Sunday, December 3, 2016
Singing And Seeing.
The Marys are together at ML's apartment, getting her ready for her first day on a new job tomorrow. I'd say what it is except that a) they asked me not to mention it here and 2) although ML has explained the gig to me a few times, I still don't quite understand what she will be doing. Or, for that matter, what the company does.
These activities leave me home alone. I sing at St. Jane's as usual. We have a soloist today, a boy of about six or seven years old. He does a very impressive rendition of the hymn. I started singing in church at around his age. Glad to hear that other young people are undertaking it.
My afternoon project is to install a new light fixture in my pantry. I think I will have to buy a couple more of them. Just one doesn't illuminate the room sufficiently. The bulb are LED's, lined up in two rows. They are supposed to last forever.
In late afternoon I attend a party for Erick, a singing member of NPAS in his twenties. He is blind. He's a good singer, learning the songs from recordings he makes on a minuscule recorder he has in his pocket. He's always joking about his vision. He sits next to me in the chorus, for which I am glad, because he is more likely to know the lyrics and notes than I am. He was the first member of NPAS who befriended me when I joined. He listens to the radio a lot, he says, which is how he knows a lot about me.
The party features a very good crawfish soup with a tomato broth, a variety of roll-up sandwiches, cheeses and sliced roasts, and a lot of sweets.
The weather is getting terrible, and is supposed to be even worse for the next two days.
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Monday, December 4, 2016.
Acme Oyster House.
Two days ago, Mary Ann came down with a sudden cold. Mary Leigh got it yesterday. And it slammed into me today, dramatically. I called in to the radio station's system a bit early. In the time between then and the beginning of the show, the cold descended emphatically upon me, and I was convulsed by the kind of sneezing a former girlfriend once characterized as the most macho sneezes she ever heard. It is still the only incidence in my life in which anyone accused me of being macho.
The Marys are together at the younger's house, where they have a crisis involving ML's unusual but loving dog. He has come down with an attack of the runs. Somebody will have to take him for a walk--perhaps several walks--in the middle of the night, after which it's ML's first day at work on her new job.
To show how much she cares for me, Mary Ann asks what I will possibly do for dinner, with her not being home with me. I tell her I will go to a Thai restaurant. Nothing like a spicy Thai soup to ameliorate cold symptoms. But the place I had in mind did not appear to be open. I wound up at the Acme Oyster House again. What grabbed me was the soup du jour: stuffed artichoke. In this, all the ingredients that go into the making of the namesake dish are immersed in a medium-thick broth and many tender pieces of artichoke. Delicious. I then get half of a fried oyster poor boy, and that would do the trick for me.
I have a challenge week. We have two Eat Club dinners less than a week apart. One of them is our annual gala Reveillon dinner at Brennan's. The chef took a long time getting me the menu for it. This is almost universal behavior among chefs, and it's something that I have no doubt costs the restaurant some customers.
Well, we have about twenty-five people for the dinner this week at Audubon Clubhouse. And only a smattering of the number I need for the Brennan's gala. Nevertheless, we usually manage to attract enough people. But I am concerned that both of the two groups of people who attend wine dinners have cut back on their dining. The Millennials don't like having to plan anything, dressing up, or follow even the least-demanding rituals of fine dining. Meanwhile, the ever-reliable Baby Boom generation is concerned about its health, and hesitant about going to five-course, five-wine dinners. The classic wine dinner as we know it may be close to death. The only growth has been among charitable dinners. I'm all for that, but the food at such events is rarely memorable.
CityBusiness calls to get a column from me. We're close enough to the end of 2016 for me to begin nominating the best restaurants of the year. I decide that the newly-reopened Caribbean Room at the old Pontchartrain Hotel is the best new (well, half-new) white-tablecloth restaurant of the year.
Caribbean Room. Garden District: 2031 St. Charles Ave. 504-323-1500.
