Mesa Visited: Some Don't Like it Hot



Emerill Legasse might have coined the cooking phrase "kick it up a notch" (add some spice!) but Bobby Flay is the one who took real southwestern 'heat' into the mainstream by adding chipotle,

habernero, jalapeño, and general spicy rubs to virtually every dish on his menus. Knowing this set-up makes it a curious challenge to purposefully take your family to the number one heat factory in NYC, Mesa Grill: you know what's coming, but you still hold out hope that some of the food is edible for kiddies.

That was just barely, by the skin of a red hot chili pepper, the case for us.  The humor started when we arrived.  The anticipation in waiting to see how we were going to damage our tongues reached a high pitched fever.

I was the hottest of the five of us to try Mesa in the first place, but because of the sinus cold of the decade that I was carrying around, I was also the only one who couldn't really taste anything.  Bobby could have poured formaldehyde over my lamb chop and I might have remarked on the 'fine texture' of the medium rare preparation.  Jan thought the plate of the night, Spice Rubbed Bison Strip Loin, was the way to go, with "Corn Ancho-chile sauce + Crispy Red Onions."  She sat next to a fire extinguisher in case of a flare-up.

Abby tried to get off easy by ordering an appetizer, Blue Corn Smoked Shrimp Tacos, with "Tomatillo, Avocado, Pickled Red Onions, Habernero + Fennel Relish."  Mini-flames encased in hard shells.  Julia, normally a steak-kid, thought the ingredients description for her Cremini Mushroom Quesadillas, a simple "Fontina, Ricotta Fried Egg + Salsa Verde," wouldn't hurt her too badly, but this wasn't case.  The green salsa verde over the top was so hot it brought tears to her eyes, she quickly made a swap for 'rubbed' bison, and swore off Flay for life.  Carly, our unknowing luckster, chose the kid cheeseburger with hamburger + cheese, no rubs.  The four of them flew around the table to the

burger like starving hawks.  As they all went on to claim that it was the best cheeseburger they had ever had, I was drinking a chipotle infused Rogue Ale that I couldn't taste, but was pretty sure it should have been good.

Our Favorite Croatian



There were two of them, one peddling us through Central Park in the rain in a covered pedicab,

and another, two days before, working on tables in the bar at Delmonicos on a day the restaurant was closed, but our favorite Croatian we met in NYC definitely had to have been at the restaurant.  It was sunday and we were on our guided tour of the Revolutionary War in lower Manhattan starting at City Hall Park, onto St. Paul's Chapel (oldest chapel in Manhattan, same block as 9/11 site),

and down into the financial district near Wall St. where George Washington gave his inaugural speech at Federal Hall in 1789.

A few more blocks towards the East River and we ran across Beaver street, which looked familiar from my reading of Dining at Delmonico's: The Story of America's Oldest Restaurant, so I asked our tour guide if we were close.  She said yes, only a block away, and it's right on our way to Fraunces Tavern,

our last stop, and sight of Washington's farewell address to his troops.  The Delmonicos corner building was clearly being worked on as so many NYC buildings are, full of scaffolding and iron,

yet the very front entry was still beautiful and in tact...only one problem, the door was closed so we couldn't simply peek in and take a quick picture.  Debby, in the pic on the left, suggested we just

come back on wednesday before we visit the Statue of Liberty.  As we were about to leave to Fraunces a guy with a carpenter's work shirt came up to us and asked if we'd like to take a look around inside, that it was closed today, totally empty, but the lights were on because he was working in the bar inside.  It turned out the man was the brother-in-law of the current owner of Croatian heritage by the name of Dennis Turcinovic, the same guy I had just read about in the Delmonico's book a few days before we left on our trip.  We walked into the oldest restaurant in America, fully lit, by ourselves.  We walked around and into the bar taking a few pics and when we left our

favorite Croatian left with us and locked the door!  That night, at the motel room, we went out onto Open Table online dinner reservations and got a table for two nights later.  Abby tried the Lobster Newburg, a dish that was actually invented at Delmonicos back in the 1880's, Jan and I the world famous Delmonico's steak, Julia the filet and Carly mac and cheese with a few dashes of crab in it.  The spirit of Delmonicos was with us as we all agreed this was the best steak any of us had ever had.

Revere Shoulda Stayed Home that Night



The American Revolutionary War holds out for us any number of symbolic events that we now claim as parts of our story of separation from the British Empire.  If the end of the revolution might be symbolized by George Washington's inauguration

as our first president in 1789 at Federal Hall New York City (lower Manhattan, not far from Wall St.), the beginning is often symbolized as Paul Revere's ride

in 1775 from the city of Boston and into the roads to Lexington and Concord warning the country people that "the Regulars are coming."  Reading Bunker Hill: A City, A Siege, A Revolution by Nathanial Philbreck, though, it's surprising to find out at least two things about the very initial hours of our Revolution.  The first is that Paul Revere

never should have been called upon to alarm the countryside, and the second is that the very first shots at Lexington – the very shots necessary to turn a cold war hot – were essentially aimless and accidental.  The Revolutionaries, led most prominently by the trio of John Hancock, Samuel Adams and Dr. Joseph Warren, had in April resolved a policy order which said that no military alarm should be called in these state of affairs unless a particular column of British Army is "equipped with baggage and artillery before it constituted a threat to the province.  Congress had also determined that a vote of five members of the Committee of Safety was required before the alarm could be sounded."  The British army

that headed that day inland (eventually Concord) wasn't large enough and wasn't carrying

