From Sausage Gravy to Snails



In Georgia, on the border of North Carolina, sits a restaurant and inn that has been serving great home-cooked meals since 1917.

I discovered The Dillard House several years ago on the recommendation of a former classmate. I have returned every year since, when my friends and I gather for our annual whitewater rafting trip.

The Dillard House is located in Dillard, Georgia, a town settled in 1794, when an officer who served in the American Revolution, Captain John Dillard, was awarded a land grant of 1,000 acres. The Dillard House offers cottages, chalets, and very nice hotel rooms. It has horseback riding, swimming, tennis, trout fishing, and even a small petting zoo for children. But where the Dillard House shines is in the kitchen. The Dillard House is all about food.

Throw me in the briar patch.

People travel great distances to eat at The Dillard House. In a town of 198 people, the Dillard House serves over 1,200 hungry diners for Sunday lunch, alone.

The dining room at The Dillard House is expansive, with huge windows overlooking a beautiful valley nestled among the Blue Ridge Mountains. The restaurant is large and comfortable and as casual as the food that is served.

Posted at the entrance is a large menu which changes with each meal period. A dinner menu might read: Fried chicken, baked chicken, country-fried steak, country ham, bbq chicken, fried corn, tomatoes, potatoes au gratin, peas, cole slaw, butter beans, fried okra, fruit, rolls, cornbread, and peach cobbler with ice cream.

Once your party is seated, a server approaches the table and says, “Welcome to the Dillard House. Have you dined with us before?” I have, several times, but I always say no just so I can hear the next line in the servers pitch.

“Did you see the menu out front?” he says.“Yes,” I say.

“We’re about to bring it to you.”

I love that. My guests are always stunned. They bring the entire menu to your table within minutes of being seated.

The restaurant is a family style restaurant. Trust me. If you’re going to pick a family with whom to eat family-style food, the Dillards should be at the top of the list.

On a recent breakfast visit, the menu consisted of eggs, grits, pancakes, cottage fries, sausage (link and patty), sausage gravy, bacon, country ham, red eye gravy, pork tenderloin, baked apples, blueberry muffins, buttermilk biscuits, cinnamon rolls, and sliced fruit, all for $14.95.

The meals arrive in large serving bowls, and when they are emptied, they are refilled until you throw in the towel (or the napkin, in this case).

The food is good. The menu claims that many of the vegetables are locally grown. They must be doing something right; Southern Living magazine has listed The Dillard House as the South’s “Favorite Family Restaurant for Country Style Cooking” in its Reader’s Choice Awards for the last 10 years.

While in the area, I traveled 14 miles north to Highlands, NC, where I ate one of the finer Italian meals I have eaten in a long time. Ristorate Paoletti has been in business for 54 years on Main Street in Highlands. The wine list is extensive, the room is dark and crowded, and the food is excellent.

It’s been at least a decade since I have eaten escargot— the fine-dining staple of the 1950s— but as I was dipping my bread in to the last remaining pool of the herb-scented butter remaining in the bottom of the Escargot alla Bourguignonne dish, I wondered why.

The wine-laden, garlic-spiked herbed butter that remained in the snail dish was so good that I abandoned the marinara served with the calamari and resorted to dipping my fried squid into the escargot butter.

Fresh figs wrapped in prosciutto and finished with a balsamic reduction is another staple that has been done and overdone throughout the years. Though left in the hands of the kitchen crew at Ristorate Paoletti, it was taken to another level.

Our group ordered several pasta dishes, all of which were well above average. But the hit of the evening was a risotto feature with grilled lobster, scallops, and shrimp. It was rich and creamy, and the grilled lobster added the perfect texture contrast to the rice.

Highlands is a quaint resort town with mid-century charm, no crowds, and great restaurants and shops. It sits in stark contrast to Dillard, just 14 miles south at the base of the mountain.

Two distinct towns, two distinct restaurants, two distinct attitudes, all in one geographic area, Dillard and Highlands are a great escape— all this and rafting, too.

Lasagna with Spinach

1 Tbl Olive oil
2 Tbl Garlic, minced
1 10-oz package Spinach, frozen, then thawed and excess moisture squeezed out
1 10-oz package Spinach, fresh, cleaned and roughly chopped
1 /2 tsp Salt

2 Eggs
15 oz Ricotta cheese
1 cup Romano cheese, shredded
1 1 /2 tsp Black pepper
1 1 /2 tsp Salt

12 Lasagna sheets, cooked until al dente in boiling salted water
2 cups Mozzarella, shredded
1 recipe Tomato Sauce (recipe below)

Preheat oven to 325 degrees.

In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Sauté garlic for 30 seconds, add fresh spinach and cook until wilted. Season with salt. Add drained spinach and set aside. In a mixing bowl, combine the ricotta cheese, Romano cheese, eggs, salt and pepper. Stir well.

Ladle two cups of tomato sauce into a three-quart baking dish. Place a layer of three pasta sheets on the sauce and top with half of the ricotta mixture. Spread half of the sautéed spinach on the ricotta mixture. Lay down another layer of pasta sheets and top with two cups of sauce. Spread out evenly. Sprinkle the sauce with half of the mozzarella cheese. Repeat these two steps again. Cover the baking dish tightly first with plastic wrap and then foil. (The plastic will not melt. It will prevent the cheese from sticking to the bottom of the foil). Bake covered for 1 hour. Remove foil and plastic and bake for an additional 10 minutes. Allow lasagna to set 20 minutes before serving. Spoon the remaining sauce on top of lasagna just before serving. Yield: 8-12 servings


Tomato Sauce

1 /4 cup Olive oil
2 cups Onion, small dice
2 cups Carrots, shredded
1 /3 cup Garlic, minced
2 tsp Basil, dry
1 tsp Oregano, dry
2 Bay leaves
2 tsp Salt
2 tsp Black pepper, fresh ground
6 oz can Tomato paste
2-28 oz cans Tomatoes, diced
28 oz can Tomatoes, crushed
1 1 /2 cups Water
1 tsp Balsamic vinegar

In a large heavy duty saucepot, heat olive oil over medium heat. Add onions, carrots and garlic. Cook vegetables 10 minutes stirring often. Add herbs and tomato paste and cook for five to six minutes (This helps to caramelize the tomato paste resulting in a sweeter tomato sauce). Add remaining tomato products and the water. Turn heat to low (very low). Allow sauce to cook for 3 1 /2 hours, stirring often. Add vinegar. Yield: approximately three quarts.

Sauce is best after two or three days in the refrigerator. Sauce freezes well.

Fireworks and Food Foibles



One of the benefits of being a writer is that I am always on the receiving end of humorous and informative stories reported to me by the people I meet.

Last week I heard one of the best yet. A friend of a friend was recounting a recent Fourth of July meal with his family. His grandmother, a spry 93-year old, picked up a small box of bang snaps— the small firecrackers that are wrapped in paper and explode when thrown on the ground— and popped a few of the firecrackers into her mouth thinking that they were candy.

I am not sure if they exploded when she bit down on them or not, but the young man recalling the story told of a puzzled look on her face as smoke drifted out of her mouth while sitting at the dinner table. Luckily, she wasn’t harmed and apparently laughed it off. Others in attendance were witness to a story that will certainly be told, retold, and added to the file of ancestral remembrances that are recounted every time the family gets together, and certainly every Fourth of July.

The story reminded me of my brother’s wedding, 28 years ago this month. At the time, the practice of throwing rice at weddings was beginning to go out of style. Apparently the wedding rice was being eaten by birds creating intestinal problems. This was the first wedding I attended that offered bird seed to throw at the bride and groom as they made their escape.

The wedding reception was held at the bride’s home. Small bowls of bird seed were placed around the front door so guests could grab a handful when the newlyweds made their exit. At one point during the reception, I rounded a corner to find my grandmother, a very prim and proper Southern lady, popping handfuls of bird seed into her mouth. Well into her eighties at the time, and possessing all of her teeth, she smiled politely as she crunched and chomped the bird seed. When I told her that bowls were not filled with nut-like hors d’oeuvres for eating, but a rice substitute to hurl at the newlyweds, she looked confused and relieved all at once.

I could tell that she had been wondering why the people in that town ate such strange food. Minutes later, I found my uncle doing the same thing.

Families are full of these stories. They happen all of the time, most of the time when a group is gathered together and sharing food and/or drink. Through the years, we relive them often.

