Drink this...

I am Eli Margot.  Growling is my blog.  Chateau Picque Caillou is a spectacular Bordeaux worthy of a slot in the valuable real estate of one's wine case:

Chateau Picque Caillou

-E.Margot

Brie Pancakes with Lavender Fig Preserves

I am Eli Margot. Growling is my blog. This is my recipe for Brie Pancakes with Lavender Fig Preserves.

Lavender Fig Preserves

10 pounds fresh figs, preferably Celeste variety
5 1/2 cups of water
1 teaspoon of Kosher salt
1/3 cup of fresh lemon juice
1 tablespoon + 1 teaspoon dried lavender
Zest of one orange
9 cups of sugar

Stem and wash figs then set aside to drain.

Combine remaining ingredients in a large stock pot and simmer until the sugar is dissolved.  Allow the syrup to steep for 15 minutes then strain with a fine sieve.

Return the syrup to the stock pot and add the figs. Cook over for 45 minutes, covered, without stirring.

Spoon figs gently into sterilized jars and ladle cooking syrup into each jar leaving 1/4" space from the top.

I recommend following these canning instructions.

Brie Pancakes

8 ounces of Brie cheese
1 1/2 cups of all-purpose flour
3 1/2 teaspoons of baking powder
1 teaspoon of Kosher salt
1 tablespoon of sugar
1 1/4 cups of whole milk
1 whole egg, beaten
3 tablespoons of melted, unsalted butter

Cut the Brie into small cubes and set on a plate in one layer, then place the plate of cheese in your freezer.

Heat a cast iron skillet over medium heat.

Combine remaining ingredients in a mixing bowl and whisk until just combined.  Allow the batter to sit for five minutes then fold in the cubed Brie cheese.

Ladle the batter into the lightly oil skillet in four ounce portions.  When dense bubbles appear in the pancake, flip and cook on the remaining side for another three to four minutes.  Continue cooking in four ounce portions until all batter is made into pancakes.  Keep warm.

Final Preparation

Spoon fig preserves between layers and over the Brie pancakes.  Consume, enjoy and thank Eli Margot.

-E.Margot

LeJeune's Bakery - Jeanerette, Louisiana

I am Eli Margot.  Growling is my blog.  This is my story about LeJeune's Bakery.

"Baking the same French bread since 1884" reads the parchment package of LeJeune's French bread, and ever since developing an affection for it, I've wondered how it could be possible to stand by that incredulous statement in the 21st century.  On a recent trip to the historic bakery I was pleasantly surprised at just how true that declaration is.

When I arrive at the bakery, it’s early morning and dark out.  The streets still slick from the cool, moist air, and for the most part Jeanerette, Louisiana is  asleep.  Matt LeJeune, the 5^th generation owner, greets me at the door.  A humble man who looks every bit the baker, he tells me that I’ve arrived just in time.  The loaves are proofed and ready for the brilliant heat of the oven.  The bakery is primitive; somewhat European in its minimalism and lackluster.  Had I entered a polished and shiny, stainless steel, commercial bakery, I think some of the character and charisma I’ve come to appreciate in LeJeune’s bread would’ve been lost.  The entire staff of three take a time-out to introduce themselves to me and Matt instructs them to carry on as normal.  “Just pretend he’s not here; okay?”  The air is thick with the smell of yeast, flour, and hearth – all those aromas one would expect of a bakery on the National Historic Register.

If you’re a lover of LeJeune’s bread, you're aware that no two loaves look the same.  Despite their lack of uniform shape, the flavor, crumb, and texture are always consistent and indisputably delicious.  For several years, a fascination for bread-making has been rising within me, and more recently I’ve attempted to bake a decent French bread in my own kitchen.  An effort to achieve a crispy outer crust and a tender inner crumb with  irregular holes that let you know you’ve mastered the science of bringing yeast and dough to life.  It’s something that can humble the most skilled of cooks.  It’s something that Matt and his small crew accomplish on a daily basis.

Aside from their extraordinary French bread, LeJeune’s also produces a ginger cake using a recipe just as founded and aged as the family's formula for bread.  Dense and chewy, the cake isn’t overly sweet, allowing you to pick up the caramel notes of cane syrup in each bite.  It’s a meal in itself and I often find myself picking one up for a long road trip to fill my appetite along the way.

Transferring the risen loaves, three at a time, from their coffin-like proofing boxes into the oven, Matt shows me the ones he’s rolled out as he slits their tops with his razor-sharp lame – the double-edged tool used for scoring.  “Mine are more pointed on the ends, the others more rounded.  We all roll the dough a little differently.”  It wasn’t until he made that statement that I turned and examined the bakery a bit more closely – more acute – and noticed just how much of a hands-on operation this was.  Aside from a stand mixer and dough tumbler, there’s no modern machinery here.  None of the comforts or shortcuts that technology provides.  Baking done – just as the generations that have preceded Matt have done it for more than a century – with skill, patience, and hands.

Today he’s preparing about 400 loaves in this single-oven operation and, by my calculations, he’s able to bake about 100 loaves at a time.  The pull of a lever rotates the next empty rack up and moves the newly placed loaves further into the heated abyss.  About twenty minutes later, the time the first rack comes full-circle, they’re ready.