artillery; Joseph Warrren, upon hearing of the gathering army, chose not to meet with his fellow committeemen, but instead without consent "called for Revere and directed him to row across the harbor for Charlestown." Ironically, "Even before the regulars had arrived in the marshes of Cambridge and set out for Concord, the alarm was being sounded in towns to the west and north of Boston."   American militia had used similar networks to alarm the countryside in the past, and a British army had gathered and were traveling to what might be guessed at as gunpowder stockpiles in Concord, but Revere officially should have stayed home that night and the first shots at Lexington Green would not have happened.  The subtle point the author tries to make is that certain revolutionaries were simply hotter on war than others and that they would need an instigating act at some point or the British Army could continue on literally planning and devising directly under the noses of the Patriots.  Some have speculated that Warrren that day had some secret messenger that told him of the marching soldiers' true intentions; others that he was extremely personally ambitious and frankly craved a war to lead (before the famous Battle of Bunker Hill he would become a civilian Major General, only to die days later at the famous Boston Battle).

The Flame, Flying Carp or Mesa Grill?




You wonder if the NYTimes restaurant reviewer Frank Bruni is a bit spoiled by the surrounding 18,000-(actual number) some eating establishments of New York when he decides to take to task Bobby Flay's Mesa Grill

for "three slivers of chicken in the appetizer tacos...among the most shriveled, desiccated pieces of meat I've seen outside of a bodega buffet at 3 a.m.  No measure of nifty peanut-thickened, chili-spiked barbecue sauce with them could save the day."  Or "a cauliflower gratin...wetter than bisque on a first try, nearly as dry as gravel on a second one."  Bruni goes on to labor on the point that some celebrity chef restaurants can be run well and with continued high quality with the celebrity absent, but that

Mesa, since its opening in the Flatiron District in 1991 has clearly lost some of its festive zest

as Flay has spread himself thin over more and more cookbook ventures, nine and counting food TV shows and other restaurants branding his name in Vegas, the Bahamas, and Atlantic City.  I'm betting that when we are there for our first night in NYC that even though the place will be way too loud, the food – despite a bad sliver of chicken here or there – will be at such a high level of quality compared to what we are used to, it will be awesome.

In the last week, we had a chance to eat out twice here in La Crosse – Pogreba's on the north side

of town and Buzzard Billy's downtown.  We were reminded of how lucky we are to have these two places here in town.  One brief look at the outside of Pogreba's on Clinton street, and you'd never know that this is very possibly the most cozily stylish restaurant in town.  Stain glass windows compliment the bold flame in the center of the restaurant, rounded off by a neat dark balcony above and bar below offering taps of craft beer like Left Hand's Milk Stout Nitro (Nitro for nitrogenation, like the foam on Guinness, not glycerin, like blow up in your mouth).

Jan's Grouper as well as my seafood trio were all well done and not so over-seasoned you feel like you might break out in hives somewhere.  It's quiet and low profile.  Not so quiet, but similarly unique is the by now familiar but still cutting edge Buzzard Billy's.

They have managed to make the same great Jamaican jerk chicken sandwich, hushpuppy and jambalaya

recipes as when they opened and brought then what many thought the freshest (Cajun) concept to an otherwise mostly midwest cuisine town.  We're lucky to have these two places. Along with maybe a handful of other really authentic quality restaurants in the Coulee Region, I hope they stick around for a long time.  But I'm going out on a cactus limb – and hope to review in NY – that the gripes from Frank on Mesa are relative ones. If a Mesa was here in town, it might serve as more than fair competition to the Flame and Flying Carp.

Squidgy and Soft as a Baby's Bottom




I found out one more time this past sunday that the one true way to a woman's heart is...well-cooked eggs.  That is if they are done in the form of a ham and cheese omelet.  On a Sunday morning.  At the cabin.  Helps if it's been sunny and nice outside.  Good sleep counts.  Now on my four hundred and twenty-ninth attempt, I think I mastered the Jan-Happy Omelet.  For me, it came down to using the wrong pan and accidental ingredients, but really the beauty of a good egg shouldn't be overlooked.  One of the great, world-renown chefs of the last fifty years, Micheal Roux,

who has been cooking French along the River Thames at the 3-Star Michelin Waterside Inn near

Windsor England since 1972, helps us in his book Eggs to think about the egg as a lovable ingredient. "Eggs have always fascinated me.  I love their oval, sometimes elongated shape, the purity of their lines, and the tint of their shells...When I hold an egg in my hand, I feel that it represents the image

of the universe, and it awakens and increases my respect for life."  I might not have had the universe in mind Sunday, but it was about time to capture, for once, a thin, soft, pale, (not brown) moist, seasoned but not spicy, well-stuffed and folded omelet.

The pan I used was our old stand-by extra large, but because it was warped upwards in the middle, in the beginning all the egg drained down along the outside edges, creating an egg ring.  I was doomed.  A hole in the middle of your 'universe' omelet does not win you brownie points on the ground, so to speak.  I continued to spatula the eggs inward at low heat so that the surface would not brown – a brown, holed omelet is even worse – and it eventually worked.  Ten minutes later, after adding cubed cooked ham and a cracked pepper white snacking cheese left from the day before, a heroic egg 'flip,' I had what Roux calls the definition of a perfect omelet, 'just a touch of color; delicate to touch, squidgy, and soft as a baby's bottom.'  The three-egger was devoured quickly and without ketchup, the omelet cook's greatest compliment.