Tuesday, December 22, 2009
Happy Holidays
A quick note with best wishes for the holiday season, before I sign off, in all likelihood, for the remainder of 2009. I've dealt with my share of grinches before, and while I'm no fan of the shopping-industrial complex that Christmas has wrought, to say nothing of the travesty that is Christmas "music," I continue to maintain that a winter festival is valuable. It gives us, or should, anyway, an opportunity to pause and reflect on the cyclical nature of, well, nature, and the passing of time. So a happy and prosperous new year to everyone.
Comments tightened up
For those of you who comment, my apologies, but I had to enable word verification -- the spam has found me at last. I hope the few extra keystrokes will not discourage you from continuing to offer your unvarnished opinions.
Lewis Porter, John Coltrane: His Life and Music
Why are so many jazz biographies so bad? There are some excellent ones, of course - Peter Pettinger's How My Heart Sings comes to mind - but in any other subject area, those would be all we would have. A manuscript of anything less would not even get past the desk of a junior editor at any self-respecting publishing house. But when it comes to jazz musicians, it seems that anyone who happens to like the music, regardless of their ability to write or their having had any actual connection to the subject, can write a book and have it published. The latest example to cross my path is John Coltrane: His Life and Music by Lewis Porter (University of Michigan, 1998).
I suppose I should be fair. Porter is a musician, and a professor of music at Rutgers, so he knows something about playing. An enormous amount, actually. But that fails to redeem the book. Porter bills his work as a biography, and starts out with an excruciatingly detailed examination of Coltrane's family roots in North Carolina. He spends three full chapters - 34 pages - doing it, and much of those are not even about Coltrane himself but his cousins, aunts and uncles, twice or more removed. Porter's excuse seems to be the fact that it has never been done before, but so what? Maybe there is a reason it hasn't. His conclusion seems to be only that the fact that Coltrane's father died of cancer when John was very young significantly affected the formation of his personality. I grant that this is valid, but it could have been dealt with in a few paragraphs, or a handful of pages at the most.
At the same time, however, the book offers virtually nothing about Coltrane's personal life and lifestyle at the height of his success. Like most musicians of his generation, he had once been a drug addict but kicked the habit. He was married twice and had several children and step-children, the maternity of at least one of whom remains uncertain. One could argue, as Porter probably would, that dirt has no place in a serious biography, but I believe it is possible to write about these aspects of a subject's life in a way that is not prurient, and it is a pity that Porter barely tries. Where he does, he further undermines himself by claiming, early on, that his is the first biography to be based on objective research and then proceeding to fill the rest of the book with phrases like "it is reasonable to suppose" or "it was likely that..." and so on.
What Porter does focus on is Coltrane's music. His compositions and improvisational style are analyzed in mind-boggling detail with copious transcriptions for illustration, some of entire solos. This will have some use to a narrow audience - musicians who want to study Coltrane's style in depth and have a sufficiently deep understanding of music theory to make something out of Porter's analysis. But again, if this is a biography, this level of technical detail is excessive. If you do want to focus on it, call the book "The Musical Style of John Coltrane" or some such and dispense with biographical information altogether. But Porter can't seem to decide what he wants the book to be, or, rather, he seems to want it to be a technical analysis masquerading as a biography.
Yet for all these complaints, there is some value in what Porter has done. Pretty much everyone agrees that Coltrane was an innovator. I am not aware of charges of outright charlatanism ever leveled against Coltrane the way they were against, say, Ornette Coleman. The disagreement lies in whether the direction in which he took jazz was a good one. What Porter's analysis shows is why Coltrane's music was so innovative. Just looking at some of the lines on the printed page you realize that they look weird. He played stuff that no one had played, or even thought of playing, before, and Porter proves it. He is not afraid to take his analyses to their logical extreme, even if he ends up concluding on occasion that a particular fragment fits no known pattern or harmonic device, not even any of the ones Coltrane himself had used previously. Does that make Coltrane's music meaningless, at least from a formal perspective? Porter doesn't say, but he provides the raw material to let us decide on our own. I suspect, fully acknowledging my severely limited knowledge of music theory, that the answer is yes.
Finally, despite the distractions, Porter does manage to give us a smidgen of insight into why some of Coltrane's music, especially from Giant Steps onwards, sounds so abrasive. Long before he had given up tonal harmony and straight-ahead swing, his solos started to sound jarring, off-putting and unsettling, and not in a good way according to this pair of ears at least. He was the first, and is still the most infamous, exponent of the "where the hell is the melody?" school of jazz. Porter's explanation is that Coltrane was hearing multiple things - melodies, chord sequences, what have you - in his head simultaneously, and was unable to organize and prioritize them in his mind, resulting in his trying to play all of them at the same time:
So approach John Coltrane: His Life and Music with caution. Lots of caution. I emphatically do not recommend it as a biography, but for those wishing to gain technical insight into Coltrane's style, it may be worth the effort.
