Sunday, March 21. Spring Freeze. Chef's Soiree. Spring began yesterday with a major thunderstorm in the morning, leaving behind overcast skies that lasted all through the day today. And with each passing minute it grew colder. By the time Mary Ann and I left to attend the Chef's Soiree in Covington, it was nothing less than wintry. In fact, it looked as if it were going to snow. This winter continues to hold fast.
We haven't been to the Chef's Soiree in many years. I recall that weather was a factor the last time I attended, in the form of a tropical downpour. It's funny how things like that remain in your mind and become part of your feelings about an event or even people. For a long time, Mary Ann associated my family with driving to Lafayette in a non-stop thunderstorm, only because that happened two Christmases in a row.
Such a stance is not nice, especially in this case. The Chef's Soiree is a charity that supports the St. Tammany Youth Service Bureau, helping kids with big family problems. A lot of our restaurant friends were there, and we wanted to express our gratitude for their generosity.
But oh! The cold. It was in the low forties and dropping. That didn't seem to lower attendance, though. If you pay $125 per person, I suppose you will show up, weather or not. The lines were long at all of the tents.
No lines were longer than the one in front of Pat Gallagher's stovetop. He was cooking up crawfish cakes with one of his rich sauces, and everybody wanted that. Including us. It was the first thing we tried, and one of the best.
The most impressive culinary display, however, was the paella being made by La Provence. Years ago, Chef Chris Kerageorgiou bought an absurdly wide pan for making large batches of paella, with a multi-ring propane burner to keep it hot. The rig outlived Chris, but not his memory. La Provence's current crew cooked pan after pan of the stuff, making the entire tent and vicinity smell great.
My newcomer of the year award went to a new Middle Eastern restaurant called Zur, which operates in a converted house in the old part of Covington. They were serving a marvelous lentil soup (and did that hit the spot on this cold day), several kinds of hummus, one heavily flavored with cilantro, and a few other things. They made a lot of friends.
Carmelo Chirico's restaurant might be considered a newcomer, but only to the North Shore. He recently moved Ristorante Carmelo from the French Quarter to a new development in Mandeville, and is packing them in there. He made some rich cheese ravioli for the soiree, sauced with a blend of Alfredo and tomato sauces.
In the next tent over, Juniper's chef-owner Peter Kusiw kept churning out the crawfish cakes, one of the better appetizers in his fine little restaurant in Old Mandeville. Like all the other chefs mentioned so far, he pulled a good crowd of ruddy-faced people in their winter coats. His other business--the Grotto Coffeehouse--had something else welcome for them and me: hot coffee.
Then we ran into Louie Finnan, with his Redhead Lady. He was serving soft little crabcakes with a white remoulade, between shooting the breeze with his many fans.
In between our time spent with these nibbles and the chefs who made them, the usual number of complete strangers stopped me to say hello and talk about eating. I was glad they did. It was about a half-hour before the first one came up. I was beginning to wonder whether anyone here was in my audience. Then, suddenly, they were standing in line (a much shorter one than for the food) to talk.
Among those was Marla Mancil and her hubby. Mrs. Mancil was Jude's first teacher, in kindergarten. She remembers him fondly, and vice-versa. I've always heard that teachers wonder how their finished products came out. Mrs. Mancil knows at least one that turned out fine.
Suddenly, Mary Ann said that the combination of the cold and the problems she's had with her feet lately had her about done in. I walked the four blocks back to the car, collected her at the front gate of Bogue Falaya Park, and we headed home to warm up. Woof! It was cold out there.
