Monday, August 24, 2009. Zea.
The dog Mac is much improved. His biggest problem is getting up the six steps to the deck and our doors. One must come up behind him and pick his rear legs off the ground, so he has no weight on the broken one. He's too heavy to pick up completely. For me, anyway. Despite the pain he must be feeling--his femur was completely separated--he seems happy and ready to start running around again.
I am concerned about the next generation's ability to keep alive the classic New Orleans dishes. Neither of my kids have picked up the red beans and rice habit. In fact, they never touch the stuff, even though they've seen me devour it with gusto many times. But tonight, Mary Leigh reached over and scooped up a spoonful of the red beans and andouille soup du jour at Zea tonight. "Mm, good," she said. I couldn't believe it. It was the first time I'd seen her so much as taste it. She let on that she had some a few times recently. She decided that she likes the taste, but not the look of red beans. She had enough of a feel for the dish that she had an opinion on these. She said that Zea shouldn't call this a soup, because it's every bit as thick as the typical serving of red beans and rice in most restaurants.
This must be an example of that behavior that allows young people to take a flyer at new experiences, but never while their parents (or, sometimes, peers) are watching. A girl friend of mine a long time ago wanted to learn to drive a standard shift car, but she wouldn't let me teach her. She came over to my place, waited until I'd left on my daily thirty-three-mile bike ride (boy, was I a different person then!), took my keys and went for a drive in my car to learn it on her own.
Back to the bean soup: it tasted just like Zea's standard side order of red beans, which is to say delicious. Mary Ann thought my red bean soup was so good that she ordered another bowl as an entree. I followed that with their seared tuna salad, once again forgetting to request that they leave off the fried Chinese noodles. (They just get in the way, I think.) Mary Leigh reverted to type and ate a cheeseburger, no bun.
The Marys were thrilled that a Zea was to open on the North Shore. But we don't go there very often. Mary Leigh explained that. "It's too dark," she said. "Something about it is different from the other ones. I like the food, but I don't like the place. It is a bit dark. I think it would be more congenial with regular table instead of booths, but the mainstream loves booths and the chains give them to them.
Zea. Covington: 110 Lake Dr 985-327-0520. Eclectic.
