Commander's Palace

Carlos I've known for a million years.

We used to know him from when he was at Commander's Palace.

Oh my God, yes.

Back when that happened, and then he was at Wynn Las Vegas Country Club.

Explaining the situation to the station, they said they would comp me for one meal at a restaurant of my choosing.

So I chose the best one I could possibly think of, the Commander's Palace.

So join me and my $10 stipend as we dine in at the esteemed and established Commander's Palace.

[upbeat country music] Well, listeners, I'm here at Commander's Palace, and I've found myself in a bit of a squabble here with the doorman.

Hey, you don't need to record this.

What are you doing with that?

Coronavirus ain't gonna stop me from sitting in a restaurant, ordering food, and waiting for it, and then eating it.

That has been a pretty popular viewpoint with people, yeah.

Um, how did this influence the food culture in terms of the cuisine and the dishes that we know?

So I think people often think of Creole cuisine as emerging from these historic restaurants like Antoine's and Galatoire's and Commander's Palace, but I argue that New Orleans Creole cuisine was born of the street food culture.

Hmm.

So if you go back to the antebellum period, you are going to see enslaved African women and their descendants hawking gumbo, hawking freshly prepared pralines and calas, sugary rice fritters, in the street.

And where we left him, Major Sladek was checking into a Courtyard Marriott on the outskirts of New Orleans and discovering that, well, he had the place to himself.

I got to go to every restaurant that you've ever heard of, you know, the famous ones, Commander's Palace, all the Brennan's restaurants.

They're all vacant.

And I mentioned to Philip during the break, I went to – one of my favorites is actually not those.

Everyone at certain times took masks off.

And I, again, uh, even we were, like, in the restaurant, we were, like, in Commander's Palace, and I was, like, wearing my mask, and then, like, eating under it.

Like, I had so much anxiety about COVID till I got vaccinated.

[laughs]