Mayhaw Man

Good news! =R= ← Actually, my prediction is that August is where the Mayor and that guy from Washington who has been coming here so much this last month or so are having dinner this evening. It would basically be the perfect location (food and security wise) and it is one of the few, if not the only, full on fine dining experience in New Orleans right now. I'll let you know in the morning where they go-this has been a heavily guarded secret for a couple of days. They couldn't have done better-it's a great place and John is great folks. Plus, he's got all of that military vet stuff going for him, so I think he is going to be the choice-but who knows, maybe they are going to Verti Mart.

I picked this and as we speak it is sitting on my kitchen floor gathering dust as I wait on cabinets and about a million other things to get finished. Big, Giant Kohler Sink

Knocked out brunch kind of thing today (Sunday). Grits and grillades (the grits were crazy rich and delicious) with a perfectly fried egg served on the grits. The boys had a take on steak and eggs that was, well, as good as it's going to get in the steak and egg world. Robin had a beautiful piece of grilled lemon fish and everyone, all of us, 4 orders dammit, had the rice pudding for dessert. It's simply one of the best rice puddings that I have ever had and a nice switch from the usual bread pudding on every menu in New Orleans (or, I guess, it used to be, anyway). Oh yeah, Allison had concocted some kind of flatbread.cornbread that existed in a texture world pretty close to a piece of corn cake and in the flavor world just like a great piece of cornbread (unsweet, of course, as all cornbread should be). Just for the record, Slade said the nightime business has been great, pretty much all that they hoped for, but lunch has been a bit slow-so go eat lunch. You won't do any better for the money, anywhere in the South. Cheerleading? Damn right. There aren't many bright spots down here in hurricane hell and I happen to have one of the brightest just around the corner from my house, improbably located in a tiny town in the hurricane torn Gulf South. But all of that aside, it's a great place to eat food and you would be hard pressed to find a more comfortable place in as beautiful a setting.

This is the kind of thing that we should be reading about more often. Dickie Brennan, an owner and really successful operator who knows how to do it right. HE HAS PAID ALL OF HIS 400 EMPLOYEES FOR THE LAST 5 WEEKS-EVEN THOUGH HE DOESN"T EVEN KNOW WHERE THEY ALL ARE. I will, forever, think well of him. This is the sort of thing that seperates the men from the boys. I hope he comes back and makes a gillion dollars. He and his management team deserve it. Good on him.

Well, many people in the South consider the other white meat to be BBQ, as well. There is one little niche that even loves goat as the meat of choice (but it's pretty far up North, now that I think about it-this situation could be the result of outside influence). And if it makes you feel any less like The Lone Ranger-I still don't get cooking a hog to perfect and then chopping it up and pouring vinegar all over it as if you were trying to innoculate it from some evil disease. I am trying to be more accepting of this though. It's a growth process, I suppose.

Sara Roahen has The Longbranch covered for Food and Wine I have eaten a crazy number of meals there and I can attest to the fact that, even if the city was working full blast, pre Katrina, this place would be in the top 5 in a very short period of time (maybe now). I had a piece of poached escolar (poached in a very flavorful olive oil) that was, hands down, one of the best fish courses that I have ever had the pleasure of eating. Just awesome. So if you are in town temporarily, or here as a theiving contractor, or maybe an overworked FEMA worker or insurance adjuster, treat yourself to a swell meal. Lunch is only $20 for a three course meal, they have a brunch type deal on Sundays until 3, and regular evening service Wed through Sat with lunch on those same days. Go eat. It's good. Watch out for log trucks though, there are lots around. Don't worry about hitting any cable guys, however, as there don't seem to be any to hit.

Two of the most competent, informed, and eloquent writers going in the Gulf South these days are Yankees(real ones, from Minneapolis and rural Wisconsin)-and not only do I enjoy their work, but I enjoy their friendship, as well. Sara Roahen is as good as it gets. She covered restaurants and food reporting for the New Orleans Gambit for the last 4 years and has now left that position to work on a book about dining in New Orleans. She's great. I highly reccomend her work. Brett Anderson (What food reporters are doing these days in New Orleans)is as good as it gets and, Yankee or no, has a clear and salient understanding of dining on the Gulf Coast and New Orleans. He has, in a few short years, even become really well versed in New Orleans history and lore-which is pretty huge as a part of understanding the foibles and eccentricities of New Orleans dining. He has followed the foot steps of longtime Picayune food writer Gene Bourg, a massively talented guy who was seemingly at the Picayune forever and is now a regular contributor to all kinds of national food and travel magazines. It doesn't matter where you are from. It's all about understanding and learning. Beyond that, the only qualification required is a sense of humor (both of these guys have very large doses of that) and an ability to write. We're lucky to have had them around.