One Christmas Eve, my inebriated septuagenarian aunt did the jitterbug on my mother’s coffee table. It embarrassed all of the grown-ups in the family, but we kids have been repeating the story ever since.

As a child, my wife tried to reheat pizza in a pop-up toaster, which, as a story, is not quite as popular as the time she put her entire hand in the toaster. Her father reminds us of these childhood blunders often, and we remind him of the tamale surprise he once cooked for a Thanksgiving meal.

Fortunately, these types of family-food legends are being told less and less through the years. Not because people have tired0 of telling them, but as my children grow older, they create stories with each passing day. Stories that we will certainly tell and retell embarrassing them often, especially in front of company as our parents did before us, and their parents did before them.

What have we learned today?
1.) Be careful what you do at family gatherings unless you want your foibles to be relived and retold ad infinitum.
2.) Throwing rice at weddings is for the birds.
3.) Old people will put almost anything into their mouths
4.) Fireworks and grandparents don’t mix.



Apricot Casserole

3 16-ounce cans apricot halves, lightly drained
1 cup light brown sugar
1 stick unsalted butter, cut into pats
1 1/2 sleeves Ritz crackers, crushed into small pieces almost to crumb state

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Grease a 2 1/2-quart casserole dish. Using a bowl, crush the apricot halves between your fingers. Add the brown sugar and Ritz crackers and mix well. Pour mixture into the casserole dish and dot with the butter pats. Serve as a side item to accompany an entrée, just as you would a vegetable like asparagus or broccoli.

Yield: 8–10 servings

Food For Thought



“If I was a doughnut, I‘d eat myself.”

Those words were spoken by my six-year old son as I sat watching him eat doughnuts yesterday. Our family talks about food a lot. My daughter talks about what we should have for supper while we are eating lunch. It’s genetic.

“Daddy, Jesus is like a doughnut hole.”

“How is that, son?”

“Well, a heart is like a doughnut. It can have a hole in it. But Jesus is like a doughnut hole. He can fill the hole in your heart.”

No seminary necessary, just one year of kindergarten. How could I argue with that? It’s doughnut logic. I am not sure if they are teaching food-related Sunday school lessons at our church, but the sugar-fueled religious philosophy is getting through in the First United Church of Krispy Kreme.

Many of the world’s problems are being solved over newsprint, coffee, and a few dozen glazed, every morning in doughnut shops all across the country. It’s the same with my family.

I guess it’s mostly my fault that a lot of my family’s thoughts and plans are centered around food, though it is food that often brings families together.

A few years ago I wrote a column about the five tenets I have tried to incorporate into my daily life— faith, family, friends, food, and fun, in that order. My wife and I have structured our parenting philosophy around those principles.

When I speak to large groups or associations, I always cover the Five Fs, one-by-one, in great detail. When I reach the food part, people tend to chuckle. But food is serious stuff. I am not talking about treating food seriously as so many of the stuffy food scholars and historians do, but the simple process of sharing a meal with family and friends. That, my friends, is a dwindling ritual that is seriously needed.

As a society we have gotten too used to pulling up to a drive-through window, picking up a paper sack of food, taking it home, and eating it on a TV tray in front of the TV. That’s not supper.

When I was growing up, moms came to back doors and yelled, “Supper,” and everyone ran to the dinner table. Today a mom yells “Supper” from the back door and everyone hops into the mini van.

We have lost something through the years. For my family, the simple process of sitting down— television off— and sharing a meal is one of the most important parts of our day. In addition to being able to share our outlook and experiences with our children, we get to listen.

Listening within families is underrated. There is so much to hear, from serious cases of schoolyard drama and hiccups in the social interaction process to statements such as, “Daddy, do you want to feel my booty muscles?”

“No, son, I do not.”

Three years ago I began writing down a lot of the things my children were saying with the intent of publishing a book. The most recent entry: “What time is eight-seven-central?”

Of the seven books I have written so far, this would be the only one that wrote itself. Many of the quotes are about food, some are just food related.

My wife was walking through the grocery store the other day and turned down an aisle just in time to see our son approach a perfect stranger, “Hey, do you want to smell my nose air?” he asked, as he tilted his head back and quietly blew air out of his nostrils. Seconds earlier, he had sprayed Febreze air freshener directly into his nose. Funny enough, his dry, exhaled “nose air” did smell like lavender and vanilla.

Now if I could just come up with some food-related advice that would make him wear underwear.



Shrimp Harrison

2 lbs. 21-25 Shrimp, peeled and deveined
1 tsp Kosher Salt
1 tsp Old Bay Seasoning
1/2 tsp Black Pepper, freshly ground
3 TBSP Olive Oil
2 cups Mushrooms, sliced
1 1/2 tsp Garlic, minced
1/2 cup White Wine
1 Tbl White Vinegar
1/4 cup Chicken Broth
1 cup Caramelized Onions
3/4 cup Unsalted Butter, cut into small cubes
2 Tbl Parsley. Freshly chopped

1 Recipe Really Rich Grits

Season the shrimp with the salt, Old Bay Seasoning and black pepper.

Place the olive oil in a large, heavy duty sauté pan over high heat. Heat the oil until it just begins to smoke. Carefully place the shrimp in the smoking hot pan. Allow the shrimp to cook without moving them for 2-3 minutes. Add the mushrooms and garlic and cook for 5 minutes. Using a slotted spoon, remove the shrimp and hold them in a warm place.

To the shrimp skillet, add the white wine and vinegar and reduce until there is almost no liquid remaining. Add in the chicken broth and cook until only one tablespoon remains. Add the butter cubes and stir constantly until butter has dissolved, being careful not to cook too long (if you cook it too long at this stage, the butter will separate).

Add the caramelized onions and warm shrimp back into the pan and stir so that the sauce coats the shrimp. Remove from heat and stir in parsley.

Place 3/4 cup of cooked grits into each serving dish, top the grits with the shrimp and serve immediately.

Yield: 8-10 servings


Caramelized Onions*

2 Tbl Unsalted Butter
3 cups Yellow Onion, thinly slice
1 tsp Kosher Salt

Melt butter over medium-low heat in a large sauté pan. Add onions and salt to the melted butter. Cook onions for 15-20 minutes, stirring them often to prevent burning. The onions should continue cooking until a rich brown color is obtained.



Really Rich Grits

1 quart heavy whipping cream
1 cup grits
2 tsp salt
1 tsp black pepper
1 bay leaf
1/2 cup unsalted butter cut into cubes
1 cup parmesan cheese, grated

Preheat oven to 275 degrees

Stir together the cream, grits, salt pepper and bay leaf.
Place the mixture in an oven proof baking dish and cover. Bake for2 1/3-3 hours, stirring every 30 minutes.

Once the grits are soft and creamy, stir in the butter cubes and parmesan cheese. Serve immediately.

Icees, Bikes, and Brain Freezes



Over the past few weeks my family has been catching up on movies, sometimes seeing two films in one day.

I love movies. As a matter of fact, the two things I love most about owning my own business are— getting to wear whatever I want to work (no neckties, ever), and being able to see a matinee in the middle of the day.

During the summer we bring our children to matinees, and lately, I have devised an effective method that turns the average movie visit into a well-oiled and precise system of which puts us in our seats just as the previews start.

After parking, I go to the ticket counter to purchase tickets. My wife flanks me and— with the kids in tow— heads immediately for the concession stand line. Once I arrive with the tickets, I replace her in line and she and the children find our seats (first row above the walkway in front of the rail). Fast, efficient, effective.

Our concession order is the same every time— a large Diet Coke for me, water for my wife, a small popcorn for the family to share, Milk Duds for me, an orange drink for the girl and a cola-flavored Icee for the boy.

Yesterday, as I was making my way to our seats carrying all of the concession-stand booty, I took a sip of my son’s Icee. I hadn’t had an Icee in years. It was good. I took another sip and another. I was instantly transformed to the hot summers of my youth, riding my Schwinn bicycle around the Hillendale neighborhood of my hometown, Hattiesburg, Miss. I took another sip, this time a bigger and longer one. By the time I reached our seats the Icee was half gone and I had a brain freeze.

My son took one look at his Icee (or what was left of it) and sent me back to the concession stand.

