Saturday, April 5, 2014. Our Lady Of Wisdom, Banqueting In The Civic.
I've never been enough of a celebrity that my mere presence results in crowds. Even at my Eat Club dinners, it's the restaurant and the menu that draw attendance. But a lot of charities seem to think that I have some kind of magnetism, and at least twice a week I'm asked to be part of one fundraiser or another--sometimes in the role of honorary chairman or some such. The first thing they tell me is that I don't have to do anything but show up for the gala dinner. I keep telling them that they should have kept on looking for somebody better. Tonight, for example, I was cast in such a role for Our Lady of Wisdom, which I only recently learned (after interviewing the real chairperson on the radio) began as a home for elderly or infirm priests, religious sisters and brothers. Those people have a problem: the drastic shrinkage of religious orders has caused many convents and monasteries to disappear, leaving the few remaining without support. Very sad, especially for people of my generation and those before who were schooled by nuns, brothers, and priests. Over half of my pre-college teachers were such folks. How could I say no? Our Lady Of Wisdom held its big fund-raising event tonight at the Civic Theater. It was well attended, which was a relief. I performed the only service I could, walking around and allowing myself to be buttonholed by people who wanted to talk about the restaurant scene. Which is not exactly what I would call work. The patron party was the big highlight. The food came from Borgne, John Besh's restaurant a block away. Waiters circulated with an unlimited supply of about a dozen items, all supremely delectable. You couldn't find a nibble that was much less good than your favorite. Which, for most people, was the almond-crusted, fried oyster. A close second was the braised, Asian-slathered beef. Followed very closely by the mushroom and goat cheese soup, the fluffy, cheesy croquettes, the ceviche, bruschetta topped with spicy chickpeas, big shrimp with two sauces, and a cauliflower vichissoise with crabmeat. Nothing but hits, all night long. I couldn't even function as an emcee or an auctioneer. My radio colleague Spud McConnell performed both those jobs, as well as performing song and dance routines with his wife and kids. He was literally all over the place. He even had a running joke about how his car had been booted outside--which proved to be true. Fortunately, Councilman Jackie Clarkson was in attendance and got the whole thing straightened out, literally with one phone call to the person in charge of all parking issues in New Orleans. The shank of the evening had a theme of legacies. The oldest restaurants in town each served dishes from out of the past. Antoine's did its new, mayonnaise-based version of shrimp remoulade. Galatoire's put forward a variation of chicken Creole that I don't remember ever having had at the restaurant (it may have been an ancient recipe). Tujague's sent over crawfish etouffee. I keep thinking about starting a service for charity events in which I coordinate the food. Not only did all three of the dishes above look alike, but the two main dishes were both served over rice with very similar sauces. Nothing wrong with the food, but it was clear that none of the three restaurants knew what the others were doing. That would be fine in a grazing feed, but this was a sit-down dinner. It wasn't a mortal sin, of course--the main lookout was raising money for the charity--but I've sen many would-be annual events decline and sometimes fall as a result of this very oversight. Maurice's French Pastries isn't as ancient as Antoine's, Galatoire's or Tujague's. But it does have a like to the past: it was once Beulah Ledner's bakery, a pillar of the local baking industry for many decades. They sent a large display of their artful pastries to cover the dessert course. The Civic Theater was the perfect place for this to-do. I have not been inside that old facility since I attended a production there of Our Town by the New Orleans Repertory Theater in high school. It's in excellent shape after all these years, but it gave me a funny feeling I haven't felt in awhile. What I remember as a very large, grandiose theater looked a lot smaller to my eyes tonight. I was married in a bigger place than this. (Unfair comparison. We were married in the German immensity of St. Mary's Assumption Church in the Irish Channel.) Speaking of married: Mary Ann dutifully joined me for this evening. But we weren't there long when she decided that the party was a lot of fun, and Chef Brian Landry's food from Borgne was fantastic. By the end of the affair, she had put down more than we would have paid for tickets so that the residents of Our Lady Of Wisdom could have a Pinkberry day. That makes me feel better about the whole deal. [divider type=""]Sunday, April 6, 2014. Rain Equals Burgers And Fries. My Special Sauce.
A rainy weekend, with the most torrential downfall today. Cold, too. Mary Leigh and The Boy continued their work on Mary Ann's exterior project which, she has determined, must be finished before we leave for Europe. She wouldn't even allow our taking a break for lunch or dinner. Instead, it was burgers and fries for everybody. But we are so good at cooking up those two American favorites that they are really quite a treat. Usually, I'm the burger chef, using a flattop grill to get a nice, crusty exterior. MA is more interested in visuals, so she installed the open grill instead. "I like the dark, crunchy stripes on the burgers," she said. Maybe she should use the technique practiced by chefs of small restaurants--particularly in Europe. They create grill marks without actually having a grill. The trick is to hold a knife-sharpening steel over a burner until it's red-hot. Then you press the steel agains the steak or the hamburger or whatever, at intervals that suggest a grill's opening. Et voila! Grill marks! But Mary Ann has grilled enough burgers on this slotted indoor grill to drip a lot of fat on the fake rocks below. Today, that fat caught on fire. This was an emergency, almost requiring the fire extinguisher. "As family safety officer," I said afterward, claiming an authority that nobody else wants, and causing much rolling of eyes, "I must inform you that when grease catches fire and the exhaust pulls in the smoke and flame, there is a chance that the exhaust duct may itself catch fire, because it has accumulated a good bit of grease over the twenty years since we put it in. This is what happened in the Brennan's fire of 1975, which shut them down for six months." For once, she didn't pooh-pooh my caution. What a feeling to be taken seriously by my wife! [title type="h6"] Yesterday || Tomorrow[/title]