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.

My Coleslaw

The food processor of my childhood was large, loud, possibly rickety, and a washed out 70s-style plastic color. I only remember it being used for vinegary coleslaw, which my family brought to every summer cookout. My two-week old, stainless steel and black Cuisanart 14-cupper slashes vegetables in seconds and cries out for more. I've been happy to oblige by making two batches of gazpacho since my kitchen warrior arrived.

My gazpacho tastes real good, but doesn't photograph well.

Gazpacho is my ideal summer soup -- in the dead heat, it takes less energy than a salad to eat, cools you off, and fills you with vegetables. I also like that every time I eat it, it tastes a little different, both in my kitchen (too much garlic the first time, too little tomato juice the second), and at every restaurant that I've ordered it (red, yellow or green bell peppers, consistency, sour cream or not, crab or shrimp or not and so on).

My favorite gazpacho, which I realized today I've been eating for over half my life, is served at G&M Cafe in downtown Charleston. I remember it being chunky and cucumbery, but now that I've made my own, I expect to have a different description after I visit there next month.

I think gazpacho is a mood food -- when you make it, its taste and texture are affected by your state of mind, the time you have, and your tastebuds for the day. Not in the mood to have garlic breath? Halve the amount in your recipe and grind in extra pepper. If you're in a hurry and you put too many bell peppers in the food processor, the ones on the bottom will over-puree while the ones on top will be too chunky. It still tastes good though.

After a few more batches of gazpacho, I think I'll continue on exploring my new machine with different ingredients that require other blades. Gazpacho though, is destined to become my coleslaw.

When I researched recipes online, I knew I wanted a pretty basic one that I could doctor. Click here for the one I've been using.

Recipe: Gazpacho

Gazpacho
(Original recipe, in blue, by Ina Garten and published on FoodNetwork.com)

I like to use this recipe as a base, and double it each time I make it. It's not that much more work for a lot more soup. Who wants to cook much in this heat anyway?! To double it, sometimes I still use one cucumber, but more than double the peppers and tomatoes, or some combination of those ingredients. Next time, I'm going to go heavier on the cukes.

Ingredients:
1 hothouse cucumber, halved and seeded, but not peeled
I disagree, don't waste the seeds! Any kind of cucumber will do.

2 red bell peppers, cored and seeded
I like to mix it up, with yellow or orange along with the red.

4 plum tomatoes
Next time, I want to use heirlooms, but all tomatoes work. Get whatever's freshest.

1 red onion
I think a whole onion is a whole lotta onion and from now on I'll only do 3/4 of one when doubling. Red onions are so flavorful, but so strong. Get your onion goggles at the ready!

3 garlic cloves, minced
The amount of onion or garlic you use depends on your mood, or possibly the company you'll be keeping. After eating gazpacho three days in a row last week, I got very tired of having garlic breath, and I spend most days alone!

23 ounces tomato juice (3 cups)
If doubling, you likely only need 5. I've noticed the vegetables absorb some of the tomato juice after they soup has sat for a while, but 6 cups seem like too much juice.

1/4 cup white wine vinegar
Double to your taste.

1/4 cup good olive oil

1/2 tablespoon kosher salt
Just sprinkle in a little, no need to measure. I prefer to use less salt, more pepper.

1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
No need to measure, just grind it in. Lately I've been using multi-colored pepper in everything.

Instructions:
Roughly chop the cucumbers, bell peppers, tomatoes, and red onions into 1-inch cubes. Put each vegetable separately into a food processor fitted with a steel blade and pulse until it is coarsely chopped. Do not overprocess!
The 1-inch cube part is a little overprecise, just get them chopped, roughly, as best you can. She isn't being hyperbolic with her exclamation point though -- if you want a pureed soup, fine, pulse away, but if you want texture, you gotta watch it.

After each vegetable is processed, combine them in a large bowl and add the garlic, tomato juice, vinegar, olive oil, salt, and pepper. Mix well and chill before serving. The longer gazpacho sits, the more the flavors develop.
As you process the different vegetables, the bowl you pour them into will begin to look like art. I like to add lime juice as well. It's okay if you don't have time to let it sit. I like to top mine with a little low-fat sour cream and a slice of lime.