The corner store is a New Orleans tradition

Every day, a colorful cast of local characters parades in and out of Singleton’s Po-Boys & Mini Mart, a bustling corner store tucked away on Garfield Street at the foot of the Mississippi River levee. Not one of them leaves without paying his or her respects to Beau Nguyen, Singleton’s personable proprietor.

“We really are a neighborhood store,” says Nguyen, known affectionately to his customers as “Mr. Beau.”  “We know everybody in this area by first name.”

Nguyen has owned and operated Singleton’s since Christmas of 1999. It’s located in the Black Pearl, a small, triangular neighborhood just south of the point where St. Charles meets S. Carrollton avenue. The area takes its name from the predominantly African-American community that first settled there, many of them originally servants following the movement of wealthy residents upriver along St. Charles as New Orleans expanded.

Throughout the latter half of the 20th century, the Black Pearl experienced a period of marked decay. The community lost a sizable chunk of its inhabitants, and nearly all of the neighborhood’s commercial enterprises and corner shops were closed down.

Except for one. Singleton’s is the last corner grocery and kitchen in its neck of the River Bend.

In a city that, perhaps more than any other in America, prides itself on the character and community of its neighborhoods, the corner store holds pride of place. Corner stores, beyond providing basic staples to local residents, act as social nexuses, sites where neighbors congregate to eat, drink, and converse.

“This is a very close-knit neighborhood,” Nguyen says.  “[We’re] just like family.”

Nguyen is no stranger to overcoming hardship himself.  Born in 1961 in Vietnam, he and his family escaped Saigon in 1975, just a week before the fall of the city to North Vietnamese military forces.  Three refugee camps later, the 14-year-old finally arrived in the United States.

After meeting his wife, Laura (another Vietnamese refugee), in 1980 during his first visit to New Orleans, the two married and moved to southern California, where they opened a furniture store. A faltering economy sank Nguyen’s first operation, and forced a relocation back to New Orleans in 1993, where Laura’s family was based. The couple then bought a corner grocery in Gentilly, Will’s Market, where the seeds of their future business success took root.

After a year of financial difficulty, he says, he began looking at the business models of other, more successful stores and noticed a pattern.

“It’s the cooking,” Nguyen says, motioning behind him to his prep station and large, glass-cased food warmer, a 16-year-old holdover from the original Gentilly store. “It’s the food that brings the money in.”

Nguyen installed a kitchen in his store and he and Laura, with little prior cooking experience, quickly learned the tools of the New Orleans culinary trade, mastering one of the city’s most timeless dishes – the po-boy.

Roadblocks surfaced again in 1999 when the Nguyens lost the lease to their building. When they moved to the Black Pearl neighborhood, the couple had a more well-defined idea of their operations – Nguyen began envisioning how he would revise the layout of the establishment upon his first visit to the building.

“There was no window here,” Nguyen says, pointing to the window that now faces Garfield Street at the front of the store.  “It was just really run-down and dirty.”

After completing renovations, the couple opened their new enterprise, which has remained in constant operation ever since – barring an eight-week period of extensive renovation after a tornado strike in early 2007.

These days, Singleton’s is firmly entrenched in the fabric of the Black Pearl neighborhood, a prominent eatery and social spot for residents.

“We watch out for people,” Nguyen says.  “People know we help out a lot.”

That was true after Hurricane Katrina when, astoundingly, Nguyen was able to keep his store open on Monday, Aug. 30, 2015 – the day the storm passed over New Orleans – relying on a generator for power. Singleton’s remained open for more than a week in the anarchic aftermath of the hurricane, providing much-needed necessities to those who had stayed in the city.

“A lot of old folks around here stayed,” Nguyen remembers.  “They didn’t know how hard it would get. So during Katrina I would cook and bring food to them.”  When the water was shut off on Thursday, Nguyen made nightly rounds to the nearby houses, carrying 5-gallon buckets of water to elderly residents.

The food at Singleton’s likely has an equally large stake in the loyal following that has formed around the corner store. Nguyen says that similarities between Cajun and Vietnamese cooking styles helped the couple adapt to the landscape of New Orleans cuisine.

“All the food is well-seasoned,” Nguyen says, speaking both of local Cajun dishes and of the food indigenous to Vietnam.  “You season it overnight – that’s when all the flavors come together.”

In the summertime, recalling a “cook-what-you-grow” ideology from his native Vietnam, Nguyen grows herbs, spices, and a selection of vegetables in a backyard garden, which he uses in his cooking for the store.

