By Rod Dreher

Natchitoches, Louisiana

Let’s end this woebegone year on a VFYT high note. Above, a reader’s first taste of something very, very good:

This is my boyfriend and I having dinner at the Crawfish Hole in Natchitoches, Louisiana. He grew up here, but I did not, and this was my first time eating crawfish. My boyfriend introduced me to your blog when we started dating, so I’m pretty excited to submit a view from our table.

Thanks, and happy New Year!

We already have our first VFYT of 2017, by the way — from a New Year’s Eve dinner. Watch this space tomorrow.

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Via:: American Conservative

By Rod Dreher

Baton Rouge, Louisiana

Yesterday was our wedding anniversary. We went to Ruth’s Chris steak house to celebrate, and had what I think we both agree was the best meal of 2016. (For me, the only contender was earlier this year, when a friend took me to Ruth’s Chris for the first time ever.) It is hard to describe the pure decadent pleasure of this place. We arrived a little bit early, and went to the bar to wait for our table. I ordered an Old Fashioned, which came to me in a cocktail glass the size of a small bucket, or so it seemed, and tasted … perfect. It could not possibly have been made better.

You are looking at the Platonic ideal of a steak. It came to the table sizzling in butter. If only you could see the red inside, with its exquisite marbling. One more crystal of salt would have been too much; one less, too little. And those mushrooms!

I once described oysters at Huîtrerie Régis as akin to little culinary grenades that explode with the flavor of the sea when detonated in your mouth. Similarly, with those mushrooms and the flavor of the woods, all drawn out by butter. Is there anything butter cannot do? I think not. The wine was a St-Emilion, delicious, but incredibly enough, not the star of the evening. That’s how good the steak was.

I told Julie that this restaurant is a favorite of Louisiana state legislators and lobbyists. She said this is not surprising in the least. “If you brought me to eat here, you could pretty much talk me into anything,” she joked. True. If you are ever in Baton Rouge, Ruth’s Chris is the place. Basically, your soul is warmed in butter from the moment you enter until the moment you stumble out, satisfied beyond all description.

The server kindly brought us a present from the kitchen: cheesecake with blueberries:

We were so full that we couldn’t finish it. Later in the evening, my snack at home:

This morning, I find myself so grateful for the grace in that meal last night. For many of us, 2016 was not the best year ever. A superior steak accompanied by a good Bordeaux can cover a multitude of disappointments. So 2016 ended for me on a high note — or so it seems. There are still 12 hours to go, and given the way this year is going, there’s no telling what’s going to happen between now and midnight.

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Via:: American Conservative

By Rod Dreher

Only you and the Lord need know … (Rob Hofacker/Shutterstock)

Ave atque vale:

You might not know Robert Hulseman by name but there is a good chance you’ve held his invention. The red Solo Cup is the go-to drinking vessel for picnics, parties and keggers.

Hulseman, who invented the cup, died last week at the age of 84, The Associated Press reported on Thursday.

As part of my tireless efforts in religious anthropology, I learned some years ago in Texas of the importance of the Red Solo Cup to Southern Baptist culture. I was invited to a big evening social event that was not a church social, but at which nearly everybody was a Southern Baptist. In southern Louisiana, my homeland, most of our Southern Baptists drink and don’t worry about it. Not so in Texas. Lots of them drink, but do worry about it. Hence this old chestnut:

How do you keep a Southern Baptist from drinking all your beer on a fishing trip?

Make sure you take at least two of them along.

So there I was, after a couple of hours at this fun party at a camp, wanting a beer. I joked with the hostess about how hard it was for a Catholic (as I was at the time) and Louisiana boy to go to a party and not have a beer.

“Are you serious?” she said. “Everybody’s drinking beer here. Go look in the fridge and get you one. All I ask is that you pour it into one of those red Solo cups.”

Sure enough, just about everybody had a red Solo cup full of beer, and had been drinking beer all night. I thought they were sipping Dr Pepper! I asked my wife about this later, and she said, “You don’t know about the Red Solo Cup thing?” I reckon I didn’t.

So, hail and farewell — and cheers — to Robert Hulseman, a Catholic layman who did so much to make life easier for Southern Baptists.

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Via:: American Conservative