Posted by Emily Stone, March 13, 2008 at 10:15 AM
If you gave up something for Lent this year, chances are it was either carbon emissions or chocolate. And if you fall into the first category, I'd recommend that you celebrate the close of the Lenten season by supporting a business in the city that that put Mardi Gras on the map—New Orleans. Try Sucre on Magazine Street, the year-old business whose owners Tariq Hanna and Joel Dondis have been hailed by the New York Times as plugged-in post-Katrina entrepreneurs.
Their inspirations are mainly Parisian (their macarons are modeled on Ladurée's, and they pack gifts into pink paper purses à la Fauchon) mixed with sultry French Quarter signatures like the Meuniere bon bon (dark chocolate filled with a burnt-butter-and-almond white chocolate ganache).
Continue reading »
Posted by Adam Kuban, October 10, 2007 at 3:30 PM
October is Filipino American History Month, and on that note, Filipino food blogger Marvin over at Burnt Lumpia (tagline: "Finding identity through food") posits a theory that his peeps may have had a hand in helping create gumbo:
So what’s all this have to do with Gumbo you ask? Well, given these facts, one can conclude that like the French Acadians (roux), Africans (okra), and Choctaw Indians (File powder), perhaps Filipinos (shrimp) can be included in the melting pot that is Gumbo. I won’t go so far as to say that Filipinos are responsible for shrimp being an ingredient in some Gumbos, but I will venture to say that Filipinos at least contributed to this fact. We were, after all, alongside the Cajuns from the very start in Louisiana.
The full blog post makes a convincing argument. Have a gander.
Photograph from Burnt Lumpia
Posted by Ed Levine, September 5, 2007 at 7:00 AM
Sometimes, for all the bloviating that goes on in the blogosphere, interesting, provocative stories still go relatively unnoticed. It happened last week when Kim Severson reported on the meal President Bush had in New Orleans at Dooky Chase, the legendary Creole restaurant run by Leah Chase, the 84-year-old "Queen of Creole Cuisine." According to Severson, some people in New Orleans and out took Chase to task for hosting the president for dinner and a photo op. Her crime: By agreeing to host the president, Chase was seen as somehow legitimizing and sanctioning the Bush administration's feeble efforts to rebuild New Orleans.
What hogwash!
Continue reading »
Posted by Zach Brooks, July 5, 2007 at 2:00 PM
Photograph courtesy of Jason Perlow
Hoagies. Subs. Heroes. It doesn’t matter what you call them, they’re delicious. And every week, we honor a Serious Sandwich—or in this week’s case a serious po’boy.
The Po’Boy in New Orleans is a sacred object, like the cheesesteak in Philly, or the pastrami sandwich in New York City. There are many theories as to the origin of the name, but many agree that it dates back to the early 1920s when free sandwiches were given out to striking workers, dubbed poor boys (shortened to po’boy by the thick Louisiana accent).
And while some will argue about where the name came from, nobody argues about how it’s built. You start with a French-style baguette, pile it high with cold cuts, hot roast beef or fried seafood (usually oysters or shrimp), and “dress” it with lettuce, tomato, pickles, and mayo. There have been some more famous variations, but when you want something truly unique, Crabby Jack’s is the place to go.
Located in Jefferson, a few miles west of New Orleans, Crabby Jack’s is Jacques-Imo chef Jack Leonardi’s casual lunchtime take-out shack. It has all the New Orleans standbys—but people in the know go straight for the duck po’boy. It’s served roast-beef style, with a generous heaping of warm duck that’s been slow cooked until it is ridiculously tender and then shredded. The po’boy is then topped with “debris," a brown gravy made from the cooking juices, studded with bits of duck meat and fat.
Don’t let the richness discourage you from getting the thing dressed. A po’boy ain’t a po’boy without lettuce, tomato, and pickles—and the mayo mixes with the gravy to make the perfect sauce. The only trick is to eat the whole thing before the “debris” soaks through the bread and turns the entire thing to mush. Somehow, for me, that's never been an issue.
Crabby Jack’s
Address: 428 Jefferson Highway, Jefferson LA 70121
Phone: 504-833-2722
About the author: As the proprietor of Midtown Lunch, Zach Brooks knows sandwiches inside and out.
Posted by Robyn Lee, June 19, 2007 at 4:30 PM
Jessica of Su Good Sweets recently joined CulinaryCorps—a volunteer culinary outreach program—in New Orleans and recounted "one of the hardest yet most rewarding experiences" of her life in her blog. While restoring a walk-in refrigerator full of rotting food (including 200 pounds of spoiled chicken) and working with Emergency Communities, she was struck by the devastation that still remained in one of the city's poorest neighborhoods, the Lower Ninth Ward, two years after being hit by Hurricane Katrina:
Everything at Emergency Communities seemed hopeless, from the kitchen to the glassy-eyed residents who hobbled in for the meals. CulinaryCorps put in two days of hard work, but on-site volunteers are still working there for free. Twenty of them slept in a trailer a little larger than my one-bedroom apartment. They shared one outdoor shower converted from a Port-a-Potty. Two volunteers were “upgraded” to an abandoned house across the street. As the sun set, they sat on a dirty mattress, thankful for an extension cord that powered dim Christmas lights inside (their only source of electricity). No one should live like this, especially in America.
Jessica lists the many ways you can help by volunteering through an organization (currently most important), donating money or vacationing in New Orleans.
Posted by Zach Brooks, May 3, 2007 at 12:00 PM
Jazz Fest 2007 kicked off in New Orleans this past weekend, and I was there with map in hand trying to make sure I didn’t miss anything. Not so much the music, but the food. While most people toted performance schedules of the 11 stages, balancing which band played when, I had my food vendor printout. The dilemma—trying to determine whether I could eat two po'boys back to back or if I needed to break them up with a bowl of crawfish étouffée. Don’t get me wrong—I love the music, but it’s really just there so you have something to do between eating. Everyone knows that the real star of Jazz Fest is the food.
Continue reading »
Posted by Alaina Browne, April 12, 2007 at 3:30 PM
I ate some fantastic crawfish over Easter weekend. Crawfish boils are a Easter tradition in Louisiana, and that makes sense, since the season typically begins in March and ends in June.
As a New Orleans resident and the author of Eating New Orleans, Pableaux Johnson is an expert on such matters. Here, he aptly describes the tradition:
... [A] backyard crawfish boil—a traditional Easter event throughout Louisiana—is an epic affair involving 40-pound sacks of wriggling crawfish and bubbling cauldrons big enough to be stirred with canoe paddles. Unlike a New England lobster boil, where ingredients fit into a single grocery sack, Louisiana crawfish boils require planning and a pickup truck, used to transport a makeshift outdoor kitchen.
Read the rest of Johnson's "Mudbugs Madness" to learn everything you need and want to know about these tasty critters.
Posted by Nathalie Jordi, January 18, 2007 at 1:19 PM
Perique tobacco, 'the 'truffle' of pipe tobacco' according to wikipedia, can only be made in Saint James Parish, Louisiana, and is currently only cultivated on the 16 acres belonging to an old-timer named Percy Martin.
Jade Liquors has begun flavoring brandy with it. Never thought I'd hear the words "terroir of the Mississippi river" used in a press release, but I must admit, it's got a tasty ring to it...
