Food to Look Forward To

It's late and I'm a tad hungry, so I had a few slices of pre-bed sharp cheddar cheese (it's one of the items on the oft-published list of things that are "OK" to eat if you're hungry before bed). Maybe a list of meals I'm looking forward to in the next month will also help quiet my noisy stomach. Or, it may lead to the need for more cheese...

-Tomorrow morning, I'll wake up with my revered solitary cup of coffee at the kitchen table. I'll likely eat half a carton of low-fat cottage cheese, and a chocolate GNU bar. The fall sun streaming in the windows is so lovely this time of year.

-My first order of BBQ shrimp at Pascal's Manale later this week with Jon and my Dad. They are said to be sautéed with a ton of butter, served swimming in even more, with garlic and pepper.

-Central Grocery sandwiches thick with layers of meat, cheese, and the best olive salad you've never imagined, then powdery beignets with my Dad (no cafe au lait for him, he's never had a taste for coffee), and a walk and sit along the Mississippi. My maternal great-grandfather peddled his wares, some of which I have in my house here, up the river. When I gaze out at that dirty, historic body of constant water, I marvel that my Jersey-boy husband's job brought me to the region where half of my family began.

-Attending our first New Orleans oyster roast next weekend. I'm on such an oyster kick! I went to many roasts while growing up in Charleston.

-The freshest sushi at Hana; muddy local oysters at Casamento's; perspiring plastic cups of pina coladas as we dally along the river; much-longed for girl-bonding; and a lesson on making baba ghanoush when Alesa is in town. Maybe we should view Parker Posey's "Party Girl" at the same time, in homage to her character's crush on the falafel cart guy.

-A date night with Jon that includes walking to our first meal at La Crepe Nanou, "go-cups" of peppery red wine in hand (each other's hand in the other, of course!). Maybe the Crêpe Ecrevisse (sautéed crawfish tails in lobster sauce served with potatoes) to start, and Crêpe Marrons (coffee ice cream, chestnut cream and rum flambé) to finish.

-Appetizers and the view of St. Charles at The Columns, more oysters, a grand lunch at Commander's Palace, complete with 25¢ martinis, and learning a slew of Shiritaki noodle dishes when Nicky's in town.

-A BYOB bottle of red, or maybe bubbly, a huge charcuterie plate, and lots of guffaws, outside on the patio of St. James Cheese Company; her first po-boy, possibly at Johnny's; and a sampling of the best of the Bloody's (there are so damn many good Bloody Mary's to choose from in this city!) when Liz is in town.

-Sunshine-filled meals of freshly caught fish needing little preparation, spicy conch chowder, spinach-like callaloo (it's been too many years since I've eaten it) and mouth-puckering, citric ceviche, on Jon's and my tropical Thanksgiving weekend second honeymoon.

As I stretch off the couch and head to bed now, I'll pass through the kitchen and set the coffee maker's timer to put this list in motion as quickly as possible. Good Night!

Photo by Shayne Leslie Figueroa; Rue de John Restaurant; February 29, 2008, the night before my wedding.

Summer Basil

Each year during the month of May, I visit a garden or plant something, like cat grass or flowers, in memory of my Mom, Eve, who died of breast cancer in 1994. Both her birthday, which sometimes falls on Mother's Day, and the anniversary of her death, are in May. Depending on the year, and how softly the late spring breezes blow, this cluster of important days can be a blessing or a curse; a white wine spritzer of nostalgia, or a heavily brandied red sangria of memory overload.

When I was caught up in the whirlwind of wedding planning earlier this year, I definitely identified more with the latter, but my wedding actually allowed me to celebrate my Mom in a way that a 15-year-old cannot. Feeling much lighter than in Mays past, this season, I planted a bright basil garden on my new front steps. Not much a gardener or cook herself, I think she would have been quite bemused by my results.

I decided to use two faux metal tubs and basic soil. I planted way too many packets of everything, and not exactly in rows like the instructions said. It took just a few days for the first basil sprouts to rear their bright green leaves. When the basil was first growing, I'd take my morning coffee to the porch and tend to the babies. Unlike other things I've attempted to grow, I knew that if my basil flourished, I'd be able to cook with it daily, and save money on herbs for the summer.

