Walk-On's Redeemed

A couple weeks back I recounted the failed attempt to dine at a relatively new eatery in Lafayette called "Walk-On's", a sports themed bistro(eaux) of sorts.  After my comments here, I read a facebook post written by a friend in Baton Rouge who marked her whereabouts at the Walk-On's branch in that city.  I couldn't pass up the opportunity to relate (in few words) my experience here.  She was amazed, revealing that she actually enjoyed the joint, at least her local incarnation of it.  So, with that modicum of hope planted, Blaine suggested it as our lunch venue last Monday, convenient as it was to the spa.  This time, parking was hardly has chaotic.  The adjacent construction site was empty, no parallel parking, and several open slots in the actual parking area.  This time, no music and hubbub spilling through the opened garage doors of the semi-outdoor patio.  No waiting.  Friendly, smiling staff.  What a switch from the night I had attempted capturing a table.  If that night had been rugby, this afternoon was golf.  Placid, easy-going golf.   Our table was on the patio.  Lunch special: red beans and rice with a fried pork chop.  Score.  For starters, a bowl of waffle fries and mayonaise -- yes, let it be known that in my universe, the most excellent and superior dip for fried potatoes of any variety is mayonaise (pronounced "my-NEZ").  Blaine prefers mixing his mayo with ketchup, addinng hot sauce and a bit of pepper (this fine culinary sauce is formally known as "crawfish dip").  My dessert radar spotted a white chocolate bread pudding in the sweets department of the menu.  In no time, our friendly server brought the chops and beans.  Rugged ordinary food, but seasoned perfectly.  Not pasty, good rice consistency too.  And if there's bread pudding on the list, you've got to order it.  Connoisseurs of the South Louisiana delicacy can not (and shouldn't ever) pass up the chance.  I adore making bread pudding, but I don't, simply because I would eat the entire pan of it in the course of an evening.  Ording it from a restaurant is much safer.  Portion control, and once the dish is empty, there's no more.  But it's a tricky matter.  There is bread pudding, and then there's bread pudding.  Most of the time, you can predict the quality of the stuff just by looking at it, how it holds together, what color it has.  If it looks like mush, someone tripped with the milk, or miscounted on the eggs.  If it still looks like the loaf it came from, the baker's neighbor had no milk, and maybe only half an eggyoke.  The proper bread pudding, as written in the Gospel of Libellus, should jiggle slightly, be rather firm, hold its shape but be moist.  There should also be some sort of sauce accompanying it -- the best bread pudding sauces contain bourbon, and they're thick (proper carmelization is required for that).  In very general terms, a bread pudding sauce is not much more than a sugar roux prepared with butter and made into a syrupy sauce by adding a healthy dose of bourbon.  The perfect combination of sugar and liquor, certainly the only two real food groups in our part of the South.  The only problem with that is that bourbon so masterfully masks a host of culinary sins: "The bread pudding swam like oatmeal, but wasn't the sauce delicious!"  Etiquette dictates that the only proper response to that is a barely detectable movement of the eyebrows.  So our bread pudding arrived.  A thick, tall wedge cut from a spring form pan, covered in a white chocolate sauce and sprinkled with brownie crumbles.  Two spoons.  We shared this one.  It met all the critera, and received an A+ down to the crusty edge.  The benefit of making bread pudding in a spring form (why had I never thought of this?) is that each wedge has the coveted crusty edge.  I've been known to push down old ladies to the floor at a church basement buffet for a chance at a corner square -- not one, but two crusty edges.  Walk-On's was redeemed.  The good reports of others were true, but a very recent night-time drive by revealed yet again, that dinner is not the time to go for a relaxing, enjoyable, rather quiet meal.  If that's what you're looking for, go during the lunch hour or shortly thereafter. 

Spa Day

The bamboo bowl wraped in celophane and tied up with teal and lime green ribbon contained a collection of various birthday artifacts for Blaine: a lavender coffee cup incribed with the word "passion", a bag of Starbucks breakfast blend, a couple Godiva bars, and a CD of the Saint-Saens Organ Symphony recorded at Notre-Dame de Paris.  Tucked away towards the back was an envelope which entitled both of us to an hour of sheer bliss and relaxation at Spa Mizan: a couple's massage.  Last Monday, I took a snow day.  One day a month I reserve an entire day on which I never appear at the shop.  I never announce these days in advance.  Of course my shop helper, Ethel, knows, but otherwise, it's a secret.  This method is more for my personal benefit -- it completes the idea that indeed I am ducking beneath the radar and somehow can transform myself into a tourist in my own town, at least for a day.  

