    "Eating, drinking and carrying on..." -- Adelaide Brennan
With these hands ... We pray for the strength, Lord ... to rebuild this city. Just a quick check-in after one of the best Jazzfest days ever. Leigh "Little Queenie" Harris was beyond amazing in a brilliant, sassy, funny, devastatingly emotional and ultimately joyous set to start off at the Jazz Tent. Then Don Vappie, encouraging rebirth of the city and especially its music education for the young. Then Sonny Landreth, smokin' as always. Then an astonishing set by Allan Toussaint and Elvis Costello, whom I can't wait to see on tour. Then ... the Boss.   It's been 26 years since I've seen him, and once again he put on one of the best shows I've ever seen. I'll let Steve take over from here, from the piece he wrote tonight:
Read the whole thing, it's great. [ Link to today's entries ]
Jazzfest in 1 hour and 45 minutes! Given my lack of time for weblog posting, let me refer you to the site where my good friend Steve will be posting about Jazzfest three or four times a day (Why? Because AOL is paying him, woohoo!) -- Blogging New Orleans. There are categories for "Recovery" and "Pictures" and "Videos," but Steve's stuff will probably all be under the "Jazzfest" category. Have fun! Restaurant Cuvée: Sneak preview No time for a full post (I'll do one later), but I have a set up at Flickr for our spectacular meal at Cuvée.  Oh, my. [ Link to today's entries ]
It's Jazzfest time in New Orleans ... (Sing it, Dave ...)
Never could make out that second line ... anyway. We leave this morning, heading home to New Orleans for two weeks of The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, and therefore posting will likely be light to nonexistent over the next two weeks. There's wi-fi where we'll be staying, but don't count on my having lots of time to post. I'll be checking email and Looka! posts, so if anyone's gonna be at Fest, drop me a line. (Gotcha, Barry, Ashley and Louis.) If you're stuck somewhere outside of New Orleans, you can keep up with what's going on via streaming webcasts from WWOZ, and there'll be streaming video from MSN. Be sure to tune in on Sunday at 11:30am Central Time for the set from my friend Leigh "Little Queenie" Harris; I got a little forewarning that she'll definitely be on the webcast, although I forgot to ask whether it's 'OZ or MSN. Let's hope for both! Besides soaking in the music and, I hope, doing a day or two of volunteer work with the Katrina Krewe, we'll be eating. A lot. We've got scheduled meals so far at Cuvée, Bayona, Ye Olde College Inn (mmmm, fried oyster, bacon and Havarti poor boy ...), Café Adelaide, The Bistro at Maison de Ville, Drago's (mmmmm, charbroiled oysters ...), Cochon, (mmmmm, pig!), plus one shrimp boil, one crawfish boil, various and sundry stops for muffulettas and poor boys, a possible stop at Creole's Lunch House in Lafayette for stuffed bread, and not to mention all the food at the Fest. Although we'll miss Creole's Stuffed Bread (and Miss Merline, and Mr. Raymond) dearly this year, there's some really delectable-lookin' new stuff to check out (via Michael, who emailed these suggestion to a friend of ours, and to which I've added my own comments):
Plus some other old favorites:
There's so much more that there's really not enough time to talk about it, and certainly not enough time (or stomach volume) to eat it all: Sausage and jalapeño bread, Cuban sandwiches, sweet potato pone, boudin balls, ya ka mein, spicy crawfish sushi roll, Oysters Rockefeller bisque, jama jama with red-hot sauce and plantains, plus all the local Creole specialties like red beans, jambalaya, etc. One caveat -- there's one dish that you'll hear people rave about, and you'll see long, long lines for it: Crawfish Bread. Everybody will tell you that they love Crawfish Bread. Basically, it's just some crawfish tails baked into an empanada-like pie with about sixteen tons of melted cheese. Some people love it, but Michael and I are in agreement that this is the single most overrated dish at the Fair Grounds. Need I also remind you what Dean said: "Crawfish bread is all right, if you don't mind not having a bowel movement until June." Unheralded genius. Yep, everybody knows about Professor Longhair, and Dr. John, and these days (sadly, mostly due to Katrina) more and more people know about the great Allen Toussaint as well. It seems, though that not enough people outside the circle of hardcore New Orleans music lovers seem aware of the massive contributions to New Orleans music of James Carroll Booker III, "arguably the greatest rhythm and blues pianist who ever lived." There's a pretty good profile of him in the Chronicle, including some amusing anecdotes about his musical genius:
Start with "Junco Partner" if you don't have any Booker, then try to ... well, buy all the rest of them. [ Link to today's entries ]
I scream, you scream ... ever'body love ice cream, rock ... rock my baby rock. (Yeah, go George Lewis.) I mention that great old jazz song to remind all y'all to get your free ice cream today ...
