Boots in the Oven

Elizabeth's, for those of you who like your food fried in cream sauce - and who doesn't?

You'd think that the aforementioned turducken would have supplied all our calorie needs (and then some) over the course of the long Thanksgiving weekend, but sometimes the tastebuds tire and need a jolt of new stuff.

Plus, we wanted to drive down to New Orleans to see our friend Robert.  Brother Brandog was happily still in town and was even willing to drive us across the freakishly long Causeway.

After a slow amble up and down Magazine Street and a visit to a cute little tapas bar, we made our way over to Elizabeth's, just around the corner from the Quarter.

Cute, no?  It's a two-story restaurant just up from the water.

Nicely and comfortably decorated, too, with a bakery container in the corner stocked with yummy dessert treats.

We then just about made Brandog weep with delight when we ordered the entire appetizer menu.

Hey, appetizers are usually more attractive than entrees, right?  And, well, too be fair, we ordered the appetizer menu minus two of their offerings.  And we did order an entree to share, because sheep's head over wilted spinach just sounded too good to pass up.  (For those of you who are, like I was, envisioning the whole head of a ruminant, a sheep's head is a kind of white-fleshed fish.)

The deluge began with a quickness.

Fried Green Tomatoes with Remoulade was first to hit the table.  A delicious cornmeal breading formed a crunchy barrier, holding in the tangy green tomatoes.  I just about always like these, and Elizabeth's were a great example of why.

Barely behind the tomatoes, the restaurant's mildly famous praline bacon arrived.  We could barely wait for the pictures to be taken before we pounced.

Yeah, you heard right.  Praline.  Bacon.  Savory, smoky bacon with a caramelized layer of brown sugar and tiny pieces of pecans.  Ho boy, were these good for the tastebuds and bad for the waistline.  If only they were coated in chocolate...

The next treat to settle on our table was a seafood stuffed mirliton in a cream sauce.  I'm not going to give you a picture here, because stuffed things in cream sauce - well, they don't photograph all that well.  Mirlitons, known as chayote squash everywhere else I've seen them, are in season right now in southern Louisiana, and man are then good.  They have a delicate squash flavor that's perfect with a light seafood stuffing and a drenching in thickened cream sauce.

Probably a good thing we were splitting all of these...

Next came the appetizer some considered the belle of the ball - the boudin balls.  We're eating our way through Cajun country's boudin offerings, and when you take the filling and fry it, and then throw the rice/liver/pork sausage over the top of some good Creole mustard, well jeebus.

No, these were not the size of my head, thanks for asking.

Next up?  A rather untraditional meat you don't see a lot on American menus, though we saw it all over the place in Italy.

Rabbit Tenderloin in a Tomato-Basil "Coulee".

The rabbit was perfectly fried, nice and moist, but the sauce tasted a little too much like tomato soup. 

Appetizers kept coming, a little parade made up of what we soon realized were either fried dishes or dishes in cream sauce.  Or both, like this one:

Blue Cheese Oysters.  I am a big blue cheese fan, and while it was interesting to have a yummy blue piquant blue cheese sauce on these of course perfectly fried oysters, I'm not entirely convinced by the combination.  The only solution must be to have it eight or ten more times to see if I can formulate a considered opinion.

The Beer BQ Oysters, on the other hand, were good enough to make me consider seriously the idea of returning the next day for their Sunday brunch.  Tangy, smoky, rich, on the again perfect oysters.  I don't know who they have back there doing their frying, but damn.

At this point, we were thinking "Surely that's it?"  But no...

Out came the last appetizer, fried chicken livers in house pepper jelly.

I would never have thought to apply pepper jelly as a sauce for fried tidbits, but this very good jelly cut right through the double richness of the liver and the frying.  I've never had fried chicken livers before, and now I know I'm a convert.

Don't worry, we didn't only have fried things in cream sauce.  We also had sauteed things in cream sauce, in the form of the nightly special; sheep's head in a spicy cream sauce served over wilted spinach.

We got to choose two sides, so what you see here is red beans and rice and green beans.  Bigger than any green beans I've ever seen, but hey.

That's a huge amount of food!  I can't imagine one person eating it, though everything was so flavorful and well-seasoned that I'm sure plenty of people do just that.  This cream sauce was very light and didn't overpower the fish, and their red beans and rice are primo. 

We really weren't going to order dessert.  I mean, did you see what we ate?  I know there were four of us, but still...

But then we asked the waitress what this "ooey-gooey cake" was that we saw on the menu.  And when she told us it was a pound cake with a cream cheese icing, we couldn't help it.  And as long as we were ordering that, we figured we should probably give the buttermilk ice cream a try.

My friends, these desserts are evil seductresses sent from the land of the happy 400-pounder.  They were both so good, the rich thick sweet gooeyness of the cake and the nicely sour buttermilk ice cream - a great match.  Yipes.