I suppose I should be fair. Porter is a musician, and a professor of music at Rutgers, so he knows something about playing. An enormous amount, actually. But that fails to redeem the book. Porter bills his work as a biography, and starts out with an excruciatingly detailed examination of Coltrane's family roots in North Carolina. He spends three full chapters - 34 pages - doing it, and much of those are not even about Coltrane himself but his cousins, aunts and uncles, twice or more removed. Porter's excuse seems to be the fact that it has never been done before, but so what? Maybe there is a reason it hasn't. His conclusion seems to be only that the fact that Coltrane's father died of cancer when John was very young significantly affected the formation of his personality. I grant that this is valid, but it could have been dealt with in a few paragraphs, or a handful of pages at the most.
At the same time, however, the book offers virtually nothing about Coltrane's personal life and lifestyle at the height of his success. Like most musicians of his generation, he had once been a drug addict but kicked the habit. He was married twice and had several children and step-children, the maternity of at least one of whom remains uncertain. One could argue, as Porter probably would, that dirt has no place in a serious biography, but I believe it is possible to write about these aspects of a subject's life in a way that is not prurient, and it is a pity that Porter barely tries. Where he does, he further undermines himself by claiming, early on, that his is the first biography to be based on objective research and then proceeding to fill the rest of the book with phrases like "it is reasonable to suppose" or "it was likely that..." and so on.
What Porter does focus on is Coltrane's music. His compositions and improvisational style are analyzed in mind-boggling detail with copious transcriptions for illustration, some of entire solos. This will have some use to a narrow audience - musicians who want to study Coltrane's style in depth and have a sufficiently deep understanding of music theory to make something out of Porter's analysis. But again, if this is a biography, this level of technical detail is excessive. If you do want to focus on it, call the book "The Musical Style of John Coltrane" or some such and dispense with biographical information altogether. But Porter can't seem to decide what he wants the book to be, or, rather, he seems to want it to be a technical analysis masquerading as a biography.
Yet for all these complaints, there is some value in what Porter has done. Pretty much everyone agrees that Coltrane was an innovator. I am not aware of charges of outright charlatanism ever leveled against Coltrane the way they were against, say, Ornette Coleman. The disagreement lies in whether the direction in which he took jazz was a good one. What Porter's analysis shows is why Coltrane's music was so innovative. Just looking at some of the lines on the printed page you realize that they look weird. He played stuff that no one had played, or even thought of playing, before, and Porter proves it. He is not afraid to take his analyses to their logical extreme, even if he ends up concluding on occasion that a particular fragment fits no known pattern or harmonic device, not even any of the ones Coltrane himself had used previously. Does that make Coltrane's music meaningless, at least from a formal perspective? Porter doesn't say, but he provides the raw material to let us decide on our own. I suspect, fully acknowledging my severely limited knowledge of music theory, that the answer is yes.
Finally, despite the distractions, Porter does manage to give us a smidgen of insight into why some of Coltrane's music, especially from Giant Steps onwards, sounds so abrasive. Long before he had given up tonal harmony and straight-ahead swing, his solos started to sound jarring, off-putting and unsettling, and not in a good way according to this pair of ears at least. He was the first, and is still the most infamous, exponent of the "where the hell is the melody?" school of jazz. Porter's explanation is that Coltrane was hearing multiple things - melodies, chord sequences, what have you - in his head simultaneously, and was unable to organize and prioritize them in his mind, resulting in his trying to play all of them at the same time:
...it was difficult to construct a smoothly flowing melodic line that would connect all of the harmonies he was hearing with a minimum of extraneous notes. (p. 158)Porter doesn't suggest why he couldn't, but that's probably expecting too much from anyone. Just putting this phenomenon into words is valuable - it offers us a possibility, admittedly extremely daunting, to try to hear those individual threads of Coltrane's thinking the next time we pop Giant Steps into the CD player.
So approach John Coltrane: His Life and Music with caution. Lots of caution. I emphatically do not recommend it as a biography, but for those wishing to gain technical insight into Coltrane's style, it may be worth the effort.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
New Orleans: Friday Lunch at Galatoire's
Or how I had a martini for breakfast and lived to tell about it.
My most memorable meal in New Orleans has to be the Friday lunch at Galatoire’s in the Quarter. The restaurant is world-famous – it has been open continuously since 1905, and has been written up in numerous food and travel magazines. Friday lunch, however, is a tradition within tradition – a local institution where everyone who is anyone in New Orleans comes out to stand in the hyper-egalitarian line, socialize, gossip, and have a grand time. It so happened that T.S. and I had most of the day open while our better halves were finishing up their conference duties, so of course we had to partake.
