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Le Fleur de Paris, New Orleans

A French Quarter Party in the Big Easy

Parler Paris Nouvellettre^®
Your taste of life in Paris and France
ParlerParis.com
Wednesday, December 1, 2010 • Paris, France

Cedric Martin

Dear Parler Paris Reader,

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. Eating in New Orleans is like having a party in your mouth. Of course, everything you do in New Orleans is a party.

We went direct from the airport to Bozo’s, one of my favorite restaurants in the Big Easy -- actually it’s in Metairie, a suburb of New Orleans in Jefferson Parrish west of the 17th Street Canal, one of the two canal levees which broke and flooded the city during Hurricane Katrina. Bozo’s is one of those local seafood houses famous for its fried oysters and has ‘hands down’ the best fried oyster “Po-boy” in the world. (I’ll put it up against any other restaurant’s.)

There the waitress calls each one of us either “dahlin’,” or “honey,” or “baby” or some other endearing term while we order up a dozen raw Gulf oysters on the half-shell, a shrimp “remoulade” (a French invention much like a tartar sauce) salad and a “dressed” (with lettuce, tomato and mayonnaise) whole oyster ‘loaf’ (yes, a whole loaf of French bread) cut into quarters so we could each have a taste.

That’s how the party started.

Before arriving at my sister’s house, we stopped at Martin’s Wine Cellar for a few bottles of wine to serve at dinner. Cedric Martin is an old high-school friend who has a large and well-stocked wine shop in what once was a movie theater and now also serves up a great lunch in a cafeteria-style bistrot the locals all know about. His selection of French wines is impressive.

Over a glass of a good red, Cedric told us an amazing story about finessing one of the premier tables at La Tour d’Argent in Paris for his family of five this past June, wearing typical tourists’ summer clothing, inappropriately. After a sumptuous meal on the famous pressed duck and ordering several more than respectable wines, he managed to get a tour of the famous restaurant’s well-heeled wine cellar (450,000 bottles estimated in 2009 worth 25 million euros) and loving every minute for what seemed like a bargain when all was said and done. He is proud of his newly-formed relationship with the owner, André Terrail, son of Claude who inherited it from his father, André in 1947.

The Big Easy party continued into the evening when we sat down to home-made barbecued shrimp, stuffed artichoke and seafood gumbo. You don’t have to be in a New Orleans restaurant to eat well -- at least not in my family. They come by it naturally. My niece, Allison Gorlin, is a bread and pastry chef at the New Orleans Cake Café and Bakery where we met with both old and new friends for breakfast the next day. It’s a small self-serve-ish gourmet-ish local style café in the newly gentrified Faubourg Marigny area of the city, just down river from the Vieux Carré (French Quarter). There, any trace of hunger was removed by ordering a crab and spinach omelet with a big biscuit -- enough for two, of course.

Amazingly less than ‘six degrees of separation,’ lifelong friend, Evelyn Rodos, brought along two people who coincidentally we helped purchase a house in Venasque (Provence) not all that long ago, and who now live in Philadelphia, but grew up in New Orleans. Another fellow there was a friend from junior high school who I hadn’t seen in all these years who coincidentally contacted me on Facebook just the day before. It was a party in every respect at a big table taking up about one-third of the corner café.

My niece lives in a “shot gun” 19th-century Creole cottage in the immediate vicinity of the café. She allowed us to visit the house and continue our conversation there to free up the large table for another party. The house is ‘sooo Noo Awlins’ with its high ceilings, wood floor, ceiling fans and simple one-room-after-another floor plan. The bathroom was my favorite room in the house, all white clapboard and powder-blue walls with a classic 40s pedestal sink and claw-foot tub. Even the toilet was retro, sitting taller than today’s model so one’s feet might dangle off the floor.

The architecture in this part of town has the spirit of the Marquis Antoine Xavier Bernard Phillippe de Marigny de Mandeville which still haunts the historic neighborhood that he established in 1805. Built on high ground, it escaped the flooding that fateful day when the levees broke. For the last several years, it’s been undergoing a regentrification much like the Marais in Paris and is popular for Bed and Breakfasts, lots of nightlife (live music clubs galore) and great little bistrots such as Cake. The American Planning Association deemed it one of the Top 10 Great American Neighborhoods in 2009, the only Louisiana neighborhood to ever make that list.

Feldenkrais practitioner, Evelyn Rodos, lives in an 18th-century home on St. Ann Street in the French Quarter next to the Saint-Louis Cathedral and just off Royal Street. We could hear the church bells clearly from her special studio off the planted courtyard while she offered up a Feldenkrais method® message, that turned my body into ‘crawfish’ butter. Feldenkrais method is also available in Paris, I learned, as it is all over the world. She got me hooked, so I returned Tuesday for a group lesson to learn how to move easier, more efficiently and reduce stress on my own.

The shopping along Royal Street in ‘the Quarter’ (as locals call it) is a cornucopia of antiques and gifts for tourists, most of which these days sport some sort of Fleur de Lis emblem. It’s the symbol for the New Orleans Saints football team and has become a craze to have taken hold like wild fire. When we lived on Fleur de Lis Drive in Lakeview, a block from one of the broken levees, we didn’t dream then that it would signify the city in such a profound way. You will now find it at every turn, in every home, in every shop, in every corner of the city no matter where you look, to the point of absurdity. In France today, you wouldn’t want to mark yourself with the symbol, which for them represents an alignment with the monarchy, out of fashion since the French Revolution! But today, the French would just assume you had visited New Orleans!

