It's New Orleans: Midnight Menu +1

Bryan Gilmore likes to mix it up. Blast freeze it. Thaw it. Freeze it. Serve it. That s how you make ice cream and that s what Bryan does all day on Prytania Street in the old McKenzie s Bakery, which according to the Historic Places designated red neon sign outside, is still McKenzie s but in fact is Creole Creamery, Uptown s favorite ice cream shop. Imagine if you could eat all the ice cream you want, from childhood, and never get cavities in your teeth. That s what is happening to Bryan s kids. Because they brush with Theodent the chocolate toothpaste created in New Orleans. The creator of Theodent is the mad scientist genius Dr Arman Sadeghpour. Who also happens to be Brian s 1 guest on this episode of Midnight Menu 1. Tips on how to keep ice cream fresh frozen at home, the "scoop" on foie gras ice cream, the secret to good teeth, and more... This is hands down the most educational decadent healthy New Orleans podcast in ice cream and toothpaste history.

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Franky Vivid is one of the most colorful characters in the New Orleans food ecosystem. Franky is the wearer of many hats, most of them related in one way or another to scantily clad or naked women. Franky is the producer of internationally renowned burlesque shows Superstars of Burlesque, and Burlesque Hall of Fame. He's the co founder of the live event and website, Naked Girls Reading, and if you're wondering how any of this gets you invited on Midnight Menu 1, Franky Vivid is the creator and principal contributor to the blog, website and way of life Cooking For Strippers. Franky didn t always coook for strippers. Not till he married one. Michelle L amour is one of the world s best known burlesque entertainers and an internationally renowned teacher of burlesque. Besides being Franky s 1 on this show, Michelle, aka Mrs Vivid, is the inspiration for Franky s culinary exploits. Michelle holds a burlesque intensive series of classes each year and, well, a girl s gotta eat. Realizing that he enjoyed feeding burlesque dancers, Franky started blogging about it and what started out as fun food for 10 girls is now fun reading for tens of thousands of blog subscribers. Grant Morris sits in for Ray and helps Margo and Michelle celebrate Franky s birthday.

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When you come from a New Orleans family of 10 kids it can sometimes be difficult to remember what number sibling your sister is even if she is your business partner and closest friend. Of course you can always blame your faulty memory on the Bloody Mary that you have to drink to be sociable because they re making it with the Bloody Mary mix you and your sister 6 produce. Or maybe it s the martini you had to drink to be sociable because they re making it with the spicy olive juice mix and olives that you and your sister 5 bottle from your dad s old family spicy olive recipe. It s hard to imagine people having more fun running their own business than The Louisiana Sisters Karen Poole and Sharon Poole Mahne. Sharon and Karen started up their now rockin olive biz using a recipe their dad created that they got doctored up for supermarket shelves by a guy they know only as "Chef Happy." No kidding. Louisiana Sisters products are across Louisiana in almost every grocery store from Langenstein s to Whole Foods and namesake sisters Sharon and Karen don t know the name of the guy who helped them create their signature taste. Although there s something to be said for the fine taste of the sisters olives, pepper jelly, bloody mary mix, spicy olive juice, and other products, the spice and bubble of their personalities certainly contribute to the meteoric success of their small family business. This is not your father s olive business. Hang on, yes it is.

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When Margo s away, Ray will play, by inviting his friend and filmmaker, Dylan Field Turner. Not ones to wait around, Ray and Dylan waste no time in welcoming our guest, Dave Wright, owner and head Chef at Del Fuego Taqueria. Dave talks about how Del Fuego serves regional food, taking the cooking styles from various parts of Mexico. He also talks about coming to New Orleans for an internship at the Culinary Institute of America and, like so many, never leaving. He also brought some of Fuego s signature cocktails, and who better to serve cocktails than Dave s plus one, Debbie Shatz. Debbie, who seriously, doesn t work out, gets her exercise tending bar at 45 Tchoup serves us some amazing cocktails, all of them named after some classic, and not so classic, films. So listen now if you ve ever wanted to know the Spanish title for Firestarter.

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Sarah Edwards is living the lives of 3 people. By day she is a barista at Hey Cafe on Magazine Street. Then she ll go hop on her pedicab and sweat out the caffeine in the French Quarter for a few hours. When most people would then crash out and sleep or drink the night away listening to music, Sarah is following her main love, with the man she s in love with. Sarah and Frankie Ostello are the co heart and soul of St Clair, a short bus food truck with a wood fired pizza oven. Frankie is the reason Sarah stayed in New Orleans. She was about to leave town, giving up on her dream of starting a wood fired pizza oven food truck when she ran up against the city s smothering food truck red tape. Sarah met Frankie at a party, discovered he already had a food truck and was dreaming about turning it into a wood fired pizza oven on wheels. They built the pizza oven together, fell in love along the way, and the rest is, well, an exciting future. Ray and Margo talk pizza, love, and bocce ball on this episode of Midnight Menu 1. Douglas Engel hobbled around on his one good leg and took the pix.