I ask Matt if there’s another LeJeune in line to continue the bakery once he retires, and to this he’s a bit uncertain and somewhat melancholy.  “There’s just not much money in baking.  We sell the majority to locally owned grocery stores.  We do a little business with major supermarkets, but there’s not a lot of profit in it.”  What they bake each day is what they sell.  There’s no storeroom adjoined for keeping day-old loaves to ship cross-country.  “Right now, we’ve got all the business we can handle,” Matt says.  Anymore would require a more mechanized operation, and that sort of volume could compromise the quality of the bread that has been the foundation of respect for LeJeune’s Bakery.

He pulls out the first round of baked loaves, again, three at a time; their blistery crusts crackling as he places a few on a wooden baking table and wraps them up for me, warm and steaming.  The sun is rising as I have a sip of strong, black coffee and gently tear off a piece of my fresh loaf for breakfast.  As Matt walks me out, he turns on a bright, red light perched next to the hand-painted sign out front; a beacon proclaiming to all within its reach that there’s warm, freshly baked French bread inside.  

More about LeJeune's Bakery.

-E.Margot

Read This...

I am Eli Margot.  Growling is my blog.  This is worth your time for a read, courtesy of Wired Magazine.

The Unified Theory of Deliciousness, by David Chang (Chef/Owner - Momofuku)

- E.Margot

Bread & Circus Provisions - Lafayette, LA

I am Eli Margot.  Growling is my blog.  This is my story about Bread & Circus Provisions.

Somewhere on this very evening, as I tap at the keyboard on my laptop, someone in Lafayette, Louisiana is calling a pizza chain ordering a meat lovers, stuffed crust pizza with that garlic dipping sauce they seem to be so fond of.  And then they will wait 30 minutes for it.  That makes me sad.

On a summer Saturday night, my lovely wife - C. Marie - and I walk into the small Bread & Circus Provisions nestled in a corner strip mall consisting of three storefronts, one of which is a newly shut-down head shop.  This is not my first visit here.  I've had lunch with a colleague before, where my porchetta sandwich left me somewhat dissatisfied as its spirals of herbs and seasonings seemed to be over-shadowed by the sparsely flavored meat that encased it. Nonetheless, I have a great amount of respect for Manny Augello and did not allow this lunch encounter to waiver me from revisiting the establishment.

We've come for pizza.  Not just any pizza.  Enchanting pizza capable of conjuring up memories of our travels to Naples, to Pizzeria Starita, Gino Sorbillo and Di Matteo. Our visits to Grimaldi's and Lombardi's in New York and weekend excursions to Ancora and Pizza Domenica in New Orleans.

The restaurant is small, quaint.  It's stark white walls adorned with jars of pickled this and stewed that. Some will be sold, some will be used as ingredients on the menu.  As we're lead to our table, I think of how this scene is like a laboratory whose mad scientist encourages you to inspect his lobotomized treasures just before you sink your teeth into them.

A cozy dining room and a small, rustic wooden table reminds us of Europe. How one finds it easier sometimes to move the table to sit, rather than your chair.  Our server arrives and attempts to sell us on the evening's special - a redfish something or other - but we've come for pizza.  "We're here for pizza.  And wine."  Consequently, it's been some time since C. Marie and I have been out and we plan to consume an embarrassing amount of food for two people. We prepare our server with this information to which she laughs heartily.

Moments after the vino arrives, time enough for a toast and a swallow, a table of six is sat within elbows reach of us.  They are somewhat intriguing, visually; but soon altogether obnoxious.  There is one gentleman in particular who is over-analyzing the menu and is compelled to educate everyone at the table about what they should and should not consume. It's an entire table of hipster foodies. Goddamn foodsters.  Shouldn't we be afforded the right to choose, much like we did when smoking was allowed, between Foodster or Non-Foodster seating?  Shouldn't this be something required to declare to the hostess.  "Good evening.  I'll need a table for six.  BTW, we're all snobby critics who've never worked in the hospitality industry or a commercial kitchen an hour of our life, but we'll definitely be discussing the food you serve like we know more about it than you do."  C. Marie and I persevere, taking comfort in our bottle of Cab.

A plate of burrata gently doused with Balsamic reduction arrives on a board with Guanciale made in house.  The burrata bursts under the tender pressure of my knife and the creamy curd is spread across a slice of rustic bread, speckled with an irregular crumb to hug each molecule of the cheese that's applied to it.

A delightfully salty dish of chickpea Panelle arrives next, dotted with ricotta, lemon and parsley.  A foodster cranes her neck and asks what we're having.  I respond simply by asking if she's tried the new Cronut place in Freetown yet. She leans into her table and six people feverishly google: cronuts lafayette freetown.  Our second bottle of wine arrives, and soon after, the Margherita.

There is one slice left.  It was everything we had hoped for.  A galaxy of blistered crust, with a soggy mess of pressed San Marzano tomato and fresh mozzarella at its center, kissed with basil leaves and splashed with olive oil.  It was simple and beautiful and wonderfully executed.  The over-analysis of garlic knots to my right becomes a static background against the constellation of pizza remnants displayed before us, thankfully.  But we're not done.

