Friday, January 29. Blue Jay Aquarian Lunch At Galatoire's. The Jesuit High School Class of 1968 has an annual reunion just after Christmas, but a sad event caused us to cancel its 2009 iteration. Joe Fein, who owns the Court of Two Sisters and is one of our number, lost his wife to cancer just before the date. That added extra currency to the January monthly reunion (talk about a tight class!) at Galatoire's. It's not as big a deal as the Court feast, to which forty or more come. But the regulars at the monthly have gained such a reputation for cutting up that the management of Galatoire's is a little ambivalent about them.
This gathering celebrated a milestone for several of the dozen guys who showed up. They were all born under the sign of Aquarius (this time of year), and their impending, just passed, or (in one case) immediate birthdays are their sixtieths. I too am an Aquarian. But--and I made sure my classmates knew this--my birthday next week will only be my fifty-ninth. (I have long blamed the fact that I was a year younger than everybody else for my failure to graduate from Jesuit.)
The dinner was organized by Darryl Fletchinger, who operates Plush Appeal, the major seller of Mardi Gras throws in the New Orleans area. He built such a business out of that line of products that he now has factories in China, and even handles his own sourcing of raw materials for them. He's a funny guy. Since school days, his humor has been based on exaggerated outrage about almost everything. (Although he does have one issue about which I think he has every right to be outraged.)
I guess I must have read the invitation wrong, because I was the first to arrive--before the restaurant was officially open. However, I wasn't the only one. The bar was full of waiting people at 11:15. It was too early for a drink anyway (although not by much, as I would soon learn). I came downstairs and checked with maitre d' Arnold Chabaud, who looked down the list and found Darryl's name sixth on the list. "Oh, yeah," he said. "This fellow is holding the place in line." He pointed to a young man dressed for standing in line outside on a rainy day. He said he'd been there since seven-thirty that morning, and that Darryl paid him $150 to do that. At seven-thirty in the morning, the best he could get was sixth in line? Friday lunches at Galatoire's have truly spun out of control.
Darryl arrived at a quarter to noon, and he and I and birthday boy Harry Forst all sat down. We were shortly joined by sno-ball magnate Jack Casey, attorney and frequent caller to my radio show Jay Baudier, obstetrician Tom Ryan, contractor Francisco Solorzano (who was recently featured--with a full-page photo yet--in an article in Reader's Digest), real estate entrepreneur Frank Maselli, and a guy I didn't know who left Jesuit before I arrived. Sazeracs all around. I was drinking a Sazerac before noon. A double, at that--the only kind Galatoire's pours. Hmm. (It was good.)
Joe Fein showed up and we talked awhile about his loss. "I'm doing okay," he said, but I couldn't miss his sadness. "It's lonely." I imagine so. As I recall, he and his wife were married for a long time. His kids more or less run the restaurant these days.
Darryl brought some of his best trinkets to pass around. The most popular were plastic cubes that looked just like ice, except that they contained LED lights that flashed in multiple colors in the glass. The young, well-groomed women who filled the adjacent table found these fascinating. Through that offering we fomented a merger that didn't quite come off, but it was still pleasant to have beautiful women paying attention to us old men.
The consumption at the table was limited to what seemed like an endless supply of garlic bread and Sazeracs for over an hour. By the time actual food began arriving, the downstairs dining rooms was at its peak of chaos. The noise level was such that you had to yell to be heard. Waiters could barely get through the gridlock of big tables in the center of the room.
This kind of crowd turns Galatoire's from the marvelous French-Creole bistro it is into a borderline hash-slinger. What else can they do? Good thing that the customers are so engaged with their celebrations that they either don't notice or don't care about the fine culinary points.
I started with oysters en brochette. Jay and Tom on the other side of the table had what I was thinking of--oysters Rockefeller, the best around. Then came poached lemonfish with hollandaise and a boiled potato, an old classic that hardly anybody orders but they still do well (although this plate was definitely lacking in the fine points). The steak-eaters across from me took some of my oversupply of hollandaise. (Jay called me on the air later to say that he thought it should have been bearnaise.)
Yelling, yelling, yelling. Putting a pair of flashing beads around the neck of a younger woman so she'd put your arm around you for a few seconds to have a picture taken. Sudden bursts of laughter. A champagne popper's string pulled, and confetti streamers loop over the ceiling fan above our table. Many happy birthdays. More Sazeracs. Bottles of wine. Happy, happy, happy.
This is Galatoire's on a Friday lunchtime.
I left at about three-fifteen. The room was emptying, and some of our number had to leave, but the party was far from over. I had to go on the air at four. I caught a twenty-minute nap on the floor of the studio (I've done that for years; I wasn't passed out or anything), then opened with a somewhat hoarse voice but no slurring of speech. When Jay Baudier called about the bearnaise issue, I asked him if I sounded like a guy who'd had two double Sazeracs in the past four hours. He said I didn't. But then he'd had two double Sazeracs, too.
Galatoire’s. French Quarter: 209 Bourbon 504-525-2021. Classic Creole.
