There are 57 restaurants participating in this year’s COOLinary New Orleans event. That’s almost enough to have lunch and dinner at a participating restaurant every day this month without repeating. Participating restaurants prepare prix fixe, two- and three-course lunches ($20 or less) and three-course dinners ($35 or less). Some restaurants will have cocktail specials tailored to coincide with the new menus. Visittheir website for more information.
Kirk Estopinal of Cure on Freret Street co-wrote “Beta Cocktails” with Maksym Pazuniak.
Two year ago, Maksym Pazuniak and Kirk Estopinal issued a manifesto in the form of a slim volume called “Rogue Cocktails.” With the brio of revolutionaries, the two bartenders from Cure warned that the “international cocktail renaissance is in danger of falling into a state of discontent and stagnation.” They called on their fellow bartenders to “move forward” and “capture the imagination of a consumer who is already growing weary of the ‘cocktail fad.’”
Initially some were put off. Others were dismissive. Who were two unknown bartenders from New Orleans to criticize the current trends? But then people started testing the recipes in “Rogue Cocktails.” And they had to admit that these drinks, created by Pazuniak, Estopinal and their friends both in New Orleans and elsewhere, where amazingly good and strikingly original.
Oregon’s Rogue distillery and brewery, however, was not won over. After some legal saber rattling, Pazuniak and Estopinal were forced to give up the name “rogue” and stop selling their self-published book. Only 277 copies of “Rogue Cocktails” exist.
Take the fizzy new cocktail subculture. Mix with gobs of booze-company marketing money. Add hordes of earnest hipsters, 17,000 limes and 23,000 pounds of ice. Pour it all into the lovely old punch bowl that is New Orleans.
That’s the recipe for the heady concoction called Tales of the Cocktail, the increasingly-popular convention that just ended in the Crescent City.
They call it Sundance for bartenders, but even people who have never held a muddler are flocking to revel in five days of tastings, seminars and endless parties in the nation’s most seductive city.
“I don’t think I’ve had this many drinks for free in my life,” said Cameron Getto, a Michigan lawyer sipping an 18-year-old Japanese single malt on a balcony overlooking Bourbon Street, normally home to foot-long plastic beakers of grain alcohol.
At the ninth annual gathering last weekend, the Big Apple dominated the Big Easy, with New York sweeping six of the top 10 awards at the final night’s ceremony.
Winners included World’s Best Cocktail Bar (Employees Only on Hudson St.), Best Restaurant Bar (Eleven Madison Park) and World’s Best Drinks Selection (Employees Only, again.)
Two New Yorkers tied for American Bartender of the Year: Kenta Goto of Pegu Club in SoHo, and Sam Ross of Milk & Honey on the lower East Side.
“Personality wins. Great drinks are only part of it,” said Ross, an Australian who says his real ambition is to one day throw out the first pitch at a Mets game.
“I think it says a lot about New York as a hub that the two bartenders recognized are from strange, foreign countries — Japan and Australia — but we’re New York through and through.”
New Orleans is always a big party, but the convention, held at the stately 125-year-old Hotel Monteleone, ups the ante.
Porn superstar Ron Jeremy was wandering around hawking his new Ron de Jeremy rum (insert your own joke about long finishes). A truck drove around dispensing boozy sorbets made with mango, chili and Leblon cachaca. People actually went to a seminar about making perfect ice.
The “world’s largest Negroni” — 30 gallons of Campari, gin and vermouth — was mixed in an ice vat by Italian bartenders wearing handlebar mustaches, an homage to the concoction’s creator, Count Camillo Negroni.
The Long Island Ice Tea, the too-sweet, too-complicated libation long hated by bartenders, was declared dead and given a rousing jazz funeral procession through the French Quarter.
More than 20,000 people attended — a reflection of the explosive new popularity of fancy drinks served in elegant faux speakeasies. Thirteen new products made their debut, including cupcake-flavored vodka, a basil vodka and a black rum.
Mississippi oystermen can’t seem to catch a break.
Over the years, the industry has been damaged by Hurricane Katrina, cheap imports, high gas prices and the perception Gulf oysters weren’t safe to eat because of the BP oil spill.
Now, the upcoming harvest season may be lost. Oysters, which thrive in salt water, are dying in large numbers because of the fresh water that poured in from spillways opened to take pressure off levees protecting cities from the rising Mississippi River this summer.
The oyster harvest, which usually runs from October to April, could be restricted or canceled altogether to give the oysters a chance to recover.
“Giving the entire reef a break for this season would be an option,” said Joe Jewell, assistant director of fisheries for the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources.
The agency expects to make its recommendation next month; the final decision is with a five-member commission appointed by the governor to represent seafood processors, environmental organizations, charter boat operators and fishermen.
