit is treating me as if I were guilty of an atrocity, but I have no idea what it might have been. Jude is the mellowest. But he is obsessed with leaving town permanently for Los Angeles as soon as he can, and frustrated because thatt's not son enough. He doesn't start at USC until January, has no place to live, and only job prospects. Nor does he really know anyone on the West Coast. We are stalling him with our concern about all that, and--more immediately--about his injured back. He will go to the doctor tomorrow for X-rays. He and I lunched at Little Tokyo in Mandeville, one of our regular places. Every time I go there, the young man who I think owns the place asks how Jude is doing, and whether his order of teriyaki chicken with extra sauce is still his standard. It is, and it was today. The sushi chef, as well as I know him, did something new. When I asked him what was good, he rattled off a few things and then said, "Just let me make you something." What came was a roll with spicy tuna in the middle and grilled eel on top. Some fresh salmon sashimi, made into a flower, with an asparagus spear as the stem and the leaves. Lemonfish with ponzu, demonstrating that I always order something like that every time I come in. Also on the counter was an order of very good gyoza. I did the show from home today, and for some reason it was very busy. Some new listeners who tune in to the ESPN program that spans the rest of the schedule are clearly finding my show for the first time. A few of them appear to be newcomers to the idea of fine dining. One of them today complained about going to a restaurant that was unnecessarily expensive to him, all because of "all that European service." He was talking about Mandina's. Mary Ann is trying to persuade the kids to do some computer work for our web site. Mary Leigh is looking up zip codes for all 952 restaurants in my restaurant database. Jude saw how she was doing that--the way I always did it, and showed her--and came up with a much faster method involving Google. As for Jude, he's beginning to work on an enhancement of the web site that I've wanted for some time: a forum. It's been over a year since I quit maintaining one of those for somebody else, but I think the time is right for me to come back with it. Thursday, August 7. The Nikki Show. Mr. B's Clambake. Nikki Reyes, a striking young woman with ambitions to become a local media star, asked me to be a guest on her cable television show. I've known her since she was a traffic reporter for Metroscan, ten or so years ago. Until the storm, my personal office was in the same building with that operation, and I'd bump into her and the other traffic people in the hallway. I also saw Nikki in restaurants around town, always well dressed and groomed, lively, funny, ready to be discovered by the big time. She wanted to interview me in my radio studio, while I was on the air. But I had four guests to interview of my own, for the French Quarter-Marigny Historic District's sponsored hour. She had to sit there watching me do what I do, getting a question in now and then. I don't know how good a show that made for her. I can't imagine I'm a very good television interview to begin with. About twenty years ago a local company wanted to test me as a spokesperson for their line of food products. They said they'd never seen someone pull such a negative reaction from the audience as my sample spots did. And I didn't even say anything that anyone could object to. No wonder I had such a hard time getting dates. (I'd better say "have." My wife still is keeping me at a distance.) It must be visual. It's clear that people like me on the radio and in my writing. I'd dig into it if I had even a clue. Mr. B's held an unusual wine dinner tonight. They called it a clambake, and although that was a misnomer--the only clams were a half-dozen clams casino, involving littlenecks--it was a spectacular dinner, and a steal at the $75 price. I booked a couple of tables of twelve for the Eat Club, and we overfilled them. I arrived a little late, since I had to come over from the radio station. The party was well underway, with coconut-coated fried shrimp with marmalade being passed around. Then came enormous grilled scallops, the size of beef tournedos, wrapped with thin slices of bacon and grilled over hickory. These could not be beat--best dish of the night, most people said. The clams casino were the first course at the table. The topping--a combination of bread crumbs, bacon, and herbs, and very tasty--was a bit much for these little, tender clams. (Bigger clams work better for something like this.) Next, a corn and claw crabmeat soup that was actually sweet from the corn, and just a little spicy. This came out with a terrific wine: Shafer Red Shoulder Ranch Chardonnay, with enough fruit to rise above the sweetness. Come to think of it, we had good juice on the way in. Pine Ridge Viognier-Chenin Blanc was very enjoyable. Who picked these? Phil Ordogne. Phil was in the wholesale wine business for a long time, then suddenly wasn't. He's consulting with Mr. B's on their wine program. Knowledgeable guy. We had a watermelon sorbet that I thought was as luscious as anything. (Others found it too sweet, and it was on the edge.) Then the main act: large lobsters that first had been steamed, then walked across the hickory grill. They were meaty and full and fat, and the flavor of charred shell was uniquely interesting. The drawn butter was flavored with truffle. A pile of mussels was also there for the taking. Nobody seemed to be going for them, so I ate more than my share. I noticed the metal plates for the lobster and the claw-cracking implements were all brand-new. As well they should be: I don't think Mr. B's has ever served lobster before. Cindy Brennan, the managing partner, couldn't remember having done so, either. I asked her what the deal was on serving this repast for the clear underprice. "We just thought we'd have some fun!" she said. That's a Brennan answer if ever there was one. This thing didn't break up until almost eleven. Which was just late for me to arrive at the Causeway shortly after a bad accident (a fiery five-car collision, triggered by an inattentive Causeway cop) shut the bridge down for forty-five minutes. I was up early this morning and very tired. While waiting with my engine off, I actually fell asleep for about fifteen minutes, awakened by the other engines around me cranking back up. I'm glad that happened. It refreshed me just enough. The cops kept us down to twenty miles per hour for the first half of the span. Apparently the mess wasn't quite cleared up when they started us moving. That was good thinking on somebody's part. I didn't arrive home until one a.m. Jupiter was very bright in the southern sky, near opposition. I planned to tell Mary Ann that if she questioned my lateness, but she didn't wake up. Friday, August 8. Silence. No Dinner Date. Andrea's New Bar. The cold war in my home has reached a particularly frigid state. Nobody's talking. The romantic dinner date at Del Porto Mary Ann thought would be a good idea in the sunnier clime of last weekend was apparently off. When I set out for the South Shore for the radio show, no mention was made of it. If