Singing on Sunday

December 27 

Aimless day today, but in a cool place that’s damned good. 

We had some oatmeal in the hotel and set out for adventure.

First stop was 11 o’clock mass at St. Louis Cathedral. The music was fantastic. For the Christmas season there is a small band and choir in the loft at the back of the nave. I gather that’s not always the case.

Hymns included “Come, Oh, Come, Emmanuel” and “Angels We Have Heard on High.” Very familiar, very moving, and very singable. 

The funny moment was when I gave myself away as an Episcopalian. The church was packed with regulars and visitors like Joanna and me. I was the only one who stood when the ushers brought the oblations up.

At the end of the service, the priest welcomed all the outlanders to New Orleans, where, as he put it, “you can buy a beverage on every corner.”

After Sunday School, we sort of ambled down toward Cafe du Monde without much expectation of getting in. We weren’t disappointed in that. The take-out line for beignets looked to be an hour long. Forget the line for tables, so we did.

We crossed the street to a place called River’s Edge. Instead of waiting for a table, we headed straight to the bar. We weren’t there to eat anything anyhow. Oatmeal sticks to your ribs. Besides, after all that General’s chicken the night before, I was never going to be hungry again.

I asked for a mimosa, which is after all only a spritzer with bubbles. Besides, the orange juice is nourishing. It came in a plastic cup that easily held 12 ounces. 

Some people came through the door from the street, and the bartender said they had to be seated before he could serve them. Whoops. I had cut the line. So, as you’re allowed to do here, I carried the drink to the park, and we walked along the river.

It has been a rainy weekend, but our luck has been holding and the rain holding off when we have been outside. The weather laid a thick haze on the water, but you could see the far bank and the freighters tied up. 

We stopped at Landry’s on the corner of Conti and North St. Peter’s. I needed another mimosa and the use of the men’s room. Joanna looked at the menu and asked me what dirty rice is. I tried to explain, but remembered that I had forgotten. All I knew about it, anyway, came from James Lee Burke novels.

So we ordered some along with a couple of vegetable side dishes—nothing to heavy, because, remember, like Scarlett O’Hara, I was never going to be hungry again. We asked the bartender what is in dirty rice and she said it is made with chicken and pork. When the meat browns, it looks like flecks of dirt.

We meandered uphill toward Bourbon Street.

On the way, not having been able to get into Cafe du Monde, we stopped at Cafe Beignet on Royal Street. The line was only 15 minutes long there. (Joanna timed it.) Beignet, at least at this cafe, are square fried cakes with the same flavor and texture as the zeppole sold at Italian street fairs.

Bourbon Street always seems to be lit up, in all senses of the term. Guys were out in force with “huge ass beer” signs and menus. This time the drag queens were drumming up business at one club, and handed us a brochure for a show. 

People were strolling along with strangely shaped containers with a bulbous base and a long fluted top. They held drinks called hand grenades.

We were heading in the direction of Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop, which is known for its hurricane, a drink with three kinds of rum, including a 151 proof,  and I got an idea. I hadn’t had a single drink on Saturday. And I was on mimosas so far on Sunday. 

So I told Joanna that I was going to Lafitte’s to get a hurricane to go. We could walk back in the direction of the hotel to see if I could get all the way there before I fell down.

“What if you fall down?” Joanna asked.

“You keep walking to the hotel. I’ll get up sooner or later.”

I made it just fine, but needed a nap.

There was drizzle too light to notice when we went out for dinner. We went back to Remoulade, the bar with the great oysters, and had a Taste of New Orleans combination plate. This started with gumbo, and then came a plate with red beans and rice and a crab cake served in a crab shell. The taps are limited at Remoulade. I had a NOLA blond ale and Abita amber. The NOLA had more flavor but was nowhere near hoppy or malty enough to make me truly happy.

The rain had picked up a little, so we hustled, staying under the protection of the galleries as much as possible, to Ole Saint on Royal Street. That’s where we had dessert. We ordered the apple crisp, but they were out of that. So we had the bread pudding. 

I ordered a local IPA, but they were out of it. The bartender recommended Terrapin Hopsecutioner, an IPA made in Georgia, so I had that instead.

The funny thing is the surprising way this all worked out. I have never had a pairing of beer and dessert that was so near perfect. The bitter hops, the sweet syrup on the pudding were perfect together. This was literally comfort food.