I purchased most of the Icees of my youth at a convenience store called The Minit Mart. It was the junk-food capital of our neighborhood and the central meeting place for both bicycling kids and teenagers with drivers licenses. The Minit Mart was made famous in a Jimmy Buffet song that told a story of the composer and his friends— during their college days at the University of Southern Mississippi— utilizing a five-finger discount with peanut butter and sardines. In the song, the name was changed to “Mini Mart” I assume to protect the not-so innocent.

Icees were a great portable drink. In those days most soft drinks came in glass bottles, not the safest vessels to be drinking while riding a bicycle. An Icee— cold and sweet— was served in a paper cup with a long stroon.

A stroon is a half straw/half spoon that could be used for slurping and spooning in alternate steps. I always felt the stroon was included to prevent brain freeze. If one slowly spoons their Icee into their mouth the chances of a full-scale brain freeze decreases dramatically, though most kids still sucked Icees through a straw, quickly delivering the cool sugary liquid to the stomach, and consequently a burning freeze to the brain.

The brain freeze, sometimes known as an ice cream headache, is a medical phenomenon that, according to my research (read: 10 minutes on Google) has no medical explanation. I never knew anyone who could get through a hot Mississippi summer without contracting at least one severe, but quickly dissipating, case of brain freeze. A fan of Icees would deal with the brain freeze almost every time he or she drank one.

Sno-cones were summer treats, but they always seemed more like ice cream than a beverage. Cokes in the little bottles were good, but only when stationary, and in those days not many days or nights were spent in a stationary position.

As adults we stop doing things that we did daily as kids— rolling in the grass for no reason, running so long and so hard that it took several minutes to regain your breath, and not on a treadmill or stair climber but in the schoolyard and through the woods. We rode bikes and played board games, and tackle football in friend’s front yards, and we drank Icees.

Today a gynecology clinic stands where the Minit Mart did, we don’t roll in the grass for fear of staining our clothes, and bicycles mostly stay parked. We have turned into calorie counters and self-appointed food police. We have traded in our Icees for fruit smoothies and we might just be the lesser for it.











Chocolate Pie

1 cup plus 2 Tbl. Sugar
3 /4 cups Heavy cream
3 /4 cups Buttermilk
3 1 /2 Tbl Cornstarch
Pinch Salt
4 Egg yolks, reserve whites for meringue
3 ounces Semisweet chocolate, high quality
1 Tbl Butter
3 /4 tsp Vanilla
1 (9-inch) Pie Crust, baked

In a small saucepan combine the sugar, heavy cream, buttermilk, cornstarch and salt and whisk until smooth. Place over medium-high heat, and bring to a boil, whisking from time to time, allowing the sugar and cornstarch to dissolve and the mixture to thicken (about five minutes). Continue cooking at a low boil for an additional five minutes, whisking constantly.

In a mixing bowl, beat egg yolks lightly. Pour 1 /2 cup of the hot mixture into the egg yolks and whisk thoroughly. Pour the egg yolk mixture into the saucepan and whisk over the heat until thoroughly combined (about 30 seconds).

Pour mixture into a mixing bowl, and whisk in the chocolate, butter and vanilla. Continue whisking until thoroughly combined (mixture will be very thick). Pour the chocolate batter into the prepared pie crust. Prepare the meringue and spread over the pie and bake at 350 until golden, about 8-10 minutes. Allow pie to cool completely before serving (refrigerate at least four hours). Yield: eight slices



Meringue:

4 Egg whites
6 TBSP Sugar
1 /2 tsp Cream of tartar

Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer. When they start to increase in volume, add in the sugar and cream of tartar. Continue to beat until stiff peaks form.

Ratatouille


This weekend I took my children to see the new Disney/Pixar film, Ratatouille. It’s about France’s greatest chef—a rat.

The food in the animated feature looks good enough to eat. A majority of the movie takes place in a French restaurant kitchen and most of the main characters, sans the rat and his family, are chefs.

In a few weeks, Catherine Zeta Jones will be starring in a new movie in which she plays a chef. From the previews, it appears that she’s in love with another chef.

Restaurants, chefs, and food have never been more popular than they are today.

When I was a kid Walt Disney movies were about parentless baby deer, dogs, and Volkswagens that had minds of their own. The closest Disney came to a culinary theme was an Italian restaurant scene in Lady and the Tramp in which two dogs eat a plate of spaghetti.

I have two friends who don’t let their children watch any mainstream television. Their children are 10, eight, and three-years old. They watch The Food Network. And when I say they watch The Food Network, I mean they watch the Food Network exclusively. It’s the only thing that’s program on in their home.

Today’s kids know the chefs, they know their restaurants, and they know their personal histories. Consequently, they know a lot about food, much more than I did in my late teens and early 20s.

The Food Network is miles ahead of the television of my youth with three channels and eventually PBS in the late 1960s. PBS is the only place I remember seeing cooking on television. Julia Child and Justin Wilson were the early pioneers.

American food has come a long way in a short time, due in part to Julia Child and James Beard on television and Alice Waters at Chez Panisse in Berkley. Up until the late 1970s, the only “serious” food was French food, and “serious” chefs were French chefs. All of the serious American restaurants were French themed.

Today, some of the world’s greatest chefs are Americans who cook fresh, regional, and seasonal cuisine. As it has been for years in Italy and France, culinary regionalism is the order of the day. Today’s American cuisine is fresh, local, broad, and complex, from California cuisine, Southwestern, Tex-Mex, Southern, Cajun, and Creole, to the Northeastern region, Midwest, Florida, Carolina barbeque, Texas barbeque, and the list goes on.

In our restaurants and in our homes, we have become more aware of what we put in our bodies. Due to busy schedules and two-income families, eating out is more popular than ever— good news for restaurateurs, not-so-good news for the family dinner table.
Several times each month I speak to junior high or high school students about careers in the restaurant business or culinary arts. They see chefs on television and they want to open restaurants.

Food is “in.” When I opened my first restaurant in 1987, goat cheese and fresh herbs were special-order items from my food supplier. I fielded questions from customers such as, “What are shiitake mushrooms?” These days I can purchase micro greens grown in California and have them flown in the next day.

In the fine dining kitchens of the 21st century Americans, eat mostly fresh and local food instead of complicated and overwrought French classical dishes. We have countless web sites and blogs that discuss food to the nth degree. We have come from a rudimentarily animated bowl of spaghetti in Lady and the Tramp to truffles and foie gras that appear as authentic as the real thing on Ratatouille.

For those of us who love food, things are looking up, and the future is looking tastier everyday.



Robert’s Ratatouille

1/2 cup good quality extra virgin olive oil
3/4 cup yellow onion, medium dice
2 tablespoons garlic, minced
1 1/2 cups yellow squash, cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 1/2 cups zucchini, cut into 1/2-inc cubes
1 1/2 cups eggplant, salted, rinsed, and cut into 1/2-inch cubes
1 teaspoon salt
1 cup red peppers, medium dice
2 teaspoons Crescent City Grill Creole Seasoning
1 1/2 cups Tomato Concasse
1/4 cup white wine
3/4 cup fresh basil, chopped fine (do not substitute dried)

In a sauté pan over medium high heat, sweat onion in olive oil. Add garlic. Add squash, zucchini, eggplant, salt, and pepper and cook until vegetables become al dente. Add tomato concasse and cook for two-three minutes. Add Creole Seasoning and deglaze with wine. Cook for two minutes. Add basil just before serving.
Yield: 6–8 servings

© Robert St.John 2002 from the cookbook A Southern Palate by Robert St.John illustrated by Wyatt Waters, Different Drummer Press

Café Rendez-Vous



SEASIDE, Fla.— The hippest restaurant in the Florida Panhandle just might be Café Rendez-Vous in Seaside, the small community which serves as ground zero of the New Urbanist movement.

I happened upon Café Rendez-Vous through the girlfriend of a friend who told me to take my wife there to check out the Tahitian pearl and leather necklaces for sale. I didn’t put much stock into a restaurant recommendation that was more jewelry-store referral than food tip, but I found myself there while tagging along with a browsing spouse.

Café Rendez-Vous is very small, but stylish enough to fall into the “charming” category. It hosts a dozen leather bar stools, a few sofas, and al fresco dining for approximately 40.

The menu is as refreshingly limited as the space. In a region filled with white-tablecloth stalwarts, fried seafood houses, fast food, and fine-dining wannabes, Café Rendez-Vous is a welcomed change from the Pensacola-to-Panama-City norm.