The library where the cookbooks are housed did not flood at all. If you would like to get in touch with Susan, please shoot me a p.m. I can put you together. The library would be a great resource for you, and Susan would be an even better one. She's great.

I like the guy on RFD who cooks in Black Iron. That's a great show. Right up there with Mrs. Lucy (who I am trying to find out about, her area got jacked pretty bad last week). I hope that she and her grandaughter are OK. That was some classic TV.

The Picayune Food Section covers MREs , but you eGullet folks have seen it all before.

1: Yes, that is a standard, military issue, brown spoon 2: Yes we do get uncomfortable. That is why the Army standard, at least, is 1 MRE a day with either 2 cold, 2 hot, or a combination of hot and cold meals (unless you ask my hospital command who would rather be Rangers and can't pass their PT test) But, I have to ask Brooks, have you tried this one? ← I haven't seen it yet, I have only heard blissful rumors. Supposedly it's not that bad. Thanks to Rita, we are back to eating the damn things for a couple of days. We just got our power back on Wed night and now it's out again. Also, much of the coastal parts of the parish are flooded again, thanks to the South wind pushing the water into the coast. This wind is supposed to persist for about another 24 hours, so some people that thought that they had made it through unscathed. It's a mess.

Bring a boat. Most of Chalmette has flooded again. Patty, I'm glad to hear that you are OK. We lost our lights AGAIN due to more downed trees. We have only had power back for 48 hours and who knows when we will have it again. Just for the record, blue roofs and 45-55 mph winds don't mix. Mine is in Mississippi by now, I suspect. I am cooking 2 pork butts on the Weber in the rain for a party that will happen tonight, power or no. We're here and we're staying. Home, sweet home.

For those of you without a map or a clue, Patty is pretty close to being in the worst place in the world right now. She is on the east side somewhere within a hundred miles of where it is going to come ashore. This is a bad thing. Cameron Parish, and on into Lake Charles, are basically a lowland floodplain bordered by the Sabine River (Texas-Louisiana border). This is a bad thing. It's probably pretty rough there now, as I am 250 miles away, the levee on the Industrial Canal has broken and the 9th ward, eventually some of Chalmette and for sure Arabie, will be under 2 to 8 feet of water again (much of it already is, as I type this). Where I live, the winds go up to 35 or so, it rains like hell, and then it stops for a while. Blue roofs, no matter how meticulously applied, are not going to last long in this. The power has been going in and out all day (it is barely restored anyway, and you can bet there are a zillion trees waiting to smash it all up again). I am at the lovely Covington Holiday Inn with generators running and sattelite internet watching the insurance adjusters work and the power crews, who have been pulled in, drink. It's not going to be pretty around here in a bit. Who knew that there was a jukebox left with Black Sabbath AND George Jones on it? I can keep up with her through her brother and will call in the morning to see what is happening with her-Good Luck Patty. Cook the shrimp first.

Well, you got a better candidate? No? Ok then. Read the review by Pableaux Johnson (I was there with him). The place is really good and will only get better. The owners are pros and have proven to be great people and even better citizens of our little town. I highly reccoment the place and the food. It is, easily, the best place to eat within a hundred miles of New Orleans right now. The Lonbranch-Fois Gras and Chainsaws. Would you like cracked pepper with that? Pableaux's site has some interesting stuff about New Orleans and my home, Abita Springs Thanks Pableaux. You are, in fact, the man.

In the bag, packed neatly. That's the best part. Those guys put alot of stuff in that bag. It's currently raining like hell here now, apparently this is the beginning of the outer feeder bands. It's kind of cool looking outside though, the clouds are just sailing by. We'll probably lose all of our power again, which we just got back 2 days ago, because though the power guys have been doing an amazing job gettting the back up, there are tons of trees leaning at crazy angles ready to cut them again.

