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Robert explains on the show that his father, a transplanted New Yorker who was a bachelor into his 40s, didn’t believe in eating at home, and so Robert and his parents ate at Wise’s Cafeteria several nights a week.  They also dined at Galatoire’s on Bourbon Street often enough to have their own waiter, who was also his father’s bookie.  The only time they saw him out of his tuxedo was on Monday nights when he and his family were also dining out at Wise’s Cafeteria.

“The one undiminished thrill of a lifetime: good food.  Don’t cut yourself short.” These were the words that greeted the diners as they entered Wise’s Cafeteria, and Robert was eating there regularly before he could even read the words. 

 

Today on the show Robert is giving his own recipe for baked eggplant, which he developed over the years to approximate the baked eggplant dish prepared by the chef at Wise’s Cafeteria.  He alternates giving his recipe instructions with jazz selections, always providing the details of the credits at the end of each piece. 

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On another day in his Jazz Kitchen, Robert focuses on the artichoke and lovingly explains how to prepare stuffed artichokes, a New Orleans favorite.  He explains that the artichoke, originally from Sicily, was first enjoyed in New Orleans in the 1750s.  It was considered an aphrodisiac and its consumption was restricted to men.  When Sicilian immigrants arrived in New Orleans in the early 1900s, they found an already established artichoke-eating culture.  Robert’s careful directions, which include the skill involved in eating a stuffed artichoke, alternating with the sensual sounds of Wynton Marsalis’s interpretation of Jelly Roll Morton, easily convince the listener of the aphrodisiac properties of this unusual vegetable.

 

Wise’s Cafeteria was a New Orleans institution, founded in 1933 by Herbert Wise and operated until it was closed in 1989 by Herbert’s son Milton.  It was known for its excellent food, including the baked eggplant, and its red beans were featured on a PBS show about the lost restaurants of New Orleans. The actual name of Wise’s was Wise Cafeteria, but it was called Wise’s by most of its patrons.

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I asked Robert where else he and his parents had dined.  Well, there was Turci’s on Poydras Street, which had wonderful stuffed artichokes.  Turci’s was opened by Turci and Teresa Ettore, opera singers who arrived from Italy at the turn of the century to perform in New Orleans.  Turci’s, which existed on Poydras from 1917 to 1974, closed and then reopened on Magazine Street later in the 70s. 

 

Robert and his parents also enjoyed eating  raw oysters at the Acme Oyster Bar in the French Quarter, and they liked to drive to Manshac, a town northwest of New Orleans, to dine at Middendorf’s, where they enjoyed fried catfish, boiled shrimp, crawfish, and turtle soup.  Middendorf’s opened in 1934 and is still there, specializing in “thin and thick fried catfish.”

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Another dining establishment they patronized was Fitzgerald’s on Lake Pontchartrain, also a favorite of my family’s.  Fitzgerald’s, a seafood restaurant built out over the lake, was destroyed by Hurricane George in the late 1990s.  Robert did not omit Newman’s own cafeteria, run by Morrison’s Cafeteria, which served gumbo weekly and made delicious fried chicken and stewed chicken giblets.  In high school he enjoyed the oyster po-boys at Domilise’s on Annunciation Street near Newman, open since 1924, and he still goes there with his family for po-boys when they’re in New Orleans. 

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Mosca’s, a Sicilian restaurant on Highway 90 outside New Orleans, was another favorite of Robert and his parents.  My family also dined there often enough for Carlos Marcello, the crime boss of New Orleans, to know my father by name.  In 2010 journalist Calvin Trillin wrote a piece about Mosca’s for The New Yorker, recounting many of the myths about Mosca’s, for example, that its chef was the son of Al Capone’s chef, and explaining that we love stories so much in New Orleans that we continue to tell them even after we learn that they’re not true.  I heard my Dad tell the story about Mosca’s chef many times, and I have to admit that I also repeated this story frequently and with great authority.  

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The Greenberg family did not eat out every single night.  Robert added that “every now and then” his father cooked lamb chops in a skillet, and his mother made chicken in a pot.  When I asked Robert about the impact of his dining out so much as a child, besides his obvious love of food and his expertise as a cook, he immediately replied, “My diabetes.”  He has Type II diabetes, and he is grateful that he is not on insulin. 

 

Before his radio shows, he and his wife, JoAnn Coffino, had a 21-year venture in creating and operating a bakery, True Confections, in Mill Valley, California, just north of San Francisco.  They also raised their two sons, Eli and Jesse, who now each have a son and a daughter.  They miss the bakery, and they would like for their children to have their own bakery.

 

Sampling JoAnn’s delicious pastry creations contributed to weight gain for Robert, and he lost 75 pounds after they sold the bakery in 1999 and has maintained his weight loss since then. Marin County residents still talk about the True Confections bakery with great affection, even though it has been gone over twenty years.

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In addition to his love of food and cooking, Robert’s radio shows reflect his longstanding passion for music and for broadcast radio.  He explained that as an only child with much older cousins his “ear was to the radio.”  Or, as he put it, it was “just me and the radio.”  When I first interviewed Robert in 1999, shortly after he and JoAnn had sold the bakery, he was taking a class in radio announcing.  He found it dull and dropped out, but then he responded to an ad for someone to take over a radio show in the nearby town of Sausalito focusing on jazz and food.  Robert created the persona of “Kitchen Man” and did 48 “Jazz Kitchen” shows before hosting the “Caldonia Street Blues Hour” for another year and a half, ending with a final program in 2005 honoring the start of the recovery of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. 

 

“Good eats and musical treats.”  Food and music are the creative threads that run through Robert’s life path.  He began listening to music when he was still in his crib and was developing a sophisticated ear during early childhood.  Newman provided a safe environment, especially during elementary school.  In high school he pursued his interests in music, voice, and drama, and he was one of the winners of the drama award in his senior year. 

 

Robert had a very unusual growing up as the only child of parents who went out to dinner in some of New Orleans’ best restaurants nearly every night.  Robert has an encyclopedic knowledge of New Orleans music and food, and he has been integrating these joyful pursuits throughout his life and sharing them with others.