“When you get your bowl of pho,” Nguyen says, referring to a popular Vietnamese dish of rice noodles, herbs, and meat served in an all-important piquant broth, “you get a basket of bean sprouts, mint, jalapeño – everything is fresh.”  The popular dish, besides being a spicy Vietnamese staple, is also one of the best cures for a hangover, Nguyen adds with a hearty laugh.

The Vietnamese menu, added a little over a year ago when the Nguyens were trying to increase Saturday business, has wildly increased the store’s popularity.

“The Vietnamese food right now is really hot,” Nguyen says.  “It’s healthy, it’s fresh, and people really like it. Now Saturday is our busiest day.”

This article by Dalton Bender is published as part of a service learning partnership between NolaVie and the students of Dr. Diane Grams' sociology classes at Tulane University.

We Got It Grocery

Other cities and towns have their convenience stores and, of course, major highways boast a variety.There are places with clever names like Stop N Go, 7-Eleven, Kwik Trip, Village Pantry, Fas Mart, Quick Stop - you've probably tried them all.

But how about We Got It grocery, otherwise known as WGI?

If you are unsure what WGI carries, there's a wall mural to show that its inventory includes alcoholic beverages, pizza, subs, milk, soda, candy and Rap Snacks.

Whatever you need, we got it!

New Orleans' Best Fried Porkchop Po-Boy

"This was not a career move for any of the people who helped out, believe me. 
These were neighbors helping me out who wanted to get New Orleans rolling again and po-boys is New Orleans," said Guys owner Marvin Mathern in A Season of Night: New Orleans Life After Katrina by Ian McNulty.

             Just in case you suffer from the misfortune of not being born and raised in New Orleans, I am going to tell you a few thigs about the crown jewel of our local cuisine, the shotgun house of New Orleans eating, the po-boy. 

          By nine months of age the first words out of a baby born in New Orleans are not “Mommy” or “Daddy” contrary to what the parents may tell you.  The first words you’ll hear from little baby Boudreaux are a babbled, drooling version of Domilici’s or Tommy’s or Parkway Bakery.  Whatever the name of their favorite po-boy place is, they can say it.  By a year they can order for themselves jabbering roast beef and gravy, fried shrimp or oysters and, yes, they want it dressed.  And don’t be surprised when you see their fat little fingers grab a bottle of Crystal hot sauce and shake it like nobody’s business.  They know what they want and they know where they want to get it.  And don’t forget the Barq’s root beer in a sippy cup.

            Invented by the Martin Brothers at their coffee stand (no, it wasn’t a Starbucks), in the late twenties during a streetcar worker strike, the po-boy came to life as an inexpensive way to feed the “poor boys” on the picket line.  Years earlier the Martins had themselves worked on the streetcars.  The brothers would throw whatever they had available at the time in between two halves of a loaf of George Leidenheimer’s light as air crusty French bread and feed the hungry streetcar motormen and conductors on the picket line.  Shrimp, oysters, catfish, soft-shell crabs, roast beef and even French fries and ham and cheese covered with lettuce, tomatoes and pickles would feed these “poor boys”.  The coffee stand the Martin Brothers started before the strike grew to a successful restaurant on St Claude Ave by the end of the strike.  Po-boys were the bedrock of the New Orleans diet through the hard times of the Depression years.  A fifteen inch standard po-boy cost ten cents in the thirties.  The brothers split up in the late thirties but both maintained the Martin and Son Poor Boy Bar and Restaurant name in their different locations around the city surviving into the 1970’s.  By that time the po-boy fame had spread far beyond the city of New Orleans.

            Today every self-respecting New Orleanian has their favorite po-boy and favorite place to get it.  An outsider might find it difficult to understand how a po-boy made on the same Leidenheimer’s French bread, dressed with the same tomatoes, lettuce, pickles and mayonnaise, and filled with roast beef, shrimp or oysters can taste different.  But to born and raised New Orleanians, they are as different as night and day.  If you need to kill an afternoon just ask one what the difference is.  They’ll tell you but it’s going to take hours.  New Orleanians don’t answer questions; they tell stories that will cross several generations as well as parish lines.  Should the shrimp be fried or barbecued?  Should the bread come from the Gendusa Bakery or Leidenheimer’s?  Do you put gravy on it or not?  What do you mean dressed or not dressed?  You better open a Dixie and pull up a chair because you aren’t going anywhere for several hours.