Mmmmm, free ice cream! (Hey, does anyone have Free Bacon Day?) Death of a theatre. When I was in college I worked as an usher at the Village Aurora Cinema Six in Algiers (that's on the Westbank of New Orleans, in case you didn't know), from early 1980 until right before I moved to L.A. in August 1982. I got paid a whopping $3.35 per hour (minimum wage at the time, for an annual half-time salary of less than $3,500), but also meant that thanks to a professional courtesy agreement among mosts local theatres I didn't have to pay a movie admission anywhere in the city for two years. I saw lots of movies, and saved quite a bit. Yesterday I got an email from a guy named Kent, who must have started working at the Aurora right after I left. He stumbled across a videoblog done by a guy who had apparently grown up in Algiers with the Aurora as his neighborhood theatre. About three years ago he returned to Algiers some 20 years after having moved away and was shocked to find it being demolished. It's eerie. I recognized everything; what was left of it, that is -- the side of the lobby where I usually worked, looking back to my usher's station; the concession stand; the projection booth; one of the smaller theatres on my old side. It's sad to see, but suburban regional theatres have been dying in New Orleans for years. Not only is the Village Aurora gone, but so is Belle Promenade (along with the entire mall), the magnificent Robert E. Lee in Lakeview (as Juliette said, the theatre "was deserted long before the 17th St. Canal breach, but it's an even sadder sight now"), the Plaza Cinema 4 in New Orleans East near my parents' old house, where I also worked briefly (the entire Plaza shopping center is now a ruin, as is the Grand Theatre multi-plex that was built adjacent to it and was itself doing lousy business before Katrina), the Kenilworth Cinema, where I was a projectionist for several months, the Lakeside Cinemas at the Lakeside shopping mall, the Lakeside Theatres across Vets (including the fabulous theatre that used to be an old church), the Sena Mall in Metairie (now Martin Wine Cellar), the downtown Joy ... it's so, so sad. Speaking of the Joy, in the course of some Google-research for this post I stumbled across an independently-produced local documentary called No More Joy: The Rise and Fall of New Orleans' Movie Theatres. I know nothing about it, or if it's any good or not ... but screw it, I'm orderin' it today. The good news amidst all this sad nosgalgia is that the venerable Prytania Theatre is still open, the only single-screen movie theatre in the city or anywhere near it. (Check out Juliette's entire set of N.O. movie theatre photos, all post-Katrina.) Village Aurora Cinema Six. Man, have I got some stories from that place ... Idiots. I sometimes (if not often, if not always) suffer despair at the mere mention of the Louisiana state legislature. I remember someone's anecdote of "Hayul, ah remembuh when legislatuhs used ta throw chicken bones at each otha and get inta fistfights on th' floah of th' legislacha ..." I don't think they've progressed all that far since. The latest, besides their constant attempts to ban abortions with no provision for the health of the mother and impose creationism on state classrooms? Yet another attempt to ban flag burning.
With all that needs to be done in Louisiana, with all the important work before the state legislature, this asshole is wasting time trying to increase the penalty for flag burning, which is already protected protest speech? Anyone remember the last Louisiana legislator who was so preoccupied with flag burning? Yep, that's right ... David Duke. In fact, the only bill he ever wrote was not to ban flag burning, but to reduce the penalty for assault to a $25 file if the person convicted of assault had assaulted someone who was burning a flag. Aren't you proud, Sen. Cain? Moron. Yay, Mick! Via Barry K., from the otherwise loathsome U.K. paper The Sun (although perhaps not as loathsome as The Daily Mail):
Tony Blair may be Bush's poodle, but Mick certainly ain't. Heh. Your tax dollars at work, Part 254,966. (Via Wes.) What, again? Sadly, yes. From today's New York Times:
Ah, the good ol' Army Corps of Engineers. The same people responsible for making sure that New Orleans will be protected during the next hurricane season, which starts in just over a month. We are so fucked. [ Link to today's entries ]
Photo of the day. Glass flowers, Bellagio, Las Vegas.  The entire ceiling of the reception lobby of the Bellagio looks like this; the photo only shows a small part. It's pretty spectacular. That sinking feeling ... as Bush's approval rating is now 32%, according to a new CNN poll. I wonder how many rats will sink with this ship? Speaking of our despicable leaders, Digby tells us yet more about how despicable they really are: "The sheer volume on inhumane activity that the Bush administration has endorsed or perpetrated is so huge that it's hard to keep up." [ Link to today's entries ]
Cocktail of the day. I'm such a geek. I can't believe I'm doing this. I'm not one of these people who run right to the computer and blog everything they do right after they do it. I actually have a life. Yet here I am, five minutes after Wesly made me the fabulous cocktail I'm having right now. Well, he's finishing up a documentary on the Mintority Report DVD that I've already seen, and I've got five minutes. He got the inspiration out of Gary Regan's The Joy of Mixology, and it's not a drink we haven't had before. He just used some special ingredients, followed Gary's suggestions (i.e., garnish with a lemon twist and/or a cherry, and Wes opted for the "and"; using a different bitters than usual) and knocked me out. Boy, this is good. I shudder at the idea of ordering one in a bar, though ... how many bartenders will scoff and say, with a harrumph, "All my Manhattans are perfect."
You get a great flavor from the Peychaud's, and the extra level of bitterness you get in the Punt E Mes helps make up for the bitterness in the Angostura that we're not using in this version. Absolutely superb. Better and better. While New Orleans is still Not Okay, things move forward a millimeter at a time. French Quarter Festival is this weekend, and next weekend is Jazzfest -- those will help enormously. Chris "Mr. Clio" Wiseman offers his observations of some other things that are getting better:
My own observations/additions: I'll be at that Bud's next week, woohoo!! I can't speak for #3, as I know nothing about football. I'll take Chris' word for it. I'll add my parents' new house and my friends' new roofs to #10. To #12 I'll add my hopes that Holy Cross' purchase of the John F. Kennedy High School campus goes through. To #13 I'll say that now that I can't have Creole's Stuffed Bread every day, I'll just have more Hubig's Pies. (The lady at Terranova's says you have to get there early to get any flavor other than apple or lemon, so lovers of strawberry, cherry, chocolate or coconut pies should be early risers.) Make sure you read the fantastic link at #14 about the gumbo z'herbes fundraiser for Leah Chase. On any other Holy Thursday, those foodies would have been lunching at Dooky Chase Restaurant, savoring the thick, rich, green gumbo that Leah Chase has been preparing for more than a half-century to represent the last meat to be eaten before Easter. Ingredients have varied from year to year, but her fil? always included sassafras leaves from a tree her father planted. Hurricane Katrina killed the tree and flooded the 65-year-old Orleans Avenue restaurant, which is not expected to reopen for nearly two months. But in the past five weeks, a group led by Poppy Tooker, a self-styled culinary activist, determined that the Holy Thursday gumbo z'herbes lunch must be served and that the proceeds would help Chase, 83, renovate the establishment where she has cooked for the likes of Duke Ellington, Thurgood Marshall and Lena Horne. What a fantastic story. I won't have time to do it before I leave for Jazzfest, but as soon as we get back I'm making a huge pot of gumbo z'herbes. (I'll have to see if I can find some peppergrass when I'm home; any ideas?) Soooo-EEEEEEE!! Pig, pig, pig!! Okay, how can you resist a restaurant whose name translates from the French as "pig?" Well, you can't. Amidst the spate of new restaurants that have opened in New Orleans since Katrina (former Café Adelaide chef Kevin Vizard with his eponymous joint on St. Charles, Chef David English's new Seven on Fulton, which Poppy tried the other night) is the brand spanking new Cochon, co-owned by Chef Donald Link of Herbsaint, who's currently celebrating being nominated for "Best Chef - Southeast Region" by the James Beard Foundation. I didn't even know about Cochon's appearance, but Mary found out and quickly made reservations for the Pack for a week from Wednesday. The press release, out ten days ago, tantalizes us thusly:
