[title type="h5"]Tuesday, February 3, 2014[/title]
A reader sent a link to an online article that says New Orleanians are the highest restaurant tippers in America. The average percentage we tip is 16.8 percent. Next highest are Columbus, OH (16.1), Denver (16), Richmond, VA (15.8) and Portland, OR (15.6). Four of the five cities with the lowest tipping average are in the part of California with the greatest number of technology firms.
At the state level, Montana was the top (16.1 percent) and Utah the lowest (10.6). Louisiana comes in at 13.4. I guess not all parts of the state are as generous as New Orleans is.
The article comes from a data-anlysis website called Simple.com. (The exact address of the article is https://www.simple.com/blog/simple-insights-lets-talk-tipping/ .) Reading over the methodology (which they explain well enough), I'd say the margin of error is not extreme, although all those low percentages for very affluent parts of California might be a fluke. As for our high numbers, again we have our out-of-town visitors to thank for that.
The Round Table Show was unusually lively. Mary Ann overbooked us with three people connected through WYES's Chocolate Sunday event this week. Rob Nelson, the top man at Elmer's Candy Company, made his second appearance on our air. Elmer's is a local institution, of course, but I was surprised to learn that the company is in the top three nationwide in making and marketing chocolate assortments. Elmer's has been in Ponchatoula for a long time, but before it moved there its operation was in the very spot where our radio station's black tower is now.
Also making a reprise visit was Susan Miller of the Chocolate Gourmet. Her approach to marketing is the opposite of Elmer's. She does most of her work by custom order, and delivers it wherever someone has pangs for chocolates.
Outside the chocolate sphere were two well-known foodists from up the river. Peter Sclafani III is the chef and co-owner of Ruffino's, one of the best white-tablecloth restaurants in Baton Rouge and perhaps the most popular. Peter and I go way back. Everybody of a certain age remembers his grandfather's eponymous restaurant on Causeway Boulevard in Metairie. (At this point I must mention the original location on Palmyra Street in Mid-City, or else I will get ten or twelve emails from people who will say that I forgot to do so.) Peter's father managed the first restaurant I ever reviewed, the Flambeau Room at UNO in 1972. And Peter himself ran a few previous restaurants, all of which hosted Eat Club dinners in the long ago.
Peter has a new cookbook out, a handsome volume called Seasons Of Louisiana. "It's not about winter, spring, and fall, but the seasons of the local food we love," he said. "Crawfish season. Citrus season. That's the way we look at the calendar in Louisiana."
Christina Quackenbush has roots in the Phillippines. In recent times she's operated a pop-up restaurant called Milkfish, which at this writing is the only regular source of Filipino cooking in our parts. She is bringing her talents (and those of some chef friends) to bear against the recent hurricane disaster in the Phillippines.
Rounding our well-stuffed room was David Rauch, who with his brother own Wayne Jacob's Smokehouse in Laplace. That River Parish town claims to be the andouille capital of the world, and I can think of no practical reason why The Place shouldn't boast. That's where the definitive German-French-Creole sausage comes from, with its visible chunks of pork, fat, and fresh garlic, and its dark, robust, well-smoked casing. Nothing better in a chicken gumbo, jambalaya, or just by itself, off the grill. David brought us a couple of bags of his pork cracklings and thin, fried slices of andouille. All of that would soon disappear into the mouths of everyone in the room.
I still don't have a computer in my radio station office, and so I was off to an early dinner after the show. It was my third taste of Legacy Kitchen, which I aim to review in the near future. This was not as good a meal as the last one, which featured that duck chili that was so perfect in this cold weather. I was surprised to see that it wasn't on the menu. Drat! It happens too often that when I discover something remarkable, the restaurant 86s it before I can get the article out.
[caption id="attachment_41179" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Kale Caesar. (Get it?)[/caption]
I started this meal with a Caesar salad made with both the traditional romaine and the very non-traditional kale. Kale is hot right now. Why that is, I cannot tell you. It has been on plates for a long time. Copeland's used it as its standard plate garnish for at least two decades. (But not so much anymore, now that the leafy green is becoming hip.) It must be because some television doctor said that if you eat kale, the flesh that hangs from your upper arms will tighten up, or something like that.
[caption id="attachment_41180" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Fish St. Charles.[/caption]
The entree was redfish, complete with cross-hatched grill marks that looked great but required that the fish be overcooked to get them. A little garlic butter and pan-roasted mushrooms brought it back to life, but it was killed again by a spicy but awful crawfish casserole.
[caption id="attachment_41181" align="alignnone" width="404"]
Key lime pie.[/caption]
The trend for dessert to be made large enough for an entire table of four is well seen here. I got the corner of a hybridized key lime pie, with a crust much too thick and a filling way too sweet for my palate.
It was a cold day, so I ordered a cup of coffee at the beginning of the meal as my main beverage. It came out lukewarm. I asked them to nuke it up to steaming, which the server did. But she was smart enough to pick up the cue, brew a fresh pot, and bring it to me as soon as it was ready.
Afterwards, I walked across the street to Futons Unlimited. Two dozen years ago, I bought a futon from this place. Just the bottom part, not the frame. For years, I rolled it out onto the floor of my office behind the Superdome, and took a twenty-minute nap right before going on the air. Everything in that office was destroyed by the Katrina flood. Although the greatest loss was of my of thousands of show tapes and forty years' worth of photographs, I have missed that futon most. Now that I have my own office again, I thought it was time to get a new one. It cost $130. The 1990 original it replaces was $40. This inflation is killing me.
[title type="h5"]Legacy Kitchen. Metairie: 759 Veterans Memorial Blvd. 504-309-5231. [/title]
Written by Tom Fitzmorris February 13, 2014 13:01 in
