HumidCity

After posting a response to today’s NOLA.com story about rising food costs in New Orleans and the ensuing comments (here) I figured it might be helpful to repost the info here. So here a few of NOGoddess’s tips on eating better for less money and feeling less pinch at the gas pump:

Someone asked about biodiesel sources in New Orleans - check out BioLiberty in Slidell (an excellent biodiesel processing group that is run by and hires vets created by members of the Vets for Peace who came up here directly after the storm to provide relief services and ended up staying). They collect grease from restaurants in Slidell and turn it into biodiesel. Right now they are trying to help a NOLA collective get on its feet. Check out their website at bioliberty.net and feel free to ask them any questions, from how to convert a vehicle, process your own biodiesel or obtain already processed biodiesel, etc. They are very helpful and very friendly!

I am working on my own container garden and hope to build raised beds and put in a chicken coop as I have the time/funds. For folks looking to learn more about gardening, check out the New Orleans Food and Farm Network, they offer many resources as well as seminars on growing organic food, etc. You can find their website at noffn.org.

Folks who do not have the room to grow their own food or aren’t ready to start their own garden should check out Parkway Partners and their community gardens initiative. Community Gardens are a great way to make something positive and useful for communities out of vacant/blighted lots and work together/share knowledge with other members of the community - and - of course, produce food! You can find their website at parkwaypartnersnola.org.

Don’t forget to check out the Crescent City Farmers Markets at crescentcityfarmersmarket.org - I have been shopping the farmers markets more and more as I find that the produce is better (organic, local) and cheaper than what I find in the supermarkets. Local food does not incur the same transportation and storage costs that food shipped in from who knows where does, so it is much more sustainable, better for you - and supports local commerce! Eat local!!

Also google the New Orleans Food Co-op. Right now it is a buyer’s club (and shipments are on hiatus for a couple of months during the summer) - it’s a cheaper way to get good, healthy foods by sharing cases with other members. They also have other info and resources, so check them out at nolafoodcoop.org.

And google Victory Gardens, the gardens that people were encouraged to grow on their home lots during both world wars to help combat food shortages. Wikipedia is a good place to start. For more ideas on how to maximize growing space in small areas, along with container gardening, look up  square footage gardening and vertical gardening (and, my new favorite, upside down tomato plants!).

And one more note about gas savings: 

Someone (on the NOLA.com comments) mentioned riding a motorcycle now to save gas money. For those who don’t want to ride a motorcycle, consider a scooter. My husband and I both drive 49cc scooters when we need to go further or haul more than we can reasonably do on a bike. We get 70-80 miles a gallon and can park legally on the sidewalks. Scooters have an easier learning curve than motorcycles, and if you stick to a 49cc scooter, you don’t need a motorcycle endorsement on your license. You can’t go on the highway with a 49cc scooter, so if you need to travel on the highway regularly, consider a higher powered scooter - you will need the motorcycle endorsement, but the gas savings are well worth it!!

We do keep a pickup truck for hauling items for home repairs, really rainy days, transporting friends and larger loads, but having scooters has saved us a bundle. We paid ~$2,000 for ours new (TNG Scooters from Scooteria on Sophia Wright Place), other brands can cost a lot more - but also check scooter shops and craig’s list for used scooters as there are more and more of those on the market as more and more folks have been riding scooters here the past few years.

Eat Responsibly, Act Locally, Respond Politically!

- NOGoddess (aka Andrea)

L’Art Noir New Orleans - lartnoir.com

St. Claude Arts District - SCADNOLA.com

I would like to share a really great recipe for Red Beans and Rice with our readers, the recipe Dave Cash has been using for years without number in his regular (and legendary) Monday evening gatherings. I can vouch for the fact that they are delicious. They also are an example of something I do not often see: vegan/vegetarian twists on New Orleans cooking that actually work!

Thanks to Dave for permission to share the recipe, and thanks to GBitch, my favorite vegan, for inspiring me to share it. Bon Apetit!

Red Beans, Dave Cash Style

* 3 lbs dried, soaked, red beans
* one farmers market onion, chopped
* one farmers market green bell pepper, chopped
* several good shakes of chili powder
* tiny islands of ground coriander, dissolving in the sea
* a nice bit of cumin
* enough Hungarian paprika to make its people proud
* small pile of black pepper

1. Soak the beans for at least three hours on Sunday, then change the water and start cooking Sunday night on low heat in a seven-quart crock pot.

2. On Monday morning, add the rest of the ingredients and mash them into the cooked beans with a potato masher. Continue to cook on low throughout the day.

3. About an hour or two before people come over, stir the beans and add some water to thin them, if desired.

Feeds about 15 hungry friends.

