Monday, October 26, 2015.
Eat Club Gets Sociable At Vincent's Uptown.
I awaken at--what time is it? I can't see the clock for some reason. I sit up in bed and see that no lights glow--not even the little blue ones that connect the various electronics on the window sill to their power plugs. It's also very quiet outside. I get it. The power's out.
I fish a flashlight out of my camera bag and walk about. The lady across the street from us has her front light on. But she has a generator, I know. The dogs, who woke me up a few minutes ago, are woofing into the woods. The clock in my office runs on batteries, and it says that it's only one a.m.
I go back to bed, but I don't fall asleep. The rain is either very heavy, or that's the wind kicking up the racket on my tin roof. If I had a choice, I'd take the rain. Wind from tropical storms--and that's what this is, the remnants of the record-breaking hyper-hurricane Patricia--can blow trees down, and with as many very tall trees as we have, this is not a good prospect.
I regret not having filled the bathtub with water for flushing. Who knows how long the power will be out, what with the thousands of people in Louisiana who had already lost their wires earlier today. For me, a power outage is like a sick day. I can't get anything done, including writing these words. I stew about this for over an hour.
And then the power comes back! Wonderful, unexpected surprise! It will not go out again. I go back to sleep.
I am in the habit of remaining on the North Shore on Mondays, almost the way Johnny Carson did. I do a normal radio program, but from home. This allows me to get a good start on the week's work. And attend the weekly rehearsal with NPAS.
But Vincent Catalanotto wants to host an Eat Club dinner, and neither he nor his son--who has managed the details of the business for years now--will have the Eat Club on any day other than a Monday, when they're usually closed.
For awhile yesterday, it looked like the weather would put the kibosh on that. Flooding was rife around New Orleans as a continuous rain fell for two days, laying town on average four inches of rain across the city. It's still raining as I drive across the lake and all the way into town. But it turns into a mist, and everybody shows up at Vincent's at the appointed hour.
There is no question that this will be a memorable meal. Half the people who are with us tonight also attended other dinners we've had here. Jesuit friends Jimmy Buras and Walter Zehner, for example. Come to think of it, every time I go to Vincent's on St. Charles Avenue, they are there, with three or four other people.
We begin with the latest iteration of "The Rose Of Sicily," the baby artichoke, prosciutto, basil, olive oil, and Parmigiano Reggiano that go into Vincent's highly original antipasto. Then Vincent chews me out for not knowing that they have stuffed mirlitons on the menu all the time. Somebody called me looking for that a few weeks ago, and I didn't know. We were originally going to have the mirliton tonight, but they decided to serve oysters Vincent--baked on the half shell with ingredients I couldn't quite make out in Vincent's dark dining room. (I tasted garlic, Parmigiano, and maybe bacon.)
[caption id="attachment_25134" align="alignnone" width="400"]
Cannelloni at Vincent's. [/caption]
Now comes the house specialty, the cannelloni. People who are joining the Eat Club for the first time tonight go into ecstasy over this. Vincent's claim that this is the best cannelloni in the world seems very credible in the eating.
Then turtle soup. Pretty good, not a mind-blower. The usual discussion as to whether sherry should be added at the table goes down. (I say no.)
Next, a loose salad with burrata and the ingredients of a Caprese salad. Just the right bite, addressing just the right taste buds.
Quail is the entree. I like quail okay, but other people like it more than I do. And they do tonight. I am able to take only a few of the easier-to-reach bites, and then I move to another table. I do that all night long. If I don't, the occupants of the unvisited tables get miffed.
And I have many old friends here. Three couples who have been on more than one cruise. The Blocks--proud to tell me that they are both in their nineties. Some much younger people wind up sharing the table with them, and have misgivings about that. By dinner's end, the young ones rave about how nice and interesting those old people are.
That's how the social side went all evening long. There were even people lingering over after-dinner drinks for an hour or so. I sit down with them, and after a few minutes I notice that a woman I don't know has more or less snuggled up to me, and was trying to kiss me. I mean, really kiss me. She does voices through all this, and I wonder whether she is performing an act from a play. I get up and dance with her while singing a corny old song that I like. That seems to drive her off, as it always does when women hear me singing. It would have been interesting if Mary Ann had been there. Fortunately, also in the room are several very regular Eat Clubbers, to witness that I don't take advantage of the situation. (If indeed I could.)
Vincent's. Riverbend: 7839 St Charles Ave. 504-866-9313.
There is no question that this will be a memorable meal. Half the people who are with us tonight also attended other dinners we've had here. Jesuit friends Jimmy Buras and Walter Zehner, for example. Come to think of it, every time I go to Vincent's on St. Charles Avenue, they are there, with three or four other people.
We begin with the latest iteration of "The Rose Of Sicily," the baby artichoke, prosciutto, basil, olive oil, and Parmigiano Reggiano that go into Vincent's highly original antipasto. Then Vincent chews me out for not knowing that they have stuffed mirlitons on the menu all the time. Somebody called me looking for that a few weeks ago, and I didn't know. We were originally going to have the mirliton tonight, but they decided to serve oysters Vincent--baked on the half shell with ingredients I couldn't quite make out in Vincent's dark dining room. (I tasted garlic, Parmigiano, and maybe bacon.)
[caption id="attachment_25134" align="alignnone" width="400"]
Cannelloni at Vincent's. [/caption]
Now comes the house specialty, the cannelloni. People who are joining the Eat Club for the first time tonight go into ecstasy over this. Vincent's claim that this is the best cannelloni in the world seems very credible in the eating.
Then turtle soup. Pretty good, not a mind-blower. The usual discussion as to whether sherry should be added at the table goes down. (I say no.)
Next, a loose salad with burrata and the ingredients of a Caprese salad. Just the right bite, addressing just the right taste buds.
Quail is the entree. I like quail okay, but other people like it more than I do. And they do tonight. I am able to take only a few of the easier-to-reach bites, and then I move to another table. I do that all night long. If I don't, the occupants of the unvisited tables get miffed.
And I have many old friends here. Three couples who have been on more than one cruise. The Blocks--proud to tell me that they are both in their nineties. Some much younger people wind up sharing the table with them, and have misgivings about that. By dinner's end, the young ones rave about how nice and interesting those old people are.
That's how the social side went all evening long. There were even people lingering over after-dinner drinks for an hour or so. I sit down with them, and after a few minutes I notice that a woman I don't know has more or less snuggled up to me, and was trying to kiss me. I mean, really kiss me. She does voices through all this, and I wonder whether she is performing an act from a play. I get up and dance with her while singing a corny old song that I like. That seems to drive her off, as it always does when women hear me singing. It would have been interesting if Mary Ann had been there. Fortunately, also in the room are several very regular Eat Clubbers, to witness that I don't take advantage of the situation. (If indeed I could.)
