Wednesday, November 7, 2012.
The Day After. Dining On Turkish Food With My Favorite Turk.
This cold is getting serious. Like all colds, it started in one spot--always different--and keeps moving around. I remember one that announced its advent by removing the upper two full tones from my vocal range. This one started two days ago as a light cough. It's now stuffing up my nose. Any of its manifestations make it hard to talk. The two most challenging parts of being a radio talk show host are a) beginning a show at eleven at night, after a Houston Astros game (something I did for two seasons), and 2) going on for three hours with a cold. It drives the listeners and callers away when you need them most. Who could blame them? They don't want to hear a guy with a cold on the radio.
To dinner at the Courtyard Grill, the Turkish-Persian restaurant on Magazine Street near Napoleon. My first visits there were both excellent and indicative of depth in the kitchens talents, enough to require several visits before I write a full review.
I don't know why I was surprised to run into Joe and Aysen Young there. Aysen is my best Turkish friend. I got to know Joe some thirty years ago, when we both were much more actively interested in wine than either of us is now, and turned up at a lot of tastings. Now, he says, he's mostly lamenting all the wine that cooked away after Katrina. His collection of Petrus, for example. All gone.
The Youngs are also very active in the local opera community, among many other things, and were friends of friends of friends in the classic New Orleans way. At an opera fundraising event in my single years, they asked me to squire ten young (my age then too) female models who had been part of the night's program to the Eiffel Tower for a light supper. At the restaurant, Chef Daniel Bonnot favored us with thirteen different hot soufflees. Never again would I be surrounded by so much pulchritude and classy food. (Except, of course, when Mary Ann and I dine alone).
Aysen still has her exotic Turkish beauty and looked fabulous. She relishes her heritage, so eating here was like coming home. She had lots of nice things to say about the Courtyard Grill's food, and guided me to a few dishes she thought I ought to try. She also admitted that the Persian food was perhaps even more interesting, springing as it does from an even older culture.
I started with a great chicken soup that did wonders for my stopped-up breathing. Then a salad made of big triangles of feta cheese, herbs and walnuts. Great stuff. The entree was an enormous pile of saffron-scented basmati rice, topped with chicken tenders also touched with the telltale light orange color of saffron, and the whole thing scattered with raisins. Too much food by half, but wonderful. Aysen let me taste her Turkish meat pie and the dolmas--stuffed grape leaves.
My cover was by then completely blown, and the chef came out to hear some praise for his cooking. This place is terrific.
Things have been very quiet when Mary Ann and I were together today. My approach is, "Election? What election?" She seems to be taking the same tack for now, but I don't expect that to last.
Courtyard Grill. Uptown: 4430 Magazine St. 504-875-4165.
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