dining with bacchus

Coming soon

Coming soon to the column: my interview with Haley Gabel Bittermann, Corporate Executive Chef of Ralph’s on the Park, BACCO, and Red Fish Grill in New Orleans, and Jazz Kitchen, Ralph Brennan’s restaurant at the Disneyland Resort® in Southern California.

We met at Ralph’s on the Park on a beautiful fall day and had a wonderful conversation while I sampled five of the restaurant's desserts and enjoyed a bottomless cup of coffee and chicory, the featured blend of Community Coffee served in the Ralph Brennan restaurants in New Orleans.

Watch this space.

© Marshal Zeringue

Hurricane hiatus

We've been on a break for a couple of months, primarily because hurricanes threatened restaurants that we planned to visit and then Hurricane Gustav knocked out the power for a week at "Dining with Bacchus" headquarters.

Then, once power was restored and we had interviews lined up with star chefs in Birmingham, Alabama and Atlanta, we had to cancel because we could not get on the road: there were no rental cars available anywhere near New Orleans.  (Apparently, Texans who had fled Hurricane Ike needed all the cars for local transportation until they could return home.)

If it's not one thing, it's another....

The good news is, we're getting back on track very soon.

Stay tuned.

Jason Weaver of The French Room at The Adolphus Hotel

I'm relieved that no one appeared to recognize me when I presented myself to the hostess at The French Room.  I dined at this world-famous restaurant the last time I was in Dallas, which was quite a few years ago, and my companion and I were the last customers to leave.  That evening I had been oblivious to the time and, beguiled by my beautiful date--and perhaps a little relaxed by a couple of bottles of excellent wine--I eventually noticed that all the other tables were empty.  Had we been the only ones there for the last thirty minutes?  An hour?  More?  The wait staff never gave the slightest hint that we were keeping them late.  Which, I now realize, should have been no surprise: every detail of the service at The French Room is fit for royalty, and no one ever hints to the king that it's time to go home.

Tonight I'm sitting down with Executive Chef Jason Weaver, who has been at The French Room since August of 2005.  A few things about the restaurant have changed since my last visit--jackets are still required but ties are now optional, and the waiters no longer wear tails--but the dining room is still gorgeous.

Mindful of the restaurant's time-honored reputation, I ask the chef how much tradition constrains changes in his menu.  Very little, he says, though he acknowledges that he is mindful of what is appropriate for the restaurant.  In fact, the menu is constantly evolving and is primarily influenced by the availability of the freshest fish and produce.  Dishes may be Moroccan-inflected or Asian, for example--the chef's resume includes stints at the Mandarin Oriental properties in Miami and New York--and of course French.  No simple label characterizes the food here: I've seen it described as New American, and it's certainly not classical French.  Anyway, Weaver notes, "French cuisine today isn't what it was fifty years ago."

The chef starts me off with a sample of his homemade charcuterie: slices of bresaola and French garlic sausage.  Weaver says he really likes to make sausages and cured meats, and he regales me with an account of the process behind these flavorful delights.  The bresaola takes about five weeks to make, the garlic sausage about twenty days.  I could very happily make a meal of these meats, some crusty bread, and the appropriate red wine...but the chef has only just begun my introduction to his favorite dishes.

Next up is a French Room classic, the Crab Cake with Tomato Jam.  Some version of the dish has long been a mainstay at the restaurant: it's one menu item that long time customers pleaded with Chef Weaver to retain when he arrived in Dallas.  Which he did, although he applied some of his own touches, like the little dollop of tomato jam atop the crab cake and the lemongrass-lobster sauce in which it is served.  I am such a fan of crab cake that I'm usually satisfied with the version served in joints like Joe's Clam Shack or The Krusty Krab, but The French Room execution is in another league altogether.  For one thing, there are no bread crumbs or other fillers in this crab cake: the crabmeat is held together with a very delicate shrimp mousse. This is far and away the best crab cake I've ever come across.

Because I'm so enthralled with my Crab Cake and focused on my conversation with Weaver, I absently sip one of the wines chosen for me by the chef and wine steward. This is not a wine that ought to be taken for granted, however, and I actually do a double take to make sure I've got more of it my glass.  When I turn back the chef, he's smiling at my reaction: I may have been surprised by the flavor, but he expected it.  What is that wine? I ask.  It's a 2006 Gewurztraminer, an Alsatian wine from Lucien Albrecht, I'm told.

As if on cue, my server appears: "Would you like some more?"  I most certainly would, I say...but I'm driving.

I turn from one of the restaurant's oldest dishes to one of its newest, a summertime addition to the menu: Tuna Tartare on Watermelon.  The tuna and melon are an identical deep shade of red and I didn't realize what I was about to taste--or even that the dish had two distinct main components--until the chef explained it.  The tuna is topped with a soy-sugar drizzle and bits of avocado and brioche.  This strikingly beautiful serving is part of the chef's Asian-influenced repetoire.  It's as tasty as it looks...and it goes well with the Gewurztraminer.

Weaver is a decorated Marine who served in Desert Shield, Desert Storm, and Somalia.  When I learned about his military experience, my first thought was that that realm of activity is vastly different from running a kitchen. But then I realized that both jobs require a great deal of drill and discipline up front, so that when things heat up--in the field or in the kitchen--one has an instinctive grasp of the skills required to deal with the particular circumstances. When I try out this thesis on the chef he doesn't treat it like the craziest thing he's ever heard.  The jobs are "not as different as people might think," he says.  "The activities are different but even the structure in kitchens is similar to the military.  Chef--sous chef, staff sergeant--sergeant.  There's never any confusion about hierarchy."

(Later, I seize a few minutes with Jim Donohue, The French Room's estimable Maitre d’, and he tells me that while Chef Weaver is no martinet, his kitchens are indeed extremely well-run and professional.)

Finally, I'm on to my third appetizer.  It's Braised Pork Belly with five spice and ginger, with a little bit of celery root and apple salad on top, all served on a bed of lentils with soy, sugar, and lemon. The experts have matched a Siduri 2006 Willamette Valley Pinot Noir to go with the pork belly.

While the tuna and watermelon clearly required quite a bit of plating and presentation time, it had zero cooking time. This pork belly, on the other hand, has been cooking for the better part of the day.  The chef obviously relishes my request to learn more about the preparation.  He tells me the pork belly is first rubbed in five spice, then marinated in orange juice and stock with ginger, onions, celery, and cinnamon.  It's then gently braised for six or seven hours.  The pork bellies come out, and the liquid cools down.  Then the liquid undergoes "reducing, reducing, reducing."  The cook sears the meat, then it goes into the pan for glazing with the reduced liquid.

It's melt-in-your-mouth delicious.  And, I ask the chef, no fat or cholesterol either, right?  He laughs and tells me that may have been the case with the tuna and watermelon, but with the pork belly....

The food is brilliant, the service peerless, and I'm learning a lot about fine food and the evolution of a first-rate chef.  Yet Chef Weaver has already given me much more to write about than I can report in one interview, and I know I'm keeping him from his work: he oversees not only this dining room but five other kitchens in The Adolphus.

