From the New Orleans Menu Daily Archives By Tom Fitzmorris Click here for the current edition April 1-15, 2006 Back to March 16-31, 2006     Forward to April 16-30, 2006 Saturday April 1. A Joke And A Great Poor Boy. Since April Fool's Day fell on a Saturday, when I don't publish an edition of the Menu Daily, I did not deliver my annual fake restaurant review. But I can't let a thirty-one-year tradition just be ignored, so I did have a trick up my sleeve. On the WWL radio show, I announced, as I usually do, the restaurants that had reopened during the preceding week. (There actually were quite a few of these--over twenty). But the list included these: T Pittari's, Maylie's, Clarence & Lefty's, Meal a Minit, Lenfant's, LeRuth's, Beverly Dinner Playhouse, Berdou's, Tchoupitoulas Plantation, Chez Helene, Sclafani's, Elmwood Plantation, Masson's, Corinne Dunbar's, Wise Cafeteria, Jim's Fried Chicken, Gin's, Fontana's, Allgood's, Bali Hai, the Beef Baron, and several dozen others. All had two things in common. First, they are held in high regard by the part of the dining public that remembers dining in them. Second, they have been closed for years (or decades), and have almost zero chance of ever coming back. As it always does, this exercise tweaked the wishful thinkers out there, and while most people caught onto the joke sooner or later, more than a few--including at least two rather distinguished Orleanians--bit for it. I expect I will catch the usual amount of flack for this, but I frankly think that humorlessness is no virtue, and that we should all laugh at our own foolishness once in awhile. Besides, a month or two before the date, people start writing me asking whether I have a good April Fool planned again, and even making suggestions. The reopening of Darryl's Deli in Mandeville is no joke. Darryl Taylor relocated his great little shop from the destroyed building where he became an essential resource for the poor boy sandwich-loving population of the North Shore. And tonight he got the new place running for a small group of regular customers and friends. (I am both.) We indulged in the great roast beef, the cooked-to-order hamburger, and a few other things, all of which were just as they were before the storm. (Darryl's is at 2625 Florida, Mandeville, 985-727-9757.) It was a pleasant final dinner for our family before Jude once again departs for Washington, DC tomorrow. Sunday, April 2. A Departure, A Festival. Why does everything happen on the same day? In addition to the completely full schedule on which I stood and delivered, I declined or canceled three other events--two of which involved my judging cooking contests. I did show up at a third. But before getting to that, we said goodbye to Jude and took him to the airport to return to Georgetown Prep for the remainder of the school year. If, a year ago, anyone had told me we'd be doing something like this now, I would have dismissed it as anathema. It shows just how easily one's life can change drastically. Fortunately, a few things remain the same. Ever since the kids began school, whenever a festival at the school comes up, we're always there cooking something for a booth. The current version of that activity is Congé, the annual festival at Sacred Heart. Last year we took over the former chicken fajita booth, adding some savoir-faire by concocting four different sauces for the grilled chicken and calling it "Four Seasons Chicken." I had remoulade for winter, a pepper butter sauce for summer, barbecue sauce for fall, and a garlic and herb sauce for spring. We coated the chicken breasts with a little oil and Creole seasoning, and grilled it over an open fire. That went well enough last year that we repeated the performance this year. I thought it would be a breeze, since we had all our moves down. I didn't count on two unexpected problems. First, there was no grill available. We finally dug one out of the back reaches of the school's shed, hosed the cobwebs off it, and sent out for some charcoal to fire it up. Then we had to find a place for it. The closest we could get was about a hundred feet away, requiring us to squeeze behind two other vendors (one of which had a deep fryer going) every time we needed to get something from the grill. (Fortunately, we had some other volunteers helping us on the grill.) The second problem was that, even though I asked the people in charge of the food to be sure to remove the chicken from the freezer on Friday so it would be ready to go today, the entire supply was still in the freezer, rock-hard, impervious to all seasoning. We thawed it in water as fast as we could, but that was a messy job. So we missed a good part of the lunch crowd as we waited for the fire to get going and the chicken to thaw. It wasn't until about one-thirty that we had anything to sell. But from that point on it went smoothly. My main job at these things is to stand up there and do quality control while schmoozing with the crowd. It's fun, but I sleep very well after a full day of it. The sad part about this is that, now that I know what to expect next year, there probably won't be a next year. Mary Leigh is determined not to return to Sacred Heart, or even to New Orleans if she can help it. She wants to follow in her brother's footsteps. Monday, April 3. Dakota Dinner Ends Abruptly. Mary Leigh had the day off school (they had to clean up the festival detritus), and we all slept late. Congé mess had to be cleaned up on this