Cornbread Nation 2: The United States of Barbecue (Cornbread Nation: Best of Southern Food Writing) (39 page)

Within minutes, plates emerge from the kitchen and the affable Rea carts
them over to the waiting diners. One contains a crispy, deep-fried patty made
of tender shrimp and salty country sausage drizzled with a creamy Creole
mustard sauce. Spicy but well balanced, it's one of Uglesich's many successful
(and often unlikely) ingredient combinations that become house standards. "I'm not scared of blending things together," he says. "Take the crawfish ball
appetizer-fried crawfish balls with a spicy Thai dipping sauce and a little rice
on the side. It's a mix of Creole and Asian. Some people don't like it, other
people love it."

On the plate, that appetizer is a study in flavor and texture. Plump Louisiana crawfish tails in a sweetish egg-and-bread-crumb binder are deep-fried to
a crispy consistency then served with a tangy, thin-bodied mixture flavored
with fish sauce, rice vinegar and, a time-delayed chili/garlic afterburn.

By 11:30 A.M., the restaurant is standing room only. Fifteen minutes later,
there's hardly any standing room left. The tables are packed, most for the second time, and new groups jostle to get in from the cold.

Gail arrived a half-hour earlier, dressed in her trademark uniform-an
oversized denim shirt embroidered with Warner Brothers cartoon characters.
With the crowds swirling around the main counter, she takes orders, works
the cash register, and keeps track of new arrivals. Every so often, she states the
house rules with an authoritative tone left over from her classroom teaching
days ("Place your order up front first, please!").

Group after group approaches Anthony, hoping to gain a little insight into
the dense, often confusing menu. One customer points to a handwritten sign
on the wall: FRESH TROUT-MARKET PRICE. "How are the trout?" he asks.
"Naaaaahhh, I don't have any," Anthony tells him. "I can't get fresh, and I
won't buy frozen." He laughs and shakes his head. "Tell you what, I'll get you
a nice catfish from Des Allemandes, Louisiana. You won't know the difference.
When I tell you the catfish is good, the catfish is good. You should listen to me."

Behind the kitchen's half-wall, the action ratchets up to full speed and stays
there. The cooks work elbow to elbow, staring up at the active tickets as their
hands assemble and double-check outgoing orders. The full griddle hisses in
the background as Cooper tends five orders of grilled catfish, two orders of
shrimp in the fry pots, and four saute pans. Anthony Rogers works all three
sections of the stainless steel sink, keeping the shelves filled with clean dishes
and utensils. It's a lot of action for a ten-foot square, but it's executed plate
after plate, check after check, without missing a beat.

Judging from the conversations, today's crowd is mostly made up of
tourists. Two couples from Memphis squeal over a chance meeting 400 miles
from home. A Bay Area business traveler, menu and cell phone in hand, reads
his options to his San Francisco connection. Gail mixes a round of superstrength cocktails from the cluttered tabletop bar. A couple of petite Uptown
ladies stop in for an early lunch without bothering to consult the menu:
"Mama will have a Sam's Favorite, and I'll just have the half-and-half po-boy."

"It used to be my customers were 8o percent local and 20 percent tourists,"
Uglesich says. "Now it's the other way around."

Paul Varisco, one of Uglesich's most consistent customers, has watched
these changes for more than thirty years. "I started coming in here about 1972,
and the business was about 9o percent local. When the menu started expanding, they got a write-up in USA Today about the time the Republican convention came to town in 1988. The reputation built from there. People would
come into town and ask me for a real local place, and I'd bring them here.
Ahmet Ertegun, the CEO of Atlantic Records, became a big fan and always
brought people in. Then the chefs-Frank, Susan, Emeril-came in and
brought their friends."

The early connection to Lagasse resulted in several television appearances
for Uglesich on the chef's popular TV shows Essence of Emeril and Emeril Live.
Whenever Lagasse was asked about his favorite underground eating establishments, Uglesich's would pop to the top of the list. "Emeril's been real good to
me," Uglesich acknowledges. "He's brought a lot of people in here in the early
days, and he always treats me well at his restaurants."

