THE GURGLING COD

#Linkfest, part 1, Cochon: pucks of pork and more.

Hey there EDSBS shoppers. The NOLA coronary assault continues over hrr. 

In an effort to break my bad habit of having great meals and not writing about them oh, hey @huskrestaurant, Geechee Girl Cafe, etc. here is part 1 of the Cod's valliant effort to hit 3 Donald Link restaurants inside of 24 hours (there was an AM Eggs Benedict poboy at Stanley, but that was medicinal. (Stanley was very solid, but it's as if they saw things people never say about restaurant websites, and misread it as restaurant website best practices.) 

Long story short, while the Cod consulted his WWBBED bracelet. Trixie danced her way through the menu like Sugar Ray in Montreal in 1976. I was not at all mad at the fried rabbit livers on toast I had for an appetizer. The words above the fold are "rabbit," "liver," and "pepper jelly," but the real story was the onion and mint dressing adorning, like an exalted version of the vegetables on a banh mi. For the main, I got the cochon, which I'd had before. At home, I am in the middle of @davidchang's pig's head torchon receipt (torchons made, and in the freezer, waiting, like a red white and blue liberation jumpsuit, for just the proper occasion), so I am interested in pucks of pork.  It was still good -- maybe seasoned more aggressively this time around, but very solld. 

However, I repeatedly found myself sneaking food from the cinetrix, who was kind enough to share. The arugula and pigear salad made me wish we had a pigear patch next to the arugula patch in the back yard. (See below, for pic ganked from Cochon menu.) The yard egg was the kind of disingenuous thing a billion spots in Brooklyn, etc don't do as well as this -- perfectly poached egg on a grit cake with mushrooms. I ate as much of it as I dared. This guy remembered to take pictures -- see right. 

The cabbage salad w/ housemade slim jims was also rad, and would have been best in show at about 99% of the meals I've had in the last year. As always, the menu challenges the boundaries of appetite. The menu fosters regret for roads not taken -- it's criminal not to get the bacon and oyster sandwich, but there was no place to put it. The room was subdued, but considering it was at the end of service, and two days after Mardi Gras, the servers were engaged and energetic. Some fancy rye for dessert wrapped up a meal that made a long drive seem like a good choice. 

#Linkfest - the origins

The Cod enjoys food. The Cod enjoys New Orleans, and is on the record as being fond of such Donald Link jawns as Cochon, Cochon Butcher, and Herbsaint. With boon companion cinetrix booked to NOLA to drop science at SCMS, the Cod formed a plan audacious in its radical simplicity -- a series of meal at casual Link (Cochon), lunch Link (Cochon Butcher), winding up at fancy Link (Herbsaint). (I hasten to add Stephen Stryjewski is at the helm at Cochon, and co-owns with Link. I will be gathering shorter updates at the twitter, under the #linkfest hashtag. 

Defend New Orleans, Feed Blake Lively

 I echo Cajunboy's sentiment that New Orleans needs defending precisely because Blake Lively needs to be fed at one of the many celebrated eating establishments in that fine city. I would add that tank top and deisgner jorts*is a tough look to pull off, even accessorized with a poodle and stiletto wingtips designed by John Fluevog in the depths of a Jenkem bender. 

*We are awaiting a ruling from HQ on jorts capitalization. 

If you care about New Orleans, you should root for the Packers.

FOC Bigg will reminds us why devotees of New Orleans should root for the Packers today. Because Bears fans suck: 

Considering that my prediction, or fond hope, for the AFCTG involves both a hydrogen explosion, and anthrax-dicked ebola wolves, it's nice to have a positive rooting interest in the other game. 

We interrupt Charleston Chews...

Based on a late afternoon arrival and a late night walk, Charleston comes off like New Orleans and Philadelphia had a baby. And speaking of New Orleans, the best thing written about New Orleans comes from Herr Swindle at EDSBS drops a soliloquy from an alcoholic NOLA police horse that is noirer than reading The Killer Inside Me blindfolded during the winter solstice. If you do not read it immediately, you have only yourself to blame for not reading the best thing I've read about New Orleans in years. 

BP Cake Wreck

Via Bigg Will, commentary on the BP spill in cake form. Do the Cake Wrecks folks know about this? 

 

BP makes the Cod Stabby

The Cod is on the record as a vertebrate who <3 NOLA. I have not really had the headspace to process the ginormousness of the calamity, or that BP manages to layer one more fuckup after another like it's a shit sandwich wrapped in phyllo dough the've dropped on the Gulf. But fearless NOLA correspondent Cookie checks in with a small thing, but comprehensible in a way that makes the awfulness comprehensible:

"The sign outside the seafood mart on Magazine is advertising...salmon."

I understand that the nature of corporate franchising means this would be a question of not getting the right guy, but I want to buy a case of 10W-40, and dump a quart of it on the floor of every BP I pass on the upcoming haj north.

Red Lobster to the Rescue!

