Imagination & Curiosity

Last weekend we had a chance to cook out of town and decided to take advantage to stay an extra night and rest our weary bones. We were on St. George Island, in a rented house on the bay. We all took snacks and booze. I took magazines and cookbooks.

People who work with food for a living never really stop working. You have to eat anyway – though in my case, people might say “Really, Kim, less could be more.” But no matter what else is happening in a cook’s life, her culinary curiosity is on, 24/7.

This was my view, my muse, if you will.  

I started Sunday morning, almost with the rise of the sun, and with coffee.

I continued, late into the morning, with a Bloody Mary. It looks like work, pages ripped out of magazines, notes made in little journals, but it’s a kind of hunger that real food doesn’t satisfy. It has to do with creative sparks, concepts, nudges from pictures or words that later turn into suspicions of thoughts, then genuine ideas.

In an interview by Nicole Alpert, published in Food Arts, July/Aug 2010, Nicole asks Julia Child a question:

NA: "Do you ever get tired of cooking?"
JC: "No, never. Food is a boundless resource for the imagination. And the real joy is in the doing. There’s always so much to experiment with, so many ways to explore one’s passions in food.”

 

Michael Batterberry, who along with his wife Ariane, founded both Food & Wine, and Food Arts, and who died in July, 2010, was eulogized in the New York Times on July 29, 2010. Among the many details of his life and exploits, Margalit Fox had this to say about him: “In his work, and in his many appearances on television and the radio, he made clear that his interest lay not merely in food per se, but in food as a mirror of the collective national psyche.”

Some of us regard food as the source of our nourishment, others as the magic carpet of our imagination; the very lucky ones see it as both. What I know, is that it can completely occupy me on a sunny Sunday on St. George Island.

Chores

If you’ve got to drive 279.7 miles to pick up a relative in a distant airport, it might as well be your much-loved sister in New Orleans. That was my task on Monday, September 5th. I started out barreling west, directly into the very blowy path of Tropical Storm Lee. That and the hour-long traffic jam just east of the Mobile tunnel had me arriving at Louis Armstrong International Airport ninety minutes late to pick up my sister, Susan.

We’d had plans to dine at August. We’d had lunch there before, a couple of years ago, a lunch so lovely that we couldn’t find our way afterward to the airport to send her back home, so she had to reschedule her flight and spend the night. I’d told a friend that dinner at August was the plan, and she’s such a good friend that she suggested we dine instead at Emeril’s, where she could absolutely hook us up. Three days notice was all she needed.

But miss August, Chef John Besh, amazing August?

“I know,” she said, pounding on the table “have appetizers at August then your entrée and dessert at Emeril’s!”

There was nothing not to like about this plan; it was bold, self-indulgent and culinarily luxurious, everything I love about New Orleans.

Unfortunately, Lee and  
Mobile traffic dashed our
hopes for making the August reservation,
which left us to drink
bubbly (delivered to
our room gratis as
part of the French
Quarter Fling Package)
from our balcony
overlooking Bourbon
Street.
We had no trouble at
all making our 9:30 p.m.
reservation at Emeril’s.

Susan was quick to tell the sommelier that we couldn’t possibly have the $240.00 bottle of whatever it was he suggested that might work well with both the steak and the duck, but she wasn’t nearly as steadfast when it came to the $130.00 bottle of Pinot Noir.

Thai BBQ Lamb Ribs with Crunchy Asian Pear Slaw, Toasted Peanuts, and Sesame 

“Cowboy” Ribeye with Crisp Vidalia Onion Rings, Fresh Watercress, Roasted Garlic–Marrow Butter and Sauce Carmouche

Sorghum Smoked Duck Breast with “Dirty” Fregola Sarda, Red Cabbage Choucroute and Truffle Pate

No, we hadn’t done our homework and we weren’t prepared. We’d neither Googled nor Binged, so we opted to share the chocolate soufflé and completely missed out on the Emeril’s Banana Cream Pie with Graham Cracker Crust, Caramel Sauce and Chocolate Shavings. Photo is a little worse for wear, a result of our having tucked into the souffle with more haste than thought.

 Followed by a smooth double espresso.

I think it might have been the
bubbly and our focus on the
food, but we discovered

– at the very end of our meal – 
that we had too much    
wine left to … leave.   
Was it too tacky to ask? 
Could there possibly be …
to-go cups?

“It’s New Orleans, ladies, of course we have to-go cups!”

We snapped a pic of our cups next to Emeril’s Sansevierias while waiting for our taxi.



Lee had left cool air in his wake, and the view from the balcony the next morning was peaceful and clean. But the chores weren’t over and it turned out that there was no way we could leave New Orleans without first making our way down to the river to Café du Monde.














It still didn’t end there. I’d made the mistake of telling my sister about the amazing oysters at the Half Shell Oyster House in downtown Gulfport, Mississippi, so that’s where she forced me to stop for lunch. The first dozen oysters were Charbroiled, with creole seasonings, parmesan and garlic butter, and the second, a mix of Rockefeller, Bienville, Orleans and Charbroiled.

We shared their Cinnamon Roll Bread Pudding for dessert but I already felt put upon by all my chores and refused to snap a pic.

Arriving back in Santa Rosa Beach, I was able to drop Susan with Mom and Dad and my work was done. Burp.