There's a very tempting grand tasting menu of thirteen courses, and I wonder if I could possibly eat ten more of these sublime dishes.

I do know I could easily stay here all night, wining and dining. After all, I've done it before.

For menus, hours of service, and reservations contact information, visit the website of The French Room at The Adolphus, Downtown Dallas.

© Marshal Zeringue

John Tesar of Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek

My visit to Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek has been one of pleasant discoveries even before I entered the restaurant.  For almost as long as it's been open I've somehow been aware of the restaurant's reputation at the pinnacle of the Dallas fine dining scene. I've also known that it was nestled in a leafy, quiet part of the city, although I could not quite picture such an area on the map I used to get here.  Because I could see the downtown skyline as I (supposedly) neared my destination, I feared I must have taken a very wrong turn along the way. But my directions were accurate, as was my general expectation of the neighborhood: Turtle Creek is a verdant, reasonably tranquil, oasis in Uptown Dallas. And immediately upon pulling into the courtyard it was clear that I landed in the lap of luxury.

Executive Chef John Tesar's reputation also precedes him.  He bought his first restaurant in the Hamptons at age 24; not long after that he opened 13 Barrow Street, his first restaurant in New York City.  He would go on to establish Vine restaurant on Wall Street and manage 44 X Hell’s Kitchen in the Theater District. After a brief post-9/11 excursion to a Lake Tahoe resort as the corporate executive chef, he returned to New York as executive chef of Rick Moonen's highly-acclaimed restaurant, rm. When the restauranteur introduced Rick Moonen's RM Seafood at Mandalay Bay Resort & Casino in Vegas, Tesar returned to Nevada to oversee operations there.  Along the way he crossed paths--and sometimes swords--with a number of America's more famous chefs.

Tesar looks too young to have such an extensive resume, and I'm eager to learn more about that wild period in New York when several of today's nationally famous chefs were building their reputations.  But first I want to know more about this beautiful restaurant at Rosewood Mansion, where Tesar arrived in late 2006, and to sample the dish I was told to expect: King Crab and Two Butter Sauces.

The crab is served in a white ceramic bowl that is nearly the same color as the butter sauce; in turn, the butter sauce is almost the same tone as the garlic foam on top. It's like coming upon a still pond on a foggy morning: I can't tell where the foam ends and the liquid begins.  It's an inspired presentation.  I stick my fork to the bottom of the bowl and give a gentle stir, causing a swirl of parsley purée to come to the top. The appetizer is a little magical...even before I take a bite.

The chef suggests a William Fèvre Chablis 2006 to go along with the appetizer.  One critic says the wine "has an attractive and expressive minerality, steely yet with a presence of ripe, white fruits wrapped around this harder core, with a leafy, nettly outer wrapping." I'm not sure about the meaning of some of those words, but the wine is very nice and it does go well with the crab.

Why two butters?  "It's two garlic butters and just a little garlic foam," Tesar says, "and one of the butters is emulsified and one is the actual broken butter in which the crabmeat is warmed."  The foam gives a pop of garlicky flavor that wakes up my palate; the two butter sauce is more subtle and, unlike plain drawn butter, doesn't overpower the succulent crab.  The chef tells me the King Crab is not only one of the more successful dishes on his reinvented menu but it also characterizes his food philosophy: he's really into seafood, and he likes straightforward cuisine.

It's all about "the art of simplicity."

"Others start with more components," he says, "but when I get to the third ingredient, you have to explain to me why you want to add a fourth. I come from the school where the protein--or whatever the center of the dish is--should be the star, and whatever else is on the plate should complement it.  Also, in most cases, there should be a classic association: I reinvent a lot of classic dishes in contemporary fashion.  If you're dealing with the freshest and best ingredients you can find, why do you need to do much with it anyway?  Salt and olive oil is sometimes all you really need."

I understand this approach in theory, and yet--sitting here eating the chef's food--I realize that cuisine from what he calls the "simple but elegant school" doesn't mean that it would be simple for just anyone to prepare. And of course it wouldn't be: Tesar says food like this takes "time, effort, care, and technique."

It's obvious that a lot of "time, effort, and care" went into what is in many ways a new restaurant at Rosewood Mansion--a reinvention that involved significant challenges as well as opportunities.  A major challenge was introducing any change: the Mansion has a storied reputation and a loyal and long-standing clientele. It also had an iconic chef, Dean Fearing, who departed to open his own restaurant, Fearing's, in partnership with the Ritz-Carlton, Dallas. (Fearing's is only about a mile away from Rosewood Mansion.)

The $20-million hotel and restaurant redesign did a lot to draw a line between the old era and the Tesar regime. Before the renovation there were a lot of comparisons with the Fearing days, but that reference point seems to be fading. "Taken as the sum of its revamped parts, the Mansion continues to be the paradigm of fine dining in Dallas," wrote Bill Addison, the esteemed restaurant critic at the Dallas Morning News, in February, adding significantly: "But it is a different restaurant now."

Given all the creativity that's involved in the back of the house--cooking at such a high level--and in the front of the house--pulling off a major renovation of the dining rooms, I ask Tesar if he sees any link to the impulse to study film, as he did when he enrolled at NYU.  Sure, he says, "I've been a frustrated artist my entire life.  I play the guitar but I can't sing.  I'm good with color but I can't draw."  Cooking is his outlet for that creativity now.  He also points out that both realms are highly visual, a point that's obvious with film but perhaps not always as appreciated when if comes to food.

Tesar is also quick to point out that creative circumstances coexist with the opportunities for destruction and failure, and he candidly tells me he knows about both experiences.  "Sometimes your talent is ahead of your maturity," he says in reference to his own New York days as well as speaking generally of other elite chefs. He knows the ups and downs, he says.

Tesar then drops a surprise on me: "I'm Jimmy Sears in Kitchen Confidential," Anthony Bourdain's landmark foodie memoir.

Now, I read Kitchen Confidential when it came out in 2000, and I can't pull up from memory the exploits of the pseudonymous Jimmy Sears.  But it is clear from Tesar's context that, like Bourdain's self-portrait, the depiction of Sears is not altogether flattering.  And when I check later, the portrait is not entirely heroic.  (Whose life, honestly recounted, would be?) Nevertheless, the first strokes of Bourdain's portrait of "Jimmy Sears" are impressive:

Jimmy was a brilliant cook.  He'd come up with Brendan Walsh at Arizona 206, and the food he turned out in his brief time working [in a pseudonymous restaurant] was so good, I'd stay after my shift was over, sit at the bar and order dinner and pay for it. Seeing what Jimmy could do in the kitchen really inspired me; I'd been slinging hash for way too long, and tasting a real demiglace again, eating new, exciting food, seeing new presentations, made me remember what I'd enjoyed about food in the first place.

