2010 Challenge: Cracklin Crusted Mac n Cheese

This post needs nothing else - the title says it all. But here is the back story.

"The best mac 'n cheese in the city is at Cochon Butcher. This is not open for debate," Lindsay said the other week.

I am inclined to agree with her. The Butcher mac 'n cheese is rich and decadent, slightly soupy and thick with cheese. Often times the dish is enhanced like a Bravo housewife with pancetta or country ham. But what really sets it apart is the topping. You see each sphere of goodness is encrusted with finely ground bread crumbs, herbs, and a good amount of butter. So after it bakes, you get this crackly, vibrant crust and then the silky texture of the mac 'n cheese. It is like pasta creme brulee.

Last week, real job had me in Baton Moulin Rouge. I needed andouille and tasso for a variety of Thanksgiving related projects. Luckily on the ride home the car miraculously found itself parked outside of Bailey's Andouille in LaPlace. I had forgotten to eat lunch and there was a bag of cracklins on the counter. While riding back to New Orleans on Airline Highway with an open bag of rapidly depleting cracklins, an angel from heaven descended.

"Yes, that would be a good idea. Grind the cracklins with some bread crumbs to create a crust for mac 'n cheese. But no, I do not have any cash for a donation to your religion as my High Holy Day is this week," I told the Angel.

Cracklin Crusted Mac 'n Cheese

Look, you have a recipe for mac 'n cheese. Shoot, pressed for time? Just use the stuff in the blue box. To make the crust combine a half cup of cracklins with a half cup of day old bread (or jarred bread crumbs). Place into mortar and pestle or food processor and beat or pulse into a fine paste. I added a teaspoon of dried oregano and one garlic clove to this mix. Heat your oven to 350 degrees or thereabouts. Place mac 'n cheese in dish, cover with bread crumb mixture, top with butter or drizzle with olive oil, and bake for about 25 minutes. Then turn on broiler and cook for another 3 minutes or until the mixture is a mahogany and you can hear the mac n cheese bubbling. Allow to cool briefly, then serve.

One note of caution. If you are not familiar with cracklins, they can have some hard bits. So expect a crunch every now and then.

Adios Taqueros

With all of the Thanksgiving hustle and bustle last week, the announced closing of Taqueros probably did not garner much attention.  But considering the number of diners (or lack thereof) at Taqueros in the last few months, I don't know if anything short of a front page posting on nola.com would have caused a reaction from the dining public.

The Folk Singer and I stopped in for our first and only meal at Taqueros on a Friday night in October.  We were the only people in the cavernous restaurant from 6:30 till 7:30, when two other tables filled up.  Our dinner was below average from start to finish, save for one shining moment.  We began with stale tostadas served with guacamole laced with so much lime juice that it had obviously been used both as a preservative and a means of resurrecting avocados that had been hibernating in the refrigerator far too long. Tacos filled with dry shredded pork were the lowlights of the entree round.  The highlight of the meal was the pipian sauce ladled atop chile rellenos stuffed with shrimp and cheese. When deciding what to order, the waitress had advocated this homely sauce made of pumpkin seeds and jalapeno. She did not steer us wrong, as the smooth light green sauce had both depth of flavor and vibrancy.

Restaurants come and restaurants go.  After taking a number of runs at keeping Taqueros opened, it looks like Chef Peters has finally threw in the towel.  My question is this: Why?  Admittedly, I never ate at the first iteration of Taqueros in Kenner, but I have never heard anything but great things about the food there.  So did Chef Peters bite off more than he could handle with the huge space on St. Charles Avenue? Did he lose focus as to what his diners enjoyed about the restaurant (like the free salsa bar mentioned in the comments to one of the above linked stories)? Did the food never reach the excellence of its Kenner roots?

Or are people simply not willing to pay top dollar for Mexican food?  Has the proliferation of the taco truck made it near impossible to serve chicken mole for $24? 

Recovery Mode

Photo courtesy of ChowHound.

We hope that everyone had a gloriously gluttonous Day 1 of Blackened Out High Holy Days.  In the future, Thanksgiving 2010 will always be remembered as the year that Saints fans were most thankful for Malcolm Jenkins. Someone get that man a leftover drumstick.

Let's hope that LSU and the Mad Hatter can keep the good times rolling on Saturday.  Good luck with your Turkey Day hangover, and we will see you all on Monday.

