Saturday, December 10, 2011.
The Home Tour And Maple Street. Fat Hen With Skinny Daughter.
Across the lake to another session of book autography at eleven. It's my annual visit to the Holiday Home Tour in the Garden District, staged at this time of year for decades by the Preservation Resource Center. Headquarters is the school cafeteria of Trinity Episcopal on Jackson Avenue. It fills today and tomorrow with vendors selling everything from light brunches to hand-crafted pottery and seasonal gifts.
My hangout here is Garden District Book Shop's booth, where I've sold hundreds of books over the years. Peggy and I are the lead-in attraction to Bryan Batt, he of the television show Mad Men and author of a new book about his mother. Very nice guy, cheerfully giving dedications in his signed copies. Not all well-known authors do. I'm not especially well known, so I have a repertoire of about two dozen things with which I accompany my signature. It keeps me alert.
Peggy came and went. She can go home to kill the three hours between this appointment and the one at Maple Street Book Shop. For me, this is one of the disadvantages of living fifty miles away from the action. I have no place to land except the radio station. I spent most of the time brushing up rough edges in the website. And the rest of it taking a nap on the floor in my studio. I wish I had a sofa in there.
The Maple Street's management had a nice spread of food for Peggy and me when we reconvened there. Spicy guacamole, hummus, cheese and wine filled the gaps between about forty buyers of Lost Restaurants.
Since I was so close to Tulane, I called Mary Leigh to see whether she were up for supper with old Dad. I was hoping so, because the Marys had a tense, emotional confrontation Friday. It was the usual mother-daughter issues, in which Dad can defuse things if he a) understands that they're overblown but doesn't say so and 2) brings up other issues just as important, but more pleasant.
We dined at the new Fat Hen Grill and Grocery, recently relocated for the second time in three years. It's in what seems like a great location--the old Piggly Wiggly store on St. Charles Avenue between Broadway and Carrollton. However, the spot has not done well for even the best of the tenants who have been in and out of the place in the past decade. They include no less than the Brennans (who opened a Foodies here) and Michael Uddo (whose gourmet-to-go went).
The Marys have taken a few meals already here, and like it a great deal. Owner Shane Pritchett (he was the chef of Delmonico before the hurricane, a great time for that restaurant) has turned his attention toward barbecue and making prepared products for sale on grocery shelves--his own first, and others later. I haven't been impressed by his barbecue, but I will say that today's version of burned brisket ends were better than the last time I had them. ("Burned ends" is not a criticism, but a particular barbecue specialty considered by some to be a peak of the pursuit of smoked meat.)
After that came an excellent oyster and artichoke soup, a thick, spicy broth with a fresh taste and very big oysters. A special involving tri-tip roast beef made into a sandwich on ciabatta (gesundheit) sounded good to me. But they cut the beef too thick and I wound up eating it with a knife and fork.
Mary Leigh had the platter of pulled pork. It was beyond pulled. and even a bit past shredded. She doesn't like barbecue sauce on her barbecue, and that left this a bit on the dry side. What she did like a lot were the buttermilk cheese biscuits, very light and hot right out of the oven. They were drop biscuits, just like the ones she and I make at home, but bigger and with the cheese converting them from breakfast to dinner use.
The chef kept sending us stuff we didn't ask for. A cherry pie and an apple pie were both well-made and good, but a bite of each was all I could handle. Let alone the dessert I'd actually ordered, a variation on chess pie they called "crack pie."
The Fat Hen concept, near as I can tell, is to serve country-style food in the city. I'd say they've done that as well as anyone else ever has. But not many restaurants have even tried.
Mary Leigh and I spent most of the time between courses laughing about Mary Ann and other burdens. Then, from out of nowhere, she had what she thought was a brilliant idea: she could to take over the advertising and editorial design for NOMenu.com. She is nearing completion of a computer graphics course at Tulane, and is eager to use the skills. I'm all for it, but I wonder how she'll react to the discovery that creating ads is definitely ninety-nine percent perspiration. I've been doing that job for print and print-like media since 1970, and it never gets any easier.
Fat Hen Grocery. Uptown: 7457 St Charles Avenue. 504-266-2921.
