Final Breakfast. John O'Groats. Oak Oven.

[title type="h5"]Tuesday, September 2, 2014. Final Unnecessary Breakfast. And John O'Groats. Oak Oven.[/title] I have a juice-coffee-pastry breakfast in the mini-Starbucks in the Beverly Hilton, where we have had our last overnight. (For life, if I have anything to do with it.) I try to get online again, but still our Hilton Honors membership is shut down. On the other hand, Mary Ann manages to get the extra reservation cancelled and refunded. Turns out the fault is not with the hotel, but with the middleman web sites she uses to book rooms. But she winds up not getting any of her precious Hilton points. I keep telling her that she'd come out better if she made the reservations in the normal way, instead of trying to track down all these last-minute discounts. But what, really, do I know about anything? [caption id="attachment_43748" align="alignnone" width="480"] John O'Groats.[/caption] Jude picks us up, with enough time before the flight that Mary Ann says we have time for breakfast. She has been asking about a place called John O' Groats, which L.A. Times restaurant critic Jonathan Gold (who once accused me in print of being the Rush Limbaugh of New Orleans, for what reason I know not) says is the best breakfast place in the city. It looked inviting enough--two rooms with an old-fashioned diner decor, but brighter. The decor makes many references to Scotland, but the floor is decidedly Greek, a checkerboard of blue and white. The menu the classic American offering. The grabbers are items like "the best biscuits in L.A." If that's true, then my daughter might bake the best biscuits in America. Everything we tried is more than decent--fresh and house-made, no question about that. But I immediately thought of better versions of all of it, mostly authored by Mattina Bella. By the way, "groats" is a divergent evolution from a culinary ancestor that also gave us "grits." Same word and dish, at one time. I didn't actually see groats on the menu. They must be referring to oatmeal. All this pleasantry ignores the fact that Jude must drive us to the airport in rush hour. No problem. He weaves through the density with aplomb. As he does, he hears something very nice from Mary Ann. She says that she always expects tense moments when she and Jude's soon-to-be are together, but that even so, this time she had a genuinely good time with Suzanne. The amount of anxiety this releases from Jude's mind (and mine, too) is enormous and welcome. The trip is worthwhile for that alone. We check into the first-class lounge (American Express Platinum opens that door). I can finally get online and attempt to reconnect with my main life. Over a thousand emails await. No disasters. The guest hosts of the radio show (Chef Duke LoCicero of Café Giovanni and Justin Kennedy from Parkway Poor Boys) have acquitted themselves well. We almost miss our plane somehow. We board and find ourselves in the last row of seats--the ones that are bolt-upright from takeoff to landing. I read an entire New Yorker. Mary Ann focuses on the sounds emitted from a kid's video game, and for awhile thinks they're coming from the airplane. I am stuffed and fully caffeinated from my two breakfasts, and all I ask of the attendant is water and some of those wonderful Biscoff cookies that Delta supplies its passengers. It's a smooth flight, ending an hour after a Welcome Home New Orleans thunderstorm cuts loose over the airport. It is cooler in New Orleans than it was in L.A. [caption id="attachment_43747" align="alignnone" width="480"] Pappardelle pasta bolognese at Oak Oven.[/caption] Mary Leigh and The Boy meet us, and we go to Oak Oven in Harahan for an early supper. We split a pizza from the wood-burning, eponymous oven. Then fettuccine Alfredo, pappardelle with a variation on bolognese sauce, and (The Boy's perennial favorite) chicken Parmigiana. All of this is well-made and very good. I can't understand why the Times-Picayune's critic gave it only two stars. [caption id="attachment_43746" align="alignnone" width="480"] Chicken parmigiana at Oak Oven[/caption] A girlfriend from the 1980s turns up at Oak Oven, and comes over to say hello. She's the only lady in my entire dating history who possessed a quality I find irresistibly alluring: curly hair. But after a few innocent dates she told me in not so many words that I wasn't cool enough for her to waste any further time with me. Oh, well. It worked out for the best, because any alternative to the wife and children I have now would not be as good. Even though Mary Ann's hair is poker straight. Back in the car, I start in on a brief history of my association with this lady, but I don't quite finish a sentence before the Marys are talking about something else entirely. [title type="h5"]Oak Oven. Harahan: 6625 Jefferson Hwy. 504-305-4039. [/title][divider type=""]