Mayhaw Man

Say what you want about this place, but you can't beat waking up at 3 in the morning to a Central Grocery Muffelletta. If you want a cool carousel, walk over to the Monteleone and check out the Carousel Bar (home of the Sazerac Cocktail). It is very old and very cool. Right across the street from Mr. B's, giant old hotel, lobby bar-you can't miss it.

Welcome to eGullet. It's a great time to come to New Orleans, the rates are down and the reservations are much easier to get this time of year. Here are a couple of past discussions that might help: Typically New Orleans How to gain 10 lbs in 3 days Save Your Money FWIW, I like Herbsaint more than Bayona, but that is wholly personal preference that is kind of hard to explain. Bayona is lovely, but a much more formal dining experience. Susan Spicer will be my candidate for the new Iron Chef when they get around to letting me decide (these things take time ). I like Gautreau's. That being said, in that kind of dining catagory I would choose Upperline or Clancy's every time. I like them both, and they are similar types of places. I just think that the food and the experience (for me, anyway) is better at either of those places. Have a great trip and let us know what we can do.

I am embarrassed to admit this, but since it was mentioned no less than 3 times I thought it might be kind of funny-my grandfather was the mill agent (this is equivelant to GM in mill-speak) at the IP Paper Mill in Mobile off and on for twenty years. I am expert on the smells of the various mills that he worked at and in the towns across the South my dad grew up in (Springhill, Camden, Moss Point, Mobile, Bastrop-they all smell the same-yuck). I forgot to mention, the Dew Drop Inn has a stupendous hot dog. It might seem a little bit strange to the uninitiated, but it's really, really good!

I do it all the time. Especially for dessert when I chane my mind after leaving someplace else. It's not far from our place and conveniently open kinda late. Just tell them you are a single and sit at the bar. The bartenders are happy to serve you (mo money, mo money ). Order what you want, but that big ass pork chop with the sweet potatoes is hard to beat. Really good. Everytime.

Dew Drop Inn - I love this place. It is what most people think about when they think about southern food. My dad went to The Old Shell Road School during WWII and used to eat lunch here. It hasn't changed much. The Catalina Seafood Rest. 450 Azalea Rd (just off of Airport Blvd on the right headed South) Once again, I eat here every time I am in Mobile. Fried seafood done right. Get crab claws. THey are cheap, plentiful, and delicious. Lambert's (home of the throwed rolls) Foley, AL People love this place. I like it. If you can get down there, the Grand Hotel has an awesome Sunday Brunch Of course, you know about Wintzell's dinesite has lots of places listed. Most of them aren't chains. I found B. Thai Cuisine there. It is a strip mall Thai place on Airport Blvd (between McGregor and the Interstate) that I love. reasonable and really tasty. Hope this helps. You're right. They need help over there.

I am really glad you bumped this up Redfish. Welcome to eGullet. I am crazy for fatty fish, eel, sea urchin, raw squid (when I KNOW that it is in good shape-I would not order it just anywhere) and like Jason-I love those baby softshells and fortunately they are common in sushi places here as they are local and fresh-I also really like roe of all kinds.

How could you want more than this? You must be very hard to please. How about : Mamacita's Kerrville Good Tex Mex Altdorf Fredericksburg Good German Fare Dutchman's Market Fredericksburg Good smoked sausages and cheeses Dietz's Bakery Fredericksburg Been there forever-great bread Nice drive from Fredericksburg to Kerrville-2 ways to go, they are both pretty scenic Hope this helps. There are alot of people here who know a hell of a bunch more than I do about this subject. I have family in the area, which is the only reason that I know about these places. Clearly there is tons of barbeque in the area, but I will defer to one of the smoke fiends to reccomend these. Feeling dirty and want to get clean? Schlitterbahn is the answer to that particular problem. I love that place. Spring fed waterpark. Now where else but Texas.

In an answer to an earlier question you said that you would like to do a talk show on the Food Network. Let's say that the network brass ran out of videotape about jello, corn dogs, and jolly ranchers and allowed you to host a talk show of your very own. How would you set it up. Zany sidekick? House band? Who would be your guests? Would it be all food and food related? Would you do a monologue and exchange zingers with your mad genius/eccentric bandleader? Any live cooking demos by celebrity guests? It sounds like it could have possibilities. Tell us about it.

