 
 "Eating, drinking and carrying on..." -- Adelaide Brennan
Off to New Orleans! Home again, home again, jiggity jig ... Posting may not be terribly regular, but keep checking in anyway ... I've got some announcements ready to post for later on, and I'll try to leak some food porn as the days go by. Also check out the Flickr page, as I might have time to upload photos but not write too much just yet. Airport shuttle's due in 12 minutes ... the Fat Pack awaits! [ Link to today's entries ]
Brennan's of Houston. Life is looking good for my youngest sister's family. A great job for hubby, a beautiful new baby, AND ... a great place to eat New Orleans food! They picked me up at the airport a week ago yesterday, and we all drove directly to Brennan's of Houston, the second-westernmost outpost of the culinary delights the Brennan family has to offer. The atmosphere comes right from Commander's Palace -- elegance, and jackets required for gentlemen in the main dining room and at dinner -- but with touches reflected from several other Brennan restaurants, especially in the menu (which included Mr. B's Gumbo Ya-Ya, Commander's Turtle Soup and Bread Pudding Soufflé and cocktails from Café Adelaide). We arrived right at the tail end of Saturday brunch service with only a few people left in the dining room, which was probably just as well -- Thomas woke up and was uncharacteristically cranky, and let out some pretty good hollers (ah, music to my ears ... well, maybe not for 7 hours straight, as he once did when he was 2 weeks old). The drinks menu has clearly been inspired not only by the classics served at the other Brennan restaurants like Commander's but by the huge inroads in cocktailian cuisine that's been pioneered in New Orleans by Ti Martin (and her good friend Dr. Cocktail) and bar chef Lu Brow at Café Adelaide. Melissa got a classic Sidecar, Jeff had a Mango Mojito, which was a classic Mojito made with aged rum and spiked with a swizzle stick cut from fresh sugar cane, but with a splash of mango juice added. Mine was a dizzyingly intoxicating Hemingway Daiquiri variation, heavier on the grapefruit juice and served on the rocks. Delicious, and its footprint has yet to fade from my butt, I think. I was so hungry that I didn't manage to get any photos of the appetizers (sorry), but they were all great. Melissa just wanted gumbo, and as a longtime fan of Mr. B's the Gumbo Ya-Ya was the way to go -- a chicken and andouille sausage gumbo, thick and beautifully smoky. It was exactly what she wanted, and made her feel a lot less homesick. Jeff went for a dish that was classic New Orleans, but reflected Tex-Mex influences from the restaurant's adopted city -- Chile Fried Oysters, with chile powder mixed into the perfectly crisp cornmeal crust, served in a pool of tequila chile-corn salsa. This was a perfect example of fusion cuisine, Texas and Louisiana, with just the right amount of chile powder spiking the crust on those creamy oysters. I was wishing I had ordered this, but then again I was trying to be good, and to the surprise of my sister and brother-in-law, I ordered a salad. Creole Apple Pecan Salad, in fact, in a lovely honey-balsamic dressing, with shredded apples and "crowned" with spiced pecans and crumbed bacon (lots and lots of crumbled bacon, actually, and from the taste of it most likely Nueske's applewood-smoked bacon, which Ti Martin told us was her choice for Best Bacon). It was delish, and very good for me (except for the dressing, the pecans and the bacon). I finally remembered that I had my camera with me once it was time for the entrées to come out. Melissa ordered Hash Brown-Crusted Chicken Pontalba, a variation on the original Chicken Pontalba from the other Brennan's restaurant on Royal Street; this one was stuffed with tasso ham, mushrooms, cheese and green onions, and was drizzled with a tomato-tarragon beurre blanc: 
I didn't get any of that. Then again, I didn't ask, so it's my own fault. Next up, Jeff's eye-popping, mouth-watering dish ... Louisiana Crawfish Cakes & Eggs, batter-fried crawfish cakes topped with perfectly poached eggs and Hollandaise sauce, in a sauté of fresh Louisiana crawfish in a Creole brandy-butter sauce. Omigawd. 