As famous as Galatoire’s is, it is a little difficult to get a precise description of exactly how these bacchanalian affairs work. Some people will tell you to show up as early as 8:00 a.m., while others will insist that a half-hour before the 11:00 a.m. opening time is sufficient. I strolled casually by around 9:30, hoping to check out the scene, perhaps grab a beignet and coffee for breakfast before returning, but noticed that a dozen or so people were already lined up, so to be on the safe side, I stayed. T.S. joined me a short while later.
A young gentleman waiting in line in front of me – friendly and gracious true to the reputation of the city’s denizens – finally explained how the process works. At some point during the morning, though you never know exactly when, the maitre d’ comes out with a clipboard and walks the line, taking down names and – a key aspect of the experience –requests for specific servers. Most of the regulars have relationships with their favorite servers going back years. It so happened that a friend of a friend, who spends a lot of time in New Orleans, had recommended his favorite, so we were able to follow the protocol as closely as out-of-towners could hope to.
From there, the m.o. is “follow the crowd.” Sometime a little after 11:00, the doors open and everyone starts filing in and goes immediately upstairs to the bar for pre-lunch cocktails. The bar itself is tiny – maybe eight seats, and the room where it is situated is not much larger, so it fills up immediately with people who jostle, call out drink orders over their friends’ heads, and pass glasses back and forth. The din builds quickly.
T.S. managed to nab a seat at the end of the bar, while I stood nearby, surveying the clientele. At least 80% obviously locals; most, though not all, older than us. A well-dressed crowd. Ladies mostly in dresses, elegant but not contrived, men surprisingly well put-together. Not guys who pulled the default weddings-and-funerals suit out of the closet because they felt obligated, but genuinely well-dressed: properly fitting jackets, well-coordinated ties, pocket squares. I spotted a hat or two while waiting. The restaurant made jackets for men optional some years ago, but clearly the regulars were abiding by the old policy. A handful of patrons, and they all seemed to know one another, were dressed more flamboyantly – silk scarves (on both sexes), stylish glasses, designer shoes -- but they were the perfect seasoning in this dense soup of propriety.
The drinks were old-school. I was surprised, and a bit disappointed, that upon hearing me order a martini, the bartender asked whether I wanted gin or vodka, and whether I wanted it up or on the rocks. If it has vodka and/or served on the rocks, it is not a martini, and he, of all people, would have known that, I thought. But perhaps my age, combined with that certain East-coast dourness that I can’t quite shake, gave me away as an interloper. The martini, when it showed up, was in a tiny 4-oz. glass, and the well gin was nothing to write home about, but the drink was garnished with three enormous and delicious olives.
On the cusp of noon, people started to move downstairs. There was no announcement or even a change of tone in the din of the room – the crowd has acquired its own emergent power of decision-making, honed by years of morning cocktails. There is a second dining room on the same floor as the bar, but eating downstairs is part of the experience – the upstairs, in our contact’s words, is “Siberia. May as well not bother.” The main dining room was smaller than I expected, with mirrors and marble on the walls and ornate brass sconces. The table settings were fairly formal. Most of the tables were large, but there was a handful of two-tops kept for couples or unfortunate souls like T.S. and me who did not have friends and associates with whom to conduct business or merriment.
Our waitress Shannon, a friendly, well-spoken middle-aged blonde, was spectacular. We sent our contact’s regards. She knew him instantly and asked us to take back a message – they weren’t kidding about relationships with your servers – and proceeded to orchestrate our meal for us. Galatoire’s menu has no descriptions, and with most names ending simply in maison, is fairly useless, but we only took a cursory glance anyway. Shannon recommended a cold seafood appetizer – shrimp remoulade, some crabmeat, maybe one or two other things, and advised us to throw in some oysters en brochette – wrapped in bacon and flash-fried. With the monsters from the gulf, you can do that, and they were absolutely delicious – salty, and a perfect combination of soft and crunchy. The rest of the components were delectable as well – just mayonnaisy enough, not too cold, and obviously freshly made. This was not modern, cook-just-enough-to-get-away-with-it cuisine, but it was immensely satisfying.
For our entrees, T.S. and I ended up with the same thing – pompano, another local fish, served with a sauce that seemed to consist of little other than melted butter. It was delicious. Perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned, it was more flavorful than the redfish, and immensely satisfying. The butter sauce certainly didn’t hurt, but did not overpower the fish. Our side dish – a la carte as expected – was Brabant potatoes, recommended by the blogosphere and seconded enthusiastically by Shannon. They were a paragon of simplicity: cubes of potatoes, fried and tossed with butter, parsley and garlic. Once again, a throwback to an earlier era, but proof positive that classic cuisine needs not be complicated and can be ridiculously good even to our modern palates used to the hyper-fresh and the minimally cooked. I can’t quite remember at this point what we drank – again something from Oregon (in the one concession to current taste, the wine list was surprisingly diverse), a Gewurtztraminer maybe, or perhaps another Pinot Gris. It went well with the meal, and I must be honest – by about half way through our entrees I didn’t care nearly as much as I normally would. We skipped dessert, sticking to coffee. The coffee had no chicory in it – according to Shannon, that would have been déclassé when Galatoire’s first opened in the early part of the last century.