The sushi menu is only 15 items long. The usual suspects are present, and all are well executed. The standard menu offers three crepes— walnut and goat cheese, ham and asparagus, and berries and Nutella— a bruscheta, Caesar salad, chicken satay, cheese plate, and shrimp ceviche. That’s 23 total menu items. Simple. Beautiful. Tasteful.

In contrast to the food menu, the wine list is extensive and offers several premium wines by the glass. Ultimately, Café Rendez-Vous is more bar than café, but categorization probably doesn’t matter much to its owners, Wendy and Jean-Noel Mignot. The pair seems to have created a spontaneous business with inspiration taken from where they would rather hang out as opposed to what their target market might want or need. That is refreshing and it is one of the primary aspects that make the place work.

The couple met on the Caribbean island of St. Barthelemy. She was a jewelry designer, he had a restaurant background with parents in the jewelry business. They married, purchased a sailboat, and then went sailing for several years. Two children later, and after a shipwreck totaled the boat in Beaufort, NC, they opened Café Rendez-Vous in Seaside.

As it was during their sailing days, the jewelry business is still handled at trunk shows in New York and Los Angeles. However, tucked away in a small display case at the end of the bar is a beautifully designed collection of Tahitian and freshwater pearl necklaces and earrings threaded with a unique leather, the origin of which is kept secret.

Café Rendez-Vous is one of those rare places that are the exception to most every longstanding restaurant rule. The Mignot’s do it their way and it works. The barefoot island attitude permeates through every aspect of the business. The overall approach is laid back. Whenever a restaurant/bar can accomplish that mind-set naturally, the guests have no other option than to relax and unwind.

Nothing in Café Rendez-Vous is contrived. The space is organic and the employees, like the owners, are running on island time. The front-of-the-house staff of four (bartender, sushi chef, server, and jewelry salesperson/server) wears whatever clothing they felt comfortable in when they left the house that morning, the overall attitude is friendly and welcoming, the lighting is subtle, and the house music is supplied by the bartender-on-duty’s iPod. I love that.

In talking to the staff, one can tell that they love the owners and therefore, their jobs. It is impossible for a restaurateur to create loyalty, devotion, and desire among employees— those qualities must be earned. Café Rendez-Vous has accomplished this feat several times over.

In addition to sushi and crepes, Café Rendez-Vous might be the only restaurant in the area that serves ceviche. One would think that in a coastal area, especially one filled with seafood restaurants, one could find ceviche on several menus— not so.

The sushi station at Café Rendez-Vous is in the back of the café and is manned by a lone sushi chef. One could probably find better sushi in the area, though I don’t know where, but you’d have to look pretty hard to find sushi served in a more modish atmosphere.

I would suspect that there are days when the small, three-tiered, upright jewelry case is responsible for more sales than the restaurant/bar. Wendy Mignot’s customers range from the Hollywood elite to locals who wander in with no idea that such inimitable leather-meets-pearl jewelry would be available in a sidewalk café. The approach is low-key, and just another aspect that makes Café Rendez-Vous unique, and original.

Every once in a while I daydream about giving it all up and moving my family to the islands. If I ever did, the place of my dreams would look a lot like Café Rendez-Vous.




Lemon Crepes

Crepe Filling

1 1/2 lb. Cream cheese, softened at room temperature
3/4 cup Sugar
2 Tbl. Finely grated lemon zest
2 Tbl. Fresh lemon juice
2 tsp. Vanilla extract
12 Crepes

Combine all ingredients (except crepes) and blend until smooth. Preheat oven to 325 degrees. Fill the crepes by placing the cream cheese mixture in a pastry bag and piping a 1” x 1” tube down the center of each crepe. Roll the crepes and place them on a lightly buttered baking sheet, non-stick is preferable. Cover the crepes with a sheet of wax paper and cover the entire wax-covered baking sheet with a sheet of aluminum foil. Bake for 6-7 minutes just until center is warm. While crepes are baking, make the sauce.

Lemon Sauce

1/2 lb. Butter, unsalted
1/2 cup Sugar
2 Tbl Freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/4 cup Brandy

In a medium skillet, melt butter over medium high heat. Add sugar and cook until it begins to dissolve. Add lemon juice and whisk together ingredients. Add the Brandy and carefully ignite. When flame subsides, lower heat slightly and cook for 4-5 minutes, until thick and creamy. Place warm crepes on serving dishes and spoon the heated sauce over them. Garnish with fresh raspberries and mint. Yield: 6-8 servings

Sal and Mookie’s


JACKSON — In the world of independent pizza joints one has three primary choices outside of the chain-pizza realm: California pizza, Chicago pizza, and New York pizza.

The California pizza movement originated in the early 1980s with Wolfgang Puck who brought the simple art of pizza making into fine-dining restaurants using upscale ingredients and simple, tried and true brick-oven cooking methods.

In Chicago, deep-dish pizza has ruled the roost since the early 1940s— not chain-restaurant style deep-dish pizza, but true, deep-dish pizza, the kind that originated at Chicago’s Pizzeria Uno. It can be up to two-inches thick, big, messy, and almost impossible— even for me— to eat more than a couple of slices.

New York-style pizza is the granddaddy of all American pizzas. It began at Lombardi’s in Little Italy over 100 years ago. New York pizza is not too thin and not too thick. The crust is crisp, but flexible, New Yorkers typically fold their pizza slices in half and eat them as they would a sandwich.

The crisp-crusted California pizza is good for an every-once-in-a-while treat. I might eat a deep-dish pizza slice during my annual trek to Chicago. But for day-in day-out everyday pizza eating, give me New York-style pizza every time, and if I’m eating New York-style pizza outside of New York, I want it to come from Sal and Mookie’s in the resurgent Fondren neighborhood of Jackson, Miss.

I have seen the face of pizza excellence, and its name is Sal and Mookie’s.

The restaurant team of Chef Dan Blumenthal and Jeff Good, owners of Bravo!, and Broad Street Baking Company, have done it again, this time with a pizzeria/ice cream parlor.

Individually, Blumenthal, one of the premiere chefs in the state, and Good, the energetic, ever-engaged, and consummate hospitalitarian, are two of the more self-motivated forces at work in the restaurant trade. Combine their talents and they become one of the most inspired and dynamic restaurateur teams in the South.

The duo’s ubiquitous attention to detail and menu research has been taken to a new level with their new concept— Sal and Mookie’s. Blumenthal and Chef Jon Pixler spent months working on crust and sauce recipes. A weekend pizza binge in New York back in January solidified the research portion of the restaurant’s opening.

The menu is huge and includes sandwiches, salads, and pasta— all of which I am sure are excellent, but when in Rome, eat the pizza.

Sal and Mookie’s boasts 23 original pizzas, all named after specific New York locales and personalities. The practice of naming dishes after famous of people and places can sometimes become too “cutesy.” Typically, I am not a fan of the practice. However, Sal and Mookie’s seems to pull it off. I would enthusiastically recommend the Andy Warhol pizza (ricotta, wild mushroom ragout, Fontina, and Provolone), the Gambino pizza (ricotta, mozzarella, Fontina, Italian sausage, caramelized onions, and sautéed spinach) and the Empire State pizza (Italian plum tomato sauce, mozzarella, basil pesto, caramelized onions, and sun-dried tomatoes) no matter what they were called.

The menu also has a “Design-Your-Own Pizza” section, with several options of sauce (four choices), cheese (11 choices), meats (14 choices), vegetables (26 choices), and seafood (six choices). This is where the customer can tap into his or her culinary creativity to design their own pizza with upscale and atypical ingredients.

The attention to detail and commitment to quality are ever-present at Sal and Mookie’s. While most pizza joints are content to slice a flat of button mushrooms and throw them onto a pizza, Blumenthal has drawn inspiration from his classical culinary training and offered mushroom ragout as a topping option.

In ingredient after ingredient, the menu options go beyond the archetypal pizza-joint selections. The pizza-parlor staples are there, but so are basil pesto/lemon ricotta spread, Grande fior di lattee mozzarella, goat cheese, proscuitto, chorizo, pancetta, smoked salmon and crabmeat.

Sure it would suffice to top a pizza with sliced Bermuda onions, but why not add another flavor dimension to the base ingredient by caramelizing the onions. Sounds simple, yet hardly anyone does it.

Raw spinach on pizza is nothing revolutionary, but sautéing the spinach adds an extra flavor dimension. Time and time again, throughout the Sal and Mookie’s menu, it is choices such as these that make the restaurant stand high above others in the category.

