St. James, and an overload on hyperlinks

I really don't need to write yet another blog entry about either this place or this sandwich, considering the relative frequency at which they appear in my thoughts and in my writing (also here)

So a picture (or a few) will have to suffice, courtesy of the fantastic and utterly adorable digital camera that was given to me for Christmas by my fantastic and utterly adorable mother! As you may have surmised, I got the mozzarella. After having tried sandwiches with roast beef and smokey blue cheese, with turkey and avocado and basil and tomato and sharp white cheddar (varying between Beecher's and Grafton), and with gruyere and caramelized onions on a really nutty grainy bread (like a dressed-up, all-grown-up grilled cheese), I see now that this one is my favorite. As I wrote that last sentence, "gruyere" was just on the tip of my tongue and I was going crazy trying to think of the name of this fantastic cheese that I eat all the time. I found the St. James website and was blown away by how engaging and interactive and well-designed it is. It's only fitting, I guess. You should definitely investigate. Now I'd die for the piave with salami rosa, spicy radish sprouts, garlic mayo, and dijon mustard on toasted rye. MMMM. Next time, I might just try that one (although I keep saying that about literally every single thing on the menu and really just hope one day I'll be brave (and rich) enough to walk in and order each and every thing.

But I digress. Hopefully my pictures are sufficient testimony to the Fra Mani salami and fresh basil pine nut pesto and lovely white meltiness that completely blankets the ciabatta. There's also a photo of my really yummy blood orange soda, simply because it tastes the way a sundress feels at Jazz Fest.




Note the impossibly poetic layers of salami and cheese, with the pesto as a tasteful and artfully executed garnish that isn't overpowering at all. It's the ultimate sidekick -- supportive but not overbearing.


And here's the drink of perfection.

Not so crabby

One would think that a restaurant called Crabby Jack's would at the very least have one fried softshell crab po-boy to offer me in my dire hunger. I found no such luck when Mom and I walked into the charmingly squat little shack on Jefferson Highway, which is not to say that I didn't have an overall delightful po-boy experience.

The menu at Crabby Jack's is really one to be celebrated. Mom and I decided to split two small po-boys -- same overall amount of food, but twice as much variety. You really can't go wrong. Our first choice was the slow-roasted duck po-boy, a true specialty of Crabby Jack's that I haven't found anywhere else, but the girl ringing us up told us they were already sold out of it (and this was at lunchtime! The horrors). So we decided to get fried green tomatoes with shrimp remoulade and cochon de lait. Turns out cochon de lait is also sold out, so we stuck with half-and-half (fried shrimp, fried oyster).

We managed to find a seat, and if you've ever been to Crabby Jack's, you know that that is no easy task. The seating arrangement there is such that there's one looonnggg table in the middle of the room, a long countertop with barstools, and a couple of smaller tables. We snagged two spots at a smaller table and hungrily (HUNGRILY, as it was already 1 at this point) awaited our meal.

I had high hopes for the fried green tomatoes and shrimp remoulade. The tomatoes were fried in a very perfect batter, and I was perfectly content and excited by them. The shrimp, however, slightly disappointed me, but I think it was more due to the fact that I really was disoriented by the presence of something cold in a sandwich that is typically filled to the brim with juicy hot fried things. The remoulade sauce was pretty good, although it was more soupy and less spicy than I prefer. Ironically, the old standby of half-and-half ultimately stole the show. Crabby Jack's is famous for filling its sandwiches with so much seafood that you could make a whole sandwich with all the stuff that falls out of the bread. Hands cannot fully contain the immensity that lies within that lovely bread, which shatters at first nibble as any good po-boy bread should. I was more than happy to settle for nibbling on the straggling shrimp and oysters, though it's true that they could easily have comprised a sandwich for someone else.

All in all, it's a great po-boy joint. Like I've said before, every po-boy joint needs to have a hook, just as every college applicant needs to have a hook (can you tell I've been brainwashed by all my apps?). My hook is a love for chocolate and gastronomy that borders on the insane. Crabby Jack's' (is that grammatically correct?) hook is that their menu contains all the staples and throws in a few zingers to entertain a palate that might be growing bored. I am eagerly anticipating my next jaunt there -- Mom and I have already narrowed down our selections to three (roast beef, cochon de lait, slow-roasted duck) and are agonizing over which to ultimately eliminate.

P1 and other wonders

I've realized something recently. 99% of the time, when we decide to allot more attention, time, and effort to something, we burn out, get fed up, and become utterly exasperated with that which previously commanded our extra attention. It can happen with everything from schoolwork to relationships. Things just get old. But here I am, and I've started a food blog on a whim, and given that I'm a pretty driven girl, I'm devoting myself to maintaining this, if for no other reason than that it is hopefully preparing me for my career. Yet I haven't even begun to burn out. The reality of writing this has bolstered my initial interest, and it has lodged food into my permanent consciousness to the point where I deliberately seek out inspiration for my frequent little quips. Amen!

