What the place I’m about to link you to is like, but I do have some thoughts about it based on the name. One of those thoughts is that if you are located in the United States and the name of your establishment includes “public house,” then you’re probably douchebag central.
As you were.
I received an email this morning from a fellow with Pilgrim Studios, the folks behind reality shows like American Chopper, Top Shot, Ghost Hunters, Swamp Loggers, and others. I can’t say I’ve ever seen any of those shows apart from a few 20 second clips on the Soup, but that’s not a judgment on my part. The email I received involves the search for a… aw just read it:
PRODUCERS SEEKING CHARISMATIC NEW ORLEANS CHEF OR FOODIE FOR HIS OWN DATING SHOW
Are you a chef, restaurateur, foodie or gourmet who is ready to find the love of his life? Pilgrim Studios (www.pilgrimstudios.com) is looking for a single, attractive and charming culinary enthusiast to be our featured bachelor on a new, unscripted show for a major cable network.
If chosen, you will be featured on your own series and have the opportunity to date a select group of amazing women who share your love for great food and the culinary arts. You MUST have a strong background in cuisine (food writers and connoisseurs welcome as well!), and be the kind of man who thinks that there’s nothing sexier than a woman who can cook her way into your heart.
If this sounds like you, and you’re ready to make spectacular meals with the perfect woman, then contact producers TODAY! Email CulinaryBachelor@gmail.com with your name, age, location, a recent photo and a brief description of why you’d be perfect for this show.
Deadline to submit is November 9, 2011! Producers are waiting to hear from you NOW!
Anyway, if you’re interested, the email address to which you should direct your efforts is above.
Via the New York Times, which has become the object of my derision more than normally lately, I learned that you can now buy pre-formed parchment bags for cooking en papillote. The company, suspiciously, is Canadian, but at $3.99 for 10 bags it’s not outrageous. You could probably make 30 similarly-sized bags from a roll of parchment paper that costs a buck less, but that assumes you have hands and know how to use them, and who can assume that these days?
I started writing this post to make the point that if you can’t make a bag out of parchment paper, then you probably shouldn’t be cooking en papillote, but I found myself entranced by one of the comments on the product at Amazon.com. See if you’re not equally spellbound:
I LOVE THESE PARCHMENT BAGS!!! Brilliant, fabulous!! Simply fantastic shortcut for cooking. I saw them at the Fancy Food show, I got a few samples there thanks to the generous staff present, then, I cooked several things at home with the parchment bags. Fish is fabulous, vegetables luscious, and chicken comes out lovely. From what I have learned, they are a FANTASTIC SHORTCUT!! You don’t need any liquid to add, just aromatic herbs — fresh ones work the best, a little olive oil, salt and pepper. Then, pop the pack into a hot oven, and you have a lovely, fast, meal — and cleanup is just throwing out the paper!!! It just doesn’t get better. WIth three kids, a hungry husband, a job and more, these paper bags are now my favorite new cooking tools. THANK YOU FOR MAKING THEM!! Thanks for selling them on amazon.com.
Oh, I forgot — THE HOUSE DOES NOT SMELL OF FISH WHEN I USE THE BAG!!!!!
THE HOUSE DOES NOT SMELL OF FISH!!! IT DOES NOT SMELL OF FISH!!! PREVIOUSLY, MY HOUSE SMELLED OF FISH, BUT NOW THAT I AM USING THESE PAPER BAGS, MY HOUSE NO LONGER SMELLS OF FISH!!!! DEAR GOD THANK YOU THE SMELL OF FISH IS GONE!!!!!
I don’t want to suggest that comment was left by someone who also happens to have an ownership interest in the company that produces those bags. No, that’s a lie. I desperately want to believe that the person who left that comment either has a financial interest in PaperChef, or has children being held hostage by the owners of PaperChef. Because if that’s just some random customer? Oh dear.
Though who am I to criticize a woman who has found a way to rid her house of the fishy smell that previously dominated? Would I, in similar circumstances, not also be so grateful as to TYPE IN ALL CAPITAL LETTERS AND ADD EXTRANEOUS EXCLAMATION POINTS!!!! ? What I want to know is what the fuck this woman was doing to make her house smell of fish in the first place? Was someone forcing her to cook fish? Was the cod mafia all up in her shit? Does her kitchen window open onto a river where spawning salmon, crazed with lust, jump periodically into her cupboards, to remain hidden until they rot?
