It's New Orleans: Midnight Menu +1

Margot was on a hot streak at the dog track and couldn t make it these week, so Ray is flying solo. But don t worry, Chef Ryan Haigler of Grand Isle is never short on conversation.

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Kirk Coco s inspiration for opening NOLA Brewing is inextricably entwined with the US Navy, Hurricane Katrina, Dixie Beer, and the clap. In a city of colorful characters, Kirk Coco is a colorful character. A wonderful combination of impetuousness, frank honesty, and business acumen, Kirk s venture into brewing is from his telling something akin to a blind man wandering drunk along the edge of a cliff. But in this case the blind man s sense of direction is impeccable. What could a guy who was a lawyer, a US Naval officer, and now a successful entrepreneur, regret How about being 8 years old and not making out with Maria Bertucci

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Nina Camacho and Marc Quiroz have known each other before they were born. Their fathers were college room mates and had kids within a month of each other. Those kids, Nina and Marc, have stayed friends ever since. Today, after a circuitous route that has taken them individually across the country, they are both back in New Orleans. Nina is part of the team opening Jack and Jake s Public Market on OCH Blvd and Mark is working with returned veterans. Nina and Marc are both as passionate about New Orleans food as the day they were born

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Roy Nelson was the Willy Wonka of New Orleans, growing up in a chocolate factory. His family owns

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Like many New Orleans kids, Colin Provensal was hanging out in bars way too young. In Colin s case, 7. And he was playing piano. By 13 he had a regular Saturday night piano gig in a restaurant on the Orleans Jefferson parish line at the beginning of Veterans Boulevard. At 14 he was working in his first restaurant, dropped out of high school, and he s been in the food biz ever since. Colin s current gig is a breakfast pop up in a restaurant that, depending on when you read this, is either still called Dis n Dat or its new name Dis n Dem. The difference between Dat n Dem is more significant than it may appear but it all began, as Colin remembers, "when we were a bunch of stoned college kids slinging weiners." Colin s breakfast pop up is everything you could ever want traditional New Orleans food with a gourmet twist, cheap under 10 and complete with signature bloody marys. Somewhere along the line Colin moved to Austin for a girl which didn t work out romantically but it did work out culinarily in as much as Colin got a kitchen gig in a high end diner where he learned he cold crack 524 eggs in 20 minutes. And that was just lesson number one. While all this was happening to Colin, Jeff Thompson had escaped his New Orleans upbringing and become an established singer songwriter and band leader in Asheville North Carolina. Now sneaking back into New Orleans, Jeff has formed a band and recruited Colin to play keyboards. While things may have come full circle for Jeff and Colin, the fun is just beginning for you. Go to Dis n Dem or Dat, date dependent for breakfast, tell em you heard Colin and Midnight Menu 1 and get free coffee for all eternity. Or until Colin cuts you off.

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If you shop at a New Orleans Sam s Club pretty much any weekend you ll see a guy or a girl stirring a giant pot of jambalaya. The girl wearing yellow plastic fork earrings is Jambalaya Girl Kristen Preau and the guy is her brother Kevin. When you get home from Sam s you can cook up the same jambalaya from a pack of Cook Me Somethin Mister jambalaya. Kristen and Kevin aren t cooking at Sam s out of desperation for you to sample their jambalaya, Cook Me Somethin Mister is available in over 600 stores across the country. It s manufactured in association with Louisiana s original celebrity chef, Paul Proudhomme. Ray and Margo s taste test affirms this jambalaya is the real deal. The pouch contains delicately seasoned and perfectly balanced rice that creates a home made tasting jambalaya with all the richness and texture you d make yourself if you were Paul Proudhomme. Kristen and Kevin s father was an outdoor cooking hardware guy he created the grill which started up Proudhomme s "blackened" Louisana food revolution and he originated the Cook Me Somethin Mister jambalaya recipe to sell the jambalaya pot he was cooking it in Ray dips into the infamous Book of Questions, revealing Kristen s wedding plans and Kevin s life as a Yum Yum guy. For a total New Orleans culinary experience, Haydel s king cakes even come with Cook Me Somethin Mister Jambalaya.