Good pizza starts with good crust, but it also takes a good sauce to compliment the crust. Sal and Mookie’s knows what many of the top pizza joints know, there is no substitute for San Marzano tomatoes. They have lower acidity, the taste is pure and clean, and they have no equal.

It is evident that a lot of thought, time, and recipe development have gone into the pre-opening of Sal and Mookie’s. The service standards upheld at Blumenthal and Good’s previous eateries are once again in full display.

Luckily I live 90 miles outside of Jackson and only visit the city a few times each month. If I lived there, I would most certainly eat at Sal and Mookie’s four to five times a week, and have to spend the remainder of my day in Weight Watcher’s meetings.

www.salandmookies.com


Crawfish Pizza

1 Tbl olive oil
1/2 cup green bell peppers, chopped fine
1/2 cup yellow onion, chopped fine
1/2 cup green onion, chopped fine
1 Tbl garlic, minced
2 tsp Creole Seasoning
3/4 pound crawfish tail meat, cooked and in whole pieces
1 1/2 cup Basil Tapenade
1 1/2 cup mozzarella cheese, shredded
1 cup Jalapeño Jack Cheese, shredded
1/2 cup Parmesan cheese, freshly grated
6 Homemade Pizza Crusts


In a large skillet, heat olive oil over medium heat. Sauté peppers, onion, and garlic until slightly tender. Add Creole Seasoning and crawfish. Remove from heat and let cool slightly (may be prepared a day in advance).

Spread the basil tapenade evenly on top of each prepared pizza crust. Distribute the crawfish mixture over the tapenade. Combine the cheese together. Top each pizza with the cheese mixture.

Prepare the grill. Cook the pizzas over indirect medium heat, covered, until the topping is hot and the cheeses have melted.

Allow the pizzas to cool slightly before cutting.

Yield:
6-10 servings



Basil Tapenade

1 cup black olives
1 1/2 ounces anchovies, drained and patted dry
1 tsp Dijon mustard
2 Tbl capers
2 Tbl freshly squeezed lemon juice
2 Tbl brandy
3 Tbl olive oil
1/2 tsp black pepper
1 cup Pesto
1/2 of 10-ounce can Rotel tomatoes, drained

Blend the first olives, anchovies, mustard, capers, lemon juice, and brandy in a food processor until the mixture gets smooth. Slowly add olive oil and garlic and blend. Add pesto and tomatoes, and pulse until ingredients are incorporated into a smooth, spreadable sauce.

Can be stored in refrigerator for up to 1 week.
Yield: 3 cups

I have developed and tested my version of Harbor Docks Smoked Tuna Dip. It is listed in the column below.

Robert

The World’s Best Smoked Tuna Dip


WATERCOLOR, Fla.— Twenty years ago, before I opened my first restaurant, I lived in the Florida Panhandle and worked as a waiter. I was single, the money was good, and I had the stress level of a turtle.

In my Florida days I awoke around 10 a.m., traveled across the street to the beach, walked a mile or so along the shore’s edge to June’s Dunes restaurant, ate breakfast, messed around in the sand and water most of the afternoon, showered, went to work, got off work around 10 p.m., showered, enjoyed the nightlife, fell into bed around 2 a.m., woke up at 10 a.m., lather, rinse, repeat…

These days, I wake at 5 a.m., exercise, have breakfast with the kids, work, eat lunch, work, have supper with the kids, spend time with the kids, and fall into the bed. Occasionally, around this time of year, I have been known to fall into bed before the sun has completely set. Even on vacation I wake up early, this is why I currently have the stress level of a gnat.

Even on a bad day I wouldn’t trade my current life for my past life, though it would be nice to toggle the stress level down a few notches.

In those days I worked at Harbor Docks, a restaurant with humble beginnings as a small, oyster bar/beer joint in 1979. By the time I joined the staff, the restaurant had an eight-year track record of success and had grown into one of the busiest restaurants and hottest nightspots in the area.

I ran into Harbor Docks owner, Charles Morgan, at Watercolor today. I hadn’t seen him in two decades. In the years since I left his restaurants we both have opened and closed several concepts, luckily opening more than we have closed. “There aren’t many of us (independent restaurateurs) around anymore,” he said. He is right.

In my hometown, and down here in the Destin area, the restaurant business is becoming increasingly corporate. This is not an anti-chain restaurant rant, I occasionally visit chain restaurants with my children. The problem is that the restaurants located off of the interstate ramp in Mississippi are the same as the ones located immediately off of the interstate in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey. They tell you nothing about that community’s character.

It is becoming increasingly difficult for independent restaurants to thrive in today’s corporate culture. Once a charming fishing village filled with locally owned and operated seafood houses— most by ship’s captains or men who claimed to be ships captains— Destin has seen the same influx of chain restaurants as the rest of the country.

Harbor Docks is full of character and local characters. Every time I am in the area, I try to eat at Harbor Docks as many times as my schedule allows. Now opened for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, I return for the food, to see old friends, and to relive those stress-free days, if even for a moment. My wife— who didn’t know me back then— likes to visit Harbor Docks for the smoked tuna dip. She likes my cooking, but she like Harbor Docks smoked tuna dip, more.

The smoked tuna dip at Harbor docks is, by far, the best in the area. Actually, it’s the best I have ever tasted. Over the years I have taken a few stabs at recreating a Harbor Dock’s version, but always come up short. After several failed attempts, and facing a cookbook deadline, I finally worked up a recipe for smoked crab dip, which is excellent, though my wife still prefers Harbor Docks smoked tuna dip.

There are several places in the Panhandle that serve smoked tuna dip. Bud and Alley’s restaurant at Seaside, serves a good version, though theirs relies more on mayonnaise. All of the seafood retailers serve a version of a smoked fish dip, though none come anywhere close to Harbor Docks.

While dining at Harbor Docks, we always eat a serving or two and then purchase several portions to take with us.

There are three reasons why Harbor Docks smoked tuna dip reigns supreme:
1.) Harbor Docks owns their own seafood market. It’s located next door. When the tuna hits the docks, it’s filleted, then smoked, and then immediately made into a dip.
2.) The smoked tuna dip is made fresh, from scratch, every morning.
3.) The recipe, like all good recipes, is simple and uncomplicated with minimal ingredients.

I called Charles to see if he would allow me to publish his recipe for smoked tuna dip. Without hesitation, he rattled off the ingredients. He has no idea how happy he has made my wife. Now I wonder if my former boss could do anything about this gnat-like stress level.


My Version of Harbor Docks Smoked Yellowfin Tuna Dip

1 lb Smoked Yellowfin tuna loin, minced
1 tsp Creole Seasoning
1 tsp Black Pepper
1 cup Hellman's Mayonnaise

Mix together and store refrigerated for up to five days.

The Camellia Grill



On a hot August day in 1989, I took a young, beautiful, and adventurous 22-year old girl to New Orleans for our first, out-of-town date.

We spent time in the French Quarter and then drove down Canal Street to admire the houses and their architecture. We were at the testing phase of the date to see whether tastes and interests were similar and/or compatible.

At the end of St. Charles Avenue at the river bend sat The Camellia Grill, the last of a breed— the classic American diner— an icon of a bygone era in the restaurant business, but one that was still going strong in New Orleans. Uptown locals and tourists sat side by side on one of the 28 stools in the small, sparsely decorated room and watched two cooks, four waiters— in white, pressed, jackets— and a few busboys serve some of the best diner food to be found anywhere.

My date ordered and ate a chili-cheese omelet— Make that a “yes” in the compatible column. I told myself then and there, “I’m gonna marry that girl,” and I did.

It’s not the most romantic beginning in the history of love affairs, but probably appropriate for me nonetheless. My wife and I have returned to The Camellia Grill many times since that hot August day.

The Camellia Grill was another Hurricane Katrina casualty until April 20th of this year. Over the last 18 months we have traveled to New Orleans many times, each time driving by the diner to check the status of the operation. Each time it was closed.

Someone left a pad of Post-it notes and a pen outside the restaurant. The front door, windows, and walls of the exterior were covered with various handwritten come-back-soon notes from those lamenting the loss of the neighborhood dining institution.

Almost 20 years after I took my future wife on that fateful date, I took my daughter to New Orleans to celebrate her 10th birthday. Over the years she has heard The Camellia Grill-chili-cheese omelet story a dozen times. When I asked where she wanted to eat lunch, The Camellia Grill was her first, and only, choice.

