The New Orleans Menu

A Progressive Feast Saturday Afternoon In Six Restaurants
Cruising And Tasting For St. Jude Hospital

Now here's a unique event, one that will appeal to the many people who ask me about progressive dinners. Those have diners move from restaurant to restaurant, sampling a dish or two at each stop. Such a program roll around the Mandeville-Covington corridor this Saturday afternoon from 11:30 a.m. until 6 p.m. For $40, participants will stop at six restaurants, at each of which they'll have a specialty or two. You have an hour or so range in which to check in at each restaurant as you drive yourself around.

There's more. At each of the side restaurants, you'll pick a playing card from a deck and keep it. At the final stop, you lay down your cards, and the three best poker hands will win prizes.

Registration is 11:30 a.m. at Garcia's new Mexican restaurant in Covington. Here's the whole list of restaurants, their dishes, and the schedule:

Garcia's
Chicken enchilada dippers, creamy tomatillo sauce
Mini spinach-artichoke chimichangas, honey-habanero sauce
200 River Highlands Blvd., Covington, Noon-1 p.m.

Annadele’s Plantation
Mini crab cakes
Parmesan chicken pinwheels
Mushrooms veronique
71518 Chestnutt St., Covington, 12:30-2 p.m.

Don’s Seafood Hut
Charbroiled oysters
126 Lake Dr., Covington, 1:30-3 p.m.

Fazzio's
Jambalaya and chicken alfredo
1841 N Causeway Blvd, Mandeville, 2:30-4 p.m.

N’Tini’s
Shrimp and grits
Chicken and beef kabobs
2891 US 190, Mandeville, 3:30-5 p.m.

The Wine Loft
Surf and turf skewers
Bacon-wrapped scallops
2891 US 190, Mandeville, 4:30-6 p.m.

All the proceeds go to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

Cruising & Tasting For St. Jude. Noon-6 p.m., Saturday, May 19, 2012.

Friday And Saturday
Oktoberfest In May, Old Covington

This evening and tomorrow afternoon, a big beer tent goes up for the offering of food, music, and German-style brews at Heiner Brau, the artisan micro-brewery in Covington. Presided over by brewmaster Henryk "Heiner" Orlik, the big feature of the event is the beer, made right on site.

But other attractions turn Springfest into a family festival. The food will come from the very good Beck 'n' Call cafe a block away. A schedule of blues music performers will keep the music going as continuously as the beer. And on Saturday afternoon there's one of the art markets for which Covington is famous. Finally, Heiner will give tours of the brewery on Saturday.

The site is easy to find: it's right under the old water tower in the middle of downtown Covington, near the courthouse. The party runs from five till nine tonight (Friday, May 18), and noon until nine Saturday.

Springfest. Covington Trailhead, Vermont at Theard Streets. Map.
http://www.heinerbrau.com

Courtyard Tour, Food And Wine Tasting, Sunday.

The most beautiful and distinctive courtyards are not the familiar ones in restaurants, but the private spaces attached to residences throughout the French Quarter. We don't get many chances to see those up close, but we will this Sunday. The Friends of the Cabildo hosts a unique tour of some of the most remarkable examples of this distinctly New Orleans architectural tradition.

Nice as that is, the presence of food and wine is why I am telling you about it. The tours begin at the 1850 House in the Lower Pontalba (523 St. Ann), and continue from 4-6 p.m. this Sunday, May 20. At six, participants are invited to a light supper with food from the Palace Cafe and Redemption, and a tasting of five Spanish wines that span the styles from bubbly cava to big, meaty reds. The food and wine will be at Madame John's Legacy, 632 Dumaine, one of the oldest buildings in New Orleans, now itself a museum. It will be a fascinating evening for those who love New Orleans architecture and history.

Tickets are $65 for one, $120 for two, and can be had by going online here.

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Wednesday, May 16, 2012.
West Banking At Café Etienne.

All of a sudden, it was as if my radio station had left the air. Nobody was calling into the program, after a good first hour. When a caller did appear, he had a theory. "Drew Brees is on WWL talking about why he doesn't have a contract yet." I looked into the WWL studio, two panes of glass from mine. I saw both Chris Claus and Diane Newman--top station management--sitting in there and listening gravely. Drew said there was a lack of communication. I don't understand.

Dinner tonight was my second in recent history at Café Etienne, a little cottage-turned-bistro in Old Gretna. I went there two weeks ago and found it more than satisfying. Once I found it at all. Even though I know exactly where it is, I can't seem to drive directly to the place.

