Mad Good Man Made Meal

I just got back from NOLA.

And by “just,” I mean like a week ago.

And by “NOLA,” I mean New Orleans. Said “New orlans” or if you’re real local, more like “N’orrlans.”

A beautiful trip. Just lovely.

I’m almost certain I ate the best meal I’ve ever eaten there.

Let me paint a little picture:

Pink painted wood façade building with a hand painted sign that did not scream “best food ever” to me but this is N’orrlans, places never appear how they appear until you’re inside.

Tablecloths, wine glasses, dim lighting, low ceiling, rosy walls, several eclectic plates hung haphazardly-like the old building had been knocked around by a hurricane or two and a bar that lined an entire wall within the restaurant like a true European establishment.

Now, a little picture of the meal:

Pecan encrusted, freshly caught redfish garnished with fresh crab and diced red pepper atop a bed of sautéed arugula paired with rice mixed in the most amazing earthy, sweet, buttery, nutty sauce you can imagine. Oh yea, and served with a fine glass of pinot noir. And eaten with exceptional company.

So good. So So good. Brains shut down for 10 minutes. Easily.

I never thought fine dining, casual dining, local cuisine, American and European would make sense but this place, I swear, epitomized it all. And did it well. Exceptionally.

Okay, enough about the meal. What I really wanted to say was that I went to NOLA and saw my best friend.

And I saw her new apartment. Charming.

And I saw her kitchen. Also charming.

And I saw the lack of Microwave. Can one see that?

I asked sweet Melissa, “do you guys have a microwave?”

SM: “No”
Me: “Is it a like a health thing? Is it a radiation thing?”

SM: “No…I don’t know. We just heat things up on the stove. Things just taste better.”

…I’m convinced everything tastes better in N’orrlans anyways.

I always thought microwave ovens were odd. Food gets hot…but how?

That’s why people dropped the word “oven” after the word microwave…

It seems trippy and like the cause of a future 1^st world country pandemic. A disease only known to the affluent western country. Like wastefulness. Is that a disease? I think it might be.

When I returned home, mama murph was doing what mama murph does. Cleaning out another cabinet. Why? Because she is mama murph.

She found a booklet entitled Corning’s Microwave Browners. 

MICROWAVE BROWNING

                With CORNING WARE® microwave browners you don’t have to sacrifice the goodness of foods grilled to a golden brown anymore. In just minutes you can prepare an entirely new line of meals in your microwave oven-browned just the way you like them.

                MICROMATE® browners function much like conventional skillets or grills. With them, microwave cooking is capable of browning, grilling, or searing small food items such as hamburgers or chops due to a special coating on the outside bottom of the browners.

Other Cabinet Treasures!

I’d like to slip in that I just started season one of the TV series Mad Men-reading this, makes me feel like a 1960s house wife. 

I wish I looked like one too. 

The style is killer.

It’s so Western. We create a fake oven for convenience and then we create a fake browning technique to make it look like it’s from an oven. In a way, those three sentences summed up the first 5 episodes of Mad Men. Trying to cover it all up on the surface.

I’m not saying I don’t use microwaves. Because I do. But as my mom said “It’s funny you find them bizarre since you grew up knowing and using them. There was  a real scare when they first became commercially popular. I never used them to heat a baby bottle. It was very much frowned upon.”

I’m guessing the chain-smoking Mad Men did all they could to banish the fear and propaganda in their push for CORNING WARE ®

If Mad Men had to sell my Man Made, non-microwaved New Orleans meal, they wouldn’t bother advertising more than that weathered, pink painted wooden building and that small hand painted sign. They wouldn’t need to. 

Mama Murph. 

With Cabinet. 

Take notice: The Mad Men calendar hanging

beside the microwave oven.

 Found in the community cookbook.

Fine Print: Meg Murphy, Age 4

Maybe not a 1960 but definitely a former favorite

...and Meg Murphy, Age 25, a favorite of formers.

Eras.