We were not the first to leave around a half past two, but a large number of the patrons were still at their tables when we did. Now you know why no one picks up the phone when you call a company in New Orleans on a Friday afternoon.
My most memorable meal in New Orleans has to be the Friday lunch at Galatoire’s in the Quarter. The restaurant is world-famous – it has been open continuously since 1905, and has been written up in numerous food and travel magazines. Friday lunch, however, is a tradition within tradition – a local institution where everyone who is anyone in New Orleans comes out to stand in the hyper-egalitarian line, socialize, gossip, and have a grand time. It so happened that T.S. and I had most of the day open while our better halves were finishing up their conference duties, so of course we had to partake.
As famous as Galatoire’s is, it is a little difficult to get a precise description of exactly how these bacchanalian affairs work. Some people will tell you to show up as early as 8:00 a.m., while others will insist that a half-hour before the 11:00 a.m. opening time is sufficient. I strolled casually by around 9:30, hoping to check out the scene, perhaps grab a beignet and coffee for breakfast before returning, but noticed that a dozen or so people were already lined up, so to be on the safe side, I stayed. T.S. joined me a short while later.
A young gentleman waiting in line in front of me – friendly and gracious true to the reputation of the city’s denizens – finally explained how the process works. At some point during the morning, though you never know exactly when, the maitre d’ comes out with a clipboard and walks the line, taking down names and – a key aspect of the experience –requests for specific servers. Most of the regulars have relationships with their favorite servers going back years. It so happened that a friend of a friend, who spends a lot of time in New Orleans, had recommended his favorite, so we were able to follow the protocol as closely as out-of-towners could hope to.
From there, the m.o. is “follow the crowd.” Sometime a little after 11:00, the doors open and everyone starts filing in and goes immediately upstairs to the bar for pre-lunch cocktails. The bar itself is tiny – maybe eight seats, and the room where it is situated is not much larger, so it fills up immediately with people who jostle, call out drink orders over their friends’ heads, and pass glasses back and forth. The din builds quickly.
T.S. managed to nab a seat at the end of the bar, while I stood nearby, surveying the clientele. At least 80% obviously locals; most, though not all, older than us. A well-dressed crowd. Ladies mostly in dresses, elegant but not contrived, men surprisingly well put-together. Not guys who pulled the default weddings-and-funerals suit out of the closet because they felt obligated, but genuinely well-dressed: properly fitting jackets, well-coordinated ties, pocket squares. I spotted a hat or two while waiting. The restaurant made jackets for men optional some years ago, but clearly the regulars were abiding by the old policy. A handful of patrons, and they all seemed to know one another, were dressed more flamboyantly – silk scarves (on both sexes), stylish glasses, designer shoes -- but they were the perfect seasoning in this dense soup of propriety.
The drinks were old-school. I was surprised, and a bit disappointed, that upon hearing me order a martini, the bartender asked whether I wanted gin or vodka, and whether I wanted it up or on the rocks. If it has vodka and/or served on the rocks, it is not a martini, and he, of all people, would have known that, I thought. But perhaps my age, combined with that certain East-coast dourness that I can’t quite shake, gave me away as an interloper. The martini, when it showed up, was in a tiny 4-oz. glass, and the well gin was nothing to write home about, but the drink was garnished with three enormous and delicious olives.
On the cusp of noon, people started to move downstairs. There was no announcement or even a change of tone in the din of the room – the crowd has acquired its own emergent power of decision-making, honed by years of morning cocktails. There is a second dining room on the same floor as the bar, but eating downstairs is part of the experience – the upstairs, in our contact’s words, is “Siberia. May as well not bother.” The main dining room was smaller than I expected, with mirrors and marble on the walls and ornate brass sconces. The table settings were fairly formal. Most of the tables were large, but there was a handful of two-tops kept for couples or unfortunate souls like T.S. and me who did not have friends and associates with whom to conduct business or merriment.
