Autumnal Indulgence

"New Orleans food is as delicious as the less criminal forms of sin."

-Mark Twain

New Orleanians have long enjoyed a lusty love affair with food. Of course this City is famous world over for it's cuisine and reputation for sensual over-indulgence. We are as famous for our desserts as we are for our extremely relaxed liquor laws. I think it is the way we approach eating with such unabashed revelry that I enjoy of all of the indulgences here. It is commonly observed that when we are eating lunch, we are discussing what we are having for dinner. My regular readers will remember a previous post entitled "Of Friends and Pot Roast", where I entertained my dear friends and recent newlyweds, Angie and Zak along with my glamorous houseguest, La Shabazz. I recently had the pleasure of combining that marvelous company once again. This time, we congregated over a lot of pleasing and hearty appetizers. Angelique has conquered any notions that you may have about cheese balls and has taken both the idea and the execution to new and dizzying heights. Her cheese balls are about the size of a six year old boy's head and boast twice the heft. They are constructed from an assortment of high quality fromages, scented with roasted garlic and rolled unapologetically in Neuske's bacon (a particularly divine example of the applewood smoked variety from Wisconsin). This was served along with some water crackers and crisply roasted potatoes to drag through the cheese ball. Also featured on our beautiful and enticing buffet was a Nigella Lawson inspired onion pie, redolent with the sweetness of caramelized red onion and the scintillating perfume of thyme. Angelique also brought some rillettes accompanied by fresh bread-and-butter pickles from Cochon Butcher, an offshoot of Donald Link's wildly successful restaurant in the Warehouse District, Cochon. We doused the evening with quite a few bottles of vin rouge, and Toenisha and I led the singing for the occasion with a moving rendition of "I'll Fly Away" with Angie as our special vocal guest. This of course led to another of our high-spirited musicales, singing late into the evening long after our guests had gone home.

When I first returned to New Orleans after Katrina, I remember feeling a little disheartened that the French Market no longer had a bewildering array of produce. I remember on previous visits buying a slice of fresh watermelon from a vendor and walking around enjoying the sweet coldness of my favorite summer melon. I'm glad to report that the newly renovated front portion of the market boasts fresh produce, fresh local seafood, a spice market and a full-service lunch counter that specializes in authentic local fare. The produce section was bursting with an assortment of Autumnal pleasures. The bins were filled with sugar cane, ready to be pressed into juice and berled into the darkly haunting syrup that Louisianians seem to prefer over it's smokily robust sibling, molasses. Pumpkins and gourds also heralded the arrival of Fall with their warty and clementine-hued figures. More nuts than a stick could be shaken at were also a feature of the cornucopia that is The French Market.

Of course, The Eve of All Hallows is upon us. This is such a well regarded holiday in the Crescent City, not that anyone here needs a reason to dress up. What does astonish me, however, is how people decorate their homes with false gauzy cobwebs and spiders and representations of ghosts and ghouls seemingly floating above the Gothic balconies. So much of the gentle decay of this haunted place seems to render such embellishments unnecessary.This place has always had a rather dark and creepy atmosphere anyway. Many examples I've seen of this decor closely resemble the horrors that lie under my bed. That bunny hutch is blood curdling, trust me.

Oh my God! I Live In Louisiana!

"I want to play white trash. I swear to God!"

-Joan Van Ark

Yesterday marked my second trip to Angola Penitentiary as part of a tour group from New Orleans to take in the sights and sounds and indeed the smells of the Angola Prison Rodeo, which is the largest prison rodeo in North America, and possibly the world. The bus trip is beautifully organized by Lance Pippen, our bartender at Tubby's Golden Lantern as a fund-raiser for LSGRA, (Louisiana State Gay Rodeo Association) and included about fifty homosexuals from New Orleans. Oh, what a time was had! What is the allure, you may ask? Well, a busload of homosexuals being served cocktails en route to see hardcore prisoners cum cowboys get the shit knocked out of them by charging bulls for a couple of hours of course.. It does sound appealing, I know. We boarded the bus around 9 a.m., leaving behind the City of New Orleans and began drinking cheap cocktails all in the name of charity. Of course, drinking without cigarettes kind of diminishes the pleasure of drinking in the first place, as no smoking is allowed on the bus. Needless to say, by the time of our disembarkation, I was ready to kill. Surly with drink, what better way to enter one of the most notorious maximum security prisons in the world? I can't think of another. It's a good thing I was reared to know how to behave when you are a guest in someone else's home, or my desire to become a pen pal with a prisoner may well have been as simple as passing a desperately scrawled note to a no doubt handsome recipient in the cell next door. A cig and something to eat were truly my only desires at this point while rain sheeted on the terra-cotta clay of Louisiana.

