December 2005 Archives
Since I didn't get the E-man's porkchop last night at NOLA, I grilled my own.
On the grill, with a little bit of bbq sauce. The 'shrooms are "baby portobello" mushrooms, sauteed in a little butter, creole seasoning, and rose wine:
Zatarain's "New Orleans Rice and Gravy," which is becoming a favorite of Kevin's:
Plated, with some Green Giant Honey-Glazed Carrots and some ZIP Bread:
and no, we don't have the kitchen back yet, but we do have floors! The plumber is got married last night, so the contractor moved up the floor guy and pushed back the kitchen to Tuesday.
On da sixth day of Christmas, we stopped at:
K&B's
for a:
six pack of Dixie!
for the Crawfish They Caught in Arabi
Happy New Year, Everyone!
(K&B photo from Mike Strauch's K&B shrine)
On the fifth day of Christmas, we stopped at
A&G
for
Fried Onion Rings!
Puccino's on Veterans:
they're grouting the tile in the kitchen and den this morning, so Kev and I headed for Wi-Fi land. I saw they do a basic breakfast here, and it wasn't bad. That plate costs $6--three eggs any style, bacon or sausage, grits or hash browns. Grits are one of the things I rarely make at home because I don't have the patience to do them right.
On the fourth day I said OK let's get a Christmas tree:
Before'ya Drive Me Nuts!
satsuma oranges from Plaquemines Parish:
xposted to YatPundit
Leave it to Da Paper to spoil a pretty good article with a stupid headline:
Brett Anderson is a good factual reporter, a literate bystander in the world that is New Orleans cuisine. There's no reason to ruin what he does well with such a goofy headline.
For openers, New Orleanians don't need salvation. Well, maybe in the biblical sense, but that's a subject for another discussion. We need to eat, though, and we really only know one way to do that. The meal-as-event has been perfected in New Orleans. Forget what Michelin or the New York papers say. If you've been here, you know how we operate.
Restaurant Antoine doesn't even try to "turn the tables;" you make your reservation for 7pm, you can sit there and enjoy yourself until midnight if you so choose. Forget trying to wolf down something before the play, you went out because you wanted to go to Antoine's (or Galatoire's, or wherever your stomach led you). Most musicians don't get cranked up until 10pm-11pm, so there's no rush if you've got an 8pm dinner reservation.
Maintaining the lifestyle to which we've become accustomed will be a challenge though, as Anderson points out:
But could the city survive without them? Before Katrina, the restaurant industry was, according to the L.R.A., the state's largest employer, generating $5.2 billion in annual sales. Along with welcome economic stimulation, restaurants in the recovering city provide a visible example of the city's resolve for the visitors so vital to the city's future, and whom the restaurants will play a key role in attracting.
The state's largest employer, yes, but the vast majority of those employees are no longer in the metro area. With all the construction that will be going on here for the next couple of years (at a minimum), just about anybody with skills above dishwasher will be able to make more money in other industries. Diners are already feeling this pinch across the area, from higher prices for a Bud's Broiler hamburger to more expensive pizza, to larger checks at the better restaurants. It's going to take more than FEMA trailers to lure back restaurant workers. Those earning less than $10 per hour are making that in other cities now. Their kids are going to public schools that are infinitely better than those in Orleans Parish. In the long run, Barbara Bush, in all her rude insensitivity, may be right--some folks will be better off having been forced to leave New Orleans.
If the restaurant industry wants to once again be a major economic force in the city, they're going to have to become activists. And that means doing more than feeding emergency workers and disaster relief crews. They're going to have to get involved in the political process. The chefs and owners need to hold the School Board accountable for making our public education system work. They need to lobby our CongressCritters and other politicians to make housing affordable. The LRA will have to do more than lobby against restrictive liquor laws and turn their attention to what makes New Orleans better.
was a roast beef po-boy from New Orleans Hamburger and Seafood Company:
They're laying the tile in the den and kitchen, so i got the boys out of the house for a while, and NOH&S has wi-fi internet access.
They also have boring po-boys, but the boys can dress their burgers any way they like there, so it was OK...