In short, I'd definitely recommend a visit to Elizabeth's, though I can't speak to the entrees.  Just order everything and smile.

Elizabeth's Restaurant.  601 Gallier Street, New Orleans, LA.  504.944.9272.

BTW - on a bloggy business note, over in the lefthand column you'll see a new feature highlighting the most popular pages here on Boots.  Check them out, if you haven't already!

Turducken: Tricky Thanksgiving Turkey Trio

You're probably wondering how we celebrated being in the States for Thanksgiving this year.  Or not, but you're going to find out anyway.

The Turducken is a pinnacle of turkey preparation, one Husbear's been wanting to scale since well before we read Jeffery Steingarten's recounting of his Turducken experience in It Must've Been Something I Ate.

So, we're here, we're in Louisiana just around the corner from actual real Cajun country, and we're NOT going to make a turducken this year?

Yeah, right.

For those of you that don't know, a turducken is a chicken stuffed into a duck stuffed into a turkey.  Between each layer is an entirely different dressing, and the whole is topped with a sweet potato-eggplant gravy.  It's not to be undertaken lightly.

It was a bit of a do, tracking down the recipe in Paul Prudhomme's out of print Prudhomme Family Cookbook, but the Austin Library came to our rescue.  Then, we had only to put together a spreadsheet organizing the six separate recipes that go into making one turducken, and we were off!

First, you have to chop like forty-something cups of the Cajun Trinity - that is, onion, green bell pepper, and celery.  22.5 cups of onion alone, to be precise.  My eyes are still burning.

Then you make the three dressings (stuffings, if you were up in the North) that, along with the chicken, the duck, and the turkey, make up the finished Turducken.  These have to be prepared, baked, and then chilled completely before assembling the turducken.  Unless you want a 10-hour day of cooking (which is what we ended up with), you may want to prepare these the day before final assembly, which is the day before you want to eat the turducken, since it roasts for at least 13 hours.

Yes, this is a three-day recipe.

The three dressings are oyster, cornbread (for which you of course have to make the sweet cornbread!) and andouille.  Here's the andouille and cornbread, being watched over by a suspicious ceramic rooster.  I think he may have foreseen the forthcoming poultry carnage.

While we waited for the dressings to cool, Husbear got to the deboning.  Mr. Prudhomme recommends you start with the turkey and work your way down (presumably because it's easiest to see the structure of the biggest bird), but Husbear started with the chicken.  He's a bit of an old hand at deboning chickens and ducks.

This duck is a "head on feet on style" from the giant Asian market in Austin.  I think this sounds like a particularly obscure type of kung-fu.

Last bird, turkey.  I should mention that Husbear brined this turkey for a good 24 hours before getting it ready for turducken prep.

Deboning a turkey turns out to be a serious undertaking, especially if you're working with a 26-pounder!  (That's just under 12 kilos, for our non-US friends.)

My sister-in-law walked into the kitchen with Husbear elbow-deep in splayed-open turkey flesh and yelped "Oh, dear G-d."

The carnage was extensive.

Please note, you have to have the proper apron to prepare a turducken.

So.  If you've done everything correctly here, you should now have three pans of dressing and three deboned birds.  Lay out the turkey, season it lots and lots, and spread on a large amount of the andouille dressing.

Good, there you go.  You're doing great.  Now lay out that boneless balloon of duck on top of the turkey.  Season it, too, and then spread on a liberal amount of the sweet cornbread and giblet dressing.

There you go.  Now, grab your chicken... no dirty bizness, here!

Cover it with your oyster dressing, which is like half butter, by the way.

You can't help but giggle at that.  The variegated meat strata... the chicken leg just poking out, there...

Here's where things get a little delicate.  I was reminded of all those Food Network shows where people try to move their soaring chocolate towers or spindly sugar showpieces the six feet from their worktables to the display area.  The Turducken has to be folded in on itself and moved to a deep baking pan.  Then it has to be sewn together (with a curved carpet needle, KTHXBAI).

Then, there's a further delicate procedure - jam your hands under the by now almost 40 pound extradense fowl singularity and flip it over.  Again, you probably want two people for this.  If you've poked any holes in the breast when deboning (and hope you haven't, because that would make for a seriously fugly turducken) sew them up.  Then, coat the sea of turkey in more seasonings.

While you've been doing this, your family has been chowing down on a 110-pound sack of oysters.  Obviously.

Now, this huge layered extravaganza has to roast at 190 F for 13 hours.  Or more.  The USDA says this is a great way to poison all of your guests (according to them, roasting poultry below 325 F is unsafe... our opinion is that the USDA likes to scare people), but we're all still standing, so... huh.