Oh my Gawd. Oh hell, let's just look at the menu:  The problem with this menu ... is that I want all of it. [ Link to today's entries ]
Jazzfest sadness. The mainstay of Jazzfest food for me has been, for more years than I can count, something you've doubtless heard me talk about before if you've been reading this weblog (and the rest of the site too) for any length of time -- that miraculous little bun called Creole's Stuffed Bread. It was always the first thing I'd get, pretty much immediately upon my arrival at the Fair Grounds, and I'd often have a second one too. It's just ... so frackin' good I can't even do it justice. It sounds boring -- a fresh-baked bun stuffed with ground meat, sausage, cheese, hot peppers and spices. The end result is far, far more than the sum of its parts. Every Jazzfest day began with a warm greeting from Miss Merline Herbert, who's been making these for over 20 years and who sells them at the Fair Grounds: "Hey baby, how you doin'?!" When the food vendor schedules for Jazzfest were published last week, there was one heart-stopping omission -- no Creole's Stuffed Bread. I can't imagine Fest without it, and wondered what had happened. That very day, our intrepid friend Robin went to the source to find out, and reported back to us:
I'm so sorry to hear of Mr. Raymond's passing, and may he rest in peace. Miss Merline, you take care -- we'll certainly miss you this year, and we can't wait to see you next year. Dems meet today in New Orleans. As Steve said in email this morning, this is "my kind of political stunt;" one, we hope, that is "the start of a real, ongoing effort to make the message real through action."
Yeah? Maybe, but if "grandstanding" actually ends up doing something to help New Orleans and its people, it's fine with me. What the fuck have the Republicans done for us since the storm?
Oh, for Christ's sake ... "9/11, 9/11, 9/11," 24 hours a day for the last four-and-a-half years, and they have the gall to accuse anyone else of exploiting a tragedy? Excuse me while I find something to throw against the wall ...
Gee, could a contributing factor to that have been the continuing lack of desire of Congressional Republicans to allocate all the money the population of the Gulf Coast needs to protect themselves, including Category 5 hurricane protection and the restoration of the coastal wetlands? Instead, they're spending $10 billion a month on their little war. So do some good in New Orleans, DNC ... show us what you can do. It's a chance for you to be relevant. Have some fun while you're there too -- French Quarter Festival is this weekend. Oh, speaking of this weekend ... it's the mayoral election in New Orleans. This is gonna be a big one. I noted one of the more interesting developments this week (via Schroeder via Oyster): the Louisiana Weekly, the voice of the state's black community for over 80 years, has endorsed Mitch Landrieu for mayor.
As one of Oyster's commenters pointed out, though, Mitch is hardly new blood; father Moon and sister Mary were and have been around for a long time. Oyster has some great posts on the mayoral race, its candidates and the complex issues surrounding it. For a guy who likes to wear flight suits, notice that Bush does not so much fly as plummet. As Steve M. said in email this morning, his ratings fall so low so fast that not even Faux News can find a way to pretty 'em up:
Thirty-three. Do I hear thirty? [ Link to today's entries ]
Blecchh. Posting resumes, gently; I've been sick for the past week and wasn't up to it. Upper respiratory flulike thing kept me fairly miserable and home in bed for three days ... man, what a drag. If avian flu is gonna be a lot worse than this, then we're fracked. The Cocktailian. In the most recent edition of Gary Regan's fortnightly column, The Professor, our cocktailian bartender, serves up something to mark today's 100th anniversary of the Great San Francisco Earthquake of 1906 -- The Trembling Martini, simply a 6:1 gin-and-vermouth classic Martini, but made with locally-produced gin and vermouth (pretty cool, actually). Cocktail of the day. Besides the above, we also offer an appropriately named vintage cocktail ...
We'll be having this one tonight, I think. All the President's Lies. Carl Bernstein, half of the Washington Post reporting team that broke the Watergate coverup and brought down a crooked president, lays out the case for his call for Senate hearings on Bush, now. The introduction, and a few highlights:
Read the whole thing. [ Link to today's entries ]
Freedom On The March! (Domestic Edition). The only good election is one whose result you can influence (or steal).
Ah, the old non-denial denial. Two dozen calls. To the White House. Regarding a local election in New Hampshire. Gee, how many calls did they get from the other 49 states? Okay, it was just "routine election business", but the business of that election was to use illegal means to influence its outcome. Hey, if it stinks like a rotten fish ... (Via Steve M. ... thanks!) Cocktail of the day. This one was nicely medicinal when I got home last night. I was feeling crappy all day and came home exhausted (even though it was a very light work day). It was very tasty, but sadly didn't cure what ailed me; I'm home sick today (blecchh). Maybe try this one just for pleasure. I don't know anything about this drink's origins -- it was another gift from CocktailDB's Random Recipe link. It kept coughing up pousse-cafés, but Wes only needed to click it about 15 times to come up with this one.
There's a little spelling variation; it was also listed as the "Froupe," but I think this is the correct spelling. We particularly liked the double garnish, and noted that this drink warms up nicely as you sip. Idiot-in-chief. I found this video of Bush's Q&A session at Johns Hopkins University from yesterday on the weblog Philadelphia Will Do, under the title, "This Video Of President Bush, Speaking This Morning, Presented Entirely Without Comment, Except That You Should Watch For The Part Where He Pants Like A Dog Toward The End." As a Stephen King character once said ... Jesus H. jumped-up Christ in a chariot-driven sidecar. Let's have a look at that in print:
That man, who is the President of the United States, has been for five years and will be for three more, was completely befuddled by a question from a college student. It wasn't a particularly difficult question either, and a question I myself would like an answer to -- about how the private security contractors in Iraq don't seem to be covered by either military or Iraqi law, and how will we bring these people, currently running around lawless, under a system of law? I'd expect even a fictional president like Jed Bartlet to be able to answer this question immediately (and Bartlet would have knocked it out of the park; then again, Bartlet wouldn't have the country in the situation it's currently in). The man quite literally has no clue. Steve pointed out in email that the flustered panting was pretty funny. He's right, it was. That's Empty Suit's new technique these days -- every time someone asks him a question he won't or can't answer, he makes a joke and gets a laugh. Yeah, it was funny, but the motivations behind getting the laugh are sinister. It continued. Via Martini Republic:
First, it's deeply embarrassing for us as a nation. Second ... it's deeply, deeply scary. Bush the leaky clam. Of course, just because he couldn't answer those questions doesn't mean he didn't ramble on and on and on ... about some things, but not others.
