It's been quite the best and worst of times lately. The worst involved our profound shock and sorrow over our beautiful little cat named Augie. It was just terribly sad how fast his disease came and got him, and we were so unprepared to lose him, still just a beautiful, angelic kitten, to death. All the people/readers who said a prayer for Augie and us deserve stars in your crowns, and from the bottom of my heart, thanks go to those of you who generously donated to our vet fund. At least his funny twin brother, Francisco, is the picture of health, and his joys in living help us to cope.

At work, it has been astonishingly hectic. However, my little kitchen krewe has held it together pretty well. We had good buzz from the IACP conference in New Orleans as a bunch of culinary professionals and food writers descended on the city. I imagine they discovered a culinary scene that's very invigorated, getting more progressive all the time. We just keep doing our thing, and people seem to be still in the throes of discovering what we do at The Delachaise and liking it.

On that Friday night of the IACP, we came within $11 of breaking our all-time high for straight up a la carte kitchen sales. (By that, I mean non-Mardi Gras and not a night when we had one of our rare parties to service in addition to our regular business.) We also cooked a tasting menu for the editors of StarChefs.com that same night, so it was quite a memorable evening. I think we surpassed their expectations, and soon I'll have three recipes available to their website, and maybe from time to time, I'll be a contributor there in other ways. It's a very professional website and an interesting resource for what's current in the professional kitchens of America, so check it out at www.starchefs.com

Most recently, we had a bang-up Jazzfest. It was much busier than ever before during the Fest, and it felt good, if a little bit exhausting, to be recognized by Jazzfesters as a place you gotta try while in New Orleans. On the last Sunday of Jazzfest, we did finally shatter that all-time high food sales, and the night went without problems and no distress. Our overall sales were substantially up, and our plan to feature some good dishes, like our Duck Sausage and Roasted Yellow Tomato Lasagna, a new Bananas Foster creme brulee with a cinnamon-caramel sugar, and the winner of our Crawfish Pie "World Tour' -- the pupusa stuffed with black beans and crawfish -- went off without a hitch.

I also stole some time to finally make our foie gras bonbons again. I made a fig, bourbon, and foie gras mousse; let it chill overnight; roll the mousse into little balls and briefly freeze 'em; take some of our Port caramel sauce (that we use for our chocolate moltens) and dip the frozen foie mousse balls in the caramel, setting them on foil; refrigerate that so the caramel starts to harden -- 20-30 minutes; temper evil dark chocolate -- this time the Extreme 85% from Chatelain's; dip the caramel-coated foie balls in the chocolate using the tines of a fork to gently roll 'em around to cover. As you can see, it's a bit of an undertaking -- nothing too difficult, but each step takes careful planning and fairly exact temperature manipulations. The result is something that's quite decadent, and the good news is I can make one more batch sometime this weekend!

When I presented the bonbons as the amuse bouche for our 7 course foie dinner in Oct-Nov 2006, I had a single black truffle that I zested on my microplaner and blended with cocoa powder to turn 'em into literal truffled truffles. The bonbons are best at room temperature because the foie gras mouse softens inside and gets silky and creamy as the butter in the mousse relaxes. The flavors melt off in layers as you eat it, and it's pure sensual overload without apology.

Finally, my blog has suffered because of my basketball junkie syndrome. I love NBA playoffs and the NCAA Tournament, and with my New Orleans Hornets surpassing all expectations, my hoops illness has scaled new heights. I finally made it to a NBA playoff game this year, which is surprising to me that it took this long. But I never went to a Hawks playoff game back when Dominique Wilkens played when we lived in Athens. Growing up so long ago in Dallas, I saw ABA playoffs, and caught a game that Dr. J played when his Virginia Squires came to Big D to play the Dallas Chapparals. I think the Mavericks and the NBA came to Dallas as I moved away, and for those early years, they were terrible anyway. The Dirk Mavs of today have had some success, but they refuse to play defense, and ultimately that's why Avery johnson quit/ was fired/ because the team wouldn't commit to play his kind of defense and the Hornets this year absolutely shredded them. When the Hornets moved to town, they made the playoffs and were bounced out in the first round, once to AI's 76ers, then to D Wade's Heat before Shaq came to town the one year that Tim Floyd coached an underachieving Hornets squad with Baron Davis. As I recall, those games came during Jazzfest when I couldn't get off to see 'em.

This has been a huge treat seeing the city explode with a basketball frenzy as Chris Paul has unleashed his devastating court vision on opponents. The fans are loud like boisterous football fans, and the team keeps producing crazy enthusiastic offense and persistent lockdown Defense in the 2nd half of these games. For a devoted hoops fanatic, it has been so much fun seeing people share my basketball madness, and to watch such a young team showcase its moxie, toughness, and breathtaking speed. It doesn't affect work, but I have been guilty of watching playoff hoops on my days off rather than writing a post for my blog. I love EJ, Kenny and Charles Barkley on TNT, and hope to see Tim Duncan and then Kobe Bryant (who did deserve his MVP this yr) don the fishing gear before CP and D West of my New Orleans team. It's already a completely satisfying year for the Hornets, but I'm still HUNGRY AND GREEDY for more victories! The guys have their health this year, and you never know when your team can gather enough momentum to make a serious playoff run in the future, so I say to the Hornets to seize the moment. Never pass up the opportunity to show your mettle.


Now as you can see, it's been a messy time; emotionally packed with mostly high points, and one abiding sorrow. I'll try to keep caught up better, because I do enjoy my perambulations on this blog; but lately I've been as busy as a one-legged man in a butt-kicking contest....

