Monday, May 13, 2013.
New Orleans Cheeseburger. With Remoulade. It's Prom Night.
It's the forty-sixth anniversary of my junior prom, a date I hold in more regard than any day of the year other than our wedding anniversary, the birthdays of Jude and Mary Leigh, and my own birthday. (Although the anniversary of the radio show--which will be twenty-five this July 18--may be catching up.)
Prom Night was the moment I became a man--but not for the obvious reason. (I have explained it all many times before in this journal). I always do something that I did on this day in 1967 to recall the day. This time, I had a cheeseburger. On Prom Night, I had cheeseburgers twice. First around seven p.m. at the soda fountain at Bradley's Pharmacy, on the downtown river corner of Claiborne and Carrollton. The second round, at eleven p.m., involved five cheeseburgers from the Krystal on Airline Highway, across from where Zephyrs Field is now.
The Marys decided that they would sympathize and come along. The source of the cheeseburgers would be the New Orleans Hamburger and Seafood Company in Mandeville. There are others scattered around the city. Some of these, I've noticed, have changed their name to New Orleans Seafood and Hamburger Company. Indeed, a case could be made that the seafood is the best food there. The hamburgers--cooked on grills that aren't nearly hot enough to get exciting--are only pretty good.
This burger was fine, though. It was basic, with the standard lettuce, tomatoes, pickles, and mayo. The cheese was pepper jack. I noticed that there was some sort of mustardy sauce resembling remoulade in the come-on photo of the boudin balls. Could I have that on the burger too? Of course, they said.
'
Mary Ann had the actual boudin balls, whose flavor was more like jambalaya than boudin. Mary Leigh ate a salad, and also some of my fries, which are as much like roasted potatoes here than like standard French fries. A little garlic butter or something on them.
En route to and fro, I played one of the three CD's recapitulating the top fifty records on the radio on Prom Night. The Marys opined that some of them still hold up as listenable, while others were obnoxious in their datedness.
The main difference between this evening and the one forty-six years ago was that I didn't have even one sub-ordinary girl with me that night, let alone two hot ones.
New Orleans Hamburger & Seafood Co. Mandeville: 3900 LA 22. 985-624-8035.
To browse through all of the Dining Diaries since 2008, go here.
