From the New Orleans Menu Daily By Tom Fitzmorris July 2008 Back to June 2008    Forward to August 2008   Five-Star Edition Home Page Tuesday, July 1, 2008. Going To Town. College Inn. The girls took Jude to the airport. He has not been in town a full day since we returned from Scandinavia, and now he's off again to Washington. The girls will meet him in New York this weekend for a plan I'll describe later. Jude wanted to go up early because his Washington girlfriend's birthday is today, and he wanted to surprise her. What puzzles me is where he will sleep in the next few days. I get nothing but fuzzy, it'll-all-work-out details from him on that. Now that my show begins at four, I am looking forward to having an extra hour in the first half of my workday. I got a meeting today instead. The French Quarter-Marigny District has bought a weekly hour of my program to promote summertime tourism by local people in the old district. That's a plan I've promoted for years. The French Quarter restaurants--even the ones that are tough to penetrate without reservations--are very welcoming this time of year. Tourism was good in June, but the slack begins this week. I am supposed to get the word out about what a great place the old town is for locals to play tourist. Even hotels are cheap right now. As urgent as all that is, the other people couldn't make it. I wish they'd told me before I drove in. I could have used that hour, if only for taking a nap. My circadian rhythms are not close to being readjusted to Central Daylight Time. I was awake this morning at four-thirty. Mary Ann met me at the radio station and stole my car. Mary Leigh is tooling around town in the Audi with one of her friends, and Mary Ann didn't want to hang around town until that was over. With her driver's license and the hot new car, our daughter is in her glory. When the show ended, ML picked me up and we went to dinner at Ye Olde College Inn. She is my hamburger expert--she eats them everywhere she goes. I wanted her opinion on this one, and on the wedge salad with blue cheese, another of her faves. She thought both were just okay. That's what I think, too. My own plate had a stiff fillet of redfish with brown meuniere sauce. The new Olde place looks very cool, but the new food is not only not as good as the old (which wasn't great to begin with), but curiously bistro-like. Mary Leigh asked me to drive us home. She's still tired out from the cruise. So am I. Ye Olde College Inn. Carrollton: 3016 S. Carrollton Ave. 866-3683. Neighborhood Cafe. Wednesday, July 2. College Inn, Again. Working In My Sleep. As I did yesterday, I showed up an hour early for the radio show to attend a meeting with the sales guys and the French Quarter people. Somebody couldn't make it, and the meeting was canceled again. Drat! Another lost nap. The sleep problem is still with me, and I was wide awake at around four in the morning again. Let's see. . . that would be lunchtime on the ship. It'll probably be the weekend before I can synchronize with reality. I made it two evenings in a row at the College Inn. This should give me enough material to write a full review. Dinner started with oyster-artichoke soup, which I thought was quite good. Then shrimp remoulade, one of the few survivors from the old regime. It's now served on fried green tomatoes. One would think there were a law requiring this now. I think it was better without, and with more shrimp and the old, richer, tangier sauce. The main course was another perennial: the oyster poor boy, advertised since time out of memory by a big sign facing the heavy southbound traffic on Carrollton Avenue. Looked at that thing every day for three years on my way home from Jesuit aboard the Tulane bus. And hundreds of times before and after that era. A famous specialty like this should be outrageously good. But it's ordinary. The worst oyster poor boy I ever had at the Acme (and I've had many) was better than this. I was dangerously sleepy on my way home, and it was only a little after nine o'clock. I tried to force myself to stay up when I arrived, to nudge my sleep period later. But I fell asleep at my desk, my fingers on the keyboard. Mary Ann woke me up to tell me to go to bed. I looked at the screen and could not remember writing the words I saw there. (For the record, they were in the third paragraph of my journal entry for June 23.) This used to happen to me when I had a typesetting business in the 1970s, but not since then. Thursday, July 3. Everybody's On Vacation. The girls were planning to leave for New York today, but couldn't get it together. This means they will not be able to take a day off from driving in Atlanta. With each leg of the journey over five hundred miles, that's a big help. I don't know why they're driving to begin with. A car in New York City is a ball and chain. But they say it's essential. I still have not been able to show up at the new, later time for the radio show, but at least the meeting with the French Quarter people happened. I learned is that there's a political element involved. All parts of the Quarter and the Marigny must get equal play. They said they didn't want to focus on individual businesses, but how is that possible? I will take my usual tack and make everybody happy with the results, so they don't get worked up about the nuts and bolts of it. We all want more locals to spend more time and money downtown during the summer. It's a great deal for all involved. Easy sell, great product, right price. I will soon begin a series of reviews, presented in a new way, of the two hundred essential restaurants here. I spent a good bit of time this morning going through my restaurant database, choosing the restaurants. The first iteration had 237 entries. The ones I pared away are very good places. So this will be a solid list. That effort revealed quite a few places I haven't visited in awhile. One of these is Restaurant Cypress, Stephen Huth's good Creole bistro in Metairie. So there I went for dinner after the radio. But: closed for vacation. I turned around and started thinking about Impastato's. We have an Eat Club coming up there, and I need to make the plans with Joe. But: also closed. Yeah, it's Fourth of July week. Across the street, Anselmo's was open. I no sooner sat down than Phil Anselmo joined me. He has a unique style of conversation that requires close attention to keep up. It's ten percent business and ninety percent personal. He bought us each a drink and stayed until they were finished. Meanwhile, I had the excellent salad Elyse (named for his daughter), with an unusual creamy balsamic dressing, bacon, parmesan cheese, and romaine. Then the nice little filet mignon he does, wet with brown butter and sent out with roasted potatoes. That's really classic Italian, but not of a piece with the rest of his red-saucy dishes. I was home by about ten, and glad that my grogginess of the past couple of days on the Causeway seems to be over. The girls were pulling all their goods together for their near-month in the Big Apple. Mary Ann told me something about Jude's plans going awry, and that she wasn't sure where he even was tonight. That she is not freaking out about this must mean that she accepts his adulthood. Friday, July 4. The Marys To Big Apple. Barbecue With Friends. McDonald's Double Cheeseburger. The girls backed out of the driveway at around seven this morning, off on another adventure. Mary Leigh is attending the Fashion Institute Of Technology, a degree-granting arm of the State University of New York. They have a three-week summer program for high school women. It fills up fast every year, but Mary Ann has a friend who knew the tricks for getting in. Mary Leigh is a talented artist with a great eye for design, and she is thrilled by this prospect. Her courses will be in fashion drawing and textile design. The classes take place right there in the Garment District of Manhattan. Mary Ann found an apartment nearby for only $4500! And that's for the whole three weeks! Supposed to have a fantastic kitchen. One of the Iron Chefs will be living there after the girls leave. How utterly fabulous! Gasp. The plan is for Mary Ann to get the apartment set up and then come back home. Jude will allegedly live with Mary Leigh in the apartment, and all will be well. I wish I could find someone to take a big bet that Mary Ann will wind up staying there the whole time, to keep an eye on her brood in the Naked City. That will upset the kids, who are looking forward to this opportunity to act like the independent grown-ups they believe they have become. I am telling them that their mother's lingering on is inevitable, to lessen the disappointment. I persuaded the girls to have breakfast with me on their way out. We went to the reliable Courtyard, the only place we like that's certain to be open on the Fourth of July. The girls rushed through breakfast and hit the road for Atlanta. I went home to put out half a newsletter. Chuck and Desiree Billeaud called to rescue me from my oneliness, inviting me over for barbecue and margaritas. Why not? That's what friends are for. I had to limit myself to two medium-size drinks and leave a little earlier than I otherwise might, because I must do a radio show today. The later start time let me fit in a twenty-minute nap. Nothing improves a radio show like a refreshed mind. Not that anything would have helped much today. The phones were dead. But a certain number of listeners tell me that when I'm struggling, the show is at its best. They must be nuts. After the show, I revived a disused personal tradition, going back some thirty years, of eating a cheeseburger every Fourth of July at McDonald's. I've never liked McDonald's--not even when I was sixteen and gobbling Krystal hamburgers by the half-dozen. But a McDonald's cheeseburger is the apotheosis of mainstream American eating, and it seems appropriate on this day. No surprises: the cheeseburger (a standard double, no ketchup, extra mustard and onions) was dry and unexciting. I noticed that the patties were ovals, not round like I remember. (It's been a long time since my last one.) I sampled some of the gourmet coffee they've worried Starbucks with lately. It made no impact on me, but as a lifelong chicory drinker I am a very hard target for all but the best standard coffees. Worst part of the meal: Bill O'Reilly spouting his perversions of reality on the wide-screen televisions in the dining room. Saturday, July 5. Saturday? Jaeger's. Yesterday's holiday felt like a Saturday, so today feels like--what? I began with breakfast at the Abita Café, where everybody wondered where Mary Leigh was. The weekly visits to the post office, bank, dry cleaners, grocery store and fruit stand followed. Then three hours of food radio on WWL. And, when the sun went down a little, I cut the tall grass that grew while we were in Scandinavia. Yes, it's Saturday. Dinner at Andrew Jaeger's. I went with the idea of having a steak, because Andrew told Mary Ann to tell me that his steaks are of high pedigree, hand-cut on the premises, and served sizzling in butter, the way every New Orleans steak should be. But Chef Andrew came to the table and said he'd just cleaned some whole red snapper, and if he were me he'd eat that for dinner. I told him to do whatever he thought appropriate, and out came a big piece of pearly white fish with much large crabmeat and an eggplant dressing