There comes a time in every chef's life when you must draw a line in the dirt and decide which side you're on. There are many dividing lines in this business, but when we are talking about the rarified world of fine dining, to me, there is a bright line dividing the hacks and self-glorifiers from the serious chefs. Are you in it for the food or for the pursuit of luxury?

The two are not absolutely mutually exclusive in my line of work; after all, even at the affordable prices of The Delachaise, I expect you to fork over enough good money for one meal to make Sally Struthers cry in Feed the Children commercials -- and I don't mean to sound too glib, either; fine dining is a privilege we enjoy in this society, while others -- such as my poor neighbors in Central City -- cannot even imagine how to navigate my culinary world, much less afford to eat the food I cook.

Nevertheless, being a cook has animated my waking, working world (and sometimes my subconscious and sleeping worlds, too!) for over 25 years. I slid into cooking kinda like a kid who decides to run away with the circus, drawn into the life mainly because I love working with the ingredients -- it's like taming wild animals in a way, in the sense that I am trying to make my ingredients (my menagerie of lions, elephants, and exotic vegetables) less predictable to the customers as I expand my culinary vocabulary to draw on sources from around the globe. My job is to thrill customers with what seem to be acts of daring, but are really just my culinary ruminations about how the world works. "Way back when" in the days I thought about poetry and began to train my imagination, I wrote that my job was to reveal the hidden worlds held among the insides of an eggplant. Little did I understand the implications of that tossed off verse from my youth because to truly put the "guts" of eggplant on view, a chef must understand many cultures and their relationships to eggplants, must want to find all varieties of eggplants, and must be willing to understand the way other ingredients contribute to the "stuffings" and "guts" of an eggplant. Finally, all that information is just mimicry until I had the imagination to supply my eggplant with the "guts" of my own imagination passed along through my hands, my knives.

For me, despite a long tenure in fine dining, there's no question why I'm in it after all these years. It's strictly about my passion for food. Sure, would I welcome a larger venue to explain my views about food? Yes, and you're reading all about it here on my blog, and perhaps in the future things that I'm kicking around: about internet video recipe series, or cookbooks, etc. will happen. At my age, I feel an urgency to communicate about cooking because I believe in the shared pleasures of the table as a primary element in our lives.

However, some cooks are chasing chimeras. The fame game does make chefs an easy target because all of us are working stiffs, and for us to be celebrities is rather ridiculous. Still serious chefs do hold knowledge that the public wants, like shamanic figures of yore. Because of the extreme time pressures convoluting society, more people are drawn to the exotic circus life of the professional chef, some in amazement at our tricks taming the wild animals with acts of fire, some to try and walk the walk. Restaurants are common, but great restaurants seem increasingly rare, and people want to learn how to tell what's happening behind the scenes of my longtime business. The resulting pressure on chefs to assume personas of fame is an irresistible siren call. It's a lucrative call for a working stiff.

Nevertheless, the real game is cooking, coaxing the maximum from your ingredients. The fame game, the idea of Michelin stars can be a self-perpetuating trap. Read The Perfectionist, about a wonderfully talented chef in France, to see what I mean on the tragic side. On the pompous, absolute self-aggrandizing side, simply read these quotes from Scott Boswell of Stella!, a lovely boite in the French Quarter. Mr. Boswell was quoted in a recent Times-Picayune article on Brioni jackets from March 18, 2008. (If you don't know Brioni, it's a very famous Italian tailored suit line, and Mr. Boswell is quoted by the fashion writer because he's buying a Brioni chef jacket. I could care less if Boswell wants to wear Brioni; after all, tailored clothes of that caliber are true artifacts of a rich workmanship tradition.)

"... "It seems like, in today's chef world, you're a lot more in the public eye," said Boswell, who was recently named a 'Best Dressed' honoree by the Men and Women of Fashion in New Orleans and will be honored at the group's upcoming luncheon. ...

The Brioni won't be for the kitchen. "it's something for the dining room, that I can slip into and go out and be this presence," Boswell said. "I think the late 20th Century stereotype of the fat chef is gone. We've tied food with fashion, made food very artistic and fashionable, and the chef should be as beautiful as the food is."

Boswell plans to pair the coat with black pinstripe wool Brioni pants. ..."

Wool pants in New Orleans in what is putatively a hot kitchen...yeah right. To each his own...

Boswell and I do share an abiding affection for Iron Chef, in its Japanese edition. (The American edition is much more diluted and too simplistic for my taste) Apparently we like it for very different reasons. I loved the sports action of the kitchen arena, with its slow-motion zoom camera replays, and the furious pace as cooks dealt with unique ingredients. I especially loved learning little tidbits about famous seasonal ingredients in Japan, and was blown away by the dining judge's nonchalance about fish head soup and other seemingly strange items to my cultural palate, but their bewilderment at seeing/tasting avocado as an element of sushi. Perhaps Scott Boswell appreciated all that, too, but he must've really admired the crazily elaborate chef jackets of the reigning Iron Chefs as the genuine article; whereas, I saw that as pure campy excess. I loved Chairman Kaga's Grand Guignol theatrics as the imperious impresario of Kitchen Stadium, but apparently, Boswell has him in mind as a regular client of his fancy restaurant. I guess that's why Boswell serves shark fin, one of the most heinous gourmet food items on the planet, because it's all about the bling, all about flaunting your money.

