Chow, Baby was zooming across the Toledo Bend Reservoir back into Texas when a horrible thought dawned: It had forgotten to eat a muffuletta. How did that happen? 
Chow, Baby had made a list! There was the ham & cheese omelet at Camellia Grill; the “berled” crawfish from Big Fisherman; the fried green tomato & shrimp remoulade po-boy at Crabby Jack’s, the Fred’s of New Orleans (a gourmet-dive with food so delicious, you’re pissed off about the ridiculous prices only during the few minutes between ordering and eating). And the food booths at the French Quarter Fest – nobody goes to the Jazz Fest anymore; it’s too crowded – with snack-size portions, or what foo-foo cities might call “small plates,” of gator sausage on a stick, debris po-boy, shrimp & grits, bread pudding, gumbo of all kinds, Delmonico’s confit pork cheeks, Antoine’s oysters bonne femme. Those and 85 other booths – sorry, no turkey legs or funnel cakes – were scattered around music stages featuring the Zydepunks, the Zydeco Hot Boys, the Zydeco Posse, the Zydeco Hellraisers, and also some zydeco bands, not to mention all the brass, jazz, and blues going on too. Oh, it was a grand weekend, musically, foodily, and Abita Jockamo India Pale Ale-ily.
Except for forgetting the muffuletta. This Sicilian delight is nearly impossible to find in its true form outside New Orleans because, as with other local sandwiches, it all comes down to the bread. Anybody can layer up thin-sliced Italian cold cuts and cheeses, and you can buy decent Italian olive salad in jars if you don’t feel like chopping up all the olives and pickled vegetables and letting them marinate in olive oil and spices for a day. But you need the big (dinner-plate-size), crusty, chewy, dense, sorta-but-not-really-foccacia-ish muffuletta bread to properly soak up the juices and balance the flavors and textures. As with po-boy bread, it seems to flourish only in southern Louisiana. … wait a minute … . Like most people, Chow, Baby has its best ideas near water, usually while in the shower, but this time while crossing over Lake Tyler East: Pierre’s Mardi Gras Café (2816 S. Cooper St., Arlington). Pierre’s po-boy bread doesn’t flake exactly right (stupid low humidity in North Texas), but the innards are perfect: fresh-fried shrimp or oysters, or better yet both ($6.50), dressed with exactly the right proportions of mayo, lettuce, and tomato. Throw in some shrimp and double-sausage jambalaya (large $5.99) and super-stuffed gumbo ($6), finish off with rum-sauced bread pudding ($2.50) and a big homemade praline ($1.25), and you’ve got your own personal New Orleans food festival.
Surely Pierre would help Chow, Baby with its muffuletta problem – but alas, the day Chow, Baby stopped by was the day the bread guy from Lafayette hadn’t. Plenty of cold cuts and housemade olive salad on hand, but nowhere to put them! So close! Chow, Baby did satisfy another omission on its recent-eats list: red beans and rice with a side-patty of hot sausage ($5.50) – not a link, but a thin patty; crucial for the spice-meat balance. Naturally the sausage-studded red beans were slow-cooked and creamy, needing just a dash of tableside Tabasco for perfection. And filling enough that Chow, Baby might be able to hang on another day or two, waiting for the right bread.
Contact Chow, Baby at chowbaby@fwweekly.com.