Sitting in the glorious Rosewood Mansion dining room, enjoying my own exposure to "eating new, exciting food," and appreciating firsthand an exquisite presentation of the chef's King Crab, I understand what Bourdain wrote about Tesar's talent.  While Bourdain may overstate some things in his book, it's obvious to me that, in this case, he simply reported it as it happened.

For menus, hours of service, and reservations contact information, visit the Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek website.

© Marshal Zeringue

Kent Rathbun of Abacus

Kent Rathbun, Executive Chef and Owner of Abacus and Jasper's, has had a busy year.  In February, he and his brother Kevin, a chef-restauranteur in Atlanta, bested Chef Bobby Flay on the season premiere of the Food Network's hit series "Iron Chef America."  More recently, the Texan Rathbun has also just nailed down the lease for a fourth Jasper's, coming soon to San Antonio.  And in April, Abacus underwent a complete renovation that somehow very nicely balances some seeming contradictions: the dining room has a mininalist feel, yet it is also invitingly comfortable.  It's got clean lines, and yet it is sumptuous.  I don't pretend to understand design, but the colors, textures, lighting, and materials and fixtures come together in the most important way that I do appreciate--as a convivial diner: I want to take my friends to eat in this restaurant.

Chef Rathbun and I meet in the new bar and lounge area of the restaurant.  Although it's the middle of the afternoon, there's a nice buzz among the cooks doing the early prep and the staff readying the dining room and organizing reservations.  Before the renovation, the bar and lounge space was smaller and functioned primarily as a waiting area for the dining room.  Now there is plenty of space and more lounge furniture: the restauranteur's idea is that people will come to Abacus for drinks and the nightlife, even if they don't plan on dining.  And if one drink leads to another and a customer develops an appetite, there is an extensive and impressive bar menu that includes a wide selection of Asian dishes, artisan cheeses, and desserts.

For those with a greater hunger--or perhaps curious to try an entrée like the Chili Rubbed Elk Loin (the brothers Rathbun battled the Iron Chef over what they could do with a side of elk)--I'm betting the hostess can be accomodating either in the bar or restaurant proper.

In the recent renovation, even the restaurant menu was completely overhauled--except for the Caeser Salad and the Lobster "Shooters," two items which Rathbun says are such a part of the Abacus tradition that he couldn't replace them without inviting a rebellion from diners.

Abacus' Sous Chef (and Red Sox fan) Omar Flores comes by our table to say hello, and he's bearing two plates of food.

Rathbun invites me to dig into the first dish without identifying the other...which of course not only delays my gratification but makes me all the more curious about what exactly is on the artfully-plated second dish.  All in good time, I figure, and slide the first plate over.  Rathbun calls it a "Spanish-style takeoff on paella...but fancied up."  The most obvious upgrade to the paella: two plump scallops from the Georges Bank, dusted with pimentón (Spanish paprika), then pan-seared in olive oil.

In my youth, after hearing about what a delicacy scallops are, I finally tried them in a fancy restaurant.  And was disappointed.  My Cajun-trained palate just didn't get what was so great about the mollusks. But these Abacus scallops are delicious.  As is the paella, which is based on saffron rice and includes chorizo, onion, bell pepper, a sherry wine butter sauce, fried artichoke, water cress, and a few other things that I don't catch from Chef Rathbun's description.  (I'm too busy eating.)  Cajun babies don't eat paella but they do know flavorful rice dishes.  And although my people might regard it as heresy, I much prefer this Abacus dish to any jambalaya I've ever eaten.

Fresh New England scallops and Spanish paella may seem a little exotic for a chef who started out cooking at a economy-priced chain restaurant in Kansas City, but the Rathbun boys actually enjoyed an early introduction to foods beyond their Midwestern horizons.  The chef tells me that when he was growing up his parents liked to host foreign exchange students, and the guests he remembers best were the children of Thai chefs.  Some of the tricks and tastes he picked up from the exchange students stuck. When he was part of the culinary team at the Landmark Restaurant in the Dallas Melrose Hotel in the 1990s, the hotel sent him to Bangkok on several occasions to cook in an associated luxury restaurant.  He tells me that while he learned "a lot" during his time in Thailand, he also discovered that he already knew quite a bit about Thai flavors and how to get to those flavors.

He was sent to Bangkok to bring some Texas to Thailand; he wound up bringing some Thailand back when he returned to Texas.

I ask him about this "fusion" in his cuisine, even though I really do know better than to use that often misused and abused concept.  Rathbun quickly but politely corrects me.  He avoids the term--"fusion sometimes equals confusion"--and he says he prefers to call his menu "eclectic" or "world cuisine."  He serves Thai, Spanish, Japanese, and other foods--even "home boy" cuisine--yet, in the Spanish scallop paella, for example, the Abacus diner won't find anything that he or she wouldn't find in Spain.

Rathbun tells me he started cooking in a Denny's-like restaurant as a teenager, and I say I'm surprised that the experience didn't put him off cooking for life.  He makes no defense for the food at that diner, but says it was a "helluva training ground: I'd have toast in the toaster for a BLT, six pancakes on a grill, two poached eggs in a pot, steaks on the grill, a waffle in the waffle-iron, and fried chicken in the fryer...all cooking at the same time for the same table."  And, he says, "that happened all the time."  He laughs about it now, and says he learned a lot cooking like that: "you need to know what you're doing, you need to be prepped, you need to understand efficiencies, and you need to be able to multitask...a lot."

Later, when we're talking about his time in New Orleans in the kitchen of Mr. B's, I catch echoes of these early cooking lessons.  Rathbun says he went from "being a young cook to being a chef" while working at Mr. B's, and he tells me about the challenges of "high-level cooking with good ingredients, put together on the fly."  (Chef Thomas Wolfe of Peristyle recently told me a very similar tale about his time in the Mr. B's kitchen.)

Having dispatched the scallops and paella, I turn to the second plate.  We've jostled the table and ruined the presentation; now I have absolutely no reason not to dig in.  Rathbun tells me this dish appears on the menu as “Bacon and Eggs.”  That label is technically accurate, though I've never eaten such a mouth-watering version of this classic dish.  More precisely, the "bacon and eggs" is Niman Ranch Chipotle Bacon and Scrambled Duck Egg with Black Truffle.  The thick triangles of bacon are cured with chipotle and finished in a wood-grill oven, then glazed with molasses and black pepper.  The bacon is served with creamy scrambled duck egg with truffle butter on brioche.

Rathbun says the “Bacon and Eggs” is one of his "home boy" dishes: he likes "turning something that people might find common into something uncommon."

Given the eclecticism of the Abacus menu, I ask, is there one cuisine or another that most of his customers markedly prefer?  Not really, the chef says: people want to be surprised at Abacus, and they're willing to try dishes well-executed.  That's certainly a practice I can now endorse. 

When I later look at the menu, I suspect that left to my own devices I might have ordered the Crispy Nova Scotia Halibut with Artichoke-Mozzarella CousCous or the Grilled Jumbo Prawns.  And I may indeed have one of those on my next visit to Abacus.  At the moment, however, I'm delighted the chef has introduced me to his uncommon takes on a couple of traditional dishes.