And it wasn’t all in my imagination. Joanna was eating pudding and drinking the beer, too.

In any event, it was a great way to end the day.

The photo of the day is Joanna in a Hurricane. That pint-size container was full, mostly with rum, when I started. She tried a couple of sips, and added a new drink to her done-that list. Red wine, IPA, mimosa, Campari and soda, and now a hurricane. My karma as a bad influence is adding up.

Here’s wishing good karma and better desserts to everyone.

Harry

Dec. 29

The secret to dirty rice is liver.

Larry

Laissez Etc.

December 26 cont’d

We strolled over to Antoine’s, which isn’t far from the hotel. The French Quarter is packed with weird stuff, like the cop in the gorilla suit, or maybe gorilla in a cop suit, who we met earlier today. But the Quarter is small, so nothing’s very far.

Antoine’s is world famous. There really was an Antoine, who came from France (where else?) and started the business around 1840. This, recall, is riverboat gambler heyday. We were told by the waiter that the same family still owns the restaurant. The walls are covered with pictures of celebrities who have visited, including one of my favorites, Father Guido Sarducci. I couldn’t find Mark Twain or William Howard Taft, but they were probably here too, before or after they visited the Absinthe House.

There are also old cartoons set in Antoine’s with men in white ties and tails. This night Joanna wore black with sequins and I wore a tux. Turns out, that wasn’t a bad call. We were dressed almost as well as the waiters.

Joanna had a wonderful gumbo, better even than the one at Ole Saint. It was a difficult choice for me. There were crawfish and alligator on the menu, but I chose the snails done a la Bourdelaise. The sauce includes tomato and they are topped with cheese and bread crumbs. 

There was something in the tomato, maybe the touch of sweetness, that seemed to fight with the snail. But hey, I didn’t leave anything. So although I learned this is not my favorite way to do them, I still haven’t met a snail I didn’t like.

After the appetizer we shared a plate of lamb chops. They were superb. 

So was the wine list. Joanna had a Burgundy, because she loves the pinot noir grape. I had Cotes du Rhone and then a Bordeaux.

The waiter recommended that we tour the place after the meal. There are several small dining rooms that have been decorated by various Mardi Gras krewes. For the those of you from South Jersey, these are groups of men who will remind you of the Mummers, only in New Orleans they get to ride on huge floats and they throw plastic necklaces to people on the sidewalk.

Antoine’s wine cellar is a long hallway that stretches most of the length of a city block. You can stand deep inside the restaurant and look into the cellar and see cars go by at the far end on Royal Street.

Even with a late afternoon nap, by now it was time to go back and sack out.

December 27

It was raining like a bitch first thing this morning. We got up around eight and took it easy. I caught up on my e-mail report. We checked Accuweather, and yup, it was raining. And would be, off and on, until sometime late Sunday night.

But hell, the worst that happens is my suit loses its creases. So we ducked out for breakfast sometime around one or so. The wait at the Acme Oyster House, which is a block from the Hotel, was 45 minutes to an hour. So we wound up at the Old NOLA Cookery on Bourbon Street. 

The photo of the day was taken in the NOLA Cookery: Joanna lets the good times roll.

 Joanna had a fried catfish po’boy. I had a plate with small bowls of red beans and rice, gumbo, and crawfish etouffee. 

Joanna offered me some of the catfish, and it was delicious, as catfish always is. Catfish is an exception for me. I usually only eat white-meat fish when it’s cooked in the skin and on the bone. It’s the same with chicken: if you don’t cook it whole, you lose most of its goodness. 

Anyway, the catfish was tasty in its crisp crust. 

The bread was similar to the bread at Antoine’s, only in a slightly larger format. It may be a variant of the Italian or French bread at home. The crumb is very soft, and the crust is thin but crunchy. 

The sandwich dressing was runny cole slaw and a pink mayonnaise. This being the first po’boy we have seen up close, we don’t know if that’s standard or not.

I’ve had etouffee before, at a Tex-Mex chain restaurant in North Jersey, and didn’t care for it. This, on the other hand, was very good—savory with everything working together. The gumbo and the red beans and rice you can pretty much take for granted are always going to be good.

I had ordered a Purple Haze to go with breakfast, but it never came. That was all right. The food didn’t leave room for it anyway.

Next job was finding the stop for the St. Charles streetcar. We went to the wrong stop, and the driver directed us to the right one. By the experience we learned we needed exact fare. We crossed the street back to the hotel.

