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....