only I knew what was wrong! But conversations with many other husbands tell me that this is a hopeless wish. And that things will come around, if I walk on eggs long enough. The dinner idyll shattered but romance still in my heart, I went to Andrea's after the radio show to take a first look at his new bar since its completion. The design of the bar is very striking, like something out of an Italian church. It's a bit too imposing for the space, which is a shade too narrow--but still a tremendous improvement over the teeny, packed, uncomfortable bar he's made do with for twenty-five years. The configuration of the room has problems. Live musicians perform several nights a week, and the original position of the piano made it too loud. Now it's tucked into a slot in the back, rendering it almost background music. I don't see a solution. However, it's great to have the music. A woman whose name I didn't catch came in at around eight and started playing standards--my kind of music. They have a bar menu, and I ordered from it, brushing off several waiters, the maitre d', and Chef Andrea himself, who wanted me to move to the dining room. No, I want to be in the bar, sob in my martini, and taste the bar food. I started with a crabmeat martini, which amounted to undressed crabmeat piled atop the restaurant's excellent tomato-and-basil-topped bruschetta. The crabmeat looked great, but had no flavor at all--like pasteurized crabmeat out of a can. I don't think he uses that, but I will ask next time. Next, I was hoping for some cheese ravioli with red sauce, because that's what I ordered. Instead, I got crabmeat ravioli in a rich cream sauce. Certainly good enough, but when your palate is tuned for one thing, it's a good thing you're drinking a martini if you get something else. They're serving pizza in here. Chef Andrea makes a pizza sauce that's utterly unique and excellent--enough so that I've adopted it, and even have it in my own cookbook. It's uncooked: tomatoes, garlic, basil, olive oil, seasonings, mixed up and put on the crust raw. The only cooking comes from the baking of the pizza itself. It's a terrific fresh taste. The one I had was topped with fresh-milk mozzarella cheese, made in-house, and ribbons of fresh basil. It was good, but too big for one person. Really, enough for four. By this time, the dining room was winding down and Chef Andrea came to the table to sit down and talk. He told the pianist that I liked to sing, and she insisted that I do Old Man River. Which I can sing all right, if I drop into my mock-operatic chest voice to do it. Then we moved to the much more comfortable Night And Day and a couple of other Cole Porter tunes. Then I left. it was late. Andrea's. Metairie: 3100 19th Street. 504-834-8583. Italian. Saturday, August 9. No Breakfast, No Show, But Lots Of Work. Pizza Man. Nobody wanted to have breakfast with me, so I skipped it. Nor did I have a radio show. But Mary Ann had plans for me. It turned out her fuming in the past few days concerned her perception that I have fallen down on the job of supporting the advertising side of the web site--which she manages. I was too quick to point out that this slippage happened during the month she was more or less on vacation in New York. But it's my responsibility to build all this stuff (it shouldn't be, we need another hand), and I didn't. My excuse is that I didn't know what needed to be done. I am the lightning rod around here, though, and when things go wrong the volts flow to ground through me. I spent most of the day building web pages for the restaurants advertising with us that don't have their own. The hardest part of this is turning their menus into web copy. I don't like the idea of just reproducing the menu--it looks cheesy. So I scan the menus, have the OCR software turn it into text, perform what is usually a very involved editing, and put it up there. Before I could do any of that, though, I had to install the scanner on the new computer. Which is running Vista, which required new drivers for everything. Replaced all of those, plus the OCR software. Two hours. I ultimately got all three missing pages built, but it took the rest of the weekend to do it. When I could no longer see straight, I took a nap. After that, we were due to meet Ceil Lanaux and her sons at Pizza Man. Elliott and Alex Lanaux, Jude's fellow Scouts and best friends for over ten years, are as different as two Eagle Scout brothers could be. Both are handsome young men, in different ways. Elliott is down to earth, a hunter, a truck-driving kind of guy, with a long-time girlfriend who was also with us. Alex is much more reserved, funny in a thoughtful way, a great student throughout his school years. I was surprised that he will be going to UNO, until he told me he's getting into the film and television program there. I am a graduate of that very department, and it has always been a good one. New Orleans seems to have acquired a modest but persistent film industry, so that might be a good move. The eight of us ordered five large pizzas. The three teenage boys ate nearly whole pepperoni pies each. The girls and I gave over more stomach space to the great Italian salad they make here, and the "Board" pizza--a brilliant one topped with fresh spinach, mushrooms, cappacola, garlic, onions, feta cheese, mozzarella, olive oil, and no tomatoes. Lots of Abita beer and Abita root beer. At the window behind which Paul "Pizza Man" Schrems makes his masterpieces, Alex and Elliott's little brother Gabe stood on a box and watched Pizza Man make faces in sauce on the pizza dough, fling flour into the window, and otherwise make the kids laugh. Just like Jude and Mary Leigh used to, starting with when they were so little that I had to hold them on my shoulders so they could watch Pizza Man cut up. Oh, what a well of memories this unprepossessing pizza parlor is for us! Pizza Man Of Covington. Covington: 1248 Collins Blvd. (US 190). 504-892-9874. Sunday, August 10. Acme. Mamma Mia! Right back to work on Mary Ann's projects at seven in the morning. But I'm not the only one. Jude, who is eager to move to Los Angeles so he can get his adult life started permanently (as in, leaving home for good), is taking us up on our offer to send some money his way in exchange for working on the web site. He is also harboring the notion that the car he will bring with him to the West Coast will be a Bimmer. I have no idea how he has come to believe that the budget for such a thing exists in our family, but it has fired him up. He asked what enhancements I wanted for the web site. I told him a messageboard would be handy. I've tried a few times to set such a thing up, but it's beyond my abilities. Apparently, it's not beyond his. By the end of the day, we had a working messageboard ready to go live tomorrow morning. Amazing! He's hired! By around noon, the younger members of the fam were agitating for lunch out. We fetched up at our default restaurant for such occasions, the Acme Oyster House. A dozen char-broiled for the table, a wedge salad for Mary Leigh, a bowl of seafood gumbo for Jude, a shrimp and catfish platter for Mary Ann, and (from the summer menu) a seafood martini for me. Shrimp and crabmeat with remoulade sauce in a