We started with one of the MUST HAVES, Pork Buns. These are sweet and savory and I have it on good authority they are laced with crack.

Pork Buns

Sun got her MUST HAVE dish, stir-fried noodles with vegetables. These are wonderful, and they fully and completely satisfied Sun.

Noodles

Then we ate some shrimp in tofu that was not as warm as it should have been and totally disappointed. For even more adventure, we opted for the pigs’ feet. My friend LOVED these. Had her boyfriend not been present, I secretly think she’d have married these feet. I did not share her love. So I leave it to you to try it yourself and settle the tie. I found the flavor not well pleasing and worse was the gelatinous texture. Not a good combo in my mouth.

Pigs' Feet

CS got the scallop dish. And DID NOT SHARE IT. So I’ll take that as a Yes, Please, More.

Scallops

Then, to counter the all-too-bad-taste left in my mouth from the pigs’ feet, I went with my other friend’s recommendation, the custard bun. This oddly reminded me of a stuffed king cake, a really, really GOOD stuffed king cake. Added to my always-growing MUST HAVE list. *Sigh*

Custard Buns

Then we had more mainstream dishes, pork puff pastries, sesame buns (yum!), snails (I admit I wasn’t up for these today but the two that ate them enjoyed them), and my favorite: steamed rice wrapped in a lotus leaf.

Pork Puff Pastry

Sesame Buns

Snails

Rice wrapped in Lotus Leaf

And as we were sitting in our respective food comas, enjoying the afterglow of a nice meal spent with good company, the sound of a distant drum was heard. It grew louder and louder and lo! a Dragon Dance had begun to celebrate the Chinese New Year!

They spilled out into the parking area and a crowd formed. Then streamers were pulled. It. Was. AWESOME. We topped it all of with a trip to the Hong Kong Food Market.

Though this requires a trip across the river (and for us, sadly, it also meant the need to use Garmin), it is well worth it.

Haydel’s Bakery adds a ceramic doll to its king cakes. Each year, it’s a different set of dolls. When the Saints won the Superbowl, they had three Saints-themed dolls, including a flying pig. Post Katrina, a Captain Blue Tarp doll and a FEMA trailer float. The dolls are as uniquely New Orleans as the artist who creates them, Alberta Meitin-Graf. I had the pleasure of hearing her speak at last year’s Jefferson Parish Library king cake party. (Damn, I love this town!) She’s simply fascinating.

This year’s theme does not disappoint in its nod to Louis Armstrong’s famous expression when he ended his letters: “Red Beans and Rice-ly Yours.” I give you the Red Bean Lady and her Rice-ly Escort carrying a trumpet.

New Orleanians took the most mundane day of the week, Monday, wash day, and of course turned their attention to food. A pot of red beans slowly, cheaply, simmering on the stove as the laundry was done. Even today, with mothers working and not doing wash all day on Mondays, we STILL eat red beans on Monday. It’s like going home again.

Why would you live elsewhere than where Mondays are Red Beans and Rice-ly Yours?

Enjoy Carnival! And king cakes! And if you find a king cake offers you too much sugar, do what I do: tap it into your coffee.

Historically, turtle soup gained popularity with the European explorations of the West Indies, where turtles became an important food resource for sailors and pirates and a luxury item on English tables.

~ New Orleans Cuisine: Fourteen Signature Dishes and Their Histories, edited by Susan Tucker.

Turtle soup has been a New Orleans dish since, well, New Orleans has been peopled. New Orleans’ turtle soup is different from other regions’ soups by the inclusion of another Louisiana food staple: tomatoes. Elsewhere, turtle soup is a thin brothy soup; in New Orleans, it’s a thick, rich stew-like soup.

Pete learned that although there are as many recipes for Creole Turtle Soup as their are Creole kitchens, all of the recipes had these things in common: turtle meat,veal or beef stock, onions, celery, tomatoes, parsley, thyme, chopped hard boiled eggs, lemon, and sherry.

Pete:

For the soup, I looked at several of the recipes available online. On his website Gumbo Pages, Chuck Taggert had two recipes, from Commander’s Palace and Arnaud’s. I also looked at Galatoire’s cookbook recipe and decided that I liked elements of all three.

I also wanted to make a lot of it to freeze for later and kept that in mind. Most recipes call for one and a half to two pounds of turtle meat, which, I learned, is carried in two-pound packages, frozen, at a few local seafood markets and groceries. It ain’t cheap; the two-pound pack I got in Covington at Pat’s Seafood ran about $30. I’ve heard a lot of people say that most restaurant turtle soup is not made with turtle meat but with veal and after spending that much on meat that isn’t filet mignon I can see why.

