Tables and Tunes at MJ’s Cafe
A plate was stacked with thick heirloom tomato slices overlapping in a careful, Technicolor array—as if a kaleidoscope had been dissected to reveal its magic. Underneath, a disc of snow-white mozzarella acted like a canvas from which these colors had exploded. Drizzles of implausibly fruity olive oil and balsamic vinegar tied the tomatoes to the basil leaves, which had just recently been plucked off a potted plant on the counter. I’ve seen seventeenth-century masterpieces in museums that garnered less awe than Maureen Joyce’s heirloom tomato salad.
In these media-heavy times, when culinary skill is a televised spectator sport and when the current trend in restaurant menus is to name a dish with an exhausting parade of adjective-laden ingredients, it is very easy to forget that cuisine is made out of food. The reason Maureen Joyce is one of my favorite chefs is because her cuisine is unmistakably food.
Her cozy MJ’s Cafe, open since 2012 on Jefferson Highway in Mid City Baton Rouge, caters to a lunch crowd hungry for the food-as-food experience. One of the few restaurants in Baton Rouge focused on vegetarian options beyond the usual hummus and grilled cheese sandwich, MJ’s is a radiant haven.
Joyce has an ebullient, dreamy demeanor, especially when talking about her life in food. “My mother’s brother married a woman from France,” said Joyce. “So, I grew up with this beautiful, exotic aunt from France. I went over there for a semester to study art and literature for my degree, and then that summer I went to live in La Rochelle with my family. They were the coolest people. They owned what you might think of as a bed-and-breakfast here, and it [had] a built-in cafe. I thought I could maybe work in the front, but my French was so terrible that they put me in the back; and there, I learned a lot.”
The French tradition of going daily to the market was a revelation to Joyce, one that contours her thinking today. “The mother of my aunt was in her sixties or seventies and rode her bike to the market every day. She was in better shape than I was at twenty-two, just outpacing me in every way. She would go to the open-air market as this great joyous event in her day—this beautiful, aesthetic experience—to see what they have, and then [bring] it home to prepare it for lunch or for dinner. That’s where I fell in love with getting things fresh and preparing them simply.”
When one thinks “French food,” what comes to mind is Parisian bistros, heavy sauces, and high-mindedness; but in La Rochelle, a provincial port city on the Bay of Biscay, things tended to be more down-to-earth.
“I couldn’t get over how good real tomatoes could be,” said Joyce. “I’d never had a cherry at that point that hadn’t been preserved in some way. I wasn’t a fully practicing vegetarian at that point, but moving in that direction; and I loved how easy it was to be one, even in such a meat culture.”
While Louisiana cuisine is frequently a celebration of meat and seafood, it’s the region’s bounty of non-meat products that informs the menu at MJ’s.
“One of the farmers that delivers here handles produce for some really pricy restaurants because his [products] are all organic and local; but he said I spent as much as they did [on vegetables] because I make vegetables the star of the show,” said Joyce. “They are not the side dish.
“I don’t think vegetables get their due [since] they are the flavor-makers. If you ate meat plain, unseasoned, you might not know if it was chicken or pork; but think about how different asparagus is from eggplant. I feel good about celebrating that bounty. If you are going to make that kind of nurturing experience in a cafe, where people are going to step away from their day and treat themselves, they shouldn’t have to do it with something unhealthy. A lot of times, our comfort foods are not our healthiest options.”
Joyce does not just give trendy, locavore lip service to serving fresh ingredients. The food she makes is inextricably tied to those from whom she buys ingredients. It was almost like they were dinner guests as she listed them off: “The heirloom tomatoes came from Covey Rise in Husser, Louisiana. The blueberries came from Eric Morrow at the Red Stick Farmers Market.”
Joyce’s selection of ingredients is highly personal: “I learned that Vicknair’s (Vicknair Family Farm in Ponchatoula) doesn’t refrigerate their strawberries, so I’d always get theirs. You learn little things like that from working with people. Even though I had that vision when I started, it’s not until you eat [the food] and pay close attention.”
Joyce’s idea of enjoying local goodness extends beyond the plate. Once a month, she and her husband, musician Ben Bell, host Table & Tunes, a prix fixe, four-course vegetarian meal with a red and white wine selected to compliment the meal and featuring local singer-songwriters. “Ben and I would travel and find these places that had both amazing music and food,” said Joyce, “and we wanted to bring that here to the cafe.”
In May, Ryan Harris and Friends were tuning up just as the heirloom tomato and jalapeño quiche (brilliantly restrained to highlight the richness of the peppers without any of the pain) and the chickpea and roasted mushroom salad were making the rounds.
One rarely pauses to enjoy the rich, subtle flavor of chickpeas, but in this salad they were part of an umami wonderland, a celebration of the under-sung pleasures of earthiness, each combined on a bedrock of organic baby greens.
Ryan Harris, bathed in a blue spotlight, took to the stage with Rebecca Babin and Melissa Wilson, both members of The Wilder Janes, on bass and hand percussion, respectively. His songs were a fitting match to the salad—both borne out of life’s unremarkable wonder—stories made from the quotidian like one jangly blues tune about hearing police sirens from his porch. “No one wants to get arrested on such a pretty day,” he crooned over deft guitar fingerwork. Babin and Wilson lent the songs a locomotive power without overwhelming them—again, like the salad.
It may not be the most rock and roll thing ever to compare a band to a salad, sure, but the music is like the food—very real and very good.
Click here for Maureen's Chickpea and Roasted Mushroom Salad recipe.
Details. Details. Details.
MJ’s Cafe
672 Jefferson Highway
Baton Rouge, La.
(225) 933-5569
Open weekdays from 11 am–3 pm
Daily specials are posted on their Facebook page.
Once a month, MJ’s hosts Tables & Tunes, a $35 prix fixe meal including an intimate performance by local musicians.