martini glass is what that was, for about $13. It was enough to make an entree. All good, except that the crabmeat had the same non-flavor as that stuff I had at Andrea's two days ago. I finished Mary Ann's projects by about three. I drove the tractor over to the meadow by the pond and gave it a much-needed cutting. First, though, I had to pick up two wheelbarrows' worth of sticks and wood chunks left behind by the power company's trimmers two weeks ago. They were all over the place. I know they need to keep the trees off their lines, but what a mess they make! A shower and a nap later, a movie plan was floated. Jude touted The Dark Knight, the new Batman movie, which he says is a magnificent piece of work. He praises it not just for the action and tension and chase scenes, but for specific production, shooting, script, and acting values. He wants to be in the movie business, and I'm glad he's starting to look at movies that way, instead of as a mere viewer. Mary Ann didn't want to see that, though, and the movie she had in mind was no longer playing. We wound up in Mamma Mia! Good thing they didn't tell me it's based on the music of Abba--never a group I much liked. I was more intrigued that it was a musical. That a conversation between two people can suddenly have one of them singing to the other has great appeal to me. (I break out in song around the house all the time, to the irritation of everyone else.) I was even more taken with the way the actors--few of whom are known for their singing--actually performed the songs themselves, rather than having a real singer dub them over. Meryl Streep, Pierce Brosnan, Colin Firth, and the strangely alluring Christine Baranski all did songs--very credibly, I thought. Funny to see James Bond start singing, but Brosnan sounded fine. Not many spectacular voices here, but I hold to the idea that one doesn't need a spectacular voice in order to sing. I don't think people sing nearly enough. (Although, again, my family believes I sing far too much.) Pretty good movie, anyway--except for the Abba songs that had been played to death on the radio. (The ones I never heard before were fine.) Acme Oyster House. Covington: 1202 US 190 (Causeway Blvd.). 985-246-6155 . Seafood. Monday, August 11. Food Forum Re-Launch. Sesame Inn. We launched the web messageboard late last night, and got the word out about it through the newsletter today. It will be about food and drink only. I will edit it the way I have edited magazines in the past: emphasize the interesting material, get rid of the boring or off-topic stuff. That has always been my policy since I began hosting the first food forum in New Orleans back in 1996. When I was doing this for other outfits, the administrators never were able to apply the standards as conscientiously as I would have liked. did. Now I can. Apparently this idea appeals to readers. Almost two hundred people registered to use the board on the first day. Once we get some momentum going--shouldn't take long--I expect my forum to resume its number one position within a few weeks. For lunch, I had my choice of leftover pizza: the spinach-feta or the pepperoni from Pizza Man, or the fresh-milk mozzarella pizza from Andrea's. I had the latter, followed by a small plate of the pasta bordelaise Mary Leigh made up for her lunch. Back to work, leading up to the radio show, which was extraordinarily busy. Solid line of calls from the beginning all the way to 6:25, and then sporadic but good enough after that. Jude wanted to have dinner with me so he could discuss his imminent future. I had to break it to him that we do not have a spare $25,000 in cash for him to move to an apartment in Los Angeles and buy a used BMW. He was disappointed, but understanding. It turns out that he didn't believe Mary Ann when she told him this. He must have overheard me telling her that she doesn't understand the true state of our family finances. As I have, more than once. I am at least encouraged that my children see a very big future for themselves. They will not be held back by lack of knowledge about the possibilities, that's for sure. That's one of the things that has plagued me most of my life, as Mary Ann likes to point out when she sees me fair to grasp at glittering crapshoots. Dinner was at the Sesame Inn, the good little Chinese place a block away from Trey Yuen. We started with pot stickers, one of Jude's favorite dishes since he was quite small. I like most of the Sesame Inn's food, but I'd forgotten that their pot stickers are too big, too heavy at the skin, and too dense in the middle. The rest of the meal was great. Started with hot and sour soup and  wonton soup. Jude ordered the spicy, peanut-riddled kung pao chicken after we learned that it's genuinely stir-fried (many Chinese restaurants are now deep-frying everything instead, to the great detriment of the dishes involved). I ordered the night's special: Singapore noodles with chicken. That was really excellent, with a nice pepper level and slippery, thin rice noodles. The man who owns Sesame Inn--a very hospitable fellow who remembers everyone who has ever dined in his restaurant--has long since recognized me. Even though I discourage him from doing so, always sends out an extra entree for me to try. Tonight's was Chinese eggplant with shrimp and chicken, which proved to be the best dish on the table. But where will we put all this? Into take-out boxes, of course, because the first thing Mary Ann will ask when we get home (and she did) is "Where are the leftovers?" Sesame Inn. Mandeville: 408 N. Causeway Blvd.. 985-951-8888. Chinese. Tuesday, August 12. Café Atchafalaya. My new food forum has had predictable effects on the other ones. The handful of cranks who interpret my every action as the embodiment of all evil are frothing at the mouth, yelling about how my new endeavor will fail, and how it's intolerable that I delete stuff that's off-topic, boring, mean-spirited, or otherwise substandard. A few of them, nevertheless, registered on my new forum. No matter. It's easy to get rid of them and their derailments. One thing I know from thirty-four years of doing radio talk shows is that the appearance of one jerk invites more jerks, and discourages the more articulate callers. Sooner or later, all you have are jerks. That certainly has happened on a couple of formerly-excellent forums. Fortunately, the opposite is also true. Intelligent, informative participants invite others. The web site has reached a point at which I need to move to the next level of design and function. I have neither the time nor the ability to do that, so we're looking around for someone who does. A few months ago, when I was surfing around looking at restaurant web sites, I was struck by the one for Café Atchafalaya. That's a good restaurant, but a small one, and I wouldn't have expected it to have such a sophisticated site. I contacted the guy who did it--Marc Juneau--and he told me he'd be happy to meet and talk about NOMenu. We did--at Café Atchafayala, naturally enough. They appeared to be pretty busy in the main dining room, but the one on the second level was wide open to us, so we could pull out a computer and look at stuff. The flow of food preceded that of ideas. First