Moving on. For those of you who don't know, there's this incredible art biennial here in New Orleans called Prospect.1 (is that properly punctuated? I can't seem to ever get it right). There are literally artists from the world over using every medium you can dream of, displaying their art at tons and tons of venues across the city. It's a big deal. A darling family friend, David Buckingham, has his art over at the Universal Furniture Store. He uses found metal to craft these wild, fantastic, sometimes quite offensive wonders. This is what he has at P1 (from Pulp Fiction):

Anyway, at the CAC, there are these two sculptures of sorts made by Lee Bul. The first is this glorious, delightful, frivolous, borderline garish chandelier-esque structure, draped elaborately with glass and beads and chains that reflect light in every which way. Its framework is spirally and ornate, reminiscent of pirate ships or even a tiny metropolis, bedecked in jewels.

Opposite this ostentatious masterpiece is its counterpart, a hulking blackblackblack bunker. It looks like a miniature cave, with a molded fiberglass shell and rocky peaks. On its own, it's morbid and base and slightly confounding at first glance -- an abstract manifestation of the elephant in the room, this gargantuan behemoth that seems out of place on the mirrored floor of the gallery. Two things contradict this first impression, though: first, its simple juxtaposition with what we will refer to as the chandelier calls in a yin and yang perspective that helps add insight and intrigue. More importantly, though, is the realization that the bunker is more than something to look at. Walk inside, put on the headset, and whisper -- strike up a conversation -- break out in a spontaneous tap dance. Every slight sound that is captured in that cave is magnified by about a thousand times, so that even if you're restricting your noise to the most basic and quiet noises necessitated by life itself, you hear this uproarious, unnerving, discordant cacophony in the headset. It's just wild.

And, okay, so this is a food blog, not an art blog. I'm here to talk to you about dishes and techniques and chefs on whom I have crushes, not so much about sculptures and structures that have caught my eye. But all this build-up does, indeed, have a culinary purpose. Because in my later reflections on those two pieces, I felt that kind of singular, rare inspiration that makes you truly proud to find. The notion of that dichotomy captivated me, and I started dreaming up flavors that reflected a similar duality. Here's a short list of my inspiration thus far, the first item as the chandelier and the second as the bunker:
* Ebullient champagne / dark amber beer
* Fluffy vanilla meringue / dense, flourless chocolate cake
* Shaved hearts of palm with fresh lemon juice / warm, earthy beets (can you tell Lilette inspired this one?)
* Tangy, zingy, flaky-white ceviche / decadent grits and grillades
* Tart balsamic vinegar / velvety olive oil
* Mahony's ethereal onion rings / Mahony's roast beef po-boy with wine-y dark gravy
* Wasabi / roux
* Sorbet / foie gras
* Passionfruit / eggplant

Take the idea and run with it! Let me know if you have any whimsical ideas of your own.

Iberico bellota

So now I'm officially done with my last set of high school midterms and I've got an entire two weeks ahead of me to think about food. I'm hoping to visit Lilette, Herbsaint, Cochon, and Tony Angelo's over the break. Of course, the first is a favorite and the others are places I tragically have yet to taste. My very culinary aunt raves about Tony Angelo's frog legs. I'll be writing.

I was leafing through the January issue of Food & Wine, reading about food trends of 2009 and new restaurants to visit and great things to try cooking at home. As usual, it was all I could do not to eat off my hand. No kitchen is satisfactory to my obscure cravings after I see glimmering photos of new dishes like Mario Batali's Fusilli alla Crazy Bastard or after I read Lettie Teague's 2009 wine diary.

Anyway, St. James sounded fantastic for lunch with my mom -- to me, its spot in New Orleans' restaurant world is as that girl who just throws on an outfit and looks effortlessly, enviably cool. Its cheese assortment borders on the profound, the sandwiches are always elegantly divine in a very simple way, and the chutneys and spreads that line the walls for purchase are adorable in a terrifically sophisticated yet genuine and humble way.

I almost got the ploughman's lunch, which has an assortment of cheeses (cheddar, Stilton, and one other kind, which has not yet lodged itself in my memory since I have not yet eaten it), pate, and chutney. The problem was that, while it was everything I had been craving recently, it was not what I was craving right then. I stuck with a sandwich: turkey, tomato, avocado, basil, and a magnificent cheddar.

As we were paying, we saw a sign advertising a new shipment that had come to the store. It was called iberico bellota and a sample plate was eight dollars. We wondered, a sample plate? Almost ten dollars? What could this possibly be? As it turns out, it's the creme de la creme of ham, made of hogs who are fed only acorns for the duration of their lives at pasture. It's also $80 a pound. We considered: this is either horrifically indulgent or so supremely perfect that it's worth it. I decided we should have it. I am, after all, an aspiring food writer and should take every chance I get to dabble.

As it turns out, the latter of our expectations was the correct one. Oh. My. God. This ham was beyond compare. We got a simple white plate that bore four thin ribbons of this legendary iberico bellota. No oils, no garnishes, no trappings, just unadulterated meat too perfect to be tainted by anything but its own essence.