Sadly for local diners (but happily for the sellers and purchasers) it is all true and was detailed in today's Picayune. Perisales

Melon Sorbet 4 cups chopped melon w/1/2 cup sugar added Simple syrup (1 c sugar/ 2 c water boil and then simmer 5 min) 1 cup heavy cream Puree fruit and then run through fine sieve Combine all ingredients Refrigerate over night (this part is very important with the cuisinart) Freeze in Cuisianart Harden in Freezer Impress your friends and family. We have gotten to the point where this is a almost daily ritual. WIth the melons you might want to add juice of a lemon or lime (depending on the fruit used and your own taste-cantalope is our current fave and we add a little lemon juice, maybe like 1 lemon)

Since you guys are tired and have conference committments, you may want to do this later in the week, but later in the week you really should try to get over to the The Ogden Museum of Southern Art. The place is world class. The collection is, in a word, stunning. Everything from old rural oils and primitive art to photos by Birney Imes and some of the exuberant work of the late Ida Kohlmeyer. It's a great way to spend part of a hot New Orleans afternoon in air conditioned comfort. It's a whole nother museum world, and I know you probably have seen a belly full of this stuff in Hawaii, but the D Day Museum is a pretty amazing place, as well. Well worth a visit.

Mother's would be a fine casual lunch choice. Get a debris po boy or a ferdi. It can be very crowded at lunch, but the line moves quickly. Bon Ton Menu

Mike Anderson's, Redfish Grill, or Deanie's. If you are dragging around tired children I would go with MA's or Deanie's, as they are pretty casual. If they are alert and not so tired, Redfish Grill is great. I love the place. So do my children as there is alot of stuff on the menu that they would eat when they were younger (now they eat just about everything).

Bon Ton! I should have thought of it in the first place. Mulate's is what it is. A big cajun place across from the convention center churning out lunches for conventioneers. They do have a pretty good seafood gumbo, and some of the other food is passable, but that's about it. Bon Ton, on the other hand, is kind of an old line place, reasonably priced, and can be really good. K Pauls, as far as I am concerned, is just as good as the day it opened. THe food is good to great, and while it is a little pricey (prices based on his constant supply of tourists-hence the dearth of locals), it is a fine example of the style that HE STARTED. Nouvelle New Orleans all came out of Commanders Kitchen when Paul was running it based on the recipes and foods that he ate growing up. It is not light fare for dieters, it is full flavored, over the top stuff. Good Choice. The Gumbo Shop is exactly as you described it. I run in there for red beans (they have very good ones) sometimes early in the morning (11 a.m.) before they get crowded. Have fun. Brooks

The Neshoba County Fair is one of the last bastions of the true "dinner on the grounds , speeches to follow" political events that still exist. I have only been once to see the speechifying-but the amount of food that I was invited to eat at various cabins (I was with a long time fair vet), not to mention the quality of the food, was amazing. There are families that have had these cabins for years and are in a constant competition over the course of the fair to see who can draw the most people onto their porch to eat. A worthy competition, if you ask me and I was happy to be a judge/victim. The Fair marks the beginning of the Political season on election years and is a "don't miss" event for statewide politicians. The fair takes place in the middle of the hot ass summer in North Central MS, and as most of it takes place outdoors, it can be stunningly hot. The website is pretty interesting and a good read.

Well? Where did ya'll eat today. C'mon! We want to know.

Thanks for taking the time with us this week. Obviously your show is in the teaching catagory and that seems to be a disappearing genre on prime time Food Network. The "best of" shows and the like seem to be carrying the day. Emeril still draws a big prime time crowd, you are on there a couple of times a week, and I am assuming the ratings for Iron Chef are ok, but the rest of the stuff looks pretty much like it is composed of a host doing voiceovers with stock video taped interviews of people and stock scenes from sites (festivals, factories, restaurants). I recently heard Sara Moulton speak in New Orleans and she said, without equivocation, that this is absolutely the new direction of the network as that is where the money seems to be. No more (or very little) cooking shows in prime time. OK. Fine. It looks like she was right. My question is: What kind of programming would you put on prime time if you were in charge (aside from more of you-can't blame you there, but that's not part of the question)? Teaching shows? 4 hours of Emeril? Old Julia reruns? What would you like to watch if you were doing the programming to entertain yourself?

Homer Simpson .