end, too. After the show, Mary Ann wanted to have a heart-to-heart about the future. She is feeling torn and sad now that Jude has returned to his special life a thousand miles away, after spending two weeks here and reconstructing for that time our pre-Katrina family. We went to dinner at Dakota, but on the way, I made the wrong observation, and the mood was killed so thoroughly that we left the restaurant after the appetizer. These things happen, and guys like me never have a clue. Tuesday, April 4. Mediocre Pizza. The Books Arrive. The work pile has grown exponentially, what with my making arrangements for a dozen activities connected with the promotion of the cookbook: signings, the publication party, contacts with the media, shipping of mail orders, etc. I holed up in my office, burrowing through it all, until late lunchtime. Mary Ann and I had lunch at The Loop, a new pizzeria in Mandeville. It's a great-looking place, a location of a chain from who knows where, and its pizza is absolutely terrible. If they toss their own dough, then they've figured out a way to make it look, taste, and feel like a partially-baked, pre-fab crust. The toppings were nothing special, either. About the only thing we liked was the salad, and Mary Ann liked it a lot more than I did. Mary Leigh was not feeling well, and she stayed home yet another day. So we didn't have our usual Tuesday dinner. However, there was a very nice surprise when I got home: my initial order of cookbooks has arrived from the publisher. Now I can stop showing the only copy I had and start giving them to deserving friends and relatives. The book is also on a few bookstore shelves. The usual jealous morons who find fun in monitoring everything I write, say or do (I guess they don't realize that this is a tremendous compliment to someone in the media) and picking at it all have already posted stupid reviews on Amazon, saying they didn't buy the book--although I know they did. Wednesday, April 5. Let's Try Dakota Again. For the third time in three weeks, another car has gone over the side of the Causeway. The bridge was shut down going the way I had to go, but I didn't know this until I was all the way to Mandeville. I turned around and came home, and did the show from there. Mary Ann and I decided that we needed to try that dinner at Dakota again. We had a much nicer time, principally by steering around our Big Conflict: the kids want to live somewhere else, but the only place I can make a living is in New Orleans. (Which I don't want to leave, anyway.) It was a great dinner. I started with an appetizer version of the mussels and finished with a veal sirloin. Mary Ann had the crawfish and corn soup and a nice-looking grouper with crabmeat. And we left happy and serene. Kan Lacour, who owns the place, spent a bit of time with us, talking about his two restaurants (Cuvee is the other one), what happened to his employees (his former maitre d' is now in construction, a common problem with restaurant staffing these days), and the future (he sees it as bright as I do). He said that Dakota is full all the time, even on weeknights (we got a table tonight only because of the college basketball playoffs on TV), and that he'd open for more lunches if he had the people. He does seem to be keeping up his standards. Thursday, April 6. Eat Club At Savvy Gourmet with Leah Chase. Andrea Glickman with Stewart, Tabori and Chang, the publishers of my cookbook, mentioned in an e-mail that she was watching the ranking of the book at Amazon. That's not something I thought to do. It showed my book as the 23,433rd best-selling tome in their stock. That doesn't sound impressive, but as I checked a few other comparable books, I found that it's quite respectable. So far as I've checked, it's the best-selling New Orleans cookbook at Amazon--but I know better than to let that swell my head. It's mostly because it's new, I'm sure. The radio show was on remote from the Savvy Gourmet, a cooking school that was forced into the restaurant business after the storm by the presence on their staff of Chef Corbin Evans (he owned the old Lulu's) and crowds of Uptowners looking for lunch. Our Eat Club dinner, however, was built along their standard model. We started with a cooking class, then sat down and ate all the dishes that had been demonstrated. Chef Corbin did half of the presentation, and Poppy Tooker the rest of them. Poppy is the best-known cooking instructor for amateurs hereabouts, and the head of the local Slow Food Convivium. She's interested in old dishes that have escaped from us, and she did two of those. The first was the stuffed fish from Christian's, where Poppy worked for a time. That never was one of my favorite dishes at Christian's, but they weren't making it that way Poppy did tonight. Using black drum and a bechamel-based seafood stuffing, then deep-frying the whole thing, she produced a fantastic dish that really should be looked at again. Her other dish was calas, the old Creole rice cakes. So there's someone else out there trying to revive that one, which has been the subject of many articles of mine over the years. We part company on the preparation: mine used yeast and rice flour, hers relies on baking powder. I also though that hers were not grainy enough, but never mind--it was no less delicious or authentic than my way. Corbin made a salad with hot-smoked salmon, which he did over a stovetop smoker--a good technique. We also had a great tomato bisque