came the spicy devil shrimp--fried, with a red coating probably made largely of hot sauce. Very good. Then some fried green tomatoes topped with not enough crabmeat. And fried oysters in a horseradish cream sauce with shoestring fried potatoes--best of the appetizers. We bought a bottle of Riesling and moved on to grilled redfish with crabmeat, rice, spinach, and a creamy, buttery, lemony sauce. The redfish was the biggest fillet of that fish I've had in memory. Virtually all the redfish we get in restaurants is farm-raised, and the fillets tend to the smaller side. Marc's wife had the herbed chicken breast with mashed potatoes and Tchoupitoulas sauce (I should have tasted it so I could say what it was, but it looked creamy and had mushrooms in it). Mark went for a straightforward grilled rib-eye. He tells me he eats here pretty often and likes this steak. Only one dessert: red velvet cake. Pretty tasty as such things go. Hardly anyone serves this anymore, and I can understand why. A lot of what we ate in the 1950s now seems lackluster, and I would say this is an example of that. Marc seems to know what he's doing, and his ideas about reworking the site were innovative and made sense. But he also understands that it would be a bad idea to radically change the look. I told Jude about the proposals when I got home. (I'd let Jude be my webmaster if his leaving town weren't so imminent.) He said the price was out of line. I didn't think so, but Mary Ann said we ought to talk to some other people. We probably will, but the cost of the delay will probably exceed the savings, if indeed there are any. Cafe Atchafalaya. Uptown: 901 Louisiana Ave.. 504-891-9626. Neighborhood Cafe. Wednesday, August 13. Pouring. Amis. The rain came down in torrents overnight and into the morning. I feel good about, it, because this system will pull Tropical Storm Fay away from us. Mary Ann says that this kind of rain is every bit as bad as a hurricane. How soon we forget! The rain stopped long enough for us to go to lunch together at the new Amis. It took over the closed Boule Prime House some months ago, and most of the reports have been good and consistent. The building is atmospheric: it hangs over the north bank of the Abita River, which is swollen with all the rain. You see all sorts of birds and animals out there through the big windows. It's almost as nice a view as at the owners' other restaurant, the culinarily challenged Friends on the Tchefuncte in Madisonville. Amis is a much more ambitious and impressive restaurant than either Friends or Boule. The steak specialization remains from Boule, but otherwise the menu has a much more tasteful selection. We started with French onion soup, which Mary Ann said was the equal of her all-time favorite--the demi glace-tinged version in The Point, the supper club on the Carnival Conquest. Broiled oysters with Parmesan cheese and garlic for me. That's the Drago's style, of course, and newly-opened restaurants now seem compelled to include it. They came with crispy, gossamer leaves of fried spinach in the center of the shells. Mary Leigh munched away at Caesar salad. She didn't get her usual wedge because it's made here with Boston lettuce--a good alternative to iceberg, in my opinion. But not hers. She doesn't like soft lettuces. Nor does she like sweet dressings, of which there was one with balsamic vinegar lining the plate. Two tournedos that would have been better left in one piece came out marked from the grill and flavored, they said, with balsamic vinegar. I don't know what that added. They were good enough, with horseradish-flavored mashed potatoes. A better dish landed before Mary Ann: shrimp and grits, another dish seemingly dictated by some mysterious Code. Big shrimp, well seasoned, good with the stone-ground grits. Jude wants to "get a little surf and turf action going" at every table he occupies, so he sent for the bronzed redfish with seared shrimp, and liked the dish. For the second day in a row, the credit card I use for all my dining out was declined. It's a debit card with a couple thousand dollars on it--I checked this morning. What an embarrassment! I called the issuer and learned that yesterday at the Acme--the first place I had this problem--the card was run through the machine repeatedly in a minute or so. This is apparently a signature of fraudulent use, and triggers a shutdown of the account. So the problem is that my card is worn out--which is visibly true. (Any credit card I use in restaurants gets beat up early in its lifetime.) A relief, because I'm still thinking that some personal info may have escaped from my computer when that virus hit me three weeks ago. One more problem here: I neglected to bring my camera with me. I am getting into the habit of photographing every place and every dish I eat. But when I'm in someone else's car, my rolling utilities get left behind. Amis. Covington: 1202 N Highway 190. 985-893-9100. Steak. Contemporary Creole. Thursday, August 14. Pelican Club. I love having a great restaurant in my immediate future. It makes the whole day brighter--even another rainy one like today. I dined this evening at the Pelican Club with Nathalie Bastin and Don Hoffman, the two top people with the new Europe/Louisiana Business Council. They're throwing a big business-development event in the coming months, and wanted to enlist my aid in recruiting as many European chefs from New Orleans restaurants as they can. Nathalie, who came from the French-American Chamber of Commerce, knows plenty of French chefs. It was the other nationalities they sought. Used to be that finding German chefs here was easy. Now there's Gunter Preuss and. . . who else? Horst Pfiefer, but he has his hands full at Middendorf's. I arrived early to take advantage of a lull in the rain, and in turn took advantage of that earliness to have a very welcome martini in the bar with Richard Hughes, the chef-owner of the Pelican Club. He told me that this has been the best summer for the restaurant in five years. I continue to hear things like that from French Quarter restaurateurs, but the good times may be ending. Late August and early September, when even the locals have their hands full with children, schools, and tuitions, have historically been the worst part of the summer season. Richard sent us an amuse bouche of foie gras with grilled pineapple. I knocked the pineapple off to save it for later, in favor of the very nice slab of duck liver, whose taste made me lower my eyelids so I could concentrate fully on it. If I had not so blinded myself, I would have seen Nathalie do the same thing. She's Belgian French, and this sort of thing is in her blood, she said. Next came a seafood martini: lobster, big lumps of crabmeat, biggest shrimp, with a sharp variation on ravigote sauce holding it all together. That was as refreshing as the other martini I had before. At this point, Richard decided just to feed us. So here came his Asian-style barbecue shrimp with rice noodles. And seared tuna with a seared scallop with a cream sauce zipped up with red pepper. Finally, a small rib-eye steak with more foie gras. Nobody at the table complained. We never did think of another German chef, but I did give them the names of some Spanish chefs. Nathalie and I compared notes on Belgium, where Mary Ann and I went on our honeymoon. She was jealous that we'd dined at Comme Chez Soi, the Commander's Palace of Brussels. She never made it there. She said that Brussels has changed and grown tremendously in the past twenty years, and that the Flemish and French populations of the country are causing a dangerous rift. I think that when you start giving more importance to your past than your present and future you're in trouble. I hope that wonderful little country doesn't split. I parked on North Peters. Walking back there down Bienville brought me to a stretch of the Quarter I haven't been to in awhile. It's looking good. The whole Quarter is. Pelican Club. French Quarter: 615 Bienville. 