Tuesday, March 27, 2012.
Lost Colleague. Taste Of The Town Talk-Up.
Ann Lemons was a subscriber to The New Orleans Menu in its first few years in the late 1970s. She's a nurse in St. Louis, MO, with a powerful interest in food, New Orleans, and New Orleans food. We began corresponding (by mail--remember mail?) and became friends.
I can't remember whether we met for the first time downstream or upstream on our common river. I do remember that when I did visit her in St. Louis (by means of a train that no longer runs), she literally alerted the media. She called Joe Pollack--the restaurant critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch--and asked if he would be interested in getting together with me (and her) over dinner.
What came of that--aside from a great dinner a trois in a then-hip restaurant so long gone I can't remember its name--was that Ann unintentionally planted the seeds of a relationship with Joe. They wound up getting married.
Joe Pollack passed away a few days ago. Today I got an e-mail from Ann about that. "As you know, I met him because of you," she said.
What?
"He gave me the best years of my life, and if it hadn't been for you, that wouldn't have happened." In all the time I've known them and thought about them, I didn't know that. Well, I guess somebody had to do it. I wonder what other big life changes have resulted from something I did. I hope not many bad things.
Today's round table radio show was hijacked (with my permission) by the Taste of the Town, the annual graze-o-rama at Lafreniere Park. Tommy Cvitanovich (Son of Drago, King of the Washington DC Mardi Gras 2012, co-founder of Taste of the Town, and all-around Force in the Restaurant Community) was there. So was Chef Duke Locicero, from Café Giovanni, who has been on the show entirely too often lately. Not that anyone's complaining; Duke has so many irons in the fire that he never says the same thing twice.
Also in the room was Steven Young, the chef of Royal House. It's , a three-year-old restaurant in the old Tortorici's. He brought food, thereby stealing my appetite for dinner. Good grits jambalaya. (Think about it.) More food still came from Kristen Preau, the "Jambalaya Girl." She manufactures a new jambalaya mix. That was tasty, too. A flavor of cinnamon or nutmeg or something in there.
And Ron Swoboda, Jr. He's in the beer distribution business, and his clients include the whole Miller stable of brews. And Abita. He brought several unique beers from my hometown outfit. The best of them was the 25th Anniversary special, a dark beer with a flavor of chocolate and dark bread. It's not made with chocolate, but it did include some vanilla. His baseball-pro dad is doing fine, by the way.
I didn't even try to have dinner after that. I know that when my mind wanders to hamburgers, it's trying to tell me I don't really need to eat at all. A small slice of pizza at home was my whole supper.
It's over three years since a day was missed in the Dining Diary. To browse through all of the entries since 2008, go here.