            If you don’t have the time to invest in hearing Boudreaux tell you about the po-boys that his father’s mother used to bring him when she would pass by from some long gone po-boy shop, you can just ask me.  I’ll be more than happy to tell you where you can get, without a doubt, the best fried pork chop po-boy, dressed of course, anywhere in New Orleans. 

            When I walk to Guy’s Po-Boys on Magazine Street from my house I walk right past Domilici’s Po-Boys and Bar where there’s always a line coming out the front door and down the sidewalk.  I’ve been there and they make a good po-boy but not as good as Guy’s.  When I walk in Guy’s I’m walking in on family.  Marvin the cook can barely look up from his grill to yell, “Magazine Street Dave.  Where you been at?”  Troy shouts his unique version of my name.  Marvin’s twin sons give me high fives.  I’m in my glory.  I don’t even have to order.  They already know what I want.  And of course I want it dressed.  They know that.  The game is on the funky old TV on top of the soda cooler which is full of Barq’s root beer.  There’s a wall rack next to the cooler full of every kind of Zapp’s chips you can get.  The Formica topped tables hold rolls of paper towels and bottles of Crystal hot sauce.  What else could you need?  Folks shuffle their chairs around until you have a seat.  Everybody sits together at Guy’s.  Rich or poor, black or white, young or old, it doesn’t matter.  We’re family here.  We share the common knowledge of who makes the best po-boys in New Orleans.

            When that fried pork chop po-boy comes over, dressed of course, everybody who isn’t eating is already deep in conversations.  “How’s your Mom and them?  What’s your Daddy doing?  Tell your brother I said to pass by.  What happened with St Aug on Friday night? When are we going fishing?”

          But now it’s time to eat and that requires complete concentration.  Unwrap that baby, put half of it on a paper towel and roll the other half back up.  That’s so it looks like you’re only going to eat half of it and take the other half home for later.  That would be the sensible thing to do but you know it ain’t going to happen.  My entire Saturday has been planned around this po-boy. Anything that had to get done that day is already done. Or as Marvin says, “It got did.”  I carefully shake on the right amount of Crystal hot sauce, take that first bite and sit back with the sun on my back and my friends are all around and laughter is surrounding me and that’s it.  That’s as good as it gets.  

            An hour later I finish that second half off.  I push back my chair and try to breathe.  My eyes are glazed over and the world is perfect.

          I tell everybody I’m heading home.  It comes out as a mumble.  My brain is already starting to numb.  I swagger home, across the street and down the block. I greet my wife at the door. She just rolls her eyes and mutters something about something.  My hearing has already shut down.  My dog is waiting for me and we walk back to the bedroom.  He knows the routine.  After eating one of Marvin’s miracles, my full size fried pork chop po-boy, dressed of course, there is only one thing I can do.  Sleep is calling me and I answer yes.  I turn off the lights.  I turn off my cell phone.  I climb in to bed and fall in to a three hour New Orleans po-boy induced coma.  I’m smiling.  I live in New Orleans. 

Everything else will have to wait.

By Dave Holt

Sweet potato pies a staple

In how many cities can you find homemade sweet potato and/or pecan pies wrapped for sale at the checkout stands? That is, not to mention homemade pralines - but that goes without saying.

I can't describe how wonderful it is to take one of those goodies home and eat it for breakfast or dinner dessert or snack. I don't even think they're that unhealthy. Probably no preservatives. Sure beats a Twinkie.

We've had Hubig pies at checkout until recently when the factory burned down. They'll be back.

New Orleans goes bananas

Local and tastier bananas on the way to New Orleans markets

 By Judy Walker, The Times-Picayune 

"I can't wait to eat local bananas," Stephanie Tortu said recently while shopping at the Saturday Crescent City Farmers Market. She should be able to in November next year.

Brett Duke/The Times-PicayuneBetty DiMarco and Robbie Robertson, center, talk with grower Heather Robertson, left, and Elisa Munoz talk about bananas at a Crescent City Farmers Market booth.

Although New Orleanians have grown bananas in their backyards for decades, there are no local ones at the farmers markets. Small ornamental backyard bananas are not edible, and the larger, edible types may not be sweet enough for anything but cooking. Besides, many homeowners just want to control the steady spread of banana plants, not eat the fruit.

But better bananas are on the way. The CCFM has gotten a grant to help local farmers grow about a half-dozen varieties that will be tastier and more acclimated to local conditions. Some of these will to find their way into backyards as well.