Thanksgiving is Coming: Side Swiped

We are a day away from the Third Annual Blackened Out High Holy Days. For the next two days, eating and drinking will take precedence over all other things including breathing and blinking. Tomorrow is of course Thanksgiving. A day in the Blackened Out cult where you are forgiven for all of your sins for the year so long as you stuff your gullet with food, drink too much, and pass out watching football. This is our religion. You are free to join.

Friday is a day for also overindulging. Usually we head to the Old Green Lady with Legend and the Pope. However, that was canceled this year because Legend is getting married. So instead of upholding tradition, he and Megorita will be wearing jeans and a white button down while standing under a moss strewn oak tree with a photographer telling them to "Look natural." We wish them well. Instead we will make turkey gumbo.

Sides are important. Case in point, the "Meat and Three" restaurants which dot the South like waitresses in a diner. Sure the meat is important, but so too is the option to choose three homey side dishes like macaroni and cheese, collard greens, mashed potatoes, or butter beans. That is where the real magic lies.

Here is a rough outline of two dishes I am cooking this year. And as promised, the recipe for the world's greatest mashed potatoes (as so called by people in my office). Now listen, today when you are at the store by yourself these three things, no matter what 1) at least 2 pounds of unsalted butter (leave this out overnight to soften), a bunch of lemons, and a box of Kosher salt. I don't care if you just bought that stuff, get more. Thanksgiving needs those three things in abundance, you can never have too much.

Cornbread, Andouille, and Kale Dressing

I have no idea how this will turn out, but ever since making the duck and kale gumbo a few weeks back, this idea has intrigued me. Making cornbread tonight. Tomorrow, I''ll simmer the kale in water with a good amount of onion, red pepper, garlic, and a large smoked ham hock. Ill strain and reserve the broth. Then I will saute some andouille with the trinity (minus green peppers, add jalapeno). To this I'll add the kale and let it cool. Then, fold in the cornbread that has been broken into small chunks. Cover the whole thing with the reserved broth. When it cools, add in an egg or two, and place in a greased baking dish. Once turkey is done, pop it in the oven for 45 minutes or so. Could be a disaster, could be brilliant.

Roasted Sprouts of Brussels

Trim outer leaves of brussel sprouts. Blanch in heavily salted water then dunk in ice bath. Drain and dry. Toss in some olive oil, garlic, shallot, salt, pepper, and lemon juice. Place in baking dish and roast for about 35 minutes until nicely browned. If you can roast them under the turkey, even better.

Mashed Potatoes

This isn't rocket science. It is much more important than that. Growing up Lindsay's mom only made real mashed potatoes on Thanksgiving, as a result on Thanksgiving Lindsay becomes a real picky eater. As in, the only thing she will eat is a huge plate of mashed potatoes with gravy. If the mashed potatoes do not meet her approval, things get ugly in a hurry.

First, go to Bed Bath and Lineneny Things and get yourself a ricer. Not a food mill, a ricer. A food mill is too rough with the potatoes. This creates an attractive environment for starch to mingle, imbibe a few cocktails, and create gummy mashed potatoes. You want to coddle these potatoes, make them feel special, lull them into a false sense of security and then ram a bunch of butter down their throats.

You want to use Yukon Golds here; five pounds is a good start (recipe is easily doubled or tripled, but never quadrupled). Get a large stock pot (or a pot you would use to cook pasta in) and fill it halfway or so with cold water and at least a 1/4 cup of salt. Peel the potatoes and place directly into the pot. Bring to a boil, then a rapid simmer, until you can pierce the potatoes easily with a knife. Drain through a colander and cover with a towel (this allows potatoes to steam and cool slightly). Meanwhile, in a large pot melt 2 pounds of unsalted butter. Yes, 2 pounds. To this add, a few good cracks of pepper, a couple dashes of hot sauce, and a pinch of salt.

Keep the heat on low, you do not want to brown the butter. Now, rice the potatoes a few at a time into the pot. Once all the potatoes are riced, gently fold the potatoes. Listen up. You have gone to all this trouble to make sure the potatoes are not starchy. Be gentle, fold and stir as if you were trying not to wake a baby. Once all the butter and potatoes have been incorporated, taste. It likely needs more salt, if so add it. If not serve immediately.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving or if you are a member of the Blackened Out Faith, a Gluttonous High Holy Days to you and your belly.

