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.

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.

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...

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.

MAX BRENNER: CREATING A NEW CHOCOLATE CULTURE.

First snippet of groundbreaking news: upon entering this restaurant, I knew that I could only achieve salvation if I converted my religion to Brennerism. I have seen the light.
Second snippet: I actually managed to attend lunch here with someone who owned a working camera -- finally, I get to post photos of my own (or at least Margo's)!

So here goes the deluge of photos. Prepare yo'self.
As soon as you walk into Max Brenner, here is what you see: a large glass case of beautiful chocolates and truffles arranged aesthetically on printed trays; decadent gift boxes the size of a beagle and filled to the brim with chocolate novelties; a sign on the wall that proclaims "VERY MUCH CHOCOLATE"; a gigantic vat -- like a narrow, deep kiddie pool -- filled with melted milk chocolate and connected to an intricate framework of dark brown pipes. The pipes are this color because, of course!, they are filled with 100% chocolate, and they transport the chocolate you see at the front of the restaurant up through a tangled nest of pipes under the ceiling and back into the kitchen. Take note:

T-shirts for sale in the boutique up front:

One of the many kinds of artisan chocolates for sale:

Believe it or not, though, Max Brenner has more to offer than just plain, straight-up chocolate. So upon sitting down at our table, we were handed giant glossy lunch menus. To drink, each of us essentially decided that any hope of being nutritionally conscious was shot to hell, so we each chose one of Mr. Brenner's many variations on the classic hot chocolate (Andrew got toffee, I got hazelnut, Tess got spicy Mexican, and Margo got mocha). These came in heartbreakingly adorable "Hug Mugs," which are ergonomically designed for optimum holding capacity (imagine a teardrop-shaped mug that fits perfectly in one's cupped hands, thus creating both a cozy sense of euphoria as well as allowing the warmth of the mug to travel to your hands. Genius!).
To eat, Tess got a smoked salmon sandwich on some luscious-looking poppyseed-and-what-have-you bread; Margo got a perfect omelette that came with roasted potatoes, hollandaise sauce, and (why not?) chocolate sauce (in case it occurs to you that an omelette or potatoes might be even better with some rich milk chocolate -- it occurred to Margo, and boy was she happy!). Andrew and I split a smoked turkey/mushroom crepe and a bowl of the most perfect penne carbonara I have ever had. This includes all the carbonara we ate in France, and God only knows how many different kinds we tried while we were there.

But, of course, it's always a good idea to save the best for last, so after thoroughly sating ourselves with the savory stuff, we were ready to usher in the sweets. The final verdict? We all decided to split two desserts: the banana split waffle and the intense double chocolate fudge cake. The waffles were topped with fresh bananas, melted chocolate sauce, and candied hazelnut bits, served with fresh berries, vanilla ice cream, and a cute little beaker of MORE chocolate sauce. The fudge cake was dense, dark, moist and succulent, filled with the kind of dark chocolate lava you could drown in. This, too, was served with fresh berries, ice cream, and an extra beaker of chocolate sauce.

Here's a close-up on the cake:

In case you were wondering, the chocolate sauce in the beakers was warm and oozey enough to be chugged, as such:

Mmmm... I'm not embarrassed in the least bit. In fact, I embraced it so wholly and so lovingly that I felt inclined to spread it all. over. my face... but I'll spare you the picture of what Margo calls my Dali-stash, considering I do need to get into college. Explicit as the photo isn't, I do have to set boundaries somewhere. Here we are, eating away (sorry you're excluded, Margo; I guess you were being the photographer? So at the very least I'll give you due credit for that):

Here I am, quite obviously enjoying myself to no end:

And the damage:


At long last, when our stomachs were happily but uncomfortably full and our faces were becoming exhausted due to the inordinate amount of laughing we had done over the course of the meal, our suave waiter handed us the check -- and at Max Brenner's, not even the usual black leather folder is good enough to encase such a thing. No, our check came inside of a tin box that looked strangely like a box of chocolates. So as per usual, I painstakingly agonized over the check, giving everyone an accurate-to-the-cent (I'm only slightly OCD, actually) amount of what they owed...
...and as though I wasn't left COMPLETELY ecstatic by my marvelous meal, hot chocolate, and entirely over-the-top desserts, the waiter dropped by with one last thing. He handed me a small plastic container full of -- guess -- CHOCOLATE. Beautiful, hand-cut slices of the very milk chocolate that Max Brenner liquified into his god-like creations. "A gift for the freak," he muttered under his breath as he turned to get back to his other tables -- a reference, probably, to the fact that, before he could even give dessert menus to the rest of the table, I enthusiastically extracted my own tattered, printed copy from my purse. "It just makes me so happy that I always carry it around," I explained. So, YES, my lunch experience was capped off by a personal gift from (let's hope) Max himself to me. You must understand, this kind of miracle doesn't happen everyday.

So that was that, and after paying the check, we ventured back out into the torrential downpour for a jaunt into the Virgin Megastore to leaf through inappropriate books and a quick outside tour of the Met Opera. Good day? I seem to think so.