St. Charles Avenue Magazine Food Column, May, 2003
By Michael Depp

Talking about wine is difficult, sometimes even useless. For many people outside of epicurean circles, the vocabulary employed to discuss and describe wine is too abstract, off-putting. It's disconnected from the experience of drinking the wine itself, which often has the (perhaps) unintended effect of curbing one's enthusiasm about wine. Which is an awfully sad thing to be curbed.

I went to a wine tasting in March at Brennan's as part of the Tennessee Williams/New Orleans Literary Festival hosted by Michael Green, a wine consultant for Gourmet magazine. Green is an extremely buoyant advocate of making wine accessible to those otherwise intimidated by the fear of seeming ignorant. His presentation was, appropriately, tied to the festival's namesake author by attempting to liken some of his more notable characters to different wines. Needless to say, this was not a scientific effort, but I think an important rhetorical one for those would-be wine-loving wallflowers who get overwhelmed at the prospect of choosing from a restaurant's house list.

Green presented a more pragmatic way to enjoy wine the way most of us effortlessly savor good food - by what it evokes. Smell and taste are awfully powerful catalysts for memory and association - without Proust's madelines we'd never have had Remembrance of Things Past - so trust your subjective buds and where they take you, and let the wine critics and commentators be damned.

I, for one, had the best Riesling I've ever tried at Green's tasting (a Monchhof Estate 2001), but while he likened it to the fragile Laura Wingfield from The Glass Menagerie, I'm more inclined to associate it with a sweeter, more enduring brand of confidence than she displays, or maybe the first optimistic wafts of a spring breeze through an upstairs window in my native New York. All of which is to say just let the wine bring you where it will.

You'll have a good chance to do so at the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience, now in its 12th year from May 21-25 at the convention center and various downtown restaurants. In addition to two grand tastings and more than 40 vintner dinners, there are a number of interesting seminars in which you can either expand your formal knowledge of wine a bit or else simply enjoy some vintages you've never had before.

Green will be back in town for one seminar, "Gourmet Magazine: A Matter of Lifestyle," for which he explains, "We're taking some of the editorial pages of Gourmet over the years and bringing them to life, giving guests the opportunity through wines, olive oils and chocolates, and to virtually experience some of the travel destinations we write about in Gourmet" (the magazine is a media sponsor of the NOWFE, another is Wine Spectator). Another rather timely seminar ties to the bicentennial of the Louisiana Purchase by exploring the wine enthusiasms of Thomas Jefferson.

More information on the NOWFE, including registration forms and ticket information for special vintner dinners and the annual Royal Street Stroll - a walk-and-drink tour of more than 50 galleries and antiques shops (each outfitted with selections from two different vintners) - is available on the organization's Web site at www.nowfe.com.

Introducing... the Diner

In my decade in New Orleans, I've always been struck by the curious absence of diners on the restaurant front. An American institution elsewhere, the idea never seemed to catch on here except in distantly related redactions, all of which seem to be met by the local dining community with either apprehension or disinterest.

That was until siblings Kathleen and Ray Horn opened Slim Goody's Diner on Magazine Street a few months ago. The 35-seat would-be greasy spoon (it's too new to have accumulated much grease) has been regularly packing the house for breakfast, lunch, dinner and those would-be lulls in between, which leads me to optimistically believe that there may be a market for the diner here after all.

Both brother and sister were in the house when I stopped in last month, nervously flitting between the prep station (which is about the size of an airplane bathroom), the grill (not much wider) and the narrow dining room's tables, a little overwhelmed by the immediate response they've been having. (The menu cautions: "Please bear in mind that we are brand spanking new...") Kathleen, who looks as though she'd be at home walking her dog through the East Village, says she was inspired to open the grill after eating at Café Havana in SoHo.

Slim Goody's lacks the phone book-sized, surreal-y eclectic menu of most New York diners, but an early standout is the crawfish etouffe over a biscuit. They're currently open until 10 p.m. though they're looking to extend those hours out a bit later for the drinking and restaurant staff crowds just getting off the dinner shift. They're also working on the patio in back, outfitting it with hammocks, tree swings and more tables. It may not be the textbook definition of a diner, but it's a promising, funky start.

Local boy makes good, cooks James Beard dinner

Finally, Galatoire's, eager to put all that nasty little business with the dismissed waiter behind it, has some happy news. Ross Eirich, its surprisingly young chef (at 28), will head off to New York later this month to cook his first meal for the venerable members of the James Beard Foundation. The dinner, which will take place on May 28 at the James Beard House, features five courses drawing on the restaurant's canonical menu (to which changes are made with tectonic efficiency owing to the preferences of its, shall we say, persnickety regulars). The meal will feature sauteed redfish Yvonne, veal chop financiere with sweetbread garnish and banana bread pudding, which, like the pyramids, is something, you truly must experience before you die. And by the way, Galatoire's will host two "reenactments" of the dinner on July 8 and 22.