I did get a bite of that. Luscious ... an over-the-top breakfast/brunch dish to die for, and as crawfish are in full season now, they almost couldn't be any better (and that's lovely Louisiana crawfish, not those nasty, rubbery, fishy Chinese imports to which we crawfish lovers must say no; I'd rather do without than eat those). Finally, me ... I was, quel surprise, drawn to the pig. Specifically, Berkshire Pork Ham Steak -- House-cured, certified 100% Berkshire ham steaks with a pearl onion, shiitake mushroom and potato hash, with a chicory coffee redeye demi-glace. Just take ham steak with redeye gravy and elevate it several orders of magnitude, and this is what you end up with -- pig heaven on a plate. This was a massive serving ... I only had half and I was stuffed, ate the other half for lunch the next day and was stuffed then too. 
All that, some Bananas Foster prepared tableside for dessert, plus a hollerin' baby ... don't get much betta den dat. :-) [ Link to today's entries ]
Welcome home, Miss Willie Mae! I don't know how I missed this (behind on NOLA blogs and too much going on), but Willie Mae's Scotch House, at 2401 St. Ann St. in New Orleans, home of what is perhaps the best fried chicken in the known universe, reopened on April 2, with 91-year-old Willie Mae Seaton at the helm, frying chicken to her heart's content. Her restaurant and attached home were completely destroyed by the floods caused by the failure of the government's levees and floodwalls after Hurricane Katrina (along with tens of thousands of other people's homes and businesses), and hundreds of volunteers and donors led by the Southern Foodways Alliance gutted her restaurant and home to the studs, and rebuilt them.  Photo by Brooks Hamaker of eGullet.org Read the entire thread on eGullet for Willie Mae's, which starts about two years ago with some food porn, and goes on through the reopening a couple of weeks ago. The money quote:
Pableaux Johnson has 33 photos of opening day at Willie Mae's, and she's the lead-off, front-page story on Salon today. See y'all there for lunch next Thursday. Camellia Grill reopened today! The news just keeps getting better and better. After a special party last night, in which seats at the counter were auctioned off for charity, the venerable 60-year-old diner reopened for business today, with the exact same menu, and everything the same except for updated kitchen facilities and plumbing, and new marble countertops for the customers (!). This comment from the article made my heart soar:
Harry served me on my very first visit to the Camellia, when I was 16 years old, and along with Mr. Battiste, a.k.a. "Bat," was my very favorite waiter there. Gawd bless ya, Harry. There's a potato, onion and cheese omelette (my usual) there with my name on it, not to mention a pecan waffle and chocolate freeze (Wes is gonna have to split that waffle with me). "Best Appliance"? My sister leaves the Food Network on a fair bit at her house. She finds it good background or occasional actual watching fodder while she's home taking care of Thomas. Last Sunday night in Houston we were up late -- Thomas' feeding schedule had gotten a little off, and we had to stay up until midnight for his last feeding. While he was snoozing with us on the sofa, we were talking with Food Network on, and that night featured the first annual Food Network Awards. I was instantly reminded of Woody Allen's line in "Annie Hall," where his character Alvy Singer said, "They do nothing but give out awards. I can't believe it. Greatest Fascist Dictator - Adolf Hitler!" It was one of the more absurd spectacles I'd ever seen. Unsurprisingly, Anthony Bourdain concurs:
