Leah Chase, New Orleans Princess

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCrLHpj_a7n2ZR3Z9YHEaunwuKK3urVJ5zz6hjPxHrw66hhgAg9HRIw0M7g0zdhzO2Psg4xVXj5E-afCrEjnh7AiQO07475Shsa70igV6p_pdRkl1I6P8CjQfgg2SJE-BPMJa5osT7eLf_/s1600/DookeyChase.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5515297496704388786" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCrLHpj_a7n2ZR3Z9YHEaunwuKK3urVJ5zz6hjPxHrw66hhgAg9HRIw0M7g0zdhzO2Psg4xVXj5E-afCrEjnh7AiQO07475Shsa70igV6p_pdRkl1I6P8CjQfgg2SJE-BPMJa5osT7eLf_/s400/DookeyChase.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 274px; height: 400px;" /></a>The <span style="font-style: italic;">Dooky Chase Cookbook</span> documents the life and recipes of Leah Chase, owner of the Dooky Chase restaurant in New Orleans. Her father-in-law, "Dooky" Chase, founded the restaurant in 1941, at a time when black people in New Orleans had few places other than home where they could sit down to a meal -- after years of selling lottery tickets door-to-door, Dooky Chase opened a "meager po'boy stand" where he sold both lottery tickets and food. She writes:<br /><blockquote>"With 'Dooky,' Sr., being so popular with the lottery and his wife, Emily, being such a good cook, before long they were outgrowing the little corner. Five years later the lottery passed from the scene but the shop was still a popular place to go. It was the only place of its kind for black people at the time." (p. 7)</blockquote>Leah Chase's involvement with the family business started years later, but eventually she became the soul of the restaurant: owner, chief cook, and important local personality. During the Civil Rights era, the restaurant became a meeting place for activists as well as being popular with New Orleans establishment figures. Recent high-profile visits to Leah at her Dooky Chase Restaurant by George Bush and Barack Obama, and her long struggle to reopen after Hurricane Katrina are part of the story, but those events were long after she wrote the book. I enjoyed reading her description of her girlhood and her food memories, which interspersed with detailed recipes, which I look forward to trying.<br /><br />Vegetables, for example, were the main dish for most family meals in the country atmosphere where she grew up. The family just couldn't afford much meat, though her mother loved fishing for perch and similar fish in local waterways, which were far from the sea.<br /><br />"Coming up in the depression days," she wrote, "Daddy always planted everything. He planted greens, okra, and onions." The kids in the family had a lot of work to do, and she was often unhappy when her Daddy insisted on giving away tomatoes or onions that she had worked hard to cultivate. She's anything but nostalgic for her early labor:<br /><blockquote>"If you have ever grown vegetables yourself, you don't care if you grow another one in your life. I'd just as soon go down to the French Market and buy it off some vendor. Some of my sisters still grow herbs for me, but I don't care if I never grow another thing. Farming has got to be the hardest thing in the world. Having grown vegetables does make you more conscious of the quality of the things you are buying, though. There is nothing like fresh vegetables." (p. 168)</blockquote>Since the original publication in 1990, Leah Chase has written another cookbook and also has been interviewed as a model for Disney's Princess Tiana, whose dream of owning her own New Orleans restaurant is a key plot item in the movie. Leah Chase is credited with one of the recipes in the tie-in cookbook -- which to our great surprise is actually a fantastic source of recipes:<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDDVyfr16Djkl51KnR9WfLTQZnRydtqb9I6MIFdRxPebsqLvIEGaDlhPSS0Q5MYdkHMFhuJE2zUb516imd7HtbZnvo31TYCAgTtVzbPAep662ZWWgNUkx0iBP8gsGsIGN9W65-HB7iIXoV/s1600-h/tianas-cookbk.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5419296671643481890" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDDVyfr16Djkl51KnR9WfLTQZnRydtqb9I6MIFdRxPebsqLvIEGaDlhPSS0Q5MYdkHMFhuJE2zUb516imd7HtbZnvo31TYCAgTtVzbPAep662ZWWgNUkx0iBP8gsGsIGN9W65-HB7iIXoV/s320/tianas-cookbk.jpg" style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 240px; height: 240px;" /></a><br />For my previous posts on New Orleans cooking see: <a href="http://regional-food.blogspot.com/2010/02/new-orleans-cookbooks.html">New Orleans Cookbooks</a>, <a href="http://regional-food.blogspot.com/2010/02/alices-birthday-cake.html">Alice's Birthday Cake</a>, and <a href="http://regional-food.blogspot.com/2009/12/what-do-princesses-eat.html">What do princesses eat?</a>

Leah Chase, New Orleans Princess

The Dooky Chase Cookbook documents the life and recipes of Leah Chase, owner of the Dooky Chase restaurant in New Orleans. Her father-in-la...

