airport gumbo: praline connection

Airport food is generally a black and depressing void in the culinary landscape, but some exceptions exist. One grows tired of pre-fab salads, warmed-over McDonalds fare, and stale bagel-wiches - but the New Orleans airport humanely provides an outpost of the Praline Connection, Frenchman Street's soul-food emporium. It's not fine-dining, but the availability of real Southern food in the airport context is a wonderful thing.



Collard greens with Crystal hot sauce on top. Salty, meaty, pot-likker infused, finely cut. I really enjoy these greens. Even more so in the airport with a bunch of rubes eating Subway sandwiches sitting all around me. Should have grabbed some cornbread to crumble up in these but you can't have it all.



File gumbo. The lady asked me if I wanted a gumbo crab. Oh hell yes, woman, I want me a gumbo crab, perhaps two or three. I messily devoured the gumbo crabs in the dining area, after taking roughly half a roll of paper towels with me: I may or may not have used pretty much all of them. I like the Connection's gumbo because it is funky and because it has Stuff in it, much of it difficult to identify. There's usually bone-in chicken, sausage, shrimp, and meat-bits in this particular gumbo. Zap it with some Crystal and you're good to go. I can think of few better calorie sources prior to a cross-country flight to somewhere far away from good New Orleans food.

The Praline Connection: Sou Food, Gumbo Crabs, Chicken Livers

The Praline Connection
542 Frenchmen Street
New Orleans, LA 70116-2024
(504) 943-3934


The Praline Connection is a soul-food joint in the Faubourg Marigny, on the eternally-hip Frenchman street. The restaurant has been around for a healthy length of time now, even expanding into the usually cuisine-bereft confines of the New Orleans airport, god bless them. So how's the food?

The menu covers all the soul food bases, with a healthy dose of Creole and Cajun foodstuffs: think fried chicken with mac and cheese, lima beans with various meats, fried chicken livers, stuffed crabs, meatloaf, BBQ ribs, jamabalaya, and other usual suspects. Concerns about fat and calories are checked decsively at the door, as they damned well should be. (You can buy some pralines - no kiddin' - at the candy counter next to the dining room).



My friend chose the fried chicken with macaroni and cheese and collards, a big-ass portion at $12.95. Pretty darn good fried bird here: not too much batter, flavorful and juicy in the center, the whole nine-yards. He reported the macaroni and cheese had egg in it, which was mildly unusual, but was otherwise tasty.



I was tempted by the turkey wings, but ordered the file gumbo - I'm out to try every damn gumbo I can get my paws on in this city, and I'd heard the Praline Connection had a pretty worthy entrant. I ended up loving this: it's a thin, soup-style gumbo with a ton of earthy, funky flavor. This occurs because the kitchen seems to dump in as many left-over variety meats as they can into the gumbo pot, producing rich flavor and a profusion of interesting stuff in the bowl. Sausage, gumbo crabs, bone-in chicken pieces, shrimp, you name it, it's probably in there. This is just the way I like my gumbo. Pickier types may want to leave well enough alone, but you shouldn't be encouraged to be a big fat wuss either. Wuss.



I also had a side of collards, and was very pleased with em'. These are obviously traditional Southern style greens, chopped fine and cooked until the nutrients are sucked out of them - this is why you drink the pot likker. These are, needless to say, nothing even approaching vegetarian food as evidenced by their richly porky flavor. The free corn-bread block that came with the meal proved perfect for crumbling into the greens.

Coop's Gumbo Revisited, Phone Operators

Coop's Place
1109 Decatur St
New Orleans, LA 70116-2605
(504) 525-9053



Coops Place is renowned as one of NOLA's best places to get fried chicken. The kitchen churns out huge quantities of spicy batter-fried bird at regular intervals, feeding a mixture of big-eyed tourists and pissed off looking, mildly soused locals. It's a fine place to down a couple of drinks and eat some interesting, if not always successful, bar food. Specialties include rabbit jambalaya, marinated crab claws, lamb ribs, and whatever the chef is in the mood to scrawl up on the blackboard. Good conversation too, and jars of pickled okra.

Met a guy at Coops the other day, who used to work the switchboards for a major phone company, I'm not going to tell you which one. He told me about how he'd listen in on Christmas Eve, to parties all over the world. One night he heard the oompah band and the click of beer steins from Hamburg, in his Metarie office. Saudi Arabian men would always call him "Dear," in gentle voices, regardless of the date or holiday. O Holy Night. Someone's got to keep the phones working.



Regardless. I came in for Coop's to grab a bowl of gumbo and chat, and that's what I got. Coop's gumbo wasn't that great this go-round. I had it before and it was really tasty, some of the nicer seafood and okra gumbo I've had in the quarter. This was a bit lukewarm and didn't have too much of that unctuous voodoo flavor. Asked the lady for extra seafood, which you can do for a buck extra, and I guess she didn't hear me. No Crystal hot sauce on the table either. When you're forced to use Tabasco, it's kind of a cognitive shift. But I made it on through.

