Wednesday, October 13. Oktoberfest On The Deck At Middendorf's. With Catfish. Covey Run. Sauerbraten. This was the perfect day to broadcast from the deck at Middendorf's. Yesterday's rain and seasonal warmth have given way to cool, unusually dry air. And there we were, on the north bank of Pass Manchac--one of the boundaries of the historic Isle of Orleans, and therefore at times in the past an international frontier. Boats went by, including a bunch of barges loading gravel. Long, speedy freight trains passed on the Illinois Central main line, right in back of the restaurant. Fans mounted with nozzles spraying a fine mist kept the air moving, but they were not really needed.
We were here for an Oktoberfest Eat Club dinner. Both the restaurant and its current owner--Chef Horst Pfiefer--have solid German heritage, even though neither of them has cooked much of German food for their customers. But Middendorf's is running Oktoberfest specials not just in October, but almost all the way until Thanksgiving.
More interesting visitors than usual let me stick microphones in their faces during the radio show. Heinrich "Heiner" Orlik came by with some of his new beers. He operates Heiner Brau, a microbrewery in Covington whose beer you may have had even if you weren't aware of it. He made Dixie for a short time after the hurricane, and still makes all the specialty beers for Zea. He hosted a major Oktoberfest of his own last weekend in Covington. Heiner favored me with a bottle of his Oktoberfest brew, a reddish, big-flavored brew.
Then came Sandy Sharp, who owns Covey Rise Farms. An interesting business, that. In the countryside around Husser--about thirty-five miles due north of Middendorf's--Covey Rise started as a hunting lodge, and grew into a grower of specialty vegetables for the gourmet restaurants in New Orleans. John Besh is one of their biggest customers.
Sandy brought a basket of vegetables just picked at the farm, and representing the kind of thing he offers through a Community Supported Agriculture program. Members (you can become one for $150) get six to eight fresh vegetable items a week for six weeks. It's a lot of vegetables, I can tell you, because he gave me a sample basket of the stuff. Even Mary Ann--who is wild about the greens and squashes and other items in the basket, and for whom this food is delightfully acceptable on her diets--was overwhelmed by it all.
The menu I was putting out to the Eat Clubbers showed that we would have appetizers and cocktails out here on the deck. We oversold the dinner by about a dozen, so it's a good thing I didn't know what these "appetizers" would be. They started with a boat filled with gigantic boiled shrimp and stunning blue crabs. Started with that, I say. Also on the table for the unlimited taking were piles of thin-cut fried catfish--Middendorf's bread and butter dish. And fried oysters, shrimp, stuffed crab balls and hush puppies. Several sauces.
In other words, the "appetizers" amounted to an entire meal. A number of people said that they could stop right there and feel they'd got their money's worth.
It was getting dark by the time we moved inside for the shank of the dinner. Actually, the shank--the pork shank, I mean--will not be served at Middendorf's until November. Tonight, the Oktoberfest menu centered on sauerbraten. Heiner Orlik got up to say that, as a German native himself, he appreciated that this version of sauerbraten was authentic to the part of Germany (southern) where Horst Pfiefer came from, but that in his part (farther north) sauerbraten was quite different. And so were the spaetzle noodles on the side.
The dinner started with something I'd never heard of: maultaschen, ravioli pillows stuffed with cheese and wild mushrooms. These were the peak of the meal for me. The sauerbraten (below, with red cabbage on the left and spaetzle on the right), I suspect, is something you have to grow up with and develop a sentimental fondness for. The way a lot of New Orleans people love codfish cakes. It's pot roast, basically, but takes on an unusual flavor from having been marinated in vinegar and spices for a few days. I've had sauerbraten all over the place, dozens of times, and have never warmed up to it. I didn't tonight, either.
We wrapped up with Black Forest cake, and called it a night. While our dinner for sixty-something went on, the rest of Middendorf's was packed as usual, with lots of crisp, golden catfish going down. Horst says everything is just great.
Middendorf’s. River Parishes: Exit 15 off I-55, Manchac. 985-386-6666.
