Sunday, July 23, 2017. I Don't Know Where I Am.
Mary Ann makes it official: tomorrow she will fly to London with Mary Leigh, and the two of them will travel around the British Isles for about a week. It's an all-girl trip, so I am out of the program, conveniently left behind to take care of the dogs, the bills, cutting of grass, and everything else.
MA is always very nice to me on the day or so before she heads out on one of her famous journeys. Today's offering is my pick of place for Sunday brunch. We go to Impastato Cellars, which since Easter is open for Sunday brunch.
The place is very busy when we arrived, but we have a reservation. We go over the menu with Mr. Joe (he of Impastato's in Metairie) and his daughter Mica. The menu is more or less what they serve at dinner. with a couple of egg dishes added to the list. I know that the kitchen will prepare almost anything a customer asks for, so I ask for poached eggs with hollandaise over angel hair pasta asciutta, with a bit of grilled Italian sausage. Everybody says that think this would make a great dish.
And then my phone began to make a tune. It's the producer at the radio station, reminding me that I go on the air at 1 p.m. My face gets cold and pale. 1 p.m. was a half-hour ago. I can do the show from home, but Impastato's is another half-hour away.
In the 29 years I have hosted The Food Show, I have been very late only twice in the past. The first was the announcement that D. H. Holmes would close the doors of its Canal Street department store. A mob headed downtown to get the expected bargains. WSMB, my station back then, was in the Maison Blanche Building, a block from Holmes. I was stuck in traffic for a bit over an hour, listening to my predecessor on the air playing all my jingles over and over.
The second time was on the Causeway, when the bridge was shut down for very dense fog and a tornado warning. Tommy Cvitanovich at Drago's, where I dined later, famously said, "That's great. Tornado coming, but because of the fog you can't see it."
And now this. I think I will be able to hold on to my show. But being an hour late will go down in my record. You just don't do that in radio. Although it happens to everybody sooner or later. Arthur Godfrey went on at length about his time.
After the show, Mary Ann and I went out to lunch at La Carreta. She didn't stay at Impastato Cellars. I wish she had, and brought home the leftovers. That brunch dish I made up was appetizing me. It would have been better than the three-way enchilada plate that I had instead.
Back home, I once again told MA how much cleaning of the house I will be able to do while she is gone. A dumpster full of stuff. Empty cosmetics boxes. Little scraps of fabric that will never be sewn. And then I realize that I am only daydreaming.
Impastato Cellars. Madisonville: 240 Highway 22 E. 985-845-4445.
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Monday, July 24, 2017. Off They Go, Back They Come.
The Marys leave for England so early in the morning that MA tells me to go back to sleep after one last kiss. The next I hear of them is about a dozen hours later, when the tell me that cancelled flights all over the country have rendered her standby tickets worthless for today. Indeed, it's raining pretty hard in the New Orleans area, too.
I was hoping that the Marys would come to their senses regarding this formless, erratic journey. But I know better. When MA decides she wants to do something, she always does it, come hell or high water. Once again, she and ML leave in the dead of night. We do not have another meal together. I suggest to her that she keep a journal in the same style as this one. She does so, in great length. I'll see how it does with the NOMenu audience. Is she getting ready to take over my job?
Written by Tom Fitzmorris July 31, 2017 06:01 in