The search for the gumbo that will break my heart/and or end my life/some combination therein continues. I suspect the end of the quest resides in a shack somewhere in a dark swamp, a shack that can only be reached by charming a five legged albino alligator.

I think I'm too lazy.

north carolina style barbeque from our very own backyard!

My dad likes barbeque. My dad really likes barbeque. My dad really really likes to make barbeque.

Clarification: my dad likes to make North Carolina style BBQ. North Carolina style BBQ revolves around the pig in all its various incarnations. My dad possesses a very large smoker, which lives in the backyard. We use it most often in the summer, but my dad will happily fire up the smoker whenever the whim strikes him. It's a Zen thing for him, I think. Some people cultivate topiary, some people do watercolors of covered bridges, my father smokes pigs. And we are all the better for it.

For this particular meal, Dad smoked a pork shoulder, racks of baby back AND spare ribs, and a whole chicken. Indeed, I sometimes suspect my dad is setting back for a nuclear holocaust when he fires up the smoker. (I am always happy to know that when and if the End Times come, I will be able to eat pulled pork for at least a few months before the zombies arrive.)

A note, if you will: North Carolina BBQ sauces are far removed from the ketchup based concotions popular in other regions of the country. At Chez Greenwood, we home-make two typical N.C sauces: vinegar and mustard. Although my dad has a SECRET RECIPE for vinegar sauce, the base ingredients include vinegar, red pepper, salt, black pepper, and lemon juice.

We usually have coleslaw to accompany the feast, prepared with more vinegar and less mayo in the general fashion of tarheel BBQ. If you're eating a pulled pork sandwich, the coleslaw is required to go on top of the sandwich: it does not belong anywhere else. It is also required by law to serve pulled pork sandwiches with sliced dill pickles. Defy these regulations at your own peril. Hushpuppies go beautifully with North Carolina BBQ but we are attempting to be healthyhere. (Hahah!) If you are really going for broke, make blackberry cobbler with vanilla ice cream. I can't talk about that anymore because I might burst into tears.

This is a story best told in pictures.



Here are our lucky participants in the midst of the smoking process. As I recall, my dad likes to do his pork shoulder for 6 or 7 hours to attain a texture that is truly "pulled." I have no idea exactly how long the ribs and chicken take and should probably ask.



Since we are health-minded individuals, we had a light appetizer of pork spareribs. Here's the slab pre-carving.



And here they are sliced. If you are not licking the screen, I can only assume you are Jewish, Islamic, Jain, or lacking a human soul.



After that delightful interlude, the pork shoulder was ready. Here it is in the midst of the chopping process. The shoulder wasn't done enough for real pulling but we were hungry. Dad put half back on the smoker for another go to achieve the desired texture.



Here's the chopped pork all finished up. Yum.



For dessert, we had this smoked chicken. This chicken came out just plain divine: perfectly juicy with tons of soulful smoky flavor, thanks to the flavorful spice rub. I ate this for about two days straight after this particular dinner. It was a difficult task, a trial, let me tell you.

Next time: I show you how to make cheating-ass Southern collard greens. That still taste delicious.

joey k's: soul food NOLA style

Joey K's
3001 Magazine Street
New Orleans, Louisiana
504-891-0997

New Orleans is, in the end, all about the soul food. This is a city that unabashadely loves the rich and old-school food that gave the city its identity: none of that low-fat and hyper organic mania that consumes our coastal cities.

Joey K's is a popular soul food joint, dishing out Cajun and Creole with a healthy dose of soul. It's good if not great source for N'Awlins food, which can be sorely lacking in Magazine's sushi ghetto.



The space is cute and casual: it's the sort of joint where locals, families, and off-duty cops come to chow down and talk. The menu runs through New Orleans classics - red beans and rice and po-boys and seafood gumbo oh my - but chicken fried steak, eggplant parmesan, and hamburgers are up for grabs as well. A whole bunch of specials are offered every night for the oppurtunistic.

We started off with the shrimp remolaude salad ($5.95), a classic speciality of boiled shrimp served with a spicy and mayo based sauce. This was tasty enough, though I would have preferred bigger and meatier shrimp. The remolaude itself was well done.



We also sampled a bowl of gumbo. This was thick and meaty but not much else - a disappointingly one note rendition of what can be a wonderfully nuanced dish. ($5.95)



I had been on a rich food all week (hit Antoine's the night before) and decided to wuss out with a grilled salmon salad ($12.95.) This was actually quite tasty and presented well: the salmon was cooked perfectly, the portion was nice n' big, and I liked the balsamic dressing that came with it. I just tried to eat it fast so no one would see what a pussy I was.

Dad ordered a patty melt, which was what it should have been: lots of beef, melty cheese, onions, and toast, accompanied by a side of sauteed vegetables. NOLA'S beloved sweet potato fries are also on offer if you swing that way, and who doesn't?

We were sorely tempted by the blackberry cobbler (served with a big scoop of ice cream, mmmm) and the bread pudding, but decided to hold off. For now, anyway.

Joey K's is currently offering $2.50 margarita specials, which present a compelling and tequila-soaked argument to any normal human creature.