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My Parents' Markets

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxoR07p2Q0ECEPJ0O98zk5bvtN-9s7EOHUi27Nfb_LfGxJMHWZojhJiSOUyQORdjObD1MLaFh9GCM5MsMEHW2VNoxKU1Cep0HTDGZPbtaW9ZwwAL3Cj16RevyFntccAb8jWLd5HWvmLHgd/s1600/loopmkt.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5514268018403990402" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxoR07p2Q0ECEPJ0O98zk5bvtN-9s7EOHUi27Nfb_LfGxJMHWZojhJiSOUyQORdjObD1MLaFh9GCM5MsMEHW2VNoxKU1Cep0HTDGZPbtaW9ZwwAL3Cj16RevyFntccAb8jWLd5HWvmLHgd/s400/loopmkt.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 317px;" /></a><br />Recently, I've posted photos of some of the markets where I shop these days. I was browsing a <a href="http://cdm.sos.mo.gov/cdm4/browse.php?CISOROOT=/ucdelmar&CISOSTART=1,1">collection of historic photos</a> of places I've lived, and found two photos of the markets where my parents frequently shopped when I was in elementary school. Above is a market called Schenberg's. I don't recall quite so much merchandise stacked outside. My father (who did most of the grocery shopping) preferred it to most others, until later when he switched to A&P. In fact these small independent stores weren't really able to compete with the big chains.<br /><br />Below is the Loop Market, which my parents definitely didn't like much, though I recall going in there from time to time when I was sent to buy something. In the background of this photo you can see the distinctive octagonal City Hall of University City. At right you can see the streetcar tracks and just a bit of a streetcar making the "loop" around the building, from which it would then return to downtown St.Louis.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVlXPIIvzEmZN5R46XuVx2uKQn4o0_lqdbNPXQ2eAgtTggCarGFisnNMCsnZpai-cARwFnEKphO_gmCIjICUIHlOUP0cNaPDdV2HSL9_XLr14ididatVFqFsGamO3M4HR30CESZNZnUQoI/s1600/loopmkt2.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5514268017950971842" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVlXPIIvzEmZN5R46XuVx2uKQn4o0_lqdbNPXQ2eAgtTggCarGFisnNMCsnZpai-cARwFnEKphO_gmCIjICUIHlOUP0cNaPDdV2HSL9_XLr14ididatVFqFsGamO3M4HR30CESZNZnUQoI/s400/loopmkt2.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 322px;" /></a>I was also very excited to see a photo of the Dime Store that I shopped in as a child -- including a typically dressed family being helped by a friendly policeman, just like in the beginning readers. My friend Dorothy and I would go there and look at dolls and doll clothes. She had money for doll clothes, and so her dolls were better-dressed than mine were. Later, we shopped there for jewelry and for makeup.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqfkoQsG5eJGAFjjvYgYGskGEMFwgl34A73Tu6Rdj4c4L-o377uNpiH0Re0nNqvcrJgIxh9H4rTIZl9c5jgO-aaQMvqCnXQlOYqtPlhoE1gm7bmjoV6RRT5L2embIod6Br7_Osy0wInH1u/s1600/kresge.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5514268013051733842" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhqfkoQsG5eJGAFjjvYgYGskGEMFwgl34A73Tu6Rdj4c4L-o377uNpiH0Re0nNqvcrJgIxh9H4rTIZl9c5jgO-aaQMvqCnXQlOYqtPlhoE1gm7bmjoV6RRT5L2embIod6Br7_Osy0wInH1u/s400/kresge.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 317px;" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ_tWeek6JI5CxNNh5Tu0BaZzAZQ6O58R17ISZwrRazzdyZCxyY9IX9PWd5EjtcQ6I-H_PwYFrDEq50S-CSkpKXT_OMeCejN_s96XhZNtfAFFWmK6TZ0t78aQMQ0PFiF0zYVZYcyRahzbr/s1600/molls.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5514712137752439442" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjQ_tWeek6JI5CxNNh5Tu0BaZzAZQ6O58R17ISZwrRazzdyZCxyY9IX9PWd5EjtcQ6I-H_PwYFrDEq50S-CSkpKXT_OMeCejN_s96XhZNtfAFFWmK6TZ0t78aQMQ0PFiF0zYVZYcyRahzbr/s400/molls.jpg" style="float: left; margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; cursor: pointer; width: 200px; height: 118px;" /></a>UPDATE: Here is a photo of Moll's Market, where my mother shopped in my early childhood. We had no car, and I remember walking several blocks from our apartment with my sister in her Taylor-Tot (a type of stroller). This is the only photo I can find, and it's very little, but you can see the displays of produce on the sidewalk. It was quite a luxury market, with an in-store bakery with glass cases full of beautiful cakes. The family favorite was a really delicious lemon layer cake, sold by the slice. I've never had anything quite that good.