Dueling Bloggers: Tipping

Photo courtesy of the New England Wedding Blog.

Peter: I'll be honest - I have no concrete notion of what is proper tipping etiquette.  Some people (maybe most?) calculate gratuity based on the pre-tax total. I have always based gratuity on the bottom line total including tax, and I don't know exactly why other than because that's how my Dad always did it. I usually tip 18% unless I am constantly trying to get the waiter's attention away from his iPhone to refill my water glass or futily searching for him while he is on a smoke break, in which case the tip gets knocked down to 15%. For higher end restaurants, I usually bump it up to 20%.

Rene: Daddy Warbucks and his pocketfuls of greenbacks over here. You probably spend a good amount of time tipping everyone and anyone who looks your way. Two things, first I usually tip on the pre-tax dollars. Real misers tip on the pre-tax and pre-drinks amount, but that seems a little cheap to me. Also, I try not to judge tipping by the location or style of a restaurant. Consider the humble breakfast waitress. She gets up at 4 a.m., refills coffee near endlessly, makes sure your eggs are scrambled softly, fetches you an extra biscuit, and snags the Sports page for you. All of that work and the bill is $12. I was always told and try to follow (when I do eat breakfast out) to tip breakfast waiters and waitresses over 30%. Maybe I am just more considerate and appreciative than you, Warbucks.

Peter: Here is an interesting question emailed to us by a faithful Blackened Out reader named Kelly: Is it customary to tip on take out? I always tip on takeout, but usually only to the tune of a few dollars. My rationale is this: If the bartender handles take out orders, and the bartender makes a living on tips, then throw him a couple of bucks. Here is another question for you, oh King of Corkage: When you bring a bottle of wine to a restaurant, do you calculate gratuity solely on the corkage fee or do you calculate based on the value of the wine that you brought in?

Rene: I do tip on take out, but usually only by adding a dollar and rounding up to the next whole dollar. So let's say the bill is $27.39, I would tip $1.61. This is stupid and it doesn't really make sense. No one is actually serving me anything, consider it a guilty conscience. Also, I must add that the growing proliferation of restaurants that take credit cards and print a receipt with a gratuity line has created an almost Pavlovian reaction to tipping. Listen up, dry cleaners, Walgreens, liquor stores, if there is a gratuity line, 9 times out of 10 you can trick me into leaving a tip.

As for corkage, I usually just add a base line amount to the regular tip based on how the wine service went. For instance, when we dined at Meson 923. The wine, a White Burgundy, was constantly taken from the table and placed in a wine bucket across the room chilling it and destroying the almond cream and mushroom aromas. Now despite my repeated requests to stop doing that, I may have been able to let it slide. If, and this is a HUGE if, I didn't have to get up and traipse across the room to retrieve said wine each time our glasses were empty. For that wine "service" I added $5 to the tip. For anything approaching competent service I'd probably do 20% of the cost of the wine to me added to regular tip.

Peter: If it takes forever to get your food, do you discount the server's gratuity even if the problem is most likely attributable to the back of the house? What about if the restaurant is understaffed (through no fault of the server), and therefore the server is spread too thin?  The service industry is a tough way to make a living, and the front of the house gets the brunt of the complaints because they are the ones dealing face to face with the customers. The back of the house gets paid the same no matter if the food is good or bad. Such is not the case with servers, but I try not to punish a waiter for problems outside of his control.  The only service issue which has the potential too drastically discount gratuity is if I am waiting an extended period of time to either get my check or run my credit card.

Rene: This brings up a very interesting argument. As we have talked about before, in Europe and elsewhere service is included in the price of the meal. In America, is tipping a way of passing the cost of service from the restaurant owner to the consumer? I say yes. But that this is not a bad thing. The number one thing we hear from friends and reader (they are pretty much mutually exclusive) is service complaints. If prices were higher and service was included, people would complain that they are paying for a service that doesn't please them. This way the patron decides the value of the server's wages. However, it should be the role of management and the kitchen to ensure the waitstaff is in the best possible position to make the most amount of money. When that happens, regardless of the restaurant, everyone wins.

Totally Sauced

Picture courtesy of The Sriracha Cookbook Blog.