Since then, magazines from Travel and Leisure to Cigar Aficionado to Bon
Appetit and Gourmet have raved about New Orleans's unlikely "fine dining
dive." Television producers looking for the seamy-yet-safe underbelly of local
cuisine gravitate toward the place. Even Martha Stewart shot a segment in
which Gail and Anthony demonstrated a recipe for their famous "oyster
shooters."

"For people outside New Orleans, it's like Lourdes," says Gourmet's Gold.
"If you're a tourist, you have certain expectations about New Orleans, and it
fills them all-an exceptional, funky restaurant in a bad neighborhood run by
a charming curmudgeon. There's a sense of civility among the decay. People
always immediately understand what the big deal is."

Uglesich's reputation-and the attendant out-of-town crowds-grows
larger every year. During peak seasons such as Jazz Fest and Mardi Gras, the
line can start forming at the start of the early morning prep shift. Over time,
the national following has pretty much replaced the local lunch traffic. Both
lines and wait times are unpredictable, making Uglesich's a perfect illustration
of Yogi Berra's classic line: "Nobody goes there anymore. It's too crowded."

Uglesich recognizes the regional differences of his customers. "Locals are
more likely to order a simple lunch like a po-boy. But tourists tend to be a lot
more adventurous. They'll come down, wait for an hour, and then eat for two
more."

The out-of-towners have also shaped Uglesich's offerings over the years. When asked about his unusually deep beverage list of twenty-one different
wines and eighteen beer brands, he replies, "Customers started coming in and
asking for different wines-people from California suggested their favorites,
so we started carrying them. We listen to our customers."

The tables are still packed at 2:30 P.M. and the line has gone from three deep
at the bar to a few couples clutching tiny yellow Post-It notes and waiting for
Gail to call their number. Anthony has a little more time to chat with his customers. "You have a nice weekend. Need a cab? The streetcar's on St. Charles,
two short blocks down Erato. You're gonna need the exercise after lunch," he
laughs. "Come back and see us."

Rogers alternates between his shucking duties and backing up a busy Rea.
In between calls for "dozen raw for the gentleman," he quickly buses and
cleans vacant tables, delivers hot plates from the kitchen to their assigned tables, and poses for pictures with customers.

It hasn't been a good day for the raw bar, partially because Uglesich does his
best to discourage would-be raw oyster patrons. "Nah, get 'em from the
kitchen, but not from the bar," he tells them with disappointment, bemoaning
the effects of Hurricanes Isidore and Lill on coastal oyster beds. "This is the
weakest December I can remember."

As the front bar clears a bit, Uglesich takes a breather to talk about the business end of things. "I'm glad I stayed small," he says. "If you get big, you can't
always get your ingredients like you want them. I remember talking to my
daddy about this. If I get big, I gotta do what other people do-use imported
or farm-raised products, and those just don't have the flavors I like."

"We had a chance to move close to the convention center in the i98os, but
my kids weren't interested in taking over, so we didn't do it. I've had some offers, but nobody who really sounds serious. People want to buy the business
and hire somebody else to run it. And you can't do it like that."

"I've learned a lot over the years from people right here. Frank Brigtsen is
always good. You know what I respect? That he stays on the premises and does
his own cooking. Anne (Kearney) and Susan (Spicer), those women working
in the kitchen, they put in some real hard work."

Talk turns to the impending transition. "This place is my life, it's my love,"
he says. "But I'm getting old. I've been having knee problems, and I just can't
keep going. We've got Gail's parents at home, too, and they've got to have
twenty-four-hour care. We just can't do it all. I'd like to have more time to
travel, maybe put these recipes in a book."

The exact timing of Uglesich's retirement remains a guessing game even for those closest to him. "Anthony's always said that he'd work until he was sixtyfive, but I'm not really sure beyond that." Gail says. "I really like to cook, and
I like talkin' to people. That's what I'm really going to miss."

Friends and colleagues still hold out hope that something can breathe new
life into the institution. "He first started talking about closing about ten years
ago," says Spicer. "Everybody has a view in their mind of the perfect heir-one
of their sous chefs who could take the place over."

"The vacations have been getting longer-they started out as two weeks a
year, then four, and last year it was ten weeks," says Varisco. "Two years ago,
there was some talk about his closing, and this year it's more serious."