He's really good at those non sequitirs, too. That's what 19%'ll getcha. It's apparently been an on-and-off tradition since 1912 (what do I know from baseball?) for sitting vice-presidents to throw the first ball at a Washington team's season opener. It hasn't been done since 1968, but Dick Cheney decided to revive it yesterday. The sellout crowd's reaction? Massive booing. As one baseball fan who was watching the game said, "He was booed ONTO the field, at the mound, as his pitch made it to the Nationals' catcher, and as he left the field." Crooks and Liars has the video. Dick, just save us all a lot of trouble and resign now. And while you're at it, try not to shoot anyone in the face. [ Link to today's entries ]
You've gotta be frackin' kidding me ... From the Times-Picayune:
Yeah, I bet Junior won't be wearing that "FEMA: Fix Everything My Ass" T-shirt he was wearing some months back. What in the world can they be thinking? Michael points out that "the tapes that showed Brown warning Bush and Co. that Katrina was going to be a major disaster did a lot for Brown's image down here, and most of the vitriol has been transferred to Bush." Maybe. Maybe Brown's forte is not managing disasters but navigating absurd layers of federal bureaucracy. (Then again, the man quite literally couldn't even run a horse show.) And maybe Junior and his council are going even more crazy than everyone else. In other St. Bernard news, officials gathered at a home in Chalmette last weekend to mark the 1000th home gutted in the parish since Katrina. Good work ... only 39,000 more to go. [ Link to today's entries ]
The cubes are out. I.e., Jazzfest schedules, dates, times, stages, etc. We're having an awful time slogging through these and trying to figure out who to see when. I think we're going to have to go every day. Five drinks bartenders hate to make. Apparently no Cocktailian column this week, but instead we have this column by Bianca Antonacci as a special to the Chronicle. I was predicting that this would include complicated drinks like Caipirinhas or Mojitos that require lots of muddling and the like, and that these drinks shouldn't be ordered when the bar is stacked three people deep. Well, that's just common sense, but as that's something many people seem to be sadly lacking it's a good idea to point it out. I was right on the Mojitos, but was shocked to see the rest of the list:
(Uh oh. A cocktail rant is coming on. I can hear my sister Melissa now ... "Watch out, Chuck's got cocktail issues!) WTF? A Lemon Drop?! How easy is that? For one thing, 95 times out of 100 you're not even going to get someone who had to go through the odious, cotton-plantation labor of having to squeeze lemons for fresh lemon juice (the only way this drink is even remotely good); you're going to get vodka mixed with some bottled sweet-and-sour that tastes like shit. The author continues:
I call bullshit. How time-consuming is it to make a drink that consists of 1) vodka, and 2) a squirt of lemon juice (which they squeezed fresh before the rush shift and keep in a squeeze bottle), and 3) a splash of simple syrup? (Except if you order this drink what you're likely to get is even less time-consuming, because it'll be 1) vodka and 2) bottled sweet-and-sour.) The sugar rim on the glass, while time-consuming if done properly, is never done properly; it's done with a gizmo that contains a round moist sponge and a round well filled with sugar; you press the rim of the glass on the sponge and then dunk it in the sugar, and that takes about two seconds. And sticky hands?! Poor you! Do you not have a sink behind the bar? Wash your hands every now and again! I'd like to think that you wash your hands frequently anyway, as you're handling things like garnishes and fruit that go directly into my drinks.
Except that the only way to make a Kamikaze taste remotely good is to use fresh lime juice and a high-quality triple sec like Cointreau; and what you're probably going to get is a cheap, too-sweet triple sec and Rose's Lime Cordial, also too sweet. Now, to the truly hair-raising one:
Okay, you've gotta be frackin' kidding me. This is basic. A bartender who can't or won't make a Manhattan is like a chef who can't or won't cook an egg.
The author is quite correct -- whiskey, sweet vermouth and a dash of bitters. That's how it's done, and it's very basic. Proportions vary -- 2:1, 3:1, 4:1 -- but y'know what ... they all work really well. I prefer 3:1 myself, but I'll drink 'em at any proportion, as long as the bartender doesn't put a microdrop of vermouth in as if he or she thinks he's making a too-dry Martini. Now, if you just order "a Manhattan" without getting any more detailed in your drink order, then you shouldn't bitch if the bartender uses Canadian instead of Bourbon, or whatever you like in it. Specify -- tell her or him what kind of whiskey you want. Now, if someone wants cherry juice or Cointreau in it, then it's not a Manhattan, and they should just say "A Manhattan with a little cherry juice", or "with a splash of Cointreau." The bartender can do this easily, and should do it without complaint ... because it's what he or she does for a living. There seems to be some really unnecessary whining going on here.