The above graphic describes my dining phase circa Fall 2008. Sriracha was going on everything - scrambled eggs, pizza, red beans and rice - you name the food, there was likely a squirt of the red stuff going on it. And I swear that back then, everything tasted better with a little rooster sauce. Sriracha became an unhealthy obsession that eventually had to be broken, but once I quit sriracha, no sooner later did I find myself liberally applying Tiger Sauce or Valentina or Pepperdoux to everything from grilled chicken thighs to plain white rice.

I guess you could label me "a sauce guy", but really aren't we all? When was the last time you reheated some leftovers without instinctively grabbing for the jar of your favorite condiment? Whether it's extra hollandaise on your eggs benedict or a side of Larkin sauce to dip your fries in at MVB, at some point the steak becomes but a mere vehicle for the sizzle. And it's not just spicy sauces that I'm talking about. Think about all of the chicken tenders that you dunked into honey mustard or the eggrolls dipped in sweet-n-sour. In college, when grilled ham and cheese was served for lunch at my fraternity house, the cook made sure to provide plenty of ranch dressing for dipping. Matter of fact, Texans love ranch dressing on just about everything.

What are some of your go-to sauces that you can?  Do you like pepper jelly on your pork chops and your pancakes? Or do you have hankering for Caesar dressing on both your salads and your shrimp? The only stipulation is that the sauce must be readily usable either our of the bottle or from the jar.

For a little inspiration, how about a flashback to one of the best Super Bowl commercials of all time:

Weekend Breakfast at Huevos

It's going to be another beautiful weekend in New Orleans, and with the mercury rapidly dropping this may be one of your last opportunities of the season to enjoy one of life's great pleasures: breakfast outdoors. While a courtyard in the French Quarter or Garden District may be a quintessential New Orleans setting, the sidewalk on Banks Street is probably my #1 choice for a no frills, roll-out-of-your-bed-and-throw-on-a-pair-of-jeans kind of breakfast, with great food to boot.

What makes breakfast at Huevos special is that the kitchen utilizes the meats and sausage that Chef Bart Bell makes at Crescent Pie & Sausage next door. As such, carnivorous concoctions make regular appearances as daily specials. Take the Brisket Hash ($10.50), where chopped brisket, cubed potatoes, caramelized peppers and onions form a base for poached eggs and a drizzle of spicy aioli. The everyday menu features The Blue Jay Special (aka the “Huevorito”), which is the best $5 breakfast in town. A large tortilla stuffed with eggs, cheese, and spicy housemade chorizo, paired with a mug of Try Me Mills coffee. There is even a newly added Veggie Blue Jay Special for this who choose not to start their day with red pepper laden pork sausage. (Such a choice is incomprehensible to us, but we respect your decision.)
 

The Breakfast Sandwich has thick cut bacon and eggs on a crusty ciabatta roll. The accompanying hashbrowns are addictive with their crispiness from the flat top grill and sweetness from sautéed red onions. The namesake Huevos con Tamal is a trifecta of tamales stuffed with shredded pork, covered with a smoky, smooth tomato sauce, and crowned with two poached eggs and fresh pico de gallo.

Delicious.

As I have said many times before, weekend breakfast should involve great food without the pomp and circumstance. Huevos fits that description to a T. The menu is short, but there is enough variety to please a crowd. In my many visits, the only recurring hiccup that I have encountered is slightly overpoached eggs, though not to the egregious level of some other breakfast specialists around town. Even taking this into account, for my money, Huevos is one of the best breakfasts around.

Huevos - Birdie/Eagle

4408 Banks Street

(504) 482-6264

Open everyday from 7am till 2pm

Thanksgiving is Coming: Turkey v. Sides

There have been many debates in America's history. Federalists vs. Anti-Federalists, Lincoln v. Douglass, Nixon v. Kennedy, Plaid v. Polyester, Heavy Metal Hair Bands v. Soft Rock*, Dan v. Dave, Coke v. Pepsi,  and Bieber v. Devil. But nothing incites such fiery rhetoric and mud slinging as whether or not Thanksgiving is all about the bird or all about the sides.

In America, when the Senate is deadlocked the Vice President gets to vote. America is deadlocked as to whether or not turkey or sides rule. I am the Vice President of this blog, so therefore I vote for Turkey. I love the Thanksgiving Turkey. Even if it is slightly dry, most often overcooked and above all a hassle, the turkey connects us to the agrarian hunter gatherer roots of our grandparents who had to shop for a turkey in such exotic sounding lands as Piggly Wiggly or Woodrow's Poultry Farm. My sister, Alexis, specifically looks forward to Thanksgiving because she loves "waking up to the smell of a turkey in the oven." Alexis doesn't cook so I have no idea where she wakes up on Thanksgiving morning.