It's wonderfully oily in a totally organic way that isn't heavy at all. The acorns lend themselves to the flavor, which is nutty and earthy and briney and ever so slightly buttery. It tastes like salted caramel, and it's so velvety and impossibly rich that I'd snap it up as a dessert in an instant. This is not the type of ham to put on a sandwich. This isn't deli meat or something to fry up for breakfast. This is elemental ham, platonic ham, the form of ham. It's fantastic and worth every cent and, dare I say, reduces prosciutto to the level of Oscar Mayer.

Also, as a quick last note: yesterday, I took my dear friend E. Leigh to Gumbo Shop -- she was born and raised here, moved away after her dad got a job teaching at Clemson in South Carolina, and hasn't been back for a year and a half. The Gumbo Shop is the embodiment of food to which locals become accustomed but which is craved by the rest of the world after first taste. I got a small cup of seafood (meaning shrimp and crab) and okra gumbo, which duly came with rice and had an admirable, rich brown roux that was NEARLY as thick as cake batter. I also got alligator sausage, which was a special; I'd actually never tried alligator meat before (!). The dish came with two small sausages with a special, sweet-spicy side of something vaguely resembling creole mustard on the side. And the meat was sweet!

Looking forward

to a day of great food. Today is the second annual Po-Boy Fest over on Oak Street -- I didn't go last year since I heard about it too late, but apparently it is a bastion of every possible variation on the po-boy theme. I'm hoping the samples are small because I'm not sure how many different regular-size po-boys I could eat...

Then tonight I'm hosting a potluck! Those are always fun because they are an excuse to eat comfy simple food. I'm making spaghettini with garlic-infused olive oil, red pepper flakes, and mushrooms. Mmmm. Should be delightful.

ALSO: my first issue of Food & Wine came in the mail yesterday and I'm in the process of reading it cover to cover. It practically oozes fabulosity. I'm loving reading about the ten best restaurant dishes of 2008- each one is inspirational in its own right, although it's all I can do not to eat my hand. One of the dishes -- a lovely crawfish ravioli -- is actually from Bistro Daisy here in New Orleans. I guess I'll have to make it a point to go there sometime soon. I'm particularly enamored of the duck-fat fried chicken... who can possibly resist an upscale, clever take on a comfort-food classic? Now I just have to wait for the first issue of Gourmet to arrive before I can be truly immersed in love and hunger.

I can't help it

I have to put in one last word about the holiday macaroons that have been newly introduced at Sucre. I went to get my monthly fix of chocolate yesterday and picked up a box of eight macaroons while I was there because I just couldn't walk out. I got two each of the pistachio, strawberry, and hazelnut ones, which are staples, but what I simply can't get over are the triple-chocolate macaroons. The girl who was helping me accidentally broke one of the macaroons as she was putting it into my box, so I got to eat it right then and there. The cookieish outside is feathery and indescribably fragile; as soon as you bite in, the inside just explodes and it's this warm dark brown that's decadent and tastes exactly like brownie batter. I wish I was kidding. It's unbearably delicious. There are little cacao nibs as garnish that add to the adorableness factor (although they didn't add that much in the way of taste).

A few new chocolates have been added. I tried the pecan praline, which has a pecan-infused dark chocolate ganache and is itself a plain old square enrobed in dark chocolate, which was good but not great. The pistachio and passionfruit chocolates have been slightly changed -- they used to be rectangular and now they're taller, denser, more substantial squares. The grand coeur (a heart-shaped chocolate with a Triple Sec- and orange-infused ganache) and port (a dark chocolate bonbon in an intriguing but mildly frightening dark eggplant color) both caught my eye, but I wasn't in the mood to experiment. Next time I go, I'll pick up a grand coeur -- Giada de Laurentiis's show today featured a chocolate cake with hazelnut brittle and a garnish made of chocolate and orange zest... hopefully, Giada can train me out of my skittishness of that orange/chocolate combo.
My only disappointment? I was all ready to get five each of the passionfruit, gianduja crunch, bolivian palet d'or and avery when I discovered that their boxing has been revamped. If I wanted to pay the price I was used to paying ($30) for my usual medium-sized box, I could only get fifteen (rather than eighteen) chocolates -- they used to charge by weight, and now they have a flat price of $2 (steep even by my standards) per chocolate.

So I guess this'll be a lighter month... but at least I've got my macaroons to console me in my times of need. :]

An Ode to Sandwiches

For some unknown reason, I am always seized with this carnal craving for a very particular dish or food group whenever I am in after-school choir practice. There is no explaining it, but every week, without fail, it happens, and I'm nearly keeling over because I am so hellbent on finding a juicy pink steak, some mushroom pasta, or some tortellini. Today, the food group of choice -- or, more accurately, of involuntary spastic craving -- was cheese. Ask Elizabeth; I was spouting out "mozzarella sticks," "cheesy ravioli," and other such novelties between verses for the entire rehearsal.