Well, if you don't even know what a drink tastes like and you order it just to seem debinair, and then decide you don't like how it tastes, then you're an idiot and it's not the bartender's fault. Then again, how many Manhattan orders does this guy get which turn out to be people who just want to "seem debonair" but don't like bitters? This sounds like a stretch, to say the least. The bartender shouldn't blame the drink because a few people who order the drink are fools. I hope this isn't to blame for the unfortunately wide belief among many bartenders that there are no bitters in a Manhattan because "oh, people don't like bitters anymore." Untrue. Put the bitters in unless someone asks for them to be omitted. Bitters in a cocktail aren't "bitter"; it's like adding salt and pepper to a steak. It seasons the cocktail, it makes it taste spicier, fuller, and ties the other ingredients together. It doesn't make the drink taste bitter. Sure, if you drink a shot of Angostura bitters, it'll be horribly bitter and you'll grimace. Along the same lines, you'll think a steak tastes far better with salt and pepper added, but I'll bet you won't want to eat a heaping tablespoon of salt and then crunch up a handful of black peppercorns, now, would you? At least the author offers some good advice with regards to Manhattans:
My order, if I know the bar can accommodate it: "I'd love a Manhattan, please, with Pappy Van Winkle Rye and an extra dash of bitters." (Or whatever good rye they might stock.) I like mine a little more spicy, and by asking for an extra dash it's a perfect way to get that while avoiding having to say something assholish like "And make sure not to leave out the bitters." Of course, 95% of bars won't stock any rye whiskey at all, so I'll ask for a Maker's Mark Manhattan with an extra dash, and most of the time bartenders accommodate that with no problem at all, as long as they have minimally competent skills at their job. In my cranky opinion, any bartender who bitches about having to make Manhattans is in the wrong line of work, like a chef who bitches about having to cook eggs: "But some people want them over easy, and some people want 'em scrambled, and some sunnyside up, and some only want egg whites, for Christ's sake! (*whine!*) Please. We forge on:
Oh. Only the most oft-ordered cocktail in the country. Well, I'm so sick of Cosmos that I must confess I'd bitch if I had to make them all day too, but at least I'd make them really well. I haven't had a Cosmopolitan in about nine years, after the one I was served at Spago in Beverly Hills. I dined there with friends, and the brother of one of my friends was a waiter there at the time and make sure we were very well taken care of. Drinks were on the house, as long as we gave our orders to him and not directly to the bartender. "If you want another one, just let me know," he cautioned. "If you order one yourself, you'll have an aneurysm when you see the bill." I asked for a Cosmo, and ... it was perfect. Perfectly balanced between sweet and tart, lovely citrus flavor from the citron vodka and the Cointreau, fresh lime juice and just a splash of cranberry to give it a pink blush. It was the apotheosis of Cosmopolitanness, and I knew that at that moment that I'd never be able to order this drink again, at any other bar, because no other Cosmo I'd ever had was a tenth as good as this one, and no subsequent one ever would. That's part of the problem with the Cosmo -- nobody seems to have a set recipe (or rather, proper proportions), and almost nobody uses fresh lime juice. Once again, it's the scourge of Rose's Lime Cordial (which is only really good in a Gimlet, and damned few other drinks).
True, and good advice. Unless you like eye-poppingly sweet drinks and don't care, ask if the bar uses fresh lime juice. Otherwise, specify the vodka you like, plus Cointreau, or you'll get bottom-shelf Fleischmann's vodka and bottom-shelf, $2 per liter triple sec more often than not. Then, of course, she speaks of the dreaded Mojito, as I predicted. Do your bartender a favor and don't order one if he or she is in the weeds, but if the bar goes out of their way to serve them (i.e., lists them on a specialty cocktail menu and/or keeps a bunch of fresh mint on the bar) then by all means enjoy one. The article finishes with a handy list of ten ways to stay on a bartender's good side, and of course, the most important one of those is tip, tip, tip! At least $1 per drink (including ice water), and we usually do much better than that. Also, make sure that if you order something wacky that you have the recipe memorized (or, if you're a geek like me, you have hundreds of cocktail recipes in your Palm Pilot). When is a leak not a leak? Hint: When it's the President. By the way, Bush's approval rating is now down to 36%, his lowest ever. Big Brother is listening to you. (Via Wes.) Alberto Gonzales thinks the President can order wiretaps on you and me, without a warrant, any old time, domestic-only calls included. All they have to do is say "Al-Qaeda." I say, let 'em keep spouting this stuff. At least it's out in the open, and it fuels the fires of discontent. 35, anyone? 34? Do I hear 33? Quote of the day. A real president once said ...
He was a very wise and prescient man. Quotes of the day, part deux. Yeah, I know, we can't let it go. From two new reviews on DVDfile.com:
As I mentioned before, after we watched Crash in the weeks before Oscar night we, the inveterate DVD collectors/hoarders, decided not to keep it and sold it on Half.com for more than we paid for it. Shame, shame, shame. The United States will not seek a seat on the new U.N. Human Rights Council this year, the State Department said Thursday, a decision that underscores its disappointment with the framework of the panel but also eliminates an opportunity to help shape it in its crucial first year. The Bush administration's decision marks the first time that the U.S. has not sought a seat on the U.N.'s premier human rights body since the world organization was formed after World War II. It was apparently made in part because of fear that Washington, under scrutiny by human rights investigators for its treatment of detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and Abu Ghraib, Iraq, might not have won a seat in a vote of the General Assembly. [ Link to today's entries ]
Cocktail of the day. Wes found this one after about fifty clicks of the Random Recipe button at CocktailDB ("It was one friggin' pousse-café after another!") until it finally spat out one he liked. I liked it too. He tried to have me guess the name. His hint? "I prefer the term 'artificial person,' myself."
Or you could try this hint: "'Ow do you know what cocktail 'e drinks?" "Tattooed on the back o' his neck!" Oh, it's the Bishop of Leicester ... Quote of the Day, from Video of the Day. Harry Shearer has a longtime custom of watching live network satellite feeds, and reporting on the unbelievable things the talking heads say during commercials, when they think they're not being broadcast and have a tendency to say what they really think. Harry's latest offering is from between-segment banter between the odious Chris Matthews and indicted soon-to-be-former Congressman Tom "The Bugman" DeLay, in which Matthews smooches DeLay's ass repeatedly for handing him a scoop ("Thank you for calling me. It was a good thing for me ... I owe you one. I owe you two.") DeLay offers the money quote, however, with this tidbit prompted by a mention of Hillary Clinton not having done well in a focus group on potential candidates:
Asshole. That, in addition to the interviews he did with Tweety Matthews and on CNN yesterday in which he insisted that everything he's ever done has been right and proper and that he's never made a mistake and never been remotely unethical and that he'd do it all over again ... I'm looking forward to hearing him continue to insist this from his prison cell. It's National Grilled Cheese Month! It started last Saturday, and to think we forgot about it. Well, we were busy clogging our digestive systems with macaroni and cheese last weekend; if we had added grilled cheese sandwiches to the fray, we might as well have eaten wet cement. Moving right along, though, the good folks at Clementine Restaurant in Century City do a great job celebrating The Month (although a lousy job of observing my rule of "Never resize my feckin' browser window, because it annoys the crap out of me," so consider yourself forewarned). This year they're having a Battle of the Sandwiches, featuring two selections per day, the winner determined by the number of people that order it. The final week of the month will be Tournament Week, with the winner declared by the 30th. Great idea! (I really love your food, Clementine, but quit resizing my feckin' browser window already.) We're thinking of maybe having our own Cheese-Off this month (because dieting before Jazzfest makes too much sense), and I've got a few ideas already. I'm not too proud to steal from my mac and cheese recipes ...