I went to the desk, and Joanna went to the bar. I asked about the amount of the fare ($1.25) and then asked to change a ten. Like every other service in this hotel, it seems to be a problem. But no real problem. Enter Joanna, stage right, with singles and quarters.

The streetcar runs on rails along St. Charles Avenue, and we took it to Washington Street in the Garden District, about two blocks from Lafayette Cemetery No. 1.

St. Charles is part of the Mardi Gras parade route, and the trees on the curb are festooned with strings of shiny plastic beads. Either that or artificial Spanish moss. I'm not sure.

When we entered the cemetery, a man offered a tour. How much? A tip. OK.

Four students from (maybe) Tulane joined us. One of the features of the cemeteries are the small raised structures. Because the water table is so high, the dead are entombed above ground. The heat inside these stone or brick houses gets so intense that the body decomposes fairly quickly. The remains are removed after a year and a day, removed from the casket and wrapped in cloth. Eventually they are shoved into the lower level of the tomb with a 10-foot pole. At least, that is what our guide, Marcus, said was the origin of “I wouldn’t touch it with.”

After a while, one of the small houses can hold hundreds of dead people. There are something like 1,100 tombs and 300,000 people in Lafayette No. 1. According to Marcus, Mark Twain called the New Orleans cemeteries “cities of the dead.”

We saw the tomb of a Confederate general named Hays, who led a failed attack at Gettysburg. He had a tomb all to himself, Marcus said, because his relatives didn’t want him in the family crypt. Maybe they blamed him for the end of slavery.

The Garden District, according to one sign we saw, has been a National Historic Landmark since 1970-something. Very prestigious perhaps, but it means that, if you want change the color of your paint, you need permission.

The houses appear to be roughly of the same era as the old ones in Cape May, and many are just as colorful. But I saw something that I haven’t seen for some time. A couple of the freestanding houses are built from half the plans for what I think is called a semi-detached house, two separate houses under one roof.

 So the roof slants from the high point on one side to the low point on the other. The long wall below the high side has no windows, because it would be the shared wall of the double house. Some of the other houses in the district seem to be one room wide and have a flat roof.

As I was walking around the Garden District, I was thinking, wow, that drink really went to my head. But then I remembered, I had ordered an ale at the NOLA Cookery, but didn’t get it. Even so, when the streetcar brought us back, it was time to crash. So I did for a couple of hours. 

Later, when I was ready to go, Joanna said she had a craving for Chinese food. I did a quick Google search and came up with one place within walking distance, Moon Wok on Dauphine Street. 

Joanna got a vegetable plate with tofu and I ordered General Tso’s Chicken. I can’t remember the last time I saw so much food in a single order. This was enough for four. It came with broccoli, which had to be served on a separate dinner plate. 

I got through maybe a third of the broccoli and almost half the chicken. 

This has been a week for breaking rules. I packed an extra suit (my tux) and an extra pair of shoes to go with it. I also violated the first rule of food safety: Never eat anything bigger than your head.

After dinner, I would never be hungry for the rest of my life. I didn’t even have room for a drink. 

We strolled around a while looking at lights, including the gate to Louis Armstrong Park on Rampart Street.

Then it was time for lights out.

Good times, all.

Harry

Dec. 28

I guess things have improved there since the first years after the storm. For the longest time, I would see stuff on TV and the internet showing all these new restaurants opening with empty tables and empty streets! From reading your missives, the place sounds jammed!

But then, Cafe Du Monde and Acme Oyster house are both big tourist attractions (the latter not so great in my humble opinion), and it is Christmas week. Did you do any research on the more off-the-beaten-path type places? Or, are you just going to drift into places after getting shut out of the familiar ones?

I wish I could make some recommendations, but it's been over 20 years since I've been there. I used to love the place!

Do find out about Magazine Street. There were lots of funky shops and I think there are also several good places to eat there.

And just so you know, if you see seafood or fish offered on a po' boy it's always going to be deep fried! Another sandwich to try is called a muffuletta. This is a New Orleans take on an Italian submarine sandwich, except it's served on a round bread. The olive relish is what makes it! The one at Central Grocery, near the French Market, is famous, but I'm sure there are better ones. 