We had to put the pan in the oven at midnight.  Yeah.

Husbear got up a few times during the night to make sure the oven was at the proper temperature and that the turducken hadn't exploded or started to give off large amounts of liquid.  "Just like having a newborn!" chortled the rest of the family.

Things actually got started pretty late Thanksgiving morning.  The turducken looked good, with the internal temperature up around 130.  A run was made to the local Cafe du Monde outpost for bags of beignets, and Husbear fixed everyone bracing mugs of cafe au lait.

(Do I need to mention that it was almost 80 on Thursday?  Good thing global warming doesn't exist, she says, quoting further anecdotal evidence...)

I can't see why people who live near Cafe du Monde would ever need to buy powdered sugar - there must have been three pounds sitting in there with the beignets.

I'm sure it goes without saying that Thanksgiving dinner was not limited to the turducken and its three separate pans of dressings.  And its sweet potato-eggplant gravy.

No, there were yams.  And two pans of the always necessary broccoli-rice casserole.  And yeast rolls.  And giblet gravy for those who were unsure of the sweet potato-eggplant gravy, and to use up all the yummy giblets we had from the birds.

Preparations took over the stove and spilled from the kitchen to cover most available surfaces.

Several hours later (after turning the oven up a couple of times) the turducken was done.  Here it is with its Dr. Frankenstein.

We all looked at it askance.  Would the turkey breast be dry?  Would the dressings inside the bird be soggy?  Would the duck skin be fatty?

The stuffed bird took its place on the buffet line.  Though this looks like food for thirty or so, we were only 9.  Oops.  Hey, the best thing about Thanksgiving is the leftovers, right?

Husbear stepped up to carve the bird.  What would it look like on the inside?  The suspense...

Everyone got a slice including all three birds and all three dressings. And here they are!

And here, again, but accompanied by all the sides and dressings and casseroles and berries and gravies.  This is what happened when you tried to get a small spoonful of everything.

Final verdict?  Delicious.  Very, very moist turkey breast (likely thanks to the brining).  The duck skin didn't add anything, but wasn't bad - it would probably be a good idea to remove it and render it for duck cracklins.  The dressings were all outstanding; everyone had a different favorite, which is probably a good sign.  And I don't even know how to begin to tell you how good that sweet potato-eggplant gravy is.  We were all surprised.

And that's not even mentioning how good the accompaniments prepared by auntie Jodi and Mama Bear were.  Wow.

Thanks to Husbear's clan for being willing to experiment this Thanksgiving and letting us try to pull this off, and for all the help they gave us.  Now we just don't know what to do for Christmas.

The moral here is go ahead and make you a turducken.  Don't be scared.

Happy Thanksgiving from Louisiana!

We're back in Mandeville, with family and nephlet and kitties.  Husbear has been up to his elbows in turducken for the last two days.

It's great to be with family this year, though we're wishing cardoons were as available in Lousiana as they are in Florence.... unlike last year's duck and bagna cauda and celeriac, this year we have and honest-to-goodness 35-pound turducken, with its three different dressings and sweet potato and eggplant gravy (!), along with a broccoli and rice casserole.

Eep.  I should probably be helping instead of sitting here with the computer.

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Knowing us is the quickest path to reality TV stardom.

This is the only conclusion I can possibly draw.

Witness:

May 2004.  Our wedding is catered by the Hearty Boys.  It's, of course, awesome.  We had a great experience with their catering and would recommend it to anyone planning an event in Chicago.  ANYWAY.  One year later, we turn on the TV, and there they are on the first season of the Food Network's Food Network Star.  (Food Network Food Network Food Network.  It's like they're trying to drive up their own search-engine results.)

They went on to win - you can still see their show on the network if you want to get up early on Sunday.

This morning, I check my computer, and my high school Facebook network is all a-flutter - one of ours is on the new season of Project Runway!  Steve was the founding member and president of the "jew crew" in our high school, of which I was treasurer or something (hey, my memory's not that great) - and, perhaps more apropos to what he's doing now, he made my prom dress in 1997.  That dress is still in my closet, even though I haven't tried to put it on in five or six years - a gold asian-inspired top with a hoop skirt. 

It was fun.

The only thing that makes sense, here, is that Steve Rosengard will go on to win Project Runway, or our streak ends at one.  So, good luck, Steve!  If we had basic cable, we'd be pulling for you!

You can lead Girlie to oysters, but then you can't make her stop eating them.

This is way out of the chronology (though not as much as, say, the posts I have left to do about our Thailand trip in June, or leftover Italy posts from May backwards) but, hey, it's a restaurant that's pretty much a New Orleans institution and I'd hate to let the opportunity to blog it slip by.

Actually, it's hard to believe that we were at Drago's only a month ago.  Seems like a lot has happened since then!

