Monday, March 21, 2016.
The Wealthiest Chefs.
Among the couple hundred emails that came in over the weekend is a note from The Daily Meal touting its list of the twenty-five most successful chefs in America. By "successful," what they mean is "wealthy"--although how they come up with the figures is sketchy. Jamie Oliver is first with a net worth of $256 million. Emeril is #11, with $11.2 million.
Something about this list bothers me enough that I'll ask you do most the thinking about it. I keep coming back to the disturbing idea that goodness of food seems to be less and less involved in the press reports that restaurants and chefs get these days. If the income generated by a restaurant (or any participatory force cooking food for public consumption) determines its goodness, then McDonald's is the world's best restaurant.
It's a lovely, cool day. After spending the whole morning writing I head for lunch to New Orleans Food & Spirits. I have red beans on my mind. If they had hot sausage as a bean add-on, I would have asked for a large plateful. Instead, I get a cup of beans and eat it like a soup. It's as good as always.
[caption id="attachment_51021" align="alignnone" width="480"]
New Orleans Food & Spirits fried pecan catfish, lunch portion.[/caption]
My entree is fried pecan catfish. The size of the fillet is bigger than I like it, but the cooking is perfect, and the butter-sizzled pecan nuggets abet the fish wonderfully. I have had a much less enjoyable similar dish in a dozen or two much more expensive restaurants. (The price here is $13, which brings a salad, too.)
With the Doo-Wop performances of NPAS now behind us, we don't take even a single day off before we begin our next offering. It's scheduled for the end of June--within bottle-rocket distance of the Fourth Of July. The theme is, appropriately, Americana. The program is a mix of anthems, hymns, and historic pieces. Stephen Foster to Aaron Copland. Nobody asked me, but I would have included a cowboy number like
Tumbling Tumbleweeds.
New Orleans Food & Spirits fried pecan catfish, lunch portion.[/caption]
My entree is fried pecan catfish. The size of the fillet is bigger than I like it, but the cooking is perfect, and the butter-sizzled pecan nuggets abet the fish wonderfully. I have had a much less enjoyable similar dish in a dozen or two much more expensive restaurants. (The price here is $13, which brings a salad, too.)
With the Doo-Wop performances of NPAS now behind us, we don't take even a single day off before we begin our next offering. It's scheduled for the end of June--within bottle-rocket distance of the Fourth Of July. The theme is, appropriately, Americana. The program is a mix of anthems, hymns, and historic pieces. Stephen Foster to Aaron Copland. Nobody asked me, but I would have included a cowboy number like Tumbling Tumbleweeds.
