New York Times
In New Orleans, Cooks Are Stirring
By KIM SEVERSON
Published: September 21, 2005
NEW ORLEANS
PEOPLE here just have to cook. They can't help themselves. That's why on Monday Kathleen Horn - Kappa to most people - laid a few pounds of bacon on the grill of her diner, Slim Goody's, and set about making chicken salad po' boys.
Lunch service was by candlelight, since power lines were still tangled in trees in her Garden District neighborhood. Bottles of hand sanitizer sat next to the salt and pepper shakers.
The customers were mostly out-of-state electricians who promised to bring her ice as long as she stayed open, and a few sweat-soaked, mud-speckled neighbors who got past National Guard checkpoints to see what was left of their homes.
Ms. Horn, like most dedicated New Orleans cooks, had ached to get back to feeding the city she grew up in. "If somebody needs food," she said, "we're going to make it for them." Hers was one of only three or four commercial kitchens that were found functioning in this city, which once had 3,400 restaurants.
Despite optimistic post-hurricane vows by some of the city's most notable chefs to get back to work in a few weeks, the odds against quickly restoring New Orleans as one of America's best food cities are as grim as its chefs are hopeful.
A survey of more than two dozen of the best-known and most culturally significant restaurants here on Monday turned up buildings so soaked that they will probably have to be razed and places that are structurally sound but lacking supplies, basic services, a staff or customers.
Some pieces of the city's culinary history are probably gone forever, even if the owners can find a way to rebuild. A green-black watermark ringed Dooky Chase, the traditional Creole restaurant near the Lafitte public housing projects that was a favorite of Ray Charles. A moldy copy of the Dooky Chase Cookbook lay on the sidewalk next to a rusting fryer basket.
Leah Chase, the proprietor, has moved in with relatives in Baton Rouge, where she announced a series of cooking classes in the food section of The Advocate and, like so many New Orleans chefs, said she was determined to rebuild, although she has yet to see for herself the kind of damage so much water can do.
Nearby, Willie Mae's Scotch House, whose pots of red beans and hand-battered fried chicken have defined homey Creole-soul food cooking for decades, had the same green-black watermarks up to the windows.
In neighborhoods untouched by floodwaters, the chances of reopening soon seemed better, but "soon" was a moving target.
Donald Link of Herbsaint, one of the new wave of bistro chefs who mix Creole food with elevated technique and seasonal products, was closer to opening than most chefs.
He has continued to pay his staff and has tracked down some suppliers. A shrimper he calls simply Dino promised him some clean Gulf shrimp in a couple of weeks. His pig guy in Mississippi still had pigs, even though they were growing well past the 60-pound size Mr. Link prefers.
He recently set about the task that is bedeviling most restaurateurs and adding a dense new layer to the gagging stench that has settled over many parts of New Orleans: wearing a respirator, he cleaned out his cooler and walk-in refrigerator, dragging nearly 50 bags and bins of food that had spent three weeks baking into sludge to the curb outside his restaurant near the Superdome.
"When I opened the door to that walk-in I thought, 'Oh my God, I can't do this,' " he said. "It was the most vile, disgusting thing I've ever done."
Mr. Link had planned to get a professional crew in on Tuesday to clean every surface in his restaurant, which looked picture-perfect with white tablecloths and wineglasses still in place. But Hurricane Rita forced him to postpone that project. Even so, he said he was still determined to open in three weeks.
Rotted food from dozens of restaurants and countless home refrigerators sat in big piles on sidewalks and in garbage bins all over New Orleans, pointing up a basic problem facing any business here: a lack of public services. Some neighborhoods have power, but nowhere is water safe enough to cook or even wash dishes with. (Slim Goody's is using paper plates and bottled spring water, and bleach in its dishwater.)
By KIM SEVERSON
Published: September 21, 2005
NEW ORLEANS
PEOPLE here just have to cook. They can't help themselves. That's why on Monday Kathleen Horn - Kappa to most people - laid a few pounds of bacon on the grill of her diner, Slim Goody's, and set about making chicken salad po' boys.
Lunch service was by candlelight, since power lines were still tangled in trees in her Garden District neighborhood. Bottles of hand sanitizer sat next to the salt and pepper shakers.
The customers were mostly out-of-state electricians who promised to bring her ice as long as she stayed open, and a few sweat-soaked, mud-speckled neighbors who got past National Guard checkpoints to see what was left of their homes.
Ms. Horn, like most dedicated New Orleans cooks, had ached to get back to feeding the city she grew up in. "If somebody needs food," she said, "we're going to make it for them." Hers was one of only three or four commercial kitchens that were found functioning in this city, which once had 3,400 restaurants.
Despite optimistic post-hurricane vows by some of the city's most notable chefs to get back to work in a few weeks, the odds against quickly restoring New Orleans as one of America's best food cities are as grim as its chefs are hopeful.
A survey of more than two dozen of the best-known and most culturally significant restaurants here on Monday turned up buildings so soaked that they will probably have to be razed and places that are structurally sound but lacking supplies, basic services, a staff or customers.
Some pieces of the city's culinary history are probably gone forever, even if the owners can find a way to rebuild. A green-black watermark ringed Dooky Chase, the traditional Creole restaurant near the Lafitte public housing projects that was a favorite of Ray Charles. A moldy copy of the Dooky Chase Cookbook lay on the sidewalk next to a rusting fryer basket.
Leah Chase, the proprietor, has moved in with relatives in Baton Rouge, where she announced a series of cooking classes in the food section of The Advocate and, like so many New Orleans chefs, said she was determined to rebuild, although she has yet to see for herself the kind of damage so much water can do.
Nearby, Willie Mae's Scotch House, whose pots of red beans and hand-battered fried chicken have defined homey Creole-soul food cooking for decades, had the same green-black watermarks up to the windows.
In neighborhoods untouched by floodwaters, the chances of reopening soon seemed better, but "soon" was a moving target.
Donald Link of Herbsaint, one of the new wave of bistro chefs who mix Creole food with elevated technique and seasonal products, was closer to opening than most chefs.
He has continued to pay his staff and has tracked down some suppliers. A shrimper he calls simply Dino promised him some clean Gulf shrimp in a couple of weeks. His pig guy in Mississippi still had pigs, even though they were growing well past the 60-pound size Mr. Link prefers.
He recently set about the task that is bedeviling most restaurateurs and adding a dense new layer to the gagging stench that has settled over many parts of New Orleans: wearing a respirator, he cleaned out his cooler and walk-in refrigerator, dragging nearly 50 bags and bins of food that had spent three weeks baking into sludge to the curb outside his restaurant near the Superdome.
"When I opened the door to that walk-in I thought, 'Oh my God, I can't do this,' " he said. "It was the most vile, disgusting thing I've ever done."
Mr. Link had planned to get a professional crew in on Tuesday to clean every surface in his restaurant, which looked picture-perfect with white tablecloths and wineglasses still in place. But Hurricane Rita forced him to postpone that project. Even so, he said he was still determined to open in three weeks.
Rotted food from dozens of restaurants and countless home refrigerators sat in big piles on sidewalks and in garbage bins all over New Orleans, pointing up a basic problem facing any business here: a lack of public services. Some neighborhoods have power, but nowhere is water safe enough to cook or even wash dishes with. (Slim Goody's is using paper plates and bottled spring water, and bleach in its dishwater.)