[title type="h5"]Friday, February 20, 2015.
A New Publisher Wants A Book From Me.[/title]
A few days ago an email came from the former sales and promotion manager of a local book publisher I've worked with in the past. He formed his own publishing company, and wants to know whether I have any book projects in my brain. He knows that I had a less-than-perfect rapport with our mutual former house.
We meet for dinner at Tommy's Cuisine to explore the possibilities. I neglect to ask whether I could use his name in this journal, but he remembers to tell me I should keep secret an idea I run past him. It's one I have not only thought about for some time, but have largely written already. In that respect it will be like my cookbook. When Katrina hit, almost all the recipe testing and writing was complete. All I had to do was the incidental writing and editing. Not a small job, but one I could finish in the basement of my host in Washington, D.C. during the month after the hurricane.
I didn't really remember Bookman (as I will call him here) from our few book-signing sessions a few years ago. Our conversation was a bit awkward at first. I didn't want to blurt out everything on my mind. The bookstore managers around town have repeatedly told me that if I were to write a restaurant guide, it would be well received, since Zagat doesn't publish here right now, and the few other books are slender. But restaurant guides go out of date alarmingly fast, and what with the currency of on-line guides, such a book is an iffy proposition for making back expenses.
I don't really want to write another cookbook just now. I said everything I wanted to say in Tom Fitzmorris's New Orleans Food. And chefs are publishing so many cookbooks lately that I don't really see a niche for me.
And then there are the four novels I have in various stages. But I'm too busy with the website to give those any priority. I have a plan to take a long train trip this fall, and to spend the many hours in my sleeper writing fiction. At the least it will be fun.
And then there is this other idea. It's a simple concept, one which may have been done in other cities, but never to my knowledge in this area. Since almost all of the research is finished, if I push myself, I could probably write it in a month. It would be ready for the critical fall-winter selling season. Bookman is enthralled by the concept. He tells me to keep it under wraps.
The idea seems to change Bookman's mood right away. I ask him about what his new company has in the works. He tells me that the warehousing setup is complete. That may seem like a trivial item, but I know that a book publisher must have a very good warehousing system to even exist. He seems to know his stuff.
I have not eaten at Tommy's in a long time, even though it's only a block and a half from the radio station. Most of my recent experience with Tommy Andrade's expert restaurant complex is at Tomas Bistro across the street. Indeed, he asked why I wasn't there.
The only way I can prevent Tommy from bringing to my table a bottle of very good wine--Veuve Cliquot Yellow Label, in this case--is to shoot him as he approaches. We've been friends too long for that. So I am disappointed to learn that Bookman doesn't drink, or at least is not drinking tonight. This doesn't prevent me from having a couple of glasses.
We start with baked oysters three ways. I have been eating a lot of such things lately, but baked oysters are to me the ne plus ultra of great Creole-French restaurants. Some crab cakes arrive. Then the best dish in the house for Bookman. Duck Tchoupitoulas may be the best duck dish in town and certainly is the best entree at Tommy's.
The waiter touts me on the veal piccata with crabmeat. But I will observe abstinence for at least this first Friday in Lent, and ask for the same dish to be prepared with the fish of the day, black drum. It comes with linguine on the side and is a bit too much to finish, but it still looks puny next to the pile of duck, dirty rice and spicy spinach across the table. Tommy's justifies its four stars again.
By this time, Bookman has become lively. We discuss our careers and restaurants and publishing. His New Orleans Incest connection with me proves to be Kit Wohl. I ran into her in the early 1970s, when she was in the advertising business. Ten years later, she was my host for a decade of Thanksgiving dinners. Then she let Mary Ann and me use her opulent apartment for our wedding reception. Most recently, she is the author of a series of great little cookbooks and at least one big one. And Bookman knows her well. Once again we prove it: there are only 500 people living in this city.
[title type="h5"]Tommy's Cuisine. Warehouse District & Center City: 746 Tchoupitoulas. 504-581-1103. [/title]
