Friday, March 1, 2013.
Now Appearing On The Alabama Gulf Coast, One Night Only.
"We are rid of February, and good riddance, if you ask me."--E.J. Kahn, Jr.
I don't know why I let Mary Ann talk me into today's schedule of overactivity. At least not after we learned that we would be gone all next week on a riverboat cruise. But our friend and fellow Eat Club cruiser Dr. Betty Ruth Speier invited us to her home in Fairhope, Alabama for a book signing. MA arranged to tout her Suzie Homemaker Chronicles on a morning television show called Studio 10, on WALA in Mobile. This required getting up at four in the morning and driving to Mobile before the crack of dawn.
We got to Mobile early enough to have a little breakfast. We found a Marriott Courtyard. It didn't have the little buffet we're used to at the Covington Courtyard, but they cooked the breakfasts to order and quickly. On the way back, however, we encountered an overturned vehicle that blocked our way, and we barely made it in time for the TV gig.
While waiting for MA's turn, we watched a group of Asian acrobats perform some amazing routines, heard a couple of country singers perform an original song, and observed the chefs from the Mobile Zea talk about their sashimi tuna stack. A young woman (her mother was touting a fundraiser) overheard me when I introduced myself to the chefs (they had never heard of me) and came over excitedly to say that her father was a big fan. I autographed a cookbook for her to give him, creating the best smile I would generate in another person today.
We took the long way around to Fairhope. Along one back road we came to a spot that, a sign claimed, is the highest shoreline point along the American coast from Maine to Mexico. I forgot the name of the place, or else I would have looked it up already.
Fairhope is a charming, historic town that's just different enough from New Orleans to make it feel elsewhere, yet similar enough to feel at home. There MA promised she would allow me a stop for some good coffee. We looked all around for a shop but never found one. Strange: Fairhope looks like the kind of town that would host at least forty coffeehouses along the PJ's and Starbucks line. We later learned that there were two of that ilk. But even after driving up and down every street we didn't find them. We wound up At Julwin's, a place that claimed, by dint of being there since 1945, to be the oldest restaurant in Fairhope. It had the feel of a diner, with okay coffee and good biscuits.
Then down to the Grand Hotel. We spent a couple of weekends at the old, much-loved resort some years ago, when it was bringing in New Orleans chefs for a series of special dinners. The Grand Hotel has a mix of memories for us. The kids were much younger. Jude and I played a round of golf together. On the other hand, our family experienced a minor but intense tragedy at the hotel (can't share it; the hotel was not to blame) that colors our memory of the place.
Mary Ann thought the Grand would be the perfect spot for me to get a Menu Daily edition out. The surroundings were fine, but I couldn't connect to the internet, and after a lot of trying gave up. The Friday edition would have to come out on Saturday.
We made our way t Fairhope is a charming, historic town that's just different enough from New Orleans to make it feel elsewhere, yet similar enough to feel at home.
To the Fairhope Inn, a bed-and-breakfast with a rather large restaurant attached. We dined there years ago and loved it. We asked owner Tyler Kean whether I could broadcast today's radio show from his establishment. No problem, he said.
Betty Ruth (she goes by that name mostly, including on the cover of her delightful cookbook) met us for lunch, at a table on an glass-enclosed porch. Betty Ruth is a regular at the Fairhope Inn, and Tyler spent most of the lunch with us. He told of his fire a couple of years ago, about a chef he had whose previous job was at the French Laundry in Napa, about his new chef Alan Blair (who, despite the generic American name, was born in Rome), and about the intentionally limited but unavoidable growth of Fairhope.
The Fairhope Inn's culinary standards have been kept high. The chef sent baked oysters that looked at first to be the latest iteration of Drago's original recipe. In fact, the sauce was a combination of butternut squash, andouille, and sage. This was terrific. I had a roasted beet salad followed by an interesting collage of eggplant, crawfish, andouille and sauce Mornay. Mary Ann wound up with a poached salmon with a sweet Asian flavor. It was undercooked for her, so she and I swapped entrees.
The real pleasure of this lunch was talking with Betty Ruth. She's a traveler, a bon vivant, a delightful conversationalist with a creamy Southern drawl, and beautiful. She is trying to retire, but without much luck. She says she's ready, now that she's in her eighties. You would never guess this to meet her.
Lunch lasted until radio time. To my relief, I got the show on the air with no problems. That used to be routine, but since the phone company has moved from copper-wire transmission to voice-over-internet and optical fibers, my remote equipment doesn't work as well as it once did.
As soon as the show ended, I walked the three blocks to the bookstore. Page & Palette is in the center of a monthly street festival, with live music every block or so and shops staying open later than usual. It's pretty lively, usually. But it was quite cold and windy tonight, and that dampened the festivities. We sold a few books, met a bunch of people.
We kissed Betty Ruth good-bye, and struck out on the two-and-a-half-hour drive home. The smart thing for us to do--since we had been up since four a.m. and it was now eight-thirty p.m., would have been to spend the night here and head home tomorrow. But tomorrow was another big thing, and we had to get home.
Note: I took pictures of all the food mentioned above and other things, but I neglected to transfer them to the computer with which I am now traveling. I'll add them in when we get back next week.)
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