Swing and a Miss: Tennis in New Orleans

I moved here from a town of tennis aplenty.  Free, public, city ran courts were everywhere, and lessons and community outreach programs dotted every other court.  That was North Carolina, and as we planned our move to New Orleans it never even dawned on me to check on that state of tennis in this city.

After two years of searching I'm not much further on my quest.  First, I found free courts in Jefferson Parish (4 courts at a school, at least half an hour drive), Atkinson-Stern in Uptown is nice, it is at least a little cheaper for paid spots at $7 an hour, with seven clay courts, although they can be a little dry and don't expect them to be swept.  I have occasionally seen children's lessons here and they have Mixed Doubles on Tuesdays, woo.

Audobon has seven clay courts that cost $11 an hour.  They offer group lessons and clinics, are ran by four tennis professionals, and have absolutely no information about any other programs they run for juniors or adults on their website.

Now, we move onto the big tennis balls on campus-City Park Pepsi Tennis Center.  I have to say, the facilities are on the whole quite excellent.  There are 26 courts, 16 hard, 10 clay, and they are $12 an hour to play on hard, $15 for clay (also, do not expect these to be swept, but do expect to see remnants of group lessons to be left all over the courts, such as ball tubes, balls, trash, etc.).  They run a Friday night doubles the first and third Friday of the month-laughable.  That is all the information they have on their website for programs available for the public to participate in.

By this point we are already at a piss poor standing as far as programs, availability, accessibility, and outreach, but my friends, I have saved the best for last. We live in the St. Claude area and after searching Google maps for at least an hour looking for public courts I stumbled across the Oliver Bush Playground in the Lower 9th Ward.  The park features four free hard-courts that were just recently resurfaced and reopened in September of 2012 after seven years of dormancy from Katrina.  I visited these courts last week, about 14 months after the park was completely re-done, and they are the worst tennis courts I have ever been forced to play on.  I say forced, because usually if I ever have run into courts this bad, there were always other options, I don't really feel like paying $12 for just an hour at City Park, so we really had no other choice.  There are NO courts nearby.

It began with us canvassing the courts to find the one with the least amount of glass shards, which proved a difficult task.  A Miller Lite forty was smashed between two courts, a Bud Lite box in the corner, lighters, female deodorant, and fast food trash littered each court.  We kicked away the trash and glass, and cleared up a court enough to play.  Within thirty minutes we had five kids sitting on the bleachers asking if we had extra balls and racquets. After an hour and a half we had nine kids show interest in playing, they cheered us on, asked the rules, and all asked if they could play.

It is bad enough that there is such a complete lack of free public courts in a city of this size, but to allow what little we have to go into such disrepair is despicable.  It would take one hour, ten racquets, and a basket of balls to bring a little something special to these courts.  It would take the city not just using the reopening of a park in the Lower 9th as a publicity stunt, but to actually service what they have built to assist the community.  You never know who the next Williams sisters or Roddick will be, and you never will the way things are going in New Orleans.

The Joint: Always Smokin'

701 Mazant St, New Orleans, LA 70117

(504) 949-3232

                        Monday - Saturday 11:30 am – 10:00 pm, CLOSED SUNDAY

By:  Amy Thomas

Last night I had the pleasure of dining in the Bywater at The Joint--even passed up Pizza Delicious for it!

I'm from North Carolina originally and BBQ is something we take very seriously, and the great thing about The Joint is the selection of sauce--if you close your eyes you could be eating smoked meat from St. Louis, to Eastern North Carolina, to even South Texas/Mexico with the vinegary Habanero Sauce.  Smoked meat is something I urn for in my sleep...like a sexy man, it satisfies a guttural and primitive desire for me to see dark black coal-like mouth-watering, melt like butter
crust coating the outside, and pink rings and juices seductively revealing themselves inside.

The prices are pretty low, the service is excellent, the atmosphere is great.  I wish with the new bar they were a little more creative with the drinks, lets get some bacon vodka or whiskey, more smoked bourbons, scotches, and beers.

My only other complaint is in the sides.  The cole slaw is hard to mess up, but the macaroni and cheese has always been a little dry, room temp, and bland.  The salad is okay, my smoked tomato dressing wasn't as smoky as I would have wanted it to be, but it was still okay, and then your other choices are baked beans and potato salad, two more relatively uninspired options.