But at the heart of the matter was a very simple but very pressing issue. I was a girl who needed a grilled cheese. And with that said, I have decided to compile a very sincere, very dedicated declaration of my love for the art of the sandwich. First off, were you aware that John Montagu, the fourth Earl of Sandwich, is credited with pioneering this delectable dish? (He didn't invent it, though; he was just a fond champion.) Wikipedia is such a joy.

Now:
La Divina's Il Tacchino panini -- I'm usually at this cute little place to get gelato (their crema di limon is like nothing else on this earth; it's exactly like a lemon icebox pie, and it's got a dreamy consistency), but every now and then, when I have company, I stick around for a sandwich and I'm never disappointed. The ciabatta bread is, well, ciabatta bread -- I'm not sure anyone has ever raved about plain old ciabatta, but it's certainly decent. Inside are thin-thin-thinly sliced smoked turkey, gorgeous avocado that is unfailingly green, diced red onions that are small enough to not overpower, and parmigiano reggiano cheese. I always ask for dijon mustard, because really, when can you go wrong with mustard on a sandwich?!

Sucre's sashimi tuna sandwich -- I actually haven't had this one in a little while so I'm having a hard time remembering the ingredients; I'm a foodie but not a cook, so I have a keen memory for finished products but very rarely pick out and remember particular flavors and ingredients. (I'm working on it!) Anyway, the sandwich is comprised of a soft kind of French bread that is the polar opposite of Leidenheimer's (it's firmer and moister, so it stays intact and dignified for the duration of your sandwich experience) but which lends itself nicely to the rest of the item. Then you've got strips of delicious, tender, perfect sashimi tuna enrobed in black sesame seeds, some sandwichy green vegetable garnishes, and a sensational but simple wasabi aioli that is mellow with a kick.

Camellia Grill's cheeseburger -- Hands down the best burger I've ever had. When I get married, I will bend over backwards to ensure that my wedding is catered with these things. They're just yummy slabs of plain ground beef, of a manageable but thoroughly satisfying thickness, cooked on that buttery Camellia grill until sizzling and served on the squishiest of squishy white hamburger buns. The best way to go is to get it dressed (mayonnaise is, for me, only okay when it's on a Camellia Grill burger); bonus points if you also ask for grilled onions, which are diced up and practically caramelized in the same butter in which the burger is cooked. Some might say this universal grill is brutish, but I think it's genius; I'm positive that the union of all the different items on that one cooktop makes for a sandwich that has subtle nuances and a pleasing sense of togetherness. I like my burger to have faint traces of fried egg in its flavor, and I like my onions to have faint traces of bacon grease or burger juice. Scrumptious.

Domilise's half-shrimp, half-oyster po-boy -- How can I possibly do justice to the way that bread crumbles at the slightest touch into a million tiny flakes? How can words possibly attest to the euphoria incited by that first bite into bread that is at once crunchy and soft? How can poetry possibly convey the glory of a single fried oyster bathed in Tabasco hot sauce? Enough said.

St. James Cheese Company's delicious concoction of salami, buffalo mozzarella, and pesto -- I haven't blogged about this place yet because I can't get over the mourning I have for my broken camera; I guess I haven't felt confident enough to do it justice in its own entry with words alone. St. James is really quite awe-inspiring the first time you go in; as the name suggests, it is a bastion of artisan cheeses -- every kind you can imagine -- as well as other cutesy little spreads and dips from all over the world. The lunches there are a favorite of my mom's and she's gotten me hooked, too; among the offerings are assortments of cheeses/pates/chutneys, gigantic salads, and a host of constantly changing sandwiches named after their respective starring cheeses. My favorite is toasted on thinly sliced ciabatta, with just a few slivers of this really hearty salami, fresh and splendidly white mozzarella that is melted to cover the entire sandwich in all its velvety goodness, and some good old-fashioned basilly walnutty pesto. The sandwich is aesthetically pleasing because contrary to so many other sandwiches you see these days, it is slender and easily fits into your mouth; with such strong and high-quality ingredients, there is absolutely no need for gross excess.

Lilette's pulled-pork sandwich with natural gravy -- I hesitated to mention this one because it hardly counts as a sandwich, what with its hedonistic extravagance and ostentatious flair. I decided to put it in because it fits the technical definition of a sandwich and because it nicely follows the prim tastefulness of St. James' creation. Pulled pork never loses its whimsy, in my mind; pulled anything is practically made for sandwiches, what with its easy biteability, and it absolutely doesn't get better than juicy, well-seasoned pork (unless PERHAPS we are talking about a very particular brisket). The natural gravy is creamy-silky, and it makes the sandwich as a whole utterly lavish, serving a purpose similar to that of icing on a cake. The fries on the side are not perfunctory, either, and they are worth poking around in any extra gravy you might have.

That's all for now because I'm a little swamped. Consider this a work in progress, and feel free to add your own input! I am always looking to expand my sandwich repertoire...

The best authentic rootsy French food I've ever had outside of France.

