Thursday, September 10, 2015.
Dinner With Alzheimer's.
I came to know Brian Berrigan, the executive director of the Louisiana Chapter of the Alzheimer's Association, a few years ago when he was with the Ochsner Foundation, and I was in the clinic getting an ankle put back together. We bump into one another relatively often, and in one recent crossroads he said he was thinking about an innovative fund-raising event for the local Alzheimer's outreach. Tonight we have dinner to talk about what I might be able to do. This resonates with me because, like most people my age, I wonder whether I'm a victim of this malaise of the mind. All my doctor friends say that I need not worry about this based on the episodes I report to them.
[caption id="attachment_35319" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Tomas Bistro.[/caption]
Brian and I meet up at Tomas Bistro, a restaurant I enjoy more on each new visit. We take the best table in the house, in a corner across from the bar. Brian has an Old Fashioned, and I a Manhattan. We discuss the necessity of having a cherry in each of these drinks, even thought th contribution to the total flavor is minuscule.
Tommy Andrade--one of the last local restaurateurs with a sense of old-school service style--drifts by to tell me that he is very busy with a wedding at his other restaurant across the street. He asks whether we would mind if the chef were to select the dinner for us. I never say no to that, unless I have a feeling that the quantity of food will be obscene, or that the food will present a challenge to good taste. The latter is out of the question. The former. . . well, I told the dining room manager to limit the dinner to three courses.
The amuse bouche is not classified as a course. Tonight, it's a bit more generous than the two-bite cocktail nibbles that the amuse is supposed to be. In this case, we each get a small crab cake with a tangy, tasty white sauce. Three bites, maybe four.
Brian lays out his idea. He wants to hold an event at which literate local chefs with recently-published cookbooks would come together in a panel with a talkative moderator. Although this is something like the seminars I emcee every year during the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience, those events address a small number of people, many of whom have come from out of town. To do the same thing with the best cookbook-author chefs--and to draw on the locals--could create an interesting and novel evening.
[caption id="attachment_48825" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Fried lobster at Tomas Bistro.[/caption]
The first course from Chef Guy Sockrider (whose birthday, I see, is tomorrow) is a fried half lobster. Say what? That is not something I would have ordered from a menu. But to get it because you are in the chef's hands makes it happen. And thus was a prejudice deleted. The lobster came out with a buttery herb sauce, and except for the usual mild tussle to extract the meat from the shell, this was a marvelous thing to eat.
Back to the charity event: I'm now thinking about the lunches and dinners Emeril held earlier this year in celebration of his flagship restaurant's twenty-fifth anniversary. In that, Emeril moved from table to table, sitting down and joining the other occupants in a course. It was an effective way to make everybody feel big and good about the chef.
Brian says we would not ask the chefs to cook the dinner. That will make them much more likely to show up. If every attendee were to walk away with an autographed cookbook, a stomach full of great food, and a smile from an amusing conversation during the panel concordance, the event could generate a nice push in the direction of curing Alzheimer's.
[caption id="attachment_48826" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Soft shell crab.[/caption]
More seafood from Tomas Bistro's kitchen: a mammoth soft-shell crab, enclosed by a tempura-like batter so thick that it makes the crab look as if it were dressed for sub-zero weather. I am no fan of such thick coatings (see "fish and chips"), but it would require a very hard heart not to enjoy this. The sauce looked like choron (bearnaise with tomato sauce added) but it remains in the background with star-quality crab so far forward.
By now, I have volunteered to play as big a role as Brian has in mind for me. Near as I can tell, he thinks my idea of his idea is more than plausible. We have a bit under a year to pull it together.
[caption id="attachment_48827" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Lamb chops from Tomas Bistro.[/caption]
The third course pushes us off the cliff. Three beautiful American lamb chops, with a jus mellowed with fresh oregano and sharpened with Dijon mustard. A tomato provencale--very tasty, with the herbal pile of toasted bread crumbs--is ideal for the lamb. Looking over the menu, it seems that the food of the South of France bulks large on Chef Guy's current menu. Not only that, but on the way out he tells me that he read a recent piece of mine about the shortage of bouillabaisse around town. He says I should come in and try his sometime soon.
Dessert--now wait a minute. That makes this a four-course dinner, by any count. But it was already too late to avoid overeating when those lamb chops showed up. So there is no avoiding the profiteroles with ice cream and chocolate sauce.
During this and the chops, my conversation with Brian heads down the inevitable New Orleans path. We have many friends in common. That's more his doing: anyone who heads a non-profit association's fund-raising effort comes to know everybody. And, of course, only 500 people live in New Orleans. (They say it's not true, but think of how many connections between strangers my thesis explains!)
