Wednesday, May 18, 2016.
Pasta In Madisonville.
Mary Leigh will head back to Virginia tomorrow morning early. She wants to have one more dinner with MA and me before she departs. For once, she has a dinner venue in mind that we all like: Impastato Cellars, the Madisonville branch of Impastato's in Metairie, managed by Joe Impastato's daughter Mica. Joe spends a lot of time here, too, preventing anyone from saying that this one is not as good as the restaurant in Metairie. Indeed, the only difference I can see is that the menu is a touch shorter, and the five-course dinner is a dollar or two higher.
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Italian-style oysters @ Impastato Cellars.[/caption]
The Marys eat light--or what they think is light--while I indulge. My starter (not counting the irresistible Italian bread, hot and ready for the butter--is baked oysters Sicilian style, with the familiar stuffing of bread crumbs, garlic, parmesan cheese, and herbs.
[caption id="attachment_38290" align="alignleft" width="222"]
Red and white pasta, with a meatball in hiding.[/caption]
The waiter--we seem to have the same one every time we go, but that's a good thing--tells me that the barbecue shrimp with fettuccine Alfredo on the side is a great new dish. The shrimp are big, fresh, generously served and eminently edible. If you love a good shrimp entree, you'd be happy with this. But I would not call this barbecue shrimp. At least not what we think of as barbecue shrimp in the New Orleans vicinity. Tomato in the sauce, for one thing. And not nearly enough pepper. The fettuccine, of course, is impeccable.
ML concurs with that assessment of the pasta. She has a two-way fettuccine-and-spaghetti with white sauce on one and red sauce on the other. Meatball in the middle. This is what she came for, and she is happy. I have a stick of spumoni for dessert and call it a night.
ML told me over a year ago that she will permit me to sing just one song at her wedding reception. The song is up to me. I have been thinking about which song that should be ever since, and I came up with one that even MA, no fan of my singing, likes: "The Way You Look Tonight."
All we need now is a band.
Impastato Cellars. Madisonville: 240 Highway 22 E. 985-845-4445.
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Thursday, May 19, 2016.
Food Writers At The Cannery. Taj Mahal Revisited.
It's a busy enough day that I have the shakes. (Something I inherited from my father and share with two of my sisters.) I know the solution: action. Doing the radio show makes it all go away. So does acting as the emcee for a large-group presentation. I did both of those things today. The Alzheimer's Association--a national effort to cure the brain illness--has a strong New Orleans chapter, and it holds a big fund-raising lunch today.
Lunch? That's not a fundraiser we see very often. But here we were, some 150 people having a three-course meal with wines and guest speakers. Six speakers, to be exact: Ti Martin and Tory McPhail, respectively the co-owner and executive chef of Commander's Palace; Chef John Folse; Poppy Tooker; Cynthia Lejeune Nobles, author of
The Confederacy of Dunces Cookbook, and me. What we all have in common is that in addition to our culinary pursuits, we are all writers with current books. And that's what we talked about.
We had a lot of fun with this. The most serious of the publishing projects is Ti Martin's biography of her mother, Ella Brennan, who is one of the most revered restaurateurs in American history. That comes out in a couple of months. John Folse is about a year into the life of his fourth big cook book. I razz him about the need to use a forklift to move his books from the library into the kitchen, so heavy are they. On the other hand. Ti Martin says that whenever Commander's is uncertain about a classic Cajun recipe, they consult with Folse's encyclopedic books.
The lunch was nothing to write home about, although they were getting close with the chicken dish. It was stuffed with something or other. I think that this could have been terrific if it had been turned into chicken Pontalba, the greatest of New Orleans chicken dishes. They could have kept the chicken as it was, then add the potato-ham-mushroom topping and bearnaise over all. But nobody asked me.
On the other hand, the premises are very cool. The Cannery is in the office space of the old, extinct American Can Company manufacturing plant. They did a nice job of renovating the place into an event facility that can serve 300 people for a seated dinner. The neighborhood is a little rough in the road department, but the adjacent parking lot is paved and fenced and guarded. And Bayou St. John is a block away.
I was dismissed from my duties as moderator in time to have a fifteen-minute nap in my office at the radio station before showtime at three. I was a little hoarse from speaking without a microphone at The Cannery.
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To dinner at the Taj Mahal, where I have not dined in a very long time. I begin with a great tomato soup I recall from my last visit. I am tempted to get the lamb rogan dosh, a spicy curry. But I see another lamb dish with the emphasis on coriander, all in a thick brown sauce with onions and spicy seasonings. The flavor was good, but the texture and appearance could use some refinement.
[caption id="attachment_51522" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Lamb Curry @ Taj Mahal.[/caption]
I come home to a silent house. This morning, Mary Leigh flew back to her permanent home in Washington, D.C. And MA always goes to bed early. Lightning begins what will be a very stormy night. Even with her broken leg, the dog Susie manages to climb the four steps to get inside and hide under my desk. For the cats Satsuma and Valencia, the booming and flashing is all just an interesting show. They appear to have gotten thoroughly soaked in the rain when I let them in tomorrow.
Taj Mahal. Old Metairie: 923-C Metairie Rd. 504-836-6859.
Italian-style oysters @ Impastato Cellars.[/caption]
The Marys eat light--or what they think is light--while I indulge. My starter (not counting the irresistible Italian bread, hot and ready for the butter--is baked oysters Sicilian style, with the familiar stuffing of bread crumbs, garlic, parmesan cheese, and herbs.
[caption id="attachment_38290" align="alignleft" width="222"]
Red and white pasta, with a meatball in hiding.[/caption]
The waiter--we seem to have the same one every time we go, but that's a good thing--tells me that the barbecue shrimp with fettuccine Alfredo on the side is a great new dish. The shrimp are big, fresh, generously served and eminently edible. If you love a good shrimp entree, you'd be happy with this. But I would not call this barbecue shrimp. At least not what we think of as barbecue shrimp in the New Orleans vicinity. Tomato in the sauce, for one thing. And not nearly enough pepper. The fettuccine, of course, is impeccable.
ML concurs with that assessment of the pasta. She has a two-way fettuccine-and-spaghetti with white sauce on one and red sauce on the other. Meatball in the middle. This is what she came for, and she is happy. I have a stick of spumoni for dessert and call it a night.
ML told me over a year ago that she will permit me to sing just one song at her wedding reception. The song is up to me. I have been thinking about which song that should be ever since, and I came up with one that even MA, no fan of my singing, likes: "The Way You Look Tonight."
All we need now is a band.
Lamb Curry @ Taj Mahal.[/caption]
I come home to a silent house. This morning, Mary Leigh flew back to her permanent home in Washington, D.C. And MA always goes to bed early. Lightning begins what will be a very stormy night. Even with her broken leg, the dog Susie manages to climb the four steps to get inside and hide under my desk. For the cats Satsuma and Valencia, the booming and flashing is all just an interesting show. They appear to have gotten thoroughly soaked in the rain when I let them in tomorrow.
