[title type="h5"]Sunday, August 17, 2104.
The Best Yet At Crabby's Shack.[/title]
While I was scanning the weather maps (they still say I can't cut grass this weekend), I took a look at the tropical situation. We are near the peak of the hurricane season. Indeed, today is the 45th anniversary of Hurricane Camille's Category Five landfall. And it's just twelve days from Katrina Day. So it gives me pause to see two tropical waves in the Atlantic. The computers say that these have a long-term possibility of winding up in the Gulf of Mexico. I'd better start filling my saved-up milk jugs with potable water.
Everybody here thinks of that precaution of mine as crazy, but they don't seem to remember the day MA and I drove from Washington, D.C. to check on the Cool Water Ranch nine days after Katrina. One of the jobs was get rid of the food in the refrigerator, which hadn't yet infected the unit but was getting close. After dealing with that mess (seven whole, formerly frozen chickens were pitched into the woods, never to be seen again), we had no water to clean ourselves up and just a little to drink. We spent the night in the non-air-conditioned house (power was a long way from returning), and probably smelled pretty bad the next morning, to say nothing of checking in at the hotel in Atlanta on the way back.
The present time is much more pleasant, if stormy. We have a hard time deciding on a dinner venue, finding out first that New Orleans Food & Spirits isn't open on Sunday. Then to DiMartino's, where MA doesn't finish parking before she decides she doesn't want that, after all.
We finally touch down at Crabby's Shack. Third time in a month. We must love it. I am thinking about some raw oysters and maybe fried catfish. But the happy waiter says that the boiled shrimp are beautiful and that they have fresh grilled speckled trout. Both those ideas appeal, and live up to their billing.
[caption id="attachment_43561" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Grilled trout at Crabby's Shack.[/caption]
Especially the trout. It's seasoned and seared just perfectly, then topped with a sauce that seems to be a blend of hollandaise and beurre blanc, with a few shrimp as a garnish. This is beyond merely delicious, but the kind of thing I'd expect to get at Galatoire's. The big difference is that Crabby's offers it for $15, complete with a salad. This is certainly one of the best gourmet-level bargains I've made lately. Keith Young's people perform far beyond expectations in this funny little place in Madisonville.
[title type="h5"]Crabby's Seafood Shack. Madisonville: 305 Covington. 985-845-2348.
[divider type=""]
Monday, August 18, 2014.
Another Red Bean Monday.[/title]
Just another day is a pretty good day to me. The secret of my limited success and unlimited happiness is a love of routines. They're how I get as much done as I do. One is not supposed to get caught in patterns, because they have a way of becoming more important than the goals they serve. But my funny little habits give me pleasure. So why not indulge in them? At least when Mary Ann isn't in the car. (In which case she's driving anyway, and the option is removed.)
Since we were shut out of New Orleans Food and Spirits yesterday, we are there today. The place has become one of my favorite sources of Monday red beans and rice. They make them in the soupy style I prefer. I only wish they had hot sausage as an option--although the blackened catfish is a pretty good way to go.
[caption id="attachment_43562" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Oysters Florentine at NO Food & Spirits.[/caption]
We begin this dinner with oysters florentine. This is spinach-artichoke dip used as the sauce for baked oysters on the shell. I am no fan of spinach-artichoke dip--it's the marker dish for a chain restaurant, or a place trying to become a chain. But I've found a few places that pull off this trick well. The best example is the oysters RocketFire, where they bake the things in their coal-fired pizza oven.
But the dip at New Orleans Food and Spirits is way too rich for baked oysters. Mary Ann loves it--but she loves chain restaurants, too. I will heretofore limit myself here to raw oysters and standard grilled oysters.
I am working on a longish article for a new magazine called Inside New Orleans. Thinking about it, it occurred to me that it's the first major new, regular writing assignment I've taken on in some twenty-five years. When I began the radio show in 1988, I stopped looking for other gigs. When I opened the website in 1997, it proved to be a bottomless pit for my articles. In between, I got married, had kids, and wrote four books, thus toning down further my search for new ways to fill my time.
And there are all those routines, too.
[title type="h5"]New Orleans Food & Spirits. Covington: 208 Lee Lane. 985-875-0432.[/title]