For menus, hours of service, and reservations contact information, visit the websites for Abacus and Jasper's in Plano, The Woodlands, and Austin.

© Marshal Zeringue

JoAnn Clevenger of Upperline

When I called to arrange our interview, JoAnn Clevenger, Owner and General Manager of Upperline Restaurant, cautioned me that she likes to digress. I soon discover that she wasn't kidding.  And what wonderful digressions they are.  She doesn't go off on barely relevant tangents or self-centered soliloquies: instead, I'm quickly learning that her anecdotes and vignettes illuminate and fill out the main subjects of our conversation.

For example, as soon as I sit down in her Uptown New Orleans restaurant to talk about her menu, she shows me a technicolor menu from The Blue Room of The Roosevelt Hotel, a grand old hotel in downtown New Orleans that I know well from its days as The Fairmont, as it was renamed in the mid-1960s. (Damaged by Katrina, the hotel will re-open in 2009 as The Roosevelt.) Part of Clevenger's massive collection of menus, The Blue Room's bill of fare dates from about 1960 and some of the odd items—what restaurant or night club now offers celery on its menu?—astonish me as much as the prices.  Before we get too carried away talking about this old menu, however, my host reins in my curiosity and asks me what I would like to eat.

That's an easy question: I tell her I would like to try the Fried Green Tomatoes with Shrimp Remoulade.  It's the first item on the Upperline menu and deserves this pride of place: Clevenger invented it and, according to the New York Times, now "any restaurant in the country serious about its New Orleans street cred might have the dish on its menu." The recipe came in dream.  In 1991 Clevenger heard that Fanny Flagg's novel, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, was to be adapted as a film, and she knew she wanted to put the dish on her menu.  There's nothing innovative about fried green tomatoes alone, so Clevenger noodled on a twist for three or four days until she awoke with the solution: Upperline would put shrimp remoulade on top.

The appetizer is emblematic of Clevenger's food philosophy: she doesn't like homogeneity.  The tomatoes are warm and succulent and the shrimp and remoulade are crisp and cold.  While each element is perfectly fine on its own, combined they make for a little festival of mouthfeel.  There are other examples of this approach on the Upperline menu, but Clevenger tells me about one dish that is safe for non-foodies to try at home: tomato soup.  Everyone makes it and it tastes the same...boring.  But add garlic croutons and the taste and texture of each spoonful varies with the size of the crouton and amount of soup.

The key to New Orleans food, Clevenger says, is that "bite after bite doesn't taste alike."

I make sure to vary the combination of shrimp, remoulade sauce, and fried tomato in every bite of my starter.  And, per my host's suggestion, I complement the experience with a Pinot Gris from Belle Vallée, Oregon.

Upperline is celebrating its 25th anniversary this year, and two related facts stand out for me.  One, the kitchen is on only its fourth chef.  The first chef—and Clevenger's business partner—was her son, Jason. The current boss of the kitchen is Chef Ken Smith, who started at Upperline in 1991 as an apprentice while enrolled in the Delgado Culinary Arts program.

The other remarkable feature of the restaurant's quarter-century is that, until last year, Clevenger was at the host's station at the door, meeting and greeting guests five nights a week. Given Upperline's strong local following—and a considerable number of out-of-towners who visit regularly—I ask Clevenger if she is good with names.  Not so much with names, she says, but she remembers faces and where diners were seated when they visited.  (Now I understand why she asked where I was sitting when I mentioned earlier that I had been to the restaurant recently with my good friends Anne, Norbert, and Rob Delph.)

And then she tells me the backstory of another appetizer, the Spicy Crispy Oysters St. Claude.

When visitors used to ask her to take them out for a typical New Orleans meal, she would often go to Restaurant Mandich, an unglamourous eatery in the Bywater neighborhood. At Mandich's, the oysters were fried in corn flour, put back onto the half shell, then drizzled with a garlic bordelaise sauce.  Clevenger wanted to pay tribute to the dish at Upperline and, as with the fried green tomatoes, she needed an original spin.  This time, Chef Ken came through with the idea.

Clevenger had been working to interest her chef in Moroccan food, a North African cuisine in which preserved lemons figure prominently. For the oyster topping, the chef decided to throw a whole lemon, minus the seeds, into a Cuisinart. The peel contributes oil and aroma, the pulp delivers tartness, and the pith adds bitterness.  Clevenger stresses that you have to work with the balance—too much pith and the bitterness ruins the concoction: "it's an art and a science," she says.  Add some paprika, cayenne, Worcestershire sauce, and butter. (I think there's another ingredient or two, slyly hinted at, that go unmentioned.) Blend it together and serve atop the fried oysters, like Mandich's, on the half shell.

Clevenger interrupts herself and asks me if I would like to order an entrée.  I had been thinking about that—last time I was here I had the lamb (delicious) and was looking forward to trying something new—but I'm captivated by the story of the Oysters St. Claude.  I decide to forgo an entrée—one has to make certain sacrifices in life—and ask for the Oysters St. Claude as a second appetizer.

Book talk has been sprinkled through our food talk all evening.  On the phone, Clevenger had laughed in delight when I told her my email address riffs on the name "Binx Bolling," my homage to the protagonist of Walker Percy's great novel, The Moviegoer.  And when we sat down she presented me with a copy of John M. Barry's acclaimed Rising Tide: The Great Mississippi Flood of 1927 and How It Changed America. Now she shares with me a couple of handouts that are available to diners: one is a list of New Orleans bookstores and the other is an idiosyncratic compilation of worthwhile wine & cheese shops, antique stores, museums and galleries...and bookstores.

Clevenger mentions that Julia Reed, the writer-journalist whose portfolio includes food writing, is signing her new book at one of the bookstores soon. Reed is from Greenville, Mississippi, where Walker Percy spent part of his youth, and now lives in New Orleans. I mention that I hope to interview Reed, and Clevenger says she hasn't yet seen the new book but tells me that Reed would be a great subject.

While in a waiting room a few days later, I will open the current issue of Vogue.  In it is an excerpt from Reed's The House on First Street. I'm barely into the article when I come across a sentence about one of Reed's visits to New Orleans (in 1991, I think) when she dines "at Upperline for the first time and [hears] Miles Davis for the last." Small world. Of course, I now need to try to complete the circle by dining with Reed, who has her own connections with the family of Walker Percy.

My Oysters St. Claude are served, and the topping doesn't look like it ever came near a lemon. In fact, it bears some resemblance to sun-dried tomatoes.  And it doesn't even taste particularly lemony, though the lemon flavor comes through...intermittently.  Like the lady says, every bite is different.  I'm skeptical of claims about the aphrodisiac powers of oysters, but the Oysters St. Claude has certainly enhanced my love...of fried oysters.  The Fried Green Tomatoes may consider me fickle, but I have a new favorite appetizer at Upperline.

