[title type="h5"]Friday, December 19, 2014.
Redemption Redeems Itself.[/title]
Redemption--the restaurant that took over the beloved Christian's a few years after Katrina--did not take off upon opening the way I thought it would. I'm sure that Tommy and Maria Delaune shared that disappointment, but it has not stopped them from continuing their efforts to relaunch the restaurant. To that end, they closed Redemption's a la carte dining business for about four months this year. Their purpose was renovate beyond what they did when they first occupied the 100-year-old church structure.
[caption id="attachment_46004" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Redemption.[/caption]
But along the way they discovered something interesting: they could keep Redemption viable just by serving the market for weddings, receptions, and other social gatherings for which an old-style, steepled church would be the perfect place. So, while you could not come in for a lunch a deux with Chef Greg Picolo's smoked soft shell crabs or rabbit grillades and grits, you could have invited a bunch of friends to observe your getting hitched.
When Mary Ann and Maria Delaune get together, they're thick as thieves. Good friends who agree on how the world should be changed for the better. MA reported to me that the renovations made the place brighter and more comfortable. The bar is much enlarged, and now features an oyster bar. The pews that once lined the walls are mostly gone now. The menu has been reworked, too, offering a bit more variety and accessibility.
I was waiting until MA could come with me here, but I changed my mind about that tonight. She and Maria would talk all night, leaving me there to keep my mouth shut.
[caption id="attachment_46003" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Raw oysters at Redemption.[/caption]
I'll start with some of those raw oysters, I say. Maria says that she doesn't have anyone free to shuck them just at that moment--the dining room is busier than expected. "But I can shuck oysters," she says. "I am in the wholesale seafood business! I can fillet fish and shuck oysters and peel shrimp all day long!" Her husband Tommy shows up just at that moment, and confirms all this.
But she finds someone else to do the shucking after all, and returns with a bottle of French Chenin Blanc-Viognier. The oysters arrive soon after. Monsters, nice and cold. I gobble them down in my usual way. Raw oysters are, quite simply, the best food of them all.
[caption id="attachment_46002" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Bloody Mary oysters.[/caption]
Chef Greg has a new recipe for baked oysters. The sauce is made by combining the makings of a bloody mary cocktail, reducing it down and garnishing it with pickled okra. The oysters are baked just long enough to bulge, and a bit of cheese over the top finishes the ensemble. The pepper component is at the edge of tolerability. The stove-heat aspect of the dish is as aggressive as the pepper heat. I like dishes that make such edgy statements. But it might not be for everybody.
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Duck cassoulet at Redemption.[/caption]
The great dish of the night is cassoulet of duck. An enormous plate of food, it incorporates all the sides of a duck's flavor personality, from firm breast meat through a sort of stew made with the legs to foie gras. The latter is hard to pick out, even though there's generous slice of the liver. It's just that the sauce washes over everything and homogenizes the texture. One even finds oneself digging into the beans without at first realizing it. Totaled out, though, this is the perfect entree for a cold evening, as I fatten myself up for the winter that begins in two days.
This is the best dinner I've had at Redemption since the Delaunes took over a few years ago.
[title type="h5"]Redemption. Mid-City: 3835 Iberville St. 504-309-3570. [/title]
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[title type="h5"]Saturday, December 20, 2014.
Mary Ann Sits In. La Provence.
[/title]
Jude and Suzanne continue their grand tour of France. They are having a fine time, following an itinerary that neither Mary Ann nor I would have chosen. But our son is completely out from under our thumbs now.
And although it's not yet official, we must admit that The Boy exerts more gravity on our daughter than we do these days. Yesterday he left for Baltimore, where his parents live. She went with him, and en route (they drove there) spent a couple of nights in The Homestead in western Virginia. She has been there twice before, loving it. But not this time. Seems that all the fun aspects of the place have either been removed (the bowling alley) or are out of season (no snow to ski on, too cold to play golf). She will come back home while he stays in Baltimore. ML knows that if she's not with us on Christmas, it will cause deep sadness for her mother.
What Mary Ann needs is a new project. I've hatched a scheme for getting her a radio gig. She will co-host the Saturday show with me, with the idea that at some point she will take over as host--whether I'm there or not. Mary Ann is a seasoned broadcaster, but has only seldom exercised those skills since our intensive child-rearing days. Which, again I say, are emphatically over.