My Parents' Markets

Recently, I've posted photos of some of the markets where I shop these days. I was browsing a collection of historic photos of places I...

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A Beautiful Fish

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8_TBv6heEVhnnNAsaZ02mfdA8Khlxsv0WUQdsPE3mstr8yeKZap5E7nc0tXsMzNdBQeBoNuXEVqFgHk2BlNLDFitfmMmPuSVnXnLqDrlmsXnMJBtfyQ5FI1bIPZ_1RUMJ3EiQcwUT2mlV/s1600/fish0261.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5513909690274694386" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi8_TBv6heEVhnnNAsaZ02mfdA8Khlxsv0WUQdsPE3mstr8yeKZap5E7nc0tXsMzNdBQeBoNuXEVqFgHk2BlNLDFitfmMmPuSVnXnLqDrlmsXnMJBtfyQ5FI1bIPZ_1RUMJ3EiQcwUT2mlV/s400/fish0261.jpg" style="cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;width: 400px; height: 300px;" /></a>

A Beautiful Fish

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Dessert!

<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaMABkwXFJzjYqvbwAAZ8FasslnSyOo6ZF5SUGc47JJDWb2TIo6uCfic7sx32FAO0lXLLQ21Ms5gTYqOJqfYWToQOC2HUizGvY8Ci7WRbxroZ4YW_ln-vvtG5bD6Op7Fxkg5c1GhS48Del/s1600/dessert4031.jpg"><img alt="" border="0" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5513139880906760978" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaMABkwXFJzjYqvbwAAZ8FasslnSyOo6ZF5SUGc47JJDWb2TIo6uCfic7sx32FAO0lXLLQ21Ms5gTYqOJqfYWToQOC2HUizGvY8Ci7WRbxroZ4YW_ln-vvtG5bD6Op7Fxkg5c1GhS48Del/s400/dessert4031.jpg" style="display: block; margin: 0px auto 10px; text-align: center; cursor: pointer; width: 400px; height: 332px;" /></a>Chocolate waffle. Banana pudding. Not shown: key lime pie, white chocolate bread pudding. And a variety of grilled fish, shrimp, and so on before dessert. We love Coastal Flats.

Dessert!

Chocolate waffle. Banana pudding. Not shown: key lime pie, white chocolate bread pudding. And a variety of grilled fish, shrimp, and so on b...

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Miriam's Guest Post: The Trouble with Children's Menus

Miriam says:<br /><blockquote>"The trouble with children's menus is that these are the most common things that are always on them: macaroni and cheese, grilled cheese sandwich, PB & J, cheeseburger, chicken nuggets, and that's all. The sides are always mashed potatoes, carrots, salad, fries, apple sauce, chips, and that's all. But the thing that I don't like about kids' menus is that they're always the same and there's nothing very tropical about kids' menus.<br /><br />"I always have been ordering chicken nuggets or other things, and they are getting very boring. For instance, I am getting really bored of chicken nuggets, so I usually want to order something like shrimp. If only there was something tropical (exotic) on a kids' menu like shrimp and grits that I had tonight or mussels that I had in the past."<br /></blockquote>

Miriam's Guest Post: The Trouble with Children's Menus

Miriam says: "The trouble with children's menus is that these are the most common things that are always on them: macaroni and chee...