It tastes like something with vanilla flavoring in it. It's ok, but not something that Phaelon would be serving in his shop. The regular coffee in these packets is Sanka. Apparently the army used to have their own brand of "spray dried" coffee (whatever that is, not too appetizing sounding) and the soldiers hated it, so they went to a commercial brand. There is now a shortage of MREs, from what I understand. Between troops in the Middle East and Afghanistan, and storm victims, they are running short. Most of the ones that we have seen are less than two months old, according to the date on the package.

Here we have my cheerful assistant Graham (his hair was wet from his cold shower, but he was pretty game and I told him to put on a "cooking show" smile-he ended up having a pretty good time) opening the top of the magic green bag. This bag has "magic crystals" (see the link to get a real explanation) that get really hot when they come into contact with a little water. There are designed to be very easy to tear. It would seem that there were no milk carton engineers involved in it's design. Here he is holding the entree component of the dish. This meal had only one (I ran out of Thai Chicken, so we enjoyed ravioli last night, but you'll get the point-and I do have a picture of a plated dish of the chicken) entree. Sometimes there are two things that have to be heated, or as in the case of this one, there was a seperate bag to heat up the delicious cup of Sanka brand coffee. Graham carefully slides the entree into the bag. You have to get it just right, or you will put too much water and burn the hell out of your fingers (hence the usefulness of the much vaunted Gerber tool). Bag loaded and properly adjusted. Ready for heat. Man is this going to be good! Graham adds officially approved Government water. They finally got smart and started handing out gallons. Much more efficient and and easier to deal with at home. Those government guys, they think of everything. You will notice that he has stuffed it back into the multi use box. the directions tell you to do this after you put in the water, but I think it's a misprint. You can really bake your fingers trying to do that. You want to do it first, before you add the water. Once you get done with your meal, you can sit down in your tent, or on your rock, or your roof, and send fanmail to some flounder (reference contest here), as the box doubles as a post card. If you have decent resolution on your computer, you can actually see the steam coming out of the package. These things get hot in about two seconds. You have to quickly fold over the top of the bag and tuck it under the edges of the box, or all the heat comes out of the top. It's harder to do than it sounds. There you have it, fast food fans- a full on US Government certified emergency repast. Here we have Ravioli, stuffed with cheese, and some meaty red sauce-crackers and cheese, fruit cup, a brownie, a cup of coffee. lemon drink, some condiments, a dry nap, a sani wipe, tabasco, sugar, creamer, salt and pepper (these meals are almost devoid of salt, for some reason), and then, so that you don't offend your fellow combatants, a couple of chiclets. I know, I know, you want some closeups and some of you oriental fans want to see that delicious Thai Chicken. So here they are! Ravioli and cheese on crackers Fruit cup The brownie. It's really pretty good. Really moist and chocolatey. Better than anything out of a box that I have had in a while. Coffee, lemon drink, tabasco, and some Domino Sugar. Check out the plating on this: Thai Chicken in Sauce And there you have it, your meal for the evening. These plates were the first real plates that I had gotten out in about 3 weeks or so. It was kind of fun. I will stick photos up as we go, though except for Graham taking them to school, we aren't eating them much now, as I bought a pit with burners on it so that I could cook outside (first gas pit that I have ever owned. I am going to use it like an oven. No meat will ever touch it's ceramic grates. My Weber or my brick pit would never speak to me again if I did that). So, if you are ever in a bind, just say "MO!" when someone says, "would you rather eat MREs or starve?", They really aren't that bad.

Thai Chicken is our favorite, along with the meaty, delicious ravioli. MMMMM. Tasty. Actually, if you look at that Wikipedia thing that I attached to the above post, it gives alot of interesting facts. The things are (average) about 1200 calories. Generally, as Kristin said above, they are better than most of coach class meals that I have endured while amassing 750,000 miles in air travel over the last 10 years. I am working on the second half of the post (the photos take a while). Give me a minute. Sitting in the lobby of the Holiday Inn is not exactly optimum posting world.

