[title type="h5"]Thursday, December 4, 2014.
Foggy And Hot.[/title]
It's a warm day, in the seventies. But we've had so much cold weather that Lake Pontchartrain is chilly, and the warm air coming in makes fog. That doubles or triples the time it takes to cross the Causeway. Yesterday I had to wait until the show was over before the fog lifted. Today, I don't go into town at all. I have a lot of work to catch up anyway--notably this year's list of Christmas Eve and Day openings, and the Reveillon menus.
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Pad thai at Thai Pepper.[/caption]
Mary Leigh and I have dinner at Thai Pepper in Mandeville. She is decidedly in the thrall of hot red pepper, getting her pad thai made at the four-star, very spicy level. Even at three-star, steam comes off the thin-haired top of my head. I enjoy red curry with pork. The recipe includes matchstick-size pieces of bamboo shoots. They almost look like pasta. I like bamboo shoots in an Asian dish. They have a flavor that tastes somehow fruity to me.
We discuss the big event of the weekend--Mary Ann's birthday party--and to our amazement find that all the pieces are already together. At least, the matters that ML and I handle. What will happen when Mary Ann starts cooking is another matter.
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[title type="h5"]Friday, December 6, 2014.
Another Projected Wedding.[/title]
I must go into town for the radio show and some commercial recording. I am ready for the fog, and leave home forty minutes early to take the longer route through Slidell. But in place of the fog is a clear, pretty day. I accept.
Dr. Bob and his longtime girlfriend have decided that it's time to become officially engaged. A party for a few select people--Mary Ann and me among them--is invited to stand on the balcony of Cava, Danny Millan's new restaurant in Lakeview. Dr. Bob and I are both fans of Danny, who always seems close to expiring with delight when either of us--or any of his many other friends--show up for dinner.
It always amazes me how many friends of Bob or mine are people we met in the Thursday night wine tastings at the old Uptown Martin Wine Cellar. Short of Jesuit and the restaurant business, no other genesis of my friendships was more efficient.
The party ends at eight, after which anyone who wants to stay for dinner does so. About a dozen people fill a big table. Since the only attractions are great food and wine, Mary Ann leaves the party.
And the wines are good, indeed. Bob opens another bottle of Chateau Latour 1989. It is as fine as the one we consumed a few months ago at Square Root. One of the guests--a retired doctor who seems to have performed most of the interesting occupations in the western world--opens a seriously fine super-Tuscan. I see a lot of Penfolds wines around the table. I had enough to drink before I left the balcony, so I limit my sampling.
I order the mussels. They are out of mussels. Instead of telling me that--I do not regard as sinful a restaurant's running out of fresh products--Danny heads out to the grocery store to buy more mussels. He does not find any. He apologizes much too profusely. I have the baked oysters instead. They are so hot when I eat them that even now, a week later, a slight insensitivity remains in my mouth. Fortunately, the tissues of our mouths and throats are made from a very ancient blueprint, and they heal quickly.
I have lamb chops for the entree, the better to enjoy some of those big red wines all over the table.
We all think it's wonderful that Bob and Julie--who are about my age--are getting married, even though a date hasn't been set. It starts me to thinking that as of the day after tomorrow, I will be married to sixty-year-old woman. A small voice from way in the back of my brain tries to raise some outrage about that, but I can't really hear what it's saying, let alone get upset about it.
[title type="h5"]Cava. Lakeview: 789 Harrison Ave. 504-304-9034. [/title]
