[title type="h5"]
Thursday, March 27, 2014.[/title]
When I learned that the itinerary for our spring Eat Club cruise would take us to Tunisia, a thought came immediately to mind. We must hold the pre-cruise dinner at Jamila's. Moncef and Jamila Sbaa have lived in New Orleans for most of their lives, but they are natives of Tunis. I figured we could get some useful information about that exotic land.
We survived a near disaster: a disagreement between Moncef's calendar and mine. I had it down that this dinner was to have taken place yesterday. We never did decide whose mistake that was, but it doesn't matter. A lot of people came yesterday and we talked about the cruise for the better part of an hour. Even more people--about fifty--attended tonight's dinner. That doesn't make me feel any better about the people who came from out of town to attend, but I don't think anybody's too angry with me.
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Merguez.[/caption]
The last time we had an Eat Club dinner at Jamila's was the second Eat Club of all time, back around twenty-one years ago. The price then: $15. The price now: $75. Of course, the first one was absurdly too cheap. But that's still quite a statistic.
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Brik with chicken.[/caption]
The menu came close to being everything of major significance from Jamila's kitchen. I was looking forward particularly to the merguez sausage, the famous item she sells at the Jazz Festival every year. And the brik with chicken. Which is different from chicken under a brick (a dish served only four blocks away, at Dante's Kitchen). Brik, in Tunisian fare, is a French-style puff pastry filled with meats or seafood. We kept going through four a number of dips, lamb, fish, couscous, and desserts. They raise wines in Northern Africa, and we had a taste of that, too.
Moncef came out and gave his advice on getting the most from the visit. Don't pay the first price you here for anything in the shops or bazaars, he said. Everything is negotiable. To take the price down another notch, just begin to walk away. The weather is cooler than we might imagine, but the beaches are beautiful. Camel rides may or may not be a good idea, depending on your luck. The ruins of Carthage are very interesting.
I think we're off to a good start for this cruise, which attracted one of the largest groups we've ever had: 79 people.
Jamila's. Riverbend: 7806 Maple. 504-866-4366.
[divider type=""]Friday, March 28, 2014. Overindulgence As Usual At DiCristina's.
I have some commercials to record at the radio station, but it rained so hard and so long last night that about twenty percent of the Cool Water Ranch was covered with shallow ponds. The road was flooded over for a few hours, too. No sense in going through that. Dinner at DiCristina's, which is a mixed blessing. There seems to be no way to avoid overeating--perhaps even gross overeating--at this Covington spinoff of Chalmette's Rocky & Carlo's. The combination of very good cooking with insanely oversized portions creates this inevitability. It also gives the place a full dining room at most hours. The program appeals to the Northshorinian dining imperatives, which must have formed back when everyone was a farmer and worked hard all day. We began with a plate of fried artichoke hearts with a crawfish cream sauce. As rich as that is, getting it obviated the possibility of having onion rings, too. The rings here are just the way we like them: thin cut, greaseless, golden brown, and served in a pile about a foot high. No room for both that and the artichokes. Thank God. I followed with an Italian salad. "One wop salad, coming up," said the waitress, using an expression that for decades didn't bother either the mostly-Italian New Orleans restaurateurs who used it, nor their customers. Unless the customer, not aware of the usage, came from somewhere else, notably the Northeast. Then there was a problem. About a year ago I learned that the "without papers" explanation of the word "wop" is only a myth. The term is a more or less standard Italian pronunciation of the dialect word "guappo," which means a young man who puts himself forward as a person of more substance than he can legitimately claim. What's wrong with that? Of course, if an expression offends someone, we shouldn't use it. And then we can just think about the local color as we eat the very good salad with olives, salami, cheese, garlic, olive oil, and greens. Which I did. [caption id="attachment_41849" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Oysters and fettuccine at DiCristina's.[/caption]
They don't mind off-standard orders at DiCristina's. I like the idea of fettuccine Alfredo with panneed veal--a classic local dish. But it's Friday in Lent. How about a few fried oysters instead of the veal? I asked. I didn't realize that this would bring fifteen big, beautiful, right-out-of-the-fryer oysters, piled atop a swell of creamy pasta. You just can't avoid this sort of thing here.
Mary Leigh had a chicken Caesar salad. Mary Ann, invoking Lent, did not go past the artichoke hearts. So she was the sole survivor of the binge.
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Apple Cheesecake.[/caption]
I kept going. DiCristina's has a dessert list of unlikely length--about fifteen different items. I was intrigued by the apple cheesecake, Fantastic! I wonder who makes it for them. The waitress, who always gives us the straight info--says it's made in house.
The bar couldn't make a Negroni, so I had a Manhattan. Later in the meal, swinging my hands around in the Italian style of storytelling, I knocked the empty glass over and broke it. Can I not hold even one cocktail anymore?
DiCristina's. Covington: 810 N Columbia. 985-875-0160.
[title type="h6"] Yesterday || Tomorrow[/title]