On the Third Day of Christmas, we stopped at:
Muh-ken-zees
for
3 French Breads
they're still working on the kitchen...but we're making progress:
the cabinets are finally in after the royal screwup by Mattix. Hopefully tomorrow they'll put the countertops on and we can get the appliances in place.
pepperoni and green olive calzone from Italian Pie (Vets and Green Acres):
Oki Nago on N. Arnoult.
They're putting in both the front and back doors today, as well as sheetrocking the front bathroom. It's been nothing but the whine of power tools in here, making it all but impossible to record anything. We'll talk food tomorrow...
On the first day of Christmas, my mawmaw gave to me:
A crawfish they caught in Arabi.
my 11-year old's photo technique needs a bit of work, but the cake was still yummy. This was a single-layer-sized chocolate doberge cake from Zuppardo's. It was part of the dessert spread at my mother-in-law's dor Christmas dinner yesterday.
I saw this cheese back at Zuppardo's the other day and bought one. I had it some months ago and fell in love with it.
It's from Long Clawson Dairy in Leicestershire, England. It's "Creamy White Stilton with Cranberries."
Here it is still in the wax:
The store also had the Clawson blend with blueberries, appropriately enough in dark blue wax. Both are yummy!
You'll notice that we're still on paper plates. The kitchen cabinets finally arrived on Wednesday, but installation won't be until next week because of the holiday.
Happy Holidays, everyone!
Red Wine Steak Sauce
(I need a name for this creation, if you've got a suggestion, e-mail me)
1/2 cup onion, chopped fine
1/2 cup green pepper, chopped fine
1/2 cup celery, chopped fine
4tbps butter
4tbps flour
1 cup beef stock
1 cup dry red wine
1/4 pound tasso, chopped into small cubes
salt/pepper/creole seasoning to taste
Saute the onions/peppers/celery in 2tbps butter until the onion is wilted. Melt in the rest of the butter. When butter is melted, stir in flour. Brown flour over very low heat until it is blonde in color rather than white. Slowly stir in the beef stock, then the red wine, stirring constantly. Add the tasso and bring to a light boil. Reduce heat and simmer.
Serve over good steaks. Makes enough sauce for 2 or 3 steaks.
...was Sake Cafe. I was at a client's and met two friends at the Sake on Veterans in Metairie. One of my friends and I had the two-roll combo. I had a crunchy roll and a spicy tuna roll. My friend Al had a crunchy roll and a crawfish roll. I got the spicy tuna roll because I've never had one at Sake, but Al had the right idea--the crawfish roll was better. My friend Steve had a tempura bento box. It only took three weeks in Tokyo to spoil me forever in terms of tempura, but it didn't look bad. Still, the rolls were the better choice.
Overall, it was a good Metairie lunch.
Here's a couple of shots of the one on City Park Avenue:
Looking in the windows, it didn't look so bad. Hopefully it'll be back soon...
The second half of this week's podcast is about burgers from Bud's Broiler.
Here's a #1, mayo, pickle relish, and onions:
and here's a #4, sauce, cheese, onions:
...but not at the same time. :-)
The Podcast (28 minutes, 27.4MB)
The simple cream sauce I made last night starts with the "holy trinity" of onion, green pepper, and celery. I used a pre-chopped mix from the grocery:
sauteeing the veggies:
Then 1/4 cup of wine (Lancer's Rose' for this sauce), and a 1/4 cup of heavy cream.
This sauce was to go over some very nice-looking salmon for me. The family wanted pork chops:
The pork chops, grilling up:
the side dish was Zatarain's "New Orleans Rice and Gravy," cooked in the microwave:
The finished pork chops:
The grilled salmon, with the sauce:
...but without coffee-with-chicory?? I'm having a dark roast at the moment, because they said they're having a serious shipping issue. But at least the place has re-opened and their 'net connection is back.
It's a Dunkin Donuts morning here.
