Download Miss Ella of Commander's Palace EBLAD

$27.99 U.S. Miss Miss Miss Miss “I don’t even know if she owns a pan, but she has one of the most amazing palates that I’ve ever ran into—ever. She has Martin, Miss Ella reveals what makes her strong, this incredible gene about people, she’s practically a genius.” Her only training was from the school of hard ambitious, creative—and, occasionally, a “blubber- —Emeril Lagasse, celebrity chef and cookbook author knocks in Depression-era New Orleans, she didn’t Ella ing mess.” Friends and colleagues—among them Ella cook, and she viewed herself as “a little sawed-off Jeremiah Tower, Danny Meyer, Emeril Lagasse, OF “the memoir of the dazzling and delightful Ella Brennan is kid’’ from a nondescript restaurant in the French Daniel Boulud, Julia Reed, and Tim and Nina Candid and savory; it’s the chronicle of a life well cooked, Miss EllaElla Quarter. And yet, Ella Brennan, with the support Zagat—also chime in to paint the full portrait of well served, and well lived.” —Walter Isaacson, journalist and Miss of a colorful, industrious—and sometimes conten- this “pizazz ambassador for New Orleans.’’ intellectual leader Commander'sCommander's PalacePalace tious—Irish family, an insatiable desire for learning, Cue up the jazz, sip on a Sazerac, and allow Miss OF “I don’t want a restaurant WHERE A and a hurricane-strength will, rose to become one Ella to reveal the heart of her “wonderful world”— “Anyone interested in a brilliantly successful hospitality JAZZ BAND CAN’T COME MARCHING THROUGH” of America’s most celebrated restaurateurs. Commander's Commander's Palace as her beacon Louie Armstrong put it. career needs to read this book. For those who aren’t, Miss Ella C is a life primer on how to have a great life and have ‘a damned This is her remarkable, inspirational story of o good time’ doing it. Which is what you will have reading this competing in a male-dominated world, inventing mm Ella Brennan & TI MARTIN book. After I did, I knew what she means on looking back by her career as she went along, and making sure that saying ‘Lucky, Lucky Me.’ —Jeremiah Tower, celebrity chef everyone around her had a grand time. Fabulous a breakfasts and Bananas Foster at Brennan’s Jazz “Ella was a celebrity restaurateur before there were celebrity n brunch and Haute Creole menus at Commander’s Ella Brennan was born in 1925 in New chefs. She’s the pizazz ambassador of New Orleans.” d Palace—she was present at their birth. The payoff —Julia Reed e Orleans, Louisiana. From her first job at the age was the loyalty of the guests she entertained, the r's r's of eighteen working in her brother’s bar, she has devotion of the employees she mentored, and the “Ella Brennan . I would say there is no more important spent her entire professional life in the restaurant loving embrace of her native city. female restaurateur ever.” —Tory McPhail business, with her crowning achievement being Pa Hospitality is Ella’s passion, and she taught the the Commander’s Palace restaurant. Ella is the restaurant industry how to do it properly, earning recipient of a James Beard Foundation Lifetime “Miss Ella . I admire her, I worship her, I love her! she is the l Queen of hospitality & entertainment in America! I’m grateful a a Lifetime Achievement Award from the James Achievement Award. She has two children, Ti for herr lifelong parade of love, passion, leadership and c Beard Foundation. During a career that began in the Martin and Alex Martin. generosity in NOLA.” —Daniel Boulud, Chef-Owner, The Dinex Group e 1940s and still reverberates, she was a pioneer of the modern American food movement, fostered the Ti Adelaide Martin is the daughter of “Her life’s work has permeated the whole landscape of careers of celebrity chefs such as Paul Prudhomme Ella Brennan and co-proprietor of Commander’s American cooking.” —Drew Nieporent and Emeril Lagasse, befriended a marquee full of Palace. Brennan Hollywood stars, and became the matriarch of a & MARTIN bountiful family of restaurateurs. Ella has been the ultimate behind-the-scenes Jacket design by Michel Vrana presence and never cared to tell her own story until Front cover photo by Donn Young now. But with the help of her daughter, Ti Adelaide Contents Acknowledgments . 8 Foreword . 10 Introduction . 13 ABOVE, LEFT: Ned Reed, Ella Brennan, Al Hirt (standing), and Paul Martin. ABOVE, RIGHT: Ella and Paul Martin. BELOW: Ralph Alexis and Ella standing in the door 1 Scrambled Eggs, Sautéed Bananas and of Vieux Carré Restaurant (photograph by Jack Robinson, The Jack Robinson Archive, LLC; One Unshakeable Family (1925–1943) . 