Thursday, April 22. Coming To You Live From An Audi. Tuna Stack. Eatless Day? Britton Trice at Garden District Books called to say that he'd sold all the extra autographed copies of Hungry Town, and could I autograph some more of them, because he had a waiting list. And he had a ticket for me to get into the Jazz Festival tomorrow, where the New Orleans Booksellers has a tent for books and will sell mine if I autograph them there. They sell more books out there than you might imagine. When my cookbook came out in 2006, I went through about fifty of them in an hour at the Jazz Festival.
After taking care of that, I retraced my route back to Metairie. Today was the second of our broadcasts from New Orleans Audi. I am learning why I am doing these car commercials. Van Bohn, who owns the dealership, is a foodie and a regular listener. He has been trying to let me drive Audis around for a few days, but the logistics are too complicated for the airtight schedule I keep. Instead, I recommended we take a test drive while on the air. I'd call into the station on my cell and we'd talk as we drove around.
It was the Audi Q5, which they told me is a "crossover" vehicle. Not a car, not an SUV (apparently "SUV" has taken on a low-rent connotation), but something in between. The engine was fantastically powerful, and we were able to zoom in and out of traffic easily. The GPS system was amazing. It showed a 3-D map of everywhere we traveled, including specific larger buildings. I can't imagine owning such a car myself--my tastes in automobiles are simple--but the Marys are salivating at the thought of owning a Q5, about which they already know everything. I'll bet we wind up with one in the next year or so.
Gary Darling--one of the chef-owners of Zea and Semolina--did the food for our open house at New Orleans Audio. Gary is a California native who came to New Orleans to cook and who never looked back. On his way up, he cheffed in two obscure (although they were both in my first restaurant guide in 1978) restaurants: The Enraged Chicken and Tea 'n' Tiques. The latter was a combination restaurant and antique store, in the building that's now Brigtsen's. He later was the corporate chef for Copeland's.
Gary is a good talker, funny and knowledgeable. We shot the breeze for an hour, while the sous chef he brought along made the food. It was something from Zea's summer special menu: the tuna stack, made primarily of avocados and fresh raw tuna, with accents of crunchy aromatic vegetables and squirts of spicy sauce, all served cool. I remember having this last year, and it was as good on the automobile showroom floor as I remember.
I ate an entire order of the tuna stack, which is somewhere between a large appetizer and a small entree. It was enough that I had no strong hunger when the show ended. I took a desultory drive around Metairie waiting for inspiration to hit, but nothing did. I would loved to have gone to Andrea's or the like for a drink, but some scruple having to do with work made me just go home instead, there to rattle around in our empty house.