Here's our dozen:
Kev wanted a cinnamon bun rather than donuts:
and I didn't want either, so I got a sausage-egg-cheese croissant:
The Dunkin Donuts (actually, it's a DunkinRobbins, because it's one of those combos of the donut shop and ice cream parlor) on Veterans is clean, staffed by nice, friendly folks, and doesn't smell like burger grease at 7am. This is one time where the chain wins out over the local place.
Oh, and no video poker noise or cigarette smoke, either...
Excellent explanation of what's in the little yellow packet from Mr. Lake's forum.
On his food forum, Mr. Lake asked the question:
What's it take to run a successful restaurant post-Katrina?
The answer is patience.
Let's assume for the sake of this discussion that we're talking about restaurants where the owners have the capital to repair any damage and they're in a position to ride out a rough six months. They're going to have to be patient in terms of not being too ambitious with their menus. Shortages on some items will continue, numbers will be down, and we'll see "limited menus" for a while longer as a result.
They're going to have to be patient with residents. Homeowners are putting their time and money into rebuilding. A lot of younger folks who are single or married-without-kids haven't returned to the area yet. Those are target markets for smaller restaurants, the frequent-diners. When homes are back in order and FEMA trailers are pulled away, the locals will go back to their eat-out-a-lot habits.
They're going to have to be patient with the non-local diners. Notice I don't call them "tourists." All the contractors, FEMA workers, military personnel, and others who are here to help the area post-storm have different tastes than locals. Unlike tourists, they didn't choose to eat all their meals in New Orleans. The successful restaurants will be the ones who are patient with these folks, explaining them the way we cook things, and accomodating them. Also, more hispanic folks moving into the area doesn't mean we need more taquerias, but places that make latin folks feel welcome will thrive. This will be particularly important in the 'burbs.
They're going to have to be patient with their workers. The first restaurants to re-open after the storm were the family-owned places. Places like Gio's Pizza on W. Napoleon in Metairie, Oki Nago, or Cafe East, where the staff is all family or friends. Next were the suburban Metairie places that stood to make a lot of money in the short run. They recruited wait and kitchen staff with higher salaries and bonuses, but a lot of their new employees were new to the business. Most of these new folks aren't dummies and they'll catch on quick, but the old hands in the kitchen and on the floor are going to have to pass on their experience.
If a restaurant owner can be patient, there's a lot of potential here. The tourists will be back
...and their "club wrap" sandwich isnlt bad at all. Now, if this guy at the other end of this big table would stop shaking it so much...
The painters are in the house right now, so it's noisy, busy, and they like their music loud, so it's easier if I sneak out for a bit and do some writing. I'm big on comfort food on a gloomy morning like today, so I came here to the Tastee Donuts at the corner of Transcontinental and W. Esplanade.
This Tastee re-opened fairly quickly after the storm, and it's been crowded ever since. I've been hesitant to criticize any place for slow post-Katrina service. Regular employees didn't come back, new people are learning the ropes, extra people are in the neighborhood, you name it. Still, it's been over two months now, and this Tastee is just terrible. They are two ladies working behind the counter, one handling the drive-up, one handling the inside line. There are two registers, but they're only using one of them. The credit card swipe machine is by the register they're not using. I've seen some inefficient uses of workspace before, but this takes the cake.
Example: six or seven people in front of me in line were three younger guys ordering some breakfast. One of them ordered up a breakfast platter, a donut, and a drink, and used his debit card to pay. The lady runs his card, dodging her colleague working the drive-up, because the swiper is by the window. The receipt didn't print, so she changes the printer paper. Then she runs the card a second time to query the machine and get him a receipt. Worried now that she's run him up twice, she calls a guy from the kitchen (who appears to be the cook, so I assume he's the owner or manager). He asks the guy for his card a third time. The customer (rightly so) is concerned by now--how many places want to run your card three times? The guy manually punches the number into the system, and sure enough, the customer was charged twice. Now other breakfast orders (eggs, grits, etc.) have to wait while the cook sorts out the debit card issue.
In case you're wondering why I've gone into such detail on this, it's because it took twenty minutes for me to get two chocolate frosted cake donuts and a medium coffee. Twenty minutes for a $2.45 order.
