[title type="h5"]Tuesday, February 24, 2015.
Dinner At Café B With Old Friend..[/title]
A few months ago an email came in from a high school classmate of mine, although I didn't realize it was him at the time. He wanted some suggestions as to where he could arrange a lunch for a group. He emailed a few weeks ago to say that the idea worked out perfectly, and that now he felt he owed me a lunch. A few days ago, after having to postpone a half-dozen times, we finally got together this evening.
I think this is only the third time he and I met in the forty-seven intervening years since graduation day. Until the end of junior year, he and I were better friends than I was with most other classmates. He and I shared a common quality in our schoolwork. Neither one of us was destined to become the 1968 valedictorian, although I was much farther back in that line than he was. After all, he ended up becoming an attorney. I still have not made it to network radio news announcer.
Like many other Blue Jays of our vintage--perhaps a majority--he has grandchildren. Hearing about that always startles me a moment, the way that Rex, King of Carnival surprises me during the past decade by being younger than I am. How did it happen that I am old enough that many contemporaries of mine have two generations ahead of them?
We compare notes about our progeny. As always, I wish I had let him go first in outlining these things. I keep forgetting that Mary Ann and I have had extraordinarily great luck with our children throughout their lives. When I start talking about them, I slip into bragging quickly.
[caption id="attachment_36330" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Cafe B's crabmeat Beignets.[/caption]
Fortunately, this is shortly abbreviated by the arrival of food, which can't help but grab our attention. The venue was my idea: Café B, which is always better than I expect. We start with crabmeat beignets, the signature dish of the restaurant. They're shaped more or less like the familiar French Market doughnuts, but the likeness ends there. There's nothing sweet about the dish. The crabmeat is at the core, and a gribiche sauce is there for dipping.
I'd say that this was only a little better than the oyster special ofthe night. They are baked on the shells (that's enough to get my interest) with a Crystal hot sauce, Parmesan cheese and bacon topping. Both of these are good enough that we're tempted to get another round. But we're both trying to lose weight, and we don't.
He gets fish with crabmeat and pronounces it excellent. I wonder how many times a year someone sitting at the same table with me has that crab-on-fish combination. Many of them would be credited to Mary Ann.
The waiter is hot on the scallops, squirted with a gastrique of coriander, citrus and chili peppers. It is indeed excellent.
By this time the subject of Jesuit High School comes up. We both have many tales and thoughts about the place. He is a regular at Manresa, as I am. I recall an episode involving him in junior year. It was just something funny he said, and for some reason I remember it vividly. He doesn't, not at all. I wish I could remember important things this well.
Making a point about our alma mater, he waves his hand and accidentally knocks a glass of water into my lap. Well, that suit was ready for the cleaners, anyway. And even brighter perspective: I now have another point to make in re the disappearance of tablecloths from restaurants. If our table had a tablecloth, it would have collected the spillage and left me much less damp.
We finish by bringing up the matters that old men always do. Can it really be three more years until our fifty-year reunion? Isn't it amazing how few of our classmates have died recently? And can you believe how many of those guys are well past retirement already?
We shake hands, and he says, "You come across as a warm person." I am almost positive that he's the first who ever said that to me. [divider type=""]
[title type="h5"]Wednesday, February 25, 2015.
The Marys Almost Fly To Germany, But Drag Me To Cheesecake Factory Instead.[/title]
Mary Ann's on-again, off-again plan to travel to Germany makes a run for the airport. It is raining, and it will shortly get very cold. When she checks in--only an hour and fifteen minutes late!--she finds that most of the Eastern half of the country is being snowed or frozen in. Among the most affected airports is Atlanta. But that's where they connect for the jump across the pond! No planes are going there, she is told. It will later turn out that one flight--with nineteen empty seats, a critical matter for MA's buddy-pass flying habits. This will give her reason to stomp around cursing her bad luck.
We head for home with lots of time for lunch. The usual impasse as to where we will dine begins, but I destroy it by suggesting that we try the Cheesecake Factory. It's a national chain, highly esteemed by a lot of well-trained regular customers, as well as many business-minded restaurateurs. The managers of Lakeside Mall were certainly proud that they were able to woo the Cheesecake Factory to their complex. The CF is very choosy about its locations, always in the glitziest shopping areas.
The Marys love the place, of course, and have been there a half-dozen times, or more. I have held to my fuzzy policy of waiting awhile before dining in a new restaurant, but I think I've waited long enough.
It is still cold and windy. (Shreveport has snow and ice!) After a short wait, we get a nice warm spot in a corner booth. The menu is extraordinarily long, but a close study reveals this to be sleight of hand. A lot of the same dishes and ingredients show up in more than one presentation. And the CF still runs ads for outside businesses right there on the menu. I noticed that the first time I encountered the chain, many years ago. Something about this mortgaging of its customers irks me, but I must say that it's a good idea from the restaurant's point of view.
The Marys get a bowl of guacamole. Fresh and pretty, but mild in flavor. To fight off the chill in the air, I ask about the soup of the day. It is wild mushroom, they tell me. It is served in a very large bowl, and it's good and filling. Would have made a lunch unto itself.
I ask which wild mushrooms are used. The server checks with the kitchen, and reports that they are shiitake and portobella. Mary Ann beats me to the punch and says that neither of those is likely to be wild in the strict sense of the term. I guess that somewhere in the world they must grow and be foraged, but. . .
They have shepherd's pie here. Twice: once in the main run of the menu, and again under a list of lunch specials. I order the lunch, and have a portion so oversize that I strain to imagine how big the full-sized version is. The layered concoction is made with either steak cubes or hamburger cubes (we can't decide), topped with mashed potatoes and melted white cheese. The bottom layer combines a variety of vegetables. It's very complicated, but the dish is more filling than good.
The Marys are having a fine time, ordering the dishes they get everywhere they go. Which is easy to do in a chain. They keep trying to get me to say good things about the place, even though I have intentionally kept it positive since I sat down.
The service staff is efficient and knowledgeable, but I can actually feel an urgency emenating from them to get this table turned. I don't think I am imagining this. The last time I felt it was at the Houston's on St. Charles Avenue, which is in the same category.
Okay. So I've done the Cheesecake Factory. I hope the Marys will allow our dinners to return to more interesting places.
[title type="h5"]Cheesecake Factory, The. Metairie 2: Orleans Line To Houma Blvd: 3301 Veterans Blvd. 504-837-1818. [/title]