The day we went to Drago's was a long one.  We'd spent most of the day sorting through the various things we'd left at Mama Bear and GQ's house, trying to figure out what all would be coming with us to Austin and what would be going to various donation centers.  The cats seemed happy to see us, but were still mad about the year-long vanishing act we'd pulled.

Stinky wanted to make sure we'd remember to bring him.

I think Fatty was just traumatized by the whole ordeal he'd had (he spent two days outside before we arrived) to want to leave the immediate vicinity.

I can't say that all of this sorting and driving back and forth to Goodwill and cat-dodging was the most relaxing way to spend the day, which is at least part of the reason we jumped on GQ's idea of meeting for dinner at Drago's.  It's barely on the other side of the Causeway Bridge from Husbear's folks in Mandeville.

We arrived right about at prime eating time, just before 7.  (Most Italian restaurants wouldn't even be open at 7.)  The cavernous place was packed to the rafters, and since they don't take reservations, there was a good number of people waiting at the bar to be seated.  We got drinks and went to watch Drago's signature dish being prepared.

Charbroiled oysters!  To me, oysters have always been something best served raw, so I was more than a little suspicious of what was going on here.  Especially the huge spouts of flame that kept shooting from the grill - how could they not be overcooked?

When we were seated after an elevator ride to the second floor (!), twenty minutes or so later (hey, not that bad!) we of course had to order a dozen first thing.

And I've gotta say I'm a convert.  These oysters were barely cooked, still with that nice briny poppy oysterness to them, but layered on top of that was the always welcome flavor of the grill.  Plus, a giant ladleful of butter and a hit of parmesan cheese.  I mean, what's not to like?

We did giggle at the folks over at the next table, who were examining their plate of charbroiled oysters as if it had just arrived from Venus.  After they poked at the bivalves for a long moment, the man at the head of the table started cutting each in half.  We could barely contain ourselves.

Oh, like you don't laugh when you see people eating hamburgers with a knife and fork, or trying to bite directly into an unshelled crab leg.

ANYWAY, we also ordered a dozen fresh raw Louisiana oysters, caught just down the road.  This platter occasioned stares from the folks next door.  Come to think of it, I wonder where they were from?

These were delicious, and so fresh I'm surprised they allowed themselves to be eaten.  They almost didn't need accompaniments, and if I had less of a horseradish addiction, I would have left them alone.

And, well, why not get a third appetizer?

These are the fleur-de-lis shrimp, fried and then tossed with peanuts and a nicely spicy aioli.  The combination came across as vaguely Asian.  Thankfully, the shrimp retained a lot of their fried crunch after being tossed with the sauce, though I'd recommend you eat these pretty quickly when they hit your table.  Not that that should be a problem; they're ridonkulously tasty.

We opted to get three entrees to share, though GQ threatened to zealously guard the Crescent City Shrimp.

These arrived, floating in a sea of butter.  They had a terrific grilly flavor and were well spiced, though the rosemary was a little overpowering.  The dish was dangerous, since it asked repeatedly that you dip bread into its buttery, shrimpy, spicy sauce.

We also ordered the Shrimp and Eggplant Stack, which I would have enjoyed more had the tomato cream sauce been a little more seasoned.  And perhaps with less cheese.  The fried eggplant slices were perfectly done, though, and combining them with sauteed shrimp was genius.  I swear I could see Husbear working out new dish ideas in his mind.

Our last choice was the unfortunatly named Shuckee Duckee.  I'm sure I'm not the only person to feel like an ass ordering this dish, but it sure did sound tasty on the menu - blackened duck breast served with an oyster cream pasta.

Sorry this pic is a little blurry.

This was, unsurprisingly, an enormous amount of food.  The duck was cooked quite nicely, though Husbear prefers his duck just about completely rare (and it's not common for restaurants to cook it that way).  I really liked the pasta, too - the oyster flavor really dissipated through the entire sauce, so you didn't need to many to get a nice oystery flavor.  Duck and oysters?  Sign me up!

I don't know why, after all this, we felt the need to order dessert.  Perhaps it was because our waiter told us the pecan cobbler was made with wild turkey and served with ice cream, and, well, that got us going.

While our waiter was walking away from the table to put in the order, Mama Bear leaned across the table to us.  "Did he really say there was turkey in the dessert?"

Now, I can't say I didn't think the same thing for a second... but he meant this, not this.

Anyway, the dessert was delicious and poultry-free.  Really sweet.  I could only manage a couple of bites, but somehow it was all finished.

We stumbled out of the restaurant full of delicious Louisiana style oysters and yumminess. If you find yourself in the area (and you should; New Orleans and environs could really use your tourist dollars) go there.  Yum.

Drago's.  3232 N. Arnoult Rd, Metairie, LA.  504.888.9254.  No reservations.