Richard McCarthy, www.Marketumbrella.com executive director, said the market was given about $20,000 in a Specialty Crop Block Grant from the Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry. The money will pay half the cost of putting in the bananas "to reduce the risk for farmers who venture into the unknown: growing bananas for consumers who've long demanded them," he said.

Bringing local bananas to the market would be a win-win, McCarthy explained. Shoppers have asked for them since the markets opened years ago. And the crop ripens in the relatively fruit-free month of November, when summer fruits have finished their season and before winter citrus crops arrive.

"I think there's a growing interesting in different varieties," McCarthy said. He points to Heather Robertson as a daring grower. Robertson, with her husband, Dale, grows strawberries in Ponchatoula on 15 acres named Johndale's Farm. They have added blueberries and now, bananas. ("We have fruit salad," Robertson quipped.)

They put in 30 banana plants in late April in spots where they can't plant other crops, along a canal off the Tangiapahoa River that flows through their property. The variety they have planted are orinocos, a cooking banana. Johndale's grows several strawberry varieties, and she would like to have additional bananas varieties as well.

"We can see which ones work best for our climate," she said, "and bring them to market to let people see for themselves" which ones they prefer.

Brett Duke/The Times-PicayuneHeather Robertson of Johndale's Farm in Ponchatoula has added bananas to their strawberry and blueberry plants

Robertson appeared at a recent Saturday market to staff a booth about the project, which included a display of a banana bunch (from market director Emery Van Hook's back yard) as well as black and green plantains, finger bananas and bananas from the supermarket. Best of all were the banana paletas, or ice pops, from vendor Amanda's Frozen Fruit Bars in Folsom.

Robertson was unsure about the young bananas at first, she said, but they're beautiful now.

"We won't pick these this year; they're still too young yet. But I feel confident we'll pick them next November," she said. Banana trees must make it through a winter in order to flower and set fruit, the distinctive bunches that hang from the trees.

If freezes occur, Robertson said, they will cover or wrap the plants in the same agricultural cloth they use to cover strawberries.

Robertson got the young bananas from Glen Stokes at Stokes Tropicals in Jeanerette, and she and her husband have gotten lots of information from him about growing. Stokes and Lester L'Hoste, known for his certified organic citrus farm in Braithwaite, are consulting on the project. L'Hoste has researched bananas for decades, McCarthy said, and is the author of the book "Bananas You Can Grow."

Shoppers Jim Gabour and Faun Fenderson grow the orinocos variety in their Marigny back yard, along with papayas, guavas and Mexican limes. The oronocos have vanilla and lemon undertones, Gabour said. They make a salad of green ones peeled, boiled, then tossed with olive oil and dill.

For the past dozen or so years, Brian Zeringue has grown Blue Java, Raja Puri and other banana varieties at his home in Jeanerette.

"The Blue Java is delicious, the best banana I've ever eaten, with an apple or pear taste," Zeringue said. "Raja Puri is an Indian banana."

Although the farmers in the project will be growing them in grove-like conditions, Zeringue has advice for those who want to grow bananas in urban conditions: Don't plant them near your house.

"When bananas start to ripen, the raccoons and possums can smell them. They climbed up on my house to jump on the bananas, and were tearing up the soffit and fascia. So I cut the bananas down and hung them up on my patio" where the crittters destroyed hibiscus and other decorative plants trying to get at the bananas.

So Zeringue hung the banana bunch in his wash shed.

"They actually scratched a hole into the door of the wash shed," Zeringue said. "What an aggravation."

But, he says, "After you grow your own and eat them, a store-bought banana tastes like pap. It's well worth the trouble."

••••••••

You will need a set of freezer pop molds to make this dessert from the Eating Well test kitchen. You can add chocolate chips or mini chocolate chips if you like.

Banana Pudding Pops

Makes 10

1/3 cup light brown sugar

2 tablespoons cornstarch

Salt

2 cups low-fat milk

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

2 cups diced bananas (about 2 large)

Whisk sugar, cornstarch and salt in a large saucepan. Add milk and whisk until combined. Bring to a boil over medium heat, whisking occasionally. Boil, whisking constantly, for 1 minute. Remove from the heat and stir in vanilla.

Put about half the pudding in a food processor or blender and add bananas. Process until smooth. (Use caution when pureeing hot liquids.) Stir the mixture back into the remaining pudding.

Divide the mixture among freezer-pop molds. Insert the sticks and freeze until completely firm, about 6 hours. Dip the molds briefly in hot water before unmolding.

••••••••

Dickie Brennan's Steakhouse in the French Quarter melds the two quintessential desserts of New Orleans.