underneath. Very good. So was the Italian baked oysters with which I began, and the salad with both blue cheese and remoulade dressings. The fresh-cut French fries they make a big deal about were as promised. The only fly in the wine was. . . a fly in the wine. (Andrew saw it and had an entirely new glass of wine brought--unnecessarily, I thought.) Fruit flies ought to be renamed wine flies. Nothing attracts more of them. Andrew Jaeger's. Mandeville: 4250 La. 22, Suite B. 985-624-2300. Creole. Seafood. Sunday, July 6. Home Body. Jude On Nantucket? I didn't leave the Cool Water Ranch all day. For the first time since returning from Europe, I really slept in--till after nine. That should reset the clock. I spent the entire day cleaning the place up, massaging web pages, looking for the extra pair of glasses I got last time I had my prescription reworked (never did find them), making a roast beef poor boy, and washing the dishes--including the pots and pans the girls left behind dirty. And rooting through the pile on the counter for what Mary Ann called to tell me was an essential form to be filled out for Mary Leigh's school enrollment this fall. She also related a curious story about Jude's movements in the last few days. Apparently his Washington, D.C. girlfriend has moved on now that he no longer lives in the area. He called a family that put him up in their home when schedules at Georgetown Prep weren't working out. But they were off to their summer place in Nantucket. They said he was welcome if he could get there. So he whipped out his American Express card (billed to me) and booked the flight. His hosts were invited to a party at Tommy Hilfiger's house there, and Jude tagged along. I would love to have watched him move through that crowd. I'll bet he was totally credible. I must get in touch with my globetrotting teenager to hear him tell this story, and distill the bunk out of it. (It's quite possible that there is none.) Monday, July 7. The Heat. Sake Café. Girls In New York. Castle Café. I had no idea how hot it was until I went out for lunch at about one, and saw the thermometer in my car get up to ninety-nine. It's been hot this summer, but not like this. Yet it triggered a pleasant reminiscence from exactly ten years ago. Jude, still a Cub Scout, attended a week-long day camp near Bush. The girls also took part. I was an adult leader for that, and remember more than anything else a mind-altering heat. Fortunately, I only did mornings. A few weeks later, Jude and I had our first resident camping experience at Camp Avondale, a big Boy Scout reserve north of Baton Rouge. It was just him and me and hundreds of Scouts we didn't know; the rest of our den didn't follow our lead. We were only there for two nights, but a combination of the relentless, inescapable heat (no air-conditioning anywhere) and the breakthrough quality of the adventure made it seem to last much longer. It remains (in my memory, at least) one of the two or three most wonderful father-son times we ever spent together. We returned there the next two years, and kept going to Scout summer camps four years more. Since Jude was on my mind, I went for a lunch to where the two of us might well go if he were in town: the Sake Café in Covington. Gyoza, red snapper with ponzu, asparagus rolls, and a tuna avocado roll. Pretty good, but this Sake Café is not the equal of the ones on Magazine Street or in Metairie. Nor of Little Tokyo in Mandeville or Yujin in Covington. As I was leaving the restaurant, Mary Ann called. She and Mary Leigh have arrived in New York City and are at the Fashion Institute of Technology. They arrived a little late, and there's a long line for registration. Mary Leigh spent the time she should have spent listening to the orientation lecture in this line. They will update me later. My dinner target was the Boston Street Bar and Grill in Covington, but they were closed. I kept rolling up LA 21 to the Castle Café, where I had a spinach pie and fried kibbe. This place is pretty good, but not what I'd call brilliant. Interestingly, most of the clientele tonight was in its late teens or early twenties, and the music was decidedly not Middle Eastern. Tuesday, July 8. Who Are These People? Stella! If I thought yesterday was hot, I had another heatstroke coming. When I circled the southwest leaf of the I-10 Causeway clover--the hottest place in New Orleans, according to my car's thermometer--it was a hundred one degrees. It was only a degree cooler when I arrived at the radio station downtown. No pleasant memories of the heat today. The report from New York is as follows. Jude showed up as promised, his own plans having worked perfectly. He, Mary Ann and Mary Leigh are ensconced in their apartment in the Garment District, also as planned. But Mary Ann is now hesitant about her original plan to leave the kids alone in the apartment after a few days and to return home. I told her that at no time did I ever believe that she would not stay there during the entire duration of the school, regardless of the kids' wishes that she leave them alone. And that it would be better for her to stay than the wring her hands in worry here for three weeks. When I last spoke to her today, she was still agonizing. Stella! (the exclamation point is part of the name) has been on my mind for months. I have not written a full review of the place since well before the hurricane. But it needs one, not the least because it's certainly a candidate for Best restaurant In New Orleans. I intentionally waited until summer to avoid the full houses the place usually gets. There's a time of year you can get away with that, and summer is it. They weren't very busy, but for a Tuesday in midsummer it wasn't a bad house. When the waiter brought the tasting menu by, I knew that I must order it. The sheet included most of the interesting items from the a la carte menu, and intrigued me and my palate fully. But the full tasting with the wine pairings is $180. I thought about that for a minute, and couldn't recall another printed, fixed-price repast with a higher price anywhere in New Orleans. That's an extravagance, even for me. On the other hand, it seemed insignificant compared with the money the rest of my family is going through in New York. I took a deep breath and commanded that the full Boswell be brought on. I wonder if I would have done that if I knew that chef-owner Scott Boswell was taking the night off. I'm glad I didn't know it, because I was deeply in a mood for a dinner like this. It didn't matter anyway. If his chef de cuisine missed a step, I didn't notice it. All ten courses and ten wines were brilliant in their way. There were a couple of silly, new-cuisine moments--the single drip of one-hundred-year-old balsamic vinegar on one plate is a laughable absurdity, one I'm not certain isn't intentional. But I enjoyed the dinner as much as any other I've taken in solitude. I'm writing this two weeks after the fact. In the meantime, I composed a full review for CityBusiness that describes this dinner in great detail. As soon as it runs there (this Friday), I'll publish a longer version of it in the Menu Daily. It was a long evening. I didn't leave until almost eleven. Getting home at midnight on some evenings is the downside of my new four-till-seven radio schedule. Stella! French Quarter: 1032 Chartres. 504-587-0091. Eclectic. Wednesday, July 9. Mary Ann Will Stay. The Search For Pellicano. Impastato's. Mary Ann began my day with a declaration from the Big Apple. Fully resistant to the wishes of our kids, she is invoking parental prerogatives, and will stay with Jude and Mary Leigh for the entire three weeks in New York. No matter how loudly they moan. No matter how uneasy she is about living in a largely-gay apartment building. Even though it means forgoing the time we planned on spending together, just the two of us. I told her that I never had any expectation that she would do otherwise, and she should shed all guilt immediately. My original dinner plan was to drive to Kenner and try the new Pellicano Ristorante. I've heard good things about it since the day it opened a few months ago, and I suppose it's time. But it wasn't where I thought it was, and after a bit of circulating in the area I couldn't find it. (I learned later that it's somewhat hidden.) I guess I should have tried a little harder, but it was past eight, and somehow past a deadline for a first visit to a restaurant. I headed back to Metairie and took care of something I failed at last week: getting the Eat Club menu from Joe Impastato. I stayed for dinner (prosciutto, crabmeat cannelloni, fettuccine Alfredo, romaine salad, soft-shell crabs with crabmeat and lemon butter, spumone). That's more or less what Joe wants to offer on July 30. "And you can fill the restaurant," he said, as if this requires nothing more than a snap of my fingers. "A hundred people." I can probably do that, but it's summer. On the other hand, he had almost every table filled tonight. Impastato's opened in the 1970s, and it has not been drastically renovated since then. (Although they did a lot of work after the hurricane.) A relic of the 1970s remains in the colored-glass ceiling and accents here and there. It's not old enough to be retro, and certainly not current. But I like it. Mary Ann would say that this is more evidence of my complete lack of taste in interior design. Impastato's. Metairie: 3400 16th Street. 504-455-1545. Italian. Thursday, July 10. Jude Gets A Gig. Peristyle. Jude has been in New York City only three days, and yesterday he landed a film job. He will be a production assistant on an indy production, but a real one, complete with catering truck and full crew. He and the other PAs were pulled together by the producer, who told them they'd be asked to do everything under the sun. "For example, there's this permit we need--anybody got a pen?" The other PAs wondered whether to hand their good pens over to this guy they just met. Jude whipped one out instantly. "Thanks. I want you to go to this address and tell the city clerk you're there to pick up this permit. It's all set, you just have to sign for it." He handed the address and the pen back to Jude. "You know where this is?" he asked. "I'll find it," said Jude. And off he went, his first impression indelibly made. He's on his game, as usual. This will be a good resume item to have before he even begins college in this very field next year. I love this kid. A few months ago, Tom Wolfe told me he had an idea for an Eat Club dinner. He wanted to create the menu using dishes from my cookbook, giving them his interpretations. That's almost too flattering, and hard to refuse. He called a couple of days ago to revive the idea, now that it's summer and there's plenty of space in the dining room at Peristyle. I invited myself over there for dinner. The room this night could have used more occupants. Tom was in the kitchen with a minimal staff, so I didn't see him until the end of the evening. I filled that hour and a half with long-time Peristyle classics. The chef sent out an amuse of duck pastrami, which turns up in one of the entrees. I always thought that was a good idea: turning duck meat into something beefy. (A muffuletta made with this would be interesting, if expensive.) Lump crabmeat ravigote with beets sounded like a crazy idea the first time I had it. The beets stain the beautiful white crabmeat a rash red right away, which seems at first glance like a crime. But those are, indeed, two very complimentary flavors. Better, I'd say, than a fried green tomato, the current hip underlayer for cold crabmeat or shrimp. That dish was invented by Tom's predecessor Ann Kearney, who sold him the restaurant and moved back to her native Ohio. She and her husband now run a small New Orleans-style restaurant in Dayton. Then came a roasted squab. A little over-roasted, I thought, a little dry, and a little small. I think they took this one too young. I had a cheese plate to accompany the half-glass of wine I had left. One of the cheeses was over the hill. That has happened a lot lately. Maybe because it's summer and cheese is aging faster. Or, more likely, it isn't selling as well. Should I begin challenging the server as to the condition of the cheese before ordering? His labors mostly done for the evening, Tom emerged with a page full of notes on the cookbook dinner menu. The dishes he's interested in include none of the ones I most often am asked about, and no local classics. He likes the oysters Ambrosia, chicken with hot and sweet peppers, smothered quail, and bread pudding Alaska. He thought I should pick the wines, and that we should shoot for September--when it's as dead as the worst of July and August. Great! Now all I have to do is sneak this past the radio sales guys, who expect every Eat Club dinner to throw off a big advertising buy. It didn't start out that way, but they're filling the calendar lately. (I can't complain.) Peristyle. French Quarter: 1041 Dumaine. 