We cannot help but overhear one of those little bastards ask the server emphatically about how they're aging the veal in the Angry Meatballs. "Dry or wet aged?" Like he could taste the difference. "Dry aged for 60 days" he declares, excited that they've asked, but apprehensive and anxious in his response.  He knows that they'll be quick to test his knowledge against their own like sport.  C. Marie has that spark in her eyes; that look telling me she's had too much wine and not nearly enough meat.

Our server politely asks if she can box up what's left: a half-eaten slice of pizza and one of four Angry Meatballs.  "Only if you bring back a dessert menu and coffee" I respond.  Her eyes widen, as though she may look under the table to see who else we're feeding at our little corner of the world over here.

A dessert flight of tiramisu, cannoli and frappe is set before us, along with two peculiar house mugs of coffee.  As we lift ourselves up to retire from this lovely meal, a pizza is being served to that table of assholes and before it's even set before them someone calls out, "you know, in Naples they serve the pizza whole, unsliced".  Another passive insinuation dealt to the server and I contemplate walking calmly up to that foodster, grabbing him by his carefully managed mane, made to look disheveled, and smashing his face straight through four slices of the Palermo that was presented before them; meant to be enjoyed by people that can appreciate not only the food they eat and the wine they drink, but the company they keep.

More about Bread & Circus Provisions

- E.Margot

Shaya - New Orleans, LA

I am Eli Margot. Growling is my blog. This is my story about Shaya.

As if we were destined to eat at Alon Shaya’s namesake restaurant, my partner-in-dine and I walked confidently through the door at noon on a Saturday, sans reservations. From what we had heard, surely Shaya would take our taste buds on a supersonic transit back to Tel Aviv and the street foods of Israel we had come to love during our travels. Obviously, the stunningly attractive hostess, poised at her podium, knew that she and her co-workers were preparing to serve two aficionados of world cuisine and cultured travelers as she immediately escorted us through the chic dining room, adorned with graceful tea lights on rustic open shelves and sharp, clean lines.

Seated in the back courtyard as though we were visually evident of carrying some form of VD by that fat hostess, we told her that a meal under the Spring sun was superior to any table inside that AC’d coffin they called a dining room.  Tea lights? Really?

Our server arrived and soon thereafter our cocktails too. They were thoughtfully prepared and brilliantly refreshing; a welcomed treat as we began to sweat just as wildly as the vessel that held our beverages. Could there be any less shade out here? I thought.  Perhaps if Mr. Shaya had invested as much time and resources in his courtyard setting as he did in his precious tea lights.

As we finished our third bottle of water, wondering how long these heathens would make us endure this incorrigible heat, we carried on for the sake of finely prepared food. Starting out with only a few offerings on the tastefully printed lunch menu, our epic Israeli culinary tour began with tabouleh, baba ganoush, lutenitsa, Moroccan carrots and Ikra. The server brought us a pita so freshly baked from the hearth that it was still inflated with the heat and steam that gave it depth and character, and was delightfully reminiscent of the pizza dough at Domenica (another Shaya/Besh institution deserving of our admiration.  But we’ll get to Domenica another time). Each dish from the “For the Table” section of the menu tasted just as brilliant as it was brightly colored. With each bite we wondered how to consume it all with the little pita that was left. The server offered more and we graciously accepted.

Polishing off the first course, we moved on and ordered the Curried Fried Cauliflower over hummus, followed by lamb kebab and crispy halloumi.  The hummus, an ultra-fine consistency of finely sourced ingredients was wonderfully balanced and offset by the cauliflower that crowned it. Our server had mentioned bringing out more pita ages ago – maybe he’s warming it over those tea lights, I thought. The lamb kebab was equally as delicious as any we had eaten under the Israel sun and the halloumi was pleasantly paired with sweet pomegranate and crisp micro greens…that were quickly wilted under the torrent of UV rays and heat searing us in our seats.

Soon after finishing our light lunch, we were offered a dessert menu. The “Milk and Honey” arrived artfully presented along with two espressos. A cheesecake of lebnah dotted with granola and topped with a burnt honey ice cream, this dessert was indeed fitting for the meal we had just consumed. And a fine pairing for our espresso whose caffeine was surging through our veins intensifying the desire to ask if we might have a tour of the walk-in cooler. They could have bought a dozen misting-fans just with the wages they paid that hostess during our lunch, we told our server.  He chuckled, sinisterly, as though he knew that she hated us.

As lunch came to a close we departed Shaya through that claustrophobic dining room and found the hostess snuffing out the tea lights on those open shelves as the floor creaked beneath her stubby toes. Fitting and symbolic, I thought, that she should be the one to make dark where there was light. Walking past her, she darted to meet us at the door, opened it and politely begged that we come again soon apologizing that the dining room was booked solid when we arrived. Redemption, at last.

On another trip back to New Orleans, we made reservations at Shaya and were greeted graciously by the same hostess.  She sat us at a table deserving of our stature inside that exquisitely designed dining room.  Funny, I thought, that she had lost so much weight since our last visit.

More about Shaya

-E.Margot