Dropping Some Sweet Food Science

I almost feel bad about writing this post. I can already imagine the overwhelming sense of regret and lamentation and hear the collective gnashing of teeth of all those who weren’t present for the launching of the L. Pants WORLD COOKING CLASS TOUR! [insert wild applause/crowd noise.]

Well, it’s really not a tour and, uh, if I’m being honest with myself I’m not really going around the world so much…and well ok, it was kind of just a one off, weekend kind of thing-

But still, you missed the L. Pants TWO DAYS OF COOKING STUFF IN CALIFORNIA THINGY-DEAL!

That’s right. It was awesome.

The lovely folks over at the amply named VIVA: The Culinary Institute of Florence and Italian Cultural Center in Sebastopol arranged to fly me and Girlie out for a little visit (ok, we had to buy one of the tickets. It’s a cultural center not Wells Fargo.)

They had contacted me a few months earlier and asked if I would be interested in concocting a couple of cooking seminars and then dissembling that knowledge to an eager group of food loving Californians. How could I say no?

The classes could be about anything provided they were Italian in style (I don’t mean starting late, riding a Vespa, and downing espresso – I just mean the food). That was pretty wide open. I would say that I didn’t know where to start, but the truth is risotto immediately sprang to mind.

For some reason I have a passion for showing people how to make good risotto. I’m continually waylaying guests in my home as well as the occasional passerby, dragging them into the kitchen and then forcing them to watch me stir rice. I promise it’s more exciting than it sounds. Anyway, a risotto primer class was a must. (You can check out previous risotto posts here, here, and here.)

The second choice was a little more difficult. I tossed around a lot of options but ultimately settled on another passion of mine – tiny food. Yes, I just can’t help but love the petite little yummies that start any great meal. They really do set the whole mood. Besides, Italians are crazy for antipasti so the topic fit the bill nicely.

I started out on Thursday getting to know the lovely Viva kitchen, making stocks and doing a little last minute testing and tweaking. After that Mme. Pants, Heather (one of the fabulous ladies who runs the school) and I went out to do a bit of grocery shopping. With all ingredients accounted for, we knocked off early and prepared for the next days’ classes by drinking copious amounts of wine and eating too much.

Viva's totally sweet kitchen with overhead cam "Whoowee! I'm on the teevees!"

The next day was brisk and beautiful, perfect for making antipasti. People started showing up around 5:30. After a little initial nervousness and the reclaiming of a misplaced shoe, things got off to a rollicking start.

We began with a classic Tuscan bruscetta, Crostini Toscani. It’s basically a very rustic pâté made by slow cooking chicken liver with such delightful ingredients as anchovies, capers, onions and red wine. Liver isn’t for everyone, but this stuff is so good that the whole class had bits smeared around their faces. One woman told me she hadn’t eaten liver in twenty years but she was sure as hell gonna start. I hope she has.

Then we moved on to making some fresh ricotta. It’s a surprisingly easy task with an extremely impressive pay off. Who doesn’t want to go over to someone else’s house and be told that the cheese was made fresh just for them? (Here are some step by step instructions from a previous post.)

We used the ricotta to make hot and cold versions of some adorable little tomato bites. Basically, you just season the cheese to your liking and then stuff some hollowed out cherry tomatoes. You can serve them as is or stick them under the broiler.

Following these little guys we made some eggplant napoleons. This is a simple dish with a striking presentation that I modified/stole from Beccofino, the restaurant I worked for in Florence. All it really is is baked eggplant mixed with garlic, olives and chopped tomatoes, layered between thin slices of fried eggplant rounds. Garnish with a little basil vinaigrette, bocconcini and confit tomato and you have a dish that’s a guaranteed crowd pleaser.

Last of all we assembled some figs in both a hot and cold preparation. The cold ones are simply sliced, stuffed with goat cheese and topped with prosciutto. The hot are pretty much the same but we substituted blue cheese and then baked the whole mess. For a really cool garnish, I was fortunate that all of the rosemary bushes around (and there were lots) were in full bloom. You don’t see them used a lot, but rosemary blossoms are gorgeous and they taste great too.

By the end of the class things had really taken on more of a casual party atmosphere aided in no small part by James from the Wine Emporium showing up with several bottles of his quaffable fare. Everyone was great and seemed to have a good time so I left feeling a bit more relaxed about the next day’s demonstration of notoriously finicky risotto.

Saturday, a day for rice. My helpful hosts had gone out of their way to procure all three types of risotto rice that I had asked for: Arborio, Carnaroli, and Vialone Nano. I thought that it would be interesting to use all three side by side so that people could really get a feel for the differences.

I used the Arborio to make a basic asparagus risotto. I went very traditional, just using onions as the soffrito and veggie stock that I’d made earlier for the liquid. A good tip is to toss the tough asparagus stems in with the stock for even more vegetably-yumminess.