The Food Network is actually embarrassing now. Lobster Kadobster! Ashley has a great post on his blog about the late, lamented T. Pittari's restaurant in New Orleans, where you could get all kinds of exotic large wild game dishes like bear, water buffalo and hippopotamus (and sometimes even lion or whale). Their signature dish was Lobster Kadobster, which was "a live Maine lobster (Pittari's had the first live lobster tank in NOLA, and was the first restaurant to fly in live Maine lobster) stuffed with king crab, blue crab, redfish, lobster, oysters, and shrimp." Oh my. I grew up hearing their radio ads, but unfortunately I never got to eat at T. Pittari's. Mom and Dad didn't take the kids out to "fancy" restaurants, but to family-style places, neighborhood places and fried seafood joints (especially at West End, which we loved). This was just as well, because I was a weirdly finicky kid and wouldn't have touched anything on Pittari's menu. This means that I also missed long-lost gems like LeRuth's, but it also meant that Mom and Dad didn't have to be embarrassed by me ordering fried shrimp, a hamburger or a grilled cheese sandwich in a place like LeRuth's, run by what was one of the greatest chefs in the country at the time. Fortunately, I grew up and my palate matured. Ashley has some scans of some Pittari's menus, go check 'em out. [ Link to today's entries ]
Help us find the grill. Those of you who live in New Orleans or who visit annually for the Jazz and Heritage Festival are surely familiar with Vance Vaucresson and the famous Vaucresson sausage-making family, who make some of the best sausages the city has ever seen and tasted (Creole hot sausage and crawfish sausage are his most popular). Like so many, the Vaucressons had an extremely difficult time in the aftermath of Katrina:
Reader William Thackrey wrote me yesterday with an idea on how to help pull Vance and his family out of the hole:
You heard da man ... spread it around! [ Link to today's entries ]
Back from Houston. I was back Tuesday, actually, but still needed to get my computer out of the shop and catch up on about 1,000 accumulated emails. (Did I actually catch up on them? No ... I just kinda wept a little and moved on.) I had a great time with my sister's family, and Thomas was fantastic! I absolutely adore him, and can't wait to get back. Sadly, there shall be no more pictures of him here, as his mom doesn't want his pitchas all ova da Innanet. "Sorry, I'm a freak," she said. Nonsense baby, your wish is my command. What I do have is food porn from Hugo's, which had probably the best (upscale) Mexican food I've had since Topolobampo in Chicago. Coming soon, tomorrow I hope. Cocktail of the day. From Absinthe Brasserie and Bar in San Francisco, which besides being a terrific restaurant is a cocktailian's paradise, comes this south-of-the-border spin that's inspired by New Orleans' famous Vieux Carré Cocktail, invented at the Monteleone Hotel in the 1930s. We used El Charro Añjo, currently our favorite tequila, for this one, although I believe the drink's creator, bartender Jonny Raglin, specified Herradura. To each his or her own!.
That was night before last ... last night, since Wes had had an absolute crap day at work, we had comforting Old Fashioneds made with Thomas H. Handy Sazerac Rye, coming in at an extremely comforting 132 proof. And in other cocktail news on this end, I just got a bottle each of Hermes Aromatic Bitters and Orange Bitters from Japan, made by the Suntory Whisky Company. ("For quiet times ... make it Suntory.") We'll be taste-testing this weekend. Planxty, 1980. Here's a clip of them playing three jigs, "East at Glendart / Brian O'Lynn / Pay the Reckoning" from the record After the Break, in live performance. I've got a jumpy old PAL videocassette of this packed away in a box somewhere, so I'm really glad to have found this clip. This would have been right around when I was first discovering them and getting into them, when I was about 18, and I would give anything to have seen them back then. Sigh. Better late than never, though! [ Link to today's entries ]
Gaaaaaaaaaah! Don't break any black cats, or step on a mirror. And if you meet a guy named Jason Voorhees ... haul ass! It's also National Trsikaidekaphobics Get The Day Off Day. Cower away! Food post of the day. Hey ... eat Shitto! No, I'm not insulting you. I'm encouraging you to try Ghanaian comfort food. 
According to Xeni Jardin, it's "an allegedly delicious Ghanaian sauce with a name that makes Americans laugh. When you hear someone in Ghana say it, though, the sound of the word actually does not make you think of poop.