504-523-1504. Contemporary Creole. Friday, August 15. Birthdays At Brennan's. Bonnie Warren--a fellow lifestyle journalist I've known since we worked at New Orleans Magazine together in the 1970s--handles public relations for Brennan's. One of her duties is having lunch and dinner with journalists. I don't play that game, but she found a way around it. She invites the children of a number of media people to celebrate their birthdays with dinner at Brennan's. Ours have been getting this treatment since they were very small. Of course, the parents are there, too. A little irregular, but it seems innocuous to me. (Especially in the years when Jude spent much more time messing with the turtles in the courtyard fountain and running around the maze of rooms upstairs--with me in tow, of course--than he did at the table.) This year's double celebration was tonight. As we chose seats at the usual table in the corner of the front dining room, I said, "Wait! The boy-girl-boy-girl arrangement isn't right!" I am not obsessive or compulsive, but Marilyn Barnett--the super-sophisticated former public relations lady at the Fairmont Hotel--told me that this was important, and always seated people that way. So I want to, as well. "You say that every time we come here!" said Mary Leigh. "But we always sit in exactly the same places at this same table!" I had not noticed that, but she was right. How could people sort themselves out so predictably when they do so only once or twice a year? On the other hand, when I write a restaurant review, I always have to check the last one I did of the place. If I don't, the same exact words will come out again, even when I have no memory of having written them. The order for our table was not quite predictable. Mary Ann had trout Nancy, a fillet covered with crabmeat and lemon butter, one of her favorite dishes anywhere, and what she always gets here. Mary Leigh passed on her usual filet mignon and just ate a large Jackson salad--a blue cheese and bacon job, but not a wedge. Jude broke with his chicken Lazone tradition by getting a mixed grill of a tuna steak, grilled shrimp, and a small tournedos of beef. "I want to get a little surf and turf action going on," he said, for the second time in three days. Turtle soup--always the best in town, meaning the best anywhere--is impossible for me to pass up as a starter at Brennan's. Then some baked oysters, Rockefeller and casino. The latter is an oddity, made with bacon and cocktail sauce. Brennan's took both of these from Antoine's, including the recipes--although divergent evolution over the years has made the two versions a bit different. (Neither has spinach.) Very tasty. I invented a new combination (I wouldn't call it a new dish) for my entree. They have tournedos with three sauces; I asked to have all three replaced with Creole sauce, the excellent version they make for their grillades on the breakfast menu. This would be something like a Creole steak pizzaiola. That proved to be quite good, indeed. Then the birthday cake emerged. Candles were lit, waiters sang, Chef Lazone Randolph came out to take a picture with the kids, and there we were. The wine (we almost never finish one bottle at these dinners) was a Chardonnay made by the Pahlmeyer guys in Napa. I'd never heard of it before, but it was very good--Burgundian, tight, powerful, fragrant with citrus and oak. The name was Jayson. The main reason I bought it was to get a chuckle from Jude. Other Jesuit boys reading this will get the significance. Brennan’s. French Quarter: 417 Royal. 504-525-9711. Classic Creole. Saturday, August 16. Lightning And Radio Don't Mix. N'Tini's. Mary Ann met with another guy who does website development. She wanted to meet with him alone; she says my vision for the site is too different from hers for us to have a cogent conversation with an outsider. But they were at the Courtyard having breakfast, and I planned to join them at the end of their meeting. She not only let me, but called to tell me to get over there ASAP. She thought she was hearing something revolutionary. In fact, most of the suggestions were for things we were already doing. And for doing videos, which I wouldn't mind doing, but where will I find the time? I don't think I belong on television, anyway. A line of violent thunderstorms came through in the middle of my WWL show. The lightning knocked me off the air again and a again, until I finally had to do the thing over a plain old phone line until the storms passed. Driving around later, I saw a few trees had fallen a few miles away. That was a bad one. Dinner at N'Tini's. I called for a reservation, but I don't think they give too many of those, preferring walk-ins, waiting lists, and a full bar. The special menu was, as usual, unique. It noted the death of Elvis, and offered dishes recalling The King in one way or another. They were enormous. One featured three filet mignons with different sauces. Another had a lobster and fish and shrimp and scallops (if I remember correctly). But anyone ordering them was charged accordingly. The steak thing was $48, a price that even had the waitress going back to check whether that were really true. (It was.) But it certainly could have been split two ways. I started with a Caesar salad topped with oysters fleur de lis. Mary Ann tells me that this is a dish she first saw under the name "firecracker shrimp" at the Bonefish Grill, a chain owned by the Outback guys. It's nearly identical to the dish Drago's sells as shrimp (or oysters) fleur de lis: fried, coated with a spicy aili, and crushed peanuts. There were no fewer than a dozen and a half fleur de lis oysters atop this salad. They were not hot out of the fryer, but maybe that was a good thing on a salad, which would both cool the oysters and be wilted by them if they were. Jude got some surf-and-turf action going again in his plate. He was not moved by the grilled tuna, but he seemed to like the rest of it. Mary Leigh started with a wedge salad with blue cheese and finished with the second half of that enormous Caesar I had--after I'd removed all the oysters. She was the happiest one at the table. The pork filets sounded good. When I see the word "filet" applied to red meat, I think tenderloin. That is not a strict definition of the word, but I think it's strongly implied. This was not tenderloin, but pork loin, from the rib rack. Not a bad cut, and the preparation was fine (maybe a little overcooked). But my expectation was for tenderloin. So--a bit of a disappointment. Nobody could work up the appetite for dessert. We left less enthusiastic than our first time here. I hope our Eat Club dinner this Thursday is back up to the previous goodness, or better. N'Tini's. Mandeville: 2891 US 190. 