Oystermen, seafood processors and restaurants that cater to customers who enjoy the local catch are waiting in agony.
Jerry Forte, a Pass Christian seafood dealer who mainly sells shrimp and oysters to shops, said he won’t make any money if the oyster harvest is a wash.
“You can’t survive on nothing,” Forte said. “Your bills still come in, but you don’t make no money.”
NEW ORLEANS — Everyone should walk down Bourbon Street once, but for some of us, once is enough. There are, of course, lots of other streets to walk down in New Orleans’ French Quarter, nearly all of them imbued with charm and infested with us: tourists.
So where does the artist in Jackson Square or your waitress at Pat O’Brien’s stop for a drink at the end of the day or eat the next morning? Try two of New Orleans’ other great avenues: Frenchmen and Magazine streets.
Frenchmen is northeast of the Quarter and easy walking distance (follow Chartres Street across Esplanade Avenue and you run into it). It’s two busy blocks of let-your-hair-down local color, emphasis on local.
There are short-order places, BYOB places, a tiny grocery, a junk shop/used-book store and a place to get something tattooed or pierced. The Spotted Cat is a crowded, little bar full of live jazz and blues with a reputation approaching legend. One flight up is Adolfo’s, a threadbare trattoria with a medieval kitchen and good pasta. Across the street, Snug Harbor has great jazz every night and wonderful beers, and down the block The Praline Connection offers excellent Cajun fare. But everywhere there is good food, strong drink and music.
Magazine Street, on the other side of downtown running roughly parallel to the river, is six miles of gingerbread bungalows, sidewalk cafes, eateries of every description, bars, art galleries, boutiques and antique shops. Slim Goodies Diner boasts the best breakfast in town; Lilette is for the white-truffle-and-Kobe-beef crowd; The Rum House is perfect for people watching on the sidewalk; and the no-nonsense tiled lunchroom called Casamento’s Restaurant, a local institution, is a must stop for Dixie Beer and oyster lovers.
What both Frenchmen and Magazine streets have are lots of customers who are NOLA natives. Visit either and you’ll feel like one too.
It’s time again for the New Orleans Oyster Festival! The 2nd Annual New Orleans Oyster Festival will be this weekend, June 4th and 5th.
The 2011 New Orleans Oyster Festival will feature lots of Louisiana music, a cultural oyster tent, local cuisine, competitions for oyster shucking, the Acme Oyster House� World Oyster Eating Challenge, and the largest oyster.
Organizers say percentage of raised funds will go to rebuilding Louisiana’s coast on behalf of ‘Our Community, Our Culture, and Our Coast’, in support of coastal restoration and the men and women who serve the oyster industry daily. ”Last year’s inaugural Oyster Festival was held less than two months after the Gulf Oil Spill as a way to highlight the benefits of the Louisiana Gulf Oyster, as well as honor and celebrate the restaurateurs and oyster farmers who have solidified New Orleans’ position as the ‘Oyster Capital of America.’”
“All odds were against us but we were able to host a successful event that showcased the importance of the Louisiana oyster industry,” said Lucien Gunter, New Orleans Oyster Festival board member. “Because of the tremendous participation and support of last year’s event, the New Orleans Oyster Festival board was able to donate $20,000 to coastal restoration.”
“We hope to raise even more funds to help rebuild our cherished wetlands with this year’s event,” said Sal Sunseri, New Orleans Festival board member.
If it’s true ‘you are what you eat’, local pride should feed this campaign.
New Orleanians are being urged to eat local during the month of June.
The ‘Eat Local, New Orleans’ campaign is meant to help New Orleanians build a connection with their food sources.
It’s also intended to raise awareness of the economic, health-related, environmental and the cultural benefits of eating locally sourced food products.
“We are challenging people to eat only food grown or caught or raised around a 200-mile radius around New Orleans for thirty days,” say Lee Stafford, one of the event organizers.
You can do it on your own, or sign up to join others taking part.
Stafford says, besides our seafood, you can also get local beef, eggs, produce, dairy products, even salt from Avery Island.
“So we can pretty much live off of these agricultural products that come from this area,” he says.
And it can be more fun than you might think.
“We have a local vineyard and a local rum distillery.”
He says all you need for a healthy, tasty breakfast, lunch and dinner can be found right in your own backyard.
In fact, there’s a local market event scheduled June 11th for folks to swap their home garden goodies with others for other food stuffs.