Scott Boswell had an earlier interview, back in those dark days of New Orleans soon after the federal levees failed the city. To his credit, Boswell, was here cooking burgers for people, and he opened his casual counterpart restaurant, Stanley, first. At the time, he had Stella! on hold because he couldn't "open Stella! with less than 15 cooks." I had to laugh at that pretentious foppery because at The Delachaise I was cooking lights out with a culinary student as my only other cook, and a year later pulled off a 7 course foie gras tasting menu for three weeks with one cook and a part-time guy that blew my guests away. I wear t-shirts to this day at The Delachaise because a) my jackets were mostly ruined by the floodwaters that inundated my Broadmoor home, where the laundry was in the raised basement and where I kept my jackets out of reach of our cats and their hair, b) The Delachaise is casual, and though our guests do dress up sometimes, I'd feel weird walking around in a self-important chef's jacket, like I was in costume, every night, c) once you know me, you understand how I roll, and I can create quite a presence in my dining room without a Brioni jacket.

Of course, I can afford chef jackets, but not wearing one has become something of a private symbol to me working at The Delachaise, which in no way limits the professionalism I expect of myself as a chef. The clothes do not make the man in my book, but then the Men and Women of Fashion will not be clamoring for me to join them at their latest Spring Fete.

Finally, speaking as a fat chef of the 21st Century, beauty is sparked by passion, and a truly passionate chef will always be capable of making memorable food. How I look is how I look, just like Flip Wilson, said, "What you see is what you get!" What you see at The Delachaise is one working chef determined to have as much fun as is possible, to rebuild my kitchen, every plate every time, to a thing of beauty and astonishment that serves the food lovers of New Orleans.

I am not claiming to be an Iron Chef, but I'm sure as hell not an Egyptian Cotton Chef. I come from the School of Hard Knocks, and there's nothing that has kept me down yet from cooking to the best of my ability -- no matter the circumstances...

PS To Scott Boswell, if you ever read this, I'm not trying to be mean or appeal to the tired old machismo of the kitchen world. We're just from two very different worlds, and I had to rank on you a little from "the other side of the tracks." But, dude, you really got to forget about the shark fin...the gold leaf is funny, hey, they do that in fancy Indian restaurants, too, but seriously, I'm begging you not to do the shark fin anymore...

Today started with a funeral for a friend in da 'hood's cousin, whom he regarded as a brother. Both have been seeing first-hand "the needle and the damage done" to themselves for a long time, and it caught up with his cousin, nicknamed "Chop." He died of an overdose, in a way it's just murdering yourself by degrees, but he was a kind guy so his death had a tragic dimension of loss and unfilled promise that's always such a miserable aftermath of a young person's death.

So we went to the funeral at Holy Ghost Catholic Church, a predominantly African-American congregation on Louisiana Ave. The lady playing the organ was very passionate and slid a little funky vibe into the somber church music. I've been to a few Catholic funerals, and they all proceed with the same ritual of incense, sorrow, and uplifting accounts about how Jesus has opened heaven to all of us. Honestly, I have never been able to believe in heaven. That's not to say it doesn't exist, possibly with angels hangin' out on marshmallow clouds playing Led Zeppelin on harps, but the idea of heaven has never rung true for me and it has never been a solace nor a motivation for me to try to live better. I wish I could take comfort from the imagery of heaven, but it seems so umknowable and far away from our veil of tears.

Maybe because I'm a cook, and cooks deal in things, trying to transform vegetables and creatures into nourishment, that I cannot imagine living for something as remote and intangible as the afterlife. I tend to find my metaphors in the here and now.

For instance, the family had organized a second line to accompany the hearse outta the church. I love the second line tradition, and this was the first time I had attended a funeral with one. I've seen numerous second lines, of course, and been trapped behind them while driving, but it's so different when you knew the deceased.

The music was spectacular, and we marched behind the band in their classic white shirts and black pants. I was wearing my dark suit and Stacy Adams shoes, which are good for dancing. We followed the band a few blocks until we reached the corner of Louisiana Ave and S. Liberty, where the cops stopped us and we waited for the hearse and family to pass. The band played on a call and response hymm and his friends touched the hearse with regret as it was serenaded by the band.

Chop passed us at the crossroads of S. Liberty and Louisiana on the way to his grave, and I couldn't help but notice the Central City street's tragic irony. My friend's cousin finally found his liberty from this mortal coil, and a house was being rebuilt on the corner. Right now, Liberty is a hard street running through a ghetto in Central City, an almost forgotten place where heaven seems so far away.

The family went on to the burial, and we followed the brass band back to the church. Those guys kept swingin', with the huge tuba leading the way, drummers accenting the pace and energy, and wailing trombones, trumpets and saxaphones. Young guys keepin' the musical tradition alive, and we strutted back, filled with the Holy Ghost of New Orleans music. People stood in doors, celebrating the music knowing somehow in their bones that somebody who loved New Orleans had passed. The music told another facet to the diamond of Chop's life here in N.O. He loved living here; he loved the music and the traditions of the second line; so while I can't describe Liberty and Louisiana as heaven on earth, for that one brief moment we proclaimed that Chop deserved dignity; he deserved to stop the traffic and have somebody dance in the crisp Spring air of New Orleans right in the middle of the street!

My main wish for Chop would be that the jeweler of his life had somehow taken more time with the precise cutting and shaping of his diamond. It seems that facets of his life were left unrevealed, sapped by poverty, an indifferent education, and the bulldozer of drugs. I don't blame God for the unfinished jewels of Chop's life, and I believe it's our own responibility to spend time making our diamonds-in-the-rough to shine as much as we can. It's finished now, his life glittering on the corner of Liberty St and Louisiana Ave, and I was sad to see him go too soon.


The rest of the day was a nondescript day off, punctuated by the Hornets thrilling win over LeBron and the Cleveland Cavaliers on a last second shot by David West from Chris Paul's 20th assist of the game. But I savored it, slow and easy, because when you reach a crossroads you got to move, keep going.