The carnaroli went towards a more unusual strawberry risotto. This is a savory (as in not sweet) dish that goes great with meats like duck or pork. It’s perfect for using up some of those tart, end of season berries.

The soffrito is melted leeks and the liquid is combination of milk, water and sweet vermouth. Strange sounding I know but this is one seriously tasty side dish.

Finally, we made a shrimp and fennel risotto with the Vialone Nano. Vialone is probably my favorite risotto rice. It’s quite a bit smaller than the other two and really retains its shape well. It’s not quite as forgiving as the other varieties so you have to keep an eye on it, but when it hits that perfect al denteness this grain really shines.

As a bonus, at the end of class we fried up some risotto cakes and served them with sautéed spinach and poached eggs. Not only is this one of my all time favorite brunch dishes, but it’s also a really great way to use leftover risotto. And polenta.

This class did a lot more note taking and didn’t devolve quite as far into a bacchanalian state as the previous day had. All in all though I think it too went really well. I’ve already gotten several emails from some of the attendees telling me that they made the first perfect risottos of their lives. [Beaming smile of satisfaction] What more could I ask for?

If I go back for another teaching stint, and I’d love to, I’ll let you Californian folks know in advance so no one has to pull out hair or spend days sitting in the dark due to the missed opportunity.

Girlie triumphant after it's all said and done.

Stay strong out there.

-L. Pants.

Nubian Queen Lola's Cajun Kitchen... Austin.

This is a tough one.

First, because all the good things there are to know about Lola are already spread all over the internets... how she closes her restaurant down on Sundays to give free meals to the homeless, and that she was the first person in Austin to throw a benefit for the victims of Katrina who were bussed into the Convention Center in September of 2005.

Many Austinites can also recount Lola's hardscrabble backstory - homeless for two years, she got back on her feet and scraped together the money to rent out a small home on Rosewood, in Austin's East Side, where she opened Nubian Queen Lola's after continued donations to buy equipment. 

That's why this is tough - how do you review a small restaurant like Lola's, where the story is almost more important than the food?

Ah, the food...

We went to Lola's for a late lunch last week.  Pushing the door open, we were unsure what we'd entered - we saw no menus, no other people, no particular indication that this was a restaurant beyond a 7-Up cooler sitting in a corner.

We waited at the counter for just a moment or two, and Lola herself came out to greet us warmly.  (I say "herself" like this isn't, at most, a two-person operation.)  She turned around, peered over her shoulder into the kitchen, and said "Well, let's see what I have.  You know, Mondays I don't do a lot of sides."

That was fine - there were still more than enough items on the spoken-word menu to make us happy.  I settled on the fried fish and shrimp platter, with sides of yams and collard greens, while Husbear ordered her shrimp po'boy.  Plus a small side of gumbo, to share.  Lola said if we were willing to wait a while, she'd have a smothered pork chop, but we declined.

We settled in and read the copious notes tacked all over the walls - reviews, letters of thanks from schoolchildren and fellow churchmates, exhortations to prayer for families in trouble.  And hanging above us, mardi gras beads.

After a few minutes, Lola emerged from the back to tell us she'd forgotten to list smothered okra as one of her sides.  I immediately tried to change my order from yams to smothered okra, and she said "Honey, you don't wanna do that.  Those yams are the bomb.  I'll see if I can give you a half-spoon of greens, half of yams, and half of the okra."  I asked if I could just get a seperate side of yams... I wanted whole servings! 

Another few minutes go by, and Lola comes out with the gumbo side.

This gumbo was delicious.  A real, slow-cooked roux, heavily shot through with peppers, and with good spicy sausage and fall-apart tender chicken.  This was one of the spiciest gumbos I've been served in a restaurant, which was more than enough to make me happy.  The cornbread was buttery and sweet and perfect with the stew.

Then, we sat.  A small group of whiteys came in and sat down (hey, like us!) and had some trouble parsing the menu.  Lola took their order, but had to run back to the kitchen several times to make sure her smothered pork chops weren't burning.

We sat some more.  I read the inspirational cards on the table - as seen on Oprah!

More sitting.  Husbear and I decided it was a good thing we weren't in a hurry. 

Then, from the back,

Lola appeared once more with my enormous lunch.  I've gotta say, she was right about the yams, though they were swimming in enough butter to grease the whole table.  Sweet, toasty, yummy.  The fish was also outstanding, perfectly fried with a crispy batter that was perhaps a touch on the salty side.

The okra and greens?  Well, I'm a sucker for Southern-style vegetables, and these were they.  Long-cooked with pork, they were at the point where they tasted more like bacon than anything else, though that isn't necessarily a bad thing.  I love long-cooked okra and greens.