My evening chez Clevenger passes with more food talk and book talk and digressions into New Orleans history and culture.  Anyone writing a social and cultural history of New Orleans in the latter twentieth century should beg for a few days of JoAnn Clevenger's time.

It's that time of the evening for the last major decision: will I be having dessert?  I'm not on a diet but I will have to go on one soon if I continue to dine as well as I have tonight.  I'm on the verge of declining when Clevenger oh-so-innocently asks, "Did you like chocolate sundaes as a child?" Of course I did.  She promises an adult version: Häagen-Dazs vanilla ice cream with semi-sweet (that's the adult twist) dark chocolate syrup. How about a small one?, she asks.

I have a stock answer for charming women who tempt me with such worldly pleasures: "I will if you will." Clevenger smiles.

That line never fails.

For menus, hours of service, and reservations contact information, visit the Upperline website.

© Marshal Zeringue

Karen Abbott, author of "Sin in the Second City"

Karen Abbott never seems to tire of talking about pimps, prostitutes, and panders.

OK, so that may be an unfair way to put it; after all, I'm the one who raises the subject as we sit down to dinner at La Petite Grocery on Magazine Street in New Orleans. Abbott is in town to promote her book, Sin in the Second City: Madams, Ministers, Playboys, and the Battle for America's Soul, recently released in paperback.  Tom Lowenburg and Judith Lafitte of Octavia Books, the site of Abbott's reading and book-signing earlier in the day, enthusiastically recommended the restaurant, which I have been eager to try out. 

Sin in the Second City is a critical and publishing success. USA Today wrote that "Karen Abbott has pioneered sizzle history with...this satisfyingly lurid tale."  The Wall Street Journal called Sin in the Second City "an immensely readable book." Janet Maslin praised it in the daily New York Times and Ada Calhoun, writing in the Sunday New York Times Book Review, called it "a lush love letter to the underworld" with a "wealth of details."

The quality of the book accounts for this critical reception; and yet, as the author rightly observes, many excellent books fail to get a wide readership because they are inadequately promoted.  Abbott was determined to give her book a fair chance: she spent an extraordinary amount of time and her own money traveling in support of the book when it was first released.  One casualty of the time away from home: her parrots feel neglected, especially "Poe," the elder of the pair. As we peruse the menu, Abbott jokes that she'll not order poultry out of sympathy for Poe's hurt feelings.  I have my eye on the fish, so I'm relieved that she doesn't have a sensitive goldfish at home.

Poe is named after Edgar Allan Poe, the writer who many Philadelphians (Abbott grew up there) claim as one of their own—Poe wrote much of his better work there—at least as vigorously as do the denizens of Baltimore, where Poe died and is buried.  Abbott's younger parrot is "Dexter," after Pete Dexter, the novelist and one-time columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News.  It turns out that Abbott may be an even bigger fan of Dexter's work than I am—and that's saying quite a lot—and she's had the pleasure of meeting and interviewing the writer.

I arrived at Abbott's reading only as it was breaking up, yet I can tell she's an enthusiastic promoter of her creation.  She says it's easy to be so: "I'm amazed by the stories, and I hope others will be, too."  And the stories are amazing.  Sin in the Second City recounts the rise and fall of the Everleigh Club, the most expensive and exclusive bordello in Chicago—probably, in the world—from its opening in February 1900 until it was shuttered in October 1911. The book is engrossing for its social history as much as for the character study of the Everleigh's founders, the spinster sisters Minna and Ada Everleigh.  The narrative is also packed with irresistible vignettes about the "sporting girls," as they were commonly known a century ago, and their customers.

My favorite patron of the club is "Uncle Ned," whose annual holiday gift to himself was to rent out the club's Music Room and work out an unusual kink: he "thrust his bare feet into buckets of ice, downed a tall glass of sarsaparilla, and ordered the girls to circle him and sing 'Jingle Bells.'" Uncle Ned accompanied his chorus with a tambourine and repeatedly shouted, "Let's all go for an old-fashioned sleigh ride...whee! "  While doubtless exploitative and mildly sadistic—Minna told Ada that these kind of antics were "more tiring than what the girls lose their social standing over"—these practices at the Everleigh were a lot less harmful than what went on elsewhere in the South Side Levee district.

Our starters arrive.  Abbott has opted for a salad of Romaine Hearts with Shaved Peccorino and Creamy Lemon Dressing. I'm having an exotic variation of one of my favorite appetizers: Water Buffalo Mozzarella and Local Heirloom Tomatoes with Herbs.

As entertaining as the whorehouse shenanigans are, the politics of the era are at least as intriguing.  The machinations of the reformers and how they manipulated the public, Abbott says, captivated her interest as much what went on in the Everleigh Club: these people in Chicago changed American history.  Abbott recounts how the so-called reformers, really just a handful of men in the beginning, were "so effective at fear and gloom and doom" with the books they put out conflating white slavery with prostitution.

Obviously, there were some cases of white slavery: unwitting and unwilling young women tricked into and trapped by the prostitution business, often violently so.  And yet it is just as clear that the larger part of the sex industry relied on a supply of workers driven there by economic opportunity and necessity, and by the steady demand from men willing to pay for sex.  The luxurious Everleigh Club had no part in the violence of white slavery: its workers were paid extremely well, pampered, and even educated at the sister-madams' insistence.

Our entrees arrive—Abbott has ordered the Grilled Hanger Steak with Truffle Aioli, Caramelized Onions and Fries, and I chose the Redfish Court Bouillion and Crabmeat over Louisiana Popcorn Rice—and it seems like natural dinner conversation to ask her about her view on prostitution and whether it is exploitative or should be legalized. Of course it's exploitative, she says, but it is a social phenomenon that isn't going to disappear and it should be legalized.  If the state legalizes prostitution, then it can regulate it, tax it, and monitor the health of sex workers.

Sin in the Second City strikes me as obvious Hollywood bait, so I ask if there are any plans for an adaptation.  The answer is Yes, and Abbott tells me the name of the major industry figure who owns the option on the book—and makes me pledge to not repeat it yet.  Of course I agree to keep the secret: like a New Orleans madam once said, "With discretion, I [get] a better class of clientele."  All I will spill at this time is news that this producer has a lot of clout and readers will recognize his work, so there is a better than usual chance that an adaptation will be forthcoming. (I'd love to see Jack Nicholson as Uncle Ned.)

Abbott's work-in-progress is a book about Gypsy Rose Lee, the famous actress, stripper, and writer.  Just as Sin in the Second City is not merely a biography of the Everleigh sisters or a history of their whorehouse, the Gypsy Rose Lee project is not a straight biography.  Instead, the book largely focuses on the intersection of Gypsy Lee's life and the 1939-40 New York World's Fair, where she was a headliner. Abbott says it was a bizarre moment in history: America was not yet at war but many other countries had already fallen to Germany and Japan.  The fair was supposed to be about optimism in the future, yet there was a cloud over Europe and Asia. New York City itself was undergoing significant changes with the decline of Tammany Hall and the rise of Mayor LaGuardia.  It was a pregnant time for gangster society and literary culture as well.  When she completes the current book tour, Abbott will return to New York for more research into this forthcoming addition to "sizzle history."