For those who can listen to the airwaves in New Orleans, I just finished a radio interview with Mary Sonnier. She's hosting a Chef Talk Show on WRBH 88.3 FM, our terrific radio for the Blind non-profit station in New Orleans. It's a 30 minute conversation about my influences that shaped me as a chef, and stuff we do, we've done, and plan to do at The Delachaise. Mary is a gifted chef herself, designing the desserts on the Gabrielle menu with her husband, Greg Sonnier, and she volunteers her time to handle the show.

The Chef Show will air this Friday at 2:30 pm and again on Saturday at 5 pm. ***Note I had the times backwards on the first posting, the new times listed are the correct times you can tune in on WRBH 88.3 FM. Mary and Greg have dined at The Delachaise many times, so it was a relaxed, fun conversation that I hope proves to be entertaining if y'all can find it on the radio dial. The Chef Show airs every week with different chefs from all over the region talking with Mary, so you might want to make it a new habit to listen in. WRBH has readers read the Times-Picayune, authors reading their stories, and other helpful literary and cultural programs -- it's a uniquely old-fashioned radio with a genuine community purpose.

The last two weeks of our global crawfish pies have gone very well: the Moroccan ones were quite popular, and the Chinese ones were easier to do than I thought. Next up are pierogis, filled with LA. crawfish tails, sauerkraut, and bacon, topped with caramelized onions. I like my pierogis pan-crisped in butter, but we can serve 'em straight up boiled if you're from Jersey or just like 'em like dat.

A time for reflection, as Spring bursts into view, and it reminds me to seize the moment, before the dreaded heat and hurricane worries of summer approach, so maybe I shouldn't wait for a second line and its sorrows before putting on my Stacys and dancing a little...

It's been a pretty exciting time lately for us. If you read ol' Doc PZB's blog, you have a good idea of the stuff goin' on in our lives: St. Joseph's Day sprawling from its officially sanctioned Saturday to the (always miraculous) beauty of homegrown celebrations on the saint's real feast day, March 19th; the added thrill of catching Mardi Gras Indians dancing and strutting on their same holy night of the REAL St. Joseph's Day right in our 'hood; the good doctor's (and my lifelong partner in love) baptism/adult conversion to Catholicism at Our Lady of Good Counsel on Easter Vigil this most recent Saturday; and as if those two events weren't enough, there's this little thing called March Madness and my kick-ass New Orleans Hornets stomping thru the NBA stoking my hoops frenzy to new levels of maniacal obsession.

A guy hardly has time to cook with so much goin' down!

Allow me a little comment on my proud satisfaction that PZB has committed to her religious inspiration to find solace where only torment had been rattling around in her head and bones since the failure of the federal levee system in New Orleans. It has been a nerve-wracking odyssey to recover our lives since our city was almost destroyed; I have fared better because I've had the opportunity to forge a new situation as a chef, at The Delachaise, resulting in my energies and creativity summoned to a maximum each and every night, serving it forth one plate at a time in my own little kitchen. PZB has had a much tougher road, as those who read the better half's blog understand so vividly; nonetheless, we all reach the crossroads of our reckoning at certain times in life. I believe PZB has reached a pivotal turn in life, and I will continue to love and honor our marriage and hold out faith -- yes, faith -- that we can walk the road together and dedicate our lives to rebuilding our beloved city, to get our groove back 100% (I can hear the bettter half cringing...oh well... it's impossible to live in N.O. without owning your groove!), to sustaining love, fun, and our deep abiding desire to walk together to guide our steps into the bewildering future.

I'm not particularly religious, but I am a spiritual person. I think we perform better as people if we discover our strength of purpose in each idiosyncratic life, and it seems that a spiritual wellspring is essential to the perseverance it takes to live life to its fullest. I'm interested in what you believe because it's a huge part of the RNA of your soul. People without soul are just walking meat nightmares. If you have soul, we can swap information, passions, trace our mutual footpaths across this dusty corner of the globe, and take aim at having a positive legacy. I like to learn from the mystics, from Buddha to Jesus, from Rumi to Walt Whitman, from D. Boon of the Minutemen to my chef, Jamie Shannon. I ain't biting the hand that feeds me, and I'm always hungry to learn more & more.

I'm noticing a cultural wellspring of people who are determined to pry the cold hands of right-wing hate off the body of Christianity, and it's not a moment too late. Those gay-bashing ridiculous morons who fight against evolutionary theory need to be stopped as a political movement, as a way of life that defines a major religion. The people who are rising in this new phoenix of Christianity are the same people who've gallantly come down to my flooded New Orleans again and again to help us rebuild. They don't drink the Hater-ade of "needing to know that they are right, and that you are a horrible sinner." Christianity has always had an element of us vs. them, due to the religion's persecution complex; ultimately, the defining lesson of Jesus's words is love -- and love is not always an easy emotion, with jealousy, pettiness, and myriad other deviations from the impulse to love getting in the way and losing sight of compassion. More people, whether professing to be Christians or not, are sick of the constant fighting in our cultural life and the sickness of this spiralling war, and the tide is turning. Maybe these earnest pilgrims can re-define Christianity from its sorry white bread country club Pat Robertson level of intolerance that is ruining the religion. Those jerks should've never been able to define it in in the first place, and the right-wing fake ass "Christian" needs to be relegated to the dustbins of useless history as fast as possible.

Of course, the sad thing is I have to use vitrolic language of complete disdain & hate to differentiate myself from my enemies on the cultural right. Where do the musical chairs of endless recrimination and ancient grudges ever end? I guess it ends when people evolve, and the power of superstitious hate loses its appeal.

Maybe PZB's opening of the door to Catholicism is indicative of the movement toward the spiritual recovery of Christianity. Probably not: we don't live for sociology; we live with pain, doubt, wonder and precious, yet halting, attempts to love one another, in accordance with all the Great Spiritual Teachers. All I can do is applaud this step down the beautiful road, and continue my journey with my Big Daddy to a better place in our hearts together.