Eleanor mentioned today that she's having dinner with her parents tonight at Crepe Nanou. Could I be more jealous? Probably not. Crepe Nanou is this adorable little joint with a cozy bar up front and small, candlelit tables. The lighting is dark and moody. They take no reservations, but it is such a well-loved little place that you usually see groups of people huddled outside a few minutes before opening time in hopes of snagging seats before the dinner rush.

Anyway... now I am sitting here pining for a bowl of their perfectly herbed and delectably warm mussels, or one of their many tasty and creative crepes, or a fantastic dessert crepe that is positively oozing chocolate fudginess. Save me now.

Mahony's Po-Boys

One would think we'd have set some sort of quota for po-boy restaurants in this city. There's Domilise's, Crabby Jack's, Guy's, Magazine Street Po-Boys, Mother's... those are just the first few that come to mind, and I guarantee you we've got more abounding in every pore of this city. That said, I was a little surprised when a new place called Mahony's opened on Magazine a few blocks off Louisiana Avenue. It seems just a tad superfluous, but I guess the philosophy is that you can never have enough Leidenheimer's bread and fried oysters in a city like this one...

With that said, it's fairly implicit that each of these subway meccas must find its own hook, its own tagline, its own claim to fame. I would imagine that this has been easier for some than for others. Mother's and Domilise's, for example, are just permanent fixtures, and we love them as much for their decadent roast beef po-boys or interminably long lunch lines as we do for their familiarity. But for the places that aren't older than God and have had to work to win locals' respect, one fact is of the utmost importance: New Orleans will find justification to eat a po-boy just about anytime. So, even though Magazine Street Po-Boy is by no means remarkable, I eat there because it's just a few blocks from school. Guy's has a grilled shrimp po-boy, which is fairly rare. I'm sure you get my drift. Both places have earned special places in my heart because they have certain assets, insignificant or imperative, that set them apart.

Luckily, Mahony's has a few things to its advantage. The ambiance is casual and (as one would expect of any self-respecting po-boy establishment) exactingly no-frills, with old football memorabilia decorating the walls and a video game machine. Unlike some other dearly beloved locales, it's welcomingly and abundantly spacious, with simple chairs and simple tables scattered throughout several rooms and a big bar up front where you can sit and chat with the very friendly hostess/bartender/waiter. There are two front doors, each decorated with its own charming "In" our "Out" sign. Nobody really questions the fact that, sure, the "Out" door can, in fact, be entered from the outside. Mostly, people are reverent of the doors' designations.

Then there's the menu. Ironically, this is important, and that's coming from someone who is loath to eat anything other than a half-shrimp, half-oyster po-boy, no matter where I am. Mahony's menu is generous and diverse, with the old staples as well as some new additions. Most notable are the onion rings. They're not the most substantial things I've ever seen (as substance goes, I think College Inn on Carrollton takes the cake with its giant juicy rings of thickly sliced onion); rather, they're shredded like cole slaw or like the lettuce you get on a burger. This makes the ratio of fried batter to onion inordinately and extraordinarily high, and while I nibbled on them, I realized how perfect it would be to stick some on with my po-boy. It was sheer bliss- like a whole new level of onions on sandwiches. For that alone, I recommend Mahony's, though the po-boy was good enough on its own that the sandwich joint managed to weasel its way into a corner of my heart...

Things I have eaten lately

-A really awful peanut butter and honey sandwich. I woke up on Spirit Day to find that our entire bread loaf was moldy, so I had to resort to getting two slices from the cafeteria at 8 in the morning. I stored them, uncovered, in my locker, and by the time I took them out at lunchtime, they were crusty and dry. Exacerbating the situation was the fact that I had to use the handle of a plastic fork to spread the peanut butter. It was poorly distributed and wretched.

-Some delectable leftovers from a lunch Mom had at St. James Cheese Company: prosciutto, buffalo mozzarella, the smallest little tomatoes I've ever seen (grape? no. cherry? no. I'd say... blueberry tomatoes. wait, those don't exist), pesto... mmm. Can't get enough.

-A ROAST! With mashed potatoes. Nothing like comfort food.

-PJ's has started carrying sunrise muffins. They're deep and dark (must be molasses-y) with carrots and raisins and (I think) coconuts mixed into the batter. Presumably lots of brown sugar. The top is crunchy. Delicious.

-Some special Moroccan Mint tea that Sean got for me at this lounge near his apartment. It's so perfectly sensuous with all kinds of layers of flavor wrapped up into a single tea bag.

-Oh, and gooey just-baked chocolate chip cookies... or someone's leftover flourless chocolate birthday cake (which, by the way, is really just sneaky fudge in the shape of a cake). Jealous?

Ode to Appetizers

Well, hello, it's been a while. Mainly because I've been borderline nomadic and haven't dabbled in many culinary wonders of late. HOWEVER, this weekend... everything changed.
You see, my best friend flew in from college, and in doing so unleashed as much of an extravaganza as could be fit into the course of 24 hours.