This picture is hazy due to the early morning New Orleans steam. The pink planter contains my Genovese, a very standard basil. The blue has lemon basil, which smells like fresh lemon zest when you rub it.

The exuberant, puddle-jumping, hello-world-I-hear-you-singing-your-summer-song thundershowers of June made me, and the plants, happy and tall in no time (er, not me with the tall). I got into the habit of throwing open my front doors and going out on my porch to watch the rain pool, cascade, and funnel on the sidewalk and street, all the while thankful to know that our neighborhood didn't flood during Katrina. I'd fuss with the positions of the tubs, or turn them each half a rotation. Southern air is never more bursting with possibilities than at the end of a summer afternoon storm.

For my first pinch back, or trim, which was a direction straight from the seed packet, I had to look up "pinch-back" online. Now I'm a pinching pro. (Sometimes I get a little overzealous, but it's so satisfactory!).

Unfortunately a basil disease, which was a combination of bug bites and a white veiny je ne sais quoi came on in July and August, as the plants grew wider and taller. I often pinched them back and sprayed them with an organic bug spray, which helped a little. The lemon basil suffered worse than the Genovese.

I admit, fighting the basil disease was a little more effort than I wanted to expend on something that was supposed to bring me pleasure, but such is life. There were a few days where I ignored the basil completely, but it usually rebounded with some loving tending and a strong sprinkle from the watering can.

Every time I picked the basil to use for a meal, I marveled over it: "I planted this! I tended this! I picked this! I washed and dried and chopped this! And it smells and tastes brilliant."

For eggs, pasta, rice, toast, hashbrowns, or anything else that might sound better with basil, my home-rolled basil butter was the only butter in our house this summer.

One homemade, pan-grilled, juicy rare skirt steak with basil butter for me, please!

The ultimate basil dish was the culmination of all my watering, pesticide-spraying, tending, pinching, singing, scolding, dreaming, talking, and thinking -- fresh summer pesto from my very own basil. I actually don't even love the richness of pesto, but I thoroughly enjoyed making and eating it.

In spite of my basil disease, I had just enough to yield a cup of flavorful, bright pesto, which we found many uses for over the next few days.

The pesto over these store-bought ravioli, filled with gorgonzola and red wine, was particularly good. I put the tomatoes in the bowl cold, which was a mistake -- I should've oven-roasted them for an hour or so. Next summer I will roast away, though only in the evening, when the oven's warmth won't act as a counter to the air conditioning.

This wasn't the best-crafted sandwich, but you get the point. I had hoped to make one more pesto, to impress the in-laws on their first visit to New Orleans (especially since they gave me the Cuisanart), but Hurricane Gustav foiled my plans. When we evacuated, the bright tubs were shoved into our backyard shed so as not to become flying basil saucers of destruction in the hurricane winds. When we arrived home after Gustav passed, I took a moment to mourn before Jon dumped the dry plants and soil in the trash can. It's okay though; the in-laws' rescheduled trip now falls at a time when my basil would've been out of season anyway.

Each year I hold my breath in May, and exhale a sigh of relief when June begins. Next May, the anticipation of fresh dirt under my nails and the smell of fresh basil on my cutting board should allow me to breathe easier. I'm think I'll also try my hand at growing mint, and instead of white wine spritzers and heavy sangria, I'll muddle and drink a New Orleans classic -- a mint julep.

Powdered Courage

One recent morning, I went to Cafe Du Monde for a classic New Orleans breakfast of cafe au lait and beignets.

It was barely 7 a.m. when I arrived, and the outside tables had yet to be put out. I sat inside and watched the waitresses bring tray upon tray of warm beignets and steaming coffee to the other customers. I hadn't had a beignet since before I moved to New Orleans, and the heavily powdered fried dough dumplings were better than I remembered. Cakey, yet light, beautifully golden brown, and sweet. I was careful that each bite had ample powdered sugar.

