Wednesday, December 7, 2011.
Birthday At Commander's.
I'm glad Mary Ann's birthday falls on a day that lives on in infamy. When I see the inevitable articles about the anniversary of Pearl Harbor, I swing into action. This doesn't always work. I've never forgotten her birthday, but it has happened that I didn't make the connection when I made other plans for that day. One particularly shameful such incident I will pay for the rest of my life.
This year, something else did come up, but I cleared it with Mary Ann first. Louise McGehee School asked me to participate in their book fair and autograph copies of my tome. Anything connected with McGehee is solid gold as far as MA is concerned. Our daughter Mary Leigh spent the three most glorious years of her academic life there.
Also at the authors' table was Whitney Miller, a young woman from Poplarville, Mississippi. She was signing her first cookbook, Modern Hospitality. My first take was that, beginning her career as a cooking writer as she was, she could probably use a boost from an old pro like me. That's also what Mary Ann thought, so she booked Whitney for the radio show. She also arranged for Whitney to meet Jude in Los Angeles. Jude just happens to be looking for a host for a cooking show.
But it came out that, if anything, Whitney could help me and Jude more than we could help her. She was the winner of the Master Chef television cooking competition last year, walking away with a quarter-million in prize money and a contract to write her cookbook. Which has already sold over 40,000 copies. That's more than all three of my current books combined. My only consolation was that today I sold more books than she did at McGehee. But Whitney is swimming very well in a much bigger pond.
I was going to suggest to Mary Ann that we celebrate her birthday with lunch five blocks away at Commander's Palace. But she beat me to it. The restaurant was very busy, but by a stroke of luck we got the best table in the house--and, therefore, the best table in New Orleans. That's the one in the corner of the Garden Room, with big windows onto the courtyard and its oaks. I know some will read this as being proof of favoritism to restaurant critics, but it was one-thirty, the last seating for lunch. If anyone else had been pushed aside for us, he would have to have been thrown out of the restaurant.
We started with the usual oversupply of garlic bread, which Mary Ann loves--but not as much as usual, she said. Too much butter, she said. I picked up all her slack.
An amuse-bouche arrived in a mini-canoe. Crab marbles (bigger than jumbo lumps) topped with Louisiana caviar alternated with sections of local satsumas and grapefruits. Very pretty, very tasty, hard to take a photo of. Mary Ann gave me all her caviar, even after I told here that this was the same kind of caviar we had at our wedding reception.
Next came the most elaborate presentation of shrimp remoulade I've ever seen. The shrimp were cut in half and set on a little pile of greens. The sauces--Commander's orange-brown job and a very spicy red pepper puree--surrounded the shrimp in concentric circles of buttons. Very impressive. The chef didn't have to worry about anything getting cold while he built that display, because it was supposed to be.
The menu had a special lunch prepared along dietary lines recommended by Ochsner Hospital. This ordinarily would be a red flag, but Ochsner has a warm spot in my heart. They fixed my retinas and my broken ankle with consummate skill in recent years. And my mother worked there for two decades. So I gave their menu a look. It included a cauliflower and Brie soup, and seafood cakes with a thick bisque as the sauce. I couldn't figure the health aspect of this, but if Ochsner says it's good for me, who am I to argue?
I will argue, however, with the fish cake. This is a way around serving jumbo lump crab cakes, and I can't say it works especially well, save in keeping prices down for both the restaurant and the customers. The sauce was better than the cakes were. The cauliflower soup was rich and wonderful.
Mary Ann had a salad hybridized with a fried seafood platter. Too much for her, she said, handing over the big fried oysters she doesn't like, while keeping all the fried shrimp that I disdain. Hah! And she says we're incompatible. This is an example of how two opposites can fit perfectly together.
She began a birthday reflection on how she would become a better, happier person in her upcoming year. Dumb male that I am, it seemed to me that she was looking for ideas in that regard. I made what I thought was an innocuous suggestion. "You need to have more fun!" I said. A mild argument ensued, and the lunch ended on edge. When will I learn to keep my crazy ideas to myself?
During this, Mary Leigh called and Mary Ann invited her to join us. But I couldn't wait. Nor could I have dessert. I paid the check, left the Marys to their tete-a-tete, and strode out the restaurant into the chilly sunshine. My car was still near McGehee, six blocks away. I had to hustle along faster than I have since the ankle massacree, and pleased myself that this was as fast as I strutted before the accident. Nevertheless, I was fifteen seconds late getting on the air.
Commander's Palace. Garden District: 1403 Washington Ave. 504-899-8221.
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.
