Sunday, April 3, 2016.
The Weather We Deserve.
The cat Tumbler--the oldest of our five pets--took her clumsy jump from the roof of the toolshead to the back door of the house. She's so fat that she usually puts up with cold weather without complaint. It must be quite chilly out there for her to want in so badly.
The chill gave way to a brilliant day. Lines of sunshine from behind the pine trees cross the Big Lawn and line up perfectly with the floorboards in our living room. After all the rain of the past few weeks, we deserve this. If only the ground weren't like a saturated sponge, I'd attempt to cut the grass.
At St. Jane's, leader and organist of our little choir Denise takes a solo for herself and performs it beautifully. When I tell her so, one of our other singers says that Denise wrote the song herself. Even more impressive! The more choruses I sing with, the less relative talent I find in me.
Right after the services I go for breakfast at Mattina Bella. But the place is jammed, with a lot of people waiting inside and outside for openings. I keep driving the five blocks to Abita Roasters, where I have a breakfast of lost bread. Not French toast. This is made with actual French bread, well-soaked in a cinnamony custard sauce. Bacon and eggs on the side. A gigantic mug of cappuccino. It's a little too heavy on carbs and caffeine, which I will attempt to walk off later in the afternoon.
I chip away at the pile on my desk, which is led in importance by our tax return, my least-favorite activity. I keep being told to get an accountant, and I have tried. But the first thing an accountant wants is all the sales and expenditure figures. But that's the hardest part! When I finish with that, all I need to do is plug the numbers into TurboTax, and read the dire bottom line.
Something else I'd like to accomplish while Mary Ann is away is to sand a few sections of living room floor that the dog Susie messed up. I had no idea that polyurethane floor coating can build into such a thick layer.
[caption id="attachment_44272" align="alignnone" width="400"]
"The Board" pizza at Pizza Man of Covington.[/caption]
Dinner at Pizza Man. Paul Schrem--Pizza Man himself--is not there. I get the feeling that he and his wife, after forty years of running the parlor, are thinking of retiring. The young guy who seems to be running the place says that they're making some changes. Most welcome among these is that they now take credit cards.
And it seems to me that the Board pizza--named for a long-standing advertising board alongside the highway--has been improved. The crust is a bit crustier, and there's more cheese than I remember. Also in there are artichoke hearts, spinach, garlic, herbs, olive oil, and spicy capicola ham. This has long been my favorite of Pizza Man's specialties.
The place is a box of nostalgia for me. When the kids were little, we spent hours watching Pizza Man throw his pizzas and draw pictures on the crusts with pizza sauce. This reached its peak when Jude and his Boy Scout buddies used to descend on Pizza Man and each eat a whole large pizza. Meanwhile, the jukebox plays hits from the 1960s, notably "Puff, The Magic Dragon," which sometimes made Mary Ann cry. We were regulars back then. Nobody in the place recognized me tonight. Everything is in flux. I can always come back, but it makes me lonely.
[caption id="attachment_38234" align="alignnone" width="400"]
The current academy of children learning pizza from the Man himself.[/caption]
A couple of days ago, I learned something about Pizza Man. He had told me that he learned his pizza technique while working at the famous Bob's Pizza Palace in Houma. What I didn't know is that Bob was schooled in pizza technique by the Tower Of Pizza, when it was on Downman Road in New Orleans East. Later, Tower Of Pizza opened a pizzeria in Metairie. It is still there. Like Pizza Man, the Tower has big windows for kids to watch the making of pizzas from scratch.
From this, we prove once again that only 500 people live in New Orleans.
Pizza Man Of Covington. Covington: 1248 Collins Blvd (US 190). 985-892-9874.
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Monday, April 4, 2016.
Buffet Like A Thai. Learning Stephen Foster.
Off to a good start on another beautiful day. Third one in a row! The ground at the Cool Water Ranch is still a long way from drying out.
