A friend gifted me with some andouille sausage and tasso from his secret stash, so I tried my first batch of gumbo. And, it was pretty good. I wrote a story on making gumbo, so I knew the key was cooking that roux until it was dark. It took patience, which isn’t my style.
I used a recipe out of the Memphis Junior League and made some adjustments… used chicken instead of duck. Added shrimp, really pretty pink shrimp I got at Schnuck’s for a whopping $16 a pound. But, hey, you want to start the New Year right, right?
After a couple weeks away, I’ve been having fried chicken withdraw… I need a fix, but not sure how I’m going to fit that into my resolutions. Oh, yeah. I forgot to make those unrealistic promises that are bound to be broken… bring on da bird!
Any spectacular holiday dinners to report?
Let's eat
Responses to “It’s good to be home in Memphis”
January 3rd, 2005 at 12:32 pm
Spectacularly bad: Went to Vicky’s of Santa Fe in Palm Springs (confusing, aye?). Auntie got aged beef filet. She soldiered through half of it and then finally admitted that it was hideous. I had to know, so I tried a tiny bite. Putrid. Obscene. Rancid. These are the words that came to mind. Anyone else had experiences like this with aged beef? Surely this isn’t how it’s meant to taste?
January 3rd, 2005 at 1:23 pm
The Bride and I had xmas eve dinner at Joseph’s Table in Taos. Joseph had been out of the restaurant business for a little bit, but jumped at the chance to open back up in the somewhat remodeled Taos La Fonda Hotel right on the plaza. The money must have been spent on the rooms (which did truly need it) and the lobby area looked pretty much the same as it always has - and always should.
A couple of quick notes about this: the Taos plaza at xmas is a pretty special thing to see. There was an inch or two of snow and luminaries across the rooftops of the adobe stores. Picture postcard perfect.
Secondly, Joseph has precisely remodeled his space to make all of the culturally divergent denizens comfortable. A fine line that is so difficult to find, much less land on. Equally walking that line were the hostess and waitstaff - friendly, cordial, helpful, and loose, but still maintaining a professional corteous relationship.
Our meals were terrific from appetizers to dessert. Joseph cooks organically using mostly locally raised and grown ingrediants. The Bride and I shared an appetizer of local duck egg flan with portobello sauce. We then split a lovely spinach and bitter greens, walnut, and sun-dried cherries salad with a warm vinagrette. I made the lesser choice of a petit filet, while my lovely Bride opted for the veal shank. (Our server, naturally, switched them up on delivery.) Both came with smashed sweet potatoes (delicious). Carolyn’s shank also had some unremarkable vegatables du jour, however my dinner included ‘chimayo’ onions - that turned out to be very similar to the tobacco onions in Memphis at Grove Grill.
We had a nice vintage bottle (’00, I think) of Sanford pinot (plummy and ever so slightly citric), complimenting both of our meals.
Finished with a restaurant-made chocolate cheese cake/brownie topped with inhouse vanilla ice cream. I indulged in a small glass of very potent, mouth filling, belly-warming ten-year-old port while BofNSD had a hot, rich cup of decaf (she drove home).
We didn’t sit in one, but there were three two-person dining spaces set deep into one wall. Deep enough for a very short two-top table, but no leg room - diners had to kind of scrunch their legs up under them, or stretch them out on pillows. A couple (younger than us…) remarked to us that it’s something you get accustomed to, but we’re not so sure.
Darlene, the five-pound wonder poodle got the sheep bone. She’s never had any treat like that, so it was a special night for her, as well! The bone was roughly half of her length and a couple hours later Darlene growled at the Bride when it was time to put it up for the night and go to bed, but then slept like, well, a dog. As did we all.
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