-Loki, HumidCity Founder

Chris Rudge, owner of Bacchanal in the Bywater and his wife, Otter, (of Backyard Ballroom) were in a very serious car accident, early Monday morning. Their friend that was driving the vehicle, passed away. Chris with his adrenaline cut him and Otter out of the vehicle himself.

Chris has severe injury to his ankle and leg, but will hopefully be alright. His wife Otter was flown to a different hospital due to her extensive list of injuries. She is currently still in ICU and her condition is ‘guarded’ as of last night.

This is a call out to our friends and neighbors of Bywater and of New Orleans. Please support Bacchanal Wine to help and keep it open, while Chris and Otter remain hospitalized. Kelly will be there from 2pm-9pm Monday through Sunday. They are asking specifically if you can pay cash, it will be appreciated while Chris is in the hospital unable to deal with banking transactions and vendor agreements. However, all patronage will be appreciated. Sunday events will go on as scheduled. They are also asking for your patronage to Saturday wine tastings from 3pm-6pm.

Additionally, we are working to get a trust fund established with the bank in which large donations can be made, as it does not appear they had health insurance. Information on that and possibly other fundraisers will follow.

Bacchanal

Backyard Ballrom

The other night I took the wife and a friend out to a place I have not been since well before the levee failure: The Upperline. I was thrilled to observe that seems to have survived and thrived unchanged. The small dining room was festooned with an array of local paintings, photos, and memorabilia that must have exceeded the surface area of actual wall space by a significant amount. The owner, JoAnn Clevenger, was her usual vivacious self as she wandered from table to table engaging the diners in lively conversation. (NOTE: you can click on any of the images in this post to be taken to a larger version with its own independent comment stream. -Loki)

In short order we were escorted to a table in the front dining room of the 1877 town house in which The Upperline delivers its unique offerings. Our server, Jenn B. as I recall, was lively and attentive as she started us off with wine and classic New Orleans coffee and chicory.

Read the rest of this entry »

In the midst of all of the murders (what was it, seven last Sunday?) and generally surreal goings on we now have another oddity to add to the list. No, not the Canal Street Madam, she’s overexposed in the Vitter/Spitzer era. I’m talking about an old subject for New Orleans: falling bullets. This via NOLA.com:

Noted New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme was setting up his cooking tent on the practice range at the Zurich Classic of New Orleans golf tournament Tuesday about 9:30 a.m. when he felt a sting in his right arm, right above his elbow.

Looks like the first American born Chef to ever grace my former employers over a Commander’s Palace had a real New Orleans moment. What I want to know is what genetically deficient mouthbreather was shooting in the air at 9:30 A.M.?

Loki, shaking his head in wonder

Okay everybody, it is time for something I have not done in quite some time: a restaurant review.

Cannon’s on St. Charles Avenue is not normally the type of place I would chose to go, but Sunday was a bear of a day (no offense Bigezbear) and cooking was not on the agenda. Looking at what was open on Sunday a Cannon’s burger seemed like a good idea. Unfortunately it was not.

Disclosure: right after the storm I worked at Cannon’s for a few months. It was close to the house and constantly full because it was just about the only restaurant in the city open. Since everyone who was back before that first Post-K Halloween was dealing with some variety of undead refrigerator most people were eating out.

I knew that it was not an exceptional place, but I figured that almost non-one could mess up a burger. As my experience over the weekend proved Cannon’s can. The only valid reason for eating there is if you have no other options.

I called in an order for take out: eggplant sticks, coconut shrimp, a “Blue Roof” Burger and a regular burger with lettuce, bacon and swiss only. I was told over the phone that it would be ready in fifteen minutes. Not so. Not even close.

After an hour wait (keep in mind that this is an hour after I rode my bike the 5 blocks over) I still had not received my order. The bartender, Chris, was very professional and apologetic (the only hint of that found in this interaction), checking to see if the food was ready several times. Finally the order came up and I did the quick ride home.

Upon opening the to-go containers we discovered that I had wasted an hour for no good reason.

While I was waiting for my writing career to become self supporting I was a waiter for many years here in the city. I have worked through Jazz Fest, Mardi Gras, Bayou Classic and more both on St Charles Ave and in the Vieux Carre. I do not get my panties in a bunch over small (or even medium) problems. This experience made me angry.

All of the food was ice cold. The fries were limp and obviously old, the burgers had no trace of heat to them and were undersized. The eggplant sticks had all of the warmth of a service station chip. Only the coconut shrimp were hot. In addition the burger order was wrong. Wrong on a order I had repeated no less than three times to the person taking it. Wrong when I stressed certain things be left off due to allergies.

Mistakes happen. Orders get made incorrectly, food sometimes sits too long and loses its warmth, wait times can telescope. All three of these things occurring at the same time, and during a period of the afternoon when there were only about three or four tables in the place is preposterous. If the food were generally of a quality higher than that of the average American chain restaurant I might consider giving them another chance, but its not.