First:
Surrey's- breakfast for them, "lunch" for me (I had previously devoured a CC's chocolate chunk cookie, which, by the way, is sent directly from Jesus to us). I haven't gone to Surrey's much because it's on Magazine Street way down where it turns one way. For some reason, this repels me; presumably because it's one way the wrong way when coming from my house? So psychologically, I reason that the restaurant doesn't want me to come. Every time I'm there, though, my heart breaks a little. It was there that I enjoyed the greatest bowl of shrimp and grits I have ever, ever encountered, and it was there this past weekend that I devoured a fabulously perfect Cuban beef sandwich, comprised of realllly really tender beef, ham, Muenster cheese, and dill pickles that tasted homemade. All on sourdough. Need I say more? It was juicy.

Then:
My monthly venture into Sucre- six each of the Gianduja Crunch, Avery, and Bolivian Palet D'Or, plus two Passionfruit for the road. The guy who was ordering before me seemed to be waffling and amateurish. I didn't let him go before insisting that he try the Gianduja Crunch. Other moments: Joel, who works there, surveyed my selection and said, "Ooh, that's gonna be a good box." I explained to him that I knew what I was doing; in fact, I wrote my college essay on this, such is my expertise. He shook my hand and snuck me a free tasting of macaroons -- two pistachio, two strawberry. I had one of each yesterday, and I now know NEVER to pass them up again (I was previously a bit wary of their colors and went straight for the chocolate-hazelnut ones instead). Sucre macaroons melt in your mouth; they retain a perfect gooiness redolent of chocolate chip cookies straight out of the oven. I'm not sure if this is an accurate representation of the Idea of the Macaroon, but whatever it is, it's AMAZING. I'm going to get every color of the rainbow next time I'm in.
Before I left, Joel introduced me to Tariq Hanna, Sucre's chocolate chef, and explained that I had written the essay that might determine my future gushing over his creations. Then... the man KISSED MY HAND. My hand has been kissed by the genius of Sucre. It was a major watershed.

Last:
Baru- A veritable deluge of tapas! And oh, what amazing inventions they are. After all, why would you limit yourself to the steak entree when you can order 10 tapas with three friends and enjoy a bit of all of them? Every time I am at Baru, I am struck by how obsolete the idea of traditional dining is nowadays. All I have left to say on this subject is that the Mazorca -- a plating of smoky roasted corn, Salao cheese (a farmer's cheese), "pink sauce" (a sort of tomato aioli), and potato sticks (imagine whisper-thin crunchy potato fries) -- will save my life. That, and I want to devote my entire life to the ceviche there. It's superb.

A picture of me basking in the glory of my Cuban sandwich will be up as soon as I get it from Jenna.

Maple Street Cafe

I had dinner Friday night at Maple Street Cafe, a cute restaurant uptown in the Riverbend vicinity. I remember picking up dinner from there and eating it for dinner from way back when I was a little kid, and even though I hadn't been there in an awfully long time, it's a fixture in the neighborhood and seems to have an inherent feeling of familiarity and warmth that lends a lot to the atmosphere of the restaurant. All of the tables are in one room, and everyone there seems to be in good company, talking and laughing and eating and connecting. There isn't an ounce of pretension, noise levels are perfect, and while the degree of frilly luxury stops with the fancily-folded napkins, it really just works.

I am a firm believer in bread at restaurants. It's a quick and simple way to exponentially up the feeling that you're being served -- it's just an added bonus that, in my opinion, sets the distinction between a great meal out and a great meal at home. This bread was crusty and rustic in all the right ways, with teeny morsels of garlic (but not too much at all) baked in. The butter was to die for. I wish I knew what they put in it. It was both sweet and savory and turned into this succulent melting yellowness on the warmth of the bread. To start, Mom got a Caesar salad, which, quite frankly, I hated. With something like a Caesar, it's all about getting the details right, since there's so little room for creativity. I found the dressing tangy -- cloyingly so -- and the consistency was off.

Nonetheless, dinner itself was scrumptious. Mom got mussels in a really fresh red sauce that offset the mussels nicely and made us both wish for more bread. I got a pasta dish that just really epitomized everything I look for in a pasta dish. It consisted of angel hair pasta in butter and olive oil. There was a generous amount of three different kinds of wild mushrooms. The best part, though, was the crushed red pepper, which was invisible but which really added the kick that was necessary to take a dish from simple comfort food to quintessential delightfulness. Truthfully, the only downside was the service, but all in all, we left the restaurant content and excited to see The Funky Meters playing for Tulane's homecoming weekend.