I'll get back to our regularly scheduled cooking blog soon...

The first installment of our seven week odyssey of international crawfish pies went over well. Enthusiastic diners, not so much demand that we couldn't keep up, and the tamarind chutney rocked! I made a straight up pie dough for the samosa wrappers, and it came out nice and flaky and extra good since it was fried in duck fat. I tried a different recipe first, that used corn oil instead of butter, but quickly went back to butter. I'm lucky to have so-called "cold hands" that allow me to work in butter to flour with no sticky melting problem so pie dough has never been a problem to me.

RJ, my sous chef, made the filling of curried potatoes and green peas in a classic manner, and we add fresh Louisiana crawfish to each day's filling, marinating the tails in a little Madras curry powder.

Friday was a rather nerve-wracking day because we lost all of Thursday's prep time to a misguided Herculean effort to push a new convection oven into the kitchen. The effort was eventually a success, and I am delighted to have another oven, but in the short term it badly threw me off for getting ready for the weekend. I had to make the samosas and tamarind chutney, a new soup, a new pasta dish, and some other prep, like peeling and cutting pommes frites, various sauces, etc., etc. I taught my other cook, Dave Usher, how to work with tamarind, while I rolled little cones of samosa dough. It was hectic but our prep went without a hitch; well, after I switched back to my usual pie dough after a frustrated interlude with the corn oil recipe, it went off w/o a hitch.... It helped that I finally remembered a little trick learned many years ago to roll out the dough to 10 inches, cut it into 4 triangular pieces that are more quickly assembled into the samosa cone shape than the typical 6 inch rounds cut in half. Not to mention I got four samosas instead of just two every time I picked up the rolling pin to flatten some more pie dough.

We had 5 specials**, including the crawfish samosas, ready for Friday with our regular menu, and so that spread out the sales. The weekend is not our most serious food crowd, so while we were busy, they didn't focus like a laser on the samosas. We had a terrific Friday night, yet I eased into the crawfish pie process. Saturday was off, but Sunday brought my culinary crowd into The Delachaise. We sold quite a few samosas that night, and our food sales actually beat out the liquor sales, which almost never happens, but if it does do that it is gonna happen on a Sunday night. When PZB picked me up with a request for a Nutty Buddy cone from the convenience store next door, I commented on it looking like a samosa. Then I went to bed with tired feet and DREAMED of making samosas all night! Unlike a lot of work/cooking dreams from the past, I didn't feel unhappy or hopelessly behind whilst dreaming of samosas -- so that was good. After all, I never did fall behind, and they are pretty fun to shape -- I suppose it was the novelty of making them over and over that captured my subconscious fancy. Typically, my cooking day at The Delachaise requires a huge variety of tasks, and I seldom get bogged down doing anything over and over again that takes a lotta time.

So I went back to work Monday and got us pretty far ahead on the samosas, and just about everything else. It was good to finally feel caught up from our little troubles squeezing in the new oven, and I was glad that people were excited about what the next 6 weeks will bring. So as The Special Man from the Frankie and Johnny Furniture TV commercials used to say: "Let 'em have it! (with no problem...)"

**here's our specials from this week:

Louisiana Bangers & Mash
grilled Marciante's duck sausages over LA. sweet potatoes mashed with roasted garlic & satsuma spritz, finished with Steen's cane syrup from Abbeville, LA $12

Fried Oysters and Celery Root
cornmeal-dusted LA oysters flash-fried alongside shredded celery root tossed in yellow pepper remoulade and Romesco sauce $12

White Anchovy Brushetta
lovely marinated boquerones -- white anchovies-- on garlic-rubbed crostini with eggplant tapenade and piquillo peppers $9

Yellow Tomato and White Asparagus Napoleon
yellow beefsteak tomatoes "paneed" with a hazelnut crust, stacked with roasted white asparagus and tangerine aioli $14

Crawfish Pie "World Tour"
This week: Curried Crawfish Samosas, filled with fingerling potatoes, green peas and LA tails, wrapped in flaky samosa cones and fried in duck fat. Served with tamarind-mint chutney, 2 per order $10

Here's the latest mayhem from my kitchen @ The Delachaise. This is the press release I wrote telling the news that we're simply gonna have too much fun re-inventing crawfish pies.


Crawfish Pie "World Tour" at The Delachaise


The Delachaise celebrates crawfish season with a most unusual event this Spring, 2008. Chef Chris DeBarr presents a globetrotting experience for the next seven weeks, showcasing Louisiana "mudbugs" as if they were on a "world tour" of crawfish pies.

"The idea," DeBarr says, " is to take our crawfish on a road trip to other cultures and find the ways we could imagine making crawfish pies in other lands." The result will be a seven-week playoff, featuring one new crawfish pie per week, with the ultimate winner featured during Jazzfest on the nightly Delachaise menu.

The new pies will debut on Friday nights, with prices from $8-$13, running for the rest of the week. The roster of pies is listed below with their starting dates and the country of origin for each.