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The Zen Temple is on the 4th floor of a Camp Street building in downtown New Orleans. The building used to be Cosimo Matassa s legendary recording studio. Today, below the Zen temple where the music temple once stood and the greatest of New Orleans music was recorded, the Zen Boogie has been handed on to the next generation Phil s Grill. Where once Cosimo built hits, like Earl King s Big Chief, track by track, now Phil builds some of the city s most popular and talked about burgers, ingredient by ingredient. Actually, Phil doesn t build them, you do. Phil s menu has an exhaustive list of ingredients that you can combine into some million plus combinations of burger. And they re awesome enough to make the Zen master, who lives on the 3rd floor of the Zen Boogie Burger building, come down and break his 30 years of vegetarianism to try one. True story. What goes with a burger That s not a Zen koan, that s a serious question with a simple answer beer. Phil s 1 guest, buddy and business colleague is Kirk Coco, founder of NOLA Brewing Company. Kirk and Phil share an energy and passion for their businesses that can be best summed up in one Zen word happy. The sheer joy of making burgers and beer shines through so brightly in everything Phil and Kirk talk about from early failures to later success and even new competition that you d have to believe these guys would be cranking out bison burgers on an onion bun and NOLA Brown Ale even if nobody bought it.

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Paris, of course, is not in Latin America. Nor is it in North America. To Zella Palmer aka Zella Palmer Cuadra the blending of cultures, food, and music in New Orleans is unlike anywhere else in the US or in Europe and the simplest description that explains the blending is in culinary terms a gumbo and in cultural terms a Latin Paris. Zella herself is something of an internationalist and a personal and cultural gumbo. Born and raised in Chicago but with roots in New Orleans that go back generations, Zella discovered a love for Latin America and Cuba in particular and then discovered that all her loves combined not in Havana as she originally thought, but in New Orleans. In the 6 years that Zella has made New Orleans home she has taken the culture and academia by storm. She is the author of New Orleans con Sabor Latino The History and Passion of Latino Cooking, and Dillard University s Director of the Ray Charles Program in African American Material Culture. Who better to fill in the blanks about Zella s colorful and exotic life but her mom. Alice Palmer happens to be in town visiting her daughter this evening and, unprepared, finds herself Zella s 1 on tonight s show. However, after one sentence it s obvious that mom doesn t need any preparation. She s, as Margo puts it, "The best plus one guest we ve ever had" with a rich history of personal experience, love, politics, academia and passion for life. In a very touching moment in this show, Alice reveals that this conversation is the first time in her life she s seen Zella in work mode and she is obviously moved and impressed by her daughter. So are we. This is as inspiring, uplifting and fun as gumbo gets.

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Jeremy Labadie is, in every sense, the Beer Buddha. Whether his Buddha like stature is God given or the result of consuming beer, whether his calm countenance is from a Zen like approach to life or a couple of cool brews, who really knows the truth about, well, anything Among the many surprising Buddha enlightening moments on this show are the revelations that Abita actually makes good beer despite the beer snob community thumbing it s collective nose at the conglomerate across the lake. And the claim that the Beer Buddha whose life is consumed with hops, malt, brewing, eating, writing and breathing beer could walk away from beer any time and never look back. Now that s a true Buddha. The Buddha s 1 guest is one of New Orleans most literate and entertaining journalists, Megan Braden Perry, aka Megan Capone. Megan is making her first solo outing tonight after giving birth to baby Franklin a mere 7 weeks ago. And she s making the most of the short lived freedom. A craft brew and a Monkey Hill Negroni put mom in just the right spot to talk about haters, husband Grant s beer brewing, and stout made of her breast milk. Yes, we re back on breast milk in food again. If you are a regular listener to this show you ll know that cooking with breast milk seems to come up more often than is healthy. If this is the first show you ve listened to, stick around, we ll be back on breast milk recipes any night. Till next time, cheers. And as Buddha never said, Om Beer. And support Dine Out NOLA.

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Mid City's new gem - Pearl Wine Co

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Aaron Vogel makes donuts and sliders and has chocolate milk on tap at his new unique Magazine Street eatery District Donuts Sliders Brew. But what Aaron s really doing is changing the world. An ex pastor, Aaron is deeply committed to making the world a better place. He has a business plan that spreads love, happiness, and human decency beyond his four walls to the neighborhood, cities and nations. It s not some cheesy business slogan like "changing the world one donut at a time," it s a real business plan that involves investing the profit from donuts in a social revolution. By the end of this show, if Aaron suggests moving to Ghana and opening Vogeltown, we d probably all be there drinking the chocolate milk koolaid. In a city of colorful kitchen characters, Aaron Vogel is the most quietly powerful charismatic guy you re going to meet. Aaron s 1 on this show is the equally dedicated Ben McLeish. Aaron and Ben met online, but not on Match.com. They found each other in the search for other New Orleans contributors committed to making social change. Ben is instrumental in the recovery of the St Roch neighborhood through his organization St Roch CDC. The truly interesting culinary angle on this story is that Ray and Margo didn t know any of this charismatic evangelical social change stuff when they booked Aaron as a guest on the show. All they knew is that he makes donuts that are extraordinary. They re actually almost capable of changing the world themselves. Below is the donut Ray rhapsodizes about the Vietnamese coffee donut complete with tapioca balls and 3 companions. Our crappy photography doesn t do them justice at all. On another note, a heads up, cheap drinks during Happy Hour at Monkey Hill.

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