Diary 8|2, 3|2014: Palmettos On The Bayou. Where's The Baked Chicken? Pizza Man.

Written by Tom Fitzmorris August 12, 2014 12:01 in

[title type="h5"]Saturday, August 2, 2014. Palmettos On The Bayou. [/title] I don't use sports metaphors often, but one of them is appropriate here. I feel like a football player who breaks straight through the defense, pigskin in hand, and runs thirty yards. The Saints have usually begun their pre-season by now, and that usually means my Saturday show is kicked off the field. But I have a regular three-hour show at the regular time today. For the next two weeks, I'll be on the full time, but later. After that, who knows? Mary Ann is agreeable to the idea of dinner in Slidell. An assortment of listeners and radio salespeople have tried to get me to dine at Palmettos for the last few years. Indeed, I tried four times. The first time, there was a big party on the lovely deck around back of the restaurant. A wedding reception, I think. I managed to score only a small table in the center of the dining room. My closest neighbor was the band, which tuned up for a full hour, coinciding almost exactly with the time I was there. It was too noisy to carry on the meal past the entree. My next three attempts fell on nights when the restaurant had a buy-out--a private party taking over the whole restaurant. In one of these, I asked for a table and was given one. It took some fifteen or twenty minutes to learn that nothing would happen at that table. Another buyout. The hostess thought I was just an early arrival for the party. Tonight, we were smart for a change and called ahead. No buy-out, no big parties. We could expect a normal evening of dining. [caption id="attachment_43375" align="alignnone" width="480"]The deck at Palmettos on the Bayou. The deck at Palmettos on the Bayou.[/caption] Mary Ann has not been to Palmettos, and is enthralled by the place. It's nicer inside than the rusticity one expects from its railroad-track-and-bayou setting. The main dining room and bar are expansive, with tall ceilings and many windows. The rambling network of decks outside allows the sun to get lost in the assembly of tupelos and cypresses. Even the namesake palmettos stand around in abundance. Pamelettos-OystersTruffleButter [caption id="attachment_43376" align="alignnone" width="480"]Eggplant Palmetto. Eggplant Palmetto.[/caption] All this augurs a lovely evening. We're even in the mood for seafood, which dominates the menu. I get the half-dozen fried oysters with truffle butter. Mary Ann has eggplant palmetto--two semi-circular cuts of the vegetable, panneed and crossed with what the restaurant claims is its "famous seafood sauce." It's creamy and there's shrimp in it, but I hazard no further guesses. [caption id="attachment_43378" align="alignnone" width="480"]Trout Pontchartrain. Trout Pontchartrain.[/caption] Entrees. Hers is trout Pontchartrain, with its classical crabmeat topping, plus artichokes and mushrooms in a beurre blanc. A transparent green sauce completes a very nice-looking plate. Mine is catfish Bonfouca (the name of the nearby bayou, coated in a thicker, heavier way than I like, and covered with the legendary seafood sauce. It's all on a mound of mashed potatoes--a practice left over from the 1990s, when chefs began stacking foods, without regard to textural contrasts (or the lack thereof) between the layers. Palmettos-CatfishBonfouca All the previous dishes have something in common. They are overcooked and to the same degree far too firm. Whatever fresh flavors the fish once had are obliterated in the pan. We both feel let down. For awhile there, we thought we had a new place to dine regularly. Mary Ann still loves the look of the place, but it may be hard to persuade her to join me here again. 2 Fleurs de Lis [title type="h5"]Palmettos. Slidell: 1901 Bayou Lane. 985-643-0050. [/title] [divider type=""] [title type="h5"]Sunday, August 3, 2014. Ordinary Time. [/title] Remember Sunday dinner when you were growing up? At our house it was baked chicken, peas and corn. My sisters insist that their recollection is of roast beef, not chicken, but I remember that chicken so fondly that I refuse to be taken in by them. (We all agree on the peas and corn, because of an anecdote involving my father on that subject.) My point is that Sunday was a special eating day. Unlike the other days of the week, the major meal came at around one in the afternoon, not six at night as it did the rest of the week. That's not how it is now at the Cool Water Ranch. If anything, Sunday features the most impoverished dining of the week. Lunch, if it happens at all, is minimal. We go out to dinner about half the time, and then only to the familiar default places, all of whom have wall-to-wall televised football. That describes today perfectly. The younger members of the household go off on their own. Mary Ann and I wind up at Zea, where I have a salad and a bowl of their rich tomato-basil soup. I remember to ask to have the shredded cheese left off the salad, but I forget to give the same order for the soup, which absolutely does not need a tablespoon of grated parmesan in a pile. Yes, it's a lazy, summer day. I cut the grass, but so what? Wait! There is one big change after all. The editor of CityBusiness, where I have written a weekly column since 1980, changed my deadline. Now I must file a column on Mondays instead of Wednesdays. This is good for me, for reasons too boring to write about. Zzzzzzzzzzzz--ZZ!--Sknx! What? The chicken's ready? What? No chicken? Oh. Too bad. [divider type=""] [title type="h5"]Monday, August 4, 2014. Pizza Man With The Boy.[/title] A much time as The Boy spends at our house, waiting for Mary Leigh to finish her day's work at the pastry shop, he and I have never had dinner together, just the two of us. Mary Ann has been suggesting I do this, not because we aren't chummy enough, but so I can communicate to him some standpoints about life that she thinks need to be put across. PizzaMan-Kids The two of us turn up at Pizza Man, where many happy hours were spent when the children were little. Pizza Man (Paul Schrem, who is likely these days to be Slightly-Retired Father Of Pizza Man) is still playing his games in the big window, where the current generation of little kids is delighted to watch him draw faces with pizza sauce on the crusts and fling flour around. PizzaMan-Salad We split one of the restaurant's excellent, laughably enormous Italian salads. Then a large pizza--half cheese, half pepperoni. As has long been the case at Pizza Man, the toppings are superb, and the crust is soggy. I like it anyway. PizzaMan-Board I get the new white beer from Abita. The Boy--who does enjoy a brew or two--doesn't. He's trying to get himself in shape for a major physical he must undergo when he shows up for Army basic training this January. The one salient part of our conversation reveals that he will spend four months in the southwestern deserts. This is the first I've heard of that. I wonder how that will affect the lovely romance, but I don't see that as any of my business, beyond a general wish for their continued happiness. For now, the two of them are marking time. So we two guys just shoot the breeze about the usual nothing. Later, I find myself wondering whether it's best for people in their young twenties to charge ahead with their careers, or enjoy that wonderful time of life to the maximum. Already set in my workaholic ways in those years, I didn't handle that question well enough to have credible advice to give. I like the way things turned out, but I feel that I missed an important chapter or two. FleurDeLis-3-Small [title type="h5"]Pizza Man Of Covington. Covington: 1248 Collins Blvd (US 190). 985-892-9874. [/title]