Clearly I should feel pity for this woman. Though perhaps not as sorry as I feel for the other commenter at Amazon:
These bags work ok; but don’t put too much liquid ingredients in them, or they fall apart at the seems. I made some baked fish in a white wine sauce and it was just too much liquid for the bag.
I believe that comment argues in favor of my point that if you can’t fucking make a bag out of parchment paper, perhaps you shouldn’t be cooking en papillote?
“I used to run a restaurant in Santa Fe, N.M., another far-flung spot for an oyster to show up. We garnered quite a bit of fame for the fried-oyster sandwiches we served at lunch. The reasons for their much-deserved success: the plump fellows were coated in flour and egg, rolled in soft bread crumbs and shallow-fried in clarified butter until crisp and golden. To this day, it’s really the only way I like to cook them. ”
The above quote is from the increasingly hilarious New York Times food section. David Tanis, whom I’m sure is a fine chef, should probably pontificate on things other than the best way to fry an oyster.
Perhaps that’s just me.
This Sunday, July 10, there will be a benefit for Nathanial Zimet at the Howlin’ Wolf. Nathanial is the chef-owner of Boucherie and Cue Crawl, (better known as the big purple truck,) and he was shot on May 22 during an attempted robbery. He faces a difficult recovery made even more trying by his lack of health insurance. Nathanial is a talented chef, but more significantly he’s a great guy. He has regularly participated in fundraisers and is a staunch supporter of New Orleans. I think it’s extremely important that we show guys like Nathanial our support in return.
Although my participation has been pretty minimal, I’m a part of the auction committee for the benefit. I’ll be there volunteering, and I hope to see you at either the Patron Party (5-9) or the Night Owl Benefit (9-?). The Patron Party features live and silent auctions, an open bar, and food from participating restaurants, including La Petite Grocery, Three Muses, Iris, Patois, Crescent Pie & Sausage Co., Martinique Bistro, Lilette, Dante’s Kitchen, St. James Cheese Co., Satsuma, Le Foret, Cafe Rani, Brightsen’s, Charlie’s Seafood, Link Restaurant Group, Joel’s Catering, Cure, Dante’s Kitchen, The Green Goddess, Melissa’s Fine Pastries, Zea, August, Luke, Domenica, Ralph Brennan Restaurant Group, River Shack Tavern, Oak Crest Mansion, Kajun Kettle Foods, Tracey’s, and Pal’s Lounge. The later event will have some fantastic live music, a cash bar, and more food.
Whether you know Nathanial or not, this is going to be a hell of a good time, people. If you can’t make it to the event, please consider a donation. Hopefully I’ve copied the code necessary to put the paypal button up correctly here:
In the event that doesn’t work, you can go to The benefit website to donate or purchase tickets.
Finally, if you have the means, please publicize the event. The more folks we have there, the more we can do for Nathanial.
I thought I’d written about this event somewhere, but it appears I was mistaken. To correct the oversight, please see the press release I received recently:
The Taste Buds Host LiuzzaPalooza 2011 to Benefit Michael Bordelon’s Recovery
All Proceeds Will Help Offset Medical Costs for Liuzza’s Co-owner
NEW ORLEANS, LA (May 2011) – In early February, Liuzza’s co-owner, Michael Bordelon, was hit by a drunk driver while on his way home from work. He miraculously survived the accident, but sustained a traumatic brain injury putting him in a coma for a week and in the hospital for more than a month. To help offset Bordelon’s rising medical costs as he continues his recovery, The Taste Buds present LiuzzaPalooza 2011 on Sunday, May 15 from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. at 3636 Bienville Street, across from Liuzza’s Mid-City location.
Additional event sponsors include the Louisiana Seafood Promotion Board, the Louisiana Hospitality Foundation, Ghost Riders Pictures and Gary Reggio [designer].
LiuzzaPalooza 2011 will include a live cooking stage hosted by The Taste Buds with educational cooking demonstrations featuring guest chefs highlighting recipes that use Louisiana seafood. Additionally, popular musical artists such as Rockin’ Dopsie, Paul Varisco & The Milestones featuring Luther Kent and Gideon & the Chimney Sweeps will perform on the live music stage. Food vendors will serve some of their most popular dishes from restaurants throughout the city for $5. Participating restaurants include Acme Oyster House, Broussard’s, Deanie’s Seafood in Bucktown, Drago’s Seafood Restaurant, Café Giovanni, Galatoire’s Restaurant, La Divina Gelateria, Liuzza’s Restaurant & Bar, Lucky Dog, Lüke, Mr. B’s, Mr. Mudbug, Pier 424, Ritz-Carlton, Ruth’s Chris Steak House and Squeal Bar-B-Q.
