Sunday, September 26. Organizing. Saints Versus Zea. Preparations for the train trip Tuesday are underway. It's a lot of work with a million details. I promised all the Eat Clubbers that we'd have appetizers and wine on the train--but what, exactly, would that be? I have one reservation made for our dinners in Chicago, but I promised at least four. I am getting nowhere booking Topolobampo, the Mexican gourmet room by Chef Rick Bayless. I met Bayless about twenty-five years ago at a conference on Southwestern food. He was just beginning to introduce Chicagoans to the fine points of Mexican cookery. But he has since become a major star. His restaurants are tiny and jammed. So much for that.
On the back end, I must gather my material to keep my writing industry going through the trip. I'm taking one day off from the radio show--there's no possible way to do it from a moving train--but I plan to keep the Menu Daily coming without interruption. Mary Ann says I am behaving compulsively. She doesn't see the pages of e-mail I get on those rare days when I don't publish.
It's a Saints game day. For some reason, MA didn't want to watch the game at home. Most of the 2009 season, she and Mary Leigh went to a restaurant--usually Zea--to watch all the games. But we have acquired cable television since then (we would have had it sooner if it had been available). Nostalgia for last year?
I went with her and put away a seared tuna salad (top, above) while she devoured a half-order of barbecue ribs (bottom, above). I left her behind so I could make a grocery run. I found unpasteurized jumbo lump crabmeat--in stunningly large lumps, at that--for $24, a good price these days. And four pounds of fresh shrimp. I will turn all this into four dishes for a television appearance in Chicago Thursday.
The store took a long time. I ran into a lady whose son was in Boy Scouts when Jude and I were, and she wanted to update everything. I expected to find Mary Ann furious, but in fact she was on the end of her seat, still watching the game. It had gone into overtime. She said something about one of the players screwing up something or other, and that the Saints were about to lose. Which they did. I forget who they were playing, but apparently this was an embarrassing loss.
Mary Ann has unilaterally declared that she would take over the catering for the train trip, and that she would not require any help or input from me. I can trust her on that. She's good at making platters of snacks. She's thinking about Italian deli meats, dips, grilled vegetables, and crostini. Sounds good.
She also says she will host the radio show Tuesday afternoon, when I will be incommunicado. When Mary Ann and I were engaged, a long-term writer colleague told Mary Ann that she'd be a great help to me. I'm not sure that Mary Ann accepted that as an appropriate use of her talents. But she really is helping me (us, really) a lot lately.
Zea. Covington: 110 Lake Dr. 985-327-0520.