Our waitress Shannon, a friendly, well-spoken middle-aged blonde, was spectacular. We sent our contact’s regards. She knew him instantly and asked us to take back a message – they weren’t kidding about relationships with your servers – and proceeded to orchestrate our meal for us. Galatoire’s menu has no descriptions, and with most names ending simply in maison, is fairly useless, but we only took a cursory glance anyway. Shannon recommended a cold seafood appetizer – shrimp remoulade, some crabmeat, maybe one or two other things, and advised us to throw in some oysters en brochette – wrapped in bacon and flash-fried. With the monsters from the gulf, you can do that, and they were absolutely delicious – salty, and a perfect combination of soft and crunchy. The rest of the components were delectable as well – just mayonnaisy enough, not too cold, and obviously freshly made. This was not modern, cook-just-enough-to-get-away-with-it cuisine, but it was immensely satisfying.
For our entrees, T.S. and I ended up with the same thing – pompano, another local fish, served with a sauce that seemed to consist of little other than melted butter. It was delicious. Perfectly cooked and perfectly seasoned, it was more flavorful than the redfish, and immensely satisfying. The butter sauce certainly didn’t hurt, but did not overpower the fish. Our side dish – a la carte as expected – was Brabant potatoes, recommended by the blogosphere and seconded enthusiastically by Shannon. They were a paragon of simplicity: cubes of potatoes, fried and tossed with butter, parsley and garlic. Once again, a throwback to an earlier era, but proof positive that classic cuisine needs not be complicated and can be ridiculously good even to our modern palates used to the hyper-fresh and the minimally cooked. I can’t quite remember at this point what we drank – again something from Oregon (in the one concession to current taste, the wine list was surprisingly diverse), a Gewurtztraminer maybe, or perhaps another Pinot Gris. It went well with the meal, and I must be honest – by about half way through our entrees I didn’t care nearly as much as I normally would. We skipped dessert, sticking to coffee. The coffee had no chicory in it – according to Shannon, that would have been déclassé when Galatoire’s first opened in the early part of the last century.
We were not the first to leave around a half past two, but a large number of the patrons were still at their tables when we did. Now you know why no one picks up the phone when you call a company in New Orleans on a Friday afternoon.
Monday, December 7, 2009
New Orleans: Commander's Palace
Although New Orleans has its share of modern cuisine - one of its pioneers, Emeril Lagasse, got his start there, in fact - one of the distinguishing features of its culinary scene is a number of old, storied restaurants. Really, really old. The oldest, Galatoire's, more on which later, has been open continuously since 1905. Antoine's, Brennan's and Arnaud's are some of the other legendary names. On the recommendation of our friends P.&T.S., who were in New Orleans with us for a part of the time and wanted to share a highlight meal with us before heading home, we chose Commander's Palace in the Garden District, open in its current form since 1944. Very formal by today's standards and swarming with staff (we would discover that one attendant's full-time job is escorting patrons to restrooms), it is a throwback to an earlier era.
We arrived almost twenty minutes ahead of our 8:30 reservation (streetcars get you around the city faster than you might guess), but got seated right away, or almost - first we had to navigate a long series of relatively small and very traditionally decorated rooms - white table cloths, overstuffed empire chairs - climb up to the second floor, and then weave our way through some more rooms (the place is absolutely enormous) until we finally arrived at our table, located in a slightly larger and marginally more cheerful, though still very dimly lit, room with a glass wall overlooking the large patio, unused that night due to cool weather. The menus were a surprising dose of casualness - giant (at least 11 by 17, but probably larger) single sheets of cardstock, with the menu proper on one side and a garish abstract design in red and purple adorning the reverse. We listened to the specials, described by our young, cheerful but very professional server, ordered cocktails and settled down to contemplate the choices. My cocktail - a rye manhattan - was the first disappointment of the night - bland and watery, much like Bourbon House's version. T.S. fared better with his choice of one of the house creations, the Vieux Carre (rye, brandy, Benedectine and bitters).
This being Louisiana, I was determined to have something that was deeply local but not a touristy gimmick like alligator, so I opted for turtle soup as my first course. It was excellent - dark brown and relatively thick, it was deeply flavored, salty and had a slight bite of spice. It reminded me of the delicious fish chowder J. and I had in Bermuda. The turtle meat, which was finely diced, reminded me more of seafood - clams, maybe - than anything terrestrial in texture and flavor. Our entrees - J. and I both fell for our server's mouthwatering description of one of the specials, as did T.S. - proved to be far less satisfying, unfortunately. It was redfish - a local Gulf species similar to grouper - topped with crabmeat and wild mushrooms, served in a rich cream sauce. There was nothing objectively wrong with it - the fish was tender and not overcooked - but the dish completely lacked balance. Redfish is mild, a bit bland even, and both the giant pile of mushrooms - intensely woodsy and earthy - and the Olympic-size pool of cream sauce the fish was swimming in completely drowned out what flavor it might have once had. It didn't help that in true old-school style, all side dishes were served a la carte, and I was too distracted to order any. Only P.S. went against the current and ordered duck, which proved to be a wise choice - though slightly more well-done than is the norm in modern restaurants, it was still juicy and its skin was nicely crisp. Unlike the fish, it came served over some potatoes, which did wonders for the balance of the dish.
The wine list is worth a brief mention. Unlike the unexpectedly casual dinner menu, the wine list was a thick leather-bound book of the sort that I thought had become completely extinct years ago. Pages upon pages of wines, organized by region and, for new world wines, further by grape, it featured something I had not seen before - complete vertical selections of top-tier California reds. Every vintage of Stag's Leap Cabernet going back to 1984, for example, and a few others in a similar vein. The most expensive was $1,375 a bottle. I neglected to jot down the winery and vintage. Needless to say, we drank a human-scale wine rather than a god-scale one - a Pinot Gris from Adelsheim in Oregon. It was a quality bottle on its own, but could have used a little more weight to do battle against the sauce.
As I looked around the room throughout dinner, I began to get a sense that Commander's Palace wasn't quite the eminence grise of New Orleans dining it was made out to be. Most patrons were playing at the game of fine dining. On one side of us, a group of college-aged youngsters, spending their parents' money on the one indulgence of the semester, the guys not quite settled into their slim-cut black suits, the satin of the girls' dresses a little too shiny and new. On the other side - a large-ish group out for some kind of special occasion, dressed to the nines, and talking to the waiter in overly solemn tones that some people feel they need to assume at an expensive restaurant. The staff, on the other hand, though I must give them full credit for operating with the precision of a regiment on parade, went out of its way to be causal and friendly, no doubt to offset what some would perceive as stuffiness of the atmosphere. A table across the isle from us ordered bananas foster for dessert (yes, this was the kind of place that actually served them), and the excessively bubbly waitress preparing it tableside did it with the maximum possible flourish and spectacle. A bit later in the evening, she swooped over our table the moment she saw T.S. taking a camera out of his pocket and insisted on taking several photos of us. I feel a bit guilty saying this, especially since on balance, we did have an excellent time with our friends, but whether you're looking for a classic or a modern meal, better dining than Commander's Palace is to be had in New Orleans, especially at the price. Or, if you must experience the Palace, go at lunch, when 25-cent martinis can reportedly be had.
To be continued...
We arrived almost twenty minutes ahead of our 8:30 reservation (streetcars get you around the city faster than you might guess), but got seated right away, or almost - first we had to navigate a long series of relatively small and very traditionally decorated rooms - white table cloths, overstuffed empire chairs - climb up to the second floor, and then weave our way through some more rooms (the place is absolutely enormous) until we finally arrived at our table, located in a slightly larger and marginally more cheerful, though still very dimly lit, room with a glass wall overlooking the large patio, unused that night due to cool weather. The menus were a surprising dose of casualness - giant (at least 11 by 17, but probably larger) single sheets of cardstock, with the menu proper on one side and a garish abstract design in red and purple adorning the reverse. We listened to the specials, described by our young, cheerful but very professional server, ordered cocktails and settled down to contemplate the choices. My cocktail - a rye manhattan - was the first disappointment of the night - bland and watery, much like Bourbon House's version. T.S. fared better with his choice of one of the house creations, the Vieux Carre (rye, brandy, Benedectine and bitters).
This being Louisiana, I was determined to have something that was deeply local but not a touristy gimmick like alligator, so I opted for turtle soup as my first course. It was excellent - dark brown and relatively thick, it was deeply flavored, salty and had a slight bite of spice. It reminded me of the delicious fish chowder J. and I had in Bermuda. The turtle meat, which was finely diced, reminded me more of seafood - clams, maybe - than anything terrestrial in texture and flavor. Our entrees - J. and I both fell for our server's mouthwatering description of one of the specials, as did T.S. - proved to be far less satisfying, unfortunately. It was redfish - a local Gulf species similar to grouper - topped with crabmeat and wild mushrooms, served in a rich cream sauce. There was nothing objectively wrong with it - the fish was tender and not overcooked - but the dish completely lacked balance. Redfish is mild, a bit bland even, and both the giant pile of mushrooms - intensely woodsy and earthy - and the Olympic-size pool of cream sauce the fish was swimming in completely drowned out what flavor it might have once had. It didn't help that in true old-school style, all side dishes were served a la carte, and I was too distracted to order any. Only P.S. went against the current and ordered duck, which proved to be a wise choice - though slightly more well-done than is the norm in modern restaurants, it was still juicy and its skin was nicely crisp. Unlike the fish, it came served over some potatoes, which did wonders for the balance of the dish.
The wine list is worth a brief mention. Unlike the unexpectedly casual dinner menu, the wine list was a thick leather-bound book of the sort that I thought had become completely extinct years ago. Pages upon pages of wines, organized by region and, for new world wines, further by grape, it featured something I had not seen before - complete vertical selections of top-tier California reds. Every vintage of Stag's Leap Cabernet going back to 1984, for example, and a few others in a similar vein. The most expensive was $1,375 a bottle. I neglected to jot down the winery and vintage. Needless to say, we drank a human-scale wine rather than a god-scale one - a Pinot Gris from Adelsheim in Oregon. It was a quality bottle on its own, but could have used a little more weight to do battle against the sauce.
As I looked around the room throughout dinner, I began to get a sense that Commander's Palace wasn't quite the eminence grise of New Orleans dining it was made out to be. Most patrons were playing at the game of fine dining. On one side of us, a group of college-aged youngsters, spending their parents' money on the one indulgence of the semester, the guys not quite settled into their slim-cut black suits, the satin of the girls' dresses a little too shiny and new. On the other side - a large-ish group out for some kind of special occasion, dressed to the nines, and talking to the waiter in overly solemn tones that some people feel they need to assume at an expensive restaurant. The staff, on the other hand, though I must give them full credit for operating with the precision of a regiment on parade, went out of its way to be causal and friendly, no doubt to offset what some would perceive as stuffiness of the atmosphere. A table across the isle from us ordered bananas foster for dessert (yes, this was the kind of place that actually served them), and the excessively bubbly waitress preparing it tableside did it with the maximum possible flourish and spectacle. A bit later in the evening, she swooped over our table the moment she saw T.S. taking a camera out of his pocket and insisted on taking several photos of us. I feel a bit guilty saying this, especially since on balance, we did have an excellent time with our friends, but whether you're looking for a classic or a modern meal, better dining than Commander's Palace is to be had in New Orleans, especially at the price. Or, if you must experience the Palace, go at lunch, when 25-cent martinis can reportedly be had.
To be continued...
New Orleans: Food
New Orleans is justly famous for its cuisine, though like anywhere else, it is easy to eat badly, and pay too much for it. The French Quarter is chock-full of restaurants, most of them tourist-grade "Creole" joints serving cut-rate versions of the same few local specialties - red beans and rice, gumbo, shrimp po-boys -- and charging too much for them. J. and I did end up having a late lunch at one, recommended a couple of days earlier by a cab driver, and while my bowl of red beans and rice was decent - reasonably creamy with nicely greasy andouille sausage -- it was not particularly memorable.
That said, at least a couple of places, though touristy, are worth the trouble. The first, of course, is Café du Monde. Located across Decatur Street across from Jackson Square, it is it open around the clock and is justly famous for its beignets - French-style donuts. A little over $2 gets you three large, hot puffs of fried dough, dusted with what seems like a pound of powdered sugar, and I must admit they are good. Not earth-shatteringly, transformatively good, but tasty. They reminded me of nothing so much as zeppoli - the Italian version of the same concept - that I used to eat at pizza parlors in Queens as a teenager. The thing to drink is Café du Monde's café au lait, which was also excellent. Served in normally sized coffee cups instead of giant mugs, it is a true au lait, made with equal part coffee and hot milk, not simply a couple of Mini-Moos dropped in as an afterthought. The black coffee is good as well. Spiked with ground chicory root - a throwback to the times when coffee was expensive and had to be cut with a cheaper substitute to be affordable, the story goes - it has just a slight bitter bite, but is otherwise balanced and smooth. Always fresh, too - the place goes through so much of it.
The other must, located almost directly across the street from Café du Monde, is Central Grocery. Most visitors think of New Orleans as the most French of American cities, being as it was the center of French Louisiana at the time of the Louisiana Purchase, but Italian cultural legacy is prominent as well, and dates back almost as far. Central Grocery is the oldest Italian store in the city still in existence, and is famous for its muffaletta - a giant sandwich of Italian cold cuts, provolone cheese, and olive salad. A vinegary mixture of coarsely chopped green olives and god knows how many other kinds of marinated vegetables, it is this "salad" (really more of a relish) that elevates the muffaletta into the realm of the sublime. Many restaurants in the Quarter offer them, but Central's is the only real thing. The trick is not to eat it right away (if you can resist - good luck), but to let it marinate a while so the flavors meld and the brine of the salad soaks into the bread just a little. When I first got into town, J. had already arrived, and had bought a muffaletta (half of one, technically - a whole, also available, is made with an entire loaf of bread) for lunch. Half or her half had been sitting, wrapped, in her bag for a couple of hours before we met up and I had a chance to eat it. It was unbelievably good - sharp, vinegary, with a great contrast of textures between chewy olives and soft bread, heavy on the cheese and relatively light on the meat, it was utterly unique and delicious. I immediately wanted to run and get another. We got them again on our last day in town, just before leaving for the airport, and while they were good, they didn't pack the punch they did after they've been sitting for a while. Evaluated objectively as a sandwich, they could stand to be a little more generous with the meat.
On two occasions, after having had late lunches and no specific plans for dinner, we ended up at the Bourbon House, located in the Astor Hotel on the edge of the Quarter. Most appetizers and entrees are overpriced and uneven. J.'s shrimp creole was decent one night, lousy the other, my soup barely qualified as mediocre. But the place is more than redeemed by its oyster bar. I had not had gulf oysters before, and they were a revelation - salty, strong-flavored but not metallic like some other varieties, meaty, and absolutely enormous - each one easily the size of three normal ones. They more than made up for other disappointments.
Bourbon House's other claim to fame is that it is the official bar of the Louisiana Bourbon Society, and as such features a mind-boggling selection of bourbons and ryes. On one of our visits, I had a manhattan made with Wild Turkey Rye, which I had not had before. It was a letdown - watery and bland. I blamed the bartender, not the rye. On the other visit, however, I ordered a pour of Four Roses bourbon, which apparently had just become available outside of Kentucky, for dessert. It was delicious - sweet and intense, and much better priced than most quality dessert libations would run you nowadays.
To be continued...
That said, at least a couple of places, though touristy, are worth the trouble. The first, of course, is Café du Monde. Located across Decatur Street across from Jackson Square, it is it open around the clock and is justly famous for its beignets - French-style donuts. A little over $2 gets you three large, hot puffs of fried dough, dusted with what seems like a pound of powdered sugar, and I must admit they are good. Not earth-shatteringly, transformatively good, but tasty. They reminded me of nothing so much as zeppoli - the Italian version of the same concept - that I used to eat at pizza parlors in Queens as a teenager. The thing to drink is Café du Monde's café au lait, which was also excellent. Served in normally sized coffee cups instead of giant mugs, it is a true au lait, made with equal part coffee and hot milk, not simply a couple of Mini-Moos dropped in as an afterthought. The black coffee is good as well. Spiked with ground chicory root - a throwback to the times when coffee was expensive and had to be cut with a cheaper substitute to be affordable, the story goes - it has just a slight bitter bite, but is otherwise balanced and smooth. Always fresh, too - the place goes through so much of it.
The other must, located almost directly across the street from Café du Monde, is Central Grocery. Most visitors think of New Orleans as the most French of American cities, being as it was the center of French Louisiana at the time of the Louisiana Purchase, but Italian cultural legacy is prominent as well, and dates back almost as far. Central Grocery is the oldest Italian store in the city still in existence, and is famous for its muffaletta - a giant sandwich of Italian cold cuts, provolone cheese, and olive salad. A vinegary mixture of coarsely chopped green olives and god knows how many other kinds of marinated vegetables, it is this "salad" (really more of a relish) that elevates the muffaletta into the realm of the sublime. Many restaurants in the Quarter offer them, but Central's is the only real thing. The trick is not to eat it right away (if you can resist - good luck), but to let it marinate a while so the flavors meld and the brine of the salad soaks into the bread just a little. When I first got into town, J. had already arrived, and had bought a muffaletta (half of one, technically - a whole, also available, is made with an entire loaf of bread) for lunch. Half or her half had been sitting, wrapped, in her bag for a couple of hours before we met up and I had a chance to eat it. It was unbelievably good - sharp, vinegary, with a great contrast of textures between chewy olives and soft bread, heavy on the cheese and relatively light on the meat, it was utterly unique and delicious. I immediately wanted to run and get another. We got them again on our last day in town, just before leaving for the airport, and while they were good, they didn't pack the punch they did after they've been sitting for a while. Evaluated objectively as a sandwich, they could stand to be a little more generous with the meat.
On two occasions, after having had late lunches and no specific plans for dinner, we ended up at the Bourbon House, located in the Astor Hotel on the edge of the Quarter. Most appetizers and entrees are overpriced and uneven. J.'s shrimp creole was decent one night, lousy the other, my soup barely qualified as mediocre. But the place is more than redeemed by its oyster bar. I had not had gulf oysters before, and they were a revelation - salty, strong-flavored but not metallic like some other varieties, meaty, and absolutely enormous - each one easily the size of three normal ones. They more than made up for other disappointments.
Bourbon House's other claim to fame is that it is the official bar of the Louisiana Bourbon Society, and as such features a mind-boggling selection of bourbons and ryes. On one of our visits, I had a manhattan made with Wild Turkey Rye, which I had not had before. It was a letdown - watery and bland. I blamed the bartender, not the rye. On the other visit, however, I ordered a pour of Four Roses bourbon, which apparently had just become available outside of Kentucky, for dessert. It was delicious - sweet and intense, and much better priced than most quality dessert libations would run you nowadays.
To be continued...
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