In the Cajun, "T" is short for "Petit," so T-Coon's means
"Little Coon's." I can explain to you that much. I can't
explain why you would name your restaurant after a vicious,
carnivorous scavenger.
I have to confess that I arrived at T-Coon's disappointed, because we came on a Saturday and the specials list painted on the window said that Tuesday is short rib fricassee day. I wondered if we should sit in the parking lot, have a snack, and wait out the 72 hours. Luckily, every day is meatball fricassee day at T-Coon's. Score! If there is one thing more perversely delicious-sounding than short rib fricassee, it's shaped-ground-meat fricassee.
Pableaux surveyed the table, spying my meatball, his smothered beef, Punkin's smothered pork, and Kay-Z's crawfish etouffee, and smiled. "This is like what I ate in school growing up," he said, "when little old lunch ladies still cooked food for kids in school." The rolls, he said, tasted particularly of his childhood. I took a bite of one, and it was fantastic: tender, chewy, buttery, sweet and yeasty.
The rest of the food followed suit. The meatball was slightly spicy, rich and brown-tasting; the salty, slightly vinegary razor-thin coleslaw tarted it up beautifully. And I could have mowed down my body weight in that rice. "Medium grain is the rice of my people," Pableaux said. Not quite long grain, not quite sushi, it's got a beautiful toothsomeness, a nice chew, slightly sticky, and it traps gravy like a jealous lover.
I thought about what it would be like to grow up on food this tasty, this carefully made in school cafeterias. Pableaux's been writing about food for a dozen years, but he once said to me that he thought anyone could do what he does. "Anyone, anyway, who grew up like me, in a place where everyone just cares about food as much as I do." Well, since he is possessed of a singular wit and a love of words, I have to think that he's wrong. But then again, the food in my school cafeteria wasn't like this, either. What's school lunch like here now? "My goddaughter was eating McDonald's and Subway last time I checked," he said.
Next week: a dalliance with boudin, a bivalve massacre, and grown men hugging novelty-sized food containers.
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