Owner Todd Wicker wears those Rat Pack-reminiscent mini-fedoras I see on the heads of a lot of hip young guys lately. (Maybe I need one of these for my Sinatra moods.) Todd also runs the bar. He asked whether I wanted a Manhattan like last time. Yes, please, but not like last time--not on the rocks. Sometimes I think I get as much of a thrill from drinking a cocktail out of a martini glass--preferably with something spherical in the bottom--as I do from the drink itself.

Here came another, almost laughably homely amuse-bouche: a piece of focaccia with a very spicy, crunchy little pile of diced vegetables. But it's just a neighborhood café, and it tasted good, so that works.

A lightly creamy, slightly sweet shrimp bisque was the soup du jour. About a half-dozen whole, peeled shrimp were in there. I skipped the free salad in favor of an insalata Caprese. Good news: it had been made to order, instead of hours ahead. Less-good news: the plate was warm, and this warmed the fresh mozzarella and even the tomatoes a little. I tuned that out and enjoyed.

Chicken piccata for an entree. It was unusual in having no coating of any kind, although the lemon-butter-caper sauce was good enough. Nice medley of very fresh vegetables same on the side, but no pasta. But pasta is the last thing I need.

For dessert, the last piece of a chocolate-coconut cake the owner's wife made for Mother's Day. It was even better than the non-chocolate version. And better than the bread pudding.

Although the dining room was nearly full when I arrived, it had emptied completely save for me by the time darkness fell. I was reading a magazine. Todd entered the room and dimmed the lights. Every restaurant does this, and I can't figure out why. Seems like when it gets dark outside, the lights ought to be turned up, not down.

I pulled out the light I use to take photos and continued reading. For the first time in recorded history, a manager picked up the cue and turned the lights back up. "You're the only one in here, after all," Todd said. "Hope that helps." It did. And thank you!

The magazine was The New Yorker, and the article was about Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga making a record together. Halfway through the article, who should step in but Joe Segreto! He's the owner of Eleven 79, over on Annunciation Street. Joe kept appearing in the prose for two more pages. I know he's a close personal friend of Tony Bennett, but it was still a surprise to run into a local guy in a national magazine. I keep telling Joe that he must write his autobiography.

Speaking of Eleven 79, the fire that shut the place down a few weeks ago did not daunt Joe for long. The restaurant is back open again for lunch and dinner.

Cafe Etienne. Gretna: 423 10th Street. 504-309-4072.

Eleven 79. Warehouse District: 1179 Annunciation. 504-569-0001.

Thursday, May 17, 2012.
Tariq And His Sorbets. Dinner At Le Foret.

The radio venue today was New Orleans Audi, where we have done quite a few programs in the past few years, although none lately. Today's motivation was next week's New Orleans Wine and Food Experience, of which Audi is a major sponsor.

Appearing on behalf of the food world was Tariq Hanna, the chef and tastemaker of Sucre and its meticulously artful pastries, chocolates, tarts, and other confections. Tariq came in his gelato truck, and passed out samples of a strawberry gelato to all comers. Quite a few people showed up for test drives in an Audi, because that qualified them for free tickets to various NOW&FE events.

We had a rare eruption of hotheadedness during the program. A guy called and asked about food trucks. I gave my usual and accurate answer: I have not yet found a food truck to sample its food, even when I went to locations where the trucks were seen the day before. I also expressed my belief that the interest in food trucks has more to do with the regard younger New Orleanians have for what the late writer Don Lee Keith called "Sleazy Chic." The more informal the institution, the more the Sleazy Chic crowd likes it. (Definitive example of the genre: Uglesich's.) Thence comes the current belief that food trucks serve better food than a brick-and-mortar restaurant, a notion almost always disproved by both simple logic and practical experience.

A call or two later, another person challenged my thesis. He said that if I ignored food trucks, I was not serving my audience. I would report on them if I could find them, I said again. He said I wasn't trying hard enough. After all, he said, what about those food trucks that are in front of a few bars after midnight. I noted that my current lifestyle doesn't place me in bars after midnight, although I certainly did in my youth. I begged pardon for my age, and the habits associated with it.

It just got louder and louder. Then a traffic accident occurred right in front of the dealership, followed shortly after by another one. J.P. Morgan lost another billion. The sticker price on the current Audi R8 supercar was revealed to be almost $150,000. And I hung up on the guy.