Having had our pedicures at 11, the clear polish dried, we arrived at the spa.  This place is relaxation central.  Even the staff who welcome your arrival are calm.  Everything in time.  The ritual of the spa is so appealing, not only because it's so utterly enjoyable, but because it's so ancient.  Being shown through the spa labyrinth until finally, you are requested to recline on the table, face nested in the cradle, to be transported to another realm.  On a typical day, I sit at my place and focus on detailed stitching.  Result: stiff shoulders and neck.  As soon as she went to work, the stiffness began to wane, and my body took on the consistency of a jelly fish.   The quickest hour ever.   A perfect snow day.

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Look past the thugish cover photo...

This weekend, I was introduced to this recent hit of Chris Medina.  It's uncanny how these sorts of things happen -- and for me, not surprisingly, it's usually through music -- how you are given little gifts at very unlikely times that really bring things into focus.  This song is one of those little gifts.  So seldom does a an entire song text speak directly to you like this.  The context may be different from that of the original artist, but the message is clear.  Despite its overuse, the cliche catch-phrase is true: "When God shuts a door, He opens a window".  Sitting with a group of friends at an outdoor restaurant last Saturday,  Phylis who sat next to me, shared this song that she said had almost immediately become her favorite.  There at that moment, surrounded by these wonderful people, the song came alive: I was where I was meant to be. 

Mondnacht: Moonlit Night

Es war, als hätt' der Himmel,
Die Erde still geküßt,
Daß sie im Blütenschimmer
Von ihm nun träumen müßt.

Die Luft ging durch die Felder,
Die Ähren wogten sacht,
Es rauschten leis die Wälder,
So sternklar war die Nacht.

Und meine Seele spannte
Weit ihre Flügel aus,
Flog durch die stillen Lande,
Als flöge sie nach Haus.

It was as if heaven kissed the earth, that the earth must dream of heaven by the blossoms' glow. The breeze blew through the fields, and the sheaves swayed.  The forests rustled quietly.  The night was so star-clear. and my soul spread out its wings wide, soared through the silent country, as if it were flying home.

This Eichendorff poem is one of my favorites of the German Romantic epoch, and this stunningly beautiful setting of it by Robert Schumann from his Liederkreis cycle brings the text to life.  I've known the poem for years, but the first time I heard it as an artsong decades ago, I recall being utterly mesmerized as if suspended.  The music and text capture you under their hypnotic spell.  Schreier renders this artsong with perfection: not a quiver in his voice.  Smooth, simple, like the moon gliding across the horizon.  It's like a glassy pond: not a single ripple.  I love the final stanza the best.  I equate Eichendorff's words here to the feeling of complete trust and contentment while falling asleep beside the one you love. Complete surrender and rest.  

This is Lutheran?

When I was a kid growing up Lutheran (Missouri Synod) I remember a reverence and other-worldliness about the church service.  We didn't have sanctus bells or incense, but we had everything else.  Then, I'd say around the time the last of the German speaking pastors retired, things really went to pot liturgically.  Things started getting a bit more laid back, casual.  Now, when I see videos from the same parish where I grew up, where my mother still attends, I'm shocked how unconcerned everyone is about reverence in church, respect for the space.  Altar servers wearing shorts and sneakers, ill-fitting albs.  The pastor's vestments look more like a burlap bag tied up with a bit of rope, a wide felt stole around his neck.  The liturgy looks cheap, the clergy and servers unprepared, untrained.  I ask my mom often what the hell happened to the Lutheran liturgy?  Things used to be so fabulous.  Holy day services were feasts for the eyes, the ears, and the soul.  Now, the Divine Liturgy of Easter Sunday is more like an easter egg hunt in a public park set to music.  

And so tonight, I find this video of a church in Tulsa that actually has reclaimed the liturgical heritage of Western Christianity.  Amazing!  This is the type of liturgy I remember as a kid.  Is this a trend within Lutheranism or just a flash in the pan?  The next best thing to this is a good Episcopalian Rite I service, or even a well executed Rite II with the full ceremonial .  There's still something about being home at a Lutheran church though.  I guess until there's a parish that's finally bold enough to reclaim the tradition like Grace Church in Tulsa, I'll remain somewhat in exile at Canterbury.  It's not terrible by any means.  But there's something to be said about one's own faith roots.  And for me, those run deep from the heart of the Reformation, firmly planted with the hammering of the Theses on October 31, 1517.  

