Wednesday, September 20, 2017. If I had decided to become a meteorologist (it's something that always interested me),I would probably have to qualify an idea I have about the hurricane season. But since I'm just a lowly food critic, I can freely express Tom's Probability. It goes like this. At the beginning of the season, any early storms often start in or near Mexico, and then head east. As the weeks go by, the storms coming from the east begin to dominate, but they often allow themselves to drift towards Texas and Mexico. Then one sees a clear turnaround that brings the storms to our part of the Gulf. This was Katrina's route. Went right over Florida, kept growing and more persistent in its direction. And then and we get hit in New Orleans. But after a few weeks more, it's as if a force field were pushing from the west and preventing storms heading east from getting to us. This leaves Florida the last resort for storms from the east.
It's only a theory, and I have no qualifications. But do note the paucity of storms for the last few weeks. This is little consolation for Florida and the Antilles large and small, but I can't help but notice this effect.
MA and ML say I should shut up about the weather. So I will save my other theory for next time they're not looking. It will question the way that weathercasters sometimes sound as if they're pulling for the storms, instead being on the side of us afflicted people.
A busy work day. On the radio, we are visited by the management of Trenasse, who are in town after a trip from Santa Rosa Beach--their headquarters, under the name "Stinky's Fish Camp" --to Baton Rouge, where they've just opened their fifth restaurant. I'm still getting messages from people who attended the Eat Club dinner we did a month or two ago at Trenasse. The bottom line is that everything was going great.
After a lightly-tossed radio show, I adjourned for dinner at Legacy Kitchen's location on Tchoupitoulas. It's a block away from the radio station, but I haven't been there a lot. Early on, it didn't seem quite worked out yet. But we have had good luck dining at the Mandeville location, so I thought I'd try it again. I started with a superior and very generous bowl of crab and corn soup. It was less about cream than it was about corn. You could really pick up the kernel flavors. It needed a little Tabasco, but with that added it was happy eating.
[caption id="attachment_50875" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Crab and corn bisque @ Legacy Kitchen.[/caption]
The entree is a dish clearly made for more than one person. I liked the idea, though: duck nachos. Instead of being covered with cheese and salsa, this used crushed black beans as the matrix. Squirts of crema added a touch of richness. Not quite enough guacamole finished the overtones. I wound up eating a little over half of this. Lot of food, and good, too.
But I still don't have this place doped out. Like the other five locations of Legacy Kitchen, the menu is different from those of the others. Even the name has been changed: this Tchoup venue is called a "Craft Tavern," whatever that means. It will take me a little longer to visit the ones I haven't tried yet. I see an interesting article for CityBusiness here: about chain restaurants in which the food is different--if not drastically so--from location to location.
I hear the one on the West Bank has good steaks.
Legacy Kitchen Craft Tavern. Warehouse District: 700 Tchoupitoulas St. 504-613-2350.
Written by Tom Fitzmorris September 21, 2017 12:01 in
