Tuesday, December 4, 2012.
Party Of Ten.
The roofers said they wouldn't work today because of storms moving in our direction. They changed their minds at midday and started climbing and hammering again.
Seven people showed up for the round table radio show. One of them was Mark Warren, the sommelier of the Beau Rivage casino resort in Biloxi. He brought four bottles of very good wine with him, and that had everybody in the talkative, joking mode I try to foster (but don't always get) from these on-air parties.
The wines were excellent. We began with a white Burgundy, moved to a big Cabernet from Mayacamas Mountain in Sonoma, then enjoyed a monstrously flavorful Barbaresco from Piemonte in Italy. I wish I had written down the names of the wines, but whenever I try to do that everybody stops talking, and I have to refocus.
Also here from Beau Rivage was Christian Wade, who oversees all the restaurants at the big, glittery palace. Sarah Cormier is the chef of Memphis Q, the longest-running of the many eateries at Beau Rivage. I give myself a black star for the dumbest question of the day: "What style of barbecue does Memphis Q make?" I can't believe I said that, but it's what happens when one tries to get a conversation moving along while adjusting guest microphone levels and figuring out when to start in on the next ad-lib commercial.
Emmett Dufresne was on hand from his specialty butcher shop in Elmwood. He confirmed my guess (a sensible one this time) that the holidays call for cuts of meat not much seen this time of year. He beat me to the main one: veal pockets. Those come from between the chuck and the brisket, and are popular among older cooks for stuffing with oyster dressing. Somehow, without trying, I have avoided veal pockets throughout my life of cooking and eating. I have never seen it on a menu--not even a Reveillon menu.
Vanessa Gomes came from the Barley Oak, a very hip hangout in Mandeville for those who like craft beers. They have about 150 of them, forty-seven on tap. And a great view of the lake. But not much in the way of food. I haven't been there to eat in a long while, though. Barley Oak is building its own brewpub elsewhere in Old Mandeville. Whoever is behind it all must really like beer.
Finally (although she was the first person I talked with), Kathy Williams was here from K Gee's Oyster Bar, also in Mandeville. It now can be told, she said: the place has a family connection with Bozo's, and for that reason a lot of its food is in the same general style as that long-running seafood house.
A last-minute guest stopped in. Wayne Kostroski is a restaurateur who, for the 1992 Super Bowl, began an event called Taste of the NFL. Chefs come from all over the country for a huge, expensive feed the day before the Super Bowl. All the money goes to assist hunger-fighting charities in the NFL cities. He remembered me from the last time he was in town: 2001, when he also appeared on the radio show. Talk about nice guys with clear vision!
It wasn't until nearly the end of the show that Sarah Cormier reveals that she had brought a big pile of barbecue ribs, pulled pork, cole slaw, potato salad and sauce from her restaurant. We fed the whole radio station staff with that. Spud McConnell from WWL came in and helped himself to the Q and the wine, so we put him on the air, too, bringing our guest total to nine.
I had been thinking of going out to dinner after the show, but the barbecue obviated that need convincingly. It was worth the half-hour I had to spend afterward cleaning up the mess. And packing up some pulled pork for Mary Ann, who indeed did call me to make sure I did.
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