[title type="h5"]Tuesday, November 11, 2014.
Dinner At Luke With A Possible Protégée.
[/title]
My efforts to find writers to review the rising tide of local restaurants--it is long since I admitted that I can't do it alone--have not been very successful. But lately three people who were unaware that I was looking just sort of turned up. One of them is already writing for a number of publications here and elsewhere, and I commissioned her to write one for us. Daniel Lelchuk (who goes by the soubriquet "The Gourmet Cellist" on the radio show; he really does play in the Louisiana Philharmonic) is also interested in writing some reviews. He certainly is cosmopolitan enough to handle the task.
And last week I had a letter from a professor in Journalism at Loyola, telling me of a student of his who is enthusiastic about reporting and restaurants. He asked whether the young man could meet with me to discover how one goes about writing about dining.
I easily and vividly recall the moment when first I was fired up about that prospect. It was the summer of 1970, and the New Orleans Underground Gourmet--the first critical guide to New Orleans dining--had just appeared. I didn't know how lucky I was in having already hit on the best way to start in a desirable career (or a middling or even bad career): you just start doing it, for free if necessary.
Jack Vanchiere meets me at the radio station. He is wearing jacket and tie. Good start! En route to dinner at Luke, Jack brings up a number of culinary topics, some rather abstruse. This is the first time in decades I heard someone talk about a coulibiac--an elegant French-Russian fish dish wrapped in pastry. I ask his age: nineteen. Same as I was when I got the calling.
I illustrate the fallibility of restaurant critics by finding that we must wait for a table until the pitiless hostess calls for us, and that the sound level in the restaurant is a bit loud for easy conversation. I could have picked a better place by just going to the next restaurant we came to, no matter what it was. I ask Jack if he'd like to have a drink while we're waiting. The words are barely out of my mouth when I realize he's not of legal age--a handicap I didn't have when I was nineteen.
We get a terrible table in the middle of traffic. Jack gets some oysters with a persillade baked over the bivalves in their shells, and a crabmeat bisque. I have tuna nicoise served like a bruschetta. The bread part is grilled to a dry darkness so firm that I can't take a bite out of it without sawing off pieces first. Then the lamb ragout, which sounded interesting. But the kitchen has some confusion as to the meaning of "ragout." The word has always denoted to me a fine, rich stew of meat and vegetables. What I get is a plate of bucatini pasta in what I would call a bolognese sauce, or a ragu. The Italian "ragu" derives from the French "ragout," or perhaps vice-versa. Depends on what book you're reading. They're pronounced identically.
So, I am disappointed that I didn't have a French ragout. On the other hand, I can't say that this Italian ragu was less than delicious. So it just comes down to expectations.
While all this is going on, Jack tells me that he is from Lake Charles, where his father ran two restaurants. He used to work at Chateau Margaux, almost certainly the all-time finest restaurant in Lake Charles dining history. So Jack has a jump on me. Nobody in my family ever dined in restaurants, let alone worked in them.
By the end of the evening, it's clear that Jack is as knowledgeable as he is enthusiastic, and that he is skilled in journalistic writing. He is eager to take on a review assignment. One of those casual neighborhood places in the Bywater, he suggests. Great! He'll do a better job with that than I will.
This could be the beginning of a new era for the New Orleans Menu, which has never contained a voice other than my own and the occasional pieces Mary Ann writes. The last obstacle is figuring out how to handle expenses, something I know nothing about. Through 42 years of writing reviews, I was never once reimbursed for what I spent researching the restaurants. I don't accept free meals, and I've never had an expense account. But I can't ask that of anyone willing to write for us. Dilemma.
[title type="h5"]Lüke. CBD: 333 St Charles Ave. 504-378-2840.[/title]