I've mostly been drinking Cafe du Monde's chicory coffee since I moved here. Chicory is actually endive root, and I find that it adds another layer of flavor to coffee. I might also be partial to it because there was a Cafe du Monde mug in the cabinet of my childhood home, bought on a trip my parents took many years ago. It's in my home now.

After I polished off the last bite of sweet dough, I headed over to finish my coffee on a bench facing the Mississippi River, which looked quite beautiful at that hour in spite of the recent oil spill. Or maybe because of it. Many people tell me New Orleans is like a dirtier Charleston. I think that's part of its charm.

I Scream for Creole Cream Cheese Ice Cream

You can now read my Creole Creamery story here.
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It's the dead of summer, which means it's time again for me to write an ice cream story. Last summer I wrote about an album of ice cream truck songs and took my initial stance that ice cream should be one word. Wouldn't the world be simpler if we all ate icecream? Alas, not much progress to report on that front.

This season I've written a story about Creole Creamery, my favorite around-the-corner caloric haven, for New Orleans' new Second Line News. The shop's flavors, from Red Velvet Cake to Creole Cream Cheese to Pop Rouge (see article), tell the story of New Orleans' culinary history. Though I've yet to see a roux-flavored ice cream in their dairy case, I wouldn't be at all surprised if one was in the works.

Photo courtesy of www.foodite.com.

When I placed my first order at Creole Creamery last September, I knew the shop was going to become an important culinary spot for me, for simple pleasures and moments yet unimagined. It's neither a chain (no watery ice cream of my youth here!), nor is it pretentious -- it's just a shop that genuinely wants to serve great ice cream at a fair price. By doing exactly that, it captures the magic of childhood (Cotton Candy or Bubble Bear ice cream), the pleasures of adulthood (Butterscotch Bourbon or Wedding Cake Champagne ice cream), and the joy of sharing good food (I enjoy flavors from both age groups), all in one scoop.

Here are some choice quotes and interesting bits from my interview with owner David Bergeron that didn't make it into the story.

~“Peppermint is our most requested flavor and our most difficult to make because we have to individually smash wrapped peppermints with a hammer.” Apparently the soft kind that they like to use only comes individually wrapped.

~On the recent cinnamon and bacon flavor, “That’s one of those flavors that 95% of the people don’t like and some of them are offended that we’d make it, but the 5% who do like it are really enthusiastic.” This flavor reminds me of Vosges Chocolate's phenomenal milk chocolate bar with Alder wood smoked salt and pieces of applewood-smoked bacon.

~Bergeron tells the story of a less popular flavor with lemon, basil, garlic, and butter. When it didn’t sell well, they put it in the back freezer but one customer kept coming for it. Finally they asked her what she was doing with it, and it turned out she was taking it home, reducing it on the stove, and serving it over pasta!

~Of the Tchoupitoulas Challenge (CHOP-it-TOO-luhs, is a local street that runs along the Mississippi), Bergeron says, "Don't do it. It's a bad idea. The success rate is 5% and the get sick rate is 90%." He wishes he could take it off the menu, but it's an institution. The challenge: eat eight scoops with eight toppings, whipped cream and cherries; the reward: your name on a plaque at the front of the store. I'm considering it...

~"There's a whole group of people who don't even know what they [classic New Orleans flavors like Pop Rouge and Nectar] are anymore and it's up to me to educate the masses," he jokes. To me, his words are the gospel.

Oysters for Two, Home for Me

Tea for two old friends.

There's nothing like an old friend -- someone who represents a mobile version of home, who knew you when, who can give advice or call you out based on a memory from before you were in double digits. Dana and I met in elementary school. When she helped throw my wedding shower at Alice's Tea Cup last fall, she reminded me of a long-forgotten fancy birthday tea I hosted in middle school. Some things really don't change. But it's good and necessary for culinary tastes, and friendships, to evolve over the years, and I can track the growth of our friendship through the meals we've shared. In both friendship and food, for years to come we'll continue to discover new similarities (one birthday she tasted the truffle salt she gave me, then bought herself some too), and differences (for years I wrongly assumed that she also likes black licorice).