with basil, and wines flowing around it all. A surprise visitor showed up: Leah Chase and her grandson Edgar were there. I grabbed the seat across from hers to soak up some of her optimism. She knows a few things about calas, and we talked about that and a few other fine points of old Creole cooking. What a lady! Friday, April 7. Rib Room and a Haircut. Mary Ann has arranged for me to appear on Channel Four Monday morning. For that, I need a haircut. She took my invitation to lunch at the Rib Room, after which I went downstairs and let Harold Klein face the daunting task of making me look good. The lunch was the more fun, of course. We had the reconstructed Rib Room salad, brought out in a funny bowl designed to sit tilted toward you. Seems to me they've thickened the blue cheese dressing and cut back on the green onions. I told Chef Anthony Spizale about that, and he told me about his personnel problems, while keeping his enthusiastic smile intact. He told me he had some beautiful redfish, and that made lunch for both of us. Harold's shop sees all the politicians, and enough of them and political hanger-on stopped in to keep the conversation on that subject. The upshot was that Ray Nagin doesn't have a prayer. Which means, I think, that maybe he has a better chance than anybody thinks. I didn't need supper after the radio show, and came home to boil shrimp for tomorrow's book signing. Saturday, April 8. A Long Line For My Book. Pascal's Manale. I rarely go into town for my Saturday radio show, but it was a necessity today: my first book signing was right after the program ended. I tried to avoid the seven boxes of doughnuts that Don Dubuc leaves behind from his early-morning fishing and hunting show, but wound up eating one filled with apples and cinnamon and about six hundred thousand calories. The show went a little long--till two-forty-five--and I drove as fast as I could to the Octavia Street bookstore. There, fortunately, Mary Ann had set up the shrimp remoulade for me and was acting as hoste4ss and assistant schmoozer. And there, even more fortunately, were several dozen people awaiting my arrival. In the course of two and a half hours, I autographed some two hundred books, with a continuous line of people the entire time. This is the kind of success one dreams of, and here it is. What fun! I had to refill my trusty Parker Sonnet twice. Afterwards, Harlon and Sharon Pearce joined us for the first dinner for any of us at Pascal's Manale since the hurricane. (Everyone notes this sort of thing.) Manale's was in a foot and a half of flood water for two weeks, and got rid of the mold problem by filling the place with a gaseous form of bleach. While they were at it, they renovated much of the restaurant, but didn't really change it that much. The main dining room, formerly hung with sports memorabilia, still has not had its walls covered with anything yet. Indeed, its windows--which I don't remember ever looking out from--are wide open now. That's a good look they ought to keep, although some draperies could do a lot in dampening the lively acoustics. We started with oysters Bienville, oyster and crabmeat pan roast, and shrimp remoulade. Mary Ann had speckled trout with some peeled barbecue shrimp over the top, which looked great. Harlon got a double of the pan roast as an entree. I ordered a sirloin strip steak, something I have hungered for lately. Manale's has long cooked a very good steak, although it's not something they're really known for. We finished with something they are really known for--bread pudding. All the while, our table was visited by Mark and Bob DeFelice, who run the place with their brother and sister. They said that business has been great, that they have not enough help, that they're still working on the other dining room, and all the stuff we always here from recently-reopened restaurants. Sunday, April 9. Hamburger. We got off to a late start, missed two consecutive Masses, and wound up going to the Youth Mass--the one with the folk music, performed very well but not my bag--at seven-thirty at night. In between all these movements, we made a batch of hamburgers and fresh-cut French fries at home. Mary Ann says that she now has the magic formula for hamburgers, and if she opened a hamburger stand it would be a big hit. But I like my own better. Monday, April 10. Book Busy. Thai Spice.Now that the cookbook is here, I find myself spending a surprising amount of time dealing with it. Writing the New Orleans Food is starting to look easy compared with the endless list of follow-through jobs: setting up signings and attending them, setting up the publication party, sending the invitations to them, calling Habitat For Humanity to make sure someone shows up at the dinner to pick up my donation from the royalties. . . and autographing and mailing the books. I spent three hours today doing nothing but that last one. Of course, this is a very good problem to have, and I thank God for it. On top of this is the stress brought on by Mary Ann's impending departure, with Mary Leigh, for Washington, DC. She is having second thoughts about it, as I knew she would. I also learned today that she has no place to live when she gets there. And asking my advice, which I must soft-peddle, because she won't like it. This is something we must get through, I suppose, but it's going to be expensive. I had lunch again at the Thai Spice, on whose food I guess it's fair to say that I am hooked. There are stiull many dishes on the menu that intrigue me, and today I had the most basic of them: pad thai, which is to Thai food what red beans and rice is to New Orleans cooking. It was very good, the rice noodles being moist with the sauce but not runny, the pepper level agreeable, and the ingredients fresh and tasty. Next time I will ask them to toss the peanuts and green onions with the noodles. Tuesday, April 11. 