Things have certainly been poppin' around The Green Goddess lately. We are training our new guys in the kitchen and ramping up our staff for service during this increasingly busy season. At first, I was worried that we were gonna kill ourselves with extra labor, but we are learning that if we can sustain these levels of business, then we can easily justify adding people to our kitchen krewe. It was really exciting for me yesterday, because in looking at the numbers, the idea that we can expand just a little makes perfect sense.

Oh, and I was pretty stoked by our marvelous Saints and their sensational comeback victory over Miami, too! The Saints are playing with so much passion and with such a ferocious will; the team is really lifting up the spirits for New Orleans. I'm bullish on New Orleans and our city's prospects, and we believe that if we seek to dominate every service, making great food & pouring cool cocktails, wines and beers, then we can go undefeated at The Green Goddess, winning over each table and every guest. It's turning out to be such an exciting Autumn, with a great feeling that some remarkable things are happening for both the Saints and our restaurant.

Halloween Costume Party

So we are hosting a little Halloween costume party every 90 minutes on this Saturday night for the big event. We'll start with one at 6;30, then 8, then 9:30, then 11 pm, with the top three costumed contestants winning gift certificates and prizes at every 90 minute contest. We figured why not offer fun to our Halloween guests who get in the spirit of the night, so all you have to do is show up anytime during Halloween night with a chance of winning a little something something! The Grand Prize is a $100 gift certificate to The Green Goddess, with the four contest winners receiving $33 gift certificates and a little prize. Finish in the top three and you also win cool stuff and a gift certificate. We just want folks to pop on by to show us what Spooky Things they are working with this Halloween, and we'll be ready for a crazy good time and a fun party!

Green Goddess Expansion

We are also in the process of signing a new lease to add on an annex dining space, giving us more room to entertain our guests here at The Green Goddess. There is a little apartment just above the bathroom, accessible via a small staircase, which we are going to control very soon. It will allow us to expand seating there, so we can have comfortable places for people when the weather outside is too cold or inclement or too hot. We will also be able to host small gatherings of 12-20, using the upstairs as a small private banquet salon. Finally, we anticipate also using the space for some additional wines and other storage, which will let us keep expanding our dizzying array of booze. It's really great to know we can handle this first step of expansion, and we'll keep you updated as it progresses.

New, Evil Cocktails!!!

We debuted the long-awaited formulation of The Gentle Giant cocktail this week. Since we are a restaurant celebrating things that are green, we enjoy showcasing green spirits. We're having fun with our Obsello Absinthe cocktail, The Green Fuse, so next our attention turns to both the legendary green Benedictine formula for Chartreuse as well as for the incredible Douglas Fir Eau-de-Vie from Clear Creek Distillery in Oregon. Thus we decided to add another green tinted spirit, the G'vine Gin from France, infused with grape spirits and grapevine blossoms, giving this gin a unique flora accent. To these powerful three green spirits we add a splash of lime juice and a most mellow secret weapon, lotus blossom green tea from Tazo. The tea continues the green, floral vibe and it cuts the potency so that the mingling of all these green flavors can work together instead of clashing. This is a potent drink, The Gentle Giant, but it has such a haunting aromatic sense about it that it's a real sippin' cocktail.

We do feature a lot of gin drinks at The Green Goddess, but with all three of our featured gins: the stellar London dry style of Miller's, the powerful saffron-imbued Old Raj from Wm. Cadenhead, and the lovely G'vine, which now gets into a pair of cocktails with its appearance in our "French Guillotine" martini & The Gentle Giant, each application of these three distinctive gins make for very different cocktail experiences.

We also featured a riff on the French 75 featuring Clear Creek's terrific pear brandy and bubbly, which we will refine by looking for the best sparkling counterpoint. Scott also developed a new usage for a favorite of our exotic juices, the coffee berry juice we get from One Natural Experience, where he matches the slightly smoky coffee berry to Brazilian cachaca (we like the Mae de Ouro...) with a Grains of Paradise syrup and Fee Bros, Aztec Chocolate Bitters, which together give another level of peppery smokiness to an easy to quaff cocktail. Best name nomination thus far for the cocktail is Jesuit Bend, named in part for the place in Plaquemines Parish, but more for the role the Jesuits had in coffee and especially chocolate importation in the frontier days when the Amazonian rainforest was explored/pilfered and both chocolate and coffee drinks were sweeping into Europe in the 16th century.

The biggest problem on our cocktail program is that we just keep expanding our list. We will sit down and see which cocktails we push back into the summertime roster, so we can keep exploring new tastes, and we will make a concerted effort to add some more rum and tequila/mezcal cocktails soon.

Finally... Beef on the Menu

By no means do Paul and I hate beef, but given our restraints working in an all electric kitchen with fairly poor ventilation, we had to rule out steaks right away for The Green Goddess menu. We have always had an idea of using beef in a quick seared application, and we finally decided to go with an Organic Beef from Painted Hills Farm. Paul has worked out a marinade and some lovely, fresh pickled vegetables, and when I found a source for smoked olive oil (!!!), we decided to go with it. Look for it this weekend, and Paul is also using the same tri-tip cut for a beautiful beefy take on grits & grillades during our everyday brunch. It's great to find a small producer, like Painted Hills, who take care of their animals, creatures we should honor every time we decide to eat meat and not take it for granted.

Paul is also back to rollin' out his killer homemade lox again, as he used to do at Surrey's, so that is another new treat to taste during lunchtime!

So that's a lot of big news from a little restaurant that just got a little bigger, when our new annex dining room and intimate banquet space gets ready. Catch all y'all soon & GEAUX SAINTS!!