The rest of the show was calmer. Tariq made a yogurt and passionfruit ice cream that was luscious. All the tickets went.

Mary Ann suggested a few days ago that we have dinner at Le Foret, a restaurant we both love. It's walking distance from the radio station. But we hardly ever go there. Why? Because it's so reliably excellent that I don't feel the need to check up on it more often than once or twice a year.

I've got to start dining out more often for sheer pleasure.

Danny Millan, who manages Le Foret, acted as both maitre d' and bartender tonight. He had a big party going on upstairs, and the regular mixologist was there. I hung onto the bar and we caught up. Danny said that business during the Jazz Festival was off the charts--better than either Final Four or French Quarter Festival. Strange though it may seem, JazzFest-goers are on the older side. A lot of them started coming when they were in their twenties--back in the Seventies. A lot of them apparently like the contrast between the Fair Grounds and Le Foret's tony dining room and menu.

One of those was George Wein, who created the New Orleans Jazz Festival after pioneering with the Newport Jazz Festival back in the 1960s. He's in his nineties now. Danny said he was at Le Foret three nights running.

The New Orleans Wine and Food Experience will do well by Le Foret, too. The restaurant's wine dinner next Wednesday features Dom Perignon and other Champagnes from Moet. Even at $150 a person--one of the three or four highest prices for the NOW&FE dinners--Danny has seventy people booked.

Danny's consultancy to Tamarind By Dominique--in the Hotel Modern on Lee Circle--has come to an end. Now he's involved in Dominique Macquet's next restaurant, set to open in a few months on Magazine Street. Today, he drove to Baton Rouge to get the liquor licenses worked out. He also told me that he has a location (Lakeview) and a name for the first restaurant he will do on his own in the next year or two.

That's the modern restaurateur, isn't it? Many fingers, many pies.

Our dinner was thoroughly marvelous. After an amuse-bouche that included what we both thought was the best asparagus soup we'd ever had, here came prosciutto-wrapped quail, pulled apart into two legs and one whole breast (both sides) and roasted. Between these were oversized gnocchi. Everything was moistened with a quail jus (how many birds are required to get that?) and a little Creole mustard.

The other starter was a small version of the day's vegetarian entree. Irregular goat cheese ravioli were surrounded by five kinds of mushrooms, including one I never heard of (yellow foot). This was spectacular.

Now a mound of greens and vegetables, topped with a levee of jumbo lump crabmeat. All MA's favorite things. Crawfish bisque for me. The bisque was refined more than a Cajun would feel comfortable with. The broth was thick and intense, with the crawfish component thoroughly pureed into it. The only solids in the bowl were dice of andouille and potatoes and kernels of corn. I'm not sure it's a good idea to call this crawfish bisque, given the expectations that name implies. Mary Ann, who probably wanted to find stuffed crawfish heads, was a little put off. I loved it.

Danny returned to town from Baton Rouge the long way, through the town of Jean Lafitte. But that's where he goes three days a week to buy soft-shell crabs from one guy, and his unpasteurized jumbo lump crabmeat from the famous Mr. Higgins. Mary Ann already had the crabmeat, and now went to work on the giant soft-shell, enclosed in a mixture of corn, fresh herbs, baby lettuces, and little tomatoes.

On tonight's menu (it changes every day) was a dish I've been asked about a lot lately. After thirty years of waiting to be discovered, the sous vide method of cooking has made its way to serious menus. It involved enclosing uncooked food (a filet mignon, in this case) in an airtight plastic pouch. The entire pouch is then cooked in simmering water for a long time--I've heard it can be as long as several hours. When it reaches the right internal temperature, it's removed from the pouch and seared in a hot, buttered pan on top of the stove. The result is that the interior is very tender and juicy, and the crusty exterior doesn't penetrate deeply.

I have had deep doubts about this, by Chef Carlos Briceno made a believer out of me. I wonder how this would work with a sirloin strip, whose firmness might benefit from the slow, long cooking.

The meal wrapped up with a bananas Foster cheesecake and a dense coconut tart--both pretty and good, but too much to finish.

We kept our taste buds wet with a couple of glasses of Billecart-Salmon Brut Rose. That Champagne house in unusual in being better known for its rose than its other cuvees, even though all are excellent. Mary Ann loves rose bubbly, and so do I. Especially when I'm with a beautiful woman.

Le Foret. CBD: 129 Camp. 504-553-6738.

It's over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.