This website is dedicated to the discussion of all facets of food and drink, and one of these facets has recently blown into my life thanks to a really big, really destructive hurricane. Now, just to clear things up, I have been dealing with these things all of my life. One of the earliest clear memories that I have is off the events that surrounded my family and the humorously bad selection of Mobile, AL as an evacuation destination just before Hurricane Camille. In retrospect, this was not one of the better decisions that we ever made. On the other hand, I learned that hurricanes aren’t much fun, though there is, and it’s kind of hard to explain, something really amazing about seeing one of those things breaking stuff. This amazement is not enough to keep me around. If it looks bad, I go- now that I have children. Previous to that, I stayed no matter what, just because I was a moron who liked to watch the things. No more a moron am I. I left for Katrina just ahead of the storm. I returned a few days after the storm with my brother (this was not legal at that point, but I am nothing if not a scofflaw redneck and a few downed trees and hot wires are not nearly enough to keep me away from my friends when they need some help) the little town that I have spent the last 15 years of my life in had been changed forever dramatically. Totally. Completely. Enough of that. Read the Hurricane Katrina thread for more details and depressing photos. I am here to talk about a stunning discovery that I have made as a result of this horrific event. I have discovered that MREs (the abbreviation comes from it’s full military nomenclature, “Meals, Ready to Eat") are better than TV dinners and sadly, probably better than most school lunches or meals in the average Midwestern truckstop. Really. They’re not that bad. And besides that, from a technological standpoint, they are absolutely amazing. For those of you that have had your head in a bucket for the last several years, and have blissfully missed all of the war news from Afghanistan and the Middle East, you might not know that the American armed forces and the Allied Forces (the few that we seem to have, anyway) eat these things pretty regularly. You can tell that they are not all for Americans as there is a pretty diverse variety of stuff in those sealed plastic bags, including Kosher meals, and vegetarian meals. Aside from the specialty stuff, there are a fairly large number of entrees (I think that there are 12 available at any time, but I'm not too sure on the menu). The main meal, which generally is something with meat and a starch to go with it -ie:Thai Chicken with Sauce and Rice Pilaf-BBQ meat pattie with macaroni and cheese, a cracker of some sort and something to go on it (cheese, peanut butter, etc.), a dessert or snack like thing (fruit mix, mixed nuts and dried fruit), a hot drink with caffeine and some condiments to compliment it, sugar (Domino from New Orleans or New York), salt and instead of pepper every single MRE in the history of the world has a little tiny single serving of Tabasco!. This proves to me, once again, that Louisiana is the culinary center of North America and that the Federal Government, in all it’s wisdom, has recognized this by putting Mr. McIlhenny’s secret recipe in every brown MRE package. There is also a very high quality plastic spoon (biodegradable no less, so that you don't leave litter behind after you blow stuff up), a pack of matches, a napkin, a wet wipe, and a couple of chiclets, so that after you dine you won’t have any of that pesky gingivitis to offend your fellow combatants or disaster survivors. Those government guys think of everything. You can’t put anything by them. Trained professionals everyone. The MRE guys should go to work for FEMA, things would be fixed in no time. Now for the MRE porn. It's a shame that I can't scan the side of the package, as I want a tshirt with the smiling military guys chowing down on their MREs. It's a really great image. Here is the attractive brown packaging. Brown is in this year, so they are right on point, as usual. This is how they come packed. There are twelve of these bags in a case. This means that all you need to do is heave a few of these over the side of a deuce and a quarter and, assuming that the recipients have some water to get them going (this is, believe me, an assumption that has lately been something that is not a guarantee), everybody will be eating soon. And not only will they be eating, but they will generally all have some choice in what they are eating. Now, this means that after a while, everyone will develop favorites and this is something that those fast thinking government guys anticipated. The way that they avoid the recipients of these fine meals tearing into them looking for the highly desired BROWNIE, CHOCOLATE, the COOKIE, MACADAMIA, or the NUTS, MIXED WITH FRUIT, is to simply list the main entrée on the package and to randomly stuff the bags with everything else. Tricky, yet effective. This was all explained to me by a guy in the PA National Guard who is manning the line handing out the cases of MREs and ice -which incidentally, is worth a mention-we have been getting ice here from as far away as Upstate New York (Glacier Brand Ice, excellent, kind of like crushed cubes), Michigan, Oregon, and Wisconsin-seems like a long way to send water, but we sure are grateful. As I have explained many times before both on eGullet and elsewhere, ice is the greatest modern invention-now many of you in colder climes might not think of ice as an invention-but