The last time we went to Milford’s on Third — it’s a deli on the ground floor of the Watermark Hotel (more about that in a sec) in Baton Rouge, I noticed that they had two recipes framed. One was for kosher dill pickles, and the other, Wampold mayonnaise (Mike Wampold is the building developer — his grandfather, Milford, had a grocery with deli in north Louisiana):
‘Regular’ mayonnaise is just egg, oil, salt, lemon juice, then your choice of further seasoning (white pepper? mustard? a little splash of vinegar? all of it?) — so I made the Wampold mayonnaise today, and it was good. TBH, I’m happy with my jar of Duke’s so…
…but that also got me thinking of this (I know you’re coming here for more than just the hey so revolutionary…I made mayonnaise today content):
1/ This piece in The National about Robert Louis Stevenson that’s actually entitled Making Mayonnaise then Struck Down…the death of Robert Louis Stevenson
…“I began to mix the mayonnaise; he dropping the oil with a steady hand, drop by drop. Suddenly, he set down the bottle, knelt by the table, leaning his head against it. I cannot go on just now.
“It was the hand of death that had stricken him down. In less than five minutes he was profoundly insensible and so remained till the end.
“It was about six when he knelt at the table and at ten minutes after eight, he passed away. In a very short time, we had two doctors and a medical missionary here but there was nothing to do.”
Fanny recalled: “That very day he had said to me ‘the thought of dying in bed is horrible to me; I want to die like a clean human being on my feet. I want to die in my clothes, to fall just as I stand.’ He did. It was only at the very end, for the last few breaths, that we laid him down.”
Thankfully, I managed to survive making mayonnaise. RLS went the way he wanted (even though he was young, he’d had poor health, so considering the manner was certainly on his mind). The National also states that his poem, Requiem, is often quoted at funerals, and is on his monument:
“Under the wide and starry sky,
Dig the grave and let me lie.
Glad did I live and gladly die,
And I laid me down with a will.
This be the verse you grave for me:
Here he lies where he longed to be;
Home is the sailor, home from sea,
And the hunter home from the hill.”
2/ Um, completely moving away from that: I’ll neverrrrr leave Duke’s, but am up for trying the Japanese mayonnaise Kewpie.
3/ Mason Hereford at Turkey and the Wolf (which is just as good as everyone says) has this notice on their menu:
at turkey and the wolf,
we do our best to use the most honest ingredients from around here. we buy local when it makes sense, which is often. we try to buy from our friends. we make all the cool stuff in house, but we’re also proud to serve the best of what we don’t make, like american cheese and m and m’s.
thank you for being here.
and yeah, he’s all about using Duke’s.
Here’s what we had Milford’s: a tomato-based matzah ball soup and a reuben (which I don’t see on their menu right now)
The hotel there is the Watermark, an Autograph collection hotel. It’s downtown, perfect for walking everywhere. So crazy beautiful; the building is from 1927, has Art Deco and Greek Revival details, and includes a bank vault. It was BR’s first skyscraper. We really, really enjoyed our stay:
lenticular art by Davide Micaro in the entryway:
Douglas Detiveaux, designer at Gensler, also worked on the Aertson Kimpton Nashville, Hyatt Regency Galleria Houston; Hotel Sorella in Houston, and the Renaissance Hotel Baton Rouge, among others. He is *amazing* — completely captured the bank and office building history of the building:
our room: 
