Diary 9|6, 7|2014: N'Tini's. Grilling.

[title type="h5"]Saturday, September 6, 2014. Football Interrupts. N'Tini's. Visiting Separated Friends Together.[/title] My Saturday radio show on WWL has a distinct season, and that season is ending. Every week since June it's been on the full three hours, every week, noon until three. But today an LSU game took a bite out of the Food Show. Next week's will chew up two hours. The show disappears when when LSU starts playing basketball, too. Why so much sports? Because it sells a lot of commercials. Period. But a survey I just saw ranks sports at the bottom of a list of reasons why people listen to the radio. (Number One is no more encouraging: "To hear your favorite songs." On the other hand, I blushingly acknowledge that the reason The Food Show is an is that it. . . well. . . sells a lot of commercials. [caption id="attachment_43801" align="alignnone" width="480"] N'Tini's dining room.[/caption] The entire Cool Water Ranch quartet has dinner at N'Tini's. Good news! Helen, for many years our favorite waitress there, is back to work weekends as she builds up her real estate business. She's friendly and knows what's going on. What more could one ask of a server. She fetches me a copy of N'Tini's upcoming new menu. I'm surprised to see that they kept the New Orleans Cut steak. Last time we were here, it seemed that they were about to get rid of it. They were doing it wrong anyway, not cutting a thick one into two filet-size pieces as I suggested. (The idea is not original with me, but the name is.) [caption id="attachment_43803" align="alignnone" width="480"] N'Tini's filet.[/caption] The kitchen is out of the strips entirely, so I get a hefty filet mignons. Our daughter The Boy split a filet with barbecue shrimp--something they ordered by mistake last time, but liked enough to have a reprise. [caption id="attachment_43802" align="alignnone" width="480"] Onion rings at N'Tini's.[/caption] The first course, however, is a tall pile of thin-cut fried onion rings. I'm happy to see that more restaurants are backing away from thick onion rings and adopting the meat-slicer-thin onion strings. N'Tini's has its own spin: they grate mozzarella cheese all over the hot rings, and the cheese melts until it hangs on the rings like moss. This is not an especially good look, but it's very taste with a glass of wine or a cocktail. The usual salads fill the gap between order and entree, with Mary Ann adding a cup of red bean and crawfish soup. (This is a better idea than it sounds, but it's not brilliant, either.) Every time we dine at N'Tini's, I have the idea that it would be fun to do a Sinatra karaoke night there. It's certainly the right crowd for that. Mary Ann keeps telling me that karaoke would do less than nothing for my reputation. But if it was okay for the late Sheriff Harry Lee, why not me? After dinner, we visit the new home of a friend for drinks She separated from her husband last year. He lives 150 miles away, but is here tonight. "We're still friends," she says. "But we don't get in each other's way all the time anymore." One of their daughters lives here with her mother. She is Mary Leigh's approximate age, fully an adult by any standard. But as I do with Mary Leigh, I can't help thinking of her as a little girl, the way she was when we all first became friends a million years ago. Also here is her mother's brother. Two years ago he put a new roof on our house. (New Orleans Incest alert! Remember, only 500 people live in this metro area!) His date laughs at all my jokes. So it's a convivial evening, everybody the friend of everybody else. I desperately hope MA and I never separate, but if it happens I hope it plays out this way. [title type="h5"]N'Tini's. Mandeville: 2891 US 190. 985-626-5566. [divider type=""] Sunday, September 7, 2014. Sausage And Ribs. [/title] I wasn't awake when Mary Ann said that today would be a non-restaurant day, and that we would have grilled sausages and ribs. In fact, as I fought my way out of the sheets, she was already excavating the freezer for the meats. A rapid that will shortly be forthcoming, but that shouldn't do much damage. I still am having no luck in persuading MA to clean out the ashed from the bottom of the Big Green Egg if she wants to cook on it. As it is now, the air intake is almost completely blocked. Good thing I caught this issue before the charcoal was fired up. I am considering an edict that makes all use of the Egg without mu oversight a family offense punishable by a long argument. The weather has been strange this year, but my prediction that we will not even come close to having any tropical storms is holding as we reach the peak of the season. Or, I should say, the depth of the season. We should not pull for tropical storms. But a lot of weathermen use phrases that sound as if they are cheering the storms on, while denigrating the wind shear that prevents bad storms from growing. The weather has given us the lushest lawn we've ever had. Even the color is such a beautiful Irish green that as I drive my mini-tractor across it to give it a trim, I experience retinal fatigue and the whole world looks orange, even the sky. The sausage and the ribs, ready around three, are very good.