26
MY
ROUSES
EVERYDAY
NOVEMBER | DECEMBER 2013
W
henNinaNoble approachedme aboutwriting a cookbook
based on the “Treme” show, I had been working as the
show’s story editor for a month or so. I had no idea what
a story editor was or did. So if one of the show’s executive producers
said those duties included writing a cookbook, so be it.
It didn’t take long for me to get excited about the project. We had
featured great chefs as part of our story line.
Eric Ripert, David Chang, Wylie Dufresne
and Tom Colicchio had all made a cameo
in the first season of the show. They were
joined by Jonathan Waxman and Alfred
Portale in the second season. I knew we’d
have recipes from most of those guys in
the book. But what really excited me was
creating a book that would be a statement
on where New Orleans food is now.
There are many incredible New Orleans cookbooks. The best of the
recent ones tend to be by one chef or about one restaurant and thus
tell you more about one person’s philosophy than about the range
of what is happening in our pots both at home and at restaurants.
Since the show is largely about our recovery from the federal levee
failures, I wanted to include some recipes from places that are no
longer with us. Gabrielle, Greg and Mary
Sonnier’s place, served an incredible duck
dish. That had to be in the book. The whole
fried fish from Genghis Khan is my all
time favorite whole fried fish. When Chef
Myung Hee Lee let us include it, I was
thrilled. La Spiga was my favorite bakery
before it closed a year or two after the flood.
Dana Logsdon’s biscuits are the best I’ve
ever had and her sweet potato turnovers
taste like fried pies, even though they’re
Inside
TREME
by
Lolis Eric Elie +
photo courtesy
HBO
You're standing in the
supermarket line, and people
say, “How you gonna fix that?
White beans and shrimp? What
you gonna do with that?” I don't
think that happens as much in
other places.
Steve Zahn (Davis McAlary), Kermit Ruffins and Wendell Piere (Antoine Batiste) in a scene fromTreme.