To sign up, or for tips, recipes and a resource guide, click on the following link.
http://www.nolalocavore.org/
“When people come to New Orleans,” says Donald Link, a chef who owns two of the most popular restaurants in the city that lives to eat, “they want something from here. No one says, ‘I want to get some good Chinese.’ ”
And so it was last month that I spent three days dining (and drinking!) solely in places with local roots — and wishing there were more than three meals a day to do the scene justice. Some tales from four favorites:
Cochon
Link grew up in Lake Charles, where he had the good fortune to live a quarter-mile from both sets of grandparents. Those who were Cajun fed him gumbo, jambalaya and smothered pork; the others, from Alabama, set out plates of rabbit and dumplings, okra, cornbread and ham hocks. When the chef and co-owner of the well-regarded Herbsaint opened Cochon with Stephen Stryjewski in 2006 shortly after Hurricane Katrina, it was with the hope of sharing all those fond childhood memories with a larger audience.
The hearty welcome at the door of the Warehouse District favorite continues at the bar (which makes a fine drink from rye, citrus and sage syrup) and again at one of the custom-made poplar tables in the dining room.
You don’t want to dine solo here. There are too many compelling dishes to explore. There’s alligator, in the form of fried nuggets draped in aioli that’s fired up with chili. Link calls alligator “a good conversation piece for the tourists” (who happen to include celeb chef Mario Batali the April evening I drop in). Fried head cheese celebrates head-to-tail eating, and gumbo tickles the palate with its layers of flavor. Behind its success? “Patience,” says Link of the gumbo’s slow-cooked roux. Rabbit liver spread on toast gets a nice pop from a dollop of pepper jelly.
For Metairie native Lori Mascaro, summer evenings growing up during the early 1970s meant walking to a nearby sno-ball stand, often barefoot and usually with a gaggle of siblings and young neighbors. Some always ordered the same flavor, she recalls, while others, night by night, progressed alphabetically through the many colorful varieties. Forty years later, Mascaro’s enthusiasm for sno-balls not only remains, it has been empowered by the eager sno-ball enabler she found in her husband Matt. Sometimes they have sno-balls for dinner.
Plenty of New Orleanians share this passion and would likely tip their sno-ball cups to Mascaro. Uniquely local — stands are embedded in neighborhoods and found everywhere — and often misunderstood by outsiders, the cheap, garishly-colored, ubersugary sno-ball is more than an icy treat. It’s a way of life in New Orleans, part of this city’s hands-on culture and an obsession some New Orleanians never outgrow.
“In New Orleans, people have a sno-ball like other people have a coffee,” says Ashley Hansen, who runs Hansen’s Sno-Bliz, the legendary Uptown sno-ball business her late grandparents Mary and Ernest Hansen started in 1939. “You see fathers and daughters coming in together, people come from the office, it’s an outing where you get a sno-ball and you catch up. Sometimes you look around and there isn’t a single kid in line here.”
But if you’ve been visiting the same sno-ball stand for years, you might be missing out: Like every other New Orleans food, sno-balls are evolving as people experiment and put their own spins on the frozen treat. A sour pickle sno-ball, anyone?
As Marcel Proust had his madeleine and all the memories called forth by that pastry, local corporate communications consultant Jim Lestelle has the sno-ball, especially those from a stand located just two blocks from his childhood home in Old Metairie during the 1950s. He’s forgotten the name of that stand but none of the excitement of visiting.
“The ordering windows always seemed so high off the ground, and the man behind the counter so larger than life,” he says. “I would plunk my dime on the counter way above my head and call out to sometimes-unseen figures, ‘I want a 10-cent red, please,’ because ‘red’ was my favorite ‘flavor.’ Once, the owner allowed me inside the stand to operate what seemed like a giant crank on the ice-shaving machine. I was in heaven.”
Such memories penetrate many New Orleanians’ brains like the sweetest syrup plunging through the sno-ball cup. It’s the sugary aroma of the flavors perfuming the air around sno-ball stands. It’s the chugging and whupping of the sno-ball machines. It’s the sound of the screen door slapping shut at Hansen’s, the log seating arrayed around Sal’s Sno-Balls on Metairie Road and the Chinese food take-out containers into which Williams Plum Street Snowballs dispenses its “pail sized” treasures. It’s the excitement that mounts along the hairpin turns of Jefferson Highway in Harahan as the family car approaches the neon-lit facade of Ro-Bear’s Snowballs, and it’s the thrill for children of being able to buy sno-balls with their own hoarded change.
Icy chocolate: What could be better on a warm day at the New Orleans Jazz Fest? I’m sipping a chocolate snow ball as I write this. It’s densely chocolate, the signature old-school flavor of Cee Cee’s SnoBalls, located near the Gentilly Stage.
“We cook (the chocolate syrup) from scratch,” said Sandra “Sandy” Marks, who operates the stand with husband Chuck and their grown kids. “Dear family friends of ours’ mother used to cook her chocolate for her snowball stand in the early ’40s. We inherited (the recipe), for which we will be forever grateful.”
Made with cocoa and condensed milk, the formula “is our calling card,” Sandy said. “A lot of people come back to us every year for the chocolate snowball.”
