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The Fragility Of The Food World
Last week, I stood in two lines at two New Orleans bakeries. One was at Flour Moon Bagels, an immediate hit since it opened this summer. Locals — and I suspect a growing number of tourists — patiently wait for its beautifully made bagels, available plain or with a variety of toppings.
The other line, a short drive away on Orleans Avenue, was at Mayhew Bakery. Every since I arrived in New Orleans, I’ve been making a circuit from Flour Moon over to Mayhew, whose biscuits, bread pudding and pizza were first rate.
On Thursday, owner Kelly Mayhew, a veteran of combat in Iraq, decided he was done. Customers got just 24 hours notice of his decision, and by mid-morning, the glass cases were empty, and he had shut the doors for a final time. Kelly told me he hadn’t figured out his next steps yet; he’s been encouraged by many people to hold pop ups, and I’d certainly show up for his baked goods and sandwiches.
The pandemic revealed the fragility of the food business, and while entrepreneurs have been opening despite the odds of success, places are still disappearing. If you love a favorite spot, it’s important to go, because it may not be there next week.
Bakeries’ neighborhood role
I’m a student of urban landscapes, as well as architecture. I’ve been fascinated by the layout of cities all my life. Friends like Kevin Boyle, the noted author and history professor at Northwestern University, have helped educate me on how to size up a neighborhood. Architect Robert A.M. Stern, whose class I took at Columbia University, taught us why buildings look certain ways; you can determine their function from the first few floors.
In driving around New Orleans, I have quickly spotted the many storefronts and, I assumed, taverns that are integral part of its neighborhoods. Some of them still operate. You can find a flock of these joints not far from major avenues like St. Charles and Tchopitoulas Street. You also can see the ones that have been turned into private homes, which I think is intriguing.
But these buildings didn’t just house stores and bars; they also housed bakeries. New Orleans has a long tradition of corner bakeries, many of which served particular clienteles. Of course, with its French roots, New Orleans was populated with French bakeries from the time of its founding. In the early 1820s, the city already had 60 bakeries, many of them serving customers in just a few block radius.
As more immigrants arrived, there were Italian, German, Latino and more recently, Vietnamese bakeries. The real might of New Orleans’ baking culture comes to light each Carnival season, when King Cake and galette des rois appear across the city.
Bakeries played not only a culinary role, but a social one, too. Most bakeries have at least a few tables, if not a full dining room. They are safe places for families to gather, older people to meet for coffee, and busy professionals to pick up goodies that they simply don’t have time to make.
Mayhew’s final days
As with small businesses everywhere, it hasn’t been easy for all these places to survive. One of the challenges for bakeries is finding bakers. While the owner might be indefatigable, people can only work so many hours in a day, and any bakery of any size has to have a kitchen crew to help, along with a team out front to serve customers.
Mayhew Bakery opened to great hope in 2019 in a part of town that has seen a growing number of small businesses. Then came the pandemic and on top of it, Hurricane Ida, which did enormous damage in the bakery’s neighborhood. Mayhew’s became something of a community center where people could pick up meals and check on each other.
I followed the bakery’s Instagram account from the time it opened, and I was excited to try its pastries. The biscuits fit my perception of the perfect Southern biscuit — tall and multilayered — and the pizza was the equal of the bakery pizza I enjoyed when I was living in Chicago.
But in its last days, Mayhew Bakery was only open four days a week, Wednesday through Saturday, from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. I’d go in at lunch time and sometimes be the only customer. I’m sure we’ll see Kelly again around town — he has lots of friends in the culinary community and his baking is too good to remain on the sidelines.
However, its closing is a reminder that if you love a small business, patronize it often, especially when times are tough. In our inflationary world, with costs constantly rising and staff hard to find, there’s no guarantee it will be there next week or even tomorrow.
Many businesses like Flour Moon are collaborating with other places (they have been making bialys featuring toppings from another new business, Zee’s Pizza, which was a pop up before it opened its store front last month.)
I have one last cinnamon roll from Mayhew in my freezer, and I’ll save it for a special breakfast.
Chef Leah Chase On Screen
Chef Leah Chase is an icon in New Orleans. Everyone has a story of meeting her or dining in her family’s restaurant, Dooky Chase’s. Before she died in 2019, a visit to Dooky Chase’s was a must for visiting politicians, athletes, celebrities and tourists who wanted to sample her food.
Now, she will be the centerpiece of a new TV series that will air on public television in 2023. “The Dooky Chase Kitchen: Leah’s Legacy” will follow subsequent generations of Chases as they share recipes and stories about the restaurant and its role in culinary and social history.
Viewers will meet her grandson Edgar “Dook” Chase who runs the restaurant’s kitchen; niece Cleo Robinson, who first began cooking there in 1980; Zoe Chase, her great-granddaughter, who recently became the restaurant's newest chef; and granddaughter Eve Haydel, who is responsible for the cocktail and drink recipes.
If you are in New Orleans, stop by the Southern Food and Beverage Museum where there is a display in Leah Chase‘s honor.
A Loss For The Cookbook World
One of Ann Arbor’s real treasures was Jan Longone, who died on Aug. 3. She was a petite, friendly woman who knew everything there was to know about cookbooks and the history of recipes. Jan founded the Food and Wine Library in Ann Arbor in 1972, which became one of the world’s most valuable resources of antiquarian cookbooks and other printed materials.
Eventually, it grew to 20,000 pieces, and became the Janice Bluestein Longone Culinary Archive housed at the University of Michigan. There isn’t a culinary organization in the United States that Jan didn’t influence. Her friends included Julia Child and James Beard.
If Jan arrived at one of your culinary programs, you knew that you had received a valuable endorsement. I’ll always be grateful to her for her encouragement, and her willingness to point me in the direction of the research I was trying to accomplish.
What I’m Writing
I told you how much I enjoyed dining at Commander’s Palace. We went back there for my birthday lunch, and the service was just as attentive, despite the hectic activity of a Friday afternoon, when martinis are 25 cents each and the room can get loud. (There’s a limit of three, or people might never leave.)
But I’ve also experienced a number of meals where almost everything we’ve come to expect from restaurant service was missing. You place your order electronically, and your server is essentially a delivery person, not a story teller or a guide to the menu.
I wrote about what we’re losing as servers disappear for The Takeout. I know places have to cut costs, and I realize that some people prefer technology to personal interactions. But I sure hope restaurants can find a way to hire and retain their servers. I don’t want to see them disappear.
Meanwhile, New Orleans has gone through an extremely wet summer. While we haven’t been hit by any hurricanes yet, we’ve experienced almost daily thunderstorms that cause streets to temporarily flood. There’s even an app to guide you around impassable streets.
Flooding isn’t only taking place in locations that are below sea level. It’s been a problem for Houston, Detroit, St. Louis, eastern Kentucky and even Seoul, South Korea. While climate change is largely to blame, a number of cities are taking steps to keep flooding from being a recurring challenge. I wrote about these solutions in my column for the Washington Post.
Keeping Up With CulinaryWoman
A full calendar of my upcoming appearances is now posted on my website. Please let me know if you plan to attend. Note that a number of them are virtual, and you are definitely invited to register when details are available.
You can contact me at culinarywoman at gmail dot com. Follow me on Twitter @culinarywoman and check out my new Instagram account, @micki_in_nola which documents my New Orleans adventures.
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The CulinaryWoman Newsletter, 8/14/22
Sorry to hear about the bakery. It does feel like popups are the future. In many ways they’re way more favorable to small food businesses in their temporary limited hours and lower overhead and food cost planning.
Micki, you bring the NOLA culinary scene to life in the most engaging, delightful way.