Tuesday, March 22, 2011.
The Perfect Radio Show. Too Much Pizza, But Loving It.
Before the Mardi Gras break (of my ankle), the my Tuesday round-table radio shows had developed a rhythm and a momentum. Having four or five people in the studio for the whole show, not interviewing as much as just talking, was everything I was hoping it would be.
So how will it go when I'm not there in the studio with everybody else? Until after the surgery this Friday, I am reluctant to go across the lake unless I absolutely must. But I've conducted interviews from home with people in the studio before. What difference does it make to the listener, really? Mary Ann booked her usually fine slate of guests, I lifted my splint onto my desk at home, and we went with it.
Three hours later, we had done the perfect Food Show.
The guests were good. We started with Cami Chiarella, who is of the family that runs the Peppermill. From the Peppermill's kitchen, she operates a home delivery service of dinner four nights a week, for busy people with no time to cook. The Dinner Belle By Cami, it's called, and it's not what I thought. The cooking is mostly homestyle, and the prices are less than you'd spend to go to a good hamburger place.
Chef Tenney Flynn and Gary Wollerman are the owners of GW Fins, the great seafood restaurant across from Arnaud's. They just got back from preparing a dinner at the James Beard House in New York City. Why would they go to all that expense and trouble? I asked, half tongue in half cheek.
"After New Orleans, we get a higher percentage of our customers from New York City than anywhere else," Gary said. "More than from Houston, Baton Rouge, Birmingham, or Atlanta. We know that from the zipcodes on the credit cards people use. It surprises us, too."
Tenney said what impressed him most about the James Beard dinner was the expertise of the wait staff. "They were like nothing I've ever seen," he said. "We served a king cake with a candle in it for the dessert. But we didn't know until it was too late that the only way to serve them was for each waiter to hold one dish in one hand, and use the other to shield the candle so it wouldn't go out. But they just did it, without missing a beat!"
Next week is the tenth anniversary dinner for GW Fins--a $150 repast for which the aim, according to Gary, was to serve the ultimate GW Fins dinner. "We're starting with a great Champagne, Dom Ruinart," he said. That's a really good, old-style Champagne we don't see much around New Orleans. Damn! I wish I could go.
Chef Jacques Seleun and his wife Paige filled the other two seats. They're from Chateau Du Lac on Metairie Road, a restaurant I've loved since it first opened in a teeny, inconvenient space in Kenner. I've sat with them at their tables many times over the years, and I knew that Jacques was from Brittany. I didn't know that he and I have in common that we were hired for our present employments by our wives. Who were strangers to us when we signed on.
Paige, in addition to helping to run the restaurant, is also one of the people starting a French charter school Uptown. Lycee Francais de la Nouvelle Orleans will open this fall, and to raise funds to get it moving, they're having an event this Sunday at Generations Hall. Any event for any French organization here brings all the French chefs in town to serve food, and they will all be there.
Tommy Cvitanovich and Greg Reggio burst into the studio. They had been on the other side of the window talking with Spud McConnell on his show. They're pushing this Friday's Taste of the Town at Lafreniere Park, of course. They were irreverent and jocose as always. I wish I had been there in person. I've never met in person a winner of the Times-Picayune's Loving Cup, long-running award to people who've performed unusual service to the community. Tommy certainly lives up to that, and there he was on the front page of the paper last Sunday.
After we found out what everybody in the room was up to, the show evolved into something more like a conversation. Tenney said that soft-shell crabs weren't hitting yet, and were very expensive. Jacques and I ruminated on whether his hometown were close to Quimper. His wife said yes, he said no. Cami and I talked about the Peppermill's double-edged sword of having a very loyal clientele, the bad side of which is that the customers get old and run off the younger ones.
I asked Jacques a question. I heard nothing. Then a giggle. "He left," Paige said. "He had to get back to the restaurant." Mary Ann thought that was an oops!, revealing the secret of my merely virtual presence in the studio. I thought it was a good thing. The world's most wonderful things are collections of imperfections that balance each other out.
No kidding, I thought this was the best show of my career.
I switched the box off and had two slices of pizza for dinner, from Carmelo, brought home yesterday by Mary Ann. On Mondays, if you get a pizza, they give you an extra one for free. The ones he makes are light on sauce and cheese, which I like. It becomes extra-tasty bread. And I love bread. With that in the refrigerator, I need not worry about going hungry if Mary Ann is gone all day.
