Sunday, December 20, 2009. Choir Withdrawal. Lunch, For A Change, At Mattina Bella. Coffee Partner. Last night Jude said he wanted to get up early, go to Mattina Bella for pancakes, then go to Mass. Jude goes to Mass more often than I do. He never misses a week in Los Angeles. In this he is exactly like me at that age. I was not only a weekly attendee, but in the choir at St. Agnes on Jefferson Highway, even though I lived near UNO.
Speaking of that, I am listening to Christmas music continually during the many hours I spend at my desk. I have five stations programmed into Pandora, each one addressing a different mood. It's a music-lover's dream come true. Worth every nickel of the $40 a year for their premium service. But the music on my classical Christmas station makes me wistful. This will be the fourth Christmas during which I am not in a choir or chorus of any kind. I have sung in ensembles since I was in fourth grade. It's as much a part of my life as anything else I do. But I can't find one whose rehearsal schedule is compatible with that of the radio show.
I digress. Jude woke up at eleven-thirty. Too late for pancakes or Mass. The best we could do was waffles at Mattina Bella. By noon, I'd already had my standard daily mini-breakfast, and ready for one of the restaurant's lunch items. The most ambitious of them is the catfish meuniere with pecans. One bite fired off a flavor flashback. Owner Vincent Riccobono (who is not the Vincent Riccobono who owns the Peppermill, but his cousin) is using the one he picked up at the Peppermill (where he worked before opening Mattina Bella on his own). That recipe, in turn, came straight down from the old Buck Forty-Nine Steakhouse, which spun off the Peppermill. I think I can take this back one more step: the thick, light-brown sauce is very much like the one at the old Arnaud's.
I just digressed again. No wonder I can't remember people's names. My brain is securely tied up with this kind of mental twine.
The catfish was delicious. Mary Ann ate her favorite omelette (the Coutnry Boy, which has sausage, ham and bacon inside). Jude ate a waffle. Mary Leigh showed up from nowhere and ate nothing. Debbie Riccobono--Vincent's wife--is, I've decided, the single most pleasant hostess in any restaurant in the New Orleans area. Always smiling, always eager to accommodate.
Somehow, the four of us required three cars to get to the restaurant. And I was left alone in mind to make a grocery stop. One of the items I bought was Coffee Partner. That's pure, roasted, ground chicory, packaged in six-ounce boxes by the Luzianne guys. I haven't seen it on the shelf in awhile, but I'm glad it's back. It solves a problem I have with the surplus coffee samples I'm always getting from roasters. I brew and taste their proud new blends, but ninety-seven and a half percent of the coffee I drink is a classic New Orleans chicory blend--Union being my benchmark. But if I grind up all these specialty beans and mix it fifty-fifty with Coffee Partner, and then mix that with Union, I get more or less what I want.
We finally made it to Mass at five, conducted by a priest who took reverence to an extreme. And he read his sermon from a prepared script. Whenever I see this, I want to tell the preacher that his words would have vastly greater impact if he ad-libbed them. People aren't as tuned in to readings as they are to conversation.
Jude went off with one of his former Scout buddies to see Avatar, the hot new 3-D movie. I went back to work and got hung up for over two hours on a software issue. Kept me working till eleven. On a Sunday. Thank goodness for Christmas music.
Mattina Bella. Covington: 421 E. Gibson 985-892-0708. Breakfast. Neighborhood Café.