985-626-5566. Contemporary Creole. Sunday, August 17. Unload. Ed's Campaign. The day began ominously. When the kids went out for lunch and some shopping, Mary Ann told me we had to talk. Let's just say that the two of us both opened up and let everything fall out. The discussion ended without resolution, and not very happy. However, it became clear as the day wore on that just letting it out lightened her mood, at least a little. Our friend Ed Rapier is running for a judgeship, and one of his supporters gave a party for him this afternoon. Ed was the prime mover of the Scout group that Jude was part of for a very happy decade. Although many other dads were involved, many of them were there because Ed was such a great organizer. He and I don't have enough in common to become best friends, but I am forever thankful to him for the incomparable experience Jude and I shared in Scouting. We have a problem with this election. Ed's main competitor is Warren Montgomery, who we also know. His father is Monty Montgomery, the founder of Time Saver--my first employer. Warren's brother Levere is also a good friend. His son and Jude were buddies at Jesuit and (briefly) at Georgetown Prep. (And, to make this even more complicated, in Scouts.) I think we're making campaign contributions to both. That doesn't feel right, but how could I not? At least both are really good guys. Back to Ed's party. I don't know who cooked the food, but it was pretty good. Mary Ann, my jambalaya expert, was very impressed by that. I've never been a big fan of meatballs, but these were habit-forming, very spicy, and great with the jambalaya. If I were endorsing on the basis of food, we'd might go with Ed on the basis of the meatballs alone. However, the last time I played this game, the candidate with the best taste in restaurants proved to be David Duke. So I dropped the idea immediately. Monday, August 18. A Warming Trend. Eighth-To-Last Time At Acme. Throughout the hurricane season so far, we've seen our area protected by a much greater than normal flow of standard, non-tropical storm systems from the west. But I never figured on this: Tropical Storm Fay, which took a hard right a couple of days ago and went right up the Florida peninsula, is now forecast to come our way--but from around the back, approaching by land instead of by sea. It probably won't be much by the time it gets here, but that doesn't make it any more fun to see New Orleans in the infamous cone of potential storm pathways.  And there's the possibility it could go into the Gulf, and if that happens. . . well, I won't worry about it yet. Mary Ann is already making fun of me for my assiduous tracking of this storm. I told her she's braver than I am. She seemed to like that. She is distinctly warmer toward me than she was yesterday. But we still have a way to go before I'm out of that cone. Jude and I had lunch at the Acme Oyster House in Covington. He has not relented in his insistence upon leaving New Orleans (and we are talking for good) ASAP. The only thing holding him back is a lack of money for an apartment in Los Angeles. Not having a BMW had been another deterrent, since he views a hot car as being essential for his making his way in the world. But he seems to have resigned himself to driving our old Caravan around for the immediate future. Jude is nineteen years and one month old. I left home for good when I was nineteen and seven months. But I stayed in New Orleans, owned a car I paid for myself, and was making plenty enough money to pay my own rent. There was no other choice; my parents couldn't have supported my living away from home, even if they wanted to (which they didn't). Jude, on the other hand, is going far away, to a place where he knows almost nobody. I have full confidence that he'll have a job in his field pretty quickly, and he has a whole semester free before his classes as USC begin. But that still leaves a lot of getting-started money to be found. After a very expensive summer, I wish he'd hold off a few weeks so we can catch up. (A five-figure American Express bill that needs to be paid in its entirety every month is a scary thing, let alone three of them in a row.) As for the idea of his leaving home permanently, I'm all for it. So is Mary Ann. I don't want to get rid of him, and Mary Ann certainly likes having him around. But we both know that he's ready and able, and that every day is a delay in what he knows he will do the rest of his life. Grabbing opportunities has made his life great so far, and he sees many of them out there, waiting for him. How could we hold him back? After hashing the money matter over once again, we got down to eating. We scored a free dozen grilled oysters to start with. That was a benefit of my donating $15 to the St. Paul's High School football team. The player who pitched me (in full dress, shoulder pads and all) gave me a card with some discounts from local merchants. One of those was a free dozen oysters from the Acme. But a dozen char-grilled costs $16! So I saved a buck, even counting the donation! It's Monday, so it was red beans and rice with hot sausage for me. Neither part of the platter was as good as usual. Jude had his predictable entree, too: a bowl of seafood gumbo, which he said was just fine, except for the okra. Like most people his age, he doesn't understand the appeal of okra. Since he's not growing up eating it, he probably never will. There goes another icon of the local cuisine. He and the others of his generation don't eat red beans much, either. I wasn't hungry after the radio show, and it was a leftover jubilee for Mary Ann. So, no supper. After the kids went upstairs, Mary Ann forced herself to snuggle up to me, to begin to clear up the damage we did yesterday. I did my part to the extent allowed.   Tuesday, August 19. O'Brien's Grille. For the first time in the twenty-seven years I've been writing for CityBusiness, one of their editors chewed me out (mildly) for getting my column in late. I think I missed a column while I was away on the cruise, and lost the lead time I usually keep up. I never take off the column for vacation unless I absolutely must. I guess they gave me a week off this week. For dinner, I returned to O'Brien's Grille on Belle Chasse Highway in Gretna. I went there too soon after it opened--just a couple of months--and didn't think then that it was quite ready. But all reports lately have been glowing, so I gave it another look. Its exterior has the look of a bank records-storage office. Inside, it's much more interesting, an art deco design that's almost sleek. The windows are too high to see through and shuttered with blinds anyway, lending a borderline speakeasy quality. The waiter was a fellow I last saw manning the front door at Emeril's. He is a famous figure in our family, because he delivered a dinner from Commander's Palace to the hospital after Mary Ann gave birth to Mary Leigh. A napkin caught fire during this service, and the smoke alarm caused a