I have a feeling that— like the Civil War and World War II— all future events will be evaluated and remembered as “before” or “after” Hurricane Katrina in this part of the country. Given that, not much has changed at The Camellia Grill since the pre-Katrina days. The walls are mostly bare and are still painted an unusual shade of pink. The artwork is still the same except for the addition of a framed collage of recovered Post-it notes in the shape of a camellia. Linen napkins are still in use. The place seems cleaner. They now accept credit cards, and the hours of operation have been paired down, but they still serve the exact menu right down to the chili-cheese omelet.

Like the pre-Katrina days, there was a line of people on the sidewalk waiting to be seated. The wait for a stool lasted about 20 minutes. My daughter ordered a chili-cheese omelet “like momma did,” an order of fries, and a sweet tea. I nixed the sweet tea and told her about The Camellia Grill’s chocolate freeze with ice cream.

Some say that the official drink of New Orleans is the Pat O’Brien’s Hurricane, others the Sazerac. I hereby tender my vote for the chocolate freeze with ice cream at the Camellia Grill. A chocolate freeze is a combination of vanilla ice cream, milk, chocolate syrup, simple syrup, and ice, blended and served ice cold. It’s a chocolate shake on steroids, and it’s delicious, always has been, always will be.

They still grill a mean burger and they still cook pecan pie in a pool of butter right on the flat-top griddle. The service wasn’t quite what it used to be, but it wasn’t bad. One can’t expect to lose service veterans of 20-plus years and expect the same results.

It was a day of firsts: My daughter’s first chili-cheese omelet, her first chocolate freeze with ice cream, and the first day of her 10th year of life.

As we sat in The Camellia Grill celebrating the occasion of my daughter’s first decade on the planet; I couldn’t help but think back to that first date in August. If you would have asked me then to write a script of how I wanted my life to turn out, I would have been ashamed to ask for the embarrassment of riches that is my wife, children, and family life. I had no idea what life had in store for me. I am truly a lucky man. Welcome back, Camellia Grill.



Lemon Pie

6 Tbl Cornstarch
1 1 /2 cups Sugar
Zest and juice from 3 lemons
4 Egg yolks (whites reserved for the meringue)
2 cups Water, boiling
1 Pie crust, pre-baked

Combine the first four ingredients and beat together. Continue to stir and add the boiling water. Place mixture in a non-reactive saucepot and cook over low-medium heat until mixture thickens. Pour into the baked pie shell and set aside.

Meringue

4 Egg whites
6 Tbl Sugar
1 /2 tsp Cream of tartar

Beat the egg whites with an electric mixer. When they start to increase in volume, add the sugar and cream of tartar. Continue to beat until soft peaks form. Spread over the pie and bake at 350 degrees until golden, about 8-10 minutes. Allow pie to cool completely before serving. Yield: eight

Luke


My daughter turned ten-years old last week.

To celebrate her decade on the planet she asked to be taken to New Orleans to eat breakfast, lunch, and shop (not necessarily in that order).

The moment she mentioned breakfast I knew exactly where to take her. Chef John Besh has opened yet another restaurant— Luke. Actually it’s “Luke” with two of those uber dots over the “u” but I don’t know how to make those show up on my computer. So for this column’s sake, it’s just plain Luke.

Besh— the busiest man in the restaurant business— fresh off of his James Beard award winning year as “Best Chef Southeast,” owns and operates restaurant August, one of the South’s most acclaimed restaurants. He also owns and operates the Besh Steak in the Harrah’s Casino in New Orleans, and recently purchased the North Shore stalwart— La Provence— from the late Chef Chris Kerageorgiou. Now Besh has opened Luke at the newly renovated Hilton New Orleans on St. Charles between Canal and Poydras Streets where he is serving breakfast, lunch, dinner, room service, and banquets.

Hilton just finished an $11 million spruce up of the Hotel Monaco. The original building was a Masonic Temple in the mid 1920s and was the second high rise structure in the Central Business District. The space that restaurant Luke occupies, most recently housed one of Chef Susan Spicer’s offspring restaurants— Cobalt.

Besh quietly opened Luke in mid April. It has been on my to-do list for three weeks. I was glad my daughter helped make the choice for me.

Luke is a brasserie and the atmosphere is mostly authentic, though it looks slightly rushed, as if the design team was working quickly to meet a deadline. Daily newspapers are casually draped over brass rails throughout the dining room. The new floor and ceiling add to the authentic “feel” of a well-established restaurant this country’s most European city, but the bar is newly constructed and not nearly as ornate as one would expect in a dining room of the target era to which Luke aspires. Luke’s decorator would have done better purchasing an authentic antique bar at auction (and more comfortable chairs).

Being new, Luke hasn’t earned the worn look of most restaurants of the same caliber in and around the French Quarter. However, what Luke lacks in atmosphere, it more than makes up in food. Based on my visit, and after only one month of business, Luke might be serving the best breakfast in the city.

My entrée consisted of two perfectly poached eggs with shrimp, andouille sausage, and tomato gravy over biscuits. I ordered a rasher of Allan Benton’s bacon to accompany my entrée, and became instantly grateful that I live 90 miles away from a restaurant that serves breakfast of that caliber.

Actually, my gratitude was two-fold in that I felt fortunate to be within driving distance, but also grateful that the distance precludes me from eating breakfast at Luke every day (I might). My waistline and cholesterol level couldn’t take a daily dose of food that good, though I would die trying.

The andouille is made by Jacob’s World Famous Andouille and Sausage on Airline Highway in La Place (www.cajunsausage.com ) and might be the finest example of that sausage variety available. I have eaten Jacob’s andouille on several occasions, but never at breakfast. It tastes great always. It tastes better at breakfast.

My wife ordered an omelet made with Benton’s bacon, spinach, and wild mushrooms and cleaned her plate. My son ordered pancakes with a side of bacon, and halfway through the meal proclaimed, “Daddy, this bacon’s the bomb!” In six-year old speak, that means it’s really good.

The birthday girl ordered the Southern Breakfast with two organic eggs, scrambled, smoked ham, grits, and a biscuit. She cleaned her plate.

When the summer schedules become more manageable, I plan to make a few culinary road trips just to eat breakfast and drive back home. Breakfast at Luke is that good.

Though breakfast is excellent, lunch is Luke’s busiest day part, and one might want to make reservations a few days ahead of time. August was already serving the best dinner in New Orleans. Now Luke is offering the best breakfast. Not an easy feat in one of the nation’s top food cities.

This most recent addition to the Besh restaurant empire is notable to me because breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. Luke will most certainly be around for many years to come.

Next week: The birthday lunch at the newly reopened Camellia Grill.


Grillades and Grits

2 lbs Veal top round cut into two-inch strips
2 tsp Kosher salt
1 Tbl Black pepper, fresh ground
1 /2 cup Bacon grease (or canola oil)
3 /4 cup Flour
3 /4 cup Onion, diced
1 /4 cup Shallot, minced
1 /2 cup Celery, diced
1 tsp Garlic, minced
3 /4 cup Green bell pepper, diced
1 /2 tsp Dried thyme
3 cups Chicken broth, hot
1 cup Tomatoes, peeled, large dice
1 /2 cup Red wine
2 tsp Hot Sauce
1 Bay leaf
1 tsp. Salt

Place one to two tablespoons of the bacon grease in a large heavy skillet and place on high heat. Season meat with one teaspoon of the fresh ground pepper and the kosher salt. Place the meat in hot skillet. Once browned, remove meat from the skillet.

Place the remainder of the bacon grease into skillet. Once melted, lower heat and slowly stir in flour. Cook three to four minutes. Add onion, shallot, celery, peppers, thyme and garlic. Continue to cook roux mixture for four to five minutes. Using a wire whip stir in the hot chicken broth, red wine, bay leaf and tomatoes and bring to a simmer.

Add veal back to the mixture and cook over a very low heat for two to three hours, stirring occasionally. When meat is tender stir in hot sauce, the remaining black pepper and salt.

Prepare garlic cheese grits during the last 30 minutes of cooking. Spoon grits onto a serving dish and top with grillades. Yield: eight servings

Top Secret Ceviche


ISLA MUJERES, MEXICO— The next time I gripe about the summer heat in Mississippi, I will try to remember Mexico at noon, in May.

