I would like to address a false rumor now circulating. Multiple sources are claiming that fall is here. Football is back. School is in session. Ads full of men’s sweaters and ladies’ boots stalk us online. Sure, that might all spell fall elsewhere.
But in Louisiana we know better. We are in the calendar’s cruelest phase. Fall, our fall, is close, promising not just nice weather but all the great things we look forward to as the season shifts – tailgating and parties, festivals, the prospect of changing our clothes several times a day only because we want to, and not because we have to.
And yet, we will be living with summer a bit longer here. But to bring this all to the plate, one way you can actually appreciate this time instead of just wishing it away, is to take the last plunge into our summer food.
Local waters are bringing us shrimp and crab in all their abundant glory. The time is especially ripe for soft shell crabs, that exotic luxury elsewhere that is an anytime po-boy filling here, now landing fat and ready in a late summer harvest.
There’s still time this summer for the fastest homemade meal in the South, too, the tomato sandwich. All it takes is good tomatoes, cheap white bread, mayo, salt and pepper and a sense of humor about the juice you will spill on your shirt.
This remains prime time for sno-balls. An entire landscape of little stands awaits, complete with evocative childhood taste memories. For newcomers, evocative middle aged taste memories of sno-balls are available too.
And at restaurants, summer deals are still rolling. The Coolinary season wrapped up in August, but many spots keep their own specials going, and it is still easy to nab reservations that will be harder to get when the town fully comes back to life this fall.
So let the outta-town fall commentary continue. Here in New Orleans, even at the bottom of our hot summer, just thinking about the next bite is a good way to perk up.