Which brings me to my second point about turkey. Don't overthink this. I tell you this because I overthink how to cook the turkey every single year. This year, the methods I've explored include confitting the leg, sous viding the breast, pan frying the thighs, shish kabobing the gizzards, and using the skin to line a handbag.

Slight tangent-I've done some scholarly work in regards to frying the whole shebang and all I can say is this: it has no redeeming qualities that outweigh the hassle. The meat often comes out stringy and overcooked, the flavor is always bland unless you hit one of those pockets of injection driven salt water, and then you have 5 gallons of peanut oil to dispose of. Stop frying turkeys, please. I have nothing against the tradition of gathering around a roaring cauldron of heat and drinking beer while something cooks, just stating that frying a turkey is not the bees knees. It is a very long, expensive process to do something very simple, which is cook a bird.

Around Wednesday of next week, I will vacillate between making a brine, using a dry brine, or just leaving the turkey uncovered in the fridge (which will dry out the skin, the best part of any bird). I will begin making a brine and then realize the 6 gallon bucket I have is filled with dirt from a planting attempt gone wrong last April. This will lead to screaming, cursing, and hopefully drinking. Ahh, the Holidays are here.

Then there is the mess of how do you keep a 6 gallon bucket cold overnight. After weighing the option to just use one of those injectors, a disgusting, terrible invention that just creates pockets of over salted meat, I will likely consult the intranets and say a Novena to the Pilgrims. Finally, Lindsay will take over and say, "You know I roast the chickens in this house. I'm just gonna do it and it treat it like a large chicken."

She will make a butter spiked with chopped herbs, lemon zest, salt, pepper, and other accouterments. She will rub this butter under the skin and cook it til it "looks done". The turkey will be incredible. So far Lindsay is the only reason I can justify going to law school.

There will be a boudin stuffed turkey breast roulade a la Donald Link that will get seared on the grill before slowly smoking. I bet you $100 dollars we will forget about this bird. Halfway through the meal someone will wonder why the backyard is on fire. This will lead to screaming, cursing, and more drinking. As you can see, I do not follow my own advice.

Gravy. This is where I am glad I didn't brine a turkey. You see when you brine the turkey you are left with pan drippings that are too salty to use for anything other than attracting deer. But with Lindsay's turkey the pan will be studded with little burnt bits of carrot and onion, charred chunks of skin, and a sheen of butter. Remove most of the fat, then place this on the stove. Crank the stove, add some butter to the pan and touch of flour. Make a quick roux (about 5 minutes). Then pour in a healthy glass or two of white wine and scrape all this bits off the bottom of the pan. To this whisk in some hot stock. If you forgot to make stock last weekend, commence screaming, cursing, and drinking.

Pour into one of those gooseneck containers and hope no one cares at this point. If you did other things correctly, no one will. Next week, sides.


*Soft rock definitely wins. Why because Hall and Oates endures, while Ratt has slipped into the ether. Speaking of Hall and Oates, take a look at this video. That right there is nothing short of a profile of a duo who thinks at a specific moment in time, they can do no wrong. So let's pretend to be there when they conceived this video.

Daryl Hall- "Let's just sit there and look like assholes. I'll dress like the love child between Siegfried, Ziggy Stardust, and Tina Turner."

John Oates- "Cool. I have this tuxedo, some chick at the show last night ripped the sleeves off, but I still have the jacket with penguin hands."

Hall - "If we can just get some people to walk around us, like a girl, the short roadie in a devil costume, we'll fill in the rest with droopy eyes, stern looks, and throwing pieces of paper in the air. For Chrissakes, we are Hall and Oates we don't need to do much more than smoke cigarettes and be awesome."

Oates - "Pass the cocaine."