I went ahead and bought a box of 19 chocolates

in celebration of my completed college essay on the famed Sucre.
Here's a picture:


The green ones are a white chocolate ganache with Sicilian pistachio, vanilla, and a dash of cinnamon + a dark chocolate couverture.
The fleur de lis is the Meuniere -- dark chocolate on the outside, brown butter and vanilla on the inside.
The shinyish square (shiny for a reason; it's edible glitter!) is chicory coffee with a really soft creamy dark rich core.
The plain dark chocolate square in the lower right corner is the Bolivian Palet d'Or -- perfect simplicity -- "bittersweet chocolate ganache made from the rarest Bolivian cacao bean."
The triangular chocolates with flecks on top have a really satisfying density, and they're made with hazelnut gianduja, crispy wafer, and caramelized cacao nibs. (!!!)
The purple ones are Paris, my love; dark chocolate couverture, white chocolate ganache infused with tea, orange, and vanilla notes.
The red is Earl Gray. Straightforward? Yes. lovely, too.
Yellow is passionfruit -- in light of this blog! I have been saving it so I can't say yet how it tastes. It'll be blissful, to be sure.
Last but definitely not least (quite the contrary, in fact): the Avery. God has indeed manifested himself. Caramel + dark milk ganache with salt from the Avery Salt Mines, all wrapped up in a delicious dark chocolate blanket.



This isn't my actual box, but as I've so sickeningly reiterated, my camera got smashed so sometimes I have to resort to photos stolen from the Internet. Hm at least this will do justice to the excellent verdancy of the box.

harrumph

Yes, Cameron

I will marry you. I was wondering when you'd ask.



...not food-related at all, but we just watched Ferris Bueller's Day Off and I was far too overcome to not publicly accept his proposal.

For dinner, we had a veritable smorgasbord of nostalgic New Orleanian food (even though technically we now know that we should all be home in a few days): Langenstein's red beans, which I sometimes (but only sometimes, in all fairness, because I am a waxing diabetic and consequently favor my sweets a bit more) believe to be better than ice cream. Also present was some delicious chicken and andouille gumbo, which was so delectable and so perfectly seasoned and so singularly New Orleans, and which inspired musings on the delightful shreddedness of the chicken (which happens naturally when you cook it down long enough; it's actually so so so comforting and not at all repelling). For dessert were stuffed green bell peppers (and I don't even really like green bell peppers)- this stuffing? It's like nothing I could've fathomed before. You know the sheer incomprehensibility of the universe, because humans have never experienced anything to which we can liken it? It's kind of like that.

Oh, and Grace and I did go on an *EMERGENCY* run earlier to the grocery store when we were seized with cravings for Ben & Jerry's. It all started when she imparted to me the gorgeous secret that is Chubby Hubby. Thank God she was wrong when she said it was discontinued, because where else can you find chocolate-covered, peanut-butter-stuffed pretzels in ice cream? Nowhere, I tell you. Nowhere.

P.S. Rum raisin ice cream is officially for old people only.

Diversion at its finest

As excerpted from a Chris Rose article about the one, the only Jazz Fest:
Every day, I walk in the Fair Grounds with a stock and steady plan and a vow to follow it. And maybe I'll catch Susan Cowsill as scheduled at 11:20 Friday but then it will all fall apart, it always does.

At some point, I will hear some horn blowing out of a tent and say to myself: Don't look. You're supposed to be on your way to Big Sam's Funky Nation at 2:15 in Congo Square and it's already 2:25 (I have synchronized my cell phone to Gentilly Mean Time) but you're passing the WWOZ Jazz Tent and you hear James Rivers paying his bagpipe and who can resist a bagpipe?

So maybe you'll stop for just a second -- JUST FOR A SECOND -- and, well, might as well grab a beer and sit down and hey, look, there's your best friend from college, visiting from Chicago and one thing happens and then another and pretty soon it's 6:30 and you missed every act you came to see but saw five acts you'd never even heard of before and danced in the Gospel Tent with some crazy old lady with an umbrella and there's only one way to pronounce the day: glorious.

This is the time of year when music falls from the sky like rain in New Orleans; just open your window and let it fall in.

There's music everywhere, busting out of the French Quarter, Wednesday in the Square, Voodoo, Essence, everything else giving this town a special pulse, a steady beat, the rhythms of life, energy and vitality that make you scratch your head when you read in faraway journals and periodicals that this town is dead and gone.

Well, if that's the case, you can just bury my heart in Congo Square.

Yeah, I'm missing New Orleans. This afternoon, I've been doing everything humanly possible to find focuses other than the obvious weather channel, which is a bit too morbid at times for an idealist like me. So it's ironic, I guess, that I've finally attained this distraction by none other than steeping myself in all things NOLA-related, particularly the inimitable Chris Rose (my personal favorite NOLA crusader). Here's what I'm loving right at this moment:

Then, this past Tuesday, I was in a little grocery by Tulane University and a young student from the university asked me: "What's your opinion of the hurricane?"
He asked me, I suppose, because I was 30 years older than anyone else in the joint, thereby exuding, strictly by process of Darwinian elimination, a greater store of wisdom than anyone else present.
"My opinion?" I asked, while gratuitously scratching my chin in ponderous repose. "My opinion is that I am against it," I said, and then walked out of the store.

Nothing like Chris Rose's caustic sense of humor (and, yes, the smell of homemade bread wafting from a schizoid, eccentric breadmaker) to soothe my mind -- or, at the very least, to tinge the imminent disaster a slightly brighter shade of dark and gloomy.
New Orleans, my heart is with you.