Bananas Foster Bread Pudding

Makes 6 to 8 servings

2 loaves French bread, each 12 inches long

2 cups heavy cream

3/4 cup whole milk

3/4 cup sugar

1-1/2 cups light brown sugar

6 egg yolks

1-1/2 large bananas, diced

1/2 cup rum

1/4 teaspoon ground cinnamon

2 teaspoons vanilla extract

Fresh mint for garnish

Slice French bread and dry in a 200-degree oven for 20 minutes. Combine remaining pudding ingredients in a large bowl and blend well with a hand mixer. Thinly slice dried French bread and place in an 8- by 8-inch pan. Pour pudding into pan and mush all bread by hand so that the liquid is absorbed and the bread becomes very soggy. Be sure to flatten all of the lumps.

Preheat oven to 300 degrees. Cover pan with foil and bake for 2-1/2 hours, or until a skewer inserted in the center of the pudding comes out dry. Remove foil and bake for an additional 20 minutes, or until golden brown. Set aside to cool.

Foster Sauce

2-1/4 cups unsalted butter

2-1/4 cups packed dark brown sugar

1-1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon

1 cup golden rum

1 cup banana liqueur

4 bananas, sliced lengthwise and in half

Melt butter in a saucepot. Add the brown sugar and cinnamon and mix well. Add the rum and ignite. Allow the flames to subside. Then, stir in the banana liqueur. Add fresh bananas and simmer over medium heat for about 2 minutes or until the sauce coats the spoon.

To Serve: Cut bread pudding into 3-1/2 inch squares. Top warm bread pudding with Foster sauce and garnish with mint leaves

••••••••

This frozen yogurt recipe is from Cooking Light. Use less sugar or a sugar substitute if you wish, and/or substitute coconut milk for the milk.

Mango-Banana Frozen Yogurt

1 cup sliced ripe banana

3/4 cup chopped peeled mango

1/3 cup orange juice

3 tablespoons fresh lime juice

1-1/2 cups 2% low-fat milk

3/4 cup sugar

1 (16-ounce) carton vanilla low-fat yogurt

Combine first 4 ingredients in a blender; process until smooth. Combine banana mixture and remaining ingredients in a large bowl; stir well with a whisk.

Pour mixture into the freezer can of an ice-cream freezer; freeze according to manufacturer's instructions. Spoon into a freezer-safe container; cover and freeze (ripen) at least 1 hour.

••••••••

Heather Robertson got this slightly different take on banana pudding from a cousin. All ingredients except the bananas come in low-fat versions (and bananas are naturally low in fat). You could substitute whipped cream for the Cool Whip if you wish.

Robertson said she always doubles the recipe "because there are a lot of us."

Cheryl's Banana Pudding

1 small (size) package instant vanilla pudding

1 (8-ounce) block cream cheese, softened

1 14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk

1 (12-ounce) container non-dairy whipped topping

Vanilla wafers

Bananas, sliced

Make the vanilla pudding according to package directions. In a large bowl combine cream cheese, sweetened condensed milk and Cool Whip.

In a large serving container, layer vanilla wafers, bananas, pudding and the cream cheese mixture. Repeat layering until pan is full. Try to end up with the cream cheese mixture on top.

••••••••

Banana pancakes are a New Orleans favorite. This recipe for them came from the Barefoot Contessa, Ina Garten.

Banana Sour Cream Pancakes

Makes 12 pancakes

1-1/2 cups flour

3 tablespoons sugar

2 teaspoons baking powder

1-1/2 teaspoons kosher salt

1/2 cup sour cream

3/4 cup plus 1 tablespoon milk

2 extra-large eggs

1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract

1 teaspoon grated lemon zest

Unsalted butter

2 ripe bananas, diced, plus extra for serving

Pure maple syrup

Sift together flour, sugar, baking powder and salt. In a separate bowl, whisk together the sour cream, milk, eggs, vanilla and lemon zest. Add wet ingredients to the dry ones, mixing only until combined.

Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat until it bubbles. Ladle the pancake batter into the pan to make 3 or 4 pancakes. Distribute a rounded tablespoon of bananas on each pancake. Cook for 2 to 3 minutes, until bubbles appear on top and the underside is nicely browned. Flip the pancakes and then cook for another minute until browned. Wipe out the pan with a paper towel, add more butter to the pan, and continue cooking pancakes until all the batter is used. Serve with sliced bananas, butter and maple syrup.

