On New Year’s Eve, I began to reflect on the year in eating, and I compiled a list of the best dining experiences of the year just passed. I use the term “dining experiences” because I am and have always been about the entire meal. To me it is not only about the food, because especially now, food, and really not anything, is what it used to be. Still, collectively, a lot of elements add up to a very pleasing whole whenever you dine out.
The first two of these memorable dining outings include Tom. They would be the last meals shared with him. The first was his birthday last February 6th at Commander's Palace, and the second was just days later st August for the Superbowl brunch there. The highlights of those meals were far less abut the food than Tom’s regular exclamations of pleasure at being in places he remembered serving the food he loved.
At Commander’s Palace I made sure he got a bread pudding souffle, which he always loved. I remember how impressed he was when it arrived on the scene. On The Food Show he always coached a diner heading to Commander’s Palace that the bread pudding souffle should be the dessert to get.
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Three days later at Restaurant August for the Superbowl Brunch, crispy fried oysters plated elegantly were the appetizer for Tom. His favorite food. Just looking at the picture of that makes me happy as I write this. Both John Besh and Octavio told me later how honored they were to have hosted Tom for his last meal on earth. It delighted me too. It was almost full circle. Who could have known that the setting for Hungry Town would be the scene of his last meal? Weird,...and weirdly appropriate.
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The third favorite meal of the year also involved Tom, though he was there only in spirit. Mary Leigh and I went to Crescent City Steakhouse with two other ladies on Mardi Gras. It was the first time Tom would not be there physically in over forty years. The party he created was well underway with its four-hour wait. We were so honored to see Tom's name as the headliner on the menu that day. The lovely matriarch Krasna came to visit us, and I stood up into the exhuberant chatter to toast Tom. The room fell silent for the toast then erupted in cheers. Tom loved it. When our party left there was a standing ovation. We were so honored.
Since Tom always did things as a dozen, maybe as a nod to his Twelfth Night passion, this list will be run till Twelfth Night, and will come in threes.
It’s a wonderful way to recap the year in dining by highlighting the true highlights. Dining out is more than just food. It is indeed an experience, and I don't mean that in the shallow way it is used now. It is a social event, a primal thing, going back to the origins of man. The food was just way less fancy then.
