Friday, April 23. Jazz Festival Food: Best Ever? Drenched. Thumbs Down On Savannah. Carmelo. It was a complicated day, but I was ready for it. The newsletter was finished and went out by ten. (It usually takes me until one-thirty.) I swapped Mary Ann's car for mine at Rainbow Chrysler, where it was just repaired again to the tune of $650. I didn't think MA would like the idea of my parking her car in the neighborhood of the Jazz Festival.
I arrived there around eleven-thirty. I rode around the neighborhood and found that all my special secret sneaky parking spots in past years were now either illegal or being used by the residents to rent to people like me. The going rate was $20. I paid that to Langston Hughes School, which had a nice big paved parking lot on Trafalgar Street. From there it was a five-block walk to the employee entrance (I am considered staff). But so what? One walks the equivalent of fifteen or twenty blocks just looking around the Fair Grounds for music and food.
I reported to the booksellers tent to let them know I would be at my post as scheduled at noon. Then I went in search of a snack. First stop: "Mike The Fireman" Gowland, long-time cook at Bozo's, beefcake calendar boy, first responder, and multi-time winner of the oyster-eating contest at the Oyster Festival on Bourbon Street. He was cooking shrimp and grits. The shrimp were big and firm, the sauce was creamy and intense, the grits could have been a little firmer (and probably were as the day wore on), and were mixed with fresh corn. The six-buck portion was the size of some restaurant entrees. Terrific.
Then a stroll to the other line of food booths, where I grabbed one of Jamila's great merguez sausages, made by hand at the restaurant. Later, I would hear someone crow about Jamila's crawfish, zucchini, and spinach bisque.
I picked up a rosemint iced tea and settled in to sign books. I wondered how many books would be sold to people who would have to carry them around for the rest of the day. The answer, when I stopped at around one-fifteen, was around forty. Many more than I expected. About two thirds of those were Hungry Town, the rest the new edition of Tom Fitzmorris's New Orleans Food. Many of the people who bought Hungry Town told me they had no idea who I was, but that they'd heard or read something about the book. Hmm.
My little sister Lynn Fleetwood came by. I am jealous: she would perform in the Gospel Tent later, as an alto in the trans-racial chorus Shades of Praise. She introduced me to her friend Tom Piazza, who wrote Why New Orleans Matters. I was embarrassed that I didn't make the connection between author and book at first. My lame excuse was that after an hour of thinking of different things to write in each book I autographed, my brain was tired.
Lynn and I went out in search of food after my signing gig. I tried only dishes that were new to me at the festival. The first was stuffed crab, available in either a poor boy or in a little aluminum shell with a side of potato salad. I took the latter. The crab concoction was excellent--moist, flavorful with not only crab but an interesting background of other ingredients. The potato salad was cool and fine too.
Then red beans and rice. They've been made by Judy Burks since 1974. I don't think she is in the food business anywhere else. The last time I had her beans might have been twenty years ago, but I do remember they were good. And they were this time, too, with smoked sausage.
The two longest lines I saw were for the crawfish bread and for Crawfish Monica®. (I don't need to put that ® in an article, but my friend Monica Hilzim is so protective of her signature dish that she likes to see it.) The popularity of Crawfish Monica I understand. But what's the deal on the crawfish bread? It doesn't seem like much to me.
I passed on the meat pies and Vaucresson's hot sausage. Both are favorites, but I ate the just a week ago at the French Quarter Festival. Ditto on the boudin (always great) and the Cajun (brown) jambalaya, which looked terrific. I didn't have to have the pheasant gumbo from Prejean's, because everyone standing around that booth raved about it.
I circled back around and had the cochon de lait poor boy, which could have been improved by more aggressive slicing but was otherwise fine. But I couldn't finish it. I was stuffed.
At around two, a dark cloud loomed in the west. I heard thunder. A few more minutes, and I felt the first drop on my pate. I decided to go with prudence (whom I haven't spoke with in years!), wrapped a plastic bag around my camera, and made for the exit. If I got wet, there would be no going to the radio station, and if I waited any longer I wouldn't be able to make it home.
I got wet. Drenched, in fact, as I made my way along the streets to my car. I hightailed it for home and, after a shower and a change, did the radio show from there.
The rain really came down after that. The storms were so severe that the Marys' flight from Savannah had to land in Baton Rouge. That unsettled them so much that they rented a car and drove home. (Baton Rouge to the Cool Water Ranch is only a little longer than from Louis Armstrong International.)
They showed up just as I got off the air. Usually, a stressful journey would have both the girls showering, robing, and snuggling up in some corner for the rest of the evening. But Mary Leigh came to some conclusions during her visit to the Savannah College of Art and Design, and she wanted to share them with me face to face, over dinner.
Her first point was that she (and Mary Ann, too) liked Savannah a lot better than the first time they saw it, a few months ago. The reason is so absurd I will not embarrass them by saying what it was.
Mary Leigh's second, more important conclusion: she doesn't want to leave home to go to school, even in a nice Southern city or exciting Los Angeles. She wants to stay here and apply to Tulane.
"I told you this would happen!" said Mary Ann, who indeed did predict a couple of years ago that our daughter would fall under the sway of the sophisticated girls at McGehee, whose families include many pillars of the New Orleans community. Knew that she would overcome her shyness to make close friends of girls with wit and intelligence and talent equal to hers. And boys who are at the tops of their classes at schools like Jesuit. And want to remain in New Orleans to take advantage of that network. The worst of all fates, as far as MA is concerned.
I didn't even think about giving my opinion on the new plan. Instead, I fell back to my long-running theme. "I think you should go to school wherever you want, unless it's impossible or stupid," I said. I said that not knowing whether Tulane is, in fact, possible. She has to get in first, and then we have to figure out how to pay for it.
But to hell with all that. Let's eat. We began with a pizza from the brick oven of the new Ristorante Carmelo in Mandeville. And an order of bruschetta, Mary Leigh's favorite. We have been a little disappointed by the latter in earlier visits, which surprised me, because in his old location in the French Quarter Carmelo had by far the best bruschetta in town, covered with fresh tomatoes, basil, olive oil, and garlic. Something must have clicked into place, and now it's great again.
Carmelo sent out a couple of assagini. The first was arancini, made with a ball of rice stuffed with cheese and herbs, tossed with the tiniest amount of red sauce before being formed. Suppli al telefono, the Italians call this, for the strings of melted cheese that follow your fork when you cut into it. He also sent out a single grilled squid (below), sort of tied together in its own tentacles. We all shared an order of three crabmeat and herb ravioli.
All this was very tasty. And, really, enough food for all of us. The Jazz Festival eats were still resident with me. Mary Ann and I split a beautiful pan-seared grouper with shrimp, squash, zucchini and garlic. It tasted as good as it looked, but that was it for us.
Almost. The waiter mentioned zabaglione with berries. Made to order. I can't resist that flowing, aromatic custard. They sent two orders, each with a lady finger. The Marys don't eat dessert. I downed one and a half zabagliones. I figured I deserved it after a day like this.
Ristorante Carmelo. Mandeville: 1901 US Hwy 190 . 985-624-4844. Northern Italian.
