Super Bowl Memories

After the kick-off, Mel and I rolled up our sleeves and hit the kitchen to get Super Bowl XLIV’s dinner underway.

Normally, I wouldn’t have given football’s biggest day a second thought but this was no ordinary Super Bowl. New Orleans, my favorite city-away-from-home, was represented and we had to celebrate. (OK, truth be told, we would have made this meal either way—my sister was visiting that weekend, and that’s what we do when she’s here—we eat fabulous food and mix vintage cocktails.)

A recent e-newsletter from the Southern Food and Beverage Museum included recipes from Beau Chene Country Club’s Chef Hosie Bourgeois: BBQ Shrimp and Truffle Bleu Cheese Grits. The lusty spread of ingredients was enough to jumpstart the anticipatory salivating: fresh rosemary, beer, butter, garlic…bleu cheese, truffle oil, heavy cream…

A little Food 101: BBQ Shrimp New Orleans-style is neither cooked on a grill nor coated in sticky red sauce. It’s closer to scampi and may have been based on that dish back in the 1950s when a restaurant customer, who’d had something similar in Chicago, tried to explain it to a chef down south.

Though I’ve tried many versions, this new one may be my favorite for its lush sauce, perhaps because it conjures up one of my other favorite NOLA dishes, Crawfish Etouffee with its thick, slightly tomato-ey gravy. Typically, BBQ shrimp calls for butter, white wine, Worcestershire, lemon juice, hot sauce and a drift of black pepper. And, typically, you’d use heads-on shrimp, which is fattier and also soaks up more sauce, but I’m lazy and I’ll admit I don’t always feel like making a big greasy mess when I eat.

Back to the kitchen: Both dishes practically assembled themselves—all the shrimp ingredients went into a big sauté pan to simmer and the perfectly timed quick cooking grits were a cinch to stir together.

But the results…Five star all the way. Paired with a simple green salad tossed with homemade Meyer lemon dressing and a fresh baguette for dragging through the juice, this was one plateful of intense flavor.

For dessert…what could be better than a sweet Super Bowl win for the Saints, toasted with clinking glasses of Rosa Regale?


Here’s my adaptation of the recipes:
New Orleans-Style BBQ Shrimp

2 lbs large shrimp (peeled or heads-on, your call)
1 C tomato sauce
¼ C Worcestershire sauce
¼ C lemon juice
2 t. Tony Chachere’s Creole Seasoning (it’s salty, so use to your taste)
1 bay leaf
5 fresh rosemary sprigs (take a big deep whiff of these before you throw them in!)
6 oz beer
4 T butter
2 oz extra virgin olive oil
A hearty dose of fresh ground black pepper
A few lemon slices
---Combine all ingredients (except shrimp) in a large sauté pan and simmer for ten minutes.
Add shrimp and cook for about 3-5 minutes, till done.


Truffle Bleu Cheese Grits

8 oz quick grits
8 oz heavy cream
2 C water
1 oz white truffle oil
3 oz bleu cheese crumbles
½ tsp salt

---Bring cream and water to a boil. Whisk in grits and salt. Stir over low heat for about five minutes. Remove from heat and stir in truffle oil and bleu cheese.

Lucky Clover

In the summertime especially, New Orleans truly is hotter than hell.
We’d had a busy day: New Orleans Glassworks (http://www.neworleansglassworks.org/) in the Arts District and the riverfront Southern Food and Beverage Museum (http://www.southernfood.org/) in the morning; la petite Absinthe Museum of America (http://www.absinthemuseumofamerica.com/) on the Rue Royale in the afternoon, lots of walking in between.

I wanted to get back to the Dauphine and hit the pool before succumbing to a couple of frosty Hurricanes in the cool darkness of May Baily’s.

Mel wasn’t going anywhere till we got our hubcap-fried burger at the Clover Grill. (http://www.clovergrill.com/)
We perched on a couple of red deco barstools at the counter. Apologetically, the cook said the A/C wasn’t working. (What did it matter at that point? I thought. Just bring us our Co-Colas.)

The guy two seats over from me could’ve been Vince Vaughn, circa 20 years ago. Except for the fact that he was plugged into his iDistraction, watching something, oblivious to my appraisal, we could have tripped backwards in time a little bit.

I’m succumbing to the sultry stickiness, mind adrift, as we sip our icy Cokes and take in our surroundings, a languorous French Quarter late afternoon. We watch the hubcap sizzle on the hot griddle, our little burger steaming away under there, betting it’s going to kick Port of Call’s chunky ass.