Hell, it sounds good ... I'd try it. Anyone know where you can get Shitto in L.A.? (Read further into Xeni's post for more links on Ghanaian cuisine.) Our prejudices, ourselves. All this hoohah about Don Imus (someone whose existence barely registered with me before) really makes me laugh. If you do a little bit of digging, you'll see that Imus has been doing this shit for years. Why has it been okay all that time but not now? For that matter, asks Media Matters, why is the "extensively documented bigotry and hate speech targeting, among other characteristics, race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and ethnicity [allowed to] continue to permeate the airwaves through personalities such as Glenn Beck, Neal Boortz, Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, Michael Savage, Michael Smerconish, and John Gibson. Then there's today's take on it all by Harvey Fierstein in today's New York Times:
It's alive in the hearts and minds of America, and the radio networks that syndicate and broadcast Rush Limbaugh and Michael Savage not only don't care, they make money off it. It's all about money, serving Mammon, isn't it? As Kurt Vonnegut said, "Who says you can't serve both God and Mammom? Pat Robertson does, and he's as happy as a pig in shit." It was right of CBS to fire Imus. Nowhere does it say he's entitled to work on the airwaves; he can go make an honest living doing something else, preferably in a position where he's discouraged from speaking. I'll believe the media are serious about this when they get rid of the rest of the mass media hate speakers. They can stand on crate in City Park, or get a blog like most of the rest of the wingnuts have these days, and exercise their freedom of speech to their heart's content. I do believe in freedom of speech, but I don't believe in a sense of entitlement for people to make millions of dollars on television or radio spewing speech that hurts people. The White House "lost" emails? Lost, huh? FIVE MILLION of them. And used a gwb43.com address owned by the Republican National Committee to evade the law, the law that says you can't delete or destroy any official government document or communication, which specifically includes emails. What high crimes and misdemeanors are they covering up, do yo suppose? [ Link to today's entries ]
So it goes. Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. 1922 - 2007. 
He's always been one of my very favorite writers since I was probably about 14, and I was honored to have been born on his birthday.
Busy, busy, busy ... Quotes of the day. Kurt Vonnegut, from a 2005 PBS interview with David Brancaccio:
No, not really. From Kurt Vonnegut's Breakfast of Champions:
Thanks to Kurt, and to the yeast. Returning to Mandina's. It's been open in its original Canal Blvd. location for a few months now, and we're scheduled to eat there the second night of our trip back home for Jazzfest. I can't wait! I had dinner at the new one on the Northshore over Christmas, and the food was great -- perfect, exactly the same -- but it wasn't the same, because it was in a strip mall in Mandeville and not at 3800 Canal Blvd. in Mid-City. My old pal Ed Branley (anyone remember the New Orleans Mailing List from the early-mid '90s?) went back to Mandina's a few weeks ago and wrote it up on DailyKos. Me? I dunno whether I'll want seafood, a poor boy, some pannéed veal or something Italian ... I guess I'll have to wait and see what strikes me. What I know I want is an Old Fashioned and some onion rings. N = C + {fb(cm) · fb(tc)} + fb(Ts) + fc · ta. What's that? It's the scientific formula for the perfect bacon sandwich, courtesy of researchers at Leeds University. (I so want that on a t-shirt.) This fascinating study has concluded the rather obvious, that the best bacon sandwiches were made with "crisply grilled, not-too-fat bacon between thick slices of white bread." I, being somewhat of a bacon connoisseur and, dare I say it, expert, would have to qualify that. What the English and Irish would call "streaky bacon" is the only choice (I do like Irish bacon a lot, and an Irish bacon sandwich has its joys, but the perfect bacon sandwich has to be made with the type of bacon more familiar in America). The best bacon for the task would be Nueske's Applewood-Smoked Bacon (the best readily available bacon there is; I'd save the artisinal bacons from folks like The Bacon of the Month Club for eating on their own, not in a sandwich ... not unlike sipping a 25-year-old Macallan Scotch whisky neat, and not in a Rusty Nail). But hey, if you can't find it, good ol' Oscar