19 www.robinsonarchive.com). 2 “Your Restaurant Stinks!” (1944–1954) . 31 3 “Some Girls Went to Finishing School . I Went to Café Lafi tte ”. 49 4 A Vision on Royal Street (1955–1969) . 55 5 There’s Just No Stopping Mardi Gras Memories . 77 6 Divisions (1970–1973) . 89 7 Big Sister, Larger than Life . 97 8 Creole-ize It: Pioneering Modern American Cuisine (1974–1983) . 115 9 Are You Sure You Want to Run a Restaurant? . 141 10 Lighting a Fire: Emeril Lagasse, Jamie Shannon and the Commander’s Palace Classroom (1983–2001) . 173 11 Two Passions, Many Loves . 199 12 Passages (1985–2005 . and beyond) . 213 13 “Lucky, Lucky Me” . 229 Afterword Saloon in the Sky . 238 2 “Your Restaurant Stinks!” (1944–1954) “Well, go fix it, smarty pants ”. —Owen Brennan When you walked into the Old Absinthe House on the corner of Bourbon and Bienville, you’d hear ghosts murmuring even before you downed the first Sazerac at the polished wood-topped bar. That was probably true even in its early days during the Jean Lafitte/Andrew Jackson era in the early 1800s, and it became even more true over the years when Mark Twain, P. T. Barnum, Enrico Caruso and Jenny Lind were said to have knocked back a few there. When Owen bought the bar in 1943, he was determined to make it prominent again as a gathering place for New Orleans society—and give those ghosts fresh material to whisper about. He’d been looking for a business that all of us could be in together and that would allow us to take care of Mom and Dad. They were approaching retirement age, though few people in those days had pensions or any money saved up for their later years. Owen had bought a service station and a drug store up near City Park, and he helped run the Court of Two Sisters restaurant in the French Quarter while the owner was serving in World War II. So he had made a little 5 “Your Restaurant Stinks!” “Your Restaurant Stinks!” money but was looking to make more. Owen also had been doing business with Antoine’s or Arnaud’s, the dominant old-guard restaurants. It was smashing! Like a liquor wholesaler, who loaned him $15,000 to buy the Old Absinthe House. It Rick’s Café Américain in Casablanca. Owen knew how to set a stage. was a money machine, but Owen soon took it to another level of sophistication. Owen was the host and knew everybody and talked to everybody. If there He reasoned that if you drew a higher-class crowd and charged more for drinks, was something interesting going on, he was probably involved. Some people have your income would go up. Very smart move. referred to him as the “impresario of the French Quarter,” and it was true. One One of the first things he did was hire a great black piano player and jazz night he stood in the middle of Bourbon Street and said to anyone who would singer, Walter “Fats” Pichon, and create a stage for him in the back room, which listen, “If you can’t sell New Orleans, you can’t sell anything! This has got to be was like a nightclub within the bar. The room was usually crowded but in an inti- the best tourist town in America.” He believed it would be the easiest thing in the mate way, and I can still hear the clinking ice in the highballs and see the candles world to promote the city if we got our act together. (And the city did, eventually, flickering on the tables. Fats wore a tuxedo and played in front of a giant mirror though it took a while for other large, high-end hotels to be built that would give with a spotlight on him and would dazzle the patrons with the pop and jazz the Roosevelt, with its famous Blue Room and Sazerac Bar, a run for its money.) standards of the day, everything from “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore” to Owen just knew what it took to make people happy. It was an instinct. He “Night and Day” to “Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries,” which became my favorite. understood hospitality and he understood service, and he taught them to us all. Fats’s showmanship took the crowd to giddy heights and glided back down so as He was the first Brennan to go into that type of business, and it was a great to not interrupt the conversation too much. choice because the bar brought in money steadily and gave him a chance to Boy, I’d give anything to hear him do his act again, his way with that piano, work his natural charisma—and sleep late. I’ll never forget the day World War his joy in it.

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