Wine Dinner at a Mano, Beajolais Nouveau, and a SAVvy Affair

Tonight, a Mano is hosting a wine dinner with winemaker Giorgio Rivetti of the famed La Spinetta winery of Piedmont The paired dinner, featuring classic and modern Piemontese dishes prepared by Chef Joshua Smith, begins at 7:00pm and costs $95 per person excluding tax & tip. The menu is as follows:

Reception - Grilled octopus, potato, and caperberry spiedino
Paired with: 2009 Vermentino Toscana

Antipasti - Due Crostini: Truffled toast points with Piemontese beef crudo; Grilled polenta with porcini mushroom ragu and Castelmagno cheese
Paired with: 2004 Barbera d'Alba "Gallina" & 2007 PIN Monferrato Rosso

Primo - Risotto al Vin Cotto with veal marrow butter
Paired with: 2006 Barbaresco "Bordini" & 2006 Barbaresco "Starderi"

Secondo - Brasato al Nebbiolo: Nebbiolo-braised Piemontese beef
Paired with: 2005 Barolo "Campe"

Dolce - Gianduia torte with hazelnut torrone
Paired with: 2003 Moscato Passito Oro

* * *

From Italy, we hop on over to France for the Beaujolais Nouveau Festival held at the JW Marriott on Friday night. I attended this event last year when it was held at Donald Link's Calcasieu, and I must say that everyone had a grand time. The celebration features plenty of fine French food from restaurants such as Chateau du Lac, Dominique's, La Boulangerie and many more. A wide array of libations will be poured, including of course plenty of Beaujolais, both Nouveau and Villages. The event lasts from 7 to 10, and tickets are $50 and can be purchased here.

* * *

On Friday night from 7:00-10:00, the Young Friends of St. Andrew's Village will host their annual fundraiser at the Republic. The event features live music by Harvey Jesus Fire and a silent auction, and the price of admission includes an open bar and tons of food from local restaurants, including turtle soup from Bon Ton Cafe, Byblos, Cafe Adelaide, The Court of Two Sisters, Jacque Imo's (shrimp and alligator sausage cheesecake), and Maple Street Patisserie. Tickets are $65, and can be purchased online by clicking here.

For a little background, St. Andrew’s Village will be a faith-based community where adults with developmental disabilities and non-disabled individuals can live, work, and socialize throughout their lifelong journey.  A number of friends of Blackened Out are heavily involved in organizing this event, and even though our offer of a "New Orleans Pork Tour with Peter and Rene" was rejected as an auction item, we still encourage you to attend this wonderful event for a great cause.

He Does It Again

Chef Mark Falgoust of Grand Isle owns Po-Boy Fest. His Shrimp Caminada took down Best in Show last year, and he avoided the sophomore slump by earning two awards this year: Best Specialty Seafood with his Smoked Fish Po-Boy and Best in Pork with his Boucherie Po-Boy (pictured). Chef Mark told us that he spent the last two weeks curing meats for this cornucopia of pork, which mimicked the perennial favorite banh mi that were noticeably absent from this year's festival. The Boucherie Po-Boy featured pork pate, bologna, head cheese, and baked ham (all made in house) with cucumber, pickled red onion, and cracklins drizzled with Steen's cane syrup.

That's pork 5 ways on one sandwich. It's a porkapalooza between bread. The Pork Bomb.com Po-Boy. If ever there were a worthy adversary to the pig, it is Mark Falgoust. Cracklins and cane syrup should replace popcorn at the movie theatre. Someone get Adolfo on the phone.

Now, we might as well address the elephant in the room - or perhaps, more appropriately, the 40,000 people in the street. I love eating po-boys, drinking beer on a fall Sunday afternoon, and leisurely strolling down Oak Street. Unfortunately, it's kind of tough to do all those things at Po-Boy Fest. At times it felt as if Oak Street had transformed itself into the Superdome walkways during halftime, with people slowly moving in a continuous herd which at any second could suck in those innocently standing on the fringe. I think that the line for GW Fins' Fried Lobster Po-Boy was as long as every wait for the Plaza level women's restrooms... combined.

But to be honest, I don't know if Palmer Park would have been any better. This year's Po-Boy Fest took up over 7 blocks of Oak Street plus many of the side streets. That is a lot of area, probably more than the empty green space at the corner of Carrollton and Claiborne. And I tend to side with the merchants of Oak Street who lay claim to starting the festival and its original purpose of drawing attention to their businesses via the Main Street Program. But then again, there are people who go to Po-Boy Fest but never eat a po-boy because the lines are 30 minutes long and half the vendors are sold out by 5:00. I was shocked at the number of people there at 11:30 this year.

