[title type="h5"]Monday, June 9, 2014.
Homemade Red Beans And Italian Sausage.
[/title]
Just about the time I go on the air today, Mary Ann asks whether I'd like red beans and rice for dinner. Her timing is deliberate, I believe. She knows that I can't do any involved cooking in the middle of the show. And that I have a thing for red beans on Monday. And a few Italian sausages bought from Vincent Riccobono a few weeks ago.
I have no choice but to let her do it. What would be left out this time? She got the beans and the seasonings right, but she starts without any significant oil, rendered bacon fat, or anything else necessary give red beans that distinctive flavor. But she's trying to lose some pounds, and gives the light touch to everything. I drizzle some extra-virgin olive oil over my plate, and that works fine.
The only other item on the table is a big salad. I am getting to the bottom of a big bottle of demi-remoulade I made about two years ago. It's made of olive oil, red wine vinegar, a little garlic, a lot of Creole mustard and paprika, and enough water to make it emulsify.
I love that "remoulade" is becoming a standard salad dressing in most restaurants. Another New Orleans uniqueness!
[divider type=""]
[title type="h5"]Tuesday, June 10, 2014.
Coffee Beans, Alligators, And A New (Sort Of) Seafood House.
[/title]
Almost two inches of rain fall overnight and this morning. I half expected to find the road covered with water from the overflowing branch. But the only battle was with about eight miles of downpour on the Causeway.
The Round Table Radio Show (some day I will decide how this ought to be capitalized) brought Brian and Brooke Zar from Restaurant Des Familles. That restaurant, on the edge of the Jean Lafitte National Park, in a definitive bayou environment, was already good when the Zars took over a few years ago.
It's even better now. An Eat Club we held over there about a year ago remains a nice memory, starting with as fine an alligator sauce piquant as I've eaten. Okay, I haven't eaten more tha a handful of versions. But this was quite a dish by any standard. Brian brought some of it for our guests in the studio, where he says that the dish has become a signature item for him. Complete with the possibility of live alligators climbing out of the swamp and up to the restaurant's windows.
Danette Murret, the owner of Nola Beans in Lakeview, was there to talk about coffee. The shop is good and busy in the mornings, but we got to talking about the rest of the day. Turns out this is not a concern: Danette's other job is as a CPA.
Mary Ann seems always to include on the Tuesday show a restaurateur whose place I haven't tried yet. About a year ago Key Orleans picked up where Shuck 'n' Jive left off--in a seemingly good location in Mandeville. But the place has a record of devouring its occupants after just a few years, even when the food is very good.
At Key Orleans, Chris Binnings takes a different tack from those of his predecessors. As the name suggests, he mixes some South Florida flavors with the New Orleans seafood menu. The menu is appealing. I think we'll try it sometime soon. The North Shore never has enough good seafood houses.
After three hours of miscellaneous radio work and my usual nap, I head out to Harahan for dinner at the year-old Happy Italian. Lenny Minutello--a food pro I've known for a long time--took over the former Nuccio's, expanded it, and installed a much bigger menu than I expect to find. I also am surprised to see how far he deviates from the standard New Orleans Italian selection.
[caption id="attachment_42628" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Baked ziti with garlic sauce, Gorgonzola, and walnuts.[/caption]
It's so different that I ask him what I should order. He says that the baked ziti (not something we see around here often) is made with Gorgonzola (Italian blue) cheese, a garlic sauce, and walnuts. "404--Dish not found!" my memory reports. I'd better try it. It comes to the table bubbling in a big crock holding enough for at least two. Very rich. It would make a great side for Lenny's seafood dishes.
[caption id="attachment_42629" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Italian salad for. . .one? [/caption]
It's possible that my inability to finish the pasta dish owed to the size of the Italian salad. I asked for the small one, and was brought a collection of greens, tomatoes, olives, salami, ham and cheeses big enough to split. "But that is the small one," the waitress says.
I am mainly curious about Lenny's pizza oven, having heard him talk about it in a radio commercial. It's a conveyor-belt contraption--the bane of classic pizza. But it has an interesting difference. Instead of open grates carrying the pizza through, the conveyor belt is made of thick, wide, long slabs of granite, heated up to about 550 degrees. I order a pie to sample and take home for Mary Ann. The gizmo works, but needs fine-tuning. The top and rim of the crust are nicely toasted, but the bottom--even though it's in constant contact with the hot rock--comes out pale. I'm just guessing, but I think that slowing down the passage of the pizza would help.
Lenny wants me to see his addition to the restaurant, a room full of tables covered with red-checked tablecloths. It's more homey than the somewhat severe lines of the main room. But he uses it mostly for big parties. Harahan is a family town, and I'll bet he gets his money's worth out of that new resource.
Departing the Happy Italian, I drive around St. Rita's Church and School. It's where I spent three happy years in sixth through eighth grades. Where I was confirmed, and where I was when JFK was assassinated. First place I danced with a girl or played on a sports team. I never cease to be amazed by how little the complex has changed. I feel as if I could step inside the school building and walk directly to my eighth grade desk, there to see the gentle, wimple-framed face of Sister Ann Michelle, who started me on my New Yorker Magazine habit and encouraged my literacy in other ways.
Hey! It occurs to me that it's only a few days since the fiftieth anniversary of my graduation from that wonderful school! I wonder if there was a reunion.
[title type="h5"]Happy Italian. Harahan: 7105 Jefferson Hwy. 504-305-4666.[/title]
Written by Tom Fitzmorris June 17, 2014 12:01 in