My decision as to lunch comes down to red beans and rice with hot sausage at the Acme Oyster House, or green Thai curry at Thai Chili. Last time I was there, I ordered one of the two or three hottest dishes I ever ate, against the waitress's warnings. And many more interesting dishes are on the menu.
But I can't get them today. When I sit down, I see that a lot of people--more than I've ever seen here--are lined up for the buffet. I didn't notice this on my way in, and when I ask whether it's just the buffet in service--it is--it's too late for me to change my mind.
I don't like Asian buffets. Main reason is that the food is never as stove hot nor as pepper hot as I like. And I also notice a drop in hospitality from the service staff. I can almost hear them thinking, "Look, we're giving you all you can eat here for a lowball price. We don't like doing that, but we have to, because that's what all the Asian restaurants are forced to do these days, because you Americans don't really understand what our cuisine is all about."
That's my imagination talking, but there is some truth to it.
I start with tom yum soup, a clear broth with a peppery, citrusy flavor. I didn't notice the noodles, vegetables and chicken hunks that were there to be added to the broth, but the broth is pretty good on its own. I have some red curry with carrots, beans, mushrooms and chicken. It is pleasantly peppery, about how I would have ordered it. A single fried egg roll and some rice fills out the plate.
The price, including the iced tea, is $14. I tip the waitress $5, so next time I come she will give me a smile. It just won't be from the buffet.
The radio show rolls along well, although we were fighting a technical problem. It's irritating, but all we need do is take to or three steps back in the way we run these shows from the Ranch. We did it that way for about twenty years, so it can't be that bad.
The Northlake Performing Arts Society has moved to its next program, an assortment of early United States music. Most of what we sample today comes from the rich repertory of Stephen Foster. I know all of those songs from the days when I was listening to the Sons of the Pioneers all the time. But singing them in six-part harmony is something new to me. I am a second tenor for most of these, and I find myself three or four whole steps below the first-tenors' notes. But in a lot of cases I am the only one on those notes. It would help if I were a good sight-reader. But I am getting better all the time. I think.
Back home, I have a slice of pizza left over from my Pizza Man foray of yesterday. Forty-five seconds in the microwave, then four or five minutes in a 400-degree oven, and it's almost as if it had just come out of the big deck oven.
Thai Chili. Covington: 1102 N US 190. 985-809-0180.
"The Board" pizza at Pizza Man of Covington.[/caption]
Dinner at Pizza Man. Paul Schrem--Pizza Man himself--is not there. I get the feeling that he and his wife, after forty years of running the parlor, are thinking of retiring. The young guy who seems to be running the place says that they're making some changes. Most welcome among these is that they now take credit cards.
And it seems to me that the Board pizza--named for a long-standing advertising board alongside the highway--has been improved. The crust is a bit crustier, and there's more cheese than I remember. Also in there are artichoke hearts, spinach, garlic, herbs, olive oil, and spicy capicola ham. This has long been my favorite of Pizza Man's specialties.
The place is a box of nostalgia for me. When the kids were little, we spent hours watching Pizza Man throw his pizzas and draw pictures on the crusts with pizza sauce. This reached its peak when Jude and his Boy Scout buddies used to descend on Pizza Man and each eat a whole large pizza. Meanwhile, the jukebox plays hits from the 1960s, notably "Puff, The Magic Dragon," which sometimes made Mary Ann cry. We were regulars back then. Nobody in the place recognized me tonight. Everything is in flux. I can always come back, but it makes me lonely.
[caption id="attachment_38234" align="alignnone" width="400"]
The current academy of children learning pizza from the Man himself.[/caption]
A couple of days ago, I learned something about Pizza Man. He had told me that he learned his pizza technique while working at the famous Bob's Pizza Palace in Houma. What I didn't know is that Bob was schooled in pizza technique by the Tower Of Pizza, when it was on Downman Road in New Orleans East. Later, Tower Of Pizza opened a pizzeria in Metairie. It is still there. Like Pizza Man, the Tower has big windows for kids to watch the making of pizzas from scratch.
From this, we prove once again that only 500 people live in New Orleans.