Or just Dubliner and everything ... man, I love that cheese. Dubliner, streaky bacon and chopped dates on ciabatta. Dubliner and horseradish on brioche. Dubliner on Wonder Bread, whatever, I'll eat it. What's your favorite grilled cheese sandwich? In case you had any doubts ... A look at how Las Vegas slots and electronic voting machines compare (via Jack):
 Is this how they'll achieve a permanent Republican majority? [ Link to today's entries ]
Good feckin' riddance. In case you hadn't heard, indicted crooked Congressman Tom DeLay is withdrawing from his re-election race in Texas, after he won the primary. Why? Well, could it be because he realized that with growing distaste with Republican corruption he'd probably get his ass whipped by the Democrat in November, and that his ass will probably be in prison before too much longer, and was undoubtedly pressured by the party to take a fall for their sake? Of course, he's taking the coward's way out:
As to whether he's being "noble" enough to fall on his sword for his beloved party (GOP trumps America, don't ya know), I think this is the real reason for his pullout, as described in the Washington Post:
Uh huh. It's the money. He gets to keep it all, so he can pay all those expensive lawyers he's going to need. How noble. John Boehner, DeLay's replacement as majority leader, still refers to DeLay as having "integrity." The White House is lauding him as a man who did the President's work on the Hill. This seems to be a fairly typical example of the Republicans' idea of integrity, so let's get rid of Boehner too, and as many of the rest of them as we can. Remember, remember, the Seventh of November ... Who is killing New Orleans? An article from the current issue of The Nation:
What are we going to do about it? Mac and cheese recipe of the day. Here's the recipe for the other dish I made last weekend, the Italian-style. I based it on an Emeril Lagasse recipe for "Maytag Blue Mac and Cheese" (which, incidentally, is great). To make Emeril's original, use shells instead of cavatelli, use 8 ounces of Maytag Blue cheese or your favorite blue cheese instead of the provoletta and gorgonzola, omit the pancetta and instead of the ciabatta topping combine 1 cup fine dried bread crumbs with 1 tablespoon olive oil, salt and pepper. My variation:
Yum. Quote of the day. Via Billmon.
The scary thing is that they'll push the rest of us over the precipice in their blind rush. [ Link to today's entries ]
Mr. Ernest Hansen, RIP (1912-2006). In his own way, he was one of the greatest New Orleanians of the last century. Statesmen, politician, writer, musician, chef? No, in fact, originally he was a machinist, but it didn't stop there. Mr. Ernest, along with his late wife, Ms. Mary, was the proprietor of Hansen's Sno-Bliz, considered by many if not most to be the finest sno-ball stand in the city, and has been for 67 years. The sno-ball is one of New Orleans' greatest culinary creations, and you won't find it on the menu of fancy restaurants, or any restaurant, for that matter, save for those few places here and there that serve food along with their sno-balls, such as Tee-Eva's. They're everywhere, small neighborhood stands on the corner to larger stands that draw people from miles around. What made Hansen's Sno-Bliz the best, however, was Mr. Ernest's invention of the Sno-Bliz Machine, which shaved the ice so fine that it was finer than snow. That, along with Ms. Mary's house-concocted syrups in myriad flavors, which they poured on so that the ice was soaked all the way to the bottom, elevated the Sno-Ball to a work of art, and just about the best thing you could have on a blazing hot summer afternoon (I'd take one of those over a Dixie Beer on any such day, despite my now-it's-gone nostalgia for Dixie).  Ms. Mary and Mr. Ernest, serving sno-balls. (Photo by Ed Newman) Mr. Ernest died last Thursday of esophageal and stomach cancer. He was 94. I'm sad he's gone, but I gotta say, that was a good, long run. To the above-linked, excellent obituary from the Times-Picayune, Poppy added this:
I hope they're still running their sno-ball stand on the other side. Only in New Orleans. It's something we say a lot back home, and sometimes it's said so often it's in danger of becoming a cliché. But truly, sometimes you look at certain events and situations and still, even after all the shit that's gone down, all you can say is, "Only in New Orleans." This great story was posted by New Orleanian Ben Rosow at DailyKos.com, telling of a bike ride up past Tulane in the Fonatinebleau neighborhood:
Start at the beginning, and read the whole thing. March Macaroni Madness! Okay, so it's April, but scheduling couldn't pull it off in March. Yesterday we had a gathering at Mary and Steve's place to celebrate her birthday, as well as that of our friend LeeAnn, and the idea was for to everyone to bring a different macaroni and cheese dish (as Mary and LeeAnn are quite keen on the ould mac 'n cheese). A great idea, rife with possibilities, but with one potential drawback. To paraphrase my friend Dean, an M.D., "Enjoy all that cheese ... your next bowel movement will be sometime in June." We were undaunted. Here's the list of all the dishes, starting with my two:
(Steve created a special musical playlist for the event, and none of us figured out the running theme until it finally occurred to Steve M. ... Fleetwood Mac, Paul McCartney, Dr. John a.k.a. Mac Rebennack, Blind Willie McTell ... you get the picture.) They were all really good, but from what everyone was saying afterwards the general
favorite was my Irish mac 'n cheese dish. It was based on the Macaroni and Cheese dish from the Cook's Illustrated
book called The New Best Recipe Here's the recipe:
I'll post the other recipe tomorrow. [ Link to today's entries ]
Cream puffs + bacon = crazy delicious! Just to dispel anyone's fears that what I wrote on April Fool's Day yesterday wasn't complete and utter crap ...  Oh, the things you get up to at a Vegas buffet (Bellagio's buffet, in this case, last Sunday in Las Vegas). Diana said, "You only did that so that you could take a picture." Not so. I ate the bacon along with my excellent cream puffs (perfect pâte à choux and pastry cream) with chocolate and raspberry sauces. It was great. And I'd do it again. [ Link to today's entries ]