504-593-9535. Contemporary Creole Friday, July 11. Table For One At Antoine's. It's a week since the girls left town for the Big Apple, and I am well into my Lonely Guy routine. I developed it over the long time before I married Mary Ann--a third of my life, I just realized. I moved away from home at nineteen, wed at thirty-eight, and now I'm fifty-seven. In the year after the hurricane, everybody else in my family was in Washington, D.C. during two stretches, both running into months. They returned there a few more times since then, for a few weeks each time. So my just-me-here lifestyle is well practiced. The radio in the kitchen stays on WWNO all the time, creating a presence I find preferable to a completely quiet house. I stay up reading and wake up later--midnight and seven or eight in the morning, respectively. The animals adjust to my schedule and check in at predictable times during the day. And I go out to dinner more often. I use those extra meals to revisit old favorites from which I will gather more pleasure than data for my writing and radio show. Which is why I went to dinner at Antoine's this evening. I find its familiarity comforting. As it turned out, there was information to be gathered. Antoine's never returned to its full pre-storm menu, with good reason: the old booklet was much too long to make sense even for regular customers. But that eliminated many dishes from regular service. This month, they've assembled a menu of some of the dishes that haven't been seen since the storm, and are selling three courses' worth for $39. I went that way, but with four courses. I started with vichyssoise, which I always thought Antoine's did better than anybody else. Gone are the silver servers full of crushed ice in which the soup bowl rested. But the flavor was as I remember--very, very rich, yet refreshing in its chill. Oysters Ellis is a dish whose popularity waned in the 1990s. I don't know why. It's a good taste, made with about ten oysters and mushrooms in a winy brown sauce, topped (almost undetectably) with some Colbert sauce, the one they use on oysters Foch. I followed that with a curious salad called the Bayard. It's an artichoke bottom topped with a ball of chopped celery, green onions, parsley, and fennel (I think) with a little hat made from a rolled-up anchovy filled with caviar. If a Cubist artist designed a salad, this is what it would look like. It's pretty good, and it's worth getting because here you have an early stage in the making of Antoine's unique oysters Rockefeller sauce. Including the anchovy. I entered the restaurant with the idea of having lamb chops. Those have been on my mind since a glorious evening about two years ago when I discovered the tremendous upgrade Antoine's made in that dish. For some reason, I haven't had them since. And I wouldn't tonight. The waiter strongly urged me to stick with the revival menu by way of chicken Paradis. That originally was made with squab; it shifted to chicken when baby pigeons became hard to find in the 1970s. I know better than to disregard the urgent advice of a waiter at Antoine's. The dish really is good, if very old-fashioned. The brown sauce is sweet (a vogue from long ago), but it also has more red pepper than I remember, and a bit of bacon I didn't remember, either. Chef Mike Regua, who's been there for thirty-six years, told me that this is the way the sauce always has been made. It's much, much better than I remember. Peach Melba for dessert, and off I went, despite an invitation from Yvonne Davis (the great-granddaughter of Antoine, and now the majority owner of the place) and her husband Dave to join them upstairs for a nightcap. I would loved to have stayed, but I didn't think I'd be able to make it home afterwards. But it's pleasant enough to get the offer. Antoine’s. French Quarter: 713 St. Louis. 504-581-4422. Classic Creole. Saturday, July 12. Yat Pack At Jaeger's. A few days ago D. and K. --long-time friends who don't want their names in my writing-- asked if I wanted to have dinner with them at Andrew Jaeger's. I was, and for the same reason they thought it was a good idea: the restaurant has booked a musical act called "The Yat Pack." D. and K. have been with us on a few of our cruises, and they're great fun to travel with--people who really like to go out and party. I picked them up at their home in Beau Chene, and in order to get pass the gate guard I drove Mary Ann's Audi there--which, unlike my car, did not need to be cleaned before respectable people could be carried in it. After a couple of drinks and some catching up at their place, we went to the restaurant. Andrew Jaeger's was never this busy on any of my previous dinners there. Only a few tables were unoccupied. Ours was far enough away from the bandstand to allow conversation to continue, but close enough to have a good view. We started with an assortment of baked oysters on their shells, passed around the table. Very good. Andrew got the word to me through Mary Ann (who likes him) that their steaks are something special, even though the restaurant's menu is dominated by seafood. (As well it should be: the Jaeger name on seafood restaurant marquees goes back two generations.) For some reason, all three of us thought a steak was the perfect thing. The filets were cut off the loin to order, and generously. They came out sizzling in butter, as a New Orleans steak always should. They were very good, and came with fresh-cut French fries, even better than the ones I had last week at this same time and station. Then the Yat Pack hit the stage. It's two guys (Tim Shirah and David Cook) wearing dark suits, white shirts and ties. They sing solos and duets of 1950s Vegas show tunes, with a heavy emphasis on Sinatra, Bobby Darin, and a bit of New Orleans R&B. Backing them was a very good quartet: drums, saxophone, bass guitar and keyboards. Between songs, The Yat Pack becomes a comedy act, ranging from corny to dirty, with frequent references to drinking and carrying on. They were funnier than I am making this sound, but there's no question that the entertainment value of their act is ninety percent in the music. In fact, they were quite good, and inspired people to get up and dance. (A young woman I didn't know even asked me to give it a twirl on the floor.) The first performance lasted all the way through dinner. We were having too much fun not to order up another bottle of wine and hang around for the second show. It was a different bunch of material, still entertaining. Then, in Vegas style, they noted my presence from the stage. And Andrew Jeager's. They invited the  chef to sing a couple of numbers from the New Orleans funk catalog. Which he did, very credibly. With that, it became inevitable that I would get up there too. I sang the swinging version of Night And Day I did on the cruise a couple of weeks ago. Later, they called me back up and I did the best I could on a Mel Torme-style reading of Blue Moon, with the Marcels' coda. I was not booed. Well. That was about as fine an evening as I could imagine during a home-alone month. Better than if Mary Ann had been there, because she doesn't like me to get up in public and perform. But I can't help myself. Andrew Jaeger's. Mandeville: 4250 La. 22, Suite B. 985-624-2300. Creole. Sunday, July 13. Anti-Hunger Brunch. Miss Lea. The Taste of the Nation Brunch is this morning at the Bourbon House. I have been asked to act as auctioneer. I'm also hosting three tables of Eat Club people who, as it turned out, were scattered around at other tables in the room. So I spent a lot of time jumping around. The upside: I could sneak both selections in a couple of the courses. And I could escape completely to the mezzanine, where a fine jazz trio allowed me to vocalize with them on Sweet Lorraine. First, a pass through the collection of local celebrity chefs in the kitchen. Susan Spicer, of course; she's been a spearhead of this anti-hunger campaign for twenty years. Frank Brigtsen, this year's chairman, there with a lot of his staff (which includes his wife and sister-in-law, who run his dining room). Donald Link from Herbsaint. Tenney Flynn from GW Fins. Ian Schnoebelin from Iris. Adolfo Garcia from RioMar and La Boca. Gregg Collier from Red Fish Grill. Darin Nesbit of the Bourbon House, whose kitchen and dining rooms the event took over for the afternoon. And some of the bartenders from the restaurants came, too, and made specialty cocktails. The one I had was from Alan Walter, the mixologist at Iris. He made a Champagne cocktail using mangoes and balsamic vinegar, of all things. It was actually delicious. What impressed me just as much as the presence of these well-known chefs was that a bunch of waiters, line cooks, and other restaurant employees from all over town worked this event, volunteering their time. Frank suggested that they be tipped at the end, but I think most of them were really there to be part of this fight against childhood hunger. We had two choices in each of four courses. I started with the pulled pork and black-eyed pea gumbo from Cochon, a dark-roux job in which the flavor of the beans was an accent, but didn't take over. Next, Susan Spicer's Spanish tortilla--a sort of omelette with potatoes and garlic shrimp. I managed to scam both entrees as I made my rounds. Greg Collier made an offbeat crawfish etouffee in which the tails were fried, then scattered across poached eggs with a more traditional brown Creole sauce. Interesting. Justin Devillier from La Petite Grocery made a tartine--a sort of sandwich--with veal cheeks. There's a joke somewhere in the line "this melted in my mouth" when applied to veal cheeks, but I'm not sure I know exactly what it is. I also had both desserts. Tenney Flynn made hundreds each of three little pies, filled with apple, rhubarb, and lemon meringue. Those were