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Food Memoirs: "The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth"

Alpine game such as chamois or wild boar, roasted on an open hearth! Cheese made by hand in a farmhouse! Milk from high mountain pastures! Fresh produce picked at exactly the right moment! Tuna from the Mediterranean! Classic Dauphinois, Savoyard, and Provencal desserts! The best wine vintages of the 1940s, 50s, 60s! or the best wine makers' second-best years!<br /><br />The joys of dining at the mysterious -- almost mythical -- Auberge of the Flowering Hearth near the Grand Chartreuse Monastery are the only focus of author Roy Andries de Groot's memoir of his experiences there in around 1970. His descriptions are vivid. Every dish sounds luscious. The two old (middle aged?) ladies who run the Auberge drive their station wagon to Burgundy for wine, to their native Provence for special produce and freshly caught fish, and around the local mountainsides for artisan's cheeses.<br /><br />One of the memorable dinners (actually, they're all memorable) finished thus:<br /><blockquote style="color: rgb(51, 102, 255);">"The cheeses, of strong character, were also ideal -- for the happy purpose of finishing the wine. The first, the famous Saint Nectaire, was a cow's milk cheese from the central mountains of the Auvergne. The best types are still farm-made, but all too many factories are now beginning to dot the valleys and turn out mass quantities of <span style="font-style: italic;">le Saint Nectaire industriel</span>. The best cheeses are matured on rye mats in cool, damp caves. They are best eaten before they are four months old and begin to harden. The young inside flesh is very smooth and creamy -- in my opinion, this is one of the best soft cheese of France." (p. 170)</blockquote>Read it and wonder: will I ever eat anything like this? Every description brings up that question. In some cases, you could at least use the recipes in the second half of the book. But where would you get small game birds, wild mountain chamois, wild boar, or 1948 vintage wine? Even in France, hunting such animals is no longer legal, and wines of that era, if they exist at all, are in the hands of millionaire collectors.<br /><br />The book is very enjoyable as an exercise in nostalgia, maybe for something you never had at all. I was close: we spent several months in that region of France at about the time deGroot was there. But we had no money at all so ate only a very few meals cooked in small restaurants. We rode up those mountains a few times on our motor-scooter (a classic Lambretta), but brought our own salami and bread from the student restaurant along for lunch!<br /><br />Taking a step back, I find it clear that nostalgia for the artisans' food production appears in almost all descriptions of fine meals, especially in France. It drives many food writers today, but the amazing thing is that it was far from new in deGroot's time, either. DeGroot quotes a long passage from Stendhal (a local hero) who visited the Grand Chartreuse in 1837.<br /><br />In this passage, Stendhal describes how he looked at the simple agriculture in the same valleys where deGroot found his Auberge 130 years later; he compared them with more highly developed regions. "In those areas of sophisticated farming,where one often sees forty ploughs working at the same time in the same field, there is the feeling of a great mass-manufacturing process." In the Alps, according to Stendhal, "one feels only the pure joy of the open land ..." (p. 148)<br /><br />The feeling that agriculture and good food are changing for the worse is so far from new, that I almost distrust a writer who dwells on it! But there's such great charm in deGroot's descriptions that this is a minor point. He captures the delights of seasonal food at the Auberge. He presents the methods, shopping, and cooking of the two innkeepers throughout a typical year, explaining what's in season and how it tastes.<br /><br />The book is a wonderful and classic food memoir, idealizing a moment in time and space and still appealing after 40 years. The author writes objectively, impersonally -- he inserts nothing about his personal life other than his love of the food. Most people today find it surprising when they learn that he was blind from injuries suffered during the war, but never once mentioned it. I consider this an indication of how he followed journalistic conventions of that time, very different from most current food-memoir writing.<br /><br />Online, you can find an <a href="http://www.atrefleuri.fr/">Auberge de l'Atre Fleuri</a> in the same town, though I seriously doubt that it's a true descendant of deGroot's original. I'd love to go try it anyway.

Food Memoirs: "The Auberge of the Flowering Hearth"

Alpine game such as chamois or wild boar, roasted on an open hearth! Cheese made by hand in a farmhouse! Milk from high mountain pastures! ...

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We eat our mistakes

<a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/12003515@N05/4925171928/" title="pizza by mesander2000, on Flickr"><img alt="pizza" height="484" src="http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4135/4925171928_95f9ba2507_z.jpg" width="640" /></a><br /><br />We are experimenting with pizza made on the grill. The first try didn't work very well. The crust was hard to manage, though the toppings were great, and I included them in the photo. Tonight we did better. We made the pizzas smaller so they were easier to handle. Just a few more tweaks and we should really have it nailed.<br /><br />Toppings on the first try: onions, tomato, olives, arugula, capers, and more. Second try: eggplant, tomatoes, sauteed red peppers with garlic & capers. Both times: mozzarella and shaved parmesan cheese. Lots of olive oil. We had all toppings ready to eat before adding them to the pizza, as they don't stay on the fire for long.

We eat our mistakes

We are experimenting with pizza made on the grill. The first try didn't work very well. The crust was hard to manage, though the topping...

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