Turtle meat package.

Arnaud’s recipe called for both turtle and veal, and since I wanted to make a lot of soup, I also bought two packages of ground veal, which, at $6.00 a pound, seemed quite reasonable.

As far as seasonings go, the recipes were basically the same, although in addition to the onions, celery and garlic Arnaud’s and Commander’s called for, Galatoire’s also called for a lot of bell pepper and paprika — three peppers and a quarter cup of paprika.

Commander’s calls for beef stock, Arnaud’s and Galatoire’s, veal stock. I took the expensive route. Rather than buy a couple quarts of Swanson’s beef broth, we went with frozen veal demi glace from Langenstein’s, at $14.99 per 2-cup package. I figured 4 cups demi cut with 12 cups water would make for a gallon or so of veal stock. I cooked that down a bit for about 30 minutes with bay leaves, thyme, garlic and two tablespoons–not a quarter cup–of paprika, before adding everything else and it worked out perfectly.

The “everything else” consisted of the turtle meat, veal, vegetables, tomato puree, salt, pepper, hot sauce, lemons and sherry.

I’ve never dealt with turtle before and if any of this required cleaning a dead one, we wouldn’t be here today. Not that getting what was labeled “boneless turtle meat” was a piece of cake. Boneless though it was, there was an awful lot of silverskin and connective tissue that needed trimming, which, with my unskilled knife work, cost about about a half-pound of lost meat.

Here’s the method.

1) Have someone else (Nolanotes) prep all the veggies for you. It ended up being a lot more than needed, but I was thinking big when telling her what quantities to buy and chop.

Nolanotes-chopped veggies.

2) Brown the turtle meat. A little salt and pepper on the meat, a little vegetable oil in a hot pot, and brown the turtle meat on each side, just like if you were making grillades or whatever. After cooling a bit, I chopped the meat up in about 1/4-inch pieces.

Turtle meat browned and chopped.

3) Brown the veal. Same thing, it was ground already and I just browned it and put it in the bowl with the turtle until the stock and veggies were ready. I taste-tested some of  the browned turtle, which tasted more like beef than anything else. Alligator I find to taste like dry chicken with a fishy aftertaste and don’t care for it too much. Turtle tasted much better.

4) Make the stock. Next time I’ll probably start with some boxed stock. This time, though, it was $30 worth of frozen demi glace which I melted down and cut with water, added some bay leaves, dried thyme and oregano, salt and pepper, garlic, one lemon cut into quarters and the paprika and simmered all that while I…

Demi glace from Langenstein's. Expensive, but worked well and we didn't have to boil veal bones for two days.

5) Made the roux. All the recipes called for making a separate butter roux to add later on to thicken the soup. Two sticks butter, one cup flour, cook until light brown and set aside.

6) Sweat the veggies. I ended up measuring out two cups each of chopped onion, celery, bell pepper and one cup green onion. Sweated with a little butter until clear, then I added 3 cups of canned tomato puree to the veggies and let that simmer for ten minutes.

7) This is some really involved stuff. I’m taking a break now.

And….back.

8 ) Add the tomato and veggie mixture to the stock and 1/2 cup of sherry. Get it back to a boil and simmer 10 minutes.

9) Add the browned turtle and veal meat and all the juices that were in the bottom of the bowl. Bring it back to a boil, let simmer 20 minutes.

10) Chop up the boiled eggs and add the roux. WHAT BOILED EGGS??? Alright, that was another step that Nolanotes had taken care of before I started. Chop up three boiled eggs, add to the pot. The roux was sitting in the pot and the excess butter floated to the top. I just poured it off and put the browned flour paste into the pot. It thickened fairly well, I probably could have used another 1/2 cup. Bring to boil and simmer 10 minutes more.

11) Taste and adjust for salt, pepper and heat. I added a few shakes of Crystal. I would have added Tabasco instead but couldn’t find it.

That’s it. Pour in bowl, splash on some more sherry and some more chopped eggs if you like.

Bowl of Pontchartrain Pete's Creole Turtle Soup.

A note on the sherry: I used Hartley and Gibson’s Amontillado from Martin Wine Cellar. I had chosen a Manzanilla but consulted with Steve Perret, who suggested a nuttier, more full-bodied, Amontillado for use with turtle soup. That’s why it pays to shop where people know their stuff. It was inexpensive, too–only about $12 for the bottle.