great, and I'm glad, because they're on the menu for our Eat Club dinner at GW Fins week after next. Adolfo Garcia made a trio of dulce de leches. That amounts to a plateful of various custards, and speaks my dessert language. At last year's event, the local Taste of the Nation organization instituted the Fleur de Lis Award, to be given to those with long, distinguished histories in the restaurant business. Last year it was Dick Brennan, Sr. This time, it was Leah Chase. She's now in her eighties but just keeps on going, even though she's having a little trouble getting around. In her speech (she's a superb talker), she all but nominated next year's award winner. "It must be that wonderful gal Ella Brennan!" It certainly could happen. The silent auction did well (although my bid of $200 for a dinenr for two at Brigtsen's valued at $150 was beat by somebody), and there were only three lots in the live auction. None of them went for what they were worth, but the organizers told me I got more than they expected, so I guess they'll invite me again next year. I took the long way home, through Slidell. The marshy woodlands past Paris Road are growing back in nicely, after being torn apart a thousand ways by the hurricane. Most of the dead trees have fallen, and new ones are slowly rising. Nature doesn't seem to mind hurricanes much. May even like them. But then hurricanes are part of nature, aren't they? Monday, July 14. Rich Poor Boy. Yujin. It's a standard too-busy, stay-at-home Monday. I took a break to make a broiled ham and American cheese poor boy with too much mayonnaise. My goal was to recreate the rich-tasting sandwich they used to make at the old Martin's Poor Boy Restaurant in the 1970s. Mission accomplished--but neither my conscience nor my palate will allow me to me eat things like that without a twinge. Good thing. In fact, I find myself abandoning cheese in situations where it's an add-on. After a lifetime of cheeseburgers, I now eat hamburgers, and then only rarely. My standard ham poor boy has no American or Swiss. Grated cheddar cheese on a salad or potatoes strikes me as a minus. It's been years since I decided that the Italians are right in thinking that cheese and seafood should never be put together in a single dish. The restaurants, however, are forever using cheese to add allure to their food, because most people believe it makes a dish better. In most cases, however, all it adds is fat. On the other hand, I like a good cheese plate in lieu of dessert. But that's a different thing entirely from wads of melted orange stuff on top of potatoes or broccoli. Rain came suddenly and very powerfully, just as I was wrapping up the radio show. I let it come down, then went out to dinner at Yujin, in downtown Covington. It was my first dinner there, after many lunches. I was surprised to see the place very busy. I had the kind of meal I would have if Jude were there with me, except for the chicken teriyaki. Clear soup (too salty), gyoza dumplings (like pot stickers, delicious, served in a little boat), asparagus roll, red snapper with ponzu, salmon nigiri, and a Burning Man roll (mostly tuna and avocado, spicy and good). Asahi beer. I don't drink much beer, but it seems right with sushi. Better than sake, that's for sure. Tuesday, July 15. Buns. Cypress Is Back. Veal Notes.The morning was beautiful when I arose at the marvelous hour of eight. Staying up until midnight is getting the job done. It was actually a little cool outside, although I know better than to think that this will last long. In the newsletter, I posted a question and answer about how to toast a hot dog bun. It is proving once again that scholarship is in inverse proportion to the importance of the subject. I've had over a dozen replies and several calls on the air about this as a result of the posting. The most interesting came from a guy who said that he fired up his grill, grilled a single hot dog, and used the heat of the grill to warm up the bun. And that he only buys some special kind of hot dog from some place in Chicago. That does indeed sound like it would produce a good dog, but not very efficiently. The matter has affected my lunches. I am going through a package of Hebrew Nationals at the rate of one frank a day. I remain convinced that my method of toasting the bun--just setting the bun on top of the slots in the toaster, and watching it to make sure it doesn't burn--is the most effective method. But I seem to have slipped into my own overkill of this subject. After the radio show, I pulled up to the front door of Dante's Kitchen, hoping to add enough information to my brain so it can compose a full review. I forgot that they close on Tuesdays. Plan B: the failed Plan A of two weeks ago. Restaurant Cypress in Metairie is back from vacation. In fact, today is their reopening day. At least I know everything will be very fresh. They were very busy. The small restaurant has many devoted regulars who probably have felt mild withdrawal symptoms. I had to wait a minute for a table--long enough to get an order in for a martini--and was shortly led to the perfect table for a onesie: a deuce in the corner with a lot of light shining down for reading. Dinner started with four mammoth fried oysters atop a hillock of creamed spinach further enriched with brie. The oysters were good, the spinach a bit much for me. That was followed by a too-generous soup or mirliton, crabmeat, and crawfish. I was pleased to see that cream, it if was present at all, was very restrained. The thickness of the soup came from a light roux. Creole style. Now a nice salad with the house buttermilk dressing, a little on the spicy side--an effect I always liked. Then the veal special--an interesting twist on veal Oscar. Instead of hiding the crabmeat in hollandaise, the chef stuffed it inside three homemade ravioli--each atop a medallion of veal. The sauce was a simple butter sauce with maybe a touch of lemon (or white wine). Good taste. This dish fired off a thought I have about the way veal is served in restaurants these days. I notice the bad habit of slicing the veal too thick, not pounding it out enough, or both. Veal leg (the cut most often used for dishes like this) is by its nature on the tough side--even baby white veal. That's especially true if it's cut with the grain, as an astounding number of butchers do. All that can be solved by slicing thin and pounding thinner. It also quickens the cooking. That's the way it was done in the Golden Age of Veal (the 1970s, when every restaurant in town had at least one dish involving veal medallions, and quite a few had several). Cooks seem to have forgotten how to do this. A rich bread pudding for dessert. Too much of that to finish, too. Even after leaving some of every dish behind, I am still uncomfortably full. (What should I expect from a five-course dinner?) I will not sleep well this night. Wednesday, July 16. Jude Day. Boston Street Bar And Fryer. It's Jude's nineteenth birthday. His birth created an entirely new universe for Mary Ann, but it made my life entirely different, too. His presence (and my daughter's) has enriched my life like nothing else, and it does so in new ways every day. To anyone reading this who is thinking about whether to have a first child, I would highly recommend it. Don't forget to give it all you've got. Jude and the girls already celebrated his day last night. They went to dinner at Del Frisco's Steak House in Manhattan, where they continue to pursue their summer activities. Del Frisco's started here in New Orleans, in Gretna. Dale Wamstad owned it and kicked up a lot of sand by pointing out that his was the only place in town serving exclusively Prime beef. Th Crescent City also did, and still does, but that wasn't the point. Wamstad was feuding with his brother, who sold beef to Ruth's Chris. (Then as now, Ruth's did not routinely sell Prime filet mignons, although everything else was USDA Prime.) Wamstad is a colorful and exasperating guy. He had a feud with his wife; one altercation put him in the hospital with a gunshot wound. He moved Del Frisco's to Canal Street, where it lasted a year or so. Then he came in to help Jack Sands open the Tavern on the Park (where Ralph's on the Park is now). He didn't stay long, moving to Dallas, where he opened Del Frisco's Double Eagle Steak House. That was a runaway success, and after a few years he was able to sell that one restaurant and the name to Lone Star Steak House for $23 million. Lone Star has since opened a few Del Frisco's here and there, including one in New York. Jude celebrated his day today by continuing to work with the movie crew. He reports that it's a fantastic learning experience, as I imagine it is. The title of the film is You Have The Right To Remain Violent. It's a movie about crooked cops. Sounds less than edifying, but he says that they're trying to get it into the next Sundance Film Festival. I hope it's a big hit. Having an on-screen movie credit when Jude begins film school at USC next January will be a good credential. I will wait for Jude to get home for our birthday dinner together. Instead, I went to the Boston Street Bar and Grill, about which I have been hearing good things lately. As I walked up the old wooden ramp to the entrance, I had the odd feeling that the place was inviting me to make it my home. I can't explain that, even to myself. I was disabused of the idea as soon as the food began to arrive, although the menu was intriguing. Judging by the staff, this is an Asian-owned restaurant. About a third of the menu is Chinese. Some of it is Mexican--a holdover not only from the early days of this place, but from the restaurant that was here before this one. And burgers, sandwiches, salads, and seafood platters. They cast a wide net here. The appetizer section sounded particularly interesting. I ordered five of them, for a sort of tapas meal. I told them to bring them out in any order, as long as they never had two dishes on the table at one time. I give them credit for almost honoring that request. They brought the salad out first--a nice one, with a peppery ranch dressing. I was not quite finished that when what they called char-broiled oysters (a magic name on local menus these days) appeared. The oysters were not broiled but deep-fried, placed on shells, and topped with a over-rich sauce with bacon and cheese. Decent, but not something I think I'd get again. Next, warm shrimp remoulade with avocado. The shrimp were deep-fried, but without a batter. They were arrayed around a little salad in the center, with avocado slices opposite. Again, the sauce was more rich than tangy. Small, over-deep-fried spring rolls followed, with a raspberry dipping sauce and another little salad. The last of the appetizers was pot stickers. That's another misnomer, because these too were deep-fried, and came with the same raspberry sauce and little salad that came with the spring rolls. I know the menu here isn't really designed for somebody to make an all-appetizer meal. Still, I'd say they need more variety, and a greater range of cooking methods. The bread pudding, which was not deep fried, ended the meal on a pleasant (and largo) note.  I suppose I must return to have some of the entrees, but I don't look forward to it. Boston Street Bar and Grill. Covington: 324 E. Boston . 