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Friday, July 3, 2015.
Keith's Tub O' Crabmeat.
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The holiday aspect of the Fourth of July is transferred to today. So says the management of the radio station, the stock market, and many businesses. But most restaurants are open. And with tomorrow being a Saturday, many of them in the French Quarter will be open, so as not to miss the business from the Essence Music Festival crowd. Which is more affluent than many locals give it credit for.
I think it would have made sense to have the radio show on today, but almost all the live shows are cancelled, and that's that. I publish the Menu Daily at around eleven, and I'm done for the day.
Mary Ann and I go to Keith Young's Steakhouse for lunch. She goes there a lot with her friends, but I almost never make lunch there or anywhere. The restaurant is moderately busy. It's very unusual that Keith Young himself is not there. He's given his staff tomorrow for their holiday. Since Saturday is the busy day in the restaurant business, for its workers to be sprung is a rare pleasure for them. Keith is a great guy to work for, I'm told.
We get some fried oysters as an appetizer to split. Then salads. They're not free with dinner anymore. Beef prices are skyrocketing, and Keith has kept his menu prices from following suit by levying a toll on the house salad. He says that most customers don't appear to notice. Smart man.
[caption id="attachment_48167" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Hamburger steak.[/caption]
Mary Ann stops just short of worshiping Keith's hamburger. It's almost big enough to serve as an idol. Today she scales back with a hamburger steak, which in her calculations will cause her to lose weight.
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Crabmeat au gratin at Keith Young's Steakhouse.[/caption]
There is nothing low-cal about the crabmeat au gratin I get from the dinner menu. I expect one of those shallow, round gratin dishes, moderately filled with expensive crabmeat. Which would have made a nice, light lunch. What comes out is a boat--or maybe a gondola--of crabmeat in bechamel sauce. A modicum of cheese coats the top, but not enough to wash away the crab flavors as it melts. Good as it is, I can only pack away half of this. It could have been divided into appetizers for four. But this is Keith Young's, and the steakhouse category, where big servings are de rigueur.
So what will I do the rest of the day? Surely I will not be eating. I take an extended walk around the passable parts of the Cool Water Ranch. A good bit of standing water prevents me from mowing the front acre, which is due for a trim.
I spend a few hours cleaning up my office. This is such a big job that I could spend the entire weekend with it. My work takes up all the time I have. Except for the walks and the nap afterwards, all I do is work. I know it's not good for me, but when I'm not working I get nervous.
Mary Ann says I should watch a movie with her. We spend the better part of an hour trying to find one she likes. (I will watch anything, with the possible exception of movies starring Jack Black.) But she watches a few minutes, then starts searching for something else. If I were not there, she's wind up with a movie she's seen a dozen times or more.
We come across "Key Largo," the classic black-and-white combination hurricane thriller and mobster movie. Great cast: Humphrey Bogart, the very young but already alluring Lauren Bacall, and Edward G. Robinson. I had never seen it. From the beginning, it lives up to its reputation as a masterwork, with the directing of John Huston as its most impressive part.
Yet after fifteen minutes Mary Ann gets up and goes to bed. Not her kind of movie, she says.
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[title type="h5"]Saturday, July 4, 2015.
Two Hours And I'm Off.
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On holiday weekends, one's mind gets disoriented as to what day it is. I fix that early today by running my regular Saturday errand to the grocery store. I get to thinking about how long I've gone to the supermarket on Saturdays, rain or shine. It started when I quit working at the Time Saver, from which I had always bought all the groceries I needed (not much beyond paper products, cat food, and Dr Pepper in six-bottle cartons, a nickel deposit on each bottle). Although I lived on the corner of South Carrollton and Panola then, I did my shopping at Pap's in Gentilly, clear across town. When I moved away from home in 1970, Pap's was three blocks from the house where I shared space and rent with some fraternity brothers. My Aunt Una used to take me to Pap's with her when I was a boy. Pap's was the definitive supermarket for me, and remained so every Saturday until it closed in the late 1980s. The Papania family had attempted to open a second store in Metairie, but the location was not as good as it looked, and it pulled the old store down with it.
Okay, that was a prolix reminiscence. I'll wrap it up by saying that I still make groceries every Saturday morning, at one of a revolving lineup stores including Aquistapace's (which reminds me a lot of Pap's), three different Rouse's, and two Winn-Dixies.
When I get home, it is about noon. Perversely, I do have a radio show today. The Saturday Food Show moves to a new time slot today, from two till four. This gives me enough time to cut grass before I go on the air, thereby beating the thunderstorms due later.
After the show, Mary Ann and I are home alone, Mary Leigh still visiting The Boy in Arizona. We go to the home of MA's brother Patrick, where we are joined by other members of her family, and a hirsute, aggressive Chihuahua. Patrick has cooked up a modest barbecue chicken supper.
We hang out there for a few hours. We get home just after dark, and let the dog Susie into the house, so she can hide under some shelter from the fireworks blasts. She is afraid of thunder, and that's what it sounds like. The explosions last until bedtime and beyond.
Conspicuously absent from the celebration is my visit to McDonald's for a cheeseburger. Since an Independence Day in the 1970s, I have gone on the Fourth of July to this most American of restaurants to eat the most American of dishes. But last year's was so terrible that I swore never to exercise this absurd tradition again. And I didn't.