Tripping On A Culinary Time Machine

Antoine's
Wednesday, June 6, 2012, 7 p.m.
French Quarter: 713 St. Louis St.
$100, inclusive of tax, tip, and wines

Click here to reserve.

I was talking with the management at Antoine's not long ago about how long it's been since we have an Eat Club function there. We talked about repeating a very successful all-appetizer repast we had there a couple of years ago. But my mind kept going to dishes I used to like that have disappeared from the menu.

"Why not a full evening of dishes from a hundred years ago at Antoine's?" I blurted out, half kidding. We all looked at one another, each of us thinking about how good such a dinner would actually be. A few minutes later, we have the whole menu worked out.

All of the dishes have long histories, but became extinct recently enough that both Chef Mike Regua and I can remember what they tasted like. Of course, Antoine's still has all the recipes in its voluminous files.

Oysters Ellis
Not a baked dish, but a thick, rich, highly savory stew of oysters in a brown sauce with mushrooms, sherry, a little tomato, and an accent of sauce Colbert

Vichyssoise
A classic cold soup of leeks and potatoes, this could not be called extinct. But Antoine's unusually rich version hasn't been served there for years. Sounds French, but it was actually invented in America.

Fonds d'Artichaut Bayard
Utterly unique, this looks like what you'd get if Picasso ever designed a salad. An artichoke bottom holds a ball of minced, highly flavorful vegetables--including all the ones that go into oysters Rockefeller (secret revealed!). A little caviar on top. I always loved this.

Caille Sauce Paradis
The original Antoine's version was made with squab (baby pigeon). But that's very difficult to find these days. So we're using quail instead. The "sauce of Paradise" (!) is a chicken veloute with a unique array of flavors from bacon to ripe grapes.

Cerises Jubilee
We're cheating on this one: you can still get cherries Jubilee at Antoine's. But its history is long: it made created for the jubilee celebration of Queen Victoria in 1887. It's what I had for dessert at the end of my first dinner at Antoine's. The waiters literally set the place on fire!

Wines will accompany every course. I don't have those details yet, but will post them as soon as I do. We will also have a reception before we sit down to dinner, with souffle potatoes and maybe a few other things.

Click here to reserve.

Christopher's On Carey

Slidell: 2228 Carey St. 985-641-4501. Map.
Nice Casual.
AE MC V
Website

WHY IT'S NOTEWORTHY
One restaurant at a time, Slidell has been expanding its collection of ambitious restaurants in recent years. Christopher's on Carey is the best new addition, a gourmet bistro with polished, contemporary food and service in a space with a rustic quaintness.

WHAT'S GOOD
Christopher hews to the current vogues of white-tablecloth dining, emphasizing local produce and seafood in attractive, interesting compositions. The menu is appealing, but it seems to me that the best food on any given night is likely to come from the large selection of seasonal specials. The chef puts more effort into sourcing the food for the specials, which bring the likes of venison and excellent local fish species to the table.

BACKSTORY
Chef Christopher Case is a graduate of culinary school and a number of major local restaurants (Lilette, La Provence, and Vrazel's in Gulfport). In 2011 he and a partner took over the Victorian Tea Room--a genteel cafe in Olde Towne Slidell--and turned it into a more general and much more ambitious restaurant. (Although the catered tea parties continue.) The building has a long history, including decades as a well-known drugstore and soda fountain.

DINING ROOM
The center of the oldest part of Slidell is very quiet at night--perhaps too quiet. When you enter the restaurant, there's a feeling of relief that something seems to be going on there. But then you notice the old-fashioned decor, which reaches far beyond retro to what may seem corny to city folk. But you are in Slidell, and the look is right for the locale. The environment strongly contrasts unexpectedly with the au courant cookery.

ESSENTIAL DISHES
Starters
»Soup du jour
»Salad of fresh beets, goat cheese, arugula, pistachios, sherry vinaigrette
Spinach salad, dried cranberries, walnuts, blue cheese, apple, port wine vinaigrette
Crab cakes, arugula, ravigote sauce
»Crispy chicken spring rolls
»Oysters and bacon en brochette
»Shrimp remoulade napoleon, fried green tomato and eggplant
»Barbecue shrimp and cheese grits, tasso ham

Entrees
»Pan-seared speckled trout, meuniere or amandine
Pan-roasted mahi-mahi, saffron seafood cream
»Pan roasted pompano, spinach, citrus brown butter
»Daily fish specials
Filet mignon, hand-cut fries, peppercorn sauce
Veal rib chop, mushrooms, white wine and butter sauce, spinach
Chef's daily sautéed veal medallions

Desserts
Abita root beer float
»Bananas Foster bread pudding
»Caramel custard
House made brownie, vanilla ice cream

FOR BEST RESULTS
Consider the specials before the main main menu. A three-course early-evening menu is a bargain at $35. If you don't know your way around Slidell well, print out the map. The way the street grid works is mildly confusing.