985-898-2200. Chinese. Sandwiches. Seafood. Thursday, July 17. No Spirit. Self-Abuse By Fast Food. The "Spirited Dinners" are tonight. They're a big program item in the annual Tales of the Cocktail event--which has grown to become a big deal, getting lots of good national publicity for the city. Every year since Ann Rogers launched Tales in 2003, we've been away on a cruise during its running. But not this year. I planned to attend one of the dinners tonight, knowing that most of them had places available and I could just walk in and be welcomed. But it was not to be. When I arrived at the radio station, a stack of orders for five commercials--all of which start tomorrow--was in the studio. It took until eight-thirty to write and produce those. I have been known to show up at wine dinners on the spur of the moment, but I wouldn't have the gall to join them halfway through. (The chef tries to serve me all the courses, which I know goofs up the kitchen, and I don't want to inflict that extra work on him.) So I headed home. This morning, I was up much earlier than I should have been, and I was tired. I crossed the Causeway and thought about Trey Yuen, Sesame Inn, Casa Garcia, India 4 U, and Little Tokyo, but passed them all by. I have nothing much to eat at home. It was getting desperate. I stopped at the traffic signal in front of Raisin' Cane's. Mary Ann and the kids are always picking up food from there and raving about it. Mary Ann goes out of her way to get Cokes from there because, she says, the ice is very soft. (Don't ask me.) Maybe I was pathetically reaching out for some connection with my absent family. I turned into Cane's driveway. I ordered the three-piece box of chicken fingers which, near as I can tell, is the only main item they sell here. They were greasy and the coating didn't stick to them. The fries were cold. The "secret sauce" is a flavored, peppery mayonnaise. The meal (any fast-food meal) was my form of self-abuse in a psychically weak moment. What's the big deal? I was perfectly disgusted with myself when I got home, although it healed me a little to delight the dog with the last chicken paw. (That's what they ought to be called, because they're bigger than fingers, and not prehensile.) I looked into the southern sky and saw Jupiter glowing brilliantly. I went inside and did what I always do when I'm low. I got to work. Friday, July 18. Twenty Years. Galatoire's. This is the twentieth anniversary of my current radio show. That's not an exceptionally long time to hold a job. But it is unusual in radio, where the tides of change sweep individual efforts away like sandcastles. In fact, I don't know of anyone now on the air in New Orleans who's hosted the same show on the same station as long as I have. On the other hand, it's hardly a record. Roy Roberts ("Nut" of the Nut and Jeff show) was on my station for over thirty years. Maury Magill didn't have a persistent program, but he spent forty years doing all kinds of shows on WWL. So I have something to shoot for. Maybe. Although it pales in importance compared with my wedding day and the days Jude and Mary Leigh were born, what happened today in 1988 is directly responsible for those three major events. Mary Ann, with whom I was barely acquainted at the time, hired me for the radio show. If I had not accepted the job, we would certainly not have married. But I am a little disgusted. I was hoping that we could produce a big anniversary show, with live music, a radio drama, and all that stuff that works so well on radio but that nobody does anymore. This show would broadcast from some really fine restaurant, and we'd have an expensive Eat Club dinner that raised money for the Food Bank or Habitat or Cafe Reconcile. But nothing happened. My temptation, in my sour mood, was to blame this on other people. I resisted the temptation; if was to be, as they say, it would have to have been me. But my family isn't here, and the new sales guys haven't quite figured out the dynamics of my show yet, and two weeks of catching up after vacation has eaten all my time, and, and. . . well, my motivation level is down right now. For the past few days, Mary Ann has been trying to decide whether to fly down for the event. I'm touched that she would even consider such a thing. It would leave the kids alone in that New York apartment, and she would be worried the entire time.  (They're perfectly capable of taking care of themselves, and even eager to be rid of Mom for awhile. But they're still her babies). And she doesn't like to fly. And there's the expense. This New York adventure and the cruise stressed the budget, to put it mildly. I told her that the idea was nicer than the reality, and told her please, don't do it. Instead, she called into the show and stayed on hold through all of it, so she could listen to it and chime in now and then. Listeners told me they liked that, so we kept going. It wound up being a very nice, if unspectacular program, and it made her feel better. That done, I faced the prospect of dinner alone. I had no plans. I should have called somebody, but I hadn't--too busy. I wanted something special and traditional. Antoine's came to mind, but I was there last Friday and will be next Friday. And it might be a sparse crowd there. The latter rationalization also made me rule out Arnaud's, which otherwise would have been perfect. I realized then that I hadn't even considered Galatoire's. Not only that, but I'd not been there in months. Galatoire's downstairs dining room was full. The bar was full of diners waiting for tables, but that's so far preferable to waiting in line on the street that I felt privileged to be there with a martini to pass the time. And in the company of waiters, bartenders, and other customers who knew me and engaged me in conversation. My table was ready after a half-hour or so. I was in the left-hand rear corner, next to the kitchen door. In any other restaurant, that would be the worst table in the house, and probably  other people would call it that even here. But that's a good table for me, because I can see everyone coming and going, and feel in command somehow. My regular waiter Imre Szalai was his usual welcoming, accommodating self. He warned me away from the pompano and switched my order from the old green salad with garlic to some new style of salad, made with baby greens, that proved to be just fine. And he brought me the usual overfilled glass of BV Chardonnay. I started with oysters Rockefeller--the best on earth. After the salad, two double-cut lamb chops with bearnaise. Manager Chris Ycaza came by with a thumbs-up on that. "It's one of the great sleeper dishes on the menu here," he said. I told him it's probably a good thing, because for what they charge it probably has a very high food-cost percentage--although that's not why I ordered it. Chief Galatoire's bossman Melvin Rodrigue also visited. "How do you like those New Zealand lamb chops?" he said. I knew he was kidding about that--this was clearly first-class American lamb. But I said they did look different from the last time. The bones seemed longer; I think they used to trim them in the old days. "Nope. Same specs we've always ordered from Natco." Not a thing missing in the flavor, I told him. A few other people in the room visited. Richard Stewart, who runs the Gumbo Shop, was celebrating a birthday with five friends. Patrick Singley, the owner of Gautreau's, also had a large table in the middle. (Lots of big tables this night.) They both told me that, so far, this long-feared dead summer was not so bad. I lingered a couple of hours. Imre came by with a happy-anniversary custard and a special Galatoire's pen. I'm not sure whether this was for the show anniversary or the birthday I claim is mine every time I eat here. (I only want the creme caramel, not the pen. I only use fountain pens, usually the Parker I bought in 1974.) Imre is the default Happy Birthday singing waiter, but in lieu of singing for me he offered an after-dinner drink. But I am already happy enough, and must drive home. Galatoire's was the perfect place for me to go this night. When I left, I felt like I might be somebody, after all. Galatoire’s. French Quarter: 209 Bourbon. 504-525-2021. Classic Creole. Saturday, July 19. Distinctive Rocks At Lola's. Slept late, had breakfast at the Courtyard, ran my errands, and did three hours of radio on WWL. Usual Saturday so far. The latter half of the day was spent the way I used to do it every week: working at my carpentry table, sweating my brains out. Mary Ann has asked me for a long time to get rid of all the extra lumber we pulled together for the various renovations (some of which aren’t complete; my office, for example, still has no baseboards, but the amount of work it would take to empty that overloaded room is daunting). I started a fire in my old barbecue pit with some scrap wood somebody else had put in there. (Big pieces of a broken mirror were in there, too. I wonder what person of bad luck thought that would burn.) As I have the habit of doing, I overloaded the thing, and the flames were really roaring. But nothing inflammable is nearby, and I have my hose at the ready. My worst fear is that a fire starts that burns down my pumphouse, thereby killing my water supply--but I will leave that for my bad dreams. I went though the old wood and cut it up into grill-size pieces, keeping the fire going while I cut the grass. An astonishing thing happened: the tractor's starter, which has not worked once this year, and which required me to hot-wire the starter every time, has magically returned to life. I have a theory--a subset of the Pathetic Fallacy, probably--that machines can heal on their own. It has happened with a number of gadgets around here. The microwave oven was on its way to the junkpile when it suddenly started working fine. It has ever since. Mary Ann's brother gave us an ornate phone which he said hadn't worked in years. It must have needed a rest. I used it to tell him how much I liked it. Whatever process fixed my tractor, I am thankful for it. I tried Lola's in Covington for the first time tonight. They're only open for dinner two nights a week--their mainstay is serving lunches to the people who work in the area of the St. Tammany courts complex. It's in the former train depot, whose tracks are now the Tammany Trace bicycle path. It's a neat building, used by quite a few restaurants over the years, none of which lasted long. Lola's (no connection with the Spanish restaurant on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans) may break that jinx. The restaurant was full when I arrived at eight. It's not large, but regardless--that's still pretty good for this spot, well-hidden in the old back streets of cute Covington. I had to wait about twenty minutes for a table. I was glad to be sitting down, and not just so I could take a load off. The dining room was replete with a well-dressed, convivial bunch of people. If there'd been mirrors on the walls and brighter lighting, I'd say it was reminiscent of Galatoire's. My first course certainly was. Oysters Rockefeller, second night running for me. The flavor was distinctive. The chef could only have picked up this spinachless recipe from three places: Antoine's, Brennan's, and my cookbook. I didn't think it was the latter (Tom Wolfe notwithstanding), so I asked where the chef worked before. Brennan's! Aha! I thought I recognized that flavor. I put a salad between the oysters and the roasted chicken, a