Monday, March 1, 2010. Red Beans And Hot Sausage At Vigroux. Crash. Terror. We are rid of February, and good riddance, if you ask me. Even with the Saints miracle, Mardi Gras, a dinner in my honor and a cruise, this has not been a month of pleasure. Too much uninterrupted winter. And all the bills need to be paid three days early, which makes a difference. I would forget to pay Jude's rent, and later in the week he'd get the nastiest imaginable letter from the company that manages his building. First time we've been late ever. Another reason for me to hate Los Angeles.
A neighborhood-style restaurant in Mandeville called Johnny and Joyce was on my mind for lunch. It's a post-Katrina transplant from Chalmette (we have quite a few of those on the North Shore, including a rather large high school). Every report I ever hear about it is a rave. But I've not tried it, and I didn't try it again today, for the same reason as every other time I attempted to do so: closed on Mondays. I never remember that.
Mary Ann discovered this as we attempted to rendezvous for lunch. We moved over to Vigroux, the sandwich specialist that took over the former Darryl's Deli. It was very impressive the first and only time I went there, a couple of months after it opened in mid-2009. Vigroux cooks other stuff besides sandwiches. I hear the frog legs are very good.
Today, we went after a salad of fried green tomatoes topped with shrimp remoulade. Mary Ann removed the cornmeal batter from the tomatoes she ate--the usual diet issue--and left the batter behind. In so doing, she created what may be the world's first soufflee husk puppies. Cornmeal tubes, hollow in the center. An interesting concept, but I don't know how they could be mass- produced. (I took the photo with my new cellphone, hence the lower-than-usual quality, and my finger in the lower left-hand corner. Who says I don't reveal all?)
In front of me was a plate of first-class red beans and rice and pretty good, intensely red-peppery hot sausage. The sausage was in links, split end to end and grilled. They should take the casing off for enhanced chewability. But then, this wasn't on the menu, and I was happy to have it. Mary Ann, after noting correctly that a poor boy place is not usually a good place to get a hamburger, ordered one. Hand-made pattie, grilled to order. Not bad, not a specialty.
Back at the ranch, I foolishly undertook a project I really should have waited to do until just before bedtime: updating the software that runs the messageboard on the web. In the middle of the installation, we had a power outage that lasted a few seconds. But that was enough to goof up the proceedings. I could neither finish the job, nor revert to the old software. It wound up eating several hours of time, while a gratifying number of messageboard regulars sent urgent e-mails wanting to know what was going on. Remediating this massacree threw the entire week off kilter. I look forward to the day when I can find and afford a webmaster.
Vigroux Po-Boys. Mandeville: 2625 Florida 985-231-7314. Sandwiches.
