Tuesday, December 27: “It’s there but it’s gone, if you know what I mean.” Lynell is washing Bayona’s dishes
and
telling me about his house. He’s lived
Uptown all his life, in a neighborhood that got flooded, in a city that got
flooded. Around the corner, on Jackson
Square, tourists are taking photographs. The Quarter traffic is moving at a snail’s pace. Locals on bicycles greet one another. At Johnny’s Po-Boys, a line forms for shrimp
and oyster and roast beef po’boys, and one called the Judge Bosetta (ground
beef, spicy sausage, Italian sausage, lettuce, tomato, pickles, hot sauce,
mustard). “There are 16 of us living in
one place now,” says Lynell.
In Bayona’s dining room, the phone rings and rings. The hostess is
turning down diners for New
Year’s Eve. In the courtyard beneath
the palm trees, Chris Myers, fresh back in town, waits to talk to the
chef. He had graduated from culinary
school in Wisconsin and had landed a pantry job at Bayona in the third week of
August. “You can understand how thrilled
I was, and then a week later, it was like ‘damn’. . .”
Chris’ll be rehired. Susan Spicer needs him. She lost
her chef de cuisine. She lost her
sous-chef. She lost her prep guys who
had worked here ten years. She lost her
Lakeview home. She’s been commuting
Tuesday mornings from Jackson, Mississippi, staying at her mom’s in Metairie,
and commuting back to her family on Saturday nights. “Tuesdays are kinda crazy for
me,” she says. “It’s hard to
switch
gears.”
The 45-year New Orleans resident, 15-year French Quarter
restaurateur and two-year stepmother takes the time, between planning the
menu and figuring the count and cutting the filet and garnishing the plates and
inspecting the apps and firing the entrees, to explain to the writer in her kitchen, “It’s hard to think about the future of the
restaurant industry. I think more about
the city. Is it going to be more
progressive? Will the politicians work
together? Will there be better schools,
a better transit system, more green space?” She’s looking at the line; she needs to get
back to expediting. “With New Year’s coming up, people need to
see some sign that things are moving forward besides restaurants.”
I help Paul Chell devein sweetbreads. Hall Ford, Spicer’s newly promoted
25-year-old sous-chef, is stuffing black drum with crabmeat beside us. “Everything’s the same, but everything’s
different,” says Paul. “Totally the
same but totally different,” says Hall. What’s different? “The people
who are working here are different,” says Paul. “I sorely miss the prep guys,” says Hall. The hours are different. They’ve been working so much that 12-hour
days, down from 16-hour days, feel like “a real treat.” What’s the same? “A lot of Susan’s signatures are still there”, Hall says, like
the sweetbreads with lemon-caper or sherry-mustard butter and the eggplant
caviar with tapenade and the grilled shrimp with black bean cake and coriander
sauce. “The flavors are still there,”
Paul says. “Everything still tastes
really good.”
“It’s New Orleans,” Lynell says. “Ain’t any different. We’ll be all right. By
summer next
year, we’ll be all right. It's gonna come
back.” Hall and Paul run down a list of
New Orleans music clubs for me: Circle Bar, Mimi’s, Applebarrel, d.b.a. Paul was at blues queen Marva Wright’s annual
Tipitina’s Christmas show. She sang “I
Will Survive.” Paul cried. Irwin Mayfield’s trumpet “ripped right
through” him. “You don’t find stuff
like that anywhere else. I wanted to
come back and be a part of it. I
couldn’t abandon New Orleans.”
I leave Bayona. I go to d.b.a. A duo is playing there. A couple is dancing. The guy dips the girl. They twirl. The guy throws his arm in the air, big smile. I dial my friend Bill in New York. The phone rings. The organist sings, “I fall in love too easily. I fall in love too fast.” I hold the phone up to the music. “Hello?” Bill says. “Hello?”
I had dinner at Bayona on Tues., 12/27 (sweetbreads and pheasant) for the first time since Katrina, having dined there regularly since it opened, and found the food to be better than ever. I can't imagine how they are doing it without the regular staff, but I certainly intend to be back next week and the next. Bravi and thank you!
Posted by: Jerry Zachary | Thursday, December 29, 2005 at 12:05 PM
I am sure Bayona will be as great as it was prior to Katrina. The last time I dined there the food was the best in New Orleans and with Susan's commitment I am sure she will continue to be one of New Orleans best! P.S I am one of Chris's instructors!
Posted by: Chef | Saturday, January 14, 2006 at 07:23 PM