half-bird covered with herbs and sent out with a pan gravy. I asked them to bring some bearnaise on the side; I thought I'd make this into a sort-of Rochambeau. (I've always thought chicken with bearnaise is delicious.) All of this was far above what I expected from this little restaurant--even though a number of people have told me during the past year or so that the dinner service here is terrific. This will require a second and third look. And provide me and Mary Ann with a nice little place to have a romantic dinner. (If she ever comes home.) Sunday, July 20. Pleasantly Boring. I seem to be getting into the habit of staying home all day on Sundays. I did it again today, resuming my wood-burning project in between working on cleaning up the house. I need to get started on that. It will take me the two weeks I have left before Mary Ann and the kids return for me to get it looking as if a bachelor hasn't lived here lone for a month. My food program was simple enough: ham poor boy for lunch, fettuccine with a spicy fresh tomato and garlic sauce for dinner. Nothing much to say about either of those beyond that I enjoyed them greatly. I thought about going out to the Thai Spice, but I didn't want to allow that fire to burn unsupervised. I hope it rains soon so I can torch that big pile of sticks out on the meadow. If it gets any higher, it will create a scary pyre indeed. Monday, July 21. Catching Up. Mandina's. Something unfamiliar happened today. I actually got caught up with my work. On the other hand, catching up is relative. I try not to think too hard about the amount of work before me in the second half of this year. I have a book to write by December. And a revision of the restaurant chapter of the Unofficial Guide to New Orleans by September. Greg Larose, the acting editor of CityBusiness, told me today that he needs my list for the annual Book Of Lists this Thursday. Wish he'd told me sooner. After the radio show, I went out to satisfy my Monday need for red beans and rice, specifically the way they serve them at Mandina's: firm, with Italian sausage. I don't know of any other restaurant that offers that kind of sausage, although it's such an obviously good match I'm sure there must be somebody. It sure is good here. I was just beginning dinner when George "Spunky" Amann came by to say hello. I did not recognize him, but I'm not ashamed of myself for that. He and I were in the same fraternity at UNO (Phi Kappa Sigma--I was one of the founding members of the chapter). I have hardly seen him since. That's thirty-five years ago--two-thirds of our lives. He and his wife invited me over to their table, and we caught up with one another and the brothers each of us knew particularly well. (Which for me is almost nobody.) George was surprised to learn that our chapter has ceased to exist at UNO. I guess it's disloyal to say that ours was one fraternity too many when we started it, and although we had some strong years, a small fraternity has a way of getting smaller unless it has a specialty. (We didn't.) I wasn't exactly a frat kind of guy. I joined at the outset of my sophomore year, in the hope I could make connections that would lead to my finding a girlfriend. It never worked that way. And I was too busy working to attend many of the functions. The beans were great. George's fried chicken looked good, too. They sure do feed you in this place. Mandina’s. Mid-City: 3800 Canal. 504-482-9179. Neighborhood Cafe. Tuesday, July 22. Stormy. Chateau du Lac. Beans Will Return. For the first time in over a week, the afternoon thunderstorms returned. Nothing unusual about that, except for the source of the disturbance. This rain is part of the spiral of clouds that falls into Hurricane Dolly, which is heading across the Gulf toward the mouth of the Rio Grande. We won't have to worry about it here in New Orleans. But our sensitivity to hurricanes since August 29, 2005 is so keen that we notice this first tropical-storm-related weather of the year. I suppose we'll never get over that. Dinner at Chateau du Lac. Like every other Metairie Road restaurant in history, it's off my radar when I'm trying to think of a place to eat. Except for people who live in Old Metairie, most Orleanians avoid Metairie Road, fearing that they'll get stuck at the train crossing. (That's an assumption, but I think it's nearly universal.) But tonight, I thought about Metairie Road on purpose. I'm one dinner away from writing a full review of this re-location. Started with mussels, ended with lamb chops. [I wrote about the dinner in detail in the review, already published.] It was a slow Tuesday in summer, and chef-owner Jacques Seleun came over to palaver. In the conversation, it came up that Brett Anderson--the critic for the Times-Picayune, which has not published a single rated restaurant review since the hurricane--will get back with the program this Friday. In fact, Jacques said, Anderson called the restaurant to check facts and arrange a photograph. So, of course, I will make sure my review comes out the day before his. Chateau Du Lac. Old Metairie: 2037 Metairie Rd. 504-831-3773. French Bistro. Wednesday, July 23. Cutting Trees. Hurricane. Fins. When I arrived home last night, I thought the woods flanking the entrance to the Cool Water Ranch looked funny--as if a tree had fallen. Maybe the storm that came though blew something down, I thought. This morning, I had a look, and found it was something much worse, if less sinister. The power company sent its tree-cutting crew to hack the woods away from its power lines, which cross my property to get to the houses in back of me. They apparently mean business, and have cut down a very substantial patch of trees. A big pine is marked with fluorescent paint on the way in. The heavy equipment for doing this is parked down my road. It's has an extensible boom with what looks like a gigantic circular saw blade at the end. These guys were here seventeen years ago, in the first year we lived here. They made a tremendous mess then. I don't want power lines to come down if that can be avoided, but I'm uneasy about the depredations they plan for this pass. The cutting crew had to stop its activities was an enormous thunderstorm blew in. On the radar, it's very clear that it's part of Hurricane Dolly. It landed at Brownsville, Texas today as a Category Two. We are six hundred miles away from Brownsville, but on the rainy side of this storm. Still, it beats an eye crossing. The Eat Club--about a hundred strong tonight--converged on GW Fins. I think we had about thirty people there before the radio show was even over. Perhaps they heard about the complimentary cocktail that was added at the last minute to the deal. It was a ginger-flavored vodka mixed with some fresh mint and tonic water. Refreshing, but not destined to be a classic. They let us have the entire restaurant for the whole evening, which meant that I had to fill it. When I got up to a hundred, I stopped taking reservations. Then Tenney Flynn called to say that I could accept forty more--but too late for me to actually do that. I am reluctant about this. Large attendance at our dinners is impressive, but changes the dynamics. For one thing, I can't sit down and have a course with each table. (Some may consider that a plus.) On the other hand, when the restaurant isn't serving a la carte customers at the same time as they're serving us, they can plan things better and work more efficiently. That's how this dinner played. If anyone had any complaints about the food and service, they kept a secret from me. We started with a different sort of a crab cake, seasoned with Asian ingredients and made to taste almost like a crabmeat West Indies cake. Good and lumpy with crabmeat. We were supposed to have fresh Alaskan--and then Norwegian--king crab. But it didn't arrive. Tenney shifted to lobster. This was the best dish of the night to my palate: a half-lobster (half a tail and one claw), coated lightly with an herbal mayonnaise sauce, and scattered among slices of mango, papaya, tomato, and avocado. I could have made a meal of two of these and caleld it a night. The entree was more conventional. Local black drum, out of the pan and into a juicy sauce with oysters, tasso, and chanterelle mushrooms. Generous and satisfying, but not a mind-blower. The wine they served with this, however, was a standout. I don't remember ever having Pinot Noir from Gundlach-Bundschu, an old Sonoma maker famous for muscular reds. This too was denser and darker than most Pinots, but it avoided the mistake of trying to taste like Cabernet. (That was a widespread disease among Pinot Noir winemakers in the 1970s and 1980s.) Nobody could get enough of this one--the "Block 13" 2006 Pinot from G-B. Dessert was a reprise of those little pies Tenney made for the Taste of the Nation the Sunday before last. Delightful. In attendance was a lady I've known for a couple of decades, but not seen in awhile. She always reminds me that I was in the 1984 book "New Orleans's Most Eligible Bachelors," and that I was on page sixty-nine. GW Fins. French Quarter: 808 Bienville. 504-581-3467. Seafood. Thursday, July 24. Cuttings. Omelette. Northshore Empress. The tree-cutters are still here, with heavy, loud equipment, hacking away at the front four feet of the woods that runs alongside the road running through the Cool Water Ranch, and the power lines they're trying to defend from rogue undergrowth. I think they are taking too much off. More distressing are all the scrap branches they're leaving all over the place. They have a big machine that appears to be scooping them up and mulching them, but they're missing a lot of it. I have a feeling that the leftovers of this job will take a long time to depart from view. I made a ham omelette for lunch. I am trying to improve my omelettes, to make them fluffier. That's a project I've worked on for about thirty years, and I probably would be further along with it if I made omelettes more often than once every six months or so. One thing I've already learned: unless you beat the eggs in a blender, the way the Camellia Grill does, it's necessary to use at least three large eggs to get a decent omelette. Also, you need some fairly hot butter or oil in there to get things started. And a non-stick pan. One more thing: the best omelettes are made by people who make about a hundred of them every day. (Although making that many is not a guarantee that such a person makes them right.) We have an Eat Club event happening next month at N'Tini's, the newly-relocated restaurant from Chalmette in Mandeville. I need to talk with the chef-owner about what he wants to do. I went over there for dinner--but saw about thirty people standing or sitting around outside, waiting for tables--in addition to more people standing around in the bar. The parking lot was more full than I've ever seen it for any of the five previous restaurants in this location. This guy clearly had touched his customer base. I wasn't up for a wait, and I didn't want to disturb the boss at a time like this. I continued my way home, and remembered the Northshore Empress. That's an eight-month-old Chinese restaurant people have been touting to me. They must be impressed by the looks--it's a handsome place inside and out. The menu was another story. It was like something from twenty years ago--utterly conventional. I began with hot and sour soup, which was sweet, too. Then moo shu chicken, served with a dilute hoisin sauce much different from what I'm used to, but otherwise okay. Both these things were decent, but not good enough to pull me away from Trey Yuen or Sesame Inn when I'm in the mood for Chinese. I also thought it was odd that I had to explain how to make a martini. The staff was very pleasant and accommodating, but they need a tastemaker. Northshore Empress. Covington: 31 Louis Prima Drive. 