The shrimp, I wasn't so crazy about.  It was a little overcooked, and the batter was sort of soggy - not crunchy.  I think that's supposed to be a sign of oil that's too cold or too new, but then it's odd that the fish was perfect.  I don't pretend to understand this.

When Husbear's po'boy hit the table, we both gaped.  Lola laughed.

Yeah, that's a sandwich.  French bread, split open and layered with mayo, fried shrimp, fried onions, pickles, lettuce, cocktail sauce, and pepper jelly.  Plus a side of red beans and rice, for good measure.

Husbear was a little taken aback by the enormous pile of sandwich sitting before him, but he gamely pushed the halves of the loaf together and took a bite.  He tried to put it back down, but the sandwich threatened to lose all structural integrity and explode all over his plate, so he elected to hold it for a few more bites.

He then pronounced it the craziest po'boy he'd ever seen.  He thought the cocktail sauce was eh, and the fried onions were maybe overkill, but all in all, it made him very happy.  As did the red beans and rice, stewed with more meats and veggies than you normally see.

Delicious.  And $18.  We're pretty sure she added that up wrong, so we overtipped.  We'll be back, though not necessarily on a day when we have pressing afternoon engagements.  An additional note - neither of us were capable of eating dinner that night.  And if you know us, you know that's very, very strange.

Nubian Queen Lola's Cajun Kitchen, 1815 Rosewood, Austin.  512.542.9269.  Open Monday-Saturday, 9-9.

In other news, we tried to take Fatty to a no-sedation groomer today, and they were unable to shave him.  Huh.  Husbear is at a whole-hog butchering class run by Dai Due, where they're making pates and sausages and bacon and all sorts of stuff, and I get to go to the dinner tomorrow!  And that's our news.

Wave a quick goodbye to Vietnam, guys.

Look, we knew going in that a week really wasn't enough time to spend in Vietnam.  I think, though, that the more you travel the more you come to realize that no amount of time will ever be enough (except, perhaps, for Manfredonia! in January).  We missed Hanoi, Hue, Hoi An, and Da Lat, and that's only the start of a burgeoning list.

So, how were we to say goodbye to HCMC and Vietnam's South?

Let's start with another meal at Ben Thanh Market.

We began, this time, at stall 1168 .  Bun Mang Vit time.  It's a duck soup - no, not that kind.  This one has slices of duck breast along with bamboo, in a pork broth with noodles.  Of course it comes with a pile of greens you throw on top!

Kind of bland, if I'm being honest.  The duck was overcooked and the broth's flavor was pretty much limited to porkiness.  Eh.

So, we moved over to stand 1092 to get more My Quang.  Like I said in my last Vietnam post, which I barely even remember since it was two months ago, (holy paloly have we been busy), this is my new favorite unrecreatable and unfindeable in Texas dish.

1092 beat out 1138, secondo me.  The textures were more variable, with extra crunchy crunch and a better, more deeply rich broth.  This is such a delicious savory dish, with so many different flavors and textures and even temperatures going on in the bowl, that it's impossible to get tired of it.  Well, perhaps if you ate five servings of it, or ate it every day for a month.

We also ordered their banh beo, just because I wanted another order of those shiny rice dumplings and perhaps another slice of pork roll.  1092 did a good job, here.  Lots of chewiness and a good shrimpy backbone.

And then, unfortunately, I was completely stuffed.  It's sad, because this stand was one of those where you just wanted to point at various things behind the glass and say "One of those, please, with a topping of that and a big side of whatever's wrapped up in that leaf."

Husbear still had a hankering for some dessert, though, so he ordered a big glass of che thap cam from the stall next door, which seemed to be doing a bustling business in sweets.

Ordering a che thap cam gets you a big mix of lots of their various flavorants and toppings, all floating in a light coconut milk.  There's tapioca balls, grass jellies, beans, perhaps a chunk or two of yam... it all comes together into a refreshingly light cross between a pudding and a beverage.  Though it's sort of on the starchy side for my taste, Husbear's a big fan.

Too bad, so sad, that's the end of our last meal at Ben Thanh Market.  I envy people who can go down there every day to eat from the stalls - there are so many of them, and each serves multiple dishes.  I bet you could spend several weeks eating every breakfast and lunch there and not repeat yourself - and that's not even counting the carts and hawkers outside!

We did have an item of business that needed taking care of before we left Vietnam - mailing a second wave of postcards back to the States.  It took us a little while, and the requisite dodging of rickshaw drivers and pedicabs and strolling vendors selling ten-foot stacks of paperback books (all fresh off the xerox machine of course), but we did eventually find our way to a post office on a street hear our hotel.