So she does the last two hours with me today. I stay in the background, ready to field calls requiring my little expertise. But she's a charming conversationalist, and the listeners seem to agree.
Afterwards, we decide that this is the perfect night to have dinner at La Provence. The French country inn lends itself to the season, what with its wood-burning fireplaces and forested milieu. The restaurant is reasonably busy, and becomes more so as the evening darkens.
Two people are absent. "Just Joyce"--the longtime waitress, mixologist, chef-sasser, and poet for the past three decades here--is hors de combat with a hip problem. Should be back in a month or so. Chef Erik Loos--the man who finally made La Provence catch fire after the uncertain initial years of John Besh's ownership--is on hand long enough to stop by and say hello. He and many other key John Besh Restaurant Group personnel are going to Besh's house tonight for a holiday party. That should be a pretty good evening.
Neither of these lacks has any apparent effect on the food at La Provence tonight. We begin auspiciously with some French bubbly wine (Francois Montand rose) and two crocks of the house pâté. Then comes a row of big local shrimp, tossed with sections of grapefruit and oranges, with a few leaves of various colors.
[caption id="attachment_46000" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Pumpkin soup at La Provence.[/caption]
The market menu--at $28 for three courses the finest gourmet bargain anywhere on the North Shore--always includes an alluring soup. Tonight it's a creamy (but not too) potage of pumpkin, with a beignet made out of chestnut flour, with some oyster mushrooms. This is almost too perfect for the time and place.
[caption id="attachment_45998" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Sweet potato ravioli.[/caption]
On a related note, here are ravioli stuffed with sweet potato, nearly afloat in a brown-butter sauce with crumbles of hazelnuts. At this moment I abandon my hopes of getting the incomparable oysters ooh-la-la on this trip. Mary Ann is playing one of those games in which she makes a meal out of an appetizer, a sub-appetizer, a few bites from my entree, and a salad. (The latter is a collection of heirloom beets with shrimp and mirlitons.)
[caption id="attachment_45997" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Rabbit stew at La Provence.[/caption]
I get the rabbit--a meat MA will not touch. Her loss. The rabbit dish is yet another hearty serving, a juicy stew including rabbit sausage, the legs, acorn squash, little knurdles of pasta (again made out of chestnut flour, an interesting ingredient whose history refers to hard times in Italy) and a sauce with enormous flavor.
[caption id="attachment_45996" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Shrimp risotto.[/caption]
Also in here somewhere, divided by two, is a shrimp risotto. That pushed this repast into Large Meal territory, obviating the need for dessert. But we were persuaded anyway. The praline monkey bread with ice cream is not as interesting as the beignets with the custard sauce. Mary Ann doesn't care, because they are not chocolate, and therefore do not qualify as dessert.
[caption id="attachment_45995" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Praline monkey bread.[/caption]
As the evening dissolves into a pleasantly romantic scene, it occurs to me (I do not dare tell MA this) that we have been eating very richly all this week. Could it be that the Thanksgiving-Birthday-Wedding run since late November has too much momentum to stop? Very possibly true. And it's still a few days until Christmas.
[title type="h5"]La Provence. Lacombe: 25020 US 190. 985-626-7662. [/title]
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[title type="h5"]Sunday, December 21, 2014.
Tree Raising A Deux. Trey Yuen.[/title]
Mary Ann goes into town to pick up her sister Christine and her family from the cruise ship dock and carry them to the airport, from which they will return home to Maryland. Christie has been in our midst for two weeks, and Mary Ann is thrilled about it. But now all MA has left for comfort is me.
While she performs transfer service, I mount the Christmas tree into its stand. It's too heavy for me to attempt dragging it inside. Between then and now, the tree got rained on, which may explain its heft.
We bought the tree while Mary Leigh was still here. It will be a sad year when we go to Red's Christmas tree lot in Covington with neither of our offspring to help us choose that year's Tannenbaum. But without ML in house, it won't be until Christmas Eve that we finally get around to stringing the lights and hanging the ornaments.
To dinner at Trey Yuen. My idea: MA says she doesn't care where we go. The grand Chinese place is on a hot streak, and I am up for a hot steak. Same one I had here two weeks ago, but so good I wanted to give it another whirl. MA eats her dreary old fried rice as always.
[title type="h5"]Trey Yuen. Mandeville: 600 Causeway Blvd. 985-626-4476. [/title][divider type=""]
Written by Tom Fitzmorris December 31, 2014 13:01 in