“New Orleanians are known for coming together to overcome great tragedies and this is no exception,” said Greg Reggio, chef and co-founder of Taste Buds, Inc. “The Taste Buds are proud to be a part of LiuzzaPalooza 2011 because it is not only a testament to how strong our community is, but to how we work together with our friends and neighbors to overcome adversity.”
Entrance into LiuzzaPalooza is $5 and free for kids under 12 with all proceeds including food and beverage sales going to Bordelon’s family to help pay for his medical bills. For more information on LiuzzaPalooza 2011 or to donate, please visit www.liuzzapalooza.org or contact Greg Reggio with The Taste Buds at gregreggio@liuzzapalooza.org or 504-931-4734. For more information on The Taste Buds, please visit www.thetastebuds.com.
The Taste Buds, Hans Limberg, Gary Darling, and Greg Reggio, are the guys behind Semolina and Zea, and they are involved in a lot of work like this. They, and all of the folks participating in this benefit, deserve a lot of credit. If you can help, please do.
This has got to be a joke, yes? There are so many things wrong with that piece that I don’t really know where to start. Here is, as best I can decipher it, the recipe the author suggests as the start of what will be a three-day meal. Remember that this is intended as advice on how to stretch your budget when you are “broke-ass”:
1 “roaster” chicken
Milk (whole) to cover the chicken by 3/4 in a dutch oven
Peeled garlic cloves
1/2 cup olive oil
Herbs and spices
The juice and zest of 3 lemons
Some kind of bulk grainPreheat your oven to 350
Put the whole chicken in a dutch oven and cover by 3/4 with whole milk. Add the olive oil, garlic cloves, herbs and spices, and lemon juice and zest. Cover and bake for 1 hour. Add the grain and continue to cook in the oven for 30 minutes.
Remove the chicken from the pot and take the meat from the bones, adding it back to the pot with the “some kind of bulk grain”. Reserve the chicken bones to make stock.
Congratulations, you have just made Chicken with Curds, Whey and Indeterminate Fucking Grains. It is going to be vile, though you may actually be able to salvage the meat from the chicken. You will not, however, be able to do much of anything with the bones, at least not as far as stock is concerned, because everything in the pot will be coated with the curds and will have been cooking for an hour and a half in the whey. Say good-bye also to your indeterminate grains, though if you like grains with buttermilk and half-formed cheese, this may not apply to you.
The second part of the recipe calls for making soup with butternut squash and the leftovers from the Chicken with Curds, Whey and Indeterminate Fucking Grains. Basically you cook some butternut squash and add it to the Chicken with Curds, Whey and Indeterminate Fucking Grains along with a can of coconut milk and spices of your choosing. That is supposed to be a soup. It is not a soup. It is Chicken with Curds, Whey, Indeterminate Fucking Grains, Butternut Squash and Coconut Milk. I don’t know if it will be as vile as the first meal, but my money is on “more vile”.
I don’t have the energy to address the third meal you’re supposed to get out of that chicken, except to say that if you follow “Broke-Ass Grouch’s” advice on making stock, you’re going to be very disappointed.
I found the article by following the New York Times What We’re Reading piece. Jeff Gordimer described it this way: “Susan Gregory Thomas riffs on how to feed your family well when your family happens to be flat broke.”
“Riffs”? OK. I don’t know who Susan Gregory Thomas (“Broke-Ass Grouch”) is, but for fuck’s sake, someone tell her to stop giving cooking advice. I mean, I think Alan Richman could do a better job, and that motherfucker has no idea what he’s talking about.
Sorry for not updating over the last few weeks, but I’ve been busy. Unfortunately, nobody seemed to want to purchase the pornographic video of Rodney Dangerfield I was shopping around, so I’m stuck with the practice of law for the indefinite future.
I hope that you, my dear readers, have not set yourselves or loved ones on fire while I’ve been away? No? Fantastic. I knew I could trust you. I mean, most of you.
I trust that despite my negligence, you have all read my recent Haute Plates blogs? I have had some interesting things to say, assuming you are interested in food. I think you are, if you’re reading this.
It’s been a hell of a year kids. My life has changed significantly, and for the most part that’s been a good thing. I’m thinking the next 12 months will be better, though at this point I’m hard pressed to care. I mean, if nobody wants a pornographic film featuring Rodney Dangerfield, then what hope do I have?