Meyer will do just fine. Thick-cut or center-cut, please. The white bread should be sourdough, and it should be lightly toasted. The tomatoes should be heirloom or Creole. The lettuce should be crisp but not flavorless; Romaine, perhaps, or maybe tender butter lettuce would be okay. The only condiment allowed is mayonnaise (perhaps Miracle Whip for Southerners). Q.E.D. Sopranos hit the high note. Well, the new season of the best show on TV (well, at least now that "Battlestar Galactica" is on hiatus, heheh), perhaps the best show ever on TV, has hit the ground running. I can hardly wait for episode 2! Rolling Stone put together a page featuring the music of "The Sopranos" featuring an interview with David Chase, the show's creator, plus scenes from nine episodes, with Chase's commentary about the music chosen for those scenes. [ Link to today's entries ]
Get me 50 grams of Valrhona, stat!! From the Good News of the Day Department:
And I've got a drawerful of it right here at my desk. Who knew it'd be so good for me?! (Hey Doc, can I dump the Norvasc and go on an increased dose of Valrhona Le Noir Amer 71% Cacao? [ Link to today's entries ]
Cocktail of the day. 'Cause we're gonna need a drink -- it's truly been Wingnut City for the past few days (well, the past six years, when you get right down to it). I had a delightful chat with Paul Clarke of The Cocktail Chronicles" -- if you haven't found that weblog already, you need to. He told me about a drink he's been enjoying at one of his local watering holes, prepared by master mixologist Jamie Boudreau. It sounded great, and when we tried it as soon as I got home that night, we found out that it was indeed a great one. Of course, since our conversation was about esoteric cocktail ingredients, you might have a bit of trouble finding one of them ... the elusive crème de violette. I had been lucky enough to have my folks and a friend each bring me some back from France, and I had a mail-order source for a while -- Sally Clarkes Restaurant in London. Paul said he thought they weren't selling or shipping it anymore, but their website still shows it listed. An email for confirmation would be the thing to do. The cocktailian world has also been abuzz about the introduction of a violet liqueur from Japan, Hermes Violet. Hard to find as well, but other Hermes liqueurs, plus aromatic and orange bitters, are available at tokyobaron.com; Violet isn't listed but they're supposed to have it soon ... email them! If worst comes to shove, you can can mix Monin Violet Syrup (which is available in the U.S.) half and half with 100-proof vodka, which works kinda sorta okay. There's an amazing interplay between the violette and the Herbsaint in this drink; they kind of wrestle with each other for a second before embracing each other and leaping out as something entirely other. You have to be very careful in mixing, though. Herbsaint (or any pastis) is very easy to overdo, and can take over a drink. (The same goes for violette, actually, although pastis' tendency to overwhelm is greater.) Measure only a scant portion of Herbsaint.
We garnished with a curly lemon twist as well. Thanks for this one, Paul! (And Jamie!) The president of the United States is a lying sack of shit. Which is, in so many words, what Frank Rich said in the New York Times today.
Amazingly enough, that last sentence there is true: Salon has uncovered further evidence that the military sent soldiers with acute post-traumatic stress disorder, severe back injuries and other serious war wounds back to Iraq. This is also the Rose Garden address during which that incredibly creepy shot if Cheney standing way off to the side by himself, glowering and mentally operating President Mortimer Snerd, while undoubtedly thinking of drinking the blood of children: UPDATE: So say we all. Lies lies lies, yeah ... John McCain wants to be the next Chief Liar (also known as the president of the United States). He's been practicing a lot lately, especially with his mindbogglingly absurd claims that Iraq is so peachy keen now that you can walk around safely in Baghdad neighborhoods (but apparently only if you're wearing body armor and accompanied by three Blackhawk helicopters, two Apache gunships and 100 soldiers ... then the place where you held your bullshit press conference gets shelled by mortar fire less than a half an hour after the supposdly neutralized insurgents found out where it was being held). Now he said that he "misspoke," which is the Republicans' favorite euphemism for "lied." You can watch him actually saying it via ThinkProgress.