7 On Fulton. The final dinner in the series of Tuesday nights I've spent at table with my girls was at Seven on Fulton, Vicky Bayley's new place in the Warehouse District. Mary Leigh was not pleased by that choice, but I must both enjoy myself and do my research at the same time. Mary Ann understands this, and even enforces it even more than I do myself. But Mary Leigh is very wary of unknown restaurants. Vicky laughed when we entered. "When you called and asked if you could have a table tonight, I thought it was funny," she said. "We have tables everywhere. If only we could find somebody to serve you. But David is in the kitchen, and it'll be good." It was. I started with two dozen mussels in what the chef called a bouillabaisse broth, containing a bit of tomato and some fresh fennel. Very good. Mary Ann had the cannelloni of mushrooms and truffles, which was marvelous. Mary Leigh was mollified by a sirloin strip steak sliced in an offbeat way, but tasting very good, with mashed potatoes--her favorite combination. I had three lamb chops that were beautiful and tasty but cooked substantially below my asked-for temperature. I ate them anyway, and found them tender enough to pass muster. (Undercooked lamb can be touch, I find, and doesn't release as much flavor, unlike beef.) But without doubt the dish of the night was Mary Ann's pork chop. The more she ate of it, the more strident was her praise, until at the end she was calling it perhaps the best plate of food she'd had in her life. She's said that before, but it's still impressive. And not unwarranted. For dessert, Mary Leigh seized upon the chocolate soufflee. I had napoleon of creme brulee, an odd idea carried out brilliantly, with two layers of the creamy custard between puff pastry. This place is good. All they need to do is get the word out. Fulton Street is all but invisible, and still feels like the narrow lane between industrial warehouses that it was for a century. Wednesday, April 12. End Of The Old School. Bozo's. Iris. Today was Mary Leigh's last day at the Academy of the Sacred Heart, at least for the immediate future. It doesn't make sense to me, but she doesn't want to go there anymore. Where she does want to go--Stone Ridge in Washington, DC--is a problem. But that's where she will finish off the year, accompanied by Mary Ann, who will rent an apartment near the school till the end of the term. I think this is a terrible idea, but if I don't let them go ahead with the plan I will hear about it the rest of my life. I had lunch at Bozo's--my first since they reopened a few weeks ago--with a couple of sales folks from NewOrleans.Com. That's where I've published most of my web stuff for the past few years. The relationship fell apart (read, "they stopped paying me") after the storm--but that's understandable. Now we're trying to get it back together, but in a different form. They say they are tearing the whole site down and rebuilding it from scratch. That is indeed overdue. I'm sure I'll remain with them in some capacity. The lunch was exactly as before the storm: great raw oysters, great fried oysters, great gumbo. Chris Vodonovich, who is now in his 70s, is still on the range, cooking and glad-handing all his friends and customers. It's still the best restaurant in town for fried seafood, especially oysters and catfish. Mary Ann and I joined Bob DeBellevue and his friend Julie for dinner at Iris. That continues a long series of dinners in which I make my first visit to the hot new place in town with Dr. Bob, who always has been several times already. (Our last such was Alberta.) Iris was opened by a former sous chef from Lilette (although he's originally from California). Based on this meal, I'd say it's the best new restaurant to open since the storm. I couldn't get past the appetizers, which sounded so uniformly fascinating that it seemed to me a fantastic meal could be made for a table of four by just ordering all of them. The others didn't go for that plan, exactly, but I did five starter courses for my meal: the duck terrine, the sweetbreads, the scallops, the raw oysters, and the duck confit. The others went through a good deal of seafood, all of which was beautiful and unusually presented. Iris lacks only one thing: comfort. It's in the little cottage that formerly house Ninja (and a couple of restaurants since then). Its tables are too small, at least for four people. It was a challenge to get all the food, wine, bread, and water onto the table. But that becomes a minor point when food of this goodness and imagination comes out so relentlessly. Wednesday, April 12. End Of The Old School. Bozo's. Iris. Today was Mary Leigh's last day at the Academy of the Sacred Heart, at least for the immediate future. It doesn't make sense to me, but she doesn't want to go there anymore. Where she does want to go--Stone Ridge in Washington, DC--is a problem. But that's where she will finish off the year, accompanied by Mary Ann, who will rent an apartment near the school till the end of the term. I think this is a terrible