those of us in tropical regions know damn good and well that it is an important development in the history of man. Without ice there would be no cold beer, no iced tea, and no ice cream, just to name a few things. This NG guy had already done a hitch in Afghanistan, another in Iraq, and then a ten day stint in New Orleans just after the storm. Guess what he said the worst of the three was? I love those guys. No more snide remarks about weekend warriors. I take it all back. Sorry guys. Here’s to you. All of this MRE silliness has been brought on by the fact that as I type this, I still don’t have power, gas, or much else. Hopefully soon though. There has been an army of Georgia Power and Light guys here today and they should be pulling the switch soon. It’s been a long time, and it sure will be a pleasure. I like camping and everything, but not in South Louisiana in the summer time. It’s hot as hell here and the bugs are awful. I could use a little central air. We have no hope of lanline telephone until AFTER THANKSGIVING, and that’s the rosy scenario, and cable, well put it this way-the direct tv guy will hopefully be here even before I get power-bringing me many channels and internet access-something I am currently driving a very long way and sitting in a Holiday Inn to get (though the HI folks have been great and don’t mind all of these geeks and business guys (I’m both) sitting around with laptops, cellphones, headsets, and what not). So not only is it a pain in the ass to cook a decent meal (though I can go out to eat, but it’s almost not worth it because of traffic and the fact that the places that are open are packed because there is a curfew and their serving window is pretty small-so everybody shows up at once. On top of that, this evacuation crap is really expensive and there just isn’t much lying around to eat every meal out. So, the MRE has become the easy meal of choice for my boys and I will admit that I am kind of fascinated by them, from a couple of angles-though I would get very tired of them, very fast, if I was sitting in an unairconditioned military vehicle in Bumfuch, Sandland eating them for the 200th meal in a row. But as an easy and low budget (Thanks American taxpayers!) meal solution, they aren’t half bad. So, once the hungry diner has made his selection, it’s time to prepare tonight’s repast. First, you will need two things to make this go well, and three is you really want to be a stylish MRE pro-you will need a pair of sharp scissors or a REALLY sharp knife, some water (only about two tablespoons to activate the heating device), and for the most well equipped diner, a multi tool such as the Gerber that you will see pictured here. These things get really hot in their little heating sleeve and that pair of needle nose pliers is a great way to keep from burning your trigger finger or to save fingers scarred from days of swimming in disgusting water and clinging to roofing shingles. I never evacuate without them (Gerber should contact my agent for any promotional inquiries). So, here is the drill, as written by me-I will give you the short version of what’s on the side of the package, and tell you the right way to do it, as we (my boys and I) believe that the technical writers who wrote the heating instructions might work for FEMA instead of the military, as the directions are clearly wrong, yet they keep printing millions of packages a day. This is the entire contents of a delicious meal of Thai Chicken with Yellow Rice Pilaf. Nice, huh? Mouth watering yet? Just wait! It gets better! This is the little vacuum packed set of condiments and stuff, including Tabasco! This is the contents of the package. You'll need some water. We have been using Houston's Finest lately. I guess that they just ordered up a shitload of can stock and ran water. Or maybe they keep it on hand. Either way, it's welcome and kind of a stylie hit at parties, where most people just have the usual brands. Here are some delicious crackers, some peanut mix, and my fabulous Gerber Tool What you do is this. You open up the top of the bag, and dump everything out. The first thing you do is check to see what the extras are. Did you get a brownie? Score! Next you separate everything out, get your mise en place all set to go, so to speak. You’ll want to lay everything out so that you can kind of get a visual of just what a fine and complex assortment of nutritional treats that you have in store. Some people (these are the same ones that bite Jolly Ranchers, Tootsie Pops, and bite ice cream cones-you know the kind-impatient, want it all now types) will go straight for the desserts and sweets before they heat up their entrée. Once everything is organized, you’ll need the green bag which contains secret heating crystals designed by GOVERNMENT SCIENTISTS to heat your food to piping hot in just moments, with only the addition of a bit of water. Take the entrée (you have to heat two, so take the one that is largest first. There is some organization involved that might be difficult for someone getting shot at or drowning, but for the average diner, it just takes a bit of practice and pretty soon they are eating high on the hog. OK, So I know you are going to hate this, but you will have to wait until the morning to read the end of this exciting post and see what I managed to do with the finished product (I plated the whole thing, it was kind of fun-as you can see, there is limited fun here). So tune in, same time, same url, for more exciting adventures from "The Hamaker Family! We'll eat just about anything"