Business took me to the Yucatan Peninsula, and the Easternmost point of Mexico, an island on the Caribbean Sea— Isla Mujeres. The island is surrounded by clear, turquoise water with— what one person described as— 200-foot vertical visibility. The North beach of the island is where the Corona commercials are filmed and it is easy to understand why the locale was such a good fit for the beach-oriented beer company.

Two nights at a small, eight-room, Zen-like hotel, wasn’t enough to slow my system down to island speed, but the restaurant inside Casa de los Suenos served a ceviche good enough to warrant— if not a move to the island— several visits per year.

The dish was well-known on the island. When we told the taxi driver where we were staying, he said, “try their ceviche.” The hotel’s clerk talked about the ceviche, the man who showed us to our room and gave us a tour of the property told us about the ceviche, and a British couple that we met in town told us about the hotel’s ceviche. All recommendations were unsolicited.

While dining in the restaurant that evening, I did what I always do and asked the server what he recommended. It was no surprise when his response was, “our ceviche is the best.” When that many people recommend a dish, there are two directions the meal can go: It can live up to its pre-billing, or it can be a total letdown.

I am glad to report that the Casa de los Suenos ceviche exceeded its advance billing.

The hotel’s restaurant—The Alhambra— belied its name. “Alhambra” in Spanish means fortress. The restaurant Alhambra at Casa de los Suenos was anything but. Located under a high-pitched thatched roof, open on three sides with salt-air breezes blowing off of the Bay of Mujeres and the sun setting over Cancun in the distance, the restaurant— like the hotel— was serene and peaceful.

Ceviche is a cold, marinated, seafood salad that is cooked without heat using citrus. The citric acid in the fruit denatures the proteins in the seafood which cooks, or pickles, the dish. The mixture only marinates for 30 minutes and is a perfect meal in hot weather, typically served with some type of chip or bread.

The ceviche at Casa de los Suenos was indeed the best I have ever eaten— by a long shot.

I asked the waiter what made it so good and he replied that it was “just a hint of freshly squeezed orange juice.” I tasted lime, cilantro, and onion, but no orange.

The next day while talking to one of the hotel employees he said that it was key limes that made the ceviche stand out from all of the others. Yet another employee talked of a touch of imported olive oil.

The recipe was said to be a “hotel secret” But for a “secret” there were a whole lot of people offering their opinions. My guess is that it’s a slight combination of all of the above.

When I asked the hotel manager for the actual recipe he returned a few hours later with a small piece of hotel stationery. On it— typed and centered— were the words: “Ceviche Wayak, fresh fish, shrimp, avocado, onion, tomatoe (sic, the Quayle spelling), cucumber, olive, lemon, pepper, and salt.” There were no measurements or procedures, just ingredients. Olive oil, Key limes, orange juice, and cilantro were nowhere to be found.

I don’t speak Spanish, so my request might have been lost in translation. If I had to guess I would probably say that there is no recipe. The chef, or chefs, there were two different chefs on two different nights, probably eyeballs the mixture. The ceviche of the first night was slightly better than the ceviche of the second night. Though the second night’s version was still better than any I have eaten.

Many chefs give out recipes freely; others guard them with great secrecy. I used to be of the latter variety, but it’s hard to be in the cookbook-writing business and not give away recipes.

When I return home, I will begin experimenting with a new ceviche recipe using the Alhambra’s version as inspiration. Once completed, I know it will be one that I will prepare all summer and for many summers to come. Now if I could just figure out a way to recreate those salt-air breezes.

The Great Soft-Shell Crab Crisis of 2007



News travels fast, but incorrect news travels even faster.

Five weeks ago I wrote a column that opened with this sentence: “Soft-shell crab season is here. Halleluiah, amen, and pass the Remoulade sauce!” That was a true statement— at the time. By the time the column was published there were no soft shells to be found. Anywhere.

The season’s first two shipments of fresh soft shell crabs had arrived, and— as I usually do around this time of year— I wrote passionately of my love for the saltwater delicacy.

Typically once the season starts, we ride the soft-shell wave all the way through the fall. This year the season ended almost as soon as it began.

I knew that I might be in trouble when I walked through the dining room of our Hattiesburg restaurant during lunch on the day that the first newspaper published the column. A man called me over to his table. He had read the morning newspaper and had driven the 90 miles from Jackson to Hattiesburg to eat crab. Unfortunately, there were no crabs to be found. Even more unfortunate— he works for the U.S. Attorney’s office. Lucky for me, he was sympathetic to my dilemma. I took his business card and told him that I would call as soon as we received more crabs.

By the time all of the out-of-town newspapers had run the column, other faraway customers had made the soft-shell crab pilgrimage to their local restaurants to find the cupboards bare there, too.

Linda Nance, Chef de Cuisine at the Purple Parrot Café began hearing from her seafood suppliers, “Robert wrote this article, and all of a sudden everyone wanted soft shells. Customers are coming in to restaurants all across the state, in Louisiana, and Mobile, too. But we don’t have any crabs.”

Another supplier commented, “Ever since Robert wrote that column, they (soft shell crabs) have fallen off of the face of the earth. It’s the worst we’ve seen in 30 years. He put a curse on them”

Still another supplier credited me with jinxing the entire soft-shell crab industry by writing the column. Today, when I called him to check progress of the crab season, he said, “I’m glad you’re writing another article. Maybe the jinx will work in reverse and the crabs will start coming in.”

In my 26 years in the restaurant business, I have never seen such a bad year for soft shell crabs. I have also never seen such irate customers. Soft shell crabs bring out passion in diners. My managers have been hearing from enraged customers for five weeks. They receive several phone calls and a few uncomfortable dining-room visits every day.

The season started like all others. The crabs trickled in a few at a time, and then we got two large shipments, I wrote the column, then nothing. A select few ate crab while I ate crow.

There are several reasons for the lack of soft-shell crab production this season. First and foremost, about one-third of the crabbers haven’t returned to business after Hurricane Katrina. There are other reasons— the cold snap that passed through a few weeks back, followed by bad weather, then high winds. When it’s cold and windy crabs go into hiding. Now shrimp season has begun and many crabbers pull their traps out of the water so the shrimp trolls don’t tear them up.

If you’re eating soft-shells right now, odds are they’re frozen. The East coast season starts in a few weeks. But it’s a sad day when we look to Maryland for soft-shell crabs. The East coast blue crabs are dredged ours are caught in traps. We release all crabs that are 5 1/2 inches and under. Our crabs are bigger, too. Maryland’s large is a Louisiana medium.

Our restaurant sells approximately 150 soft-shell crabs per week from April through October. Last week we received three dozen soft shells from our suppliers. They were the first we have seen in a month. We sold them all in a matter of hours.

We’ve had such a slow start, maybe the season will run later this year. Late or not, you’re going to have to find out about soft shells on your own. I’m not saying another word (except to my newfound friend in the U.S. Attorney’s office).

..

Fried Soft Shell Crab

6 Soft shell crabs, cleaned
2 cups Milk
2 Eggs
1 Tbl. Dried tarragon
4 Tbl. Cayenne and Garlic Hot Sauce
2 Tbl. Creole Seasoning
3 cups Seasoned flour


Combine milk, eggs, tarragon, Cayenne and Garlic Sauce, Creole Seasoning and mix well. Gently drop the crabs in the seasoned milk mixture and place all in the refrigerator and marinate for at least 6 hours.

When you are ready to cook the crabs, pour peanut oil to two inches deep in a skillet and bring to a temperature of 350 degrees. Take crabs out of the milk mixture one at a time and lightly dust them in the seasoned flour. Be careful to keep all of the legs attached and gently separate the legs that stick together.

Slowly glide the crab (shell side down) into the hot oil, being careful not to splash. Cook approximately 2 minutes and turn over for another minute. Remove the crabs and drain on paper towels.

Serve with Remoulade, tartar, or comeback sauce.

Yield: 6 servings

Donuts and Age



I am in my 46th year. Some days I feel every minute of those four and a half decades, others I feel as I did in my teens. My wife would say that, maturity-wise, I am still in my teens… early teens.

I ate breakfast this past Saturday and felt older than I have ever felt before. Sadly, I have reached an age where I can’t eat donuts and feel good afterwards. It was 7:30 a.m. and I was instantly tired, listless, bloated, and ready for a nap. Et tu donut?

