Oranges And Lemons

French Quarter Festival--- 7 Jazz Festival-- 25

Today is Oranges and Lemons Day. I've already had three big Louisiana navel oranges this morning for their matchless juice. Citrus fruits offer much more than just a drink. Lemon juice is one of the most useful ingredients in the kitchen. Not only does it have a marvelous fresh flavor, but its high acidity--it's one of the most acidic foods we eat--performs all sorts of magic in sauces, as meat marinades, and in keeping things fresh.Orange juice is less versatile, but much underrated as an ingredient. I'm always trying to include it in baking (as in our orange cheesecake) and in saucemaking (orange hollandaise). Orange zest and skin adds the unique flavor of orange oil.Although we had three good months of them this year, the season for Louisiana navel oranges is about over the for year. However, we hear that you can go down to Plaquemines Parish groves and ask if you can pick the remaining fruit on the trees. They will be like no other oranges you ever ate, but too delicate to market. They are the best oranges in the world. It is also National Clams On The Half Shell Day, but Orleanians can celebrate our own better version any day with a dozen chargrilled oysters.

If you jab a wedge of lemon and wipe its juice all over whatever poultry or fish you're cooking, your chances of improving the dish are nearly a hundred percent.

Lima is a community of 160 people in west central Illinois. It is the second most western town in the state, after its bigger neighbor Quincy, fifteen miles south. The Mississippi River is six miles west. Growing corn is the big activity. Somebody must grow lima beans, too, right? Lima was hit by an enormous multi-vortex tornado wedge on May 10, 2003, destroying a number of houses. But not the nearest restaurant, the Hoop and Wink, six miles south in Ursa.

chili powder, n.--Finely ground dried chili peppers, usually on the mild side but sometimes noticeably hot. There is no standard for the flavor. Indeed, ingredients other than chili figure in some chili powder blends, although those made with pure capsicum annuum peppers are the most common. In some chili powders, the methods of drying the peppers give a dark-brown color and a smoky flavor. Some use a good deal of cayenne pepper in the mix; these can be very hot indeed. Chili powder is almost identical to paprika, including the wine range of possible flavors. Taste chili powder before you use it.

In 1889 on this date, the Eiffel Tower was dedicated. Alexandre Gustave Eiffel let the French flag fly from the tower's summit in the ceremony. It opened to the public about a month later, as the entrance to a world's fair. The tower had a restaurant at the lower platform level until the 1980s, when it was disassembled, packed into containers, and shipped to New Orleans. A new structure was built for it at the corner of Josephine and St. Charles Avenue, where Restaurant de la Tour Eiffel opened in 1985. It did not do well, and closed after just three years. It's been several other restaurants since, and it now sits vacant.

On this day in 1989, the Food and Drug Administration allowed sushi chefs in New York City to import fugu for the first time. Fugu is the pufferfish whose salient culinary characteristic is that its liver and some other organs are so deadly that eating then can paralyze or kill you. However, the rest of it is alleged to be the best sashimi there is. I've tried it and can tell you this is not true. The ultimate fugu experience is supposed to be eating parts of the fish close to the liver, feeling the anesthesia begin to set in, and then to feel it leave your body. Not for everyone.

The practice of wrapping lemon halves in yellow gauze--to keep the seeds in when you squeeze the lemon over your fish--is one of those disappearing niceties of fancy restaurants that really made sense. But ipso facto it's not a sign of excellence.

Today is the birthday in 1596 of Rene Descartes, a revolutionary figure in both mathematics and philosophy. His most famous utterance gives rise to a good restaurant joke, one that not everybody gets right away:Seems that Descartes dined in an elegant Paris restaurant one night. He enjoyed a large, excellent repast. The waiter offered him a dessert on the house. Descartes paused a moment, then said, "I think not." Instantly, he disappeared.

Author Mary Chestnut was born today in 1823. . . John D. Loudermilk, pop musician and composer, was born today in 1934. He wrote "A Rose And A Baby Ruth" and "Then You Can Tell Me Goodbye," among many other tunes. . . Sir Benjamin Baker, who built the steel bridge over the Firth of Forth, was born today in 1840. He also built the first tunnel under the Hudson River in New York.

"And every day when I've been good,I get an orange after food."--Robert Louis Stevenson.

"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts—for support rather than for illumination."--Andrew Lang, Scottish writer, born today in 1844.