I can tell you that if you send money to Liz Williams, it will be handled right. Perfectly, as a matter of fact. She is a regular dynamo of organization and good humor. Sure, we're gonna be back and the tourism industry will be a part of that. Hopefully, though, as we rebuild in what will inevitably be a smaller situation, population wise, some thought will be given to the future and what will benefit all of the citizens, not just those that have tourist related businesses. While the tourism industry is big bucks, the jobs that it provides, in terms of the majority of them, are low paying service sector jobs that offer 0 future or chance for advancement. This is our big chance to do it right. The money will be there. Hopefully it will go to the best use and not just the most obvious use.

New Orleans once fed my soul, and my daughter's who went to Tulane, and, it now appears, will again! Thanks, TAPrice! ← That may well be true, they may be ready to open soon. But it takes a hell of a lot more than a chef and willing diners to serve a meal in a restaurant. Let's use a dish of Redfish topped with shrimp something or other as an example. I am sure that I will skip some steps, please feel free to add your own. First, you need a guy to catch the fish: This will involve a boat, nets, ice, fuel, and decent water Then, after the guy gets all of the stuff to catch the fish he has to go catch the fish. Assuming that he has a good day, he will need to go sell the fish to a fish guy. Once the fish guy buys the fish, he will have to haul it to New Orleans on a road and across a bridge (it's the only way in, for those of you that are too dense to have put that together this week). The fish guy will take it to a restaurant directly or to a dealer, but for now, we'll just say directly. At the restaurant, someone will need to pull out his giant ring of keys and go look at the fish in the back of the truck and make sure that it's fresh-healthy eyes, good looking gills, slime still on fish, etc. and then pay the guy. Once he is paid, the back door guy will take it to a cooler, or in most cases, directly to some guys who are fileting fish somewhere in the bowels of the back of the kitchen. Once fileted, it will go into a tub of ice and be put in a cooler, awaiting that evening's diners.. Now, as the evening arrives, we have to have a whole nother cast of players. We will have a couple of tourists dining at a white table cloth restaurant: First of all, the tourists will have flown into the airport, caught a cab, and gone to their very nice downtown hotel. They will have gone out strolling in the afternoon, had a couple of beverages and discussed how much they love New Orleans and what an interesting city it is. Then they will have gone back to their hotel and taken a hot shower, perhaps entertained themselves in the clean sheets in the well made up room, and gotten dressed. On their way out, the doorman calls them another cab and they ride uptown, marvelling at beautiful St Charles Ave, the streetcars, and the mansions. Once they arrive at the restaurant, a whole host of players enter the scene. There will be doormen, hostesses or hosts, maitre d's, bartenders, backwaiters, busboys, and a waiter or waiters, depending on the service chart. In the kitchen, when the tourists order the fish, there may be as many as twenty people involved in the prep and service of everything that goes into getting it out. Once the diners have enjoyed it, it goes back to the dishroom, where dishwashers clean up everything with soap, water, machinery and brushes, ultimately washing all of it down the drain and into the public sewer. They will them leave a generous tip on the tab, thank everyone, and stroll out into the night , never realizing how many people were involved in their meal, from the airport to the dishroom. I have left out dozens of people and dozens of micro situations, but I can tell you that even if the water is gone, the national guard is gone, and the places are all shiny clean, it will be a while before a decent meal can be served here. Those people that you were watching on TV? The ones with no way out, on rooftops and in boats and wading in water that is so nasty it's hard to imagine how they can do it? Those are the people who clean your rooms and your fish, drive your cabs, open your doors, prep your salads, wash your dishes, operate the sewage and water systems. This city, or your city, for that matter, can't operate without them and this city won't be back until some accomodation is made for them, long before you tourists start showing up again. The interesting thing is that, bizarrely, one of the most interesting things that is likely to result from this is an upsurge in tourism in New Orleans as so many people have remembered how much they have loved their past visits (not to mention the many of us that have only had their love for their home reconfirmed) and will want to return as soon as possible. It's important to remember that this is not, and never has been, Disneyland. New Orleans is not make believe. It's real and it's the way that it is because of the people and the port. Without those two things, we wouldn't even be here. But until you can get on a plane and come, keep in mind that much of this "federal help" will be going to get an infrastructure back that has to be in place before you can ever have a Pimm's Cup at Napoleon House or an Oysters Rockefeller at Galitoire's or even a snoball at Hansen's. A fun game would be to go through this and list how many services and how many people are involved in one piece of fish. You don't ever think of it until you don't have it, believe me. I have a young man up here today that I picked up yesterday who has had basically nothing but eggs and Tang for three days, supplemented by some canned black beans and some cheese. He was so happy when we went ino Ryan's (a better than average, but not great, buffet place in the South) last night on the way home. He has great manners, but it was like watching a starving waif last night, he ate like a horse. I was happy for him, and all the while I couldn't help but think how lucky we all are. Really, really lucky. Lecture over, back to your regularly scheduled programming RIP Gatemouth. We'll miss you.