Donuts are the universal breakfast treat. Sure eggs and bacon might rule the roost, but donuts were the first hand-held, drive-through breakfast item out there. Long before egg-filled burritos, French toast sticks, and pancake sandwiches with the syrup built into the bread, there were donuts. They were simple and they were good.

I have a long and storied history with donuts. As a kid, I stopped by the donut shop on my way to school. My church always had donuts on Sunday morning, and at Sunday-night church, we ate the leftover donuts cold. While working at a radio station during high school, I finished my air shift at midnight and stopped by the donut shop for a couple of custard-filled donuts and a pint of milk. As a bachelor living in Destin, Fla., I often visited The Donut Hole in the wee hours of the morning— all this and a 32-inch waist, too.

When my daughter was born, I used to take her to the donut shop every Saturday morning to watch the men make the donuts. She loved it.

Recently, I have used the donut shop as a rare, surprise treat for the kids, as I occasionally stopped by on the way home from church or another activity. The first time I did it the kids went wild. “Donuts at 8:30 at night? Dad, you’re the best! Mom is gonna kill you!” Those surprises have become less common as the no-more-donuts-for-Robert realization has begun to sink in.

Granted, donuts might be one of the most unhealthy foods out there—bread, deep-fried in grease, and then topped with sugar and chocolate— but I used to have an iron constitution. I could eat anything and it didn’t affect me.

I used to be able to drink highly caffeinated beverages at bedtime and sleep all night, not anymore. Last year I learned that I can no longer enjoy a roller coaster ride. Somewhere in my late 30s, my thrill-ride equilibrium flew out the window. Today I have more hair on my back than I do on my head. And where did this hair in my ears come from?

I see old men hanging out in donut shops all of the time. Their mornings are filled with newspapers, gossip, cigarettes, gallons of coffee, and donuts. They have hair in their ears, too. How do they walk away from the donut shop not feeling poorly?

As a kid I could eat anything. I ate a lot and I ate often. When I reached my mid 30s, my metabolism took a nap— a long nap— and has yet to wake up.

I am past middle-aged. Some say that 60-years old is middle aged. Sure, it’s middle-aged if you are going to live to be 120. I figure I hit middle age around my 43rd birthday. I’ll take 86 years on the planet— men die young in my family.

I wonder if there are any other foods that I will have to stop eating. If so, I will gladly give up Brussels sprouts right now if I can have my once-a-month donut fix returned. I would give up cauliflower and kiwi for a few more years of roller coaster riding. Apricots for chocolate cake, that’s an easy trade. What if rib-eye steak starts making me feel poorly, or bacon? I don’t know if a life without bacon is worth the effort.

Before long I’ll be wearing goofy pajamas, reading the obituary column, and reeking of Bengay, while surviving on a steady diet of Cream of Wheat, and Ensure. But I’m not going down without a fight, so pass the donuts (and the Mylanta, and the aspirin).



Amaretto-Brulee Breakfast Bread

1 /3 cup Butter, melted
3 /4 cup Brown sugar
2 Tbl Honey
2 Tbl Pecans, chopped (optional)
2 Tbl Almonds, slivered and blanched (optional)
8 French bread croutons, cut into 1-inch thick rounds
4 Eggs
2 /3 cup Milk
1 /4 cup Heavy cream
1 /8 tsp Cinnamon
1 /8 tsp Nutmeg
1 Tbl Vanilla
1 Tbl Amaretto

French bread croutons should be cut out of a baguette-style French bread loaf. Slices should be one inch thick.

In a cast iron skillet, combine butter, brown sugar and honey over medium-high heat. Cook mixture, stirring constantly until bubbly and sugar has dissolved. Add nuts. Pour Brulee into the bottom of a round, two-quart Pyrex baking dish. Allow Brulee to cool slightly then top with the French bread croutons.

In a large mixing bowl whisk eggs, milk, heavy cream, cinnamon, nutmeg, vanilla and Amaretto. Pour mixture evenly over the croutons. Using the tips of your fingers, press bread down gently to force custard into croutons without breaking. Cover dish with plastic wrap and refrigerate overnight.

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Allow custard to come to room temperature one hour before baking. Bake uncovered until French bread is puffed and edges of croutons are golden brown, (approximately 40 minutes). Place a plate on top of the baking dish. Using dish towels or pot holders, invert dish onto a plate. Top with powdered sugar. Yield: four to six servings

New Carpet


I purchased new carpeting for my son’s room last week.

You wouldn’t believe how badly a five-year old boy’s carpet can look and smell after a few short years. Stains and spots were scattered from the center of the room to its most remote corners. With some we knew the origin, others remained a mystery. Over the years we have steam cleaned the short-piled Berber several times but the spots and stains always returned in a matter of weeks.

My wife and I don’t allow eating outside of the kitchen, the dogs are housebroken, and there are no remaining roof leaks from Hurricane Katrina, but still there were spots and stains, and that smell.

One becomes accustomed to all manner of unpleasant odors when raising a boy, but this particular smell was above and beyond that of a normal kindergartener’s capabilities.

In the last few weeks the funk had grown so strong that we had to keep his door closed during the day. I have no idea how he slept in there with that rancid odor but it never seemed to bother him. He slept soundly and never once mentioned the stench. I chalked it up to being five-years old and unconcerned with matters that don’t involve robots, ninjas, SpongeBob, or eating.

Finally my wife reached her breaking point and called the flooring supplier to order new carpeting for both my son and daughter’s rooms (he spends time in there, too).

On the day the carpet was scheduled to be installed, my wife was frantically cleaning out closets, putting toys back in boxes, and throwing away useless junk and knickknacks. I was outside working on a project when she emerged from the back of the house holding a small, oval-shaped object at arms length. I watched through the windows as she inched her way through the den— slow and deliberate— as if she were carrying a small vile of nuclear waste. Her eyes were teary and squinted, her nose crinkled, as she gradually made her way outside.

I don’t know the exact shelf life of Easter eggs, but I am sure that five weeks is about four weeks, six and a half days too long.

Somewhere in the bowels of the boy’s room, among the toy trucks and baseballs, under the superhero costumes, and deep inside a basket in a back corner of the remote wasteland that is a five-year old’s domain was a lone, faded pastel Easter egg. It had a crack in it and I couldn’t tell if it was green from dye or exposure.

The smell was gone instantly; the stains were just stains after all. In the excitement that is a candy-laden Easter, the egg— a sole survivor of the day’s hunt— had made its way into an isolated hiding place where it lay in wait until it began to smell like, well… “The last one out is a rotten egg,” has never been a truer statement.

A few months ago I came across a photograph of my babysitter, Ned. She and I were hunting Easter eggs in my grandmother’s backyard. I looked to be about five-years old. After the recent egg incident I thought of Ned. She used to collect all of our eggs at the end of the day, peel, and eat them. She loved boiled eggs whether they were dyed or not.

I have never been a fan of boiled eggs. Maybe it was because I was always saving mine for Ned. It could be that, as a child, I might have smelled one after it sat at room temperature for several days.

My son loves his new carpet. He likes to wrestle on it. The other day he took me to his room, got down on his knees, rubbed his hand slowly over the carpet’s surface, and in an affected cartoon voice, looked up at me and said, “Feel the power of the plush.” Then he tackled me and put me into a headlock.

The wrestling is fun, but that lone, smelly egg cost me $3,000 in new carpeting. I miss Ned more and more everyday.

One day in the not too distant future the carpet won’t have to be steam cleaned every three months, and I guess that’s a good thing. But the house will be quiet, it will smell of inactivity, and no one will ask me to wrestle. In the end, the privilege of being a parent is worth every stain and smell, though you can be assured that next year I’ll be using plastic eggs at Easter.
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The World’s Last Deviled Egg

I have to make a batch for the guests and a batch for my kids. They love them.


1 dozen Eggs, hard boiled, peeled and cut in half, lengthwise
2 tsp. White balsamic vinegar
1 /3 cup Mayonnaise
1 /4 cup Sour cream
1 TBL Pickle Relish
1 1 /2 tsp Salt
1 Tbl Creole Mustard
2 tsp Yellow mustard
1 /8 tsp White Pepper
1 /8 tsp Garlic, granulated
Paprika and fresh parsley to garnish (optional)

Remove the yolks from the hard cooked eggs and place in a mixing bowl. Add all ingredients and beat with an electric mixer until smooth. Use a pastry bag to fill the egg whites. Sprinkle with paprika fresh parsley.

Yield: 24