As we leave the restaurant, I ask Abbott to sign my copy of Sin in the Second City.  Her inscription reads: "For Marshal, who would have gotten the Prince Henry treatment" [at the Everleigh Club].  See the chapter titled "Knowing Your Balzac" to learn why that makes me smile.

Visit the Sin in the Second City website to learn more Karen Abbott and her book, and check out the Page 69 Test page for Sin in the Second City.

© Marshal Zeringue

Brian Landry of Galatoire's

Brian Landry may just be the boldest chef in America.  I don't mean bold in the sense that he challenges his diners to eat unconventional dishes like butterscotch-coated bacon or passion fruit sponge between swirls of dehydrated prosciutto. Those foods have actually been served at American restaurants, but they won't be found on the menu at Galatoire's, the famous New Orleans establishment that first opened its doors on Bourbon Street over 100 years ago.

In 2006, the not yet thirty-year-old Landry took up the reins as Executive Chef at this venerable institution with its established menu and many long-time patrons whose expectations were set long before Landry even began cooking. That's a pretty bold career move.  There is no sign that the young chef feels any pressure, however, as I pepper him with questions from my perch in one of the better people-watching seats in Galatoire's main dining room.  He clearly knows his stuff and has confidence in the support he gets from his colleagues and staff. I ask him if this is a job he always aspired to.

Not at all, he tells me.  After graduating from Jesuit High School in New Orleans, he accepted a full scholarship to the University of Alabama where he earned degrees in biology and philosophy.  The biology courses were part of his pre-med curriculum, and he got interested in deductive logic and then in more advanced subfields like the philosophy of science, philosophy of mind, and neurophilosophy.  I remember enough of my own education in logic to embarrass myself if given an opening, and it's clear that the chef still has a passion for the subject.  Mercifully, my starter arrives before I demonstrate just how much I've forgotten about deductive reasoning.

The appetizer is the Galatoire Gouté—samples of three popular cold dishes: Shrimp Remoulade, Crabmeat Maison, and Crawfish Maison.  I ordinarily prefer one appetizer to such a sampler and, left on my own, I probably would have dedicated my attention to the restaurant's famous Shrimp Remoulade.  But the crabmeat and crawfish dishes are at least as good as the shrimp, and I'm glad the chef introduced me to them.

Landry trained with highly-regarded chefs in New Orleans, including René Bajeaux, Gerard Maras, and Kevin Vizard, and he worked under Bob Waggoner at the famous Charleston Grill.  He also earned an associates degree in culinary arts from Johnson & Wales University.  I ask him what he learned in school that he wasn't learning on the job.  He says he had picked up great cooking techniques from very talented chefs, but that the great value in culinary school was learning why things happened to food when it was subjected to different processes.

Galatoire's was temporarily shuttered after Katrina hit New Orleans in 2005.  The owners soon opened Galatoire's Bistro in Baton Rouge, and Landry, who had been working at other New Orleans restaurants before the storm, went to work at the new restaurant upriver.  The flagship restaurant reopened at New Years and within six months Landry was appointed Executive Chef for both restaurants. He spends 3-4 days each week at both restaurants, usually covering lunch at one and dinner at the other.  On Fridays he can usually be found in New Orleans where the lunch service is very busy, sometimes even rolling seamlessly into the dinner service.

When Landry took the helm at Galatoire's he already knew most of the staff.  In fact, when he started at Galatoire's Bistro he had enjoyed having many of the same professionals along for the ride.  It was a new restaurant but with some very experienced employees: many had come from the New Orleans restaurant.  (And, like Landry, many of them were dealing with the same post-Katrina hassles of relocating and rebuilding.)  Galatoire's Bistro had even adopted all of the original restaurants signature dishes. Perhaps because change was in the air, the new menu also added a number of innovations as well.

It's my turn to try out a Landry dish that debuted in Baton Rouge: the Duck Crepe, a savory crepe of roasted duck and homemade boursin cheese with a port-cherry reduction and pistachios.  It's a delicious dish, especially coming behind the cold Gouté.  I need a question that requires a lengthy answer so the chef can talk while I concentrate on polishing off the last of the sauce with the last bite of crepe, so I ask Landry about one challenge of leading the kitchen of such a venerable restaurant: how does he get to exercise his creative impulses?

The chef says he has ample opportunity to innovate.  For one thing, he gets to try out new dishes, like my duck crepe, in Baton Rouge. Also, while Galatoire's serves escargot in garlic and butter, the new restaurant introduced escargot in a garlic-herbsaint cream with herbs, served in a puff pastry shell. Other dishes that first appeared on the Galatoire's Bistro menu—like the Roasted Duck and the Foie Gras appetizer—proved so popular that they were added to the repertoire in New Orleans. Yet even the innovations have to fit in with Galatoire's customary themes.  And some foods that the chef likes to cook—or eat, as is the case with one of his favorite dishes, duck confit—will probably not make it on to the Galatoire's menu because they depart too much from the restaurant's traditions.

Landry can also innovate and cook food that diverges from the restaurant menu because his team participates in so many special events.  On many of these occasions, he writes a menu built around slow-cooking techniques because he knows how many people he's cooking for and when the food will be served.  Two or three days before an event, he'll start cooking pork ribs or veal cheeks and other dishes that take a lot of time.  Interestingly, he says that the difference in styles—Galatoire's a la minute menu vs. slow-cooking recipes on the event menus—wasn't something he consciously pursued: he realized that he had been emphasizing slow-cooking only after looking back at what he had been serving.

The chef's experience with Galatoire's a la minute cooking served him well at the recent Louisiana Seafood Cook-Off. Landry and sous chef Heather Young took the first place prize for their Sautéed Cobia with Louisiana Crab Butter. Contestants had to use Louisiana seafood, and they had only one hour to do all preparations.

Landry is fan of cobia, which is frequently a fresh fish featured at both of his restaurants, so that element was easy.  The sauce is the inspired part.  It starts with using a mallet to crush several Louisiana whole gumbo crabs—good food isn't all subtle techniques: sometimes brute force is necessary, too. That's the last step in the recipe that the lay-cook will have no trouble with: after that, it's all talent, technique, and timing.

As reigning King of Louisiana Seafood, Landry will represent the state at the Great American Seafood Cook-Off (GASCO) in August.  He tells me he might again cook the dish that won the Louisiana Seafood Cook-Off.  (Why mess with success?)

While we're on the subject of seafood, Landry tells a story on himself about learning to order it for Galatoire's.  He had been ordering the seafood for the Baton Rouge restaurant for months, so it was only a matter of finding out the quantities required at the Bourbon Street restaurant.  He got together with his sous chef on the first day and asked him about the typical order of crabmeat.  His colleague told him that 90 pounds ought to do it.  Landry asked: How long will that last?  The reply: Oh, that'll get us through the first day and into lunch.  The chef is now laughing as he tells me that he had no idea that the one restaurant could serve that much crabmeat.  He asked about the shrimp order.  Again, after the reply, he asked how long that would last. One day, the sous chef told him. More laughter: he's still amazed at these quantities.