Yes kids, it's fun to lie about Iraq! Just ask George. [ Link to today's entries ]
Queen Bee. Richmond, Virginia's alternative weekly covers transplanted New Orleanian singer Leigh "Little Queenie" Harris, who's been living there (and earlier in North Carolina) since the failure of the levees flooded her house. It's good hear about her playing some gigs, although I sure wish she'd come back home a little more often. (For that matter, I wish I'd come back home a little more often too.) The really good news is that Leigh will be performing in a reunion gig of Lil' Queenie and the Percolators at Southport Hall in Jefferson, LA (just across the Orleans/Jefferson Parish line) on Sunday, April 29 at 10pm. Woot! Her Jazzfest gig is earlier the same day, although at the much smaller Lagniappe stage rather than the bigger Jazz Tent where she's appeared for the last few years. She'll be on right after Bobby Lounge, though, so that'll be a cool double-bill. Cocktail of the day, really, actually. Cocktail of a few days ago, in fact. We had a drink that was new to us, and instead of giving me the recipe Wesly told me to go look it up for myself, but he gave me the wrong drink name. "This doesn't sound right," I thought, but I was in a hurry and wrote it up anyway. Scroll down below to the most recent Cocktail of the Day for what we really had. :-) Good news for New Orleans health care. Nettie got this forwarded to her by some friends at the CDC:
I hope this helps. The health care situation in New Orleans is still dire. My dad said that in the building where he works, the main physicians' practice had 23 of their 25 doctors leave the state permanently within a month of Katrina. My sister said that close to 80% of the doctors at West Jeff Hospital had houses in Lakeview. By the way, if anyone in New Orleans needs a dentist, let me know. I'll put you in touch. [ Link to today's entries ]
Finally! Well, it took two months, but Thomas finally smiled when his mom and dad had the camera ready. Make 'em wait, build the anticipation ... 
"Oh, all right, I'll let you have one ..." Début of The Cocktail Spirit, with Robert Hess. Our colleague and fellow traveller Robert "DrinkBoy" Hess has been working with a local media company in Seattle that was looking to set up a web-based series of shows, beginning with food and cuisine. They wanted their first offering to be about cocktails, approached Robert, filmed a pilot episode, seemed satisfied with it, then came back and taped about 30 episodes in one epic weekend chez Robert. The first of the fruits of their labor his the web this past weekend, with Robert demonstrating and explaining the history of the Champagne Cocktail -- Champagne, a sugar cube and Angostura bitters -- which dates back 200 years. This is a fantastic little show, which you can watch online, download or podcast, and I'm really looking forward to seeing it on a weekly basis. Great job, Robert! Cocktail of the day. Courtesy of the random recipe function on CocktailDB.com.
No, the above drink isn't what we had at all, because somebody (*cough*Wesly*cough*) gave me the wrong drink name and told me to go look it up. I knew there were bitters in there, and thought he had just added them himself. Promoted from the comments, here's what we really had:
There. / Pharmacists. Ted Leo's got a new album out (avec Pharmacists, of course). You can buy it from your local independent CD store (if there's one still one in existence near you), or if you're a member of eMusic you can download it from there And for all you freebieheads, NPR has done a wonderful thing. Not only did they stream a full-length Ted Leo concert from D.C., they also archived it on their website for you to download. Cool! Lies lies lies yeah (part 5,367,201). I know, what else is now? Bush lied again today. At this morning's press conference ... I'm not sure why anybody bothers attending them anymore. They're full of either lies, propaganda or the endless repetitions of his delusional worldview. Specifically, he claimed yet again that "the surge," i.e. his escalation of his disastrous war, was not his idea but in fact the idea of his commanders in the field, and he's just following their advice. As Aravosis points out in the above link, "in fact, all of the Joint Chiefs, the heads of the Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines, ALL opposed the surge."
"And our commanders in the field opposed the surge, so Bush fired them and replaced them with someone who would rubber stamp his surge plan."
Lies and delusions, delusions and lies ... and more and more American soldiers die every day because of it. March Looka! entries have been permanently archived. [ Link to today's entries ]
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| Several of my friends and loved ones (and a few kind strangers) contribute regularly to this weblog, providing links, comments and sometimes lots more. Thanks to Wesly Moore, Mike Luquet, Mary Herczog, Steve Hochman, Dave Schmerler, Nettie DeAugustine, Diana Schwam, Andy Senasac, Michael Yasui, Steve Gardner, Michael Pemberton, Steve Kelley, Barry Kelley, Eric Labow, Tom Krueger, Greg Beron, Sean Burke, Shari Minton and Barry Enderwick. |
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