FOOD & DINING

The latest reviews and listings from New Orleans and South Louisiana

The John Besh Restaurant Group finalized a deal today to purchase the old Smith & Wollenskey property at 1009 Poydras Street. The building has been vacant since Hurricane Katrina.

It will become Domenica Trattoria e Enoteca, an Italian restaurant that the restaurant group first envisioned locating inside the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel.

Thom Scott / Times-Picayune ArchiveIn this week's Food pages, find out what happened to the Manuel's Hot Tamales family.• Search the recipe archive• 'Recipe Swap' forum• Cookbook reviews• Latest food news

Three years after Katrina, Manuel's Hot Tamales is a legendary business still stuck in post-storm limbo. The history of it's founder and the company are online exclusively at NOLA.com.

Marcelle Bienvenu shares cooking tips, recipes and memories of the late Eula Mae Dore, who lived on Avery Island and cooked there all her life.

In Exchange Alley, readers provide and receive recipes for red gravy -- also known as tomato gravy or tomato sauce -- a nice cool cucumber and mint soup, and a perfect take-along dessert, Blueberry carry cake.

Thom Scott / Times-Picayune Archive Manuel's Hot Tamales never served another tamale after Hurricane Katrina. New owners of the building plan to turn the space into a po'boy shop.

The day Hurricane Katrina boomed into town, the freezers at Manuel's Hot Tamales at 4709 S. Carrollton Ave. held 250 pounds of meat and about 85 cases of prepared tamales, each with 12 dozen tamales inside, ready to ship to wholesale customers across the region.

They were the last Manuel's Hot Tamales ever made. The levee failures pushed nearly 6 feet of water into the first-floor factory, which had cranked out around 16,000 tamales a week.

Jennifer Zdon / The Times-PicayuneMeat lasagna from Liuzza's, where shortly after Hurricane Katrina the restaurant was unable to make their red gravy. In this week's Exchange Alley, we're all about red gravy recipes.

It's K+3, and through all our hard work, we have regained so much. When I went to Liuzza's (on Bienville) after they reopened, several of their signature dishes were missing. They weren't able to make the red gravy yet. But the next time I went, there it was, back on the menu. Another bit of our heritage had been reclaimed.

After reading Pazzo's blue crab in red sauce recipe last week, Pip26 wrote, "Blue crabs in red gravy is a Sicilian dish. My mother cooked this frequently when meat was not allowed for Catholics to eat on Friday. Another dish for Friday supper was hard-boiled eggs added to the red gravy while it was cooking. I make this occasionally and my grandkids love it. Also, my mother would get the gravy hot and break raw eggs in it to poach. This was all very delicious."

John McCusker / The Times-PicayuneWhen first approached about doing a cookbook, Eula Mae was very hesitant. She finally acquiesced.

I came to know Eula Mae Dore 10 years ago, not long after my mother passed away. Paul C.P. McIlhenny, president and CEO of McIlhenny Co., brought us together to discuss the possibility of working together on a cookbook.

Dore lived on Avery Island all of her adult life. A self-taught cook, she and her husband presided over the company Commissary (now known as the Tabasco Deli) for years on the island, and, if that didn't keep her busy enough from dawn until dusk, she also happily prepared numerous brunches, breakfasts, lunches and dinner for countless visiting guests, including Jacques Pepin, Marion Cunningham and Pierre Franey.

It's K+3, and I feel like we've all been to hell and back.

Three years is a long time, but all the grief still can come streaming back. On a recent Sunday morning, I saw the work going on at what used to be Manuel's Hot Tamales. I talked to the lovely couple, Mike and Lori Bettencourtt, who are putting a poor boy shop into the hallowed space. New Orleans natives who moved home in 2002 after living in several states while Mike was in the Navy, they have their own Katrina story, losing their home in Lakeview.

Eula Mae Dore, the "treasure of Avery Island" Louisiana and co-author of Eula Mae's Cajun Kitchen, and a friend of Marcelle Bienvenu, passed away in July after living on Avery Island for more than half a century, cooking in and managing the McIlhenny Company Commissary and Tabasco Deli for more than 42 years.

In honor of Eula Mae's contribution to the world of south Louisiana Cajun cooking, the McIlhenny Company announces the Eula Mae Dore Louisiana Heritage Award .This award, which will be announced along with the other Tabasco Community Cookbook Awards in early 2009, will be bestowed upon a Louisiana organization whose cookbook celebrates the culinary traditions and history of The Bayou State.

The Rampart Street bar operated by the owners of the Delachaise opened early this month and has been operating without a name.

The picture is a little fuzzy, but the sign says Bar Tonique, which becomes one of New Orleans' relatively few modern, cocktailcentric bars not associated with a restaurant.

Most of these food ideas for dining and preparing in an emergency came from the storm-hardened readers of the Times-Picayune.

*Salty snacks will just make you want more water. Avoid them. Look for low-salt crackers, broth, soups, etc., for your emergency food supplies.

*Do not waste money buying any food you know your family will not eat.