Wednesday, February 15, 2017.
Leading The Audience To Water. Being Led To Willa Jean.
Today's radio show gave me great hope. The somewhat questionable prospect of operating a radio station without a, you know, like, radio station makes me think long and hard every day. But the positives still seem greater than the negatives. Most of the time, anyway. After a great first program, we had a very slack audience this past Monday. Tuesday was a little better. Today's was fine.
[caption id="attachment_53990" align="alignnone" width="449"]
Hamburger at Willa Jean.[/caption]
If every day were like today, I wouldn't be writing this. The challenge at the moment is figuring out how our less technologically sophisticated audience members will find their way to the show. We have streams and podcasts on computers. We have smartphone apps and HD Radio in cars. But a fair number of people can't make their way to the program. I have no doubt that sooner or later most of these folks will figure it all out, with the help of their grandsons. It's painful. Fortunately, I can always offer the six hours the Food Show that runs on WWL--a real radio station if ever there was one--on Saturdays and Sundays.
Mary Ann is flying to Los Angeles tomorrow, even though a massive storm system is predicted for Southern California. They're talking about flooding, mudslides, and all-time record rainfalls. Mary Ann tells me she likes going to L.A. for the weather.
[caption id="attachment_53989" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Rabbit with pasta an vegetables at Willa Jean.[/caption]
She and I and ML have dinner at Willa Jean's. This is yet another one of Chef John Besh's new restaurants in the CBD, across the street from the trendsetting Rouses' downtown market. Willa Jean's is an interesting combination of offerings, with a thread of U.S. Southern cookery (as opposed to the related but different Creole cookery). It looks like a coffeeshop, a pastry shop, and a full-fledged bistro, but with abbreviated menus.
The restaurant is nearly empty. Mary Ann says that it's extremely busy from the breakfast hours through the day, and slacks off every night. That makes sense. Anybody can handle breakfast, coffee, and lunch. But in this part of town, not enough people are walking around after the sun goes down. Which event is still rather early at this time of year.
[caption id="attachment_53988" align="alignnone" width="456"]
Willa Jean's biscuit.[/caption]
The sparseness of the dining room gives the waitress time enough for me to pepper her with questions. She persuades me that a rabbit dish made with pasta and a wild, colorful variety of vegetables would be right up my alley. Mary Leigh doesn't need to think very long. She has the hamburger, which is appealing but too much food. Mary Ann also has a sandwich, this one made of fried chicken.
After only two samplings of the Willa Jean conundrum, I feel as if I've exhausted the dinner possibilities. Last time, I had a very good chowder of bacon, potatoes, and oysters. But it's served in such large portion that. . . well, again, I keep finding myself with limitations where there should be openings.
I ask about the name. Mary Ann already has the answer. Willa Jean is the grandmother of Kelly Fields, the chef/co-owner here. (John Besh makes all his top people co-proprietors, which may explain the success of his corporation.) Kelly was a pastry chef for Besh in his earlier endeavors. She and her grandmother have Southern roots, which explains a lot.
A shtick has evolved on the menu that either explains or puzzles. There is "the cheese business": a gratin dish of artichokes, cheeses, and roasting until the top becomes crusty and brown. This is much, much better than it sounds. Also here is the "biscuit situation." True to everything John Besh, the biscuits are not made a day's worth at a time. I ordered one and it took a long time to come out, because they were making it from scratch. Once there, the situation develops as a square biscuit, too hot to handle and almost delicate in texture. Not as good as the ones ML and I made together when we had a family at home, but as good as any buttermilk biscuit I know. And that's the situation.
Willa Jean. CBD: 611 O'Keefe St. 605-509-7334.
[divider type=""]
Thursday, February 16, 2017.
From Fried Chicken To Los Angeles.
Mary Ann leaves the Cool Water Ranch at four-thirty a.m. for her flight to our loving, smiling grandson Jackson. When will she be back? As I write this on February 21, I don't know. I throw the bachelor switch and prepare for some lonely but productive days.
My first agenda item is to have my sleep analyzed. I am an ace sleeper. I can fall asleep in unusual places on purpose. If there were an Olympic event in the category, I would join the napping team. Son Jude can top me, though. He can conk out on an airplane before it leaves the ground.
The doctor told me that I ought to investigate the possibility of my having sleep apnea. Mary Ann was already convinced of this ten years ago, when she says my snoring got so bad that she decamped for another floor in the house. On the other hand, my large weight loss of the past two or three years has helped that problem a lot.
My doctor says that recent research into hypertension (which I inherited from my mother) indicates that sleep apnea may be a cause. But it could be that my favorite part of these deliberations is that the first time I heard the word "apnea," I figured out that it was something wrong with breathing. I took two years of Greek at Jesuit, and it was clear: "a" at the front of a Greek word indicates negative for what follows. And "pnea" is a reference to air pressure. It's not the first or the last time my sketchy knowledge of Greek helped my writing.
A doctor at the clinic interviewed me, then told me to return on Monday to pick up a testing unit to take home. I was disappointed that I would not spend the night in one of the clinic's bedrooms, built for this purpose. I was mainly interested in how hospital food is these days.
[caption id="attachment_44786" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Spumone cheesecake at the Peppermill.[/caption]
I cross the lake to do the show, then had a good program. The subject of fried chicken came up again. And our featured restaurant of the day is the Peppermill. When we called the restaurant to ask about their specials today, we learned that it's fried chicken, every Thursday. I order a white-meat quarter and, after it cooled down enough for me to handle it, I discovered an well-made, greaseless, nicely seasoned, golden-brown piece of work.
What's that doing at this restaurant? It's probably the recipe than came down through the evolution of the Buck 49 Steakhouse into the Peppermill. I'd bet that if the Buck 49 came back again, it would be very successful.
I call Mary Ann to make sure she made it through the threatening weather in Los Angeles. She says nothing much is happening. I guess she hasn't heard about four inches of rain coming her way.
Peppermill. Metairie: 3524 Severn Ave. 504-455-2266.
