Month: February 2019

Mansurs came straight from the Mike Anderson’s coaching tree just like Juban’s, The Chimes, Parrain’s, and Roberto’s. I never worked at Mansurs, but I worked with Bert and Tommy at Mike’s and met Tim Kringle when they asked me to help open and run La Mesa, a shortlived concept that played out in the old Dax building on Bennington. La Mesa was a bit overpriced and ahead of its time since we were bringing Southwestern to BR in the form of an exhibition mesquite grill like I used to work at the Fish Company in Santa Monica. Had some really great dishes there thanks to Tim. He could come in in the morning and blow out a screaming cream soup in an hour. We had a duck chili, fajita’s, hamburgers, a whole range of fresh grilled fish. None of that sounds outside the lines now, but it pushed boundaries back then. A lot of folks will shy away from Mansurs because of the white table cloths and formal service and everything else that screams money, money, money but really, it’s not that expensive. It is true that you can spend a whole bunch of money there and it is a nice place to do so, but you don’t have to. For instance, this warm duck salad with bleu cheese crumbles, pecans, and dried cherries over baby spinach with a rosemary raspberry vinaigrette is only fourteen bucks.

And it comes with fresh bread and butter. Got to love a place that starts you off with hot bread and real butter.

The server did reel off an impressive list of their Here Today Gone Tomorrow fresh fish including speckled trout, halibut, and snapper along with their famous planked redfish. The execution at Mansurs is flawless so you can trust them to cook your fish correctly. Obviously that’s not the case everywhere. If you are going to claim to be fine dining and charge for it, you have to produce. They do. They also innovate with some interesting dishes you aren’t going to find anywhere else. They own Dixie Bleus Asparagus Spears (their name, not mine–I’d just call it fried fresh asparagus and let it go)–take a look.

Look close at this picture of half shell oysters below and you will see one of the things that separates Mansurs and makes it truly old school. They serve the oysters on ice, which is the correct way of doing it and a lot of people don’t want to do it that way because ice melts and reveals the fact that your oysters have been sitting there too long waiting for someone to take them out to you. The ramekins for cocktail sauce and horseradish are stainless steel not plastic If you will notice in the pictures above, the butter has it’s on little ceramic dish, no plastic. The bleu cheese sauce with the Dixie Bleus Asparagus Spears in in a stainless ramekin with a little baby stainless spoon to help you drizzle it over your asparagus if you’re sharing the dish and don’t want to double dip. Also note that the ramekin of horseradish is full. No one will use that much horseradish on a half dozen raw oysters, but everyone who orders it is free to do so, and ask for more to be brought to the table.

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Fine dining really means full service, no short cuts. The servers have long aprons and carry crumb knives. They run through all the specials and answer questions. And the place is designed for guests to linger and relax and enjoy rather than having the server run your check out to you before you’ve finished the entree and never asking if you want coffee or dessert. Corporate joints are all about turnover.

I think you owe it yourself to do a lunch or two here, and you probably owe a dinner here to a loved one. And the menu is designed so that the really expensive dishes are built by adding toppings like sautéed jumbo lump crabmeat or hitting the wine list hard. You can go deep or check down, your call, and that, I think, is the true beauty of Mansurs. It’s your call.

So I took my baby bok choy and shiitake and shallots in a decidedly eastern direction, making sushi rice and marinating cucumbers in sesame oil to create a kind of donburi effect. For the sushi rice I did a two to three mix of rice and water in my rice maker and added a sprinkle of bonita flakes and a splash of rice vinegar. I cut the cucumber into sticks and hit it with sesame oil and shook it all up before setting it in the fridge to mature. Once the rice was done, I started the bok choy and shallots and shiitakes in the wok with a little garlic olive oil and some sesame oil with pink Himalayan salt and Chinese five spice and some white pepper. Finished everything with Kikkoman Sushi and Sashimi soy sauce. Came out great.

I ended up with a bit left over so I picked up a few U10 scallops from Fresh Market and grilled them to get another meal.