You are staying at a real hotel. I get that the service isn't great, but can't the concierge help at all? I rarely stay at nice hotels, but when I do, the first thing I do is schmooze the concierge (or even someone at the registration desk) and let him/her know I'm a gastronome interested in local flavors. Where does he/she like to eat? There are rare times this approach doesn't work, but it often does, especially in the U.S. They can often wrangle difficult reservations, as well. Be friendly and empathetic if it seems busy. A little well-placed charm can go a long way!

As usual, you seem to be having fun, anyway. You might want to stay away from Bourbon St. on New Year's Eve. 

Enjoy,

Larry

Walkin’ (Well, Not Exactly) to New Orleans

Dec. 25

So here we are channeling the spirits of Fats Domino and Marie Laveau. 

The trip down was easy enough. Christopher dropped us off at the terminal. We got there early so we could have breakfast, but the McDonald’s mentality rules at Newark. One chain restaurant—Friday’s or Ruby Tuesday, or some other day of the week—refused to serve breakfast after 11, and another concession selling breakfast sandwiches couldn’t serve anything without American cheese. 

We wound up having a Dixie-fried food festival at a seafood joint up the hall: Fried shrimp, fried squid, fried clams, hush puppies, and sweet potato bites (also fried). Having been frequently fried myself, I could identify.

Reasonably tasty, especially for airport food, but the kind of intake that could earn me concerned phone calls from my GP and the cardiologist.

It was not quite 12, but it wasn’t Sunday, so they could serve beer. I had Sam Adams or something else pretty much mainstream.

The flights were OK. The planes were jammed, as they always are, and there was a little bit of turbulence, but that was God’s doing, not the airlines’.

I bought the tickets through Expedia, and got one of those strange itineraries. You almost never get to fly straight through. This time we actually flew from Newark to Dallas, to connect with a plane that would carry us back eastward to New Orleans. That was on American Airlines. The trip home is on Delta, and that will go more sensibly through Atlanta. But then, maybe it’s company policy that all Delta planes have to stop at Atlanta. 

Nancy and I flew Delta to Orlando when we took the kids to Disney World years ago. They were non-stop flights, but if I remember right, we were all supposed to wave as we flew over Georgia.

At Dallas, everything was cowboy. So we stopped in at the Cowtown Saloon or something, where I had to check my sixgun at the door. We split a cowboy cobb salad and I had a cowboy ale.

We got to the hotel around 8 and I had no idea what to expect. Would the city be buttoned up on Christmas night? Would there be anything to do?

Oh, he of little faith. There was stuff open everywhere, even one of the two Voodoo liquor stores in the neighborhood.

We stood in line to register. We haven’t been to the lobby at any hour without seeing a line of people waiting to register. I don’t know whether the place is just that popular or just that inefficient.

We learned that you have to ask to get your towels changed and the bed made. According to one maid, they only clean up when you check out. We’re here for nine days. I’m single, and I change the towels and sheets more often than that when I’m home.

So be warned. If you stay at the Crowne Plaza in the French Quarter, they cut corners.

We walked up and down Royal Street, which is next to the hotel. We found a bar called Ole Saint that was open. We asked about the oyster po’boy but found that the oysters on that one were fried. We had already met our recommended daily allowance for fried food at Newark, so we had gumbo and a surprisingly good hamburger. I had a couple of local brews, an Abita amber ale that was OK but a little thin, and a much better IPA made in Baton Rouge. It was sharp and hoppy. I forget the brewery’s name, but I can go back and get more.

We went into a few shops on the street, including one that bills itself as a praline shop and hot sauce bar. They also sell a variety of coffees, including one called Wake the Fuck Up.

Dec. 26

We were out of the hotel around 10 or so on Boxing Day, and headed for Cafe du Monde. Good coffee and better beignets, we’ve been told.

We took Royal (so we could see it in daylight) to St. Louis Cathedral. There was a service in progress, so we didn’t stay there. We walked over to Cafe du Monde. The place was mobbed. 

The takeout line stretched around the place. The line for tables was a block long. They stay open around the clock. Maybe if we can go back for an early breakfast—say, 3 a.m.—the wait will be shorter.

So we crossed the street to Jackson Square and found a place called Stanley on the corner of Ann Street. We had a 15-minute wait for a table, so we stood outside and watched a magician do tricks with coins and rings.  He was all by himself when we went outside but by the time our table was called—literally by a shout out the door—the illusionist had a growing audience. 