OPPORTUNITIES FOR IMPROVEMENT
I find the music irritating, although I can't decide whether it's the volume (a little too loud) or the era (1960s, mostly).

FACTORS OTHER THAN FOOD
Up to three points, positive or negative, for these characteristics. Absence of points denotes average performance in the matter.

• Dining Environment +1
• Consistency +1
• Service +1
• Value +2
• Attitude +2
• Wine and Bar +1
• Hipness +1
• Local Color +2

SPECIAL ATTRIBUTES

• Romantic
• Medium private room
• Early-evening specials
• Easy, nearby parking
• Reservations accepted

Dozen Best Garlic Bread, Crostini, Bruschetti, And Kin

Garlic bread is a cheap thrill. Yes, but it's such a thrill that even when it shows up in the best restaurants (i.e., #2 below), you use inordinately more than you should of your appetite glomming it down . Some restaurants have noted this and created garlic bread with college degrees, adding other ingredients like goat cheese and fresh herbs, and giving it alternative names like "crostini" and "bruschetta." (If only the waiters would pronounce it correctly: "broos-KET-ta.")

Although we think of garlic bread as quintessentially Italian, it's actually an American invention. (Toasting the bread and adding cheese are purely American.) Or, for the sake of argument, you could say that it's a takeoff on pizza.

It is a certainty that the idea is spreading and becoming much more varied. Here's my list of the best garlic breads and such like served around town.

1. Lilette. Uptown: 3637 Magazine. 504-895-1636. The best of the class is both mouth-filling and subtle at the same time. White truffle oil, parmesan cheese, wild mushrooms and marrow in full (not demi) veal glace. Insanely good.

2. Commander's Palace. Garden District: 1403 Washington Ave. 504-899-8221. My wife's favorite dish at this perennially great restaurant here is its garlic bread. She doesn't mean that as an insult to the rest of the menu. She goes through several plates of the oozy, toasted French bread crescents with invisible but tastable garlic, dill, and parmesan cheese. I keep right up with her.

3. Carmelo. Mandeville: 1901 US Hwy 190. 985-624-4844. At his original place in the French Quarter, Carmelo Chirico introduced New Orleans to the Calabrian idea of topping bruschetti with diced tomatoes, olive oil, basil, and a dash of balsamic. It's still a great starter at his new restaurant in Mandeville.

4. Sylvain. French Quarter: 625 Chartres St. 504-265-8123. Sylvain is as much a bar as it is a bistro, so it makes sense that they have two excellent appetizers-on-bread. The roasted beet bruschetta with goat cheese and a sherry vinaigrette gives--if you need one--a new appreciation of beets. The chicken liver crostini, meanwhile, it given textural contrast with sprouts and a thick syrup made of reduced dandelion wine. Get both with the first cocktail.

5. Brennan's. French Quarter: 417 Royal. 504-525-9711. The garlic bread appears in whole baguettes doused with the same herb-and-garlic butter they sizzle with escargots. Plus a little Parmesan cheese.

6. Andrea's. Metairie: 3100 19th St. 504-834-8583. Bruschetta with tomatoes, olive oil, fresh basil, oregano and other herbs on toasted ovals of French bread. Like everything here, it's a little inconsistent, but usually very fresh and appetizing. Served complimentary at dinner for special customers, or anyone who asks.

7. Slice. Lee Circle Area: 1513 St Charles Ave. 504-525-7437. ||Uptown: 5538 Magazine St. 504-897-4800. Slice bakes its own bread and makes crostini from it. All that's left is for them to top it with the tomato dice, fresh basil, and EVOO, and for you to dive in.

8. Mandina's. Mandeville: 4240 La 22. 985-674-9883. ||Mid-City: 3800 Canal. 504-482-9179. Simple: garlic and butter, on hot rounds of French bread. The Mandeville location's version is better by a nose.

9. Blue Plate Cafe. Lee Circle Area: 1330 Prytania. 504-309-9500. "Breakchetta" is a morning version of the idea, with thick, whole-grain toast topped with scrambled eggs, goat cheese, tomato and basil relish, and some light greens as a garnish. As tasty as it is healthy.