985-871-6975. Chinese. Friday, July 25. Virus. Antoine’s. It was a lovely morning. The work load was a little lighter than usual. I was looking forward to a weekend in which I had no plans or obligations at all. Not even a Saturday radio show. Tonight, I will go to Antoine's for a wine dinner--a nice cap on a pretty good week. Then I did something stupid, and lost my computer virus virginity. I bought my first computer in 1984 and have used them intensively ever since, without ever having a virus get into any of my machines. But the virus authors are getting better all the time, and they finally fooled me. The e-mail message was from Continental Airlines, saying that an attachment held an e-ticket for Jude. It would not be the first time Jude has bought a plane ticket charged to my account without telling me about it until later. I opened the attachment. Then I did the stupid thing. It was a zip file--which should have sent my alarms off. But I unzipped it. And then this bug shut down my anti-virus program and restarted my computer. When it came back, a big notice appeared on the screen saying that spyware had invaded my computer. The anti-virus program (McAfee) stopped anything from being set out, but it could not get rid of the virus, which would repeatedly shut the computer down before the anti-virus could run completely. I was almost, but not quite, finished publishing the day's newsletter. I was not able to send it out by e-mail, or post the last article of the day. Nothing I tried had any effect. Most chilling of all was that this but erased all my restore points, which could have been used to return the computer to an earlier state. In a coincidence almost too perfect to be believed, the FedEx truck pulled up during these travails. It was the computer I ordered less than a week ago, showing up earlier than I expected. Well. I may not have had any plans for this weekend an hour ago. But I sure had a full schedule now. I was somehow able to forget all this during the radio show and the dinner at Antoine's. It took place in the Twelfth Night Reveler's Room, on the second floor just above the classic front dining room. They renovated that space into a dining room a few years ago, but this was my first time dining in it. I tried all week to pull in some diners for this dinner, but only filled a table of eight--if that. I wish I had known that they decided to radically change the menu. What was actually served was much better than the original offering. And the wines--from Bonterra, one of the first classy California wineries to embrace organic grape farming and wine production--were wonderful, particularly the reds. We started with a shrimp cake--a crab cake with shrimp instead, topped with a horseradish mayonnaise and a sharply-flavored green puree I forgot to ask the chef about. The next course revealed more fans for old-style oysters-and-milk stew than I thought were out there. Everybody loved it--but what was there not to love? About a dozen oysters in a great broth with green onions, simple and excellent. After a sorbet came filet mignon Alciatore. That's a dish that Antoine's considered enough of a specialty that it used to be listed as such on the back of its menu. It's one of the few dishes there I've never tried, and with good reason: I found the idea of a steak on top of a slice of grilled pineapple--with a brown sauce also made with a bit more pineapple--an unlikely hit. I was wrong. The dish is strange by our standards, but a hundred years ago--when Antoine's was already a venerable institution--sweet sauces on savory dishes were in vogue. And remained current for many years. On the other hand, a sweet dish tests the pairing potential of big Merlots and Zinfandels, and that's what we were drinking. Were it not for the bearnaise sauce atop the steak, it would have been peculiar. But having had the dish, I think I'd have it again. (ut not soon.) This treatment is actually better on lamb. It was a smaller attendance than the restaurant expected, but it was unquestionably a lively evening. I do wonder why anyone who goes to dinner at Antoine's would not automatically wear jacket and tie. But I'm resigned to being in the rear guard on that matter. Antoine’s. French Quarter: 713 St. Louis. 504-581-4422. Classic Creole. Saturday, July 26. Computer Nightmare Darkens. I woke up at four in the morning thinking about how to deal with the virus on my computer. After letting it drive me nuts for an hour I got up and started working on it. Something about this disturbed me far beyond what it should have. Irrationally, I felt violated and impotent. McAfee has a service which, they claimed, would repair the problem remotely. "Sit back and watch us repair your computer," it said. The price was $90. I'd waste at least that much time and money trying to fix it myself, so I went for it. But nothing happened. They didn't call me, and the number they gave me to call back brought up an automated voice saying they'd be on in two minutes. After the longest of several waits for them to come back (two hours), I gave up. Will nothing avail me? I went to a late lunch at Little Tokyo in Mandeville. While I ate the typically fine salmon and red snapper nigiri, asparagus roll, and tuna-avocado roll, the thought occurred to me that perhaps the virus had spoofed the McAfee site, and the malefactors now had my credit card number. Maybe that number I called was just a fake. That ruined my lunch completely. I went back home and checked the account and a few other things. Nothing untoward seemed to have happened, but who knew? I spent the remainder of the day copying the tremendous volume of files from the crippled computer--a job made much harder by the fact that the virus forced a restart every ten minutes or so. Meanwhile, I set up the new computer. Never a fun project; I'm glad I only have to do it once every three years or so. Meanwhile, on yet a third computer, I scanned the files coming off the old one for viruses. The last thing I wanted was for this vicious bug to get on the new computer. Fortunately, it doesn't seem to travel that way. I stayed at this nerve-wracking job until midnight, stopping only to eat a hot dog. On a normal day, I would have made a drink, but I had enough last night at Antoine's to last me a couple of days. I could no longer keep my eyes open at the desk and went to bed. But my eyes stayed open for a long time as I kept worrying about this and trying to figure out a solution. Little Tokyo. Mandeville: 590 Asbury Dr.. 504-727-1532. Sushi. Japanese. Sunday, July 27. Regrouping. Thai Spice. I woke up too early for a midnight bedtime, but I felt calmer. I'd just have to move to the new computer and forget about the old one for now. I hoped I could get all the software and files installed in time for me to get started on the writing I need done for tomorrow. I decompressed by making a batch of buttermilk biscuits, and having those wonderful fluffies for breakfast with my café au lait and juice. That perked me up. I also called American Express and learned that nothing funny had come through, that I would not be responsible for fraudulent charges, and that they'd send me a new card. That took a load off my mind. I spent the entire afternoon and evening--again till midnight--writing while simultaneously continuing to unload my data from the sick computer. And fine-tuning the new unit to my specs. And I thought this would be an easy weekend for a change. What rotten luck. Meanwhile, Mary Ann and Mary Leigh have left New York for Washington, where they're spending a couple of days with Mary Ann's sister. MA is as fit to be tied as I am. She made the mistake of trying to leave Manhattan at four-thirty in the afternoon Friday, and was surprised that the traffic was bad. Then she started sweating about Jude, who is now in the apartment in the Garment District by himself. He's the least of my worries. Today, the movie that took him on as a production assistant wrapped up, and tomorrow he'll be on the train to Washington. Dinner at the Thai Spice, which has been on my mind for a few weeks. Started with chicken and green curry soup, then had what amounted to an even bigger bowl of soup afterwards: jungle curry with beef. That's a totally different taste from the first course, and a very good one, loaded with vegetables. Eating this stuff is not only a huge pleasure, but make me feel virtuous. The high pepper level also makes me feel vaguely euphoric. That' s a feeling I needed more than anything. Thai Spice. Covington: 1531 US 190. 985-809-6483. Thai. Monday, July 28. Newspaper. Talking To A Cat. Acme. The tree-cutting crew is back again. I hear them grinding away nearby, but I'm not sure what they're up to. And I don't have time to look. That computer disaster over the weekend left me very far in the hole on my other daily projects, and I remained chained to my desk most of the day. That's after my morning routine of walking to the road to pick up the newspaper. The Times-Picayune's Monday editions have been slender lately--like the States-Item used to be back in the 1970s, before it was merged into the T-P. Last week I read an article about the declining newspaper business in the New Yorker. The writer guessed that the final edition of the last surviving printed newspaper would come out in 2043. I think it will be much sooner than that. I love newspapers--I have been writing for them all my adult life, and reading them since I was old enough to read. But the generation behind me isn't getting the habit. When that happened to Creole cream cheese, it almost disappeared. (Staying with the food simile, that's also happening to red beans and rice and chicory coffee here in New Orleans.) The dog, naturally enough, runs out ahead of me on my morning stroll to the mailbox. What's funny is that one of the cats always joins me, too. Twinnery takes his good old time, doesn't even try to keep up. But on my way back, I always meet him about a third of the way back to the house. He greets me with cat talk about the oddity of his going for a walk like a dog, and waves his tail sinuously in clear delight. I'm having conversations with cats. I have been alone too long. Speaking of that: the girls are now in the exurbs of Washington, D.C., where they're the guests of Mary Ann's sister. Jude checked out of the Manhattan apartment this morning and took a train to D.C., where he will meet up not with the girls but with some friends who will give him a bed for the next night or two. Jude hurt his back jumping off some high playground equipment a couple of nights ago. I think he's okay, from his description of the pain, but he'll have to go to a doctor when he gets home. Six hours later, I took a lunch break at the Acme Oyster House. I enjoyed the wedge salad with blue cheese (Mary Leigh's assessment that this is the best one in town may be correct) and oysters remoulade. The oysters, for the first time in my experience at the Acme, were not