[title type="h5"]Good Friday, April 3, 2015.
Quiet Day, Busy Evening.[/title]
Even though I abstained from meat, I wonder whether having dinner at Antoine's is really in the spirit of Good Friday. Is it enough that Pope John Paul II dined at the old restaurant? And that part of the tour given by the waiters is the wall full of photos of His Holiness during his visit? Then I remember that Bernard Guste--the seventh "proprietor"of Antoine's--told me once that lots of people used to show up for Good Friday lunch at Antoine's, where they would eat bacalao--salted, dried codfish, that pan-European taste in the lenten season. But not even the oldest waiters at Antoine's remember that.
At the end of the radio show, I call my little sister Lynn to invite her to dinner. She will not bring any eating temptations to the table: she is mostly a vegetarian, but allows herself to eat seafood.
I have a Sazerac while waiting for her. I remember as I write these words that drinking alcohol on Good Friday is against the rules. But I think soufflee potatoes are allowed.
We split an order of oysters 2-2-2 (Rockefeller, Bienville, and Thermidor) and a half-dozen escargots bordelaise. The latter have too much roux in the sauce, a unique concoction of sherry, butter, garlic, and a sprinkling of grated cheese. The sauce is great for dipping with French bread. But not tonight. Come to think of it, there's good bit of excess roux in a number of dishes at Antoine's lately. They ought to look at that.
But they won't do it tonight. The key staff of the restaurant--CEO Rick Blount, Chef Mike Regua, even my waiter Charles Carter--are all in New York. Last night, they mounted a classic Antoine's dinner at the James Beard House. It's another celebration of this year's 175th anniversary of Antoine's debut.
Back in New Orleans, Antoine's is nearly full. I also see groups filtering through the big Annex dining room en route to the private dining rooms. It is a very busy night at Antoine's.
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Drumfish Colbert.[/caption]
But we are well served. Lynn has trout with crabmeat. I get black drumfish Colbert. That's a breaded fillet with the same dark-brown, thick sauce that is the magic of oysters Foch. It's great on fish, too.
We talk about our lives, which Lynn insists that I see through rose-colored glasses. Especially when we reminisce about our shared childhood. Even if I concede this--and I don't--I can't see the value in worrying about it now.[divider type=""]
[title type="h5"]Saturday, April 4, 2015.
Pre-Easter With Old Friends.[/title]
The rain and the subsequent muddy condition of the Cool Water Trail has kept me from from my daily strut in recent days. I try to catch up on this dry day with an extra lap around the grounds, which takes over an hour. I'll do it tomorrow and Monday, too, and hope that my pants continue to slip down to my ankles when I neglect to tighten the belt.
A couple of days ago I got a call from Chuck Billeaud. His two daughters are a little older and younger respectively than my Mary Leigh is, but the girls have always been friends--as we have been with their parents. But that was when they were all going to the same schools. Now everybody is working and spread around. The likes of Easter reunites us.
It just a drop-in party tonight. Chuck is making batches of crawfish etouffee and creamed spinach. He is a full-blooded Cajun from Broussard, just south of Lafayette. Like all Cajun men, this gives him credibility for cooking any crawfish dish he likes. And he lives up to it.
We have martinis, entirely because in the old days we always did. This one single martini tells me that I must give up the propensity. The first sip gives me everything I like and need.
And then it's two hours of talking about our kids and where they're headed. The Marys' trip to Germany is puzzling enough to make for good conversation. Today they reached Prague, the capital of the Czech Republic. Mary Ann wanted to go there for many years, and did much reading about it. Surprise! They hated the place. Especially the food. They say in their emails that they have hardly eaten at all except for breakfast and chocolates. The latter are everywhere and artfully made. And the Marys have a powerful chocolate habit.
All the while, a disc-shaped robotic vacuum cleaner makes its way through the Billeauds' house. Good thing we don't have one of those at the Cool Water Ranch. On the first day, it would bump into one of the many precarious piles of detritus, knock it over onto itself, and sit there grinding until it caught on fire and the house burned down.