idea, but if I don't let them go ahead with the plan I will hear about it the rest of my life. I had lunch at Bozo's--my first since they reopened a few weeks ago--with a couple of sales folks from NewOrleans.Com. That's where I've published most of my web stuff for the past few years. The relationship fell apart (read, "they stopped paying me") after the storm--but that's understandable. Now we're trying to get it back together, but in a different form. They say they are tearing the whole site down and rebuilding it from scratch. That is indeed overdue. I'm sure I'll remain with them in some capacity. The lunch was exactly as before the storm: great raw oysters, great fried oysters, great gumbo. Chris Vodonovich, who is now in his 70s, is still on the range, cooking and glad-handing all his friends and customers. It's still the best restaurant in town for fried seafood, especially oysters and catfish. Mary Ann and I joined Bob DeBellevue and his friend Julie for dinner at Iris. That continues a long series of dinners in which I make my first visit to the hot new place in town with Dr. Bob, who always has been several times already. (Our last such was Alberta.) Iris was opened by a former sous chef from Lilette (although he's originally from California). Based on this meal, I'd say it's the best new restaurant to open since the storm. I couldn't get past the appetizers, which sounded so uniformly fascinating that it seemed to me a fantastic meal could be made for a table of four by just ordering all of them. The others didn't go for that plan, exactly, but I did five starter courses for my meal: the duck terrine, the sweetbreads, the scallops, the raw oysters, and the duck confit. The others went through a good deal of seafood, all of which was beautiful and unusually presented. Iris lacks only one thing: comfort. It's in the little cottage that formerly house Ninja (and a couple of restaurants since then). Its tables are too small, at least for four people. It was a challenge to get all the food, wine, bread, and water onto the table. But that becomes a minor point when food of this goodness and imagination comes out so relentlessly. Thursday, April 13. Great Biscuits. Great Muffuletta. I stayed on the North Shore all day, so I could spend some time with Mary Leigh in these waning days before she leaves for the Northeast. She baked an outstanding batch of homemade buttermilk biscuits for breakfast; I couldn't have done better, if that well. Fluffy, hot, just crusty enough on the outside, moist, steamy, butter melting into the center. . . wonderful. Mary Leigh and I lunched at Bosco's, one of her favorite places. She orders spaghetti and meatballs, then doesn't eat the meatballs. I'd make a fuss over that, except that we bring them home and Mary Ann dispatches them. I had the muffuletta, which continues to be among the top three or four in the whole area, with thinly-sliced meats and cheeses and a very well-made olive salad. I got a half muff, ate half of that, and carried the other back home to Mary Ann. (Who actually seems to prefer eating leftovers. Go figure.) The basic Italian vinaigrette salad here is outstanding. Friday, April 14. Breakfast Games. Mary Leigh didn't want to wait until tomorrow for our weekly breakfast at the Abita Café, so we went over there and devoured a big one. We also played a very long set of a little game we've played with the jelly packets for years. It's the card game battle, in which blackberry jelly beats grape beats strawberry beats apple-cinnamon. It's one of the few things we have left in our relationship that still brings laughter to her face. But she's thirteen. I drove into town for the radio show, did it until the baseball game pre-empted the last hour, and drove right home. I wasn't hungry. I like it when that happens, and when I can resist the urge to eat anyway. That doesn't happen often enough, of course. Saturday, April 15. Fried Oysters Win A Convert. For some reason, I was awake at two in the morning, and didn't get back to bed until four-thirty. That's been happening more and more often lately. There's nothing serious to worry about. Maybe it's that I've become overly sensitive to caffeine? I think I will try cutting back to see what happens. I hope that's not it. I hate it when another seemingly harmless pleasure becomes a demon. Once I got back to sleep, I slept till a little after nine, giving me barely enough time to focus my eyes before I did three hours and forty-five minutes on the radio. At which time Mary Ann and I went to the Acme Oyster House for a late lunch. (Mary Leigh was paying a last visit for awhile to her long-time best friend Lizzie, from whom she seems to be drifting lately. Another Katrina repercussion.) I had oyster Rockefeller soup (much better than the last time I had it) and an oyster loaf (the waitress talked me up from the smaller oyster poor boy). Mary Ann surprised herself and me by eating some of her oysters, which she has never liked before. She find herself drawn to oysters lately. Her main dish was a stuffed crab so she needed more food. We had a very pleasant visit. The stress caused by her departure Monday seems to have transformed into a pleasant parting-is-sweet-sorrow thing in recent days. Which sure makes me happy. I think this seven-week separation will cause many unforeseen problems, and we need to be friendly. Forward to April 16-30, 2006 © 2006 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com