Upon entering the gates there is an instant sense of malice when you realize that these guys did some pretty bad stuff to get to spend time, all of their time here. They didn't just pass a bad check or run out on a cabbie without paying the fare. What astonished me most was how this is considered to be highly anticipated family entertainment in Louisiana.And Texas, Arkansas and Mississippi. Some families drove overnight to attend the event. When I say "families", I mean Mom, Dad, Gramma in a Hover-Round, pre-teens, toddlers, babies and one on the ways. My family didn't take vacations when I was a child, but I can't imagine that I would have considered communing with pure, unadulterated white-trash to be all that glamorous. I had to wait until adulthood to experience that pleasure. Dear Readers, let me assure you that if you thought that inbreeding was some colossal outhouse joke relegated to Appalachia, let me assure you that it is alive and well in the State of Louisiana. Never in my life have I seen so many eyes spaced so close together, nor have I seen so many ears spaced so far apart. Women with beards, pregnant 15 year olds and more morbid obesity than you can shake a stick at. Want some Fried Coke? Get it and alot more at the prison rodeo, my friends.. After entering the stands to watch the rodeo, I was often distracted by the spectators, and didn't raise my eyes to the action in the ring until the crowd let out a mighty roar as a prisoner was trampled by a Brahma bull or thrown from a horseI didn't miss out on much. My glamorous houseguest will confirm that I ritually seek out the vile and repugnant on the internet, so I indeed had a visual feast as I scanned the crowd for contestants in my quest to see if I recognized anyone from http://thepeopleofwalmart.com/. It's that fantastic.

One of my favorite features of the rodeo is checking out is the hobby-craft portion of the affair. This is how these guys spend the copious amount of time behind bars. Aside from the hand-tooled leather Bible cases and belts, there is a plethora of furniture that only has it's place in rural Louisiana. Double wooden rockers with a table between to hold your favorite beverage while you watch the gnats rise in great clouds from your back porch. My favorite things are the bits of furniture designed with small children in mind. There are wooden potty chairs emblazoned with both the logo and the image of Hannah Montana in all her pure, virginal sugary goodness that I can't help but imagine that some convict has masturbated over. Likewise with the hoochie images of The Bratz, or Dora the Exporer for that matter. There was a line of wooden coin banks that looked like fairy-tale wishing wells with handpainted representations of the Disney Princesses on the front. One passenger on our bus actually purchased one that presented a likeness of Cinderella, but with enormous boobs and crossed eyes. "Someday My Prince Will Come". Not for you Cindy, but probably from the $10 tuggie you'll give him in the parking lot.

Louisiana is a Sportsman's Paradise. This was reinforced by my witnessing people proudly walking away with beautifully hand-carved representations of mounted catfish and (my design friends will love this) a circular saw blade with a stag's head painted on it, mounted to a piece of wood. I mean, the image was very true and realistic to what a ten-point buck looks like, but it's painted on a circular saw blade. What must the interior of your home look like for this to blend in to your decor? I'm picturing full gun racks, stained recliners, everything Budweiser and an old Community Coffee can to spit your chaw into. As we were leaving the prison grounds, high above most people in our chartered bus, I got to witness a pick-up truck with two LSU rocking chairs in the bed with guys sitting in them ready for backroads travel. I hope they waited until they left the prison grounds before popping the tops of the PBR cans they no doubt had in the ice chest between them. Even though the things I saw were completely foreign and bludgeoning to my personal aesthetics, I couldn't help but envy the carefree way these people found such pleasure in such simple things. If I wasn't raised with the specter of being aware of what people thought of me, I too may have been perched on a chair in the bed of a pick-up truck, happily imagining where my new LSU chair might look best while feeling the wind in my face with a cousin next to me, sharing the same idea.

The skyline of New Orleans had never looked so beautiful as we approached the city from the freeway. We disembarked from our adventure, sleepy, tired and dirty and went our separate ways. I arrived home in need of a hot shower and a cold drink. Sleep came easily with my dreams full of wooden cabinets with separate bins marked "Bread", "Onions" and "Potatoes". Actually, I think my mom would have loved that one.