And that's when I get my own lesson in Galatoire's seafood: I'm served the biggest soft-shell crab I've ever eaten ... and I've eaten quite a few of them.  It's fried and served in a meunière amandine sauce.  The crab is not only the biggest one I've eaten but also the best.  (When I play back the interview, there's a long stretch at this point with only my silverware clicking against the plate.  I hope that this silence is when the chef momentarily turned away to chat with one of his fish purveyors who happened to be dining in the restaurant, but I worry that I might have just stopped asking questions to concentrate on my crab.) Amazingly, the normal serving size for this dish is two crabs.

I'm so thoroughly satisfied with my meal that I decline dessert.  Both waiter and chef shoot me a brief look of incredulity for passing on something sweet to cap off this excellent meal.  I flash back to Landry's earlier comment about how he's rarely hungry while he's working and tasting soups and sauces, but that he can be ravenous moments after walking out into the fresh air.  Maybe talking so much about food while eating has the same effect.

Chef Landry is due at the Baton Rouge restaurant soon, so I say my thanks, wish him well in the GASCO competition, and bid my good-byes.  I step out on to Bourbon Street wondering how soon I'll regret having passed on that dessert.

For menus, hours of service, and reservations contact information, visit the websites for Galatoire's and Galatoire's Bistro.

© Marshal Zeringue

Thomas Wolfe of Peristyle

When he was still a student in the Delgado Culinary Arts program, Chef Thomas Wolfe applied for a job in the kitchen of Mr. B's Bistro in New Orleans' French Quarter.  And he did so with what he now admits was an inflated résumé. He got the job and, impressed with his background, Mr. B's put him on the front sauté station.  That's not a leap from the frying pan into the fire: it's more like, "Young man, here's the fire—you  and your frying can hop right into it."

Wolfe didn't realize how busy Mr. B's could get, and he says they "wore the green off me pretty quickly." He frequently found himself doing "the one foot chicken dance"—standing on one leg and going around in circles looking for what he had just cooked.  He learned a lot...and learned it fast.  And he praises his Mr. B's boss, Chef Gerard Maras, who is "fantastic with his knowledge of cooking."

Wolfe is now Executive Chef and Proprietor of the restaurants Wolfe's in the Warehouse and the famous Peristyle, where he and I meet a few hours before the dinner crowd arrives.  Wolfe bought Peristyle from award-winning chef Anne Kearney in May 2004; a year later he opened Wolfe's in the Warehouse in the New Orleans Marriott at the Convention Center.

The anecdote about his early experience at Mr. B's reveals one of the chef's very agreeable traits: while he evinces no lack of confidence in his talent, he is always quick to credit those from whom he has learned—and borrowed.

Wolfe cooked at Mr. B's from 1989 until he left for a job at Emeril's in 1992. It was "an amazing experience working at Emeril's...you learned every day in the kitchen."  He stayed at Emeril's for eight years and worked every single station, including pastry (because the pastry chef worked Monday through Friday only and the other cooks had to cover for him).  He says he doesn't consider himself a pastry chef and thinks it's one of his weaker areas.  That admission surprises me: Peristyle is well-known for the White Chocolate Butter Bars, a dessert that Wolfe developed using his mother's recipe.

At Emeril's "the competition in the kitchen was genuine and the friendships were genuine."  He worked with a number of line cooks who would go on to become nationally-recognized chefs.  The roster includes: Michael Jordan, now one of the hottest chefs in Las Vegas; John Neal, who went on to open Peristyle; Anne Kearney, who took over Peristyle when Neal died; and Joel Dondis, who eventually became sous chef at Emeril's and now runs his own fine dining catering and event-planning firm in New Orleans.

When I ask Wolfe about his favorite station, he doesn't hesitate: "Sauté," he says, "because it allows for more finesse and 'a la minute' cooking, and more opportunity to work with pan sauces."  His preference for sauté is reflected in his menu, and he tells me that all chefs tend to write their menus to emphasize a favored station.  He likes to offer dishes that call for more intricate technique at sauté.  And he says the sauté chefs at Peristyle know they "have to put their seatbelts on...they have to be ready"—they need to know "a lot about the temperature of the pans, control of the heat, what kind of oil they're using, and things like how hot you can heat extra virgin olive oil."

Perhaps it is modesty, but Wolfe quickly adds that these challenges at sauté don't mean that other stations are any easier. For example, although pantry chefs don't deal with heat as much, they have to prepare both salads and desserts. Therefore their hands are always "dirty" with oil and vinegar, and yet it's a station that calls for clean hands and a clean work area.

I mention that the Peristyle menu struck me for its many interesting combinations of ingredients.  Wolfe laughs a little and admits that while he used to have a tendency to put too many components together in one dish, he has long since "learned [his] lesson and calmed down a bit." He explains that it is more challenging to find a unified flavor from many ingredients than from just a couple—the more you add on, the more you have to know to bring them together—and then, rapid-fire, offers an example of his point:

"We know that mushrooms and celery go together...and that scallops and mushrooms and celery go together.  We know that if we add veal stock to the scallops, mushrooms and celery, then all of that will go well together.  You can finish that up with a little butter to tone down the veal stock...and if you add a little truffle oil, you bridge the gap between the sauce and the mushrooms."  It sounds so simple when he puts it like that, yet it is a revelation to me.

What doesn't sound simple at all is his famous Slow Roasted Cane Syrup Duck (pictured, right), and I ask for the story behind it.  The idea for the dish came from Emeril's where they served a similar version which "was good, like all the food over there," Wolfe says, "but I always disagreed with how they did it." So he took the idea and developed it when he had his own restaurant.  He explains that his duck preparation is akin to the Peking method "adapted to a Louisiana contemporary creole style."  It takes four days to prepare.

On the first day a kind of pastrami cure is applied to the duck: the bird is treated with seasonings including black pepper, juniper berries, and cayenne, and the cavity is packed with herbs like tarragon.  Then it's packed in a salt and sugar mixture.  On day two, all those seasonings are brushed off and the duck gets a brief bath in white vinegar—just until the goose pimples come out on the skin. After a turn in the hot poaching liquid, the duck is put in a cold Steen cane syrup brine where it sits for 24 hours.  The bird is pulled out of the brine on the third day and the herbs are removed from the cavity.  The duck is patted dry and put in the walk-in cooler where it is exposed to the air and dried for 24 hours. On the fourth day the duck gets roasted.

Wolfe says it is difficult to time and track the process and make sure the ducks are ready every week, but that his crew knows better than to run out of such a popular menu item.  "Major trouble," he laughs.  I remark on the time and energy that goes into this one dish.  "Great food takes time," says the chef with a little shrug.

