[title type="h5"]Saturday, February 22, 2014.[/title]
Today would have been my mother's 102nd birthday. When she was the age I am now, I was gone from the family home five years, and thought of my parents as impossibly ancient. I now see that they weren't. I don't feel ancient or even old. Irrelevent, maybe.
I am ashamed to say that the birthday didn't occur to me until I wrote these words. (I'm usually about a week behind here). I publish a remembrance in the Food Almanac, but that doesn't come out on weekends. "That's just like you," she's probably thinking, up there somewhere.
Mary Ann and I made a second visit to Jubilee, the Old Mandeville restaurant that Chef Tory Stewart and Bronwen Planchard opened a few months ago, in the old bakery at the corner of Jefferson and Laffite. We were a little concerned that we were the only party in the restaurant when we arrived. Apparently the early-dining proclivities of Northshorinians are fading, because by seven the place was nearly full.
We would shortly learn why. In the six weeks or so since the last time we were here, the dining at Jubilee has risen to a level of imagination, goodness and polish to be in a league with Gallagher's, Dakota, La Provence, Del Porto, Pardo's, and Keith Young's in the Mandeville-Covington corridor.
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Oysters Rockefeller at Jubilee.[/caption]
This is just the kind of contemporary Creole cookery I love. We started with a trio of oysters Rockefeller, made differently enough from the standard to rate one exclamation point (!) out of a possible three (!!!). (I thought of that just now. It's not an official rating system, but I like it! (!) After forty-two years of writing reports like this, I still think of trivial new ideas. (!))
Back to the oysters: in addition to the green part of the topping, there was a splash of the lightly cheesy Mornay--a touch that's common on oysters Rockefeller everywhere in the world except in New Orleans. I wonder who thought of that. It wasn't Antoine's, which invented the dish and has never added the Mornay.
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Crab claws (cold) on fried green tomatoes (warm).[/caption]
Mary Ann was taken by surprise with her starter. She loves crab claws, and here they were, atop warm, fried green tomatoes. But the claws themselves were cold, and served in a cold ravigote sauce. It worked for her anyway.
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Caesar salad.[/caption]
I jammed a Caesar salad between the appetizer and the main, and was I glad. Caesar--once a salad seen only in upscale restaurants, making big flavor statements (!!), has become routine, served almost everywhere. This one was so interesting that I passed it over to MA to try. She had the same reaction. It's good enough to draw a serious salad lover entirely on its own merits. It even looked good, with very old balsamic vinegar drizzled aroung the perimeter.
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Quail stuffed with boudin.[/caption]
The lusty deliciousness kept on coming. Mary Ann had a pair of quail, each stuffed with boudin. This is her kind of dish. And one of mine, too. (!!)
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Scallops with red couscous.[/caption]
My entree was mellower but no less enjoyable or original. Three large sea scallops sat on top of a pile of Israeli couscous (I'm seeing a lot of that lately, for some reason) colored an alarming (!) red by beet puree. Also on the plate were two other colorful sauces--an orange and a green.
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Red velvet cake at Jubilee.[/caption]
To make sure I ingested enough red food, I had the red velvet cake for dessert. Again, this was exceptionally well made, enough that Mary Ann--not a dessert lover--had a few bites. Even the ice cream was good. (!) (Are you sick of this yet? I may be. (!!))
Jubilee's dining environment is the best ever created for this century-old building, and will get even better when things warm up enough for the patio outside to come into play. I'm pulling for this place to become a permanent part of the Mandeville dining scene.
Jubilee. Mandeville: 301 Lafitte St. 985-778-2552.
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[title type="h5"]Sunday, February 23, 2014.
Everybody Has An Ordinary Day.
[/title]
It rained buckets in the past two days, and it will rain bathtubs tomorrow. (When you keep a daily journal and fall a few days behind, you can see the future from within the diary's time.) But today it didn't rain at all, allowing me to take my would-be daily amble around the Cool Water Ranch. When I find myself with free time--surely, it will happen someday--I will build three small footbridges crossing spots on my route that become flooded in weather like this.
Mary Ann has decided that since The Boy is coming with us to Europe in April (partially on our nickel), she can commandeer his free time. He is an industrious guy, and he did a fine job of trimming back the bushes in the back yard. After that, MA will have him pounding fence posts into the ground so we can finally have a corral for the dogs Susie and Barry (a.k.a. Steel). We need something to limit their wanderings in the neighborhood while we're away on the cruise. They won't like it.
After the young people departed for the South Shore, MA and I supped together at, where else--Zea. Corn soup (crunchy and corny good, just a little cream, a little too thick), followed by a house salad with the sesame vinaigrette they make so well, and the tuna stack--as enjoyable as ever. No entrees in that melange, but I still left quite full. I'm not sure MA ate anything at all, which would not be abnormal for her.
I started editing down the hour's worth of audio we recorded with Jay Nix and Justin Kennedy at their Parkway Poor Boys. It's the prototype of what I plan to be an audible add-on to the web site. Looking into the future again, I see that a week hence the project is finished, and can be taken for a test drive here.