But the brisket, oh...the brisket.  The brisket makes the rest of the world melt away.

Crawfish Boils & Spitfire Nights

By: Amy Thomas


CRAWFISH BOILS & SPITFIRE NIGHTS
Although we have officially lived here for over a year now, this season I celebrated my first crawfish boil.  Crawfish (down here you don't say crayfish) eat like lobsters, aka bottom-feeders, and look like lobsters that were miniaturized with a ray gun.  They are a family staple here, I listen with envy to the stories of family Easters and Memorial Days centered around crawfish boils, because they connect you with the others ravenously hovered and dripping around your table.

My first boil was on the neutral ground on Esplanade at Royal for a friends birthday.  I learned my first 'boil' lesson fast, at a crawfish boil you will always wait.  It will never be ready when scheduled, and that is ok.  You are going to mingle, meet new invitees, and of course, enjoy ice cold libations. During all of this your olfactory glands are being overwhelmed, housing a fight club of incredible, mouth-watering smells.  This stingy, spicy, salt-water scent wafts into the air and creeps into your hair follicles to where you are becoming one with the boil before the red-armored mouth gold even exit the pot.

Traditionally, boils are made with crawfish boil juice which is a mix of vinegar and voracious spices, most people either use Zatarains or Louisiana brand.  Then a mix of whole garlic, lemons, red potatoes, and corn cob pieces, this one also had okra and pineapple in it (we had a chef).

It's time.  You know this because the table is cleared off and lined with newspaper.  The tension builds in the air, you begin to look at the table, strategizing, where am I going to stand...Your mouth begins to water as the pot is hauled over, slowly lifted, and dumped across the table, releasing fifty pounds of bright red delicious, nectariously beautiful, steamy goodness.  I am taught how to eat them, which takes two long seconds, and its on!!

I almost black out until its over.  The shells are hot as hell, I suck the head of each, vacuuming in spicy crawfish stock to the back of my throat, the excess dripping down the sides of my mouth and down my arms--the small bites of meat inside, perfect.  Its so much better than lobster because you have to put so much work into getting to each and every little bite of meat, and the reward is the pay-off.  To me, sucking the head is equally fulfilling to eating the meat, it's like a shot of chanterrelle buerre blanc followed with a bite of medium rare filet mignon with each and every crawfish.


There is a frantic urgency in the air, I spare half a moment to look up to see that everyone is sharing my intensity.  Pick one up, remove the head, suck hard, peel around on the first shell of the abdomen, grab the tale right where it starts, pinch, and pull, eat the meat, throw it down and pick another one up as fast as you can. Do it again.  A banjo is playing in the background.  Friends walking by on the street are called over to join, strangers stand next to each other, ravaging, now we are like brothers and sisters of this visceral moment.

When it's over its like waking up from a dream.  You are covered in juices, you finally feel the sting in every cut on your fingers that you couldn't feel during the ecstasy of eating.  Survey your pile of carcasses and feel proud.  The music starts, the horns, and drums, mixing with hillbilly banjos.  You feel fulfilled, alive, maybe a little drunk, and it feels like you are a part of a low country tribe of vandals, like a gypsy queen of alligators and crustaceans alike.

Icy & Sot Hit New Orleans

R

Just around the corner from Banksy's Raining Girl on Rampart and Kerlerec in the Marigny, Icy and Sot have made their stencil marks in New Orleans.

Paradise or Paradise Lost; An Insight into New Orlean's Gray Areas

As a newcomer to New Orleans there are so many different historical and social aspects to take in order to truly understand the town that it can be overwhelming.  This is not an easy town to 'understand' as it were, there being contradicting factions deviating like an ekg line back and forth over the status quo.  Homeless people and millionaires can be seen traversing the same commute by foot, there is all of this joy and energy and happiness flanked with misery, guns, shootings, and murders.  A town fostered by nuns and known for its prostitution, with music notes drifting through back alleys striking the same cords as the struggle of an armed robbery.  

I think on this constantly trying to put it all together. I walk past a condemned a house with ivy coming out of the chimney and meth heads squatting in filth on the rickety remains of a floor, next to a beautifully restored home.  I can be quite difficult to process.