straight out of the fryer, but tepid. I thought about getting at least a side order of red beans, as I usually do here, but my eating has waned lately and I don't see the point of stretching my stomach to satisfy the requirements of a tradition. I hold up my end most weeks. Tuesday, July 29. Emeril's. The rain came back with a vengeance today, and I'm happy to see it. It will wash away a lot of the detritus and mud ruts the tree-cutters left along my road. On the other hand, they came to work today but couldn't. So, for their convenience, they left a piece of heavy equipment on a patch of former woods that they apparently cut down expressly for this parking need. Driving in front of Emeril's in my departure from the radio station, I looked inside and saw what I thought were empty tables. A parking space appeared almost immediately thereafter. I take such apparitions as behavioral cues. I pulled over and found that the empty tables were an illusion. There were a couple of openings, but people with reservations were expected. However, they could accommodate me at the food bar. I like eating at the food bar at Emeril's. It's certainly perfect for a single diner. The archway under which the black marble counter curves is made of light boxes filled with various dried foods, most of a granular nature. The major part of the kitchen is right back there, and you can watch the cooks hard at work. In the original layout, the grills and ovens were directly on the other side of the counter, which wafted smoke up at you now and then, so this is better. The cooks, far from being put out by having their actions under scrutiny, seem to like this new celebrity, and often initiate the conversations with the customers. That's certainly something new. They started me off with an amuse bouche of baby octopus and garlic cloves with spicy, chunky tomatoes on a bruschetta. The first real course was something new: rabbit remoulade. The white style of that sauce was warmed up a bit and mixed with good-sized shards of white rabbit meat, all sandwiched between a couple of fried green tomatoes. The chef tried to talk me into the fresh cod--a rarity in this part of the world. I told him I was more interested in the squab. No problem--he sent me a demi-order of the cod, too, with olives, tomatoes, peppers, oranges, and a few other things. This must be one of Emeril's Portuguese-inspired dishes from his youth in New England. Which would, of course, include the cod. The squab was terrific. It was rare inside and looked like light beef, the way good squab should. It came out on a layer of something I've known about for a long time, but never eaten: farro. It's an ancestor of wheat, and among the most ancient of cultivated plant foods, dating back to prehistory. It's still grown and eaten here and there in Italy. It's caught on with the cutting-edge chefs lately. The health-foodies have eaten it for years. It's nutty and difficult to hard to chew, more because of its size (laf that of rice) than its texture. Dessert was a little pecan pie with sweet potato ice cream and a fresh peach mille-feuille--small but nice. Coincidentally, sommelier Steve Russett had some news. After a couple of years of appearing in the Wine Spectator's list of America's best wine cellars with an asterisk (denoting the rebuilding phase after the hurricane), Emeril's has once again been accorded the full Grand Award from the magazine. The celler hd about 1650 selections before the storm; they're back up now to about 1500, and still growing. From that wealth he matched a few wines with my dinner. The best of them was a Dolcetto d'Alba bigger than any I've had before. That's a marvelous little red wine from the land of the big Barolos and Barbarescos, and was especially pleasant with the squab. This dinner was a shade over a C-note. On my way out, I thought about a possible definition of a five-star restaurant as being one where a hundred-dollar dinner seems like a good deal. (That will have to be adjusted for inflation in the future, of course.) Emeril's is unambiguously a five-star. Emeril’s. Warehouse District: 800 Tchoupitoulas. 504-528-9393. Contemporary Creole. Wednesday, July 30. Impastato's. It's my final day of almost four weeks of living alone. In the big picture, I don't like it, but it does have its points. Writing in a quiet house is eminently easier than when Jude is practicing his piano, Mary Ann has questions of deep significance to the future, and Mary Leigh wants to use my computer (they all have their own! why always mine?). But I look forward to the return of all of them, starting tomorrow. After a relaxing, productive morning and early afternoon, I took a refreshing half-hour nap and set out for the South Shore at about three. We're broadcasting from Impastato's, shaving at least fifteen minutes off my commute. The show went well--the later showtime means that people start showing up at the restaurant during the last two hours, which gives the remote broadcast a raison d'etre. I keep waiting for Joe Impastato to decide that these four-times-a-year dinners have run their course, even though we always have a good attendance. He surprised me by saying that he was thinking of going up to six dinners a year. He must have read my mind, because the next thing out of his mouth was, "And we can do some new dishes, too, not the same things we always do. Next time, maybe some braciolone. Grilled quail. All kinds of things we can cook." This kind of frequency would have been anathema when the Eat Club dinners began fourteen years ago. But there's nothing wrong with evolution. Especially when everybody who comes to the dinners here leaves happy. My version of the dinner started with a mouth-searing order of baked Italian oysters with bread crumbs and garlic. Then the usual pasta duo, which always competes for best course of the night. They usually bring me an entree platter with all three or four choices piled on it. That's not only ridiculously too much food, but makes the other diners look at me funny. I asked this time for just a simple order of pork speidini. It's one of the most underrated dishes here: pork tenderloin stuffed with bread crumbs, garlic, and prosciutto. I loved it. Among the seventy people here tonight was Clark, the Gourmet Truck Driver. He's a demi-celebrity among my listeners, who ask about him at all the dinners. But he rarely comes, because he's often still on the road at seven when we begin. I introduced him with a fanfare. He's also joining us on the Caribbean cruise in February, which should add to the merriment. Also here were the Blocks and the Charvets. They were with us on the Panama Canal cruise last fall, and were stalwart attendees at Tom's Martinis At Seven Club before dinner most nights. Having them tonight was a reunion. Many friendships have been formed among our cruisers, and this was one of them. Impastato's. Metairie: 3400 16th Street. 504-455-1545. Italian. Thursday, July 31. Jude's Home. Bozo's. Tujague's. Jude departed Washington (Baltimore, really) for home early this morning. I finished the newsletter and let the other standard morning jobs slide to pick him up at noonish. I would have left earlier, but took the Audi so he could drive. (He can't drive my five-speed manual PT Cruiser.) This meant moving all the necessaries I travel with from one car to another, which takes at least fifteen minutes. One's car becomes a portable headquarters when one lives fifty miles away from where one works. He seems to be getting around okay, but he's concerned enough about possible back injury from that jump he made a few days ago that he has an appointment with the doctor tomorrow. I saw him having trouble getting into the car. I think it's muscular. I hope it is. Nineteen is too young to start with back problems. (Although I started having them at twenty-four.) Lunch at Bozo's, where I have not been in too long. Chris Vodanovich looked the same, and pretty damn good for a man of eighty-three and two heart surgeries. He's still at the range, cooking the catfish and oysters and shrimp. He reeled back in amazement at Jude's grown-up stature. He and his wife Bernie can remember Jude as a baby. The gumbo elicited my usual response: my first spoonful said that it wasn't as good as I remember, but each one got better until the last one was eaten with equal parts of relish and regret. Jude consumed an entire bowl, which at Bozo's is more than two cups' worth. Fried catfish: perfect. Wild-caught Des Allemands fish, small and golden brown. Jude had his catfish enclosed in a poor boy. A perfect return-to-New Orleans lunch, he said. He dropped me off at the radio station and went out in search of friends while I took care of a few odd jobs at the radio station. And caught a nap on the floor of the studio. It's another late night tonight. I was ready to walk the fourteen blocks to Tujague's, where the today's broadcast will originate. But Jude thoughtfully returned to give me that lift. He took off again, to return three hours later for the Eat Club dinner. It went off in Tujague's main dining room. The upstairs had an air-conditioning problem, but Steve Latter--the owner--said he preferred having it in the long, tiled-floor parlor where people have been eating Creole food for a century and a half under the Tujague's name. The only problem was that the room got very noisy in the final half-hour of the show. Most of the Eat Clubbers arrived a little early for the complimentary Sazeracs. That cocktail has a way of making the volume rise, anyway. The dinner bore the stamp of Chef Chris Canan, who stuck his head out once during the proceedings. I never got a chance to speak with him. The shrimp remoulade that kicked off the repast was nothing like the spartan version Tujague's served when I first began dining here in the mid-1970s. The shrimp were touched by both shades of remoulade sauce--the red-orange one based on ketchup, and the white one based on mayonnaise. (Creole mustard is the active ingredient in both.) Among the greens that surrounded the shrimp was a little shoe carved out of a fresh beet: Chris Canan's trademark. Then corn and crawfish bisque, creamy and good. Fried oysters with a brown butter and garlic sauce flew past me while I was busy trying to squeeze another few chairs in (eight more people showed up than had reserved, and there wasn't really enough room for them). I was firmly back in my seat for the boiled beef brisket--itself firmly ensconced on Tujague's menu for a century or so. Entree platters arrived carrying a dish made of mirlitons, shrimp, and tasso, in a sort of homely pile--classic Tujague's style. Waiters squeezed between the tables to distribute pieces of garlic-coated chicken bonne femme (the best dish the house) and filets mignon with a cream and peppercorn sauce. Wine flowed freely. Then came squares of praline cheesecake and only a few glasses of coffee. (Tujague's serves coffee in the kind of glass used for Old Fashioneds.) Suddenly, the room was empty. It was a very happy and pleased party. Jude drove us home. Staying up late is normal for him. As he did hundreds of times when I was at the wheel, I fell asleep during most of the Causeway crossing. My turn. Bozo’s. Metairie: 3117 21st Street. 504-831-8666. Seafood. Tujague’s. French Quarter: 823 Decatur. 504-525-8676. Classic Creole. Forward to August 2008 © 2008 Tom Fitzmorris. All rights reserved. news@nomenu.com