Anyway, I’ve said before that I’d like to write more here, and I’ve consistently failed in that regard. So for the time being, expect much of what you’ve seen in the last month or so. I may find some time to write a few things I’ve been meaning to cover, including a few words about Vietnamese food in New Orleans that I think may be of some interest. I mean, it may be of interest to those of us who actually value “ethnic” cuisine as more than some sort of diversion.
So how about a photograph of a local pub that opened recently?
Sovereign Pub
Like a lot of residents of the New Orleans area, I have mixed feelings about this day. I remember where I was five years ago. I was in Memphis, intermittently in the lobby and at a hotel bar, watching my city come apart at the seams. I’ve mostly avoided “Katrina + 5″ articles in the media the last week or so, and I intend to continue to do so.
It’s not that I want to forget; I couldn’t if I tried, obviously. It’s more that so much of what I read, particularly articles “debunking Katrina Myths” just don’t capture the feeling that those of us directly affected have as a result of the levee failures. I cannot say how much I appreciate the support of folks from elsewhere. I don’t think I could have made it without support from friends after the storm. My friends in Memphis and middle Tennessee cheered us up and housed us after the storm. My friends from all over the country sent money they probably couldn’t afford to send, or who just checked in with me to see if I was okay. That includes folks who knew me only from reading this website, many of whom had never contacted me before. Those are all debts I’ll never be able to repay.
But if you don’t have a direct connection to the area, I don’t think you can really understand what Katrina did to us. I’m not sure you can understand the attitude we have here now, and I’m not sure you can appreciate how proud many of us are to have come back and started the rebuilding process.
It’s been a long haul, and it’s not over by a long shot. When the BP disaster occurred, I know a lot of people suffered. There was a feeling that just when things were going fairly well, we got another shot to the gut was to remind us how fragile things really are.
But just as there were predictions that New Orleans would never be rebuilt after Katrina, the predictions about the loss of our fisheries as a result of the BP disaster have proven to be premature. Louisiana and Gulf seafood is as safe as its ever been. It’s the most thoroughly tested seafood in the country, if not the world. I have no doubt that just as conventions have started to return to New Orleans despite the stories of death and mayhem after Katrina, Gulf seafood will soon regain its good reputation.
I know this is rambling, and I apologize. I suppose the message I want to convey is that while things are still difficult here, we’re on our way back. Changes that followed Katrina, and changes that will no doubt follow the BP disaster are going to result in positive things for the area. Our schools are better, our levees are – we hope – stronger, and it appears we are finally getting some recognition that the loss of our coastal wetlands and barrier islands is a national rather than local concern.
I don’t speak for anyone else, but I sense a feeling of optimism in these parts that I haven’t in a long time. If you want to know what I’m talking about, come down to visit. In another month or two the weather will be pleasant, and we’d love to show you what it means to have a good time in New Orleans.
I was trying to find a photo from my flickr page that would match the text above. I think the image below sums up my feelings pretty well. It’s from an event during the New Orleans Wine and Food Expo, the Royal Street Stroll, and it this doesn’t entice you to visit, I don’t know what will…
Bacchus Invites You To New Orleans
You are worthless, vapid, ignorant scum. All of which I could forgive, had you also not smelled like you had just walked through the perfume department at Dillard’s, saying “YES, YES, A THOUSAND TIMES YES” to every salesperson with a spray-sample.
What the holy hell is wrong with you? Again, when one of you actually suggested that invading Mexico was the only way to stem the tide of “them drugs” from crossing our borders, I was appalled, but at least there was unintentional humor involved. The volume of your conversation, inane as it was, could also be ignored.
But whatever the womenfolk at your table were wearing was an abomination sufficient to deserve a Singaporean cane-whipping. I hereby volunteer to administer it; and no, I am not going to take into account the subjects’ advanced age in determining the vigor with which to apply the strokes.
Taste is dependent upon smell. When I was a lad, I had a friend who had no sense of smell. She could not distinguish chocolate ice cream from vanilla. You are a fool if you put on heavy perfume before you go to a nice restaurant to have a nice meal. You, most of all, will be unable to really enjoy your food. But what brings this into “I will beat you with a goddamn cane” territory is that EVERYONE AROUND YOU IS ALSO UNABLE TO ENJOY THEIR FOOD.
That is all. Here’s a picture of a goddamn Irish coffee:
Goddamn Irish Coffee