Got the mushrooms from the Maggie’s Mushrooms booth at the Red Stick Farmer’s Market downtown. They had some bok choy there as well, but they were too big for what I needed so I picked that up at Whole Foods instead. Starting to think about a mushroom soup using a variety of Maggie’s Mushrooms. She has Lion’s Mane and King Trumpets and several varieties of oyster mushrooms as well as the shiitakes.

Just a quick review of a series I think most Louisiana natives will really enjoy. You don’t have to be a Francophile to appreciate how much influence French country cooking has had on our cuisine. Walker’s protagonist Bruno loves food and cooking and hunting truffles and good wine and how all of these things are tightly woven into the fabric of his small town in the Perigord region of southern France. The author also manages to weave past and present French history together as Bruno pursues the truth in current cases that are rooted in events from World War II to Sarajevo to today. Very few people write as well about cooking as Walker. When Bruno goes out to his garden for salad ingredients while a stock is cooking down or he’s gathering eggs for omelets while he lets the wine breathe, you feel like you are there with him and having a really good time. There are currently fourteen novels in the series and several short stories. I highly recommend the journey. I also recommend you take your time and savor this tale. No need to hurry through, as you really won’t want the story to end.

Not sure if the Sur la Table binge was triggered by today’s funeral, or if I would have seen this new Provence collection and gone nuts anyway. And anyway, does it matter? How much time do we waste every day trying to untangle our own motivations like we’re trying to solve a made for television crime? If the therapist isn’t right there, what’s the point? But they are related, if only distantly. We were mourning a woman I met when she was a kid and her parents had hired me to work at The Gumbo Place on Chimes Street. Or I should say right off Chimes Street where Highland Coffees is now. I remember popping the top on a can of PBR every shift before I punched in. Those days were wild. The Library and the Bayou were right down the street. Magoo’s was there for awhile, but the Chimes came later on. I lost touch with most of the Gumbo Place crowd a long time ago, but recently became Facebook friends with another daughter who was older then and didn’t hang around the restaurant but was off making waves of her own. She played Angel From Montgomery at the funeral. She played it wonderfully, and I let loose a few tears while she played. Her family made a tremendous impact on my life. My first restaurant job washing pots. Where I learned to de-bone a chicken, make jambalaya, find that quiet place inside during the rush where everything slows down and you can blow out plates and sandwiches at an incredible rate. Restaurant peeps will get it. You learn things in that first gig that never go away. Every job leaves its mark in some way. The Gumbo Place definitely taught me that work can and should be a fun thing. A thing you believe in. A thing you look forward to.

How the hell can a person go to work in the morning
And come home in the evening and have nothing to say?

Goodbye Cathy.

A while back, before I got sick, I felt like my weight had gotten out of hand, so I talked to my GP about surgery and he swiftly pointed me to a nutritionist instead. Listening to her, it didn’t take me long to realize that most of what we know about food and eating and dieting serves corporate interests only. Even the food pyramid in elementary school was corrupted by sponsors. So I took what she said seriously and it helped, both before and after cancer and cancer treatment. And now whenever I see the scale register a few pounds too many, I fall back on her advice. She steered me away from sugars, starches, and carbs and told me that every meal should be built on protein and fiber in my case, with a little fat (preferably already in the meat, but a little real butter or extra virgin olive oil would work too) just to make it all work together once you get it inside you. It is so easy to slide back into breads and pastas, rice and potatoes, cake and cookies–but walking away will help immediately, kind of like when you were in college and took a week or two off from drinking beer when the belly started to overhang the belt. I’ve got some prep shots here, along with some finished product shots. The one sheet pan or steamer pan meals are quick and healthy, but you do have to know what you’re doing to pull them off because you are applying the same amount of heat to everything on or in the pan for the same amount of time. That means everything has to be the same density or cut in such a way that everything cooks in the same amount of time. Not everyone’s game. Upstairs is a shot of a grilled filet (barely grilled in my case) with sautéed spinach and half a salted grapefruit. Lean and mean. And a go to for me.

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And here are a few after the magic shots.

