Tuesday, June 1. Underwater Photography. Marigny Brasserie With An Old Friend. The live video of the gushing oil well in the Gulf has captivated me. British Petroleum has moved on to its next strategy for stopping the flow, since the "top kill" gambit failed over the weekend. Now the underwater camera is going around the well, checking it out. And now a robotic arm is grabbing this and that. And now what looks like a deli-slicer blade is sawing through pipes. It's a diamond-tipped circular saw, I learned. It has no safety guard, because how can a robot cut off its finger? (I did notice that one of the robot's fingers was bent out of line, though.)
What they're trying to do is cut off the pipe from which most of the oil is spurting at the wellhead. This is risky, because it may greatly increase the amount of oil coming up. But then they will put a cap over the wellhead, hoping that the oil can be sucked up from there into a ship, instead of floating to the surface and fouling the coastline and waters.
Very bad news on that front. Barataria Bay--one of the most productive estuaries for Louisiana seafood and perhaps the best of all our oyster-bedding areas--is now taking in a flow of oil. The pictures of the oil-coated birds and dead reptiles inspire that mixture of pathos and anger that wrenches the gut, making you want to turn away just as you look for more of the disgusting scene.
Meanwhile, however, there is no shortage of local seafood in the restaurants. Even oysters are still around, in enough quantity that this weekend's New Orleans Oyster Festival on the riverfront will go ahead with enthusiasm. I am sticking with my prediction that by Thanksgiving we will still be cleaning up, but will wonder why we thought the end was so near.
A lot of people are that depressed. One of them is my sister Lynn. At the Graduation Gala, she asked me to convince her that things weren't as bad as she thinks they are. She said that she's as worried as I was after 9/11 (my all-time personal benchmark for depression, exceeding even the one caused by Katrina). I hope I convinced her to cheer up.
Dinner with Steve Singer, who is in town with his wife Serena for a week or so. Steve goes by his middle name Max now. He says I am grandfathered in to call him Steve, as he was known when he lived here full-time. He and I worked on a number of publishing projects in the 1970s and 1980s--he as the designer and illustrator, I as editor and writer. We were good enough friends that we dined together once or twice a week. His wife then introduced me to B., who I dated for a while. She was the first I ever considered marrying. I was just twenty-five at the time and got bachelor's cold feet. Mary Ann says I should have married her. What does that mean?
We dined at the Marigny Brasserie. I have not been there lately, and that's a restaurant that requires frequent checking. Its unpredictable changes of chefs and menus every year or so (sometimes more often) makes for wild swings of quality. The current menu is much downscale from what it has been in recent years. It's now closer to being a neighborhood café than the gourmet bistro it had always been before.
We started with a round of cocktails, then a double round of baked oysters in two flavors: Bywater (artichokes, andouille, and a cream sauce) and Italian (garlic, olive oil, bread crumbs, Parmesan). We polished them off quickly enough, and then were into the entrees. Steve was determined to have grillades and grits, even though the version here was offbeat: the grillades were pork instead of the usual veal. Serena ordered a soft-shell crab platter, which impressed her by being crisp and golden brown and including two crabs. I kept to myself something I noticed immediately. The shape of the crab carapaces said that these crabs had traveled a very long way to get to New Orleans.
Before me was a handsome fillet of drumfish, sprinkled with Creole seasoning and grilled. I asked to have hollandaise substituted for the crawfish cream sauce and red beans and rice for the mashed potatoes. No problem: the menu options included both these. I hate fish and mash, love fish and beans. And simply-prepared fish with hollandaise. The fish was beyond reproach. The red beans made me think that red beans may get better on the second day, but not on the third day.
The evening was delightful. Steve was his old New Orleans self again, always going for a laugh and usually coming up with something clever enough to get it. Serena has the zany turn of mind needed to appreciate his humor (and mine, for that matter). We laughed all night.
Steve showed me a copy of a new slick comic book he's planning on publishing called "The Dead Blue Dog." Anyone who has had a bellyful of the original Blue Dog (my hand is raised) will howl at this. His mood was in marked contrast to the one I saw when Steve and I had lunch in Manhattan last October. He seemed down, too focused on his age (just a little older than mine). Although we all have bad days, I am tempted to say that he'd be happier back here in New Orleans. But I don't know enough about his situation.
Marigny Brasserie. Marigny: 640 Frenchmen. 504-945-4472. Contemporary Creole.