Schuyler Hoffman, long-time staff member of the Adrian Leeds Group, has worked for Antoine’s Restaurant for several years. Since 1840, Antoine’s has served French-Creole cuisine in 14 dining rooms, each with their own unique history and charm for up to 700+ guests. I stopped at “Antoine’s Annex” at 513 Royal Street to say hello to Schuyler who gave me a first-class tour of the emblematic restaurant from top to bottom, including a walk through the famous kitchen, a look at the wine cellar that spans the length of a city block and all of its dining rooms. The restaurant’s size and scope would amaze anyone. Not only are the 14 dining rooms massively impressive, but my whole apartment would fit in the kitchen, not counting the alternate kitchen on the upper level.

It was here in one of the large rooms overlooking “Rue Saint Louis” that we celebrated my mother’s 90th birthday a few years ago, to perfection. By sheer coincidence, the proprietor, Rick Blount, is my mother’s immediate next-door neighbor.

Schuyler, with his partner, David Peterson, also own and run a newly renovated B and B in the Faubourg Marigny, just a few blocks from Frenchman Street and walking distance from the major sights, named “Chez Palmiers” . In a traditional Creole Cottage built in the late 1800s, it’s a perfect two-or-more-night-stay in the Big Easy, and makes great homey accommodations with the true flavor of the city plus great personal service from the guys.

Monday we toured the Lakeview parts of the city that had been destroyed by Hurricane Katrina. Fleur de Lis Drive is under massive reconstruction and no car can drive it. Vacant lots stand where big wealthy houses once were. Some homes have been rebuilt, beautifully. Some new homes have been built to replace others that couldn’t stand the force. A few homes are for sale, but there are no buyers. All in all, it looks like recovery is in progress, however slow. It carries with it both a sad and happy tale. Everyone has one – a tale from Katrina. Ask anyone and you’ll hear their story. At some later date they are sure to fill many tomes.

That evening all the cousins from my father’s side of the family came to dinner at my sister’s for Red Beans and Rice, a traditional dish eaten on Mondays. Mondays used to be washdays and a perfect day for letting the beans soak and cook slowly, hence the tradition. It’s also perfect for serving to large parties as it cooks up in a big pot and stays hot on the stove while being dished out one plate at a time.

My father was one of eight children orphaned when he was a teen. Part of the family stayed in New Orleans after having grown up in the Jewish Children's Home, located on St. Charles Avenue (1877-1948), which later became the site of the Jewish Community Center. His brother’s three children have children and they all stayed in the city and have always remained closely knit. I discovered during my conversation days earlier with Cedric Martin, that again, by coincidence, he and my cousin, Marc Beerman, have been good friends a very long time. It’s a small world.

Yesterday torrential storms came down at dusk about the same time snow covered Paris. After a stop at a Barnes and Noble to buy English language books, the day of dining started with a fried quail and spinach salad lunch at Martin’s Wine Cellar with two old friends and I hadn’t seen in more than 40 years and two bottles of wine chosen by Cedric for 'old times sake.' That was only the beginning of the party. On route to a Feldenkrais lesson, we stopped for coffee twice -- the first time at Morning Call in Metairie.

Morning Call used to be the big competitor to Café du Monde in the French Quarter until they moved their famous coffee shop to "Fat City" in Metairie. There we couldn't resist having a "beignet" donut (or two) covered in powdered sugar, washed down by a cup of coffee and chicory with milk. We decided Morning Call's donuts and coffee were actually much better than Café du Monde's then proceeded to head 'uptown' to Camelia Grill at "Riverbend" (where the Mississippi sharply turns and where Saint Charles Avenue meets Carrollton Avenue). The streetcar makes its turn here, too.

Camelia Grill would likely only serve us coffee if there was no line waiting to get in (as there always is), but we took our chances. Shockingly, there were only two people dining there -- the famous grill was void of diners, the grills were cool, nothing was going on there…except all the cooks and waiters were having an awfully good time just hanging out between services. It was a perfect opportunity to get a photo of the team and they were happy to serve up a cup of coffee to each of us plus pose for a photo.

While many might think we have the French to thank for New Orleans’ great cooking, I contend that we have many more than just the French to thank, and in particular the Italians/Sicilians who settled around the turn of the century.

You won’t find this viewpoint expressed in the guide books, but as a New Orleanian, I can tell you that the Sicilian influence over New Orleans cooking is still prevalent today – all beginning with the immigrants who opened grocery stores such as the Central Grocery (923 Decatur, 1906), sold Muffuletta sandwiches (made only in New Orleans) and ran lots of great restaurants, not to mention the famous crime family (who I won’t mention!), that has lived on my mother’s street for many years.

As you read all this, I’ll be winging my way back to a cold and snow-laden Paris where a strict diet will resume after seriously partying in the Big Easy. It’s an eye-opening experience to juxtapose the two cities, the two lifestyles, the differences in culture, the upbringing and then the life as I know it now in a city with many centuries more history than even the age-old Nouvelle Orléans. Hopefully there will always be one foot in each as I can never imagine giving up the roots first planted in the Crescent City on the Mississippi River, and then later in the City of Light on the Seine.

A la prochaine...

Adrian Leeds
Editor, Parler Paris

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P.S. Visit both cities and do it this December! Book your stay at any Parler Paris Apartment between now and December 20th for the lowest rates of the year. Visit www.parlerparisapartments.com for more information or email apartments@adrianleeds.com

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