Is your mouth watering yet? A half order of the Chicken a la Grande at Mosca’s in Avondale, Louisiana.

Is your mouth watering yet? A half order of the Chicken a la Grande at Mosca’s in Avondale, Louisiana.

Ever since I read Calvin Trillin’s piece in the New Yorker on this authentic New Orleans road house, Mosca’s, I’d been planning to go. Finally, with four nights in New Orleans on the itinerary, I was willing to give up half of one to drive about 20 miles out to Avondale and Mosca’s for the Chicken a la Grande. Mosca’s was everything Mr. Trillin said it would be. And though we were the only non-locals in the joint, we were treated no differently than anyone else. It was if we had been here last Tuesday and would be back on the following. Mosca’s is a vanishing breed on the American restaurant landscape. The food is good, the drinks are strong and the servers are capable. That might not seem like a lot - but it is way more than you get in some of the fanciest, trendiest places everyone is hollering about on Yelp! Oh - and Mosca’s is on Yelp!, btw. And the Chicken a la Grande recipe is online, too. But as Calvin Trillin writes, “The dishes aren’t complicated. For instance, Chicken a la Grande—which, John Mosca informed me, was named after a horse trainer named Charles Grande—has in it, in addition to the chicken, only salt and pepper, rosemary, oregano, white wine, and, of course, ten cloves (or is it heads?) of garlic. Still, James Edmunds, who takes great pride in being able to reverse-engineer dishes from the restaurants he likes, has never been able to replicate Chicken a la Grande. ‘I’ve made any number of tasty chicken dishes in the attempt,’ he told me. ‘But no Chicken a la Grande.’ Since the recipe calls for the chicken to be cooked in a skillet, James suspects that his failure has something to do with his not being able to match the heat of a restaurant burner—plus the fact that, as he puts it, ‘they know how to do something that I don’t know how to do.’”

Ever since I read Calvin Trillin’s piece in the New Yorker on this authentic New Orleans road house, Mosca’s, I’d been planning to go.

Finally, with four nights in New Orleans on the itinerary, I was willing to give up half of one to drive about 20 miles out to Avondale and Mosca’s for the Chicken a la Grande.

Mosca’s was everything Mr. Trillin said it would be. And though we were the only non-locals in the joint, we were treated no differently than anyone else. It was if we had been here last Tuesday and would be back on the following.

Mosca’s is a vanishing breed on the American restaurant landscape. The food is good, the drinks are strong and the servers are capable. That might not seem like a lot - but it is way more than you get in some of the fanciest, trendiest places everyone is hollering about on Yelp!

Oh - and Mosca’s is on Yelp!, btw.

And the Chicken a la Grande recipe is online, too.

But as Calvin Trillin writes,

“The dishes aren’t complicated. For instance, Chicken a la Grande—which, John Mosca informed me, was named after a horse trainer named Charles Grande—has in it, in addition to the chicken, only salt and pepper, rosemary, oregano, white wine, and, of course, ten cloves (or is it heads?) of garlic. Still, James Edmunds, who takes great pride in being able to reverse-engineer dishes from the restaurants he likes, has never been able to replicate Chicken a la Grande. ‘I’ve made any number of tasty chicken dishes in the attempt,’ he told me. ‘But no Chicken a la Grande.’ Since the recipe calls for the chicken to be cooked in a skillet, James suspects that his failure has something to do with his not being able to match the heat of a restaurant burner—plus the fact that, as he puts it, ‘they know how to do something that I don’t know how to do.’”

New Orleans, the ultimate playground for adults. The Carousel Bar at the Hotel Monteleone is Exhibit A. Sitting at the bar is like riding on a merry-go-round. You turn round and round, taking in a constant 360-degree view. The bartender is stationary. But he needs to be able to hop over the bar to replenish supplies or change shifts.

We drank Vieux Carres on a thunder-and-lightning stoked afternoon. The Ramos Fizz was the other popular drink.

Bourbon Street live! And this was on a Monday night, months past Mardi Gras time.

Look, Ma! We made it to New Orleans. We stayed at the Dauphine Orleans, a perfect place in the French Quarter, just around the corner from Bourbon Street, but off-the-beaten path enough that you can escape into your own little oasis - complete with bar and pool. What more do you need?

Look, Ma! We made it to New Orleans. We stayed at the Dauphine Orleans, a perfect place in the French Quarter, just around the corner from Bourbon Street, but off-the-beaten path enough that you can escape into your own little oasis - complete with bar and pool. What more do you need?

Davidson County Cast Iron: Pimento Cheese - A Never Ending Journey

Well, I have no idea where Davidson County is, but as we drove up and around the Gulf, through Fairport, Alabama, we stopped and had a pimiento cheese sandwich. I read about this stuff years ago in a cooking magazine and made my own (hey - I’m not from the South, but it sounded good). Just found this recipe that is close to the version I make. I usually spread it on Triscuits, so having a whole sandwich laden with pimiento cheese was a huge guilty pleasure to tide me over ‘til we got to New Orleans!

davidsoncountycastiron:

These days there’s always a jar of pimento cheese in my fridge. I thought this shot of my latest batch in a Ball jar was pretty cool.

image

Ingredients:

  • 8oz sharp cheddar cheese (I prefer Cabot) shredded
  • 8oz jack cheese (monterey, colby, pepper) shredded
  • 1 7oz jar chopped pimentos,…
Flora-bama. Accept no substitutes.

Flora-bama. Accept no substitutes.

Orange Beach, AL. On the Alabama-Florida line. Aka “The Redneck Riviera. Ice cold drinks, beach service, steamed Royal Red prawns and jellyfish bigger than we’ve ever seen. Glad we found out about them after we finished swimming!

Eating Big Reds on the Redneck Riviera (that’s what they tell us they call this place). The “shrimp” are amazing!

A 10-hour drive from Asheville to Orange Beach, Alabama ended with a late afternoon dip in the Gulf. Bonuses today included driving through five states - NC, SC, GA, FL and AL, discovering a part of the country called “Flora-bama” (gee, can you guess which two states share a border here?) and sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic while the last throes of a mullet-throwing festival that draws 30,000 people over 3 days let out.

A 10-hour drive from Asheville to Orange Beach, Alabama ended with a late afternoon dip in the Gulf.

Bonuses today included driving through five states - NC, SC, GA, FL and AL, discovering a part of the country called “Flora-bama” (gee, can you guess which two states share a border here?) and sitting in bumper-to-bumper traffic while the last throes of a mullet-throwing festival that draws 30,000 people over 3 days let out.