[title type="h5"]Wednesday, April 29, 2015.
Bistro Orleans Again.[/title]
The weeks of rain appear to have come to a halt, with perfect weather for the second weekend of the Jazz Festival. Maybe I'll go. It's been a couple of years. Too bad I missed Tony Bennett. I would like to have heard him, if indeed that's possible. He has said that in every performance, he always does one song with no amplification. That's probably impossible at the Jazz Festival, where over-amplification of everything brings the quality of the music down. All musicians (except classical) play too loud. (He says, for the 378,694th time.)
I stay at the radio station for an hour after the show, to think of two weeks' worth of the Opinion Polls that run on the station's website (3wL1350.com) every day. If I don't do this, I catch flak from the boss. Funny thing about it is that it takes longer to collect the info, package it into a viable email, sent it to the five people who need to see it, then check with as many of those to make sure they got it. . . than it takes to write the things. But isn't everything that way?
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Wild-caught catfish platter at Bistro Orleans.[/caption]
To dinner at Bistro Orleans. I have eaten too often there lately, but I need to sit down with Chef Archie to work up a menu for the Eat Club Pre-Cruise Dinner, which is only two weeks away.
My dinner starts with a half-dozen grilled oysters a la Drago. Then a big platter of fried catfish. They are fresh, wild-caught, and from Des Allemands. All three were once the hallmarks of catfish in New Orleans restaurants. But until recently, restaurant catfish were almost always absent all those virtues. Frozen, farm-raised, and originating in Southeast Asia. Now we seem to have turned the corner. Hey Acme! Gimme some of the good catfish, will you?
Bistro Orleans not only has the good catfish, but they fry it to a golden crispness to order. They then offer it as a special on Wednesdays: ten bucks.
After dinner, Archie and I devise a four-course menu, with two or three choices in each course. He will figure out a price and be in touch. I hope we get a good attendance at this late date. A great pre-cruise dinner performs miracles in making the whole cruise go smoothly.