When we got there, there was some commiseration behind the counter about how many stamps we'd need for our postcards.  Then, it turned out that the post office didn't have large denomination stamps, so we'd need to use multiple smaller ones!  They offered to put the stamps on the postcards for us, but we insisted we'd do it ourselves.

The whole thing felt a little shifty, so we took pictures of the cards to prove to people back home that we'd tried.  Really, we had.

Imagine our surprise when all of these cards arrived in the States barely behind us, a week later!  Kudos to the Vietnamese post office!

After the post office, god, it was so hot outside, we needed a light colored beer with ice in it.

Aaahhh.

And, to get a little culture in, a visit to the Jade Emperor Pagoda.  It was a bit of a pain in the ass directing our taxi driver, since our stupid Rough Guide didn't give the name of the temple in Vietnamese and "Jade Emperor Pagoda" obviously didn't mean anything to him.  This seemed like a seriously stupid oversight on the part of our guidebook.  Eventually, we all figured out which way we were pointing and made it there inside of half an hour.

Unlike those in Bangkok, where you sometimes are completely unable to get a taxi to take you anywhere for any amount of money, the ones in HCMC were all metered.  Each taxi we took stuck to the meter scrupulously.  It was refreshing.

Anyway, the Jade Emperor Pagoda.  Also known for its collection of tortoises in a dank outdoor pond.

After the amazing temples we'd seen in Chiang Mai, this one was sort of a letdown.  Dingy, poorly kept up, dark.

Plus, we're completely ig'nant, so it was hard to glean meaning from the temple beyond what we found in our guidebooks.  I know that's sad.  We're more into the whole food as culture thing, I guess.

On the way out of the pagoda towards the nearest big road, where we hoped to catch a taxi, we passed a guy selling banh mi by the side of the road, so we bought two.

We had no trouble catching a taxi, so back by our hotel we picked up two more banh mi from the tiny lady selling wonderful specimens at the corner of Pham Ngu Lao and De Tham.

We sat in the park with our spoils plus two bottles of bia, and ate two of our sandwiches.  Napkins being a scarce commodity throughout Southeast Asia, we were unsurprised to find our sandwiches wrapped in some kid's homework.

Apparently, this is common around the world - we had similar serving utensils in Luxor last year.

We went back to our hotel, gathered our things, and hopped in the hotel's rickety van for a hair-raising ride back to the airport.  There's really nothing to report about our flight, save that we got in when we were supposed to, but we had a lot more trouble with the taxi stands at BKK than we'd had arriving the first time.  On our first arrival, we used an official taxi who was more than happy to turn his meter on and actually honor the numbers on the dial; the second time, though, we weren't so lucky with the official taxi.

We were given a receipt for 400 baht, all included, into the center of town (our previous ride had been 300 total), and then got into multiple arguments with the driver about paying tolls.  Argh.  I can't say the taxis of Bangkok are really the best introduction to Thailand, but hey, they apparently have to be dealt with.

This time, we were staying in the center of town - Siam Square.  We were paying a little more for the place, but I was hopeful about its description in the Lonely Planet.

Yeah.  Ha.  I'm still trying to figure out how they got that bed in the room.  I appreciate the lack of a closet, since I also can't figure out where they'd put it, though we just about had to sleep with our luggage.

The hotel had one very important rule it wanted to communicate as clearly as it could to all guests.

So, well, back to Thailand.  We were happy to be back, but at the same time, there was so much of Vietnam we had been unable to explore, that it felt sort of like we were doing a half-assed job of visiting both of these countries.  And we were.  Shaddup.

Brother, can you spare some spackle?

Yes, we did buy a studfinder.  The newly hung TV looks awesome, thank you very much.

Happy 300th post, Boots!

Whaa happen?

Sorry. 

There, I got it out of the way.

We're settling into our new apartment, slowly.  Slowly because before we moved to Italy last year we got rid of most of our furniture, and then we donated pretty much all that remained aside from our mattress when we returned to Mandeville.

This means that we've embraced the scintillating world of furniture shopping.  'Tis a high-pressure world, where everyone seems to work on commission.  So far, we've bought a ultracool side table, a beautiful Indian unit we'll be using for media storage, a dining room table that's on the boat from somewhere Nordic, and an awesome couch/loveseat (here it is!  Three pics down) upholstered in a nubbly fabric that the cats love.  To destroy.

I've just gotten back from the pet store, where I added to our arsenal of cat-herding devices.  Scratch mat, scratch cardboard ramp, anti-scratch spray for the couch, and yarn toys.  Wish me luck.

Pictures of the house will be forthcoming, though we'd really like to get the art on the walls and get the table in and buy dining room chairs and another lounging chair.  So, perhaps mot particularly forthcoming.  In the meantime, I'll work on posts about some great restaurants we've discovered here in Austin, plus Husbear has several posts in varying stages of development.