Yep. I’m afraid it did, Port of Call fans. It was thin but substantial, perfectly cooked and manageable—it didn’t fall apart in our hands. Between that, the Coke, and the hot oily, salty fries, we found ourselves in a little corner of greasy spoon heaven.

Miracle Michael

We pretty much had him to ourselves.

In between his serving other patrons at the Swizzle Stick Bar, we bantered about booze. We were treated to the last bit in the silver shaker from other people’s cocktails, drizzled into a pair of shot glasses. Chocolate Martinis. Whiskey Smash.

A thought popped into my head. I’ve been on a quest to sample a particular vintage cocktail--The Aviation—but one of its uncommon ingredients had eluded me thus far.

Its original recipe called for: Gin. Check.
Maraschino liqueur. Check. (Thanks, Mel.)
Lemon juice. Easy enough.
But Crème de Violette or Crème Yvette—not that easy. My guess: modern palates were turned off by the fact they’re both made from crushed violet petals—making its existence quite scarce.

So I said to Michael: “What do you know about Crème de Violette?”

He gave me one of those rare smiles, a golden “eureka” moment wrapped up with a big Christmas bow. He reached under the bar and pulled out a bottle.

He whiffed it under our noses. I recognized the scent--not what I expected-- but couldn’t quite place it. My sister, on the other hand, must have really loved her childhood supplements because she immediately said: “Flintstones vitamins.” He nodded.

He knew just what I wanted. I’m happy to report the finished product—all silvery lavender in its martini glass—was light years away from kids’ stuff.

It was glamorous. It was ethereal. I could have been Carole Lombard draped in white chinchilla and glittering rhinestones, waiting for my man Gable to join me in the lobby bar.

The taste? Icy, clean, a hint of violet blue yonder.

And I have Michael to thank for leading me to my Liquid Grail.

Postscript: Check this out--
http://www.cafeadelaide.com/adelaide.html

Up next: Lucky Clover

NOLA when She Sizzles

The best way to navigate the French Quarter in the smothering heat of summer is to stay hydrated, for goodness’ sake—and keep your blood sugar up with multiple small meals!

The first place Melificent and I headed was Port of Call, a dive joint on Esplanade favored by the locals. In addition to Neptune’s Monsoon—a large and unremarkable rum/fruit juice concoction, we launched into smackdown mode and tried one of their burgers—this trip, it was Port of Call versus Clover Grill.

“Better be a good burger,” Mel said, noting the $9.50 price tag.

The patty, capped off with a handful of shredded cheese, was so thick, it basically deconstructed into wads of meat as we attempted to eat the thing.

Next stop: Fiorella’s—home of the best fried chicken in the Quarter. We were still buzzing on our bucket of rum/juice, so we kept it light and ordered two big spicy, crunchy breasts of heavenly goodness. Fan-effing-tastic. Enough said.

The next day, we needed a snack before entering the shrine to all that is tasty: the Southern Food & Beverage Museum at Riverwalk. I was beyond delighted to find Messina’s in the food court—purveyors of Cajun Spicy Potatoes, which I had missed, all these long years without. (I have cooked up several batches of these sinful spuds since returning home: little red potatoes simmered in Zatarain’s cayenne-laced seafood boil, smothered with Tony Chachere’s seasoning-flecked sour cream and shredded cheddar, sprinkled with chopped green onions. Simple and oh-so-good.)

SoFAB and its Museum of the American Cocktail made us thirsty and hungry, duh, so we wandered through cool, dark Harrah’s casino, emerging into blazing sunlight on the other side at Loew’s hotel, with Café Adelaide and the Swizzle Stick Bar nestled in its lobby.

The airy lounge is adorned with some of Adelaide’s massive cocktail shaker collection. She was a Brennan, of the famed NOLA restaurant clan, and liked the hooch so much she wore a gold swizzle stick charm around her neck. Would have loved to meet her!
Drink special: The Adelaide Swizzle. Perfect for a hot afternoon. A tall glass filled with New Orleans Dark Rum, Peychaud’s Bitters, soda, lime juice and a “secret ingredient” which Michael, our first rate absolutely amazing bartender (for reasons I will reveal in my next post), refused to tell us outright but let us discover on our own. (Mel’s getting a bottle of the secret ingredient for Christmas! That’s all I have to say.)

What do you get when you spear a big fat shrimp, dip it in a cornmeal-shredded tasso batter, fry it up, swirl it in a Crystal hot sauce reduction, and showcase it on a plate atop a clear pool of pepper-flecked jelly, garnished with slivers of pickled okra? Paradise on a bamboo skewer, my friend.

The Swizzle Stick Bar did not disappoint and it only got better from there…

UP NEXT: Why I love Michael...