Hartley & Gibson Amontillado Sherry.

I’m going to Baton Rouge at the end of the week, and it seems the perfect opportunity to do a side trip to LaPlace, Andouille Capital of the World.

One of the best, most joyous things about living in South Louisiana is the access to fresh ingredients to make gumbo at the first sign of Fall. And even if it ends up being 90º this weekend, it won’t matter. The sheer act of going all over town for the best ingredients, prepping veggies, getting that roux to a perfect chocolate color, and putting that pot on to simmer, it is always worth the effort.

If food is the religion of New Orleans, then gumbo is its God. And I’ll be bowing at its altar soon. Thanking my lucky stars for my Louisiana life.

Peace be with you.

Leah Chase has single-handedly put Holy Thursday on the New Orleans’ culinary calendar. Each year she makes umpteen gallons of her famous gumbo to serve one day a year.

As stated on Dooky’s menu:

This dish was prepared by the Creoles on Holy Thursday as the last big “meat” meal before Easter Sunday. This gumbo, like all others, was prepared with much labor and love.

Dishes such as Gumbo Z”Herbes were prepared not only to satisfy one’s taste and hunger, but also because there were superstitions attached to them. It is said, that if Gumbo Z’Herbes is eaten on this particular day it will assure the person of as many new friends as there are greens used in the gumbo. The number of greens used must be uneven: 5-7-9 or 11.

Here at Dooky’s, we use nine (9): mustards, collards, red swiss chard, beet tops, cabbage, carrot tops, spinach, kale, and watercress.

In times gone by, women could be seen with their knives and bags all along the neutral grounds digging up pepper grass, which had a lemony tart taste, to add to their gumbo. Now, in place of pepper grass, we use watercress or daikon tops.

I’ve seen Chef Chase on the news on Holy Thursday for years discussing this very gumbo. My expectations going in were great. So great, in fact, I worried they’d not be met. I need not have been concerned; my expectations were blown away. I suppose I expected something more familiar to smothered greens than a gumbo — some sort of a thin broth with lots of long leaves with a full-bodied taste of the greens. This is NOT that dish.

Chef Chase’s green gumbo is, first and foremost, a gumbo. It is rich. The greens are finely chopped, not long and leafy.  The dish pulls out from the greens their natural peppery-ness; you won’t be adding Tabasco. It is also full of meat: tender chicken and various sausages. I don’t know what magical things happen in that kitchen to bring all these green leafys together to in fact taste like a gumbo, and an amazing one at that, and, frankly, part of what makes it so special is not knowing. You taste the many deep flavor profiles. Each spoonful carries with it to your taste-buds the knowledge that it’s been cooked slowly and for a very long time. And all that love the menu says goes into preparing this dish, it is strongly felt for a long time after the bowl is empty.

This is a meal I will never forget. It has a place in the top three of my life. Thank you, Chef Chase, for that.

We visited three: St. Louis Cathedral (and joined the crowd for the meal prepared for the masses); St. Francis X. Seelos Church in the Bywater (hearing the name of St. Francis X. Seelos always makes me think of St. Mary’s Assumption which in turn makes me sad about its closing), and St. Joseph Church on Tulane Avenue (those pics of the heads at the base of the columns really drew me to them today).

My fave of the day? Easy–the Louis Prima memory cake at the Cathedral.

Enjoy the pics!

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For starters, they offer four flavors, cinnamon, praline, strawberries and cream, and chocolate.

These cakes are not as “mini” as the other contendors, nor as cheap.  But they have every right to be in this fight.

I tasted all but the chocolate.  The appearance, texture and flavor of the three I tried were spot on.  The certainly taste the most like their regular-sized counterparts.  What makes these cakes shine is that they are perfectly flaky and perfectly moist.

Out of the three, my favorite was the praline one.  I am a real traditionalist when it comes to flavoring my kingcakes, so for me to like the cinnamon but prefer the praline one, that is saying a lot for the praline cake.

My one critique of the Butcher’s kingcakes, and it is my general criticism of kingcakes overall, is that they are too sweet.  That white icing coupled with the granulated sugar–there is an actual crunch of sugar as you bite down–causes my teeth to hurt after just a few bites.