10. Leonardo's Trattoria. CBD: 709 St Charles. 504-558-8986. Classic bruschetta: toasted Italian bread rounds with tomatoes and enough olive oil to drip a little. It can substitute either for a salad or a pizza as a first course.

11. Lebanon's Cafe. Riverbend: 1500 S Carrollton Ave. 504-862-6200. Za'atar bread is the Middle Eastern equivalent of garlic bread, substituting olive oil for butter and a seasoning mix (za'atar) combining oregano, thyme, marjoram, sesame seeds, dill, sumac, and salt, but usually no pepper. It's toasted on pita bread and served hot.

12. Nirvana. Uptown: 4308 Magazine. 504-894-9797. Garlic naan probably can't be found in India, but it was inevitable here that the bread--baked on the inside wall of the super-hot tandoor oven, then buttered--would at some point have garlic added to the formula. And here it is.

Delerno's
Old Metairie: 619 Pink Street
1940s-1990s

Can you imagine a New Orleans-style restaurant that never serves crawfish? Strange as it seems, that was the case in most New Orleans eateries above the level of boiled-and-fried seafood houses in the 1960s and earlier. Crawfish--even in polite dishes like bisques, etouffees and gratins--were simply not on the menu in most white-tablecloth restaurants.

The few better establishments that made crawfish a house specialty did very well with it. The Bon Ton Café became world-famous for serving great Cajun-style crawfish dishes. Out-of-towners found it exotic and delicious, back then and still.

Delerno's was on a crawfishing par with the Bon Ton, but focused almost entirely on local diners. J.B. Delerno (I never heard anyone--not even his wife--call him by other than his initials) spent some years in other people's restaurants before opening his own in Old Metairie. He was quite a host, and built up a clientele so regular in their visits that it made a lasting impression.

If you mentioned Delerno's to those people, they would almost instantaneously reply, "J.B. makes the best crawfish in town!" They wouldn't mention which dish, exactly. J.B. cooked crawfish a lot of ways. Not only were these delicious, but they were presented more beautifully than I've seen crawfish served before or since.

The etouffee was a great example of that. An island of rice on the plate was surrounded by crawfish tails in a singular, deep orange sauce with a huge flavor and a tremendous number of crawfish tails. It was more a Creole etouffee than a Cajun one, but crawfish live in New Orleans, too.

That traditional dish was only the beginning. Crawfish turned up in various sauces next to or around all sort of other things: soft-shell crabs, veal, chicken. Crawfish appetizers were rife, notably an oddity called crawfish topas. These were essentially crawfish tostadas, with crawfish etouffee on flour tortillas, topped with cheese and green onions, all run under the broiler. (The name was a misspelling of "tapas." It and the dish spread to a few other restaurants, evolving into "Topaz" somewhere along the way.)

Delerno's cooked just about everything else well, particularly in the seafood department. It was a classic New Orleans neighborhood restaurant in the category of Mandina's or Manale's, with modest but comfortable dining rooms and chummy service.

Delerno's closed when J.B. passed away in the early 1980s. It has been a number of restaurants since--two of them called "Delerno's." Mrs. Delerno owned the building and lived upstairs. When asked by a tenant, she'd give advice on how to run the place. The location is now the Sun Ray Grill.

Crawfish with Morel Mushrooms

Chef Raymond Toups--then the executive chef of the Rib Room--did this recipe once on my old television show. Afterwards, so many people came in to order it that the kitchen nicknamed it the "TV special." It's a terrific combination of flavors. I wouldn't bother with it except in the height of crawfish season, March through June. It's best served with rice, but it's also good with pasta.

• 1 1/2 lbs. fresh crawfish tails
• 1 oz. dried morel mushrooms (or 4 oz. fresh, if you're lucky enough to have them)
• 2 Tbs. butter
• 1 Tbs. French shallots, chopped
• 1 tsp. chopped fresh tarragon
• 1 tsp. chopped fresh chives
• 1/4 tsp. salt
• Pinch cayenne
• 1 1/2 cups cooked rice

1. Soak the morels in water to reconstitute them. Change the water several times to get all the inevitable sand out of their many fissures.

2. Melt the butter in a skillet and sauté the crawfish tails and the morels until they're hot all the way through--about two minutes.

3. Add the shallots, tarragon, chives, salt and cayenne, and cook for about a minute more.

4. Divide the rice on plates and spoon the crawfish mixture over it.

Serves eight.