Of all the people you have worked with, I ask, who is your favorite chef?  Wolfe pauses thoughtfully, so I throw in—"Or you can tell me your least favorite chef...that might well make for an even more interesting story."  He doesn't take the bait. Instead he tells me that Chef Bernard Carmouche, the first chef de cuisine he worked under at Emeril's, is probably his favorite.  Carmouche's story is the stuff of legend: he was washing dishes when Emeril was still cooking at Commander's Palace, and he told the chef he wanted to learn the trade.  Emeril took him under his wing, and eventually moved him from station to station. Over the years he rose through the ranks to the top of the hierarchy in Emeril's organization.

Wolfe says of Carmouche: "I knew where he came from and how hard he worked.  I learned a good bit from him and his knowledge was very good.  And he treated people with respect.  He had a special way: he'd lead the whole team into the fire...and you'd follow him.  It's a gift.  He's a phenomenal gentleman, and I have a very high respect for him."

At one point in our conversation Wolfe also points out that the sautéed southern greens he serves with the four day duck is something he learned from Carmouche.  "He taught me how to cook down the mustard and collard greens when I worked in his kitchen and I told him I was going to steal the recipe," he laughs, adding, "and I always give him credit."

Wolfe has come a long way and achieved quite a bit in the relatively short time since leaving Emeril's.  Actually, it's a long way only figuratively: Wolfe's in the Warehouse is only about three blocks from Emeril's, and the chef tells me that he drops in on his famous neighbor every now and then.

For menus, hours of service, and reservations contact information, visit the Peristyle website and the Wolfe's in the Warehouse website.

© Marshal Zeringue

Matt Murphy of The Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans (II)

(This column is Part II of my interview with Chef Murphy.  Click here to read Part I.)

The courses keep coming.

Chef Murphy has not been matching me on every course but he doesn't pass on this one: a veal beggar's purse with cippolini onions in a red wine sauce.  I enjoy the irony of a dish this rich and flavorful going by the name of "beggar's purse."  While the proverb is that "a beggar's purse is never full," no one tucking into this entrée would complain that it's empty. The veal is tender and tasty and the cippolinis are an especially nice touch.  We're drinking a Buena Vista Pinot Noir with this course.

Murphy tells me a story about when he was in Marco Pierre White's kitchen.  (White is as famous for his temper as for his food: he once published a photo of his protégé Gordon Ramsey crying after a particularly tough night in the kitchen.) Murphy recalls that White would say that "all food had to be in the pass in 30 seconds or 60 seconds or 3 minutes, and guys on the stations would have timers to keep track."  With the kitchen a floor below, the cooks were aware of exactly how long it took to make it up the stairs. It could get hectic.  "You came up a minute late and you were out the door." What makes the situation especially demanding is that in restaurants of that reputation, there's always someone ready to step in for the cook who fails to beat the clock.

One interesting thing I notice about the kitchen we're in right now is that, while it's not so chaotic, there never seems to be an idle moment.  No one is ever standing still, arms crossed waiting for the next order: it seems that there's always something to be done.

The chef starts to tell me a story about one time when it was this kitchen under pressure, when another course arrives: we're served plates of pan-seared duck on a bed of cornbread and fresh Roma tomato topped by St. André cheese. (The accompanying wine is a Villa Antinori Tuscana.)  Katie Couric was the scheduled guest at the Chef's Table one evening last year and the kitchen was abuzz with anticipation.  Then Murphy got a call from home that his pregnant wife had a medical emergency.  It turned out that the kitchen handled Couric just fine in Murphy's absence, as did the doctors who treated his wife's emergency.  In December she delivered quadruplets.

I'm not sure I hear him correctly.  "Quadruplets?"

I think he's used to the reaction.  First, he and his wife were told that they'd be having twins.  A week later, it was triplets.  And then, quadruplets.  The four girls' six-month birthday falls just about a week before Father's Day this month.

Jazz trumpetist Jeremy Davenport, Mélange's headline entertainer, makes an appearance in the kitchen.  I imagine he's disappointed to find me instead of someone like Couric or Dustin Hoffman—both of whom have dined at this very table—but he doesn't show it.  We have a brief chat but I'm telepathically urging him to get back to the stage.  It's possible that Salma Hayek is done with filming for the day and is at the bar, waiting to hear him play; if so, I don't want her to get impatient and leave.

Another course arrives: succulent lamb chops, served rare, with fried goat cheese in a port wine reduction.  I had enough to eat about an hour ago but this is one of my favorite dishes.  And it comes with a cooking lesson.

I learn that the term for removing the excess fat from the bones is called "frenching," and that the skillful way to do so is by running a very sharp knife along the bone.  Lesser chefs will consume a lot of time shaving away the membrane, but the professionals know how to easily peel it away.  Murphy also tells me that these chops should always be served with the bones curving upward; that presentation invites the perfectly acceptable practice of holding the  "joint" in one's hands when eating the meat.

I'm happy to know the etiquette, but I'm already flirting with gluttony; at this point, I feel as if I'll shade into full-blown Henry the Eighth mode if I start eating chops with my hands.  We stick with the Tuscana for this course.

I'm so thoroughly sated that I forget to ask Murphy a question I had about the fried scorpion he was telling me he ate when he was in Thailand.  I've turned into an indolent interviewer at this point.  Great—first, gluttony, now sloth.  At this pace I'm sure to commit the five remaining deadly sins by midnight.

(Come to think of it, I suppose I can also check off "lust" from the list, what with my musings about Salma Hayek.  The tally: three sins down, four to go.)

And then dessert arrives.  In stages.  First up, fig samosas with a fruity chutney on the side.  I have just about finished my plate when the second dessert hits the table.  We're treated to wontons filled with dark chocolate accompanied by a cherry compote.  Chopsticks come with the dish but, at this stage of the evening, they seem like too much trouble to maneuver.  I follow the chef's lead and treat the wontons as finger food.  That settles it: I, Henry the Eighth, I am.

Finally, the third plate of delights arrives from the pastry kitchen: it includes a few clusters of very fancy caramel corn, orange meringues, a chocolate-toffee construction, and another chocolate thingy that I don't catch the name of.  I start to ask the pastry server to explain it to me but I've already started on the chocolate-toffee treat and my teeth are stuck together.

We've reached the end of a glorious meal.  Truly, squire, I couldn't eat another wafer.

I say my thanks and my good-byes, and I wish Chef Murphy a slightly early Happy Father's Day...four times over.  As I leave, I notice that Miss Hayek is not at the bar.

It's well after ten when I step out into the warm evening; the French Quarter nightlife is now in full swing.  Turn left, and a two minute walk down memory lane will put me in the midst of all that revelry; turn right, and I'll be on my way home and have time to cool out and do a bit of reading before bedtime.  In my youth, I would not have thought twice about the options.  And tonight?  One can probably guess which path I took.

For menus, hours of service, and reservations contact information, visit The Ritz-Carlton, New Orleans website.

© Marshal Zeringue