© 2012 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

Leah Chase compares journalism to cooking

Chef Leah Chase on life, art and NOLA

 By Letters to the Editor 

I thank you for including me and our family restaurant, Dooky Chase, within the pages that celebrate the 175-year history of The Times-Picayune and Gustave Blache III's artistic rendering of me on the paper's Feb. 8 front page. You and I have in common many things.

View full sizeThe National Gallery portrait of chef Leah Chase, ‘Cutting Squash,’ by Gustave Blache III.

I have always prepared my mind to read the world as it is, but visualize it as it could be, a magnificently beautiful place. A world that appreciates art appreciates the unlimited potential of humankind. I push every day in the culinary arts as you, too, do in professional journalism to achieve the highest professional and artistic potential. However, as in the world also in metropolitan New Orleans, a competition exists between negative cultural influences and positive family influences on our children and on our work effort that concerns us both.

Sometimes, frustration sets in, the frustration that comes with the feeling that we are not moving fast enough to change things for the better. Sitll, working hard, doing for others and daily prayers, just being positive about life and being alive to tell about it and see it unfold before our eyes, always wins out and keeps us going.

I love New Orleans. I love its openness and the diversity of its people who seemed to have in common with me a joy of just being alive. I love the intermingling of different races and ethnicities of people, the different languages (seldom the King's English) Creoles, Cajuns and others speak, and the fact that rich and poor do not separate themselves, that much, one from another. From my daily readings of The Times-Picayune, you seem throughout your history to like those things, too. However, both you and I are well aware of negative cultural influences that life in New Orleans does have on children. You work hard to portray that objectively and inspire us all to change and improve as I say, "by investing in the artistic excellence of people and in the education of neighborhood kids.''

Like you, I am determined to shelter children from all that is negative, yet to prepare them to deal with the real world and to develop in them a strong commitment to community, family and quality. The measure of our successes is not whether any of us (your editors, staff writers, workers and me) achieve fame or wealth in life, but whether we truly understand what it means to love and be part of one united family, one community striving to get better.

Over the years that each of us has been alive, your paper for over 175 years reporting history and me for nearly 90 just watching and reading about it, we each have come to realize that our rich cultural heritage is not focused at all on the price of things but on their artistic value.

I truly appreciate your professional reporting of Our Times, as we strive to grow and develop the New Orleans metropolitan area into that magnificently beautiful place we can one day become.

Leah Chase

New Orleans

© 2012 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

Best po-boy a highly contested topic

Johnny's serves up a delicious roast beef po-boy in the Quarter

 By Brett Anderson, The Times-Picayune 

Of the many camps that form the diverse Nation of Roast Beef Po-boy Connoisseurs, no two would appear to be more at odds than the toasted bread adherents and those who demand their bread as God/Leidenheimer intended/delivered it.

EnlargeDavid Grunfeld, The Times-PicayuneDAVID GRUNFELD / THE TIMES-PICAYUNE Johnny's roast beef po-boy at 511 St. Louis Street, New Orleans Monday December 26, 2011. $13,500 doesn’t sound like a lot of money today. But on June 30th, 1950 it was enough to buy the building at 511 St. Louis St. in New Orleans by Johnny and Betty De Grusha.Johnny's roast beef po-boy gallery (14 photos)

The battle lines were drawn in the comments section of a po-boy dispatch published this month on NOLA.com. “Toasted bread? It’s not a po-boy,” wrote “royrogers,” although he loosened the grip on that staunch position in a later post.

Another commenter, “slophry,” stuck harder to his/her guns, arguing that “toasted French bread is going to act different than non-toasted French bread,” particularly in the way it reacts to “the gravy and juices … I prefer a soft French bread over a crispy French bread especially for the roast beef. I love it when the bread gets soaked in the gravy. Point being that toasting the bread will result in a different experience over non-toasted bread.”

Slophry essentially makes an argument opposite to those proffered by members of the camp where I pitch my tent — a place that, thanks to the comparative resilience of toasted bread, requires a fraction of the number of napkins as its rival. In a nutshell, toasted bread fans like a sandwich that stands a chance of holding its shape to the last bite. For untoasted fans, sloppiness is pretty much the point of a roast beef po-boy.

JOHNNY'S PO-BOYS

• Where it's at: 511 St. Louis St., New Orleans, 504.524.8129
• Claim to fame: Johnny’s is a living link to the French Quarter’s blue collar past, a raucous breakfast-lunch hall that dates to the Truman administration.
• Brett Anderson’s take: Johnny’s roast beef po-boy is Switzerland in a form of a shape-shifting sandwich: the po-boy adherents of both toasted and untoasted French bread can agree on.
• The search for the perfect roast beef po-boy: See the full list of restaurants reviewed on our-five-month taste test.