Uggghhh ... I think yesterday's food porn might have put me over the top. Given how I've been feeling all week long, the sight of that huge slab of pork staring me in the face as I was working on the picture in Photoshop was kinda the last straw. Usually when I have a food hangover it's gone the next day, but this one's lingered all week long, and it's been a nasty one. That, plus the increasingly fragile state of my health (if my doctor gets a look at yesterday's post, he'll probably say something like, "Why don't I just shoot you in the head now and get it over with, rather than you doing it slowly over the next several years with that food?") ... well, it's led me to some serious thinking, and a serious decision. I've decided to become a vegetarian. No more meat, no more eggs, no more cheese. Long life with a bland diet is, I think, preferable to quick death by food. The food porn around here will change somewhat, of course. But hey, you won't believe how beautiful okra and tomatoes look in close-up. Anyone want to join me? Health, and long life! March Looka! entries have been permanently archived. [ Link to today's entries ]
New Orleans is Not OK. If you read anything today, read this. New Orleanian writer Poppy Z. Brite has a sledgehammer-to-the-head post up today which you should read, and which everyone you know should read. Every idiot politician from New Orleans City Hall to the Oval Office should read this too, so they'll know why we voted their asses out of office. (Emphases and added links mine.)
Copy, paste, and disseminate far and wide, with Poppy's blessing. Here's the permalink. Commander's Palace, Las Vegas. Gotta have something good amidst all this today ... Right now Commander's Palace in Las Vegas is the only Commander's that's open; the Brennan flagship restaurant in New Orleans got Katrina'd pretty badly (despite its initial appearance) and had to be gutted. It won't be open until summer, probably. In New Orleans Café Adelaide, a superb restaurant in its own right, is also serving as a fill-in Commander's, as you can get certain classic Commander's dishes there now (turtle soup, Tasso Shrimp Henican, and the like). Other than than that, if you want a Commander's fix, it's Vegas, baby, Vegas! Besides being Wes' birthday party weekend, the day we went to Commander's for dinner was also our friend Diana's birthday, so a double celebration was called for. We arrived early, so that we could get a little bit of an early start on the cocktail swilling and so that we could check out the newly-relocated Museum of the American Cocktail, which will reside at Commander's in Vegas for the next year until an eventual permanent home is found in New Orleans. It was nice to see the exhibit again, and our little things in it, but we were thrilled and surprised to see this, newly installed at this exhibit:  We were honored to be mentioned, and listed among that august group. A few Sazeracs, Negronis and Gibsons later we sat down to order, extremely well cared-for by Santino, their fabulous maitre'd (who were were very glad to see back at the restaurant; he'd left for a while), our captain Steve and his waiters. First out came the amuse bouche ...  A little scoop of mousse made one of their appetizers, Tabasco "Mash" Cured and Smoked Salmon, in which the salmon is cured with the salty pepper mash from the white oak barrels that's later mixed with vinegar to make Tabasco sauce, folded into a mousse and served on a toast point with microgreen salad and a little jalapeño oil. I was tempted to order more of that salmon, but I knew what was coming ...  One of my favorite dishes at Commander's, and in fact one of my favorite dishes in New Orleans -- Tasso Shrimp Henican, with Crystal Hot Sauce Beurre Blanc, Five Pepper Jelly and Pickled Okra. This is the late Chef Jamie Shannon's dish, and its retention on the menu is a continuous memorial to his talent (we all miss him terribly). The shrimp are semi-butterflied and stuffed with a lardon of tasso ham, flash-fried and coated in the Crystal beurre blanc, served in a puddle of the jelly with the okra as garnish (and I eat all the garnish). This is served as an appetizer, but is so good that a double portion of it would make an entrée that would rival any shrimp dish in town (an idea I'm going to steal from Poppy one day). There were a few Commander's virgins in the crowd, so we had to get the shrimp and, of course, the crab ...  I'm not usually a fan of crab cakes. Usually they have too much filler, too much breading, too much something which takes away from the flavor of the crab, which one would think a crab cake should feature. I've had crab cakes so thoroughly fried that they had a carapace that had to be cracked open, only to find lots of mushy breadcrumb dressing flecked with crab inside ... yecch. As far as I'm concerned, if you want crab cakes, you go to Commander's. Why? Because they're The Best Crab Cakes In The Universe. Over an inch thick, mixed with just barely enough dressing to hold them together, just enough seasoning to enhance, not to mask, the flavor of the magnificent jumbo lump crabmeat that consitutes about 90% of the composition of this dish. They're ring-molded, briefly seared on both sides and served barely warm ... absolute perfection. When we were chatting at the bar there was a gentleman sitting there dining alone, having made a meal of a starter of the Tasso Shrimp and a small main course of a dish that so startled me that I think a comic-strip thought balloon containing "!!!" had appeared over my head. It's a dish I'd never seen at Commander's in New Orleans, apparently because it's the creation of the executive chef of Commander's in Las Vegas, Chef Carlos Guia, and hasn't made it to the Crescent City yet. It's a dish that I had never thought of, because, well ... who'd think of such a thing?! A genius? A madman? We debated that very question as soon as we saw the dish prominently featured front and center on the menu, inside a box so that we couldn't miss it: Foie Gras Gumbo. A couple of us were immediately skeptical and suspicious, with Louise thinking it inappropriately highfalutin', gumbo being an earthy dish of the people, and the addition of foie gras being a rich man's affectation. Well, it was an expensive dish, but not that expensive; at $14.50 it's one of the most affordable foie gras appetizers I've ever seen (with the exception of the $9.95 seared foie gras at Café Giovanni in the Quarter, but that serving is about the size of your thumb.) It's not a huge serving either, not as large as you'd expect from a bowl of filé gumbo, but you have to think about how rich this dish probably is, and how it could floor you if you're not careful. This consideration is reinforced when you hear about how it's made; captain Steve explained it to us, but here's a more detailed description excerpted from Nation's Restaurant News:
