Saturday, March 20. Early Morning Run. To Baton Rouge And Ruffino's. Jude returned to Los Angeles this morning, on his usual crack-of-dawn nonstop flight. I volunteered to ferry him across the lake, and Mary Ann, after at first objecting (she hates to miss even one possible second of time with the most important man in her life, and yes, I am jealous of him), gave in to fatigue and let me do it. Up at four-thirty and out the door almost immediately, we barely made it in time for him to check the bag he used to pass as a carry-on. That won't fly anymore, not since checked baggage has become a profit center for the airlines.
I was back home and in bed again just before seven, very pleased to be able to get another three hours' sleep. The weather is ideal: warm enough to allow the heater to be turned off, cool enough that the morning birds aren't drowned out by the all-summer roar of air conditioners across the land.
The house is quiet, too. Not only is Jude gone, but Mary Leigh spent the night with friends. Tonight is her "senior prom." I put it in quotation marks because, like last year, it's a crawfish boil at the school. No ball gowns. No date picking her up and pinning a corsage on her. She does have a date--her first draft choice, in fact--but I am not permitted to say anything further about that. The boys show up and the girls show up. This is not a prom in the sense that I know the term. Where's the romance? But she and her classmates like it just fine. I think romance may be a dead concept for this generation.
A few days ago Peter Sclafani III e-asked about having an Eat Club dinner at Ruffino's, his restaurant in Baton Rouge. He even offered to arrange a bus to transport the diners to and from. I thought it was a good idea, but that maybe we should check into the possibility of giving a hotel option.
Peter is the grandson of the late Chef Pete Sclafani, who operated a major Italian restaurant on Causeway Boulevard from the 1960s through the 1980s. (I must note that Sclafani's began as a popular Mid-City restaurant in the 1940s before joining the 1950s migration to the suburbs. If I don't, someone will write to point this out.)
Peter Sclafani Jr. (the old chef's son, and the father of Peter at Ruffino's) assisted in the birth of my thirty-seven-year-old restaurant review column. The first of those was about the Flambeau Room, a white-tablecloth restaurant Peter Jr. managed at the University of New Orleans. (I must note that it was still LSUNO in 1972. If I don't, someone will write to point this out.)
Peter Jr. then opened a long-running restaurant and catering hall on Hayne Boulevard in New Orleans East. There his two sons, Peter III and Gino, both began their careers as chefs. Peter III had his own restaurant for a time on the corner of Dauphine and Bienville. There in 1994, he served the most flagrant overfeed in the history of the Eat Club--which is saying something. Four courses before the dinner ended, the women were already packing untouched dishes into go-boxes, while the men soldiered on. The sixth (or was it seventh?) course was a mammoth filet mignon. The guys were groaning with pain and laughing with anticipation at the same time. This was a very fine dinner, the net weight of it aside.
Peter III moved to Baton Rouge to assemble the kitchen at Ruffino's when it opened in 1998. (I must note that it was originally named DiNardo's, after the not-so-successful LSU football coach. If I don't, someone will write to point this out.) He's now a partner in the restaurant, whose majority owner is T.J. Moran. (Moran is to Baton Rouge what the Brennan family is to New Orleans, at least in the extent of his restaurant empire.) Also one of the owners is Ruffin Rodrigue, who is one of a family dynasty of LSU linebackers. This is why there is a genuine (but controversial--ask about the story) Waterford crystal BCS football in the display case.
Getting back to Peter's e-note, it planted a seed in my mind that sprouted when Mary Ann and I began thinking about dinner. She likes the idea of driving a good distance for a weekend dinner, and I knew she'd be interested in Ruffino's. She had some shopping to do in Red Stick anyway.
We arrived at the restaurant at around seven. It was packed and lively. It was also much larger than I thought it was. Chef Peter had just returned from a fundraiser for Holy Cross High School, his alma mater. His dad--who I haven't seen in many years--was also in the building. We caught up on reminiscences. He was amused that the sign that once marked the door to the Flambeau Room is now on the door of my office at home.
I figured that since we were in a restaurant called Ruffino's we'd better order a Ruffino Chianti. The 2003 Santedame Riserva Classico looked reasonable. The waiter--clearly an old pro (I found out later that he'd been there almost as long as the place has been open)--insisted on decanting the wine through one of those lucite gadgets that aerates the wine as it pours from bottle to decanter. It was quite vivid.
The first course was a four-way appetizer assortment: crabmeat ravioli, a crab cake, crabmeat cheesecake, and crabmeat and crawfish arancine. The latter (upper left in the photo) was the best of the four, but it would have been no matter what else was on the plate. Arancine (Italian for an orange) is a ball of rice moistened with red sauce and breaded on the outside before being fried. It's an old Sicilian idea I've always loved. This is the first time it's come with seafood.
Peter strongly urged a couple of entrees upon us, and sent small portions of two more. The first of the biggies was a wide fillet of redfish roasted on a well-charred cedar plank. It was streaked with pesto and striped with a reduced balsamic vinegar. It looked dramatic and tasted almost as good. Mary Ann, who already loved everything about this restaurant, thought this was the perfect thing with which to reel herself back into her diet plan. So far this evening, she'd forgotten it.
Before me was a black iron skillet used as a prop to hold what looked like a filet mignon on asparagus joists. "That's something I think you'll like," he told me, "because I got the idea from something you wrote. It's half of an extra-thick strip sirloin, cut into two thick pieces. Once a week we buy some USDA Prime sirloin and run this as a special. Everybody goes crazy for it. We'd have it all the time except that T.J. Moran owns the Ruth's Chris franchise here, and he can't serve Prime beef except as an occasional special."
A chef took my advice? That's rare. In this case, here was what I've tried to persuade restaurateurs to adopt as the "New Orleans cut." It makes a sirloin strip even better than it already is by allowing it to be thicker, while no heavier. Thick steaks cook better than thin steaks. Here was a perfect example of the concept.
The two tasting samples were panneed veal with crabmeat--light and good enough, if you like crabmeat on veal. The other was angel hair with a tomato and cream sauce, which I thought was the perfect side to the steak.
Ruffin Rodrigue came over with his dad. Right behind our table was a painting of the two of them in LSU livery, running down the field to glory. Ruffin began bragging about Peter's cooking and his college grades. Peter and Ruffin were at LSU at the same time. "He's the only chef I know with a four-pount-oh average from LSU!" he said.
Ruffin was hot on wine, a fact that showed up in the restaurant's list. He was especially high on a wine from Orin Swift called Papillon. It's a big Napa red blend, from the guy who gave us "The Prisoner," another such monster. Ruffin fetched the bottle from his dad's table and poured us each a glass. Chewy, deep juice, that.
Just one little dessert was all I could handle. It was a sort of dense, butterscotch-flavored pie with a caramel sauce. I had a shot of espresso so I could stay awake all the way home, to keep Mary Ann (who doesn't really drink, a fact I alternately rejoice in and curse) from weaving (which she does all the time).
Ruffino's. Baton Rouge: 18811 Highland Rd 225-753-3458. Contemporary Creole. Italian. Pizza.