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"Food evangelism" probably doesn t sound too appealing, but spend a few minutes in the fresh food revival tent with Emery Sonnier and Kimisha Sawyers and you ll be testifying you ve seen the light and a holy band of green angels. Emery is the Associate Director of Market Umbrella, the folks who put on 4 Farmers Markets a week in New Orleans. Kim is the market s Evaluation Manager. Growing up in a Sicilian New Orleans family and working as Assistant Editor of Food and Wine magazine New York, Emery knows a thing or two about food. Her road to the healthy side of diet came via the traditional NOLA foodie route of working in restaurants in various capacities but it was Katrina that gave her the final kick in the pants and dragged her home and headed for healthy. Also growing up in New Orleans, Kim ate plenty of home cooked meals but they were made without regard to healthy contents. A trip to Taiwan her first foray out of the country suddenly opened her eyes to the possibility that she could live her life any way she wants and one of the things she changed was her approach to food and eating. Now Kim spends her days changing other lives by eating changing habits from Big Mac to carrot snack and from chocolate shake to Beet lemonade. And then there s the Magic Beans and Different Color Soup... By the end of this show you ll understand the phrase "joie de vivre" in a way you may never have before living in New Orleans.

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You might think naming a restaurant after a ditch is maybe sending the wrong message about the standard or even type of food you d expect to get there. But when the ditch is "Trenasse" the Cajun French word for a cut through in the bayou and the location is the tony Intercontinental Hotel on St Charles Avenue in New Orleans, it all starts to make sense. Chef Jean Pierre Guidry has a prestigious name in American kitchens, having worked this way through both the CIA and the culinary college of real world restaurants in France and the US, including a long stint alongside Chef Daniel Boulud in New York. When Chef JP heard Lafayette native, Commander s Palace among others alumn, and Florida s famed Stinky s Fish Camp owner Chef Jim Richard was opening a New Orleans restaurant that was Cajun inspired, based on the principle "simple things done right," JP was in, shrimp boots n all. Patrick James is as excited and passionate about Trenasse as Jean Pierre, which is probably just as well seeing he s the restaurant s General Manager. Patrick comes from an extensive New Orleans restaurant background that includes Palace Cafe and Red Fish Grill. When you hear these guys describe something as simple as gumbo or their re imagined poboy it s like you re hearing about these foods for the first time. This episode of Midnight Menu 1 was recorded at the NOLA Brewing Tap Room.

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When Barrie Schwarz went home from work as a food runner in a restaurant and tried to figure out what she could do to open a business in between throwing parties at her house, she realized that maybe if she combined all three parts of her life throwing parties at her house for the people at work as a business she d hit a home run. Well, it wasn t totally a home run but it was a lead off double and led her to the next step throwing parties at places other than her house and getting people other than the chefs at her work to do the catering. And so was born My House NOLA mobile kitchens aka food trucks who cater events Barrie plans in places other than her house. When a 7 foot tall friend of a friend showed up at a party with his Spanish room mate, presto Jordi Figueras was the regular sized Spaniard who, it turns out, drives a pedicab, designs websites, fixes stuff, and knows a thing or two about business thanks to graduating from Tulane Business School and never going home. Jordi and Barrie obviously enjoy working together and hanging out together but their differences are fascinating. Barrie grew up eating scooped out cantaloupe filled with cottage cheese. Jordi s mom supplies him with fine Spanish cheese. Barrie is Jewish, Jordi grew up in a town where all the Jews were dispensed with generations ago but American Jews are the town s only tourists, looking for their long lost roots. Barrie is steeped in New Orleans food, Jordi has never had Bananas Foster, or, as he calls it, Frosted Bananas. This conversation is a fascinating, rollicking exploration of cultures powered by figs.

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Scott and Jane Wolfe got married and opened their first grocery store when he was 19 and she was 17. A few grocery stores later Jane and Scott were to discover a factoid about marketing that changed their lives and etched an indelibe icon into the minds of all New Orleanians. Dispensing with every other daily special in their grocery stores, Scott and Jane swung for the fences and hit a home run with their never ending meat specials. Now, all these years later, after pre katrina i.e. voluntary retirement they re back. Jane went to school and graduated with a masters in divinity from Harvard yes, the real Harvard and while she stuidied, Scott threw himself into building a new business. Melba s is a poboy shop, an art gallery, an art studio, a neighborhood meeting spot and on top of all that it s open 24 hours a day. New Orleans is not short on innovators in the food, arts, entertainment and social gathering fields, but you ll go a long way till you meet folks who combine all those skills and who are this delightfully humble and understated about all their accomplishments. This is a combo fun feel good show of the year. Recorded live at The NOLA Brewing Tap Room.

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