The mustard-crusted Saturday night salmon special at East West Bistro in Athens, Ga. was extremely flavorful, with just the right tang and texture giving way to silky fish. Or at least that's how I remember it. It was 1997 and Dana was visiting during my freshman year at the University of Georgia. While I'm not sure what else we did that weekend, I do remember our surprise when we ordered the same exact thing at every meal -- and so began our routine of ordering meals together.

One of the best days I ever had in New York was a weekday joy ride during my first summer there. We overspent on champagne grapes and other gourmet fruit at Dean & Deluca in SoHo, then rode the Staten Island Ferry back and forth. Later that afternoon, our very first cell phones, which coincidentally matched, had bad reception as we walked through Battery Park and she told me it was because of the heavy cloud cover. I believed her. We saw Sam Shepard's True West, then took a cab to the still on the cusp Meatpacking District for drinks at the now-closed wine bar, Rhone, which was owned by the uncle of a kid we each used to babysit for. Then we shared curried mussels in herb cream sauce at the Belgian brasserie Markt (which has since moved to East Chelsea). This was before I fully grasped the reality of having a credit card, and before the Meatpacking District turned into a grownup version of Disney World. After Dana left, New York began to feel like home.

Eight years later, Dana and I are having drinks at The Columns Hotel in New Orleans. When she arrived from Pittsburgh a few hours ago, we dropped off her bags and walked the few blocks from my house, along the grand, romantic, oak-lined, bead-bedecked St. Charles Avenue. It's the main Mardi Gras route, and beads hang year-round from the trees. We sit on the handsome white porch that faces St. Charles and decide what to share. The crowd during this Tuesday cocktail hour is tourists and baby boomers. "Louis Malle's Pretty Baby with Brooke Shields was filmed here," I say like someone who's actually seen the movie. (It's now in my Netflix queue, right behind A Streetcar Named Desire.)

Dana drinks her first Pimm's Cup; Pimm's is a gin-based liquor that's typically stirred with seltzer, lemonade, and a cucumber stick. It's somewhat like a liquored up iced tea and very refreshing. No one bar in New Orleans makes it the same as another. I'm in the mood for something stiffer and order a Sazerac, a classic New Orleans cocktail with rye whiskey, bitters, and typically Herbsaint, an anise-flavored liquor. I learn something new when it comes to the table -- Dana won't take even a sip, she doesn't like the smell. A few days later, when I discover that she doesn't like licorice, I put two and two together.

After we order, she tells me things I don't remember about my wedding, and we talk about the death of an old friend's father and wonder about the state of theater in New Orleans. She tells me one of her friends said she couldn't imagine living here post-storm, and describes the way her friend pictures the city. I'm angry and saddened by this, because I know her friend is both wrong and right. From our vantage point the city couldn't look better, but at a condemned housing project a few minutes away, pictures still hang on walls that residents weren't allowed to return to.

The crabcakes are rich, lightly breaded, and unlike many a crabcake in my lifetime, taste like crab. We soak up every glop of the creamy, tangy remoulade sauce. The Oysters Rockefeller come not in the shell as expected, but as a luscious oyster casserole layered with spinach, parmesan and breadcrumbs. Dana orders another Pimm's, I switch to a Mint Julep.

Feeling gleeful and still a little hungry, we take our respective first rides on the St. Charles Streetcar, a somewhat reliable form of public transportation that goes from the French Quarter through the Garden District, to the Tulane and Loyola campuses and back. It was a very big deal this past winter when it started running for the first time post-Katrina. We get off near Tulane to go to a bar called, for better or worse, Cooter Brown's, which has perfectly spiced Bloody Mary's and large local oysters on the half shell. We split a couple dozen, which at $5 for 6 oysters is less than our Bloody Mary tally, then teeter back to the streetcar. The humid, lightly flowered, tepid air that hits my face as we ride back to the house reminds me of childhood. I reach for Dana's hand.

Inside, I have the urge to make coffee -- I need to sober up a little before bed. This is a new, more adult drinking ritual for me, instead of the old, skip brushing teeth and fall into bed, spinning one. "I'm going to make coffee, you want?" I yell to Dana from the kitchen. "If you are!" she says. "Did I really need to ask?" I mumble to the walls of my new home as I grab a second mug.