So, where do the Butcher’s kingcakes fall in the Mini Kingcake Wars with Hubigs and La Dolce Nola?  At the top.  These cakes, in a blind test, taste the most like their regular counterparts.  In fact, these are better than many kingcakes being offered in traditional bakeries all over the city.

Get downtown for this one.  You won’t regret it.

UPDATE: I’ve now tasted Cochon’s chocolate mini kingcake too.  I still prefer the praline one best.   The chocolate is not a very sweet chocolate, and I like that about it.  But the overwhelming taste is still cinammon.  I don’t think they need to ramp up the chocolate flavor but rather tone down the cinammon to let the chocolate be more of the star.

First was Hubig’s to hit the scene last week.  They admitted the first batch had “sliding icing” issues and needed clear packaging.   So as they were revamping, La Dolce Nola hit the twittertube with the news of their mini kingcake too.  I had to be on Metairie Road yesterday and couldn’t resist stopping in at La Dolce Nola and trying one of their cakes.  Then I saw Hubig’s ones at Rouses today.  I have now eaten both.

The results?

1.  Appearance.  Both are circular, following the tradition of their regular-sized counterparts.  Both are LESS ICED than the regular ones, and this is a good thing as far as I am concerned.  La Dolce Nola has none of the white icing–just a thin sugar coating covered with lots of the tri-colored granulated sugar.  Hubig’s has the white icing with the tri-colored sprinkles on top.  By appearance alone, La Dolce Nola wins.

Hubig’s mini kingcake

2.  Texture.  Both are CAKES.  These are not donuts or pies or bagels or other bakery items.  They are cakes.  La Dolce Nola’s is more flaky where Hubig’s is more dense and chewy.  In this department, Hubig’s felt more like the real deal.  But let’s get to it, shall we.  Which tasted better?

La Dolce Nola’s mini kingcake

3. Flavor.  Both were tasty, and I’d eat both again.  Hubig’s has a touch of cinnamon that is lacking in La Dolce Nola’s; this doesn’t make or break either.  Hubig’s chewiness coupled with its cinnamon flavor gives it a slight bagel-esque vibe.  But it isn’t SO chewy and SO cinnaomony to make think you are really eating a bagel.  La Dolce Nola’s has a less sweet taste–a welcome element when most kingcakes are so sweet they make my teeth hurt.  But what does the most damage to La Dolce Nola’s is that theirs is a touch dry.  Not so dry as to make me never eat one again.  But dry enough to make me feel I need coffee with it to fully enjoy it.

So, taking all elements into account, if I had both in front of me, I’d pick HUBIG’S as the winner!  In this case, runner up is quite good company!

Now for the warning:  These fellas are small.  Think jumbo donut.  They cost under $2.  You will so easily be tempted to buy these darn things that it might behoove you instead to just go buy a regular size one and admit you will eat it all and be done with it than do the slow death of denying you will eat that much kingcake this carnival season and in the end eat MORE than if you’d have done the sudden death of a regular one all at once.

But enough of what I think.  Get out and try both yourself and come back and tell me which you like better.  If you learn of others, leave me a comment so we can all get in on the fun.

Whatever your preference, vive la kingcake!  Thank you both, Hubig’s and La Dolce Nola, for giving NOLA a whole new way to love and enjoy the beloved kingcake!

The options are endless.  What to chose? What to chose?

I am resolving to living healthier.  I need my mind sharp and my body functioning to the fullest abilities when I am 80 and 90.  We in my family live long.  We don’t always stay sharp though.

I’ve never much cared about being uber healthy or ultra thin.  I’ve always been in good health, and I suppose I am now.  But I can *feel* things are shifting.  Weight doesn’t fall off as easily as it used it when I put my mind to it.  My bum wrist is starting to show those early signs of arthritis.  My spine is more comfortable slouched than straight up.  And these now minor changes are as big to me as if they were a neon sign: Your body is getting older and not doing your biding as quickly as it always has.

So I am upping the ante.  If the same-old/same-old isn’t enough to get me feeling the best I know my body can feel, then it’s time to recommit to yoga.  And eat more vegetables.  And jumping rope too.

Living in New Orleans results in Food being a word that starts with a Capital Letter.  We LOVE to eat; to cook; to celebrate with Food and by Food.  I am NOT giving up Food.  I’d just as well as move to Nebraska where a good meal is simply a steak.  But in order to get the full benefit of life in New Orleans while at the same time keeping my mind and body fully functioning for another 41 years, I am resolved to getting off my sofa more and onto my yoga mat.

Namaste and Happy New Year.