[title type="h6"]Friday, September 20, 2013[/title]
The news waiting for me at the meeting with Diane Newman--my boss at the radio station--was unexpected. My station will, for the first time since it came under the management of WWL twenty-one years ago, be emphasized. We are to get two live local talk shows in addition to mine, and we will be promoted heavily on the six-station group's other stations. We will be rebranded as 3WL, the station for "sports, food and fun."
The new morning show will be the sports part of that, co-hosted by Christian Garic and T-Bob Hebert. Christian has been a sports reporter on WWL for a few years. T-Bob is Bobby Hebert's son. Like his father, he had a fairly illustrious career as a football player.
The other program is not new. John "Spud" McConnell will move from afternoons on WWL to my present time slot, from three to six p.m. I will move to the noon-to-three p.m. stretch with the Food Show.
The reason for the shuffle is that WWL Radio has hired Angela Hill, the much-beloved news anchor for decades on WWL-TV. (Which has long been a completely separate company.) Angela just retired from that job. But I guess she was getting antsy sitting around at home, so here she is.
In fact, there she was, standing at the door as I began today's show. I invited her in to talk about the plans (about which I didn't know all the details at the time). She told me she liked my singing.
When Diane told me of my new schedule, I felt a chill in my chest. This was an instability in my well-ordered life that I wasn't expecting. This new schedule will cause me some problems. But I can't complain, because the deal is that I'm on when the management says that I'm on. I have been in that noonish time period before, and the show survived.
The meeting delayed my dinner with Mary Ann, but it didn't make much difference. While she came in from Metairie, I walked to the corner of Chartres and Conti. Mary Ann once again wanted to try to eat at Kingfish, once again with no advance plans or reservations. As happened last week, I was told that I could wait for three hours and they might be able to seat us. Fair enough, but we'll come back another day, maybe with a reservation. Glad to see Greg Sonnier's new posting is so successful.
MA's next idea was Criollo, the new restaurant in the Monteleone Hotel. That's a place I need to try one more time before I would write a major review. But to my great surprise, they didn't have seating anytime soon, either. That's a long way from the Hunt Room Grill days at the hotel.
I moved on to Galatoire's 33. That's the steakhouse the famous restaurant opened when it bought the building next door. It didn't want to expand the main dining room, for fear that would kill the magic. (Good thinking.) The steakhouse idea sounded brilliant to me. It opened around Mardi Gras and so has had plenty of time to figure things out.
In contrast to the first two places I tried, Galatoire's 33 (the number is the pre-Civil-War address of the building) was nearly empty. The bar was busy, perhaps with people waiting for tables in the main restaurant. The dining room was wide open.
I have been backing away from cocktails almost entirely lately. But after the news I received an hour earlier, I needed a stiff Manhattan. I don't think it helped, though, and my limit for the rest of my life is one cocktail a day.
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French fries with bacon dust.[/caption]
Mary Ann and an order of fries arrived simultaneously. The latter were coated with "bacon dust," which looked like parmesan cheese. (That may also have been on the fries.)
I told MA the news. Immediately, her mind started spinning with schemes to take advantage of the new schedule. It was a gender-role turnabout. Like men are often accused by their wives of doing, she gave me practical solutions when what I really wanted was just to talk, perhaps about something else.
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Baked oysters three ways.[/caption]
Our attention was captured by the arrival of the first course. I had an order of baked oysters: two of Galatoire's great Rockefellers, and two each of new concoctions. They were tremendously overloaded with sauce, and the oysters were cool. Too much food anyway. I ate two and pushed them away. When I push away baked oysters, there is something wrong with me indeed.
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Prime strip sirloin, with not quite enough sizzling butter.[/caption]
The steaks came out. All USDA Prime, wet-aged beef. I had a sirloin strip and MA had a filet. Mine was nearly perfect, even accomplishing the Pittsburgh-style exterior char I like. There could have been more sizzling butter than came out. But also on the table were several other sauces to try. Mary Ann's steak was also good enough that she was halfway through it, loving every bite, before realizing that she was eating not the medium-well steak she ordered, but a decidedly medium-rare one. That stopped her cold.
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Blueberry cobbler.[/caption]
Mary Ann loves steakhouse sides. I am about sick of them. Tonight, we had the simplest imaginable steamed baby spinach and the worst hash browns either one of us could remember encountering. The dinner ended with a grossly overbaked, dry blueberry cobbler and two cups of coffee. I should have known better than to drink those. Galatoire's coffee is great, but would contribute to a sleep problem later.
It was a pleasant evening despite everything. Chef Greg Reggio--one of the three "Taste Buds" that own Zea, was hanging out and came over to talk. My fellow class of 1969 Blue Jay Raul Bencomo had heard I was in here, so when he finished his dinner in the main room he stopped in. (He's the guy who says I say "paella" wrong.)
All the way home, instead of listening to my audiobook, I stewed over the radio station developments. I was up all night, my brain racing and getting more deranged by the minute. If I have a nutso streak, this is it.
Galatoire's 33 Bar & Steak. French Quarter: 215 Bourbon St. 504-525-2021.