All of which brings us to Johnny’s Po-Boys, the raucous, 60-some year-old breakfast-and-lunch hall. If there’s a better po-boy shop in the French Quarter, I haven’t been to it.

Johnny’s roast beef po-boys are, according to general manager (and grandson-in-law of founder Johnny De Grusha) Mike Cancienne, built from meat slow-boiled with garlic, black pepper, onions, bell pepper and celery, “kind of like you do with your crawfish or your crabs, so it takes on all that flavor.”

After it’s done, the beef is left to soak in a pot of gravy in the open kitchen behind the counter, waiting to be plucked by tongs. It’s delicious.

Johnny’s kitchen staff will gladly griddle-toast the Leidenheimer bread for your roast beef po-boy if you ask, but people who don’t specify receive their sandwich on untoasted loaves, which is how I tried mine. Shake your head no when asked whether your order is to go. It means your sandwich will be served on a plate, not steaming inside a cocoon of butcher paper.

The first half is a reminder that fresh po-boy bread can be crisp-skinned and sturdy, even untoasted. Because it has had longer to soak up the gravy, the second half comes closer to slophry’s messy ideal. The sum total is the best of both worlds, Switzerland in the shape-shifting form of a roast beef po-boy, a sandwich two opposing camps in the N.R.B.P.C. should be able to agree on.

© 2011 NOLA.com. All rights reserved.

Food is minister's mission

Minister close to finishing quest to sample every restaurant

 By Doug MacCash, The Times-Picayune 

Minister Ray Cannata’s mission is almost complete. Four years ago he set out to eat at every restaurant in New Orleans. By mid-September, he’d already checked 719 eateries off his list and only had 10 meals to go before the ceremonial conclusion of his quest on Oct. 21, when he’ll have dined in 729 establishments.

MATTHEW HINTON / THE TIMES-PICAYUNERay Cannata is a Presbyterian minister who has dedicated himself to eating in every New Orleans restaurant including Cafe Nero in the Marigny in New Orleans, where he's seen checking out "Not Yo Mama's Cornbread."

That last meal will be a celebratory steak-house dinner he refers to as “the last supper.” Which is an interesting choice of words considering that Cannata, a 42-year-old with mutton-chop sideburns and not nearly the belt size you’d expect for someone with his hobby, is a Presbyterian minister.

Here’s the back story in fast-forward. Cannata, who grew up in New York, says he got the calling from God while in college, later attended the seminary at Princeton University and then set out for a career in the ministry. Within a decade, he was pastor of a thriving suburban New Jersey church with 300 dedicated parishioners and working on his doctorate degree. It was a success story. The downside, he said, was the dullness. Then, Cannata said, a New Orleans minister called, hoping to interest him in taking over a modest church on St. Charles Avenue with only a few dozen members. What the heck; it was worth a look. As so often happens, Cannata and his wife, Kathy, a school librarian, instantly succumbed to that old Crescent City magic. It didn’t hurt that Kathy’s father was originally from New Orleans. This was summer 2005. Before the couple could pay a second visit to their possible new home, their possible new home was battered by Hurricane Katrina and swamped by floodwater.

Reverend Ray Cannata attempts to eat at every New Orleans restaurantThe Reverend Ray Cannata of is on a mission to eat in every New Orleans restaurant. Cannata, of Redeemer Presbyterian church plans to complete his quest in October 2011 when he dines in restaurant 729. Visit with Cannata via video as he tours the city, commenting about his dining discoveries from the best to the worst. Cannata will be featured in a full length documentary titled "The Man Who Ate New Orleans." Look for a detailed story in the Living section of the Sept. 27 Times-Picayune newspaper and on NOLA.com

It looked like the move was off. After all, Cannata already had gotten another attractive job offer in sunny San Diego.

But, as Cannata explains, “Christianity isn’t supposed to be about moving away from the pain; it’s supposed to be about moving toward the pain.” And there was plenty of pain in New Orleans in winter 2006, when Cannata bought an Uptown shotgun house for his family — he and Kathy have two kids — and dove into Redeemer Presbyterian, his new New Orleans church with fewer than 20 members.

“God loves an underdog,” Cannata said of the congregation’s struggle to rebound.