Curried Crawfish, Potato, and Peas Samosas w/ Tamarind Chutney (India) Friday, March 7

Harissa Spiced Eggplant, Preserved Lemon, and Crawfish Phyllo Pies (Morocco) Friday, March 14

Steamed Bun with Crawfish, Chinese Greens and Shiitake Mushrooms (China) Friday, March 21

Pan-Fried Crawfish, Sauerkraut, and Bacon Pierogi (Poland)
Friday March 28

Crawfish and Black Bean Pupusas with Salsa Verde (Honduras and throughout Central America) Friday, April 4

Fried Crawfish & Boudin Arancini (Sicily, Italy) Fri., April 11

Crawfish Krachipuri with Feta and Herbs (Republic of Georgia)
Friday, April 18

"We'll be making all the doughs, except for the phyllo, by hand," states Chef Chris, "and we want to respect the original street snack cultures of each pie, yet show how simple it could be to add Louisiana crawfish to the mix." DeBarr, who is an avid hoops fan, wanted to add the playoff aspect to the event because it's a food version of March Madness, featuring crawfish, at The Delachaise. "I also wanted to honor the memory of Chef Jamie Shannon, who was my chef at Commander's Palace. He always had us make a crawfish pie appetizer at the restaurant for Jazzfest, but the pies subtly changed every year. So I thought it'd be good to do something wild and unexpected in his honor, with the prize as a slot on our menu during Jazzfest."


so that's the official PR. We're getting ready to rock the samosas this Friday and get the playoff started. There are few things more fun than testing yourself with a challenge, and I look at this event as a good chance for me to develop some time for baking skills in my little kitchen. I have always enjoyed baking, and furtively have done a bit of it at The Delachaise. People still talk about the goose confit & quince phyllo tarts we did exactly a year ago, where I peeled off the goose leg skin to turn 'em into cracklins, then crushed the cracklins with walnuts between the layers of phyllo. I've done other stuff, a few desserts here and there, but baking is time consuming! We also have only one oven, so that is limiting; and we don't run much prep time because our shifts are so long working in a bar that we can catch up our normal mise-en-place as the night wears on. All those factors combined have limited my capacity to bake.

For me, the hidden joy of this crawfish pie madness is to try to establish a little more time for baking, trying to develop a good habit. I am a little worried that the demand of curiosity could swamp us with this special; in other words, everybody will have to buy one and I'll be selling 20 a night -- which for our kitchen might be a struggle if it goes on every day thru each pie for 7 long weeks.

For instance, I had to remove Louisiana Risotto from the menu last year because that array of dishes sold too well. I know that sounds ridiculous, but a good menu sells across the board, almost with a Marxist zeal -- to each hunger a dish to satisfy its needs. Once a single dish dominates your menu, it distorts your prep time because you have to concentrate on re-prepping the same dish alla da time, AND sales of the other dishes suffer so you risk losing food because suddenly a once fairly popular dish ain't selling.

The pies are not designed to be super filling; instead, they are elevated snacky street food, so folks will hopefully also want to order other menu items, too. The risotto problem was that it was a large (by Delachaise portions) dish and filled ya up. The pies will hopefully serve to whet the appetite; drive business on a weekly frequency; and cause some discussion and debate as the 7 weeks progress. We'll find out just how it breaks down as it happens.

My early prognosis is that the arancini will be most popular, but that the pierogi will be close. Obviously, the Georgian krachipuri are the underdogs because nobody's heard of 'em, but I'm putting them last because I know they'll be quite good -- an unusual soda wrapper that will be unique, kinda like a cross of puff pastry and empanada dough, and the herbs -- herbs are huge in the Republic of Georgia to an extent similar to Vietnamese cuisine but more Western herbs used -- and feta ought to be nice and refreshing to the tastebuds as Spring heats up by then. Gonna use some of John Folse's really good Bulgarian feta he has made in Louisiana by his awesome Bulgarian cheesemaking "ringers!"

Finally, I simply want to emphasize that I put the source of inspiration for this squarely on Jamie Shannon, my wonderful chef at Commander's Palace. It's been a very long time since I worked there, and a shockingly long time since Jamie's death from cancer, but I often think of his mischievious devotion to having a blast. Even though cooking at a huge kitchen like Commander's could've been a factory-type production, he never let it go that way. He emphasized the seasons, creativity, and exploring rich traditions of Creole fare with an eye toward the future legacy of where Creole food could go. As I mentioned in the press release, this is just my way of tipping my hat to Jamie for instilling in me a go-for-broke attitude that cooking is meant to be a joy, even on the biggest stage. The idea of crawfish pie at Jazzfest seems like a great tradition to keep going, so I'll do my part. Maybe if all of Jamie's colleagues scattered across New Orleans and everywhere put their own version of crawfish pie on their menus for Jazzfest, it'd be a nice tribute to his unforgettable legacy in a subtle, but meaningful way.

I am super psyched that the NBA All-Star Game is here in New Orleans! It's a unique event, and I hope that the NBA comes away understanding what a valuable asset having this city as a league member, where huge parties can be effortlessly handled and the good times roll. We've been handling big sporting events for a very long time, and I anticipate that we blow the NBA away with our facilities, our terrific food, our close quarters that make everything convenient instead if a traffic nightmare, and that the NBA and their satellite people see the city making steps to rebuild.

I appreciate their support, and likewise I hope the people of New Orleans realize what a good thing it is to have a local NBA team -- and that the Hornets are a rockin' team this year -- and built for success down the road, too. After all, until Baron Davis and "Big Cat" Magliore quit on the team the year before the levees failed, the Hornets had made the NBA playoffs for 12 consecutive years. Were they a legit threat -- well, who was when you shared the Eastern Conference with MJ and da Bulls? Nonetheless the franchise played winning basketball, despite all their unfortunate turmoil in Charlotte, and as long as Chris Paul and his talented wingmen, D. West, Peja, Tyson Chandler (TC), etc. play like a determined team willing to play good defense, their winning ways ought to continue.

Anyway, pardon my excitability! We're running a pretty good set of menu specials this weekend at The Delachaise, with five dishes listed under the heading, "For the Love of the Game." Nominally, it celebrates Valentine's Day, which now was yeasterday, as well as our NBA hype; actually, this was the busiest V-Day since I've been @ The D-chaise even though we did no publicity for the specials or anything. Our great bartebnder Neal B. reprised a Plymouth gin cocktail with a rose petal that he did in NYC, and it was quite good. Gin is such an underrated liquor -- more complex than nasty old vodka, and yet good gin drinks always seem refreshing even as they kick like a mule with potent forces.

