Writer documenting life in New Orleans 9th Ward. I'm eating 500 po boys at 500 different restaurants, gas stations, corner stores and cafes in New Orleans
The backbone of my kitchen is homemade stock. It’s what makes the difference between a decent enough cook and a deadly serious one. If you’re willing to take the time to make homemade stock you can seriously up your game in the kitchen.
I make two basic stocks: Chicken and Pork. Beef stock is another beast entirely. Easy enough to make in a professional kitchen but quite a difficult road to walk down in a normal home kitchen.
While I also enjoy making chicken stock from time to time, this formula relates to pork stock.
Louisiana is gravy country Kentucky is gravy country. Texas is gravy country.
As you traverse the upper end of the South, make your way down into Dixie and then head out west to the Great State, you’ll find dozens of regional variations on this simple, humble sauce. We pour it over our chicken fried steak, we fry up Jimmy Dean sausage and make a gravy that’s perfect for our biscuits; and a bowl of mashed potatoes served without gravy? That might just find the cook on the business end of a rusty shank. Gravy is serious business.
Scheduling a po boy lunch in downtown New Orleans on the first major Carnival weekend was not one of our more savvy moves. After circling through and around the Central Business District for a half hour we finally found a parking place. Somewhere near Lake Pontchartrain.
RL Reeves Jr visits Singleton’s Mini Mart in New Orleans
The exodus started in spring 1975.
Following the fall of Saigon to the Communist North Vietnamese, 130,000 refugees were evacuated from South Vietnam.
Operation Frequent Wind, the largest boat and air lift in refugee history was a rousing success that would lead to 1.4 million Vietnamese émigrés resettling in the United States between 1975 and 1994.
rl reeves jr is eating 500 po boys in southeast Louisiana
People who live on the East Bank of the Mississippi River in New Orleans love to denigrate folks who’ve settled down on the western side of the Big Muddy. We’re not sure why. We love driving onto the ferry in nearby Chalmette for a day excursion to Harvey or as we are fond of calling it “Cosmopolite City.”
There’s nothing particulary cosmopolitan about scruffy little Harvey, a so-called “census designated place,” that is little more than a seemingly endless run of welding shops, muffler repair joints, and the occasional run-down thrift store.
But back when Moses was young the founder of what is now modern day Harvey had grand designs for the little community and one of those plans was the original city name: Cosmopolite City. It was a grand plan laid low by the panic of 1837 and the once-burgeoning town never recovered. Harvey, a proletarian name for a working class bump in the road was settled upon and Cosmopolite City was tossed into the dustbin of history.
Why do we sail across the Mississippi a few times a year to visit Harvey? For the sublime food at the recondite Bamboo Cafe, a humble little Vietnamese joint tucked away in a quasi-Brutalism-inspired strip mall.
rl reeves jr is eating 500 po boys in southeast Louisiana
It’s surreal.
You can stretch a $6 bill in Harvey long enough to snare a meatball po boy that is a shareable size for two hungry eaters. This sandwich could easily run you $15 on the East Bank of the Mississippi. The good cook starts with a hot loaf of Hi Do Bakery bread and then commences to cramming it with all the standard Vietnamese accoutrement; carrot, cucumber, cilantro, before ladling a handful of sticky, slightly sweet, scratch meatballs that could stand up against the finest in Ho Chi Minh City.
Eggrolls come three to an order and are served volcano hot and crunchy with sides of whatever sauce you inquire of from the kitchen. The ladies running this tiny cafe could not be sweeter, and are more than happy to accomodate if you need a thimble or two of fish sauce, soy sauce or spicy chiles.
rl reeves jr is eating 500 po boys in southeast Louisiana
On a recent visit the patio was packed with elderly Vietnamese men reading newspapers, scanning cellular telephones and drinking iced coffees choked out with condensed milk. Chain smoking is not only tolerated but encouraged. The atmosphere is louche and amiable.
A nice breeze off the nearby bayous and estuaries wafted through as we finished our meal. You could squint a little bit out the back door of the cafe and practically see the once grand plans of Cosmopolite City off through the spring time haze.
Craving a deeper understanding of Harvey, Louisiana? Read Richard Campanella’s Original designs for Gretna, Harvey and Milneburg were sophisticated, enlightened
rl reeves jr is eating 500 po boys in southeast Louisiana