The thing is, sometimes I get lulled into this sense of security or safety here.  I feel comfortable walking to my destinations, and looking someone in the eye as I pass them and attempting to exchange some sort of minimal cordiality.  I am constantly surrounded by intelligent, artistic, goal-driven, and just relatively decent human beings, all drawn or kept here by the same intrinsic need to be somewhere special.  Because no matter how many murders happen here there is still something so special about this place, and the first balance you experience is finding a way to digest this bad and this good.

The second balance is how you feel about being acquiescent towards the bad and what you can do to change it without driving yourself insane.  This is the conflict that has caught me at a stalemate.  There are so many chasms, nooks, divots, and potholes to this problem it kind of feels like imagining the infinity of space. 

I don't know what the solution is.  Maybe if we concentrate on an investment in family's involvement with the educational system and visa versa, as well as the level of education provided for the lower income neighborhoods.  Or we can actually address this culture of violence that reigns like a giant roided bully shadowing over you, menacingly punching his fist into his other hand preparing for cowardly battle, the toleration of violence is a failure of the government, police force, and society.  A half-hearted acquiescence at the sound of gun shots in the night? I think not.

Don We Now Our Feathers and Glitter: It's Carnival Season!

By: Amy Thomas


Carnival Season has officially arrived and as a virgin to all of the Krewes, parades, and festivities I am in full anticipation of the next couple weeks, including Krewe du Vieux, Super Bowl, Lundi Gras, and Mardi Gras, all within days of each other--and I am certainly on the hunt for an Indian tribe.  I lived in Venice for a while and just missed out on their Carnivale, they like to add a little flare to the word, so I am itching to dive into the masked madness.

For those of you who don't know, the various Krewes put on the parades and gala's that make up the Mardi Gras season.  Members pay a range of fees depending on how elaborate, or financially viable, the Krewe is.  Every year Krewes are responsible for electing Rex, Latin for King, of Mardi Gras.

I am fortunate to have been here for almost nine months before the Carnival season. I know the lay of things, I know that I have no idea what I'm in for, but I know where to pee, I know good spots for drinks, I know how to get home. I also know that I will be working my ass off through it, making a lot of money, and attempting to party somewhere in between.

I look forward to updating you on my trials and tribulations making it through the next couple weeks here in New Orleans! Krewe du Vieux is Saturday!

In a Town of Restaurants, Where is the Food??

In a city of this size it is almost unbelievable that someone can live no where near a grocery store or stop-shop with fresh produce or meat. While shopping at Family Dollar today for a plunger I met a lady that buys all of her food there.  She was able to buy some produce at the truck on Claiborne between Pauger and Touro, but couldn't afford the prices at the New Orleans Food Co-Op in the Healing Center at Franklin and St. Claude. 

The only meat she ate she purchased already cooked from gas stations and small neighborhood grills in the area. 

This is a horrendous quality of food for this old woman to be bringing in to her body.  Add shoddy medical treatment, and the general wear and tear of being a low-income old lady and you have a drastically reduced life expectancy.  For what?  For a grocery store.  For an opportunity to treat your body right without having to take two buses to get fresh meat.

In the Lower 7th Ward, our hopes lies in two places:  the historic Circle Food Store and the St. Roch Market, both of which are currently being renovated and scheduled to open around the end of summer 2013, and both of which have remained unopened since Hurricane Katrina. 

A couple concerns arise with these hopes though, and that is the gentrification of these two establishments.  It is widely rumored that St. Roch is going to be a high-end food market similar to the Co-Op across the street.  I can barely afford the Co-Op so I'm not sure how all of the other people in the neighborhood are going to fare. 

I do know that what we the people in and around this neighborhood could use a produce, meat, and seafood market.  A traditional market.  That is all.  Nothing fancy, nothing crazy, just a freaking market.

New Years in New Orleans

It's been two days since New Years and I am in a full state of lethargic body dilapidation, braving my first day off in what feels like weeks.  The weekend proved to be explosive for tourism in New Orleans, bringing in record numbers in lieu of many large travel sights naming the town as the New Years destination spot, as well as the Sugar Bowl taking place today. 

