Sloe Gin Fizzy, Eat at Li'l Dizzy's

After a morning of care-free "grocery-making", my friend Kevin and I experienced a luncheon in old New Orleans style right in my neighborhood. Li'l Dizzy's Cafe is one of those places that just inhales the sweet, humid breath of this great city, and exhales some of the most straightforward soul food that I have known. Owned and operated by the legendary Famille Baquet, this wildly popular Treme restaurant is named for Jazz great Dizzy Gillespie, apparently a family friend. The exterior exhibits the wear and neglect of a neighborhood that has seen better days, but is in a way, comforting and in keeping with the Treme area. The interior is always packed with neighbors, local politicians, visiting celebs and musicians who declare the food to be as authentically home-cooked Creole as it gets.

We were seated at a table with a family of Creoles. The extremely light-skinned grandma at the table pronounced that she wasn't feeling that well. She ordered the stewed chicken with a side of okra. Stewed chicken is a phenom of New Orleans. It appears on many a menu of lunch specials and is celebrated by dipping crusty hunks of French bread into the rich sauce ribboned with chicken that has completely slipped off the bone. Sort of like chicken and dumplings, but the slices of baguette replace the dumplings, be they drop or strip dumplings.

Having been disappointed (or, "disapperntet" as is the correct pronunciation in these parts) that breakfast was no longer available, Kevin joined me in my pursuit of delicious fried chicken "ya get two siiides, Bebe." The dry-erase board of daily sides reads like a second-graders list of favorite foods. I ordered a side of "canndie yams" and the okra. I had warned Toniesha about the sweet tea, which is, I believe, hospital grade glucose on the rocks with a straw. I love it. The entrees are also served with either a cup of file gumbo or a trip to the salad bar. The salad bar is mythic. It consists of a hotel pan of cold iceberg lettuce, some grated orange cheese, canned beets and two types of dressings to choose from that, I assume, are Ranch and Eye-talian.

The walls are lined with photographs of celebrities that have dined within those walls. Kelly Ripa must have posed for a shot with everyone on Li'l Dizzy's payroll, because there are no less than five photos of her posted around, as well as some of the former President. The acoustic tiles above our heads are painted with images of jazz musicians, fleur-de-lys and a very striking likeness of Irma Thomas, the Soul Queen of New Orleans, complete with glue on diamonds around her delicate brown neck.

While we waited for our chicken, the conversation next to us drifted to opinions about a sensational local news story. A baby in Westwego had been chewed by rats and died as a result of the bites. Earlier I'd heard someone say, "Dat baby was already dead before da rats bit it." Headlines the following day disputed that statement, with a photo of the neglectful parents in shackles glaring from the front-page of the Times. "Baby Was Alive During Rat Attack" screamed the paper, in bold, black print. Shameful......

The chicken arrived, golden and as full of promise as a full moon glinting off of the Mississippi. The exterior was crisp and the interior melting as the result of an overnight soak in buttermilk, I imagine. The candied sweet potatoes were the stuff of Christmasses gone by. Warm with cinnamon and nutmeg and so rich with butter and brown sugar, I feared the tingling sensation in my right foot portended amputation from diabetes. Along with the sweet tea it's probably not far of a stretch.

We finished our meals about the same time as the Creole family we were seated with. The grandma, who was not feeling well, pronounced that she was feeling very good now. Possibly as a result of consuming the stewed okra that she had ordered. "That was so good, I could eat the whole pot!" I disregarded my side of okra. It reminded me of swamp algae in it's consistency and rather off-putting Kermit the Frog hue. I will still side with the old woman, who would know delectable stewed okra better than I would.

Satisfied and on the brink of diabetic coma, Kevin and I ventured back to my house two blocks away. I recalled a blog post I had read somewhere the previous week that was a rebuttal from an article that appeared in The New Yorker titled "Why Are Southerners So Fat?" The rebuttal stated, "Why Are Yankees So Rude?" After a meal at Li'l Dizzy's, the answer to the former is quite clear. Before I had the opportunity to feel the tiniest twinge of guilt after my processed sugar and saturated fat loaded lunch, I thought of the old hand-painted roofing slate that hangs above an autographed photo of Dionne Warwick that reads, "Come on in and taste what it means to miss New Orleans."