Final Score: 5 Rotten Crawfish (Avoid at all costs)

-Loki, Founder HumidCity

Gary Garitson, formerly of New Orleans and a member of The Krewe of Chartreuse send us the following drink recipe from the Wilds of Cinncinatti, OH. He, his lovely wife, and their son (my godson) have settled up there in the icy northern region from which he originally hailed. So, without further adieu allow me to present:

The Pirate Chef’s “Big Easy”

A SoCo Manhattan, extra bitters and bruised

• 2 oz. Southern Comfort
• 1/2 oz. Sweet Vermouth
• 6 shakes Agnostura Bitters (only Agostura, no substitutions!)
• 1 ea. Marichino Cherry

Put everything in a cocktail shaker half full of ice. Shake. Bruise. Strain into a chilled cocktail glass and garnish with a cherry. Repeat as needed.

Let him know what you think! (And congratulate him on the advent of his spawn while you at it!)

Just to change things up a bit here is a little something that make for a good meal. Its been awhile since I last posted a recipe so enjoy!

BBQ Shrimp

1 lb. Shrimp
olive oil
cracked black pepper, lots of it!
salt
lemon juice
lea and perrins Worcestershire sauce
butter

Place whole shrimp (with shells on) in a single layer in oven proof dish. Drizzle olive oil on top, pepper shrimp until they are black. When you think you have enough pepper add more. Then add more. Then just a little more. Add lots of salt, lemon juice, Tabasco, and lea and perrins. Remember, you are seasoning through the shells. Cut up butter on top and broil until cooked (15-20 minute)

Friday, April 20th 2007, the day the Camellia Grill returns to operation! You still cannot get a streetcar there, but as of the morrow Judg’s Chicken and Chocolate Cherry Freezes once again assume their places in the New Orleans lexicon. I may take a stab at going on saturday or sunday…

Finally something else important is back! This seems to happen far too infrequently…

Well we are still in the midst of the house moving but this is just too amusing: Offbeat”s Food Section has a wonderful little piece in which I was interviewed both as a former employee and because I had blogged about it on HumidCity.

Gee, I feel so “A List.”
Okay, maybe a lowercase “a”…

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Allow me to begin by saying that my mother’s side of the family is French Creole. We got here wth Bienville and helped to found this City of New Orleans. As a child I remember steaming cups of Cafe Au Lait on the breakfast table every morning and wine with dinner every night. I started learning to cook when my age was tallied in single digit numbers. My maternal grandmother has been a proud and vocal keeper of our family’s creole heritage for as long as I can remember.

That makes it personal when a lackwit like Alan Richman makes statements about creoles such as, “I have never met one and suspect they are a faerie folk, like leprechauns, rather than an indigenous race.” Not being satisfied he continued to shove his foot further down his own throat by adding, “the idea that you might today eat an authentic Creole dish is a fantasy.” There are 8 pages of this tripe in his article in GQ Magazine (”Yes, We’re Open” November ‘06 Issue).

I know I am late jumping on the bandwagon with this one having been out of the country for awhile, but I feel impelled to address it. The NY Times has had their say on the subject, now ’tis my turn.

The idea that someone who shows such a fatuous and willfully ignorant attitude is seen as an authority in his field is mind boggling (although not surprising these days). His lack of even a cursory attempt to do any historical or cultural research before making blanket statements of such an insulting nature calls into question his reliability as a food critic and a writer. I guess its okay, after all he didn’t use the racially explosive “N Word,” and he didn’t present a definable epithet. Denying the existence of an ethnic group isn’t the same as actually calling them names, is it? Merde.

I would like to ask everyone reading this to please take a minute and sign the online petition to have him fired from GQ. Ill informed people will always exist, as shall both the narrow minded and the woefully unpleasant. I do not believe that they they should be allowed to spew their ignorance forth as fact .

It only takes a moment and it’s the right thing to do. In addition I will view every signature added as a personal favor to me and to the many generations of creoles that are my forebears. Merci beaucoup!

One of my all time favorite authors, Neil Gaiman, was in NOLA recently for the ALA Convention. While he did not get out to see much of the city he did dine out a bit with local guide Poppoy Z. Brite.

Neil Gaiman - Neil Gaiman’s Journal: why I am not a restaurant critic…

So I had two of the best meals of my life in New Orleans. The Cafe Adelaide meal was one of the three best Top Restaurant Experiences I’ve ever had. And then, two days later, at the Delachaise, I had one of the best food times I can remember. Poppy’s husband Chris is a chef, and I don’t get to see him very often (and I like him) so when Poppy told me he couldn’t eat with us as he’d be working that night one one of us suggested we go and eat where he cooks, and let him feed us. And so we did.

Read his full post for details on his dining experiences