We ran a few good dishes, most of them hits from our specials board at one time or another. We brought back our petite portion of grilled duck breast in a pomegranate glaze with dirty duck risotto and a mission fig demiglace -- it was on the menu last winter, until we hit our goose fancy (which I plan to return to again before long). We ran "The Rising Sun" Foie Gras, which has been a slayer lately. Revamped our "Old-Fashioned" Gulf Fish (Drum this weekend, a fave of mine because of their voracious appetite for Louisiana oysters and their meaty red-tinged flesh) to include Champagne tempura-fried white asparagus and duck fat fingerling potatoes to with our bourbon cocktail inspired brown butter. We showcased the golden beet "ravioli" of roasted golden beets, peeled and sliced carpaccio style to make "skins" for stuffing into a ravioli shape with truffled chevre. I know beets and goat cheese seem now to be a hoary cliche, but this presentation swaps out one's expectations with a sense of fun, and the accompanying good Sicilian olive oil, terrific saba I get from www.manicaretti.com and a little pomegranate molasses somehow accent the earthy relationship shared by beets and truffles with just a touch of sweet/sour balance. Finally, my produce guy misunderstood me, and sent these gorgeous heirloom tomatoes, and they were juicy and ripe so I did our "BLT" Salad of sliced tomatoes topped with shrimp (this time, with Meyer lemon and bacon fat roasting jumbo shrimp instead of our ususal LA boiled shrimp), Nueske's awesome bacon, and our arugula aioli -- the "L" in the BLT equation. I'll gladly roll with accidents of good fortune like dat.

I'm also trying out a dessert, utilizing the mysterious citron, the Buddha's Hand. I made angel food cake infused with the zest of the Buddha's Hand, which is like an amalgamation of citrus scents and tastes, from tangerine to lemon, Meyer lemon to the odd perfume of kumquats, the Buddha's Hand is a little stronger in scent than those, similar but very much its own creature. Made a peach-ginger sauce, and tried out some B.H. infused creme fraiche too for the dessert, with subtle shadings of tangerine olive oil, too. Hardly anybody knows what the heck Buddha's Hand is, so I look at this dessert as trying to promote adventure and a little knowledge. I went with angel food cake this time, because I was also making creme brulees and had a ready supply of egg whites, but I think I prefer the richness of pound cake a little more for illustrating the merits of the Buddha's Hand zest. I ran a strawberry & rose petal jam brulee, too and only sold 1! Sold 3 of our satsuma brulees with a sesame-ginger sugar, so overall it was not near as big a dessert night as I figured it would be, especially since we were busy.

We'll be running these same specials through this weekend, so if you're a local New Orleans reader, you got time to check 'em out. I also improvised a pasta dish today, with twisty Puglia pasta, called casarecci, with a mess o' spicy greens: mustard, bok choy (not g-damn baby bok choy!), and Napa cabbage, and tasso, topped with roasted pork carrying a rosemary-garlic marinade. I really liked the heat of the dish, and it seemed true to Southern Italy despite its unusual greens which wouldn't be found down there. Funny how pork & greens are always key ingredients to any Southerners "soul food," whether it's the bottom of the boot of Italy, or a southern-fried US boy like myself -- got to enjoy my pig with some savory greens!

It was a fun, rather hectic night, and it was gratifying to see our customers select us in good numbers and enjoying the hard work spent crafting the specials, even though we didn't go crazy promoting ourselves. I probably don't say it often enough, but I think the customers at The Delachaise are outstanding! They try all sorts of our ever-changing roster of dishes; they're pretty cheerful and patient with our unorthodox Euro-style of pub service; and it's rewarding to try to dazzle them with crazy specials or with our menu mainstays. I guess with all the utter madness of living in New Orleans, I always feel a connection with our local diners. They motivate me to keep on being a maniac, a whirling dervish of passion because this city feeds on passion; and in some small way, the rapport we've established with our loyal local diners inspires me daily to imagine that what we do with our food matters, y'all!. Cooking in New Orleans is my best Valentine's Day gift (after knowing I have the love of my life, that rascally ol' Doc Brite solidly in my corner no matter what! almost 19 years and happily counting...)

Got to get some sleep cuz I got some more cooking to handle up on later today...

I managed to survive another Mardi Gras on da Avenue, which is always a good thing. It really wasn't as hectic as the last 2 years because of A) the rainout on Thursday (which was too bad because the storm was very brief, but at exactly the wrong time, and I feel sad that Chaos was prevented from parading), and B) Endymion returned to their Mid-City route which made for an ordinary Saturday night. Then with Bacchus rolling against the Super Bowl, we were a little slower than normal for that Carnival Sunday, yet still pretty darn full steam and damn the torpedoes. All in all we fared pretty well, yet I'm not completely tired, as in years of yore.

That said, we sold a helluva lot of Father Pat's Grilled Cheese sandwiches, pommes frites, and other of the plainer things on the menu. Managed to sell a few specials, and hardly any desserts because folks just aren't having complete meals during Carnival. We put fish & chips on the menu, and they sold great while parades rolled and not so good when they were gone, so that won't become a permanent menu item. It takes both of our small fryers to pick-up an order of fish & chips, so that is another major strike against them, but perhaps from time to time they will make a guest appearance on the specials board. Our numbers were solid this year, and thanks to all our patrons who managed to come to The Delachaise who are readers. I hope y'all had a blast!