 Oh my. As for our skepticism ... we were wrong, wrong, wrong. (Well, I thought we were, and I wasn't all that skeptical to begin with; in fact, I was kinda excited.) There's nothing wrong with taking a simple dish and elevating it to higher levels of complexity, and even a working man's gumbo is pretty complex in flavor. We ended up ordering one of these to share, and it's a good thing -- it's rich, very rich, and given all the other food that was to come that was probably wise. I must confess that it was so frackin' good that I was seriously considering ordering another one just for me (well, I'd probably give Wes some too), but if I had done that you would have had to change my name to Mr. Creosote by the end of the meal. We got some sides too -- the Stone Ground Grits with Goat Cheese, Spinach Rockefeller and some Crawfish Étouffée (made with Breaux Bridge, Louisiana crawfish and superb), and then it came time for the entrée. Given this crowd and its history, you'd think that the seven of us would have ordered seven different things, with the plates orbiting the table all night as we take tastes (which we've done several times), but as it turned out, five of the seven of us zeroed in on the same thing ...  Well, we are The Fat Pack after all, and what do our lives revolve around? PORK! In this case, Kurobuta Pork Loin, and here's its description from the menu: Iron skillet seared Berkshire "black hog" served with fingerling potato steak fries tossed with toasted garlic and buttermilk blue cheese, cayenne ketchup emulsion and Creole mustard-bourbon sauce. Um, holy frackin' bejeebies. This was mind-bogglingly good; the pork seared to perfection, with a beautiful crust and perfectly pink on the inside, with that great tangy sauce (there was ketchup in that, go figure, and they say so proudly!). The fries, though, the fries ... Michael didn't like them as much, declaring them to be insufficiently crispy, and despite the fact that I'm a crispy fry fanatic I disagreed. They were crispy enough, and besides they were tossed with a topping (which makes my head spin just thinking about it right now). Fingerling potatoes have such a great flavor just plain and roasted, but like this, oh man. I actually left a little of the pork and finished the fries (well, I knew what was coming next). Next, to our delight, was a dessert bomb, a Brennan specialty in which the table is bombarded with one (or more) of every single dessert on the menu, which also included a couple of plates of pralines decorated with "Happy Birthday!" in chocolate sauce for Diana and Wes. (Thanks, Ti!) Unfortunately my dessert bomb pictures are not the best, mostly due to two cocktails, two glasses of wine and the beginning of the onset of food coma. I'll try to see what I can salvage in Photoshop later, but for now the menu descriptions will have to do: Creole Opera Cake, thin layers of pecan genoise layered with chicory coffee buttercream and dark chocolate ganache, topped with Bourbon Chantilly and pecan praline cream; Passion Fruit Crêpes, housemade crêpes filled with passion fruit curd and California stawberries, topped with mixed berry granita and caramelized orange reduction suace; French Quarter Beignets, traditional New Orleans beignets dusted with powdered sugar, served with warm café au lait sauce and chocolate drizzles; Creole Bread Pudding Soufflé, Commander's signature dessert, a rich bread pudding whipped into a light fluffy soufflé and served with Bourbon whiskey sauce; and finally, the Brennan family classic, Bananas Foster, bananas cooked in brown sugar, butter and cinnamon and flamed with rum, served over vanilla ice cream. Even though we didn't finish it all, the waiters were nevertheless impressed by how much we did finish (well, this group is not to be trifled with). It was the perfect capper for what may have been our best-ever meal at Commander's, and they've all been great. Taking very shallow breaths (as my stuffed-as-full-as-a-haggis stomach didn't allow much room for my diaphragm to expand my lung capacity), we waddled carefully out of the restaurant. Michael and Louise headed to Barbary Coast to see a band called Darby O'Gill and the Little People (hey, how were they anyway?) while the rest of us headed back across the street to Bellagio and digestivos at Petrossian Bar -- 20-year tawny port for Diana and Robin, Macallan for Steve, 16-year Hirsch Bourbon for Wes and a Chartreuse for me. Later, we slept soundly. No money for levees? Hey, New Orleans! 'Member when I said I'd do whatever it takes to rebuild your levees bigger and better then ever, no matter what it took? Well, turns out there ain't enough money to fix 'em up like I said. Sorry. Take lots of pictures of your city before next hurricane season so we'll all know what it once looked like.
I wish that at least they'd be as honest in their dishonesty as Earl Long was when he was governor, running on a tax cut platform and then realizing he'd have to raise taxes. When asked what he was going to tell the people, he said, "Tell 'em ah lied." Clean house in New Orleans. The following information came via an email forwarded from Rob Florence in New Orleans, about a grassroots political movement called Clean House New Orleans. It all looks really good, but I fear it may be fizzling, at least as an organization; the "next meeting" listed was nearly two months ago, and since their blog was started in mid-February there have been no postings. Still, the stuff in the email is more than worth thinking about:
The more you think about the situation during Katrina, and the more you see what's being done (i.e., what isn't being done) locally in New Orleans, the more you think about getting rid of everyone in local office and starting over. So NoTORIous! An only slightly fictionalized sitcom starting Tori Spelling, playing herself, amidst a gaggle of demanding friends and Loni Anderson as her perfectionist mother, in which Tori's looking for friendship, respect and love? Um, sounds unlikely on the surface, and a show I'd be unlikely to watch, but ya know what? It's pretty funny. I'll be watching and you should too, and that's not just because my friends Damon and Sharon are writers on it. There's a lot of humor from Hollywood in-jokes and celeb name-dropping, but that's all part of Tori's world, so if you ever wanted to make fun of celebrities, or watch celebrities make fun of themselves (and Tori's very charming as she goes about it), then check out this show, running ... um, practially around the clock on VH-1. [ Link to today's entries ]
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