From Trans Fats to Gumbo

A few days ago I began writing a quasi-academic post about natural foods inspired by tropical trail mix I purchased in the airport in Phoenix and an article by Michael Pollen that my mother sent me. I've been wrestling with it for a little while now, searching for the point I'm trying to make.

One aspect is that for the most part I am pro-organic and pro-natural foods. I find non-organic eggs particularly appalling. This is chiefly due to one unfortunate moment when I was cracking a couple and ended up with five yolks and two whites-- you do the math there. Needless to say, henceforth we became an organic egg household.

Another aspect is that I'm trying to wrap my head around the trans fat aversion movement. New York's recent trans fat ban begs the question: how does one monitor such a thing? Will there be a Trans Fat Czar? And what will the change really mean? Reminding us of the sketch on Conan O'Brian where men were lounging in a trans fat speakeasy. Furthermore, I make a delicious biscuit, but I know their success has everything to do with the vegetable shortening I use. So I find myself at a crossroads...

But really, this post isn't about the natural foods movement at all. It's about the meal I ate last night at Elite Cafe because I also just had my leftovers for lunch and the lapse in time did not affect them in the slightest. De-licious.

Interestingly enough, the evening began with a terrible cocktail. I ordered a Hendrix and tonic, which tends to be my go-to. If you aren't familiar, you really should take a second to inform yourself. Hendrix is cucumber infused. It's got a clean, crisp taste. When served properly, the traditional lime is replaced by a few slices of cucumber set adrift to play pinball with the ice in the glass. The bartender poured Hendrix, I know that, I made him show me the bottle. The lime was a little, shall we say, out of date but that did not excuse the pervasive flavor of-- I don't even know-- I think the tonic must have been bad. The barkeep added an extra splash of Hendrix after I made a salty face and that helped the situation slightly. But the overall mood was light and the night was warm and breezy, so the memory of that bad cocktail was soon lost.

When I find myself on repeat visits to restaurants I usually make an attempt to vary my ordering pattern. But I have to say, the seafood gumbo at Elite is so unbelievably good there just isn't any way NOT to order it. I think they must know that though because they actually have three sizes you can order. I ordered the middle size which will easily feed two people and which is why I had the total pleasure of eating it last night and today. The gumbo is studded with every scum eating bivalve in the tidepools. Scallops, oysters, clams, mussels, shrimp...I don't even know. It's all in there, it's all awesome. The gumbo is in a rich dark brown broth which isn't too briny, impressive given that it's made with fish stock and has tons of little sea critters playing tag inside. And then there are red and green peppers along for the ride and of course the requisite rice.

Elite is famous for its biscuits. I'm being a snob, it's a totally fine biscuit, but it's not light and fluffy. It's more dense, a little sweeter and eh--just not my personal biscuit ideal. The thing is, the woman that makes biscuits there launched her own biscuit business. So in this particular case I think I may have gotten a bad biscuit on my first visit or I'm just going against the grain.

We drank a bottle of Frog's Leap Zinfandel with our meal. I'm a fan of Frog's Leap and for a California Zin it wasn't too jammy and had good structure. It went swimmingly with the gumbo. And there some deviled eggs. You can order them in the three, six, or nine range I believe. I'm not a huge deviled egg person. I think these would be considered great on the deviled egg scale. They certainly were pleasant to look at. The little fluted yolks were finely dusted with paprika.

Dessert hit the spot. Apple crisp with cinnamon ice cream. I just really loved baked treats. I LOVE apple crisp. Unless you have no hands and don't know salt from sugar, apple crisp is hard to wreck. The cinnamon ice cream (which I'd like to think was made in-house, although it probably wasn't) was subtle. Definitely not dominated by the cinnamon. It tasted like vanilla and was overpowered by the crisp but I could see little flecks in it, so I doubt they were lying.

I hear Elite has a good brunch. Never have been but in light of the notice I recently gave to my job, it looks like I will have a lot more time on my hands very shortly. I'll let you know if I go.