I currently get together with my family on the Northshore of Lake Pontchatrain-every night as a matter of fact. We all love coleslaw. We eat it pretty regularly in the summer in lieu of salad. A head of cabbage will go a long way amond four people when chopped a little at a time and with a jar of dressing around in the fridge, it is pretty convenient to make for just a few people. I know that many of you will jump in and call me a luddite or some such (don't waste bandwidth-you can make fun of Fifi and the Hellman's at the same time ) but I actually like the thin, more or less vinegar based stuff (not too sweet though-more on the balanced side between sweet and vinegary). We make one that includes thin sliced sweet onions, toasted sesame seeds, and lots of black pepper. As soon as I get home I will look in my Mom's cookbook and see what the dressing recipe is, as that is pretty much the key. You can also use this to go for that East Texas Crunchy thing that seems to show up at every potluck around here, but I like it without the noodles.

Sautee finely minced onion, red b.p., and garlic in butter until onions are translucent (don't burn the garlic dammit!) Cut Corn off of cob into bowl, saving all juice Add corn and liquid to onions and sautee until just warmed through That's it. I love this stuff. Like Snowangel, we eat corn in some form deveral times a week during the peak of the season (which incidentally, for sweet corn, is the early part of the summer here-4th of July being about the height). A savvy gardener can get two crops with any luck at all-one Spring, one Fall.

There has been some discussion of Morimoto's rest. in this thread.

I completely understand about wanting to be close to family and that restaurants eat up most of your waking hours if you are theowner/chef. Good luck to the both of them. OTOH I hate to see them go. Peristyle is one of the serious values in eating in New Orleans and has been for a long time. You know what you are going to get, you know what kind of service there will be, and you know that you are going to be pretty close to, if not completely, satisfied by the time you are donw with service. Peristyle has been a dependable place with seriously good food, service, and style and I will miss it greatly.

And now you expect us to hunt for it? Well, it is nightime. you lazy bastard. egullet *never* sleeps. I can't believe it. Only here would there be thread about snipe that is really about snipe. Snipe hunting is one of the oldest jokes among Southern Men that I know about. It is also a very long story-This link does a pretty good job of explaining it-The Snipe Hunt I have also, many times, hunted snipe for real, They are, in fact, good to eat and hard as hell to shoot as you are doing it (usually) in pretty thick woods. I thought that Colestove was pulling our legs, what do I know? I'm just a dumb old cracker and ought to know my place here amoung all of you sophisticated city folk.

Guy, I got in because Inkjet had just installed a bunch of line/dating equipment and the sales guy got us a tour (we bought the stuff after that-they do hundreds of line changes per week and if it worked for them I figured it would work for us). Oddly, this was about two months after the two guys got killed in the mustard tank. What happened was that one guy was overwhelmed by the mustard seed gas and fell into the tank and the second guy went in after him, very sad. That pepper grinding is stunning. They bring in 18 wheeler loads of the things (from Texas, North Louisiana, and Mexico) and just tilt them into this big ass grinder. The effect is absolutely amazing. I will never think that cutting onions is bad again. They give you this beg chemical warfare mask thing, but it doesn't help that much, or maybe it does-I wasn't willing to find out. The day we were there one of the lines was running Crystal Worcestershire (which I like) and mixing the stuff up in big vats. While I won't say that I saw any fresh stuff going into it, they were using the next best thing-asceptically packed onion, anchovie paste from these huge drums, tamarind paste, clove oil, Steen's mollasses-not at all what I expected from someone who sells their stuff at that price point. Their label room was pretty cool. THey package God knows how many products and ship them all over the world (they do lots of business with various oil company food service companies and the military branches). They had labels in at least 25 languages for almost everything. Jelly, hot sauce,jam. worcestershire, various mustards, etc. That place is quite a business for a dumpy little plant under the interstate. I do miss the steam coming out of the sign at Crystal, though. I like old landmark signs. It's nice that they fixed the lights on top of Falstaff, but I would still like to see the cow out at Brown's Velvet in Metairie. Jim and I tried to buy that thing, but they wouldn't sell it. I thought that a giant cow 75 feet in the air might kind of class up the Northshore.

Breakfast at Chez Chad- Huevos con Butt. Sounds delicious, no? I enjoyed following your project and I completely understand a throng of hungry family members (for those of you that never get the experience-just picture little birds in the nest, their little beaks wide open and their featherless throats, starving and empty waiting on mom to return to the nest with a tasty prechewed morsel-that's what your family comes to look like in the eyes of a chef who is in no big hurry as he is enjoying the preperation as much as the actual eating of the meal)