Joanna had eggs and toast with Creole home fries. They were made with red potatoes with the skin on.

I had a mimosa and a plate that combined eggs Benedict with fried oysters. Splashed with a bit of Louisiana hot sauce, it was delicious.

We walked a while on Decatur Street. One of the places we visited was a clothing store with strange stuff, including feathered vests and long black vampire gowns. Remember, this is Anne Rice country.

Bourbon Street was the next destination. 

This is the honky tonk heart of the city. There isn’t one, but two clubs identified with Larry Flint’s Hustler magazine. There is one place that bills itself not only as topless but also as specifically bottomless. That term has always seemed unfortunate to me. OK in a bar: a drink that never empties. But a strip club? I know it means no pants on, but the only picture I can get in my head is some poor soul with no gluteals.

All along Bourbon Street, there are street musciians, bars, guys holding signs for “huge ass beers,” and little convenience counters that sell drinks to go. Drinks like a 32-ounce daiquiri for $13.

We came to the Jean Lafitte Absinthe House, which claims to date from 1807. Celebrities including Jean Lafitte himself, Andrew Jackson, Mark Twain, and William Howard Taft stopped here. So who am I to pass it by?

We went in and had an absinthe cocktail made with Pernod, mainly because that’s the only brand name I recognized. The bartender balanced a sugar cube on a slotted spoon resting on a rocks glass. She poured the liquor in and lit the sugar with a match. Then she dripped water from a pitcher. Oddly enough, the sugar kept burning.

I had done something like this at home. Kate and Brian bought me the whole setup—absinthe, spoon, glass, and sugar cubes. But I didn’t know about lighting the sugar.

When the absinthe had changed from its pure pee-yellow transparency to a foggy, almost white, it was ready to drink. It tastes like strong anisette. 

We stopped in at a shop named for Marie Laveau, the voodoo priestess. It was a shop full of altars and “no’s”: Signs telling you no touching, no photos. 

Several blocks farther we came to Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop. Turns out, I had mistaken the absinthe house for this place, which I had read about. Lafitte’s Blacksmith Shop describes itself as the oldest bar in the United States. It dates to 1772. I think Fraunces tavern in New York may be a few years older.

Legend has it that Lafitte and his gang used the backsmith shop as a cover to fence stolen goods. The signature drink of this Lafitte’s is the hurricane, which is based on rum with 151 proof rum on top of that. The absinthe was still rolling around in my head, so I ordered (forgive me, Pirate Lafitte) Campari and soda, which is one of the drinks I take when I’m on the wagon. (The other, by the way, is dry vermouth in club soda. I can sober up on that.)

We walked up St. Philip St. toward St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, to see Marie Laveau’s tomb. We stood on a corner to look at the map. Kind of to one side and facing a fence so as not to be too obviously lost. A disembodied voice calls out “Where do you want to go?”

This is too funny, so I figure, hey, maybe it’s true that absinthe makes you crazy. But no, there is a real guy, who’s standing in the dark inside a garage across the street, and he is, indeed, talking to Joanna and me.

So we tell him we want to go to the cemetery. He directs us to a white wall that we can just make out, maybe a couple of hundred yards down the road on the other side of Basin Street. 

We got there a few minutes late. The gate closes at three. It’s close enough, though, that we’ll go there again. 

We took Bourbon Street back to the hotel. It was after three now, and along with the guys holding signs and menus in front of bars, there was more, and louder, music. There were girls standing in front of the strip clubs in their underwear.

We stopped at Remoulade Oyster House on Bourbon Street, mainly to use the rest room. We shared an oyster sampler, and I had a half dozen on the half shell besides. They didn’t have an IPA, which is what I prefer with raw oysters, so I settled for an Abita amber.

These may have been the tastiest oysters I’ve ever had. We were told they are Louisiana Gulf oysters and they are in season now. So if you like oysters, visit New Orleans at Christmas.

We changed into evening clothes to go to Antoine’s. 

But this story runs too long already. A little about that next time.

The photo of the day is “Harry and the Pirates.”

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night.

Dec. 27

Jean LaFitte!

He helped us and we did him wrong!

Here’s to honoring Jean LaFitte!!!

Glad you and Joanna are having a great time in New Orleans.

Is the opera company still functioning? It used to be excellent.

Beatrice

Dec. 28

There's a bar on Bourbon Street called the Old Opera House. They were playing rap the other day.

Harry