On a personal note I went 0-for-parades this year in the bead catching dept until Rex. I was too busy working, which was okay for me this year. I plan on taking a little more time off to celebrate the NBA All-Star Game, which is a once-in-a-lifetime event for this huge basketball fan, so I earned my little halo of hard work during the parades this year. I enjoy looking at the parades, and it is still a thrill to catch something cool, but I hafta admit that catching crappy beads is a downer, especially if the rider makes eye contact and out come whizzing little plain beads that have been recycled off the streets for 20 years. As a veteran catcher, I understand you've gotta catch your share of junk to be in position to get something great. But I feel guilty for not wanting to catch crappy beads because I do know that the riders go to an awful lot of expense to throw stuff to we throngs on the streets, and I should be grateful just to participate in "The Greatest Free Show on Earth." So I've backed off, and went out to peek a little as the floats passed, but never got involved in bead fever. I was delighted to catch two Boeuf Gras plushies during Rex, without either hitting the ground, and that was enough for me. I would've enjoyed seeing more of the parades with ol' Doc PZB, but we'll have some time in our "golden years" together soon enough. Mardi Gras is only one of my reasons to defend my life in New Orleans, but it's emblematic of our matter-of-fact craziness that propels my never-ending love of life here in the city.

It's strange, I'm not a Mardi Gras fanatic. However, the thought of being anywhere else on Fat Tuesday makes me unutterably sad. I enjoy the rituals of Carnival season, the king cakes, the informal picnics on the neutral grounds, the endless procession of Yat-ty royalty, the shimmering, fantastical lights of the floats, and the deep pulse of the bass drum as a marching band comes down the street! All these celebratory notions have given energy to the city's culture: producing our incredible music; the proud, resilient Mardi Gras Indians; and our profound devotion to the oft-hapless Saints (because they're our team dammit-- no matter what). I can believe that like the two sides of the Carnival masks, New Orleans' literary output draws upon Mardi Gras madness (and not just because it's SO convenient to put in a chase scene amongst a parade) because writers reflect on the absolute passionate embrace of the city as captured by Carnival... because it's a real figure that colors life here in New Orleans I guess Mardi Gras is the ultimate flowering of our blooming New Orleans insanity, and we are simply gardeners cultivating our beautiful madness each and every year.

Speaking of madness, with March around the corner and no more football, if we'd been able to keep the nickname of The Jazz for our NBA team, our attendance would be better simply because they'd sound like they were eternally meant to be our team. Funny thing is Utah is the Beehive State, and thus the Hornets might be a "natural" name for a place that assuredly has no native sons who "burn it up" playing jazz, but that's a loss that will never be undone in hoops history. After all, you cannot relegate the duo of Malone & Stockton to the accidents of history just because the original Jazz owner, Sam Battistella, was such a cheap suit.

Of course, Pistol Pete Maravich belongs to New Orleans and our Jazz, but we know that. New Orleans is more a football town than a hoops hotspot, but when Pistol played here, the NBA drew well and people avidly followed the Jazz. I hope Chris Paul, the whirlwind CP3 who continues to excel as one of the best ballers in the NBA, eventually excites the locals to give a passing fancy about the Hornets. This year, the city is having a basketball resurgence: Tulane and UNO, led by Bo McCalebb, a local kid who is relentless as a slashing guard, are improved, and our high school hoops are getting better notice, with several nationally recruited players. The Hornets are playing very well, too, and their games are fun to attend even if you're not a big basketball fan. New Orleans has always respected star power, and once folks here see the glamor of the NBA All-Star Game, I hope they catch the buzz about the NBA and support our team that wears "New Orleans" across their jerseys every night they take the court.

It will never make a dent in the passion we have for Mardi Gras, but I think it'd be fun to have another glittery series of events, full of returning hoops royalty, year after year, so I hope people actually realize the potential for basketball madness is a real good thing for the city and that we decide to support the team as best we can... and we can successfully support the NBA here.

so that's how it rolls down here, there's always time to enjoy life with a little more fun than the rest of the nation -- for me, it's time to get my full-blown hoops "heaven on earth" on big time!

Since it's Carnival season here in New Orleans, it's time to enjoy a little extra decadence in our eating habits.  Naturally, my thoughts turn toward foie gras when contemplating luxury ingredients .  It's my favorite gourmet delicacy, with sea urchin roe, killer balsamic, fresh chanterelle mushrooms, and either the best Serrano ham or prosciutto di San Daniele rounding out my top 5.  I like caviar, especially golden osetra, but if given the choice I'd rather get the best jamon from Spain over caviar.  For me, however, foie gras is my #1 treat.

As a chef, I adore its versatility and admire that no matter what technique used, that incredibly luscious & unmistakably transcendent flavor always stands out.  Foie gras is pure sensuality on the tongue, melting in a concentrated feeling of "this can't be that good and legal" euphoria. Despite its intense richness, the taste of foie gras  is always tantalizing; by that, I mean one immediately realizes the moment you start eating foie gras it is vanishing away in every bite, so you want to prolong the flavor as much as possible; yet you know the absurd luxury of the pleasure of eating foie gras is a means of diminishing returns, with every forkful of foie that trembles upon your lips you ache knowing that you'll have to wade through how many countless plates of "mere food" before you are lucky enough to find yourself eating foie gras again.  Foie gras is richly rewarding to the tastebuds; nonetheless, especially when beautifully prepared, eating it evokes a sadness that this one evanescent plate may never reappear in your life.

That's always the case, as Herodotus said thousands of years ago, "A man can never return to the same river twice, for both he and the river will have changed."  My expectations as a diner really cannot be repeated when I'm having a meaningful dining experience, even if I order the same fantastic dish the next time I'm there and it's