I can't figure it out. They seem like nice enough people. They're polite, but they sure as heck don't appear to know what they're doing.
Harsh words, you say? Perhaps, except for one thing: All the time I was in line, I was entertained by the sounds of the "Hallelujah Chorus" from the video poker machines off to the side of the counter. These people are raking in the bucks on the video crack. That means they're not in the donut business, they're in the casino business. (Side note: Ever notice that Tastees no longer have signs that say "Tastee Donuts," but "Tastee Restaurant?" That's because a restaurant can have poker, but not a donut shop. If they've got two people on their machines at 9am, they're making good money, and should pay for the staff it takes to run the secondary business that justifies the poker machines. All the post-storm consideration goes out the window--the poker profits enable them to do it right, so they're obviously making a choice not to run things efficiently.
It's all a shame, because I like Tastee's donuts, and their coffee is OK. I like KastleBurgers occasionally. But life's just too short to wait that long for $2.45 of coffee and donuts when there's other Tastees, a Krispy Kreme, and a DD not all that far away.
Now I'm off to Puccino's. I just tried to post this message from my client program to the website, and the wireless network here is demanding a login. They advertise free wireless, but they've got a pay-for-service access point installed. Either that or they're just not configured right. Sounds like they need a computer guy. I'd offer to help out, but I'd get even fatter with a Tastee as a client. :-)
Bottom line, if you want Tastee donuts, go to the drive up in this neighborhood. If you're looking to chill and get on-line, take a pass on Transcontinental and Veterans.
when it's 50F outside, you don't need to run four big-ass ceiling fans at full blast in your Veterans location. brrrrrrrr...
The Podcast is back! Today, we talk about survival food and white beans and rice.
Survival food to me means stuff I can cook while I have no kitchen, like these microwaveable "bowl" dishes from Zatarain's:
Here's what it looks like heated up:
White Beans and Rice
Creole Cooked Red Beans
1 lb dried Great Northern white beans
1 ham bone
8-10 cups water
1 (8oz) can tomato sauce
2 tsp garlic salt
1/4 tsp Tabasco sauce
1 tsp Lea and Perrins Worcestershire sauce
1/2 lb ham, diced
1/2 lb hot sausage, sliced
1/2 lb smoked sausage, sliced
1/2 cup chopped celery
1 cup chopped onion
3 cloves garlic, pressed
2 bay leaves
salt and pepper to taste
1/4 cup chopped parsley
2 cups rice, cooked
Preparation of the beans:
Wash and sort the beans. Cover the beans with water and boil for 2 minutes. Remove from the heat an let the beans soak for at least 1 hour. Even if you plan to soak the beans overnight, this method keeps the beans from souring. This short-soak method helps retain the vitamins, cuts cooking time considerably, and produces beans with fewer hard skins than those soaked overnight. Add the salt and vlavorings only after soaking. Salt has a tendency to toughen the beans which causes them to take longer to cook. In order to prevent the beans from boiling over, add 1 tbsp. bacon grease or butter, a piece of slab bacon, or seasoning ham wieth some fat on it. One cup of dried beans yields, depending on the variety and size of the beans, 2-23/4 cups cooked beans. Nutritionally, beans are high in protein, but they require the addition of rice to be a complete protein.
After beans are prepared:
In a large pot place the ham bone, water, tomato sauce, garlic salt, Tabasco sauce, Worcestershire sauce and beans. Cook, uncovered, over low heat. In a skillet saute the ham and sausage until the grease is rendered. Transfer the ham and sausage to the bean pot. To the grease in the skillit add the cleery, onion, and garlic and saute until soft. Pour this mixture into the bean pot. Add the bay leaves, salt, and pepper and continue cooking for 2 to 2 1/2 hours, or until the beans are soft and creamy. Add the water while cooking if necessary. Remove the bay leaves and add the parsley. Serve the beans over the rice. Serves 6-8.
