It was a most interesting podcast yesterday. We talked to the owners of D’livery Nola, Drew Herrington and Stephen Bandi. Very enlightening. We talked about how dining delivery is less a byproduct of the whims and habits of tech-savvy Millennials, but more a creation of surplus wealth in tech companies created by the stock market. Now that the slush fund has dried up somewhat, national delivery companies have played the role of puppeteers of sorts with their restaurant customers, resulting in a class-action lawsuit in San Francisco, and a just-released article in Food and Wine advising us to delete these apps. Tom has made it a lifetime rule to adamantly eschew food delivery, so we had no idea this was going on.
We talked about the suitability of certain foods traveling and Drew almost cried as I related my pick-up story from Galatoire’s last Friday. Oysters Rockefeller (pictured) was surprisingly unsullied by the trip, but we all almost cried picturing everyone’s beloved Charles Carter delivering Antoine’s.
A very informative conversation ending with speculation about what the other side of this event looks like for restaurants and diners.
And then we embarked on our own dinner, firing up the Big Green Egg in an attempt to clear the pile of produce from the counter. We have a large kitchen island that has had a mountain of produce collecting, matching the one in the refrigerator. I also wanted to grill some Zatarain's andouille, which seems to be a new product I saw last week. All of this conspired to keep the grill smoking for a while.
I started with the andouille and some sweet potatoes. In no time the sweet potato skin dried up revealing cracks that exposed the bright orange color and some dripping sweetness. This was a very appealing sight, and one I’ve not noticed doing it the conventional way. I actually couldn’t wait to eat these sweet potatoes, which is a thought I rarely have.
The sausage was hardly what I would call an andouille. They reminded me a lot of an Oscar Mayer product I ran into in the DC area when we were living there after Katrina. Spicy Weiners is what they were called, and they were exactly that. This andouille looked like a long weiner, and had that same flavor. I miss spicy wieners (they didn’t last long), so now I know where to find them again. Ups the hot dog game considerably.
We moved on to hamburgers which I crusted with coarse sea salt and coarse ground pepper. These were ordinary, especially because the meat ML purchased was chuck, I think, and very fatty. I followed the hamburgers with an ML requested project. She makes a salsa with smoked everything. I had tomatillos, poblanos, jalapeños, and tomatoes on the grill until they hit the sweet spot between blistering and exploding.
And then just for fun, I threw the spaghetti squash on the grill brushed with olive oil and garlic. I’ve had no experience with this vegetable except for watching my brother’s family stand over it out of the oven trough-style, gushing about the deliciousness of their Italian-style seasonings. I always thought it sort of peculiar.
Last night I became a convert, as I put a fork into it and watched it transform from ordinary squash to spaghetti. It tasted like garlic and olive oil, the universal elixir taste. I also threw a purple onion face down on the grill, just for fun and because I have a gigantic bag of them (Sam’s.) This was a good roasted taste too. And there was corn. It was a busy evening for the Big Green Egg, and now I can see the person at the sink from a barstool.
This is how we spend our days in these weird times. Drew challenged us to get delivery sometime, but going out to get food is our only thrill now. Besides, we live too far out for anyone.