Casual Lutheran liturgy, the "come as you are" mentality of worship is a really big turn off.  If we're that pedestrian about our attitude towards worship, what really should we care about the whole salvation thing in general?  That's the message I get from this recent Lutheran casualness.  Call me old fashioned, but I just wasn't raised that way.    If it's church then it needs to be Church.  I can be casual and laid back at home in my PJ's drinking coffee on a Sunday morning watching a decent choir and listening to a self-help sermon from the Chrystal Palace or whatever that mega church is called.  I don't need to get into my car and drive somewhere for that.     

Truly News Of The Weird

Generally when the name Walmart is evoked, the subsequent story is weird, bizarre, or just downright surreal.  And so it is.  I encountered this story this morning while reading through recent Facebook posts.  My music colleague Brian in Rhode Island had found this report.  Strange to the Walmart'th degree, the tale involves a bit of Walton porcelain, or rather the plastic seat atop said porcelain.  

http://www.examiner.com/strange-news-in-national/paramedics-called-to-free-man-super-glued-to-toilet-seat

Now for the elephant in the room. First, shame on the silly school boy who applied gorilla glue to the crapper seat -- but, as an Old Boy myself, I must offer the clever rogue the applicable kudos for not getting caught.  Second, who in his right mind, regardless how dire the situation, should ever have even the most remote scintilla of a fleeting notion actually to sit on a public toilet seat?  I anticipate seeing a version of this 911 call and the victim's delivery to a local emergy room on an upcoming episode of Grey's Anatomy. 

Longhorn: Home of the Thousand Island Caesar

Don't you hate it when you order a Caesar and mid-way through, after you've enjoyed the croutons and the cheesy bits, you discover a second stratum of Thousand Island dressing?  My favorite steak dinner is a moderately sized, rare New York strip, a good Caesar, and a loaded baked potato (or fries if I'm so inclined).  "Drinks?" the waiter asked.  "Do you have any drink specials?" "No." Quite a definitive responder, this guy.  We didn't venture to ask whether that's a final "no" or whether that "no" referred only to this particular night.  It was a hair-parting negatory.  Michelob Ultra on draft.  Low carb beer of course helps justify eating copious amounts of appetizer bread with the whipped buttery substance that accompanies it, although our waiter's first offering of bread was a wire basket containining a solitary heel.  That was a restaurant first.  I had never been presented the obvious remnants of someone else's bread basket before.    Blaine opted for the chopped steak dinner with mash.  My salad arrived without ceremony, actually without any words at all.  The 7' waiter brought out the little bowl, set it in front of me, and walked away.  I was wearing Lagerfeld Jacko that day.  Maybe he was allergic.  I didn't detect an accent, so there was no language barrier.  Did he know about the hidden Thousand Island treasure lurking beneath the surface of my almost anchovie-free salad bowl?  Poor pseudo-Caesar.  Only nominally Julio-Claudean.  The bowl was removed as silently as it was presented.  No questions asked. Yeah, he knew. He must have.   

The decor here was comfortable.  I'd say a cross between the Stanley Hotel and Southfork Ranch.  Texas skilodge meets the Shining.  Comfortable with a bit of an edge and a good dose of Frank Lloyd Wright.  

The menu itself was decent, priced on the high end of moderate.  Unfortunately however, at least on this night, price would not at all determine quality.  The plates arrived.  Blaine's could have been the meat entree from a church basement potluck from the look of things.  A simple Salisbury steak topped with a bit of canned mushroom soup and garnished with nothing less than Durkee Fried Onions.  No doubt there was a naked green bean cassarole shivering in some darkened corner of the kitchen.  Mash from a box, plated with a trowel.  Edible, but more credible on a cardboard tri-sectioned buffet plate.  My strip was nice, the potato was done up well.  Rare was rare.  But on top of the steak was a strange milky substance.  Logical choice: butter, but not really.  It tasted buttery, but wasn't the real McCoy.  Whipped butter substance.  I really didn't complain about it.  It didn't interfer with the taste of my steak.  The potluck plate across the table went well.  Salty, he said, but ok.  Mine: buttery, but ok.  

The silent giant cleared the plates and brought the checks.  I must confess, his tip from me was about as scant as his vocabulary.  And, lest you still be trying inwardly to digest the concept: yes, he actually did bring us a bread heel to start.