Friday, April 14, 2017.
Roosevelt Hotel. Casablanca Changes Hands. Elmer's Big Day.
Today is sort of our Easter program. Like Easter itself, it begins with a Passover-related matter. Linda Waknin, the creator and longtime chef and owners of Casablanca, has sold her restaurant to Andy Adelman. This opens a question right away: will Casablanca remain a strictly Chabad kosher restaurant, as it always has been? The answer is yes. Linda knows Andy very well from their involvement in a common religious community. He has the recipes and the energy, and onward he goes, making the superb soups, salads, dips and rice dishes, and the Moroccan concoctions Linda always cooked so well. We finish the phone interview about all this hours before sunset.
Joining us at the microphone is Jose Martinez, the executive chef at the Roosevelt hotel. He tells us that the Roosevelt's main banquet room--an enormous facility on the second floor--will serve a buffet with over a hundred items on it. That is typical of the Roosevelt, going back decades. The only way it could be more grand would be to deck the lobby the way it is at Christmas. The price for all this is $80. That's not the highest number I've seen for Easter Sunday brunch, but it's headed in that direction.
Mary Ann is excited about the visit from Rob Nelson, the third-generation CEO of Elmer's Candy. MA is a chocolate-lover, is why. Last time Rob was on the program, he said that Elmer's is the second-biggest maker of heart-boxed chocolates in the United States, selling under the names of numerous department stores and other merchants from the golden age of shopping.
Add that to the millions of Gold Brick and Heavenly Hash candies made into the shape of hearts, Elmer's has a lot to do in its Ponchatoula operations.
Rob told me a bunch of interesting things about the chocolate business, none of which hook together particularly. So I made them into a list:
1. Almost all the production for the years takes place in a few months when the ambient temperatures are low. Chocolates melt in the Louisiana summer, and there's nothing that can be done about it.
2. Companies are always asking to have chocolates made in the shapes of their logos or other iconography. But having molds made for such items runs into the tens of thousands of dollars. Chocolate is not glass or ice or soap. It can only be molded at a certain point in the production, and even then it's ticklish.
3. Mint and Fruit Bublets--a popular Elmer's hard candy from the 1950s and beyond--will never be seen again. Rob says that it wasn't uncommon for more man-hours to be put into making the Bublet machine work properly than to make the thin bubbles themselves.
4. A new twist on the Gold Brick this year is Dark Chocolate Gold Brick Eggs, which are as appealing in flavor as they sound.
Rob left behind a large box of Elmer's chocolates. My popularity among the radio station staff will peak because of this.
Casablanca. Metairie: 3030 Severn Ave. 504-888-2209.
Roosevelt Hotel Fountain Lounge. CBD: 123 Bayonne. 504-648-1200.
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Saturday, April 15. 2017.
Coffee Pot Memories. Fat Spoon. Ballantine's Multi-Malt Scotch.
My tax return went off a couple of weeks ago. So I don't have that to worry about. The areticle about the Coffee Pot that I am engaged to write is over deadline, but the words are rolling right out of my brain. That's easy enough. The Coffee Pot dates back in my consciousness to the very beginning of my career as a restaurant critic. I am full of memories and anecdotes about the place. I will be finished with it by Monday morning. I hope the Rouses Market's slick, well-assembled magazine will stll have room for my piece by then.
I take breaks for a two-hour WWL radio show. Then a 90-minute walk. Nice long nap. I had a big breakfast the the Fat Spoon earlier in the day, so I'm not hungry for dinner. I use the time to keep writing the article. I lubricate it with one Scotch on the rocks. (Ballantine's blended 12-year-old. Not a single-malt. I've had this bottle on my shelf for over thirty years. I've decided to dispatch it one drink at a time (one a day) until it's gone. I hope I live that long.
Coffee Pot. French Quarter: 714 St Peter. 504-524-3500.
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