The Cod is on the record as a NOLA booster. If they had make-a-wish for adults, my wish would be to move there and die of gout. Much of New Orleans' culinary strength comes from the seafood bounty of the Gulf Coast. You may have heard that a bit of slapdash engineering on the part of British Petroleum is threatening the Gulf Coast, and its marine life. The Times-Picayune is wondering if its readers will eat more seafood while they still can. The answer is yes, and it's worth reading the comments for just how and how much they are going about "eating more seafood."

But the worry is premature. Cassamento's, Frankie  & Johnnie's, Domilice's, Bayona, et cetera, et cetera? Very possibly fucked six ways to Sunday. But fear not! You can get your um, seafood on at Red Lobster:

According to Rich Jeffers, a spokesman for Red Lobster, the casual-dining seafood chain gets very little of its shrimp from the gulf—or any ocean for that matter. Instead, it grows "farm-raised" shrimp in ponds throughout South America and Asia (Jeffers mentioned Thailand specifically), and at any given moment, the company has enough shrimp to meet the demand of all 700-plus of its locations worldwide for at least six months.

I feel better already!

Sifton Soundtracks: The Mark b/w The Upper Crust, "We're Finished With Finishing School"

Sifton continues his tour of the canteens of the power elite by looking in at JGV's new hotel spot. At this rate, next week's story will be a sitdown with Henry Kissinger's private chef as he shows how he confits albino infants in a unicorn tusk-fired oven makes crab cakes just like the ones at Le Cirque. The Mark sounds like a Perkins, only really really fancy:

“The chef is known for his spices,” a waiter said one night, extolling the excellent lamb chops off that list. “These simply prepared items are for people who might be a little worried about that.”

Put Sifton on a plane to New Orleans, and he can find food that is cheap and interesting. (Two big surprises here -- 1) He gets after the Vietnamese options in NOLA more thoroughly than I've seen anyone do in a national publication, and 2) He really digs Emeril's flagship spot, in 2010 which seems as unlikely as actually enjoying a reunion show by punk heroes of long ago. [That did happen to me, once, when I saw the Buzzcocks in 1989.]) But I digress, and shirk my self-appointed task. In lieu of cheap and interesting food, (admittedly, not the purview of the NYT restaurant critic), the attention here to expensive and boring food is puzzling. At least, Creepy Sifton pops up:

Also recycled, pleasantly, is the pea soup, a purée of sweet green peas that taste of springtime and have the smooth texture of high-thread-count sheets; a version of it exists on the tasting menu at Jean Georges, Mr. Vongerichten’s four-star flagship near Columbus Circle. Blend in the accompanying cloud of Parmesan foam, and it’s like a lover sliding into bed: nice.

Were the Cod Sifton's lover, I am not quite sure if I would be flattered by this comparison, but as the Cod is not, we will let it, uh, slide. 

The focus on the luxe side of things may be a reflection of Sifton's novelistic ambitions --

An immodest little pizza of black truffles and fontina is an elegant and delicious take on the sort of puff-crusted pies Mathieu Palombino makes at Motorino, and worth a run through the excellent and deep wine list to find a pinot noir from Au Bon Climat to drink with it. Pizza at a Vongerichten restaurant? This one is exactly the sort to thrill a couple who hasn’t had a pizza since that time they needed to get takeout because there was a wreck on the Saw Mill up near where Hawthorne Circle used to be, and they didn’t get home from Tanglewood until nearly 9.

-- but it is frustrating for those of us who would like to see Sifton venture below 14th, or even into the 718. Until then, we will be dining with The Upper Crust: 

More good news from New Orleans

The Cod had hoped to be on the way to New Orleans at this very moment, but could not quite pull it off. But some good news, worthy of quoting in detail:

When Prohibition ended in 1933, absinthe could not be imported. So in New Orleans, J. Marion Legendre concocted his own version, without wormwood. The federal government made him take the word “absinthe” off the label. He renamed it Herbsaint. In 1949 he sold it to Sazerac, which tweaked the formula, reducing the proof to 90 from 100. The label also changed. Now, Sazerac has reintroduced Mr. Legendre’s original, with the original label, left. It is a murky chartreuse, not the bright green Herbsaint had become. The flavor is more complex and herbaceous. It also makes a much better Sazerac cocktail.

 That's correct. As Drew Brees is telling his son,* one can now sit on the porch of the Columns, watch the streetcars roll by on St. Charles, and toast the World Champion New Orleans Saints with the same Sazerac that Liebling enjoyed.** It's been a rough few months in Codland, but there are about a dozen reasons to smile in the preceding sentence. And thanks to the aforementioned Penny Pascal for the peerless photoshopping.

 

*I commented on the earmuffs previously, and was berated for being cavalier about hearing loss. However, Cod operative GT confirms the crowd in the stadium in Miami was about half-and-half Saints and Colts partisans, so we are dealing with the noise that 50% of a crowd could make, outdoors, and a pro crowd, no less. The Cod is generally a helmets seatbelts condoms kind of guy, and even wears hearing protection when he mows the lawn, but the Brees earmuffs seem like the kind of Purell-guzzling overparenting so prevalent today. I did see this when I was looking for the snack thing, but still want to know what the DB level was at the game.

**The folks at the Maple St. Book Shop would be delighted to send you a copy, and a Fight The Stupids bumper sticker.