All of this was unbeknownst to me until the pre-Mardi Gras initiation stood in a line out the door for three days in a row, open to close.  I work in a small cafe, we almost ran out of everything.  It was so much work, and late nights, and early mornings, and I wish I could say that the tips reflected the amount of high maintenance neediness that was inflicted upon us by these tourists. It is an ever-present struggle between 'can deal with/some are cool' and 'hate'--I cannot bring myself to define this relationship as 'love-hate'.

Needless to say Jackson Square was jam packed on New Years Eve, with bands and festivities beginning in the early evening and riding the party wave through midnight ending with an incredible fifteen minutes fireworks display at midnight over the Mississippi.  We took part in the festivities earlier in the night, but being exhausted, hungry, and already a little drunk, we stopped through Verti Mart and watched the fireworks from our front porch while dining on almost the best fried chicken po' boy in town (if they used traditional french bread instead of the sesame it would most definitely be the best). 

We had a great view of the river's fireworks, as well as the hundreds, literally hundreds, of fireworks going off around our neighborhood.  Our poor dog was so distressed.  The fireworks went on until at least three in the morning when somehow I finally fell asleep amidst the sounds of a Civil War battle surrounding our house.

Dodgy Drunks & Pissed up Wankers. 2nd Installment

This morning I locked up my bike a couple of posts from a parked pick-up truck with the engine running.  I thought nothing of it at the time because the newspaper delivery guy drives the same truck and in my groggy 6am head I didn't even see the guy sitting in the front seat, and I didn't put much together very cognitively, I just assumed.... 

Almost an hour later I was bringing the out the patio furniture and was surprised to see this truck still out there, and still running.  After a brief consultation wit the famous Welmon Sharlhorne, whose artwork you can see at the Smithsonian, or here; who just so happened to be walking by, and which went a little like this:  "Can you kill yourself sitting in a running car if it's not in a garage?" and ended with Welmon, who looks like the spirit of the Saints barfed black and gold pimp glitter all over him, and is also one of my most favorite Frenchmen Street people, looking down at me from his lens-less gold rimmed glasses stating pointedly, "Oh, he's goin die".

After my co-worker and I knocked on the window for almost three minutes the man began to move as if coming out of a coma.  What looked like his attempt to roll down the window or turn the car off, I'm still not sure, he went on to run his hand into the radio like a blind zombie.  It was like watching life is slow motion rewind.  Three times he reached toward the radio but with no actual button triggered.  He then found the window lever and rolled it down a half inch and back up.  This guy was so wasted.  All the while he comes off as being completely oblivious to our yelling at him through the window, "Your car has been running for over an hour!" and  "Turn your engine off and sleep it out!".  He was moving around inside the running car with his arms and wobbling head, but denied us any response, much less a turn of the head to even look at us. 
 
Welmon said, "fu*% it, you woke him up.  You tried."  It was time to open the cafe so after a couple more attempts to get him to turn his engine off we went back inside, checking out the window every couple minutes to see if he was still there.  After a couple glances out the window, the truck was gone.  Vanished. 

The moment he was gone I didn't know what I regretted more, waking him up, or releasing this man to the world--in a vehicle. Shoulda called the cops, but it all felt like it happened so fast and even if we did, they would have never gotten there in time.

Fifteen minutes later in walks this sparkle faced, top hat wearing, vaudeville slaps the face of burlesque looking man. He was rather lively, his face was covered in red glitter, and he, being the only other person in the place at that time, went on to regal us with the stories of his night on mushrooms in New Orleans, starting with him in a nice suit and tie, and ending with him in a top hat, a burnt off tie (the knot and neck part still intact, and on him), a dirt covered blazer with matching tattered pants, and ridiculous sparkly red heeled man boots.  He apparently got slapped by a hooker, lost all his friends, found new ones, swapped shoes with a transvestite, rode a bike to the beginning of the Industrial Canal at the tip of Bywater across from the lower 9th Ward, was taken under the wing of Amzie Adams, the famous Frenchmen Street Artist and Spiritual Mentor, whose Art can be seen here, and caught a metal show at Hi-Ho Lounge.

His visit ended with us all dancing in the middle of the cