How about a Food read thread

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Those co-authors post on the OT

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Approximately 21% of the local restaurants he gave rankings to are in business today. Only a couple, Brunings and La Cuisine (I greatly miss both of them), I could determine are not around today solely because of Katrina. Many had gone out of business long before the storm.

Collin awarded 4 stars to only 3 restaurants, Galatoire’s, Le Ruth’s, and Maxim’s, a Houston restaurant. Galatoire’s is the sole survivor; Le Ruth’s folded in the 80s, I believe, a victim, more than anything else, of the oil bust. Maxim’s I know nothing about other than it doesn’t seem to be around any more.

Of the 22 restaurants receiving 3 stars, 8 remain in business (36%): Acme Oyster House, Antoine’s, Brennan’s, Bon Ton Café, Commander’s Palace, Manale’s, Chris (now Ruth’s Chris) and Mosca’s.

Two-star restaurants fared worse. Of the 41 restaurants, only 8 remain, (20%) Angelo Brocato’s, Mother’s, Pancho’s (yes, that Pancho’s), Bull’s Corner (which moved to Laplace), Camellia Grill, Casamento’s, Delmonico (now an Emeril joint), and the restaurant at the Fair Grounds.

Sixteen of Collin’s 89 one-star restaurants exist today; Arnaud’s, Broussard’s, Café du Monde, Central Grocery, Felix’s, Gumbo Shop, Coffee Pot, Morning Call, Charlie’s, Parasol’s, Ye Olde College Inn, Dooky Chase, Parkway Bakery, Crescent City Steaks, Steak Knife, Bud’s Broiler and Middendorf’s.

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Christopher Blake, an author who lived many years in New Orleans and briefly owned a restaurant bearing his name in the Central Business District, died Tuesday at the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Long Beach, Calif. He was 93.

Former New Orleans Mayor Dutch Morial once called Blake the city’s “gourmet laureate.”

Blake, who styled himself as “Gertrude Stein’s last protégé,” said he learned to cook from avant-garde writer Stein’s partner, Alice B. Toklas, who taught him how to make mayonnaise with hazelnut oil. He met Stein and Toklas when stationed in Paris with the Army.

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Blake once entertained New York Times food editor Craig Claiborne for lunch, and Claiborne was so impressed he wrote about him in the Times. Eventually, Blake opened a restaurant in the Swoop-Duggins House at 916 Lafayette St.

“Chris Blake prides himself on being a gifted amateur, and the service is informal, charming and only occasionally errant,” wrote Richard Collin, author of “The New Orleans Underground Gourmet.”

Describing what he called the restaurant’s “unusual Sunday brunch,” Collin wrote: “The guests gather upstairs in the Blake living room and consume an unlimited amount of Bloody Marys (made with vegetable instead of tomato juice but quite good nonetheless) and stagger down to an informal breakfast.”

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According to Blake’s friend Ned Hémard, Brig. Gen. Walter S. McIlhenny, whose family manufactures Tabasco sauce, had Blake create a small cookbook for American soldiers in Vietnam. The book, which explained how to make tastier meals out of their C-rations, was included with a 2-ounce bottle of Tabasco and a small can opener in a camouflaged waterproof canister.

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In the 2012 interview, Alenier asked Blake what advice he had for young people trying to follow what they are most passionate about.

His answer: “Don’t waste time. Throw everything to the wind and go for it.”

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Writing for her local North Dakota newspaper, the Grand Forks Herald since 1957, Marilyn Hagerty went from obscurity to overnight sensation in 2012 when her earnest, admiring review of a local Olive Garden went viral. Among the denizens of the food world -- obsessive gastronomes who celebrate Alice Waters and Michael Pollan, revere all things artisanal, and have made kale salad a staple on upscale urban menus -- Hagerty's review ignited a fiery debate over the state of American culture. Anthony Bourdain defended Hagerty as an authentic voice of the larger American culture -- one that is not dictated by the biases of the food snobbery that define the coasts.

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I remember the day it started. I think it was a Sunday afternoon in about 1961. I was standing in one of two long lines of people waiting for something exciting. Among those waiting with me and my parents were merchants, professional people, judges...it seemed the whole town had turned out for the opening of a new business: the Burger Chef, our first fast food franchise. Why were we there? I can only imagine the attraction was to the plastic and metal glitter of the place. The food was cheap, and there weren't many choices to make. Burgers, fries, and Cokes were fifteen cents each. The so-called "milk shakes" were twenty.

Until that day Vicksburg, like most Mississippi towns, had dozens of places to eat. They were all locally owned, and although they weren't exactly gourmet restaurants, they had their own charm. The burgers were usually about a quarter. If you wanted yours "sandwich style," it might cost another nickel or dime. This "sandwich style" thing seems to be a uniquely Vicksburgian burger idiom. Most outsiders assumed it must mean you got your burger on sliced bread. Who would want that? A burger comes on a bun. No, "sandwich style" meant it would be served with lettuce, tomato, and mayo as opposed to "regular," which came with mustard, pickle, and maybe onion. If you wanted your burger some other way, you probably weren't from around here.

But the local places served more than burgers. At places like The Glass Kitchen, Johnny's, The Beechwood, Jack's Village Inn, Tuminello's, Cassino's, The Old Southern Tea Room, Aunt Minnie's, Tasty Food, and Knapp's Pastry, you could find what passed for good Southern cooking. Some were drive-ins, some were full scale restaurants, some were what we called "cafes." But as the Sixties progressed, more and more fast food places sprung up to tempt us with their modern, predictable, paper-wrapped fare. We must have felt that because these places were just like the ones in big cities somewhere else, they must be somehow superior.

The face of our town changed. The face of all towns changed. The South became less Southern. Streets lined with fast-food logos look the same everywhere. Of the dozens of "cafes" and restaurants of my youth, only the Beechwood remains. You can still get a good burger there...probably even "sandwich style." It's more than a quarter, though.

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