Diary 9|20, 21|2014: Barbecue Ham Poor Boy. Molé Again.

[title type="h5"]Saturday. September 20, 2014. Barbecue Ham. Pad Prik.[/title] The cat Twinnery leaves the headlines today when I open the kitchen door for his morning feed. He makes the full three-foot leap from the steps to the tool shed roof and its bowl of cat paté. It is nothing less than a miracle recovery. It it worth it for me to do a one-hour radio show on Saturdays? That's all I get today, before the LSU pre-pre-pregame show pushes me off the frequency. Next week will be the third time for that. On the other hand, what else do I have to do in that hour? During that show's commercial breaks, I go through all the photos I took during the week, find the best of them, and file them for use during the coming week. I wish I were as organized in other endeavors. After the show ends, Mary Ann and I have lunch at the Po-Boy Company, a year-old shop in Mandeville. The owner worked for the now-gone Mandeville Bear's Po-Boys. His sandwiches aren't exactly the same as those of any of the other Bear's, but he did pick up one habit that's bringing the business in. They really lay down the sliced roast beef, ham and everything else. I could only pack away half of the sandwich, and that one was supposed to have been a small. I order something I haven't had in a long time: a barbecue ham poor boy. I first discovered it at the old Po-Boy Bakery on Franklin and Filmore, back when I was a student at UNO. It doesn't sound exactly right, but it's a good change of pace from the usual poor boy sandwich flavor profile. Mary Ann stays with the classic roast beef, and doesn't eat any more than I do. We split an order of onion rings that we don't need. And we talk with the owner, Chad, who among other things on his mind is vexed by the difficulty of finding good employees. This is always a problem on the North Shore, where the restaurant industry only recently needed large numbers of people who want to work in food service. The restaurants around the country are up in arms these days about a strong movement in government to give better pay to people working at the bottom layers of the food service business. Why not let the market do its work? Then they'd have to pay higher, just as they did in the year or so after Katrina, when restaurants were paying the kind of wages being demanded now, because of the shortage of such people. I don't remember many restaurants going broke back then. Don't get a restaurant owner started on this, or you'll wish you hadn't. [caption id="attachment_43937" align="alignnone" width="357"] Po-Boy Company's History.[/caption] Back to Chad: he has composed a history of the poor boy sandwich and wrote it on a large wooden plaque in the middle of the dining room. It's worth reading, and all the facts are right. The grass at the Cool Water Ranch is lush. Whether to mow it could go either way. I decide against, and instead take an hour-long strut with the dogs. A few days ago, I felt a little pain in the ankle I broke three and a half years ago. I have hardly ever felt any discomfort--not even when the injury was just starting to heal. Griping onward, I also bemoan an ache across the right side of my middle back. I decide it's bursitis from pumping a five-pound weight constantly during my walks. By the end of the weekend, both these microscopic problems have faded. Good thing. I'm bored by it all, so I can imagine how you feel about it. [caption id="attachment_43938" align="alignnone" width="480"] Drunken noodles.[/caption] Mary Leigh and The Boy call to invite me to Thai Pepper. They are very much hooked on this place. ML gets the drunken noodles with beef, and decides that she doesn't like it much. She is interested in my dish--a personal favorite called pad prik. It's a curry with a lot of aromatic herbs in the ginger category. There's a version of this called pad prik king, which includes a large green bean component. I asked the young Asian server about that, and she didn't know about it, and never found out. [caption id="attachment_43939" align="alignnone" width="480"] Pad prik, no king.[/caption] The Boy eats his same pad thai, made Thai hot, with extra crushed red pepper on the side. He has ML eating that kind of incendiary recipe, too. I'm happy to see what bold eaters they have become. Six months ago, there's no way I'd ever have herded ML into a Thai place. [caption id="attachment_43940" align="alignnone" width="480"] Pad thai at Thai Pepper.[/caption] On the way home, we stop at Menchie's, a national chain selling good if not brilliant frozen yogurt. It's not nearly as good as ice cream, but one's conscience is soothed by the low calorie and fat counts in this stuff. We have come to make Menchie's a required stop on the way home from a Thai dinner. There is clearly some sense in this. [title type="h5"]The Po-Boy Company. Mandeville: 1817 North Causeway Blvd. 985-778-2460. [/title] [divider type=""] [title type="h5"]Sunday, September 21, 2014. More Choriqueso And Chicken With Molé.[/title] The Marys and The Boy want to meet at La Carreta at one-ish for lunch. So what else is old? Not the menu. A month or so ago, the management premiered a new slate of Mexican eats. It is supposed to include some dishes made with the incomparable Mexican sauce molé poblano. In the unlikely case that you've been following this massacree, molé poblano is still not on the menu, but this is the third consecutive meal in which they did indeed have it available. Which is saying something, because it takes two days to make the stuff. I get it on chicken enchiladas. They are very good. [caption id="attachment_43941" align="alignnone" width="480"] Mole poblano at La Carreta, again.[/caption] Meanwhile, the young adults eat queso and steak tacos. MA has a boat of choriqueso. And she's the one always telling me of her disdain for doing the same things over and over again. The Saints game is on during our meal. I was not facing the right way to see the television, but when I go to the bathroom a monitor directly over the urinal reveals that the home team is winning. I am already getting questions about Thanksgiving from readers and listeners. I thought I'd beat them to it, because I'm already working on the list of restaurants and some new recipes. And that's what takes up the rest of the day.