Grilling up the meat:
Sauteeing the onions in my improvised frying pan:
Simmering the beans:
Grilled sausagg. The top left is hot sausage, the curvy links are andouille, and the straight ones regular smoked sausage:
Three years ago, my wife decided to re-model the kitchen. Fortunately for me, I was able to set up a three-week teaching gig in Tokyo, avoiding the trials and tribulations of ripping out the kitchen and getting all the new stuff in. When I returned, we had a lovely new cooktop, oven, microwave, as well as new cabinets, pantry, and new hardwood floors.
Hurricane Katrina changed all that. When the drainage system backed up in Jefferson Parish, that hardwood floor, appliances, walls, and the bottom cabinets in the kitchen had to be ripped out. Our general contractor, Homeland Construction, has the walls back in place and painted:
The upper cabinets (Quality brand, in their "Cathedral" pattern, "Champagne" finish) survived. Both my wife and I liked what she had done three years ago with the kitchen. We had the uppers and they saved the countertops when the kitchen was demolished, so we decided to go back to Mattix Cabinets and have them re-make the bottom cabinets.
My wife called the same salesperson we had three years ago. He still had all the specifications and measurements from the initial design and order, so it was a no-brainer to get this going. Or so we thought.
Three weeks later, wife called Mattix to check on the status of the order. When he took the order, the salesperson told us the cabinets would be ready in two-three weeks. That sounded optimistic, so we waited past three weeks. Mattix told us that they had no order for our kitchen. They had the order for the bathrooms, yes, but nothing on the kitchen.
The salesperson claims he e-mailed the order to the office and they either did not receive it or they did not process it. Either way, the company now says there's nothing they can do, and it will be another four weeks before we will get our cabinets.
There comes a point in many projects where things narrow to the "critical path," where the next step in the plan is dependent on the previous one. Installation of our kitchen cabinets is a good example of this. Without the cabinets, we can't have the kitchen floor installed. It's the same tile as we're using in the den, so that is all on hold for weeks. We can't take delivery on the new range, refrigerator, and dishwasher, because there's really no place to put them except their locations in the kitchen. Our home will not be back together before Christmas now.
When a business makes such a costly error, usually they try to make things right. Unfortunately, Mattix Cabinets is not that kind of business. They're not interested in expediting the order, and they don't want to give us any financial consideration for the inconvenience. They don't have too, of course. They're the only Quality Cabinets dealer in the metro area (the next closest place is in Baton Rouge).
So, our dilemma is whether or not to continue doing business with Mattix Cabinets. My immediate reaction was fairly colorful and direct--I suggested to wife that we cancel not only the kitchen, but the order for the two bathrooms as well. She pointed out that cancelling the kitchen would mean we would either have mis-matched cabinets in that room, or we'd have to rip out the upper cabinets and spend extra money on new ones. She also likes Quality brand cabinets. Either way, we'd be starting from scratch with another company and that would delay the reconstruction even further.
As of today, we're going to continue with Mattix, against my better judgement. It makes sense financially, even if it means giving a poorly-run company money they really don't deserve. They may be working overtime, but they're also charging full price for their cabinets. We're not getting a "hurricane discount" from them. If they lost our order because they're inundated with orders, that means they're making money hand over fist. If a business is charging full price, it's reasonable for a customer to expect full service. If the business doesn't give that service, it's also reasonable for customers to demand it, or some sort of compensation as an alternative.
To sum this up, we strongly suggest you avoid using Mattix Cabinets if you're rebuilding post-Katrina. They weren't a problem to work with three years ago, but clearly the storm has changed that. They've obviously got enough business already that they don't need yours or mine, so I suggest you take yours elsewhere.
I won't be able to make this one, but I'm buying the cookbook...unless someone wants to send it to me for Christmas :-P
Book Signing and Tasting
Sunday, December 4 at 1:00 p.m.
The Galatoire’s Cookbook
Recipes and Family History from the Time-Honored New Orleans Restaurant
by
Melvin Rodrigue with Jyl Benson
Octavia Books
513 Octavia Street
New Orleans
To order online,
http://octaviabooks.booksense.com/NASApp/store/Product?s=showproduct&isbn=0307236374