New Orleans Recovery Lies In Fried Chicken

"I should be back in Macon takin' it easy.
If a mans gonna eat fried chicken he's gotta
get greasy."
-from Tulsa Turnaround, Kenny Rogers



My days off this week were completely fraught with fun, excitement, disgrace, and as always tons and tons of laughs. Tuesday saw me with the doors and windows of the house completely flung open to take advantage of the cool near-autumnal breezes and the low humidity that we in the South have been craving. I had one of my extended telephone conversations with someone who I think is my oldest friend. Tonya and I have known each other since ninth-grade and she is really the only person from that long ago who I still keep in contact with. We don't speak that often, but when we do, it's as if no time has passed at all. Utter shock sets in when we realize that we are pushing forty. "How the fuck did this happen?" It seems like just yesterday we were skipping school in god forsaken places where we should have met our peril and demise: abandoned houses in the St. Petersburg Southside, Interstate overpasses and tiny clearings amid bushes and trees where we could sing, smoke cigarettes and avoid the social confines of high school. I had to repeat the tenth grade because of these escapades into the unknown. Ahhh, the folly of youth. I wouldn't have changed it for the world.



When Kevin came home from work, we set off on one of our grand tours of the French Quarter bars that I will here on out refer to as working the chitlin' circuit. Our first stop on the chitlin' circuit is a bar known as the Double Play. The Double Play is a rather low bar that I have been frequenting recently. It is known for the availability of black transsexuals and rough trade hustlers. Until I came to New Orleans, I didn't realize that there was no age limit to be a prostitute. Nor is there a number of teeth standard. Just sport some India ink tattoos and have perpetual hard luck and you too can make a living in the Upper Quarter. It is really one of the only bars left where the scent of the surreal pervades the mind. Having found the Double Play a bit more depressing than entertaining, we moved on to the more homey atmosphere of the Golden Lantern. It too has it's surrealistic ambiance, but, being regulars, it just seems rather everyday. After a few polite tipples and funtime conversation, we decided to head to Good Friends for karaoke so that the entire world could grow rich from our song stylings. After all, we had a marvelous time a couple of weeks ago. Frankly, we found the so called "Karaoke DJs" to be vulgar and not at all aware of what true talent lies in the Crescent City. After a few songs and a rather regretful shot that was given to us, we left. Actually, my delicate system found the shot so unacceptable that I had to walk outside so that it could be violently expelled from my gut. Unfortunately, while in mid-retch, an officer of the NOPD rolled by and shone his light in my direction. Having mistaken it for a tiny pinspot on my tear-streaked face, I returned to the bar, ready to take the stage for "Over The Rainbow." When the DJs did not call us up for our last number, we denounced them for the terrible hacks they are and decided that karaoke at Good Friends was no longer good enough for these friends. We fell into a cab to go home, never to return for DJ P and Ricki Dee's perversion of a marvelous and misunderstood artform.



We met the next morning with deep regret and phrases like "Can't blame anyone but me. I did this to myself",and "Oh God", and "We are terrible alcoholics". Toenisha greeted the day with some mystery injuries that we may never know the origins of. We had planned a day of shopping at Dorignac's Food Center in Metarie and kicked it off with a delightfully restorative luncheon at Willie Mae's Scotch House. Willie Mae's is a historic restaurant in the Treme that has the prestigious distinction, according to The James Beard Foundation and The Southern Foodways Alliance of serving the best fried chicken in the United States. I absolutely cannot disagree.The exterior is airy and crisp with an interior that is both melting and toothsome at the same time. No wonder people from all over the world seek out this old renovated house in a bad neighborhood to savor the riches of the skillet. The menu is brief but wonderfully authentic. The sides are generous and display the beauty of simplicity that great Southern food is celebrated for


Feeling human again, we left the city for the suburb of Metarie. Dorignac's Food Center is a unique shopping experience that has been serving the New Orleans Metro area since 1947. I would consider it to be a "boutique" grocery with all of the things you would find in a corporate supermarket but joyfully filled with artisanal items and fantastic meat and produce departments. It was a real treat to find such beautiful cheeses like a super sharp cheddar from Australia and goats cheese from Wales among so many others. The liquor department is quite extensive, taking up the back third of the store. There are lots of prepared foods that can be taken home and enjoyed or savored in house in a casual old New Orleans way. We left the store, laden with groceries and headed home to relax and see out the rest of the day in the comfort of a humidity free, late September afternoon. My neighbors have thoughtfully placed a table and chairs in our courtyard. Imagine, finally enjoying the lush, sun dappled courtyard beneath the yawning banana trees that grace the charming enclosure and indeed, our lives. New Orleans living at it's most casual and comfortable is what I have always dreamed of.