stir in the maternity ward. He reminds me of that episode every time I see him. I started with grilled scallops atop ravioli stuffed with fire-roasted vegetables. The ravioli were perfect--like the pre-made ravioli I saw at the Food Expo a few weeks ago. I discovered then that many restaurants--including no less than Café Giovanni--was using them. I will assume these were made in house (I forgot to ask). In any case they, the scallops, and the sauce made a pretty and delicious starter. I came here thinking of other entrees than steak. Last time, I had the bone-in sirloin. But the waiter talked me into the bone-in ribeye, the most expensive steak on the menu at $38. It's prime beef and a big slab--too big for me by about forty percent (which part I took home). I asked them to send it out with sizzling butter--not their automatic service--and they did. It was without flaw: the broiling degree was accurate, and so was the trim--leaving on the fat that naturally comes with the ribeye cut. (Especially in the prime grade.) Very, very tender and juicy. People who prefer ribeyes sometimes do so to the point of connoisseurship. I hadn't ordered that cut myself in so long that it was time for another look. Especially since there was no question about the quality of the beef they serve here. Despite all this and an expectant, open mind, I rediscovered that the ribeye is not the cut for me. I don't like the texture, and the flavor doesn't move me, either. I will leave these for those who love them, and stick with the short loin. O'Brien's Grille. Gretna: 2020 Belle Chasse Hwy.. 504-391-7229. Steak. Wednesday, August 20. N'Tini's Eat Club. Unless I'm forgetting something, we haven't had an Eat Club dinner on the North Shore since the hurricane. I'm leery about doing them over there, as convenient as it is. I remember too well a dinner where so many people failed to show up that it cost me $650 out of pocket to make up for them. Almost every North Shore dinner had an alarmingly high no-show percentage. I guess people from the South Shore decide at the last minute that they don't want to cross the Causeway after all. And I can't blame them. But apparently the North Shore population of gourmets ihas reached critical mass. The dinner we held tonight at N'Tini's (it's pronounced, once and for all, "nahtini's") not only sold out very quickly, but we had more diners than reservations--eighty-five in all. When I arrived for the radio show at four, the bar was full of people, and so noisy we had to move out so I could hear myself talk. Those people were left over from lunch. Nice schedule they have! They cleared out by five, when a new group began to arrive, many of them an hour or more early for our dinner, and desirous of a N'tini or something. I was looking forward to one of those myself, and indeed challenged a bartender--who was helping to get the dining room ready--to break through the mob and fetch a wet Tanqueray martini at seven on the dot. I knew the bar would be packed with Eat Clubbers, and I didn't want to pull rank to get a drink. The bartender came through at two minutes before the show ended, and we were off and running. When we have this many people it's impossible for me to have a course with every table--and there weren't enough empty seats, anyway. So I spent the first twenty or thirty minutes walking around, saying hello to everybody. Many of our diners were first-timers, and wanted to really meet me, and tell me the things they've wanted to for years.(I wish they'd talk to me on the radio, where I'm always in need of conversation.) I am flattered by all of this, actually, even though it caused me to miss what many of the folks told me was the best dish of the night--the baked crab cake, which looked very meaty indeed. Jude showed up unexpectedly. I found a spot for him at a table, where he proceeded to set himself up as chairman, and led the conversation for the rest of the night. The people at that table all told me how charming they found him. Some even called during the week to make the same point. I asked whether Jude had sold them anything. When I finally landed, I was about to miss the shrimp and crab remoulade salad, whose sauce was a little light for my tasted but otherwise fine. Then came a homely but tasty soup of blackeye peas and duck. The chef isn't just cooking standards. His next dish was, I thought, the best one: a generous fillet of red snapper topped with a lobster claw, set atop what they called paella (that was a stretch, but not an outrageous one) with a couple of mussels in the shell. It came out a little cool, but the flavor was right there. Now a puzzling dish: a more-than-decent little filet mignon, topped with shreds of snow crab. A number of people said they were disappointed by this, and I'd guess it's because when they saw "crab" they thought "crab," instead of this stuff. Snow crab, the darling of sushi chefs in whose other hand is a jar of mayonnaise, is flavorless to my palate. Any snow crab dish can be improved by removing the snow crab. Next came little squares of cheesecake topped with a thick praline mix that hadn't quite set. I think the chef needs to go back to the drawing board on this one. That, or he ran out of time to make the praline topping. Despite the imperfections, everybody I talked to seemed delighted, and wanted to know when we'd do another North Shore event. Maybe sooner than I planned. On the other hand, we're moving toward the time of year when my radio station cannot be heard on the North Shore for two of the three hours we're on the air, and it might be tough. I spent most of the night dining at a six-top table that included my old friend and fellow writer (and real estate agent, so he can make a decent living, and boy do I know how that goes) Webb Williams. He's very clever, and our table was a load of laughs all night long. N'Tini's. Mandeville: 2891 US 190. 985-626-5566. Contemporary Creole. Thursday, August 21. Web Research At Dante's Kitchen. Whatever concord Mary Ann and I reached last Monday night, it seems to be holding. We have been very nice to each other the past few days. It's hard to believe when one is in the midst of strife, but most conflict resolutions are much nearer to hand than they seem. Especially if no winner and loser have to be determined. That's what I most dislike about sports. It teaches that winning battles is essential. Sometimes, of course, it is. But not usually. Too many wonderful human activities are ruined by the need to have someone declared Number One. The most absurd example of that in my experience is barbershop singing. One of the reasons I stopped doing it--as much as I love to sing and as great a thrill as it is to ring an a capella chord--is that our chorus was inordinately focused on singing competitions. Okay, some guys are going to strive for perfection--no reason why they shouldn't. But most of us just do it to have a good time, and if we slip on a note or forget a word--really, so what, if we're smiling? Jude and I had dinner at Dante's Kitchen, where we met Eric Ogburn, the fourth person we've contacted to restructure the NOMenu.com website. (I spend too much of my time running the nuts and bolts of the site, when I need to be writing. And my