Wednesday, June 22, 2016.
Manufacturing Time. Panneed Chicken, Two Sauces.
I own a wonderful mechanism that can create three hours of time. The way it works is that I stay home instead of making the round trip to downtown New Orleans. This is done by means of a gizmo that allows me to feed the radio station high-quality sound, better than the station itself transmits on the AM band. I am running well behind today, so I mash the button down and the show starts as if I were there.
Having my day loosened up also allows me to finish the list of eight restaurants with my top rating of five fleurs de lis. I send it to CityBusiness as my column for two weeks from now. And I put it into the NOMenu newsletter, too. People have been asking me for this list a lot lately.
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Chicken parm at New Orleans Food & Spirits. [/caption]
I decide that I will have lunch instead of dinner, and do so at New Orleans Food & Spirits. Today is the day for its second-best lunch special, panneed chicken atop thin spaghetti with both a red sauce and a white sauce. (The very best special is tomorrow's stewed rabbit with white beans--a legendary dish at all three of the NOF&S's.
I have time to spend on the phone with Mary Ann, whose delight at spending her hours with our grandson Jackson is sending love waves over the phone line. "He looks just like Jude did at that age, just as smart, just as happy," she says. Jude, for his part, sends me two photographs. In one I am holding him when he was about six months old. In the other, Jude is holding Jackson at about the same age. The two poses are almost identical. I would publish this diptych, but Jude doesn't want me to publicize his family. Fair enough.
After the radio show signs off, I cut the grass--a job that has cried out for attention for weeks. The rains have made the grass a foot high over much of the three acres that I cut. It's enough to choke up the mower blades here and there, and I have to run over some stretches two or three times to spread out the clippings. Takes me just shy of two hours. I take a nap at eight, wake up an hour later, and still am ready for the major sleep at midnight. A productive day.
By late evening I still have time to write to Alissa Rowe, the director of NPAS. Our first concert in the fall will be on a country-western theme. I think the program should have some cowboy music, like "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" or "Cool Water." Not that I have enough stroke to make that happen. Just asking.
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Thursday, June 23, 2016.
Shaya In The Works.
Ronald Richardson takes over as my Wednesday radio producer today. The people who have had that job--which consists of running the electronics of the mixer board, inserting the commercials and theme music, and answering and clearing the phone calls--tend to be more skillful than I expect. Ronald is also a host of his own program on the Delgado radio station. The guy who does it Mondays through Wednesdays for me is Doug Christian, who has been on the air in music radio for decades. Richard Dominique--who I lost when he moved to Houston after K--was an old radio pro with a great voice. Mindy H., who started as my producer when she was seventeen, may have been the best of all. She's now a paralegal. If these producer jobs were as available when I was in college as they are now--we're always looking for interested people--I would have begun my too-long radio career even sooner than 1974.
I've always been a radio geek. That's what my little syster Lynn tells two of her friends. They were at Lebanon's Café on Carrollton Avenue when I called Lynn to see if she'd like to join me for dinner. Instead, I joined them. Both of the friends are singers in a local chorus in which Lynn sang at one time. So we have a quartet sitting there. I couldn't get them to start a song.
I haven't been to Lebanon's in quite awhile. It's one of those restaurants so consistent in its offerings that I don't need to check it very often. I start with some halloumi cheese, then spinach pie, then a big plate of cubed roasted lamb on top of a flow of hummus. The check for the whole table was $80. This place is not only good, but a steal.
It's funny that I wound up at Lebanon's. Earlier in the day I was working on a major review of Shaya, which is revolutionizing Middle Eastern cooking in New Orleans. I think we will soon see a number of restaurants following Shaya's lead. (The review is in this edition.)
Lebanon's Cafe. Riverbend: 1500 S Carrollton Ave. 504-862-6200.
Chicken parm at New Orleans Food & Spirits. [/caption]
I decide that I will have lunch instead of dinner, and do so at New Orleans Food & Spirits. Today is the day for its second-best lunch special, panneed chicken atop thin spaghetti with both a red sauce and a white sauce. (The very best special is tomorrow's stewed rabbit with white beans--a legendary dish at all three of the NOF&S's.
I have time to spend on the phone with Mary Ann, whose delight at spending her hours with our grandson Jackson is sending love waves over the phone line. "He looks just like Jude did at that age, just as smart, just as happy," she says. Jude, for his part, sends me two photographs. In one I am holding him when he was about six months old. In the other, Jude is holding Jackson at about the same age. The two poses are almost identical. I would publish this diptych, but Jude doesn't want me to publicize his family. Fair enough.
After the radio show signs off, I cut the grass--a job that has cried out for attention for weeks. The rains have made the grass a foot high over much of the three acres that I cut. It's enough to choke up the mower blades here and there, and I have to run over some stretches two or three times to spread out the clippings. Takes me just shy of two hours. I take a nap at eight, wake up an hour later, and still am ready for the major sleep at midnight. A productive day.
By late evening I still have time to write to Alissa Rowe, the director of NPAS. Our first concert in the fall will be on a country-western theme. I think the program should have some cowboy music, like "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" or "Cool Water." Not that I have enough stroke to make that happen. Just asking.
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