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Now I know a lot of people are addicted to the McRibs style of cooking pork ribs, low and slow, dressed in a thick Lea & Perrins, orange and pineapple juice paste and dusted in Italian seasoning, salt and pepper with maybe a bit of local honey to finish, foil wrapped and baked at 300 for two hours then finished on the grill with your favorite barbecue sauce and I understand. Used to do them that way myself, But now I like to just remove the silverskin from the bone side, wipe them down with olive oil and Lea & Perrins then hit them with a one to one to one mix of garlic salt, garlic powder, and onion powder followed by Zatarain’s and black pepper before sliding them in a four hundred degree oven uncovered for an hour. All that is because my aim now is not McRib fall off the bone sweet and tender, but perfect pork roast on a stick that I can chew on while watching football on tv. And if I have any ribs left the next morning Voila! ramen. With a lot of carb loaded noodles. You can only stay so good for so long.

Some might argue that there’s a better pizza in town than Fleur de Lis’ Roman style, but they are certain to be shouted down by everyone else in the room. This might be the oldest restaurant in BR, and they certainly don’t pretend not to be totally old school. I couldn’t find any Patti Paige on the juke box, and I guess the old digger drag line finally fell apart because it’s gone as well. But there is still plenty of old vintage signage to go with the old tunes and the classic pizza pie to keep the mood the same as ever inside. And it is so hard to beat a six ounce coke in a glass bottle.

I think the thing that really separates this pizza from everyone else is how they totally stuff the pie with toppings and use just enough red sauce so you don’t forget it’s a pizza and whatever the perfect amount of cheese is–they know it and do it. Now don’t cuss or get drunk when you go. They don’t have any tolerance at all for that kind of behavior. And like everyone else in the business they prefer cash money. I’m not saying there aren’t other really good pizzas to be had in town, but if you’ve got a friend in from out of town (especially one that used to live here a long time ago), this is the place that just screams Baton Rouge Louisiana.

J: Glad you got a good report. Catfish and spinach, yum. Here’s a dish David made for Sunday night. It was roasted eggplant (over a nice fire), lentils, and some veggies topped with sour cream—really good. He admitted a little snobbery when it came to using a recipe but he is letting that go and getting excited about actually following some recipes. Of course after he made the dish he listed all the stuff he wouldn’t repeat or do the way they did it–ha. Me personally, I am just thrilled that he loves to cook and am so happy to be the recipient of whatever he makes. That camera takes good food pics.

Me: Yes, yes it does take good pictures and I am very happy David is giving you such great things to photograph. All cooks struggle with recipes I think. How much of this do I want to use? Should I follow it exactly? (especially baked goods) But I like to think of recipes as ideas or suggestions rather than instructions. I like the way I do things, but I know other people can and will take dishes in different directions and I applaud that. And collaboration is a whole lot of fun. And I’m thinking now of that tapas party we had up there at your place when I visited last year.

Now this isn’t a hack at Parrain’s; it’s menued there as a half and half, tails and étouffée platter, but you can get one anywhere that has both fried crawfish tails and crawfish étouffée just by asking. I know a lot of places say no substitutions please! all over their menus, but if you have the urge for something you don’t see, it doesn’t hurt to ask. Sometimes you will be blown off because it’s busy, but weeknights and weekday lunches you should be able to get what you want. One thing I’ve never seen on a menu anywhere in BR is a small crawfish étouffée paired with six fried shrimp. And that is one of my favorite meals. You see fried catfish topped with étouffée at a lot of different places, but even if you don’t, you can ask for a large étouffée , add two catfish fillets please. Worth a shot. Same thing holds if you want to juice up your seafood gumbo by adding a few fried oysters to it. And you can always come up with a combo meal of your own by ordering a cup of soup and an appetizer and ask that they come to the table at the same time like, I’d like a cup of your seafood gumbo and an order of crabfingers please, and could you put them on the same plate? Thanks. Same thing with kids meals like a kid’s shrimp or catfish. Add a soup or salad or appetizer to it and they will waive the only kids under 12 restriction. And don’t be afraid to get creative and ask for something no one has ever ordered before. I got a lot of funny looks at the Chimes when I asked for fried alligator with rice and gravy, but they complied and it looked and tasted great. So go for it. All they can do is say no, and if they do, it’s not like you ever have to go back to that place again.