web skills are primitive.) Also at the table was Neil McClure, who runs the restaurant's dining room and is also interested in web work. Food first. Chef E-Man Loubier sent little pucks of spicy ground lamb with quail eggs for an amuse. An oversize bowl of corn and crab bisque followed before me. Jude has developed a taste for barbecue shrimp and ordered those as a starter. They were enormous and all but floated in a very intense, thick, complicated sauce that I thought was excellent, even though it took great liberties with the barbecue shrimp concept. (But why not, if it tastes this good?) Eric had the mussels, chunky with tomatoes, spicy, generous, and good. Jude--a chicken's worst nightmare--was turned on by the concept of Dante's chicken under a brick. A breast of the bird is seasoned heavily and then squashed down on the grill by a heavy, hot, foil-wrapped St. Joe brick dug out of the restaurant's back yard. I liked this a lot last time I was here, and Jude concurred with that opinion. Neil had the superb duck breast with lentils and sweet potatoes, crusty and crispy on the top skin, intensely good. Eric's pile of food included pieces of pork tenderloin over a kind of vegetable hash. I didn't taste it, but it looked and smelled eminently edible. I had the least interesting dish of the night, the garlic-crusted redfish. I thought it was overcooked and dry, and the garlic aspect was elusive. I saved it by asking for some of those lentils like what came with the duck, and got a little surf-and-beans action going on. I want to be remembered someday as being the person who persuaded the world that seafood and beans is among the flavor world's finest combinations. Any seafood, any bean. Eric's ideas about the web site were about the same as those of Marc Juneau in last week's meeting on this matter. Having Jude there was very helpful. His web skills are far greater than mine, and he could translate a lot of what Eric said into words than meant something to me. It all seems to come down to putting everything in databases. databases I understand. I had a database program--Nutshell 1.0, which evolved into the Filemaker 9 I use now--on my very first computer, back in 1984. When most people went to spreadsheets, I stuck with databases. My restaurant database, which I use as a resource rather than for public consumption, has been in continuous existence for twenty-four years. That did not impress Eric, though. Dante's Kitchen. Riverbend: 736 Dante. 504-861-3121. Contemporary Creole. Friday, August 22. Warm Night At The Court Of Two Sisters. The original plan was for Jude and Mary Ann to cross the lake for some meetings, then wait for Mary Leigh to finish volleyball practice, then join me for dinner at Andrea's after the radio show. But they were finished everything by two, and didn't want to hang around. They went back to Abita Springs, and so did Mary Leigh when her activities were over. So I dined alone again. Last week, the Court of Two Sisters signed on as a radio sponsor. I get there a few times a year, usually for lunch with my Jesuit classmates. (Joe Fein, who owns the place with his brother Gerry, is a fellow 1968-vintage Blue Jay.) But it has been over a year since I last had dinner there. And even longer than that since I dined in the courtyard. I decry the decline and fall of restaurant dress codes. But our midsummer trips to Italy taught me something. In Italian cities, where the residents dress better on average than any other place in the world, and where in July and August it's at least as hot as it is here, it is very uncomfortable to wear jacket and tie for dinner. And few people do. Most restaurants encourage outdoor seating, and the indoor rooms are so poorly air-conditioned that you may as well be outside. I was the only person at the Court of Two Sisters this night wearing jacket and tie. Most of the other male customers wore golf shirts or even T-shirts. The women looked better, of course. Some of the most elegant dresses expose more than fifty percent of a woman's skin, and are filmy to begin with. I removed the jacket as soon as I sat down. But that table was so dark I couldn't read the menu, let alone a magazine. The waiter--who must have been very new--offered to light the single little votive candle. But it wasn't bright enough to cast a shadow. I asked to be moved to a brighter spot, and got a brighter waiter in the bargain. It was a bit warm, but the fans kept the air moving under the canopy of what must be the biggest spread of wisteria in the city. A lovely place, really, and I can understand why visitors here like it. I kicked back with a Sazerac. (I think the Court makes the best Sazeracs in town, and that's with the knowledge that they probably mix them in advance.) Very relaxing, very New Orleans. The Court's menu since the storm reflects the greatest shift in its cuisine in at least forty years. It's still mostly traditional Creole cooking, but the classic canon of the mid-1900s is almost gone. Oysters Rockefeller or Bienville, filet marchand de vin, chicken Clemenceau, shrimp Creole--ain't dere no more. They still have shrimp remoulade, gumbo, and trout amandine. But shrimp and grits, panko-crusted drum, seared duck breast with sweet potatoes, and double-cut pork chop with blue cheese and fresh basil risotto are all from a new kind of kitchen. I started with the combination of shrimp remoulade, crabmeat cocktail, and crawfish ravigote. I can't figure a ketchupy cocktail sauce on crabmeat lumps, but the rest of it was good enough, and brought out in a portion big enough to split generously at least two ways. I asked the waiter (who knew who I was--the only one there who did) whether this were normal. He told me to look at the next table, where someone else had the same very ample plate of these cold starters. Next came turtle soup. Either I've never had turtle soup here or forgot how good it was--so excellent that I thought about another full serving of it. Spicy, nice red-brown color, aromatic with sherry and lemon--certainly top ten, maybe top five. The entree was a special of grilled redfish, covered with lemon butter and crabmeat. It was another oversize portion, and in fact the fish would have been better if it had been smaller. It was just okay, dry at the edges in a way that suggested frozen product to me--although I don't know that. It also was not evenly cooked--another function of the large size of the fillet. The crabmeat and sauce almost made up for that. I always come here pulling for a great meal, and often I get one. But they have a handicap: not enough locals come here to keep the food on track. I don't know why this is; the Court of Two Sisters has a $40 complete dinner every night, and the environment is unique. And while it's perceived as fancy, it's a restaurant where one can dress down. Another nice development: the attitude of the servers is great. They know they're serving mostly tourists, but they treat them well and with a sense of entertainment. I know my waiter was pleasantly conversational with me and all his other tables. Court of Two Sisters. French Quarter: 613 Royal. 504-522-7273. Classic Creole. Forward to September 2008 © 2008 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com