Though angst was in abundant supply, Cannata was buoyant; he felt he’d found the place he belonged. At Tipitina’s one night, in the defiant blare of the Rebirth Brass Band, Cannata remembers saying to himself, “I’m never ever leaving.”

In addition to helping steady the post-Katrina congregation, he also pitched in on rebuilding his adopted city. Here’s where we get back to the restaurant quest. As Cannata explains, he had a steady stream of Presbyterian missionaries coming to town to help repair damaged homes — he says they’ve worked on 500.

And when dinner time came, those missionaries, who’d been swinging hammers all day, wanted to know where to get some of that great New Orleans food. To help offer a broad range of dining options, Cannata began keeping a list of his favorite spots. Week after week as the city began to rebound and he added restaurants, the list just seemed to take on a life of its own.

When someone casually suggested that Cannata continue until he’d eaten everywhere, a quest was born. Naturally, Crescent City natives who heard of Cannata’s goal volunteered restaurants recommendation to the snowballing list. “To love the people in New Orleans,” Cannata said, “you have to love the food.”

But maybe not all the food. To keep the number of dining establishments from becoming too daunting, it was necessary to impose certain criteria. First, he decided to confine his self-imposed challenge to Orleans Parish. To further thin the herd, he excluded national chains. To distinguish real restaurants from saloons, he declared that every eatery on the list had to have more chairs at tables than at the bar. Finally, a meal doesn’t count if he eats alone, Cannata said with a laugh, because “that’s just binging.”

The total number of New Orleans restaurants is a moving target, of course. Weekly, some open and some close. “To be honest,” he said, “I may have missed one or two.” But Cannata has been as thorough as possible. Needless to say, his can be an expensive hobby, so he sticks to lunches when possible. He’s begun writing a book about his dining adventure.

The pinnacle of his culinary quest, he said, was the 11-course feast served at the special table in the kitchen of Commander’s Palace on his 20th wedding anniversary. He was a bit chagrined, he said, at not finishing the dessert course. The waiter reassured him, however, that no one does. The portions in New Orleans, Cannata has found, are customarily large. He theorizes that, in the Crescent City, serving size is based on lavish hospitality, not profit.

Too much high-calorie hospitality could be a waistline hazard, of course, so Cannata always leaves a bite or two behind. Though he initially gained weight as he checked restaurants off his list, he’s since dropped the extra pounds by abstaining from soft drinks and giving up his car. As if Cannata didn’t already have enough on his plate, so to speak, he’s become a champion of the pedestrian-friendly New Urbanist ideals that, to some extent, have helped shape post-Katrina New Orleans. The energetic pastor was — until last month — the president of the Audubon Riverside neighborhood association.

Naturally, there have been culinary disappointments. Cannata said the bottom rung of Crescent City cuisine may have been the burned pork chop he was once served that, oddly, was still frozen in the center. Worse yet was the roast beef sandwich with the slices of meat that glistened with an unhealthy oily sheen and the suspiciously colored mayonnaise. “I’ve had some terrible meals,” he said, “but no regrets.” Except maybe that he has trouble finding time to revisit restaurants he really likes.

On a recent outing, Cannata checked out the elegant lunch restaurant at the New Orleans Museum of Art, where he found the soup and grilled sandwich to be most satisfactory. He declined a spiced pecan from a pear-and-bacon salad because of his allergy to nuts, which is one of his few eating impediments. He also confessed to a hot-dog phobia that can be problematic when, say, dining at a hot-dog restaurant. And he doesn’t much like green peppers — he picks them out when possible.

These days, when Cannata unfurls a napkin and takes up a new menu, there’s liable to be a documentary movie crew capturing the moment. One of those house rebuilding missionaries, Michael Dunaway, turned out to be a filmmaker who took an interest in Cannata’s quest.

What was going to be a short video subject has morphed into a full-blown 90-minute documentary movie titled “The Man Who Ate New Orleans,” complete with a cast of Crescent City celebrity chefs. The “Last Supper” will be the climax of the movie that may be shown by fall 2012. Proceeds from the film will benefit the ongoing post-Katrina rebuilding effort, Cannata said.

The membership of Cannata’s congregation has grown to 160 on Sundays, and he says he’s never been happier. He considers his quest to conquer New Orleans’ restaurants as perfectly compatible with his faith. Food is central to many of the Bible’s teachings, he says. “I’m just doing what God wants me to; I’m eating a lot.”

Doug MacCash can be reached at dmaccash@timespicayune.com or 504.826.3481. Follow him at dougmaccashTP on Twitter.

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