I couldn’t find any pictures of Mickey’s on the net so I subbed this one of a menu cover idea I was playing with. Bayou Sara Seafood is as real as Mickey’s now that Mickey’s has been closed for twenty odd years. But this is a good example of how restaurants can stay with us long after they are dead and gone. Mickey’s was one of Sue’s favorite places and we would go there a lot back in my undergrad days at LSU. Rumor has it that the place was brought down by cocaine and gambling, but that is always the rumor about restaurants that didn’t make the turn of the century in BR. The steaks were very good and reasonably priced and the Crabmeat Imperial was superb. Lump crabmeat, a little mayo and sour cream with green onions, baked and served in a seashell shaped ceramic dish. For some reason, whenever I think of my time with Sue, I remember Mickey’s Gold Nugget, the Gumbo Place (where we both worked at one point) and this one midnight at the old oak in City Park where she was late to the party and came drifting in out of the fog wearing an off-white muslin sundress. I’d never seen anything as beautiful before that moment, So I do believe that restaurants are a part of the fabric of who we are and who we remember ourselves to be. When you go out to eat with someone it is so much more than what you order and how they prepare it. There is atmosphere, there is romance, there is history and the future as well as being happy right now, in the moment. Happy enough for it to resonate years later. Here’s a couple more Soji shots I took the other night when a bunch of us got together for dinner and catching up and back in the day tales.

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Light of My Life

Kissing her the first time

on the levee, fireworks

reflect on the river below—

I know I’ve lost a friend.

Coppertone and sweet olive

a breeze that brushes like a kiss

were it not for this need, so urgent

we could wander hand in hand

through time, through misery

and happy history, but no,

we will love and lose it all

The Nydia

It is hereby an obligation and provision

of this will that my boat The Nydia

and her spars shall be carefully preserved

by Tulane University for at least 99 years.

                                        Albert Baldwin Wood

Who can explain the ghost of self

that walks with a man through his past?

Were he beside me here before his boat,

could Albert Wood tell me how it felt

to die at sea, hand on the tiller, sun low

on the haze of sea and sky together

where it seems an island is always

trying to press itself into existence?

Would he tamp a pipe, smile

the watery half smile of the very old,

and say nothing, nod his head as if

he had said everything?

The leaves have turned in the courtyard,

swept away from the black stone walks

to mulch the beds of ferns beneath the walls.

An old man fitted me for my first pair

of eyeglasses, the veins in his nose

startlingly clear through some lenses,

blurred and distant through others—

He kept repeating Which is better,

this, or this? Simple enough in theory—

He told me should I lose my glasses

in the woods to put a small hole in a leaf,

look through that aperture and I should

be able to see my way clear of the woods.

That would be the question I should pose

to the ghost of Albert Wood, Was it like that?

Sharp pain, here, then gone, the world reduced

to a pin prick and then . . and then . .

But why should he, being dead, suddenly learn

to remember perfectly even the most important

of the many events of his life? Could I,

come upon my younger self the same day

I first wore my eyeglasses then say to him

I remember this as if it were yesterday,

each leaf in each tree separate and distinct

Could I tell him what he ate for lunch,

or who he thought he was in love with?

I can smell leaves burning near here,

and I wish Albert Wood could be with me

even if we had nothing to say to one another.

I could admire him for any reason I wished,

or detest his astounding vanity—

Maybe share the peace of a good smoke

against the damp chill of October—

Which is better, this, or this?

Had to pick up a package at the UPS store so I stopped in here for the first time ever. One of those places you keep looking at when you drive by but never get around to stopping, until today. It’s a fast prep line setup like so many fresh casual places these days with a hot and cold table and servers to take your order and assembly line it down to the cashier so you can add what you want and they don’t have to read a ticket. They’ve got some pre-set selections as well as the build your own options. I got the Knockout Taco three pack and I wouldn’t have bothered saying anything about the place except the pulled pork was all that. The other tacos were good, fresh ingredients, sharp flavors, but the pork stood out. Makes me want to hit it again and try a pork burrito or quesadilla. Oh, and they did have Mexican cokes for sale.