"He's talked that way for years," Brigtsen echoes. "Business is either so bad
it's killin' him or it's so good it's killin' him. They've got a lot going on right
now with the family, so you never know."

As for life in a post-Uggie era, Spicer says, "I don't like to think about it."

Whether their run ends this year or next, Gail and Anthony will have left an
enduring legacy on the New Orleans restaurant scene.

"I've met a lot of wonderful chefs in my time, but Anthony is my hero," says
Brigtsen. "It's amazing to see that kind of dedication to the customers and
their love of food. Anthony and Gail make it their 24/7 occupation, and that's
why Uglesich's is what it is. They serve the best seafood in New Orleans in a
neighborhood restaurant, and his care for his food and guests is beyond parallel. Uglesich's is the epitome of the New Orleans neighborhood restaurantand there ain't that many of them left."

Lagasse also considers the Uglesiches to be role models. "They developed
such a personal cuisine that you really can't duplicate it. They're just trying to
do their own thing," he says. "Over the years, I've seen them evolve. They'll go
through times when they're doing a lot of testing, and there's new things coming out of the kitchen. They're not resting on their laurels; they're trying to be
great cooks."

"He's been a hero of mine for years. He's a smart man, he's a great cook,
he's a smart business guy. It's unfortunate that he hasn't been able to find
someone to take over for him. But that would be pretty hard for somebody to
do, because it's so personal for him and Gail. And so we'll end up losing a
great institution. It'll be a sad day."

It's 4:30 P.M., official closing time. One straggling table -a returning group
of event planners from Washington, D.C.-calls for another bottle of wine as
they finish up their second round of appetizers.

"You get to try a little thing I'm working on," Uglesich says as he pushes the
bacon-wrapped shrimp to the center of the table. Half the plate is covered with what Uglesich called a "sweet potato cream sauce," a flash-broiled custard with a smooth, souffle-like texture. Not surprisingly, the dish-with
well-balanced sea-and-pig flavors and sweet finish-is a hit.

The last entrees leave the kitchen. The line crew breathes a sigh of relief.
Cooper emerges to talk with Gail for a few minutes, glad to take a break from
the superheated kitchen strewn with a day's worth of bread crumbs and sauce
splatters. A warm afternoon light bathes the nearly empty room in a peaceful,
golden glow. The hurricane fence shielding the front window casts a diamond
pattern on the empty tabletops.

"Well, that's it," sighs Rea. "A quiet Friday. Just about as busy as a good
Thursday. But that's not so bad." After a quick sip of water, he turns to stack
the empty tables. Michelle Rogers adjusts her do-rag before shifting into
cleanup mode.

Gail says her good-byes and gathers her purse, along with zip-top bags of
pre-prepped ingredients for her next early-morning shift. Anthony walks her
to the curb. As he returns to tally out the register, the pay phone rings yet
again.

"Uglesich." he says, leaning in to accommodate the short, braided cord.
"Uglesich. It's pronounced You, GULL like a seagull, SITCH. No, ma'am, we
don't serve dinner. We're closed now. Closed on weekends, too."

Then, as if to give his caller a little hope: "We'll be open on Monday,
though. You gonna be in town? Good. C'mon by and see us."

"John, bring us some of the Purgatory Shrimp." It's a full year later, and Anthony sits down for a late afternoon break, smiling but rubbing his knees.

With another Mardi Gras only weeks away, it's the calm before yet another
springtime storm-after carnival season comes the Jazzfest flurry, and beyond
that, the long summer break.

"We're not sure what's gonna happen this year," he says. "Gail needs a
break, so we're talking about it now. We might go down to four days a week,
might take a longer vacation . . ." He trails off and shrugs. "But I can't do this
without her."

A few other projects are humming along: a website, a cookbook due out in
October of 2004, and of course, new dishes for the menu. What happens in
2005 is anybody's guess.

The steaming plate of Purgatory Shrimp seems simple enough-crispy
fried shrimp topped with a buttery hot sauce. A tiny metal ramekin of creamy mystery dip seems to be ranch dressing, but on the tongue, it opens up a world
of intense, earthy flavor.

"That's Gorgonzola sauce," Anthony says. "I think the cheese works well
with the hot sauce. What do you think?"