OK, before I start smashing my keyboard, let me get this off of my chest. Can a food capital recover? Well... hell yeah it can. Why do you think it's a food capital in the first place? Do you think it's because of the beautiful architecture at places like Mosca's? Or the lovely atmosphere at Hansen's? Or the white table cloth service at Uglesitch's? I, and many of my colleagues have written reams about why we are the way we are. If you don't get it at this point you aren't going to. But let me sum it up for you. Our raw materials, as a general thing, are better than your raw materials. While, temporarily, it's a pain to shrimp as no one can process, there are lots of guys willing to do it, even if they can't make any money at it due to current pricing and diesel costs. It's what they do. Ditto for oysters, crabs, crawfish (not in season anyway), etc. We have a year round supply of fresh produce and native citrus of various sorts. Hurricane or not hurricane, it's not changing. It's been this way since the only guys living here were indians. We have a cuisine that is local, native, and completely indigineous and one that has continued to evolve, but still uses the same centers as it has for a very long time. It is a broad cuisine, almost always involving what's fresh and local. That is not going to change. Our restaurant staffs live here. Most people in the bsiness in New Orleans are not hobbyist. On almost every level you find professionals. Whether it is in a family run sno ball business (there is some serious money in one of those things if it's well run, believe it or not), or a big chain of restaurants-you will find that the employees take the service and the food seriously. Just look at some of the past discussions in the Louisiana forum here. For God sakes, how many times can we discuss cheap eats in New Orleans? Well, plenty, says I. Because as a general thing you could (and will be able to again) eat better more cheaply in New Orleans than anywhere in the US. The reason for this is probably mostly two fold-!) New Orleans is a poor place. As my friiend Fred Flames said a few years ago, " New Orleans is a place with a low standard of living and a high quality of life." Very few statements about this city ring as true right now as that one. 2) The raw ingredients don't go far and are cheap to get here. In fact, for most of the year, you can have an oyster poboy where EVERY ingredient, oysters, bread, tomatoes, pickles, mayo, hot sauce, etc. are all made IN New Orleans, not near here, but here. Sure, some people will leave and some will come back, but not to the same places they were running before, for both personal and financial reasons. Let's face it, many of these guys aren't going to be covered for the kind of loss that they suffered and even if they are it won't be enough to keep them afloat for a year and leave enough left over to come back and open a new place. New Orleans will be back, don't worry about it. It's one of the most intersting places on the planet, has a port that can't be replaced (2/3 of the water in the US flows out past the French Quarter-that can't be stopped and there has to be a port there-so give it up on this "move New Orleans" crap-we ain't leaving), a food culture that is like none other, and a people who are fiercely proud of what they are and where they live (admittedly, even when it's clearly crazy-we are still pulling for the Saints, though only the Good Lord knows why). I'll be there in the middle of it. I can't wait.

Dude.....

Elmer's is actually in Pontchatoula and they are fine Mosca's, though it could d with some sprucing up, likely is ok. I don't think that part of the Parish flooded. Blue Plate would have gone under early. Those people that they kept showing up on the Broad Street Overpass? That's not too far and Xavier went under as well, and that's not too far away either. I don't even want to think about all of those car loads of egg yolks sitting back on the rail spur. Ugggh. They were bad enough when they were fresh. Making mayo in large amounts is not a pretty thing under the best of circumstances.

Did it flood out in Elmwood? Paul Prudhomme's spice plant is there. How about Crystal (Baumer Foods)? I am pretty sure that give their location at Carrollton and Tulane, they went under. I suppose that coffee processing by the industrial canal is a done deal as well. Folgers in Lacombe, the largest coffee warehousing and processing facility in the world, is running ads on NOLA.com looking for their employees. What else?