Monday, April 9, 2012
Queedle-Deep? Red Beans, Italian Sausage, Fried Ravioli, Trout Amandine.
Most signs of spring appeared early in this unusually warm year. But my favorite of them was right on time. It entered a dream in progress at around six-thirty. As Mary Ann and I rolled through the English countryside on a train, I thought I heard something familiar. It pulled me out of the dream.
"Queedle-deep?" The bird outside my window asked. I knew the answer, but waited for him to say it. "Queedle-dee-doop," he replied correctly, for the first of thousands of times in 2012.
He (it's only the males who sing) is a white-eyed vireo. I know that from bird calls you can listen to online. I'm sure he was always out there, but I never paid attention to him until--up too early in my tent on the first morning of a Cub Scout campout with Jude in 1998--I heard him and his brothers echo their calls through the woods.
The queedle-deep bird's seasonal premier is regular. Here is his record since 2007 (a year in which the Katrina alteration of the environment probably threw him off):
April 26, 2007
April 2, 2008
April 2, 2009
April 8, 2010
April 14, 2011
April 9, 2012
I think this first queedle-deep of the year got lucky this morning. He only gave his call for a few minutes, then stopped. The early bird gets the girl.
The Marys spent the day in Baton Rouge. For some reason, Mary Ann thinks that Mary Leigh's car can only be repaired there. Of course, shopping was on the program, too. Girls' day out. Why not? MA never gets enough of hanging with her progeny.
When they returned to this end of I-12, we made a rendezvous for dinner. I was pleasantly surprised that both of them liked the idea of eating at Mandina's. The Mandeville location has become my default vendor of Monday red beans and rice lately. It is also servicing what may be an addiction to trout amandine.
Or, maybe, I'm eating a lot of that dish because it has become more common lately. It's long been a signature dish for Mandina's, both in its original Canal Street quarters an in this North Shore franchise.
I wonder whether the health-assisting qualities of the almonds make up for the butter? And the garlic bread?
Mary Ann are a big plate of red beans with Italian sausage--another Mandina's trademark. Mary Leigh was intrigued, then pleased, by the fried cheese ravioli, with marinara sauce on the side for dipping.
Caramel custard for my dessert. The boss sent out a new turtle cheesecake he's having made for the place. Even the Marys liked that, and they aren't really the cheesecake kind.
Mandina's. Mandeville: 4240 La 22. 985-674-9883.
It's over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