Perhaps it's time to make Po-Boy Fest a two day affair with the goal of spreading out the crowds. Plus, the vendors would probably sell more po-boys and the resident businesses more merchandise.

Does anyone else out there have a solution? How was your experience at this year's Po-Boy Fest?

What You Can Get Us For Christmas: Part 1

Fact: The best thing about writing on this website is no one can ever say, "Love your writing, use it to wipe my ass/potty train my terriers/send enemies dead fish."

Fact: If you read our work, there is a ninety percent chance you like food and booze based on the search terms that bring you to our corner of the Information SuperHighway. There is a ten percent chance you are a huge fan of Lavar Burton.

Fact: You owe us some gifts. 

Now granted, the gift giving holidays are a ways off. But each week till Baby Jesus arrives and sees his shadow meaning we have six more weeks of football, we will give you tips for gifts to get your favorite bloggers. Who knows maybe you can even give it to someone you actually like.

You know what would be awesome this year for Christmas? Instead of giving me a Barry Manilow Croons the Classics CD and a pair of Argyle socks, if you dropped off a dry aged hunk of beef with my name on it. Here is how you do it. Go to Rare Cuts and purchase a "primal." A primal is just a non-portioned cut of steak (i.e. an entire tenderloin). Then Rare Cuts ages it for however long I want (tenderloin 30 days, rib eye 35+, Strip 40+). After that time elapses, they cut it up into individual steaks or roasts. They call you on the phone and you deliver it to my house. Leave it outside though or the hounds will eat it.

Now, the benefit to this is that normally you pay more per pound for dry aged beef. This is because the butcher loses part of the meat to the noble rot, so therefore it charges more on the meat he can use. But if you go through Rare Cuts they charge you the rate pre Dry Aging. While the prices aren't cheap, they will make us realize how much you appreciate us, which is the entire reason behind the season. Even better, get together a group of your blog reading friends and go in on a primal together. Then you split the cost up and each of you can give us  3-4 steaks.

Saints Bye Week Makes for a Big Weekend

There is no such thing as an "off weekend" in the fall in New Orleans. The Saints bye week has left the door open for a number events to fill in the calendar, so strap on your boots for a busy weekend of eating and drinking.

On Saturday, the Broad Street Brewhaha will take place on the roof of the old Schwegmann's at 300 N Broad Street. The event will feature pick me ups from Coffee Roasters of New Orleans and beers by Abita, NOLA Brewing, Lazy Magnolia, Heiner Brau, and Bayou Teche. (Look out next year for Tin Roof to be added to the list.) Admission is free, and a $10 sample card guarantees you 10 3-ounce pours of the beers of your choice.

Sidenote: We wish we were going to the Carnivale de Vin Gala on Saturday night, but Santa did not deliver us the $1000 tickets as early Christmas presents. But if anyone wants to buy us Auction Item #16 entitled "A Few Bites of the Big Apple", we would quickly get over missing the gala. Moving on.

The premiere event of the weekend is the 4th Annual Po-Boy Festival, which will takse place along a seven block stretch of Oak Street beginning at Carrollton. The festival starts at 11:00am, and I advise you to arrive early as the crowds can get quite thick later in the afternoon. The map of po-boy purveyors can be found here, and from experience I can tell you that the booths farther from Carrollton are more likely to have shorter lines. (By the way, we are terribly disappointed that Dong Phuong is not on the list this year.) Finally, as you may recall, we served as "celebrity judges" for last year's Po-Boy Contest, but apparently our star has faded because we will not be on the panel this year. It was a good run.

Also on Sunday, La Boca will be hosting Asado Night at Rio Mar. The all you can eat meat feast features beef, lamb, pork, chicken, morcilla, and chorizo plus other La Boca favorites like provoleta and empandas. The cost is $50 per person and seating is limited, so call 525-8205 ASAP to make a reservation.

Last but not least, MVB will once again be open for business on Sunday night at Slim Goodies beginning at 5:00pm. With this week's recent shout out in the press, the MVB team is gearing up for what will hopefully be another successful burger weekend. One final note, the above linked article mistakenly listed this week's special as last week's. Just to clarify, this week's special is the "South of the Burger" - burger, blackbean and chipotle puree, guacamole, tomatillo crema, queso fresco, and grilled red onion. On The Pope's scale of deliciousness, we think it qualifies as "Lovin' in Your Mouth."