Ham & Cheese. Cheese & Fries. Truffles? Fries & Oysters.

[title type="h5"]Saturday, January 31, 2015. Ham And Cheese. Cheese And Fries. Truffles? Oysters?[/title] What with basketball games, the radio show didn't start until nearly four, and ended at six. Not a great schedule for a Saturday, but I can't complain. I must be grateful right now: Monday, one of my fondest wishes will come true and I will return to late afternoons on weekdays. That gave me time in the morning to do some shopping. I relearn a lesson: if you buy suit separates (nothing else will fit my body), you have to buy both parts of it at the same time, preferably with an extra pair of pants. A year ago I bought only the jacket from a set. I thought it would look good on its own. I changed my mind, but now the matching pants are gone forever. Mary Ann meets me for lunch at the Po-Boy Company, for the second consecutive Saturday. Today I make it a grilled ham and cheese, which is a better sandwich than is generally appreciated. It's particularly good with about a tablespoon of roast beef gravy for a small and two for a large. Chisesi ham, John Gendusa French bread. They could have toasted the bread more, but that's nearly a universal complaint I have. [caption id="attachment_46559" align="alignnone" width="480"] Cheese fries. You may have all of mine.[/caption] Mary Ann wants cheese fries. I can't figure out why anyone would eat those. The fries get soggy when the cheese holds in the steam. The cheese melts, releasing its grease, compounding the problem. Fries should be crisp! After all the rain this week, the Cool Water Ranch is riddled with big puddles. My afternoon strut had to stay on the gravel roads, which run around the outside of the fenced zone. The dogs don't seem to mind that we are separated by the barrier. They walk a few yards, get interested in something or other, and get left behind. They're still out walking with Daddy as far as they're concerned. I hope Mary Ann is satisfied with this arrangement. The dogs have found a curious attraction. They are digging into the ground at the bases of oak trees. Just oaks--not pines, tupelos, or maples. They go at this with intense concentration, and even start working on spots where the oak roots come to the top a few yards away. Mary Ann thinks they're after moles. I've seen a few moles and their earthworks around here over the years, but none since the dogs began their current project. I have a different idea. In France and Italy, dogs are used to find truffles. A truffle is the fruiting body of any one of several varieties of mushrooms. (The rich chocolates called truffles are so named because they resemble these mushroom parts.) Dogs--and, even more acutely, pigs--can sniff out truffles even a couple of feet underground. They go after the truffles with great enthusiasm, and it's the job of the human on the other end of the leash to keep the dog or pig from eating the truffle. All this describes pretty well what's going on with the dogs. Especially the dog Susie, who as an older female has better senses than the big male oaf Barry. I could be rich! I'll get Mary Leigh to start designing the packaging for Cool Water Ranch Truffles. MA and I decide to have two meals today--not an indulgence either one of us takes anymore, as we try to keep dropping pounds. Drago's comes up, and the idea of it is so alluring that we drive across the lake--in the rain, yet--to indulge. Another reason: it's been quite awhile since our last time. Restaurants as consistent as this don't need to be checked often. The restaurant is full, of course. We wait for awhile and talk with Klara Cvitanovich. How is her husband Drago, now in his nineties? She waggles her hand to make the universal signal for "just okay." He hasn't come to the restaurant in awhile. She, on the other hand, seems as much in control of the seating charts as usual. Which is to say totally. After a few minutes we get a table in the room with the big lobster tank. Today's proof of the theory that only 500 people live in the New Orleans area is Ed Biggs, a graphic designer I've known for forty years. He is at the next table. Come to think of it, he may be a counter-example for my 500-people thesis. I haven't run into him in a long time. We tear through a dozen char-broiled oysters. The only complaint I ever hear about Drago's original version of that now-omnipresent dish is that they overcook them. Indeed, I have said so myself. But that is not the case tonight. They are absolutely perfect. In fact, a little underdone for MA, who eats nearly everything burned to a crisp. So I get eight oysters to her four. The special is black drum, prepared in your choice of five cooking methods. MA specifies yet a sixth version, but even though we have the server who I believe to be the best in the building, MA's uniquely byzantine specs are puzzling, and she doesn't get the crabmeat she thought she would. I tell her to let the waiter know and he'd fix it. She just keeps eating. Meanwhile, I have what Tommy Cvitanovich will shortly tell me is the best entree in the restaurant. It doesn't sound especially fabulous: grilled shrimp on a bed of boudin out of its casing, with a side order of corn with peppers. But this is nothing less than spectacular, as Mary Ann confirms. Tommy sits down with us. He has lost a tremendous amount of weight, and we have that topic to discuss in addition to the usual ones. He's as glad I'm eating the shrimp and boudin as I am. The new Drago's in Jackson, Mississippi is doing great. And the rumor that Drago's will shortly open another location in Lafayette is true, but the location has not been determined. I tell Tommy that I feel a level of energy in the restaurant that I've never seen before among the wait staff. And I've been dining at Drago's since it opened in 1969 (when I was working across the street at the Time Saver). Somebody here has a training program that is working big-time. Tommy is happy to hear that. It's tough to find and keep servers, especially in a restaurant as busy as this one, where everybody has to be where he or she is needed at every second. I'd say they have that down, with the added bonus of a good attitude. (Note to Reader #3855R: you may now write to me about the night six months ago when the service wasn't perfect. But you are among the few who say this about Drago's these days.) [title type="h5"] The Po-Boy Company. Mandeville: 1817 North Causeway Blvd. 985-778-2460. Drago's. Metairie: 3232 N Arnoult Rd. 504-888-9254. [/title][divider type=""] [title type="h5"]Sunday, February 1, 2015. What One Learns From Email Subject Lines! [/title] It's a routine Sunday, but I like routines. A warm (73!) but cloudy day continues to make winter more tolerable than late fall was. Mary Ann and I have a mid-afternoon dinner at Zea (tomato bisque, a new variation of hummus with a powerful blast of hot sauce, house salads. She tells me that between the dinner at Drago's last night and this Zea snack, I should be able to get along without her company. She and Mary Leigh then leave me at home while they meet up with niece/cousin Hilary Connell to watch the Super Bowl. MA thinks VitaScope Hall in the Hyatt Hotel next to the Superdome is the perfect spot. Why? Because they have good French fries. I keep up to date with the game without even trying. By merely catching up on my email, enough messages with subject lines about the game tell me that something unusual at the end of the game turned it around. I also get the impression--again, from just the subject lines of emails that my eyes only barely grazed--that the commercials were not as good as usual.