A while back,

I went for a mother-daughter double date with my best friend to a beloved restaurant with which you'll quickly become acquainted if you have any plans of reading these blogs even just fairly religiously: Lilette. The ambiance is that of a clean, happening Parisian bistro; the feeling is very clean -- the main restaurant is one big room, tiled, a former drugstore from the 1800s. Whenever we go, we sit in rich cream leather booths. At this particular dinner, Jenna serendipitously discovered that even the tables are cushioned at the bottom -- a nice little luxury for diners' knees was the only purpose we came up with.



I mention this occasion because it's among the best, most memorable meals I've ever had. All four of us had made up our minds for both appetizer and entree (after a good deal of agonizing, I might add) when the waiter came to us and elaborated on the specials. Our previous reassurance was shot to hell: how could we possibly pass up a Kobe beef New York strip with diced roasted potatoes and flash-fried gremolada? Remaining buoyant, my mom piped up with the solution to all our problems. "This might sound appalling and piggish," she said diplomatically to the waiter, "but we'll start with the Kobe, cooked however the chef would have it, with four plates, please." And then we went on our merry, meal-ordering-as-usual way.

The steak was phenomenal, cut in impossibly thin strips that divided perfectly between the four of us, but the potatoes, too, were not to be outdone (which is saying a lot when they were alongside Kobe beef): delicately, perfectly crisp on the outside and flaky yet creamy on the inside. Altogether, not too much, not too little -- just a perfect amuse-bouche, we all agreed.

My appetizer salad of shaved fresh Hawaiian hearts of palm with parmigiano reggiano, lemon juice and olive oil was nothing short of gorgeous in its simplicity; each bite was a multi-faceted little gift- tart, smooth, hearty, and fruity, in perfect succession. Mom's chilled corn soup with crab and avocado bucked every ounce of my skepticism with its comforting/novel/summery-fresh hybrid of inspiration- I'm sure there's a psalm written about it somewhere. Holly got sweet-and-sticky fried short ribs with a lime-ginger vinaigrette that stole the show (though in truth, there weren't enough short ribs for me to take what most normal humans would consider a "bite," so my assessment may not be fair). And, of course, Jenna got the classic grilled beet salad that I've only recently been able to quit: dense, sweet, rich purple beets, grilled and served in a little puddle of olive oil with walnuts, mouth-watering goat cheese, and a few chives for kicks. What it lacks in originality, I can assure you it boasts in angel-chorus-caliber heavenliness.


But truly (and if you know me, you could've predicted this), the lifeline of this post is surely the Alaskan king crab claws, which come in a pool of none other than the passionfruit butter that inspired this blog in the first place (if you could've heard the gleeful squawking that ensued after my first bites of this dish, you'd understand -- but I'm jumping ahead). As someone who always likes a challenge, I took well to the crab, which was truly a labor of love, as a tiny fork was my only tool of defense against the rock-hard shell that encased the crumbling, velvety, snowy-white meat. To the enchantment of my tablemates, I intrepidly approached that crab with full intention to extract every last morsel -- and I did. Though my obsessive nature triggered this spree, I quickly reaped the benefits, as each little bite that I postponed was bathed in that delightful delicacy that is Chef John Harris's rendition of passionfruit butter. Needless to say, the minute I was sure that both claws had been thoroughly drained, I shamelessly devoured my meal, torn between wanting to share this newfound bliss with those loved ones around me and wanting to hoard it selfishly in the realm of my own shallow bowl. So as those around me delighted in roasted chicken breast with balsamic-glazed onions, mushroom vinaigrette, and only the most delicate outer leaves of baby brussel sprouts, my crab and I loved with a love that was more than love, with a love that the winged seraphs of heaven coveted it and me...

Good things come in small, wax-paper envelopes...

We decided yesterday afternoon to evacuate early for Tropical Storm Gustav -- worst case scenario, we beat the evacuation traffic and aren't on the road for 10 hours like we were during Katrina; best case scenario, we've got a four- or five-day holiday.

Now, we've been approaching this optimistically, but we all know what happened to Candide and his optimism... so as a survival mechanism, perhaps, we decided to make our last meal in the city count. Why not? Looking back on the days before Katrina, my fondest memory (not that there are many) is that of coincidentally taking the streetcar down to the legendary Camellia Grill for cheeseburgers, waffles, and chocolate freezes, not knowing we'd wake up early the next morning in a frenzied rush to pack the bags and get out.

With that said, before we got on I-10, we took a short detour to Bud's Broiler. Not even the thickest, most gourmet burger ever to be made can truly compare to the burgers at Bud's: thinly sliced, charcoal broiled, and impossibly juicy. They're redolent of a hybrid between backyard barbecue nostalgia and flat-out nirvana... and don't even get me started on the smoked sauce, which is phenomenal on burgers but honestly, it could probably be phenomenal on an ice cream sundae. Use it in lieu of ketchup on fries -- you get just a little closer to enlightenment.
Needless to say, after a quick meal of #4 with smoked sauce and diced onions, not an ounce of trepidation or fear remained in us as we left the city for what we knew would just be a long Labor Day weekend.