On the way out, Tommy Andrade and his lady are having dinner. The lamb chops, of course. How could a man of Tommy's sophistication say no to those?
Tomas Bistro. Warehouse District: 755 Tchoupitoulas. 504-527-0942.
Tomas Bistro.[/caption]
Brian and I meet up at Tomas Bistro, a restaurant I enjoy more on each new visit. We take the best table in the house, in a corner across from the bar. Brian has an Old Fashioned, and I a Manhattan. We discuss the necessity of having a cherry in each of these drinks, even thought th contribution to the total flavor is minuscule.
Tommy Andrade--one of the last local restaurateurs with a sense of old-school service style--drifts by to tell me that he is very busy with a wedding at his other restaurant across the street. He asks whether we would mind if the chef were to select the dinner for us. I never say no to that, unless I have a feeling that the quantity of food will be obscene, or that the food will present a challenge to good taste. The latter is out of the question. The former. . . well, I told the dining room manager to limit the dinner to three courses.
The amuse bouche is not classified as a course. Tonight, it's a bit more generous than the two-bite cocktail nibbles that the amuse is supposed to be. In this case, we each get a small crab cake with a tangy, tasty white sauce. Three bites, maybe four.
Brian lays out his idea. He wants to hold an event at which literate local chefs with recently-published cookbooks would come together in a panel with a talkative moderator. Although this is something like the seminars I emcee every year during the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience, those events address a small number of people, many of whom have come from out of town. To do the same thing with the best cookbook-author chefs--and to draw on the locals--could create an interesting and novel evening.
[caption id="attachment_48825" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Fried lobster at Tomas Bistro.[/caption]
The first course from Chef Guy Sockrider (whose birthday, I see, is tomorrow) is a fried half lobster. Say what? That is not something I would have ordered from a menu. But to get it because you are in the chef's hands makes it happen. And thus was a prejudice deleted. The lobster came out with a buttery herb sauce, and except for the usual mild tussle to extract the meat from the shell, this was a marvelous thing to eat.
Back to the charity event: I'm now thinking about the lunches and dinners Emeril held earlier this year in celebration of his flagship restaurant's twenty-fifth anniversary. In that, Emeril moved from table to table, sitting down and joining the other occupants in a course. It was an effective way to make everybody feel big and good about the chef.
Brian says we would not ask the chefs to cook the dinner. That will make them much more likely to show up. If every attendee were to walk away with an autographed cookbook, a stomach full of great food, and a smile from an amusing conversation during the panel concordance, the event could generate a nice push in the direction of curing Alzheimer's.
[caption id="attachment_48826" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Soft shell crab.[/caption]
More seafood from Tomas Bistro's kitchen: a mammoth soft-shell crab, enclosed by a tempura-like batter so thick that it makes the crab look as if it were dressed for sub-zero weather. I am no fan of such thick coatings (see "fish and chips"), but it would require a very hard heart not to enjoy this. The sauce looked like choron (bearnaise with tomato sauce added) but it remains in the background with star-quality crab so far forward.
By now, I have volunteered to play as big a role as Brian has in mind for me. Near as I can tell, he thinks my idea of his idea is more than plausible. We have a bit under a year to pull it together.
[caption id="attachment_48827" align="alignnone" width="480"]
Lamb chops from Tomas Bistro.[/caption]
The third course pushes us off the cliff. Three beautiful American lamb chops, with a jus mellowed with fresh oregano and sharpened with Dijon mustard. A tomato provencale--very tasty, with the herbal pile of toasted bread crumbs--is ideal for the lamb. Looking over the menu, it seems that the food of the South of France bulks large on Chef Guy's current menu. Not only that, but on the way out he tells me that he read a recent piece of mine about the shortage of bouillabaisse around town. He says I should come in and try his sometime soon.
Dessert--now wait a minute. That makes this a four-course dinner, by any count. But it was already too late to avoid overeating when those lamb chops showed up. So there is no avoiding the profiteroles with ice cream and chocolate sauce.
During this and the chops, my conversation with Brian heads down the inevitable New Orleans path. We have many friends in common. That's more his doing: anyone who heads a non-profit association's fund-raising effort comes to know everybody. And, of course, only 500 people live in New Orleans. (They say it's not true, but think of how many connections between strangers my thesis explains!)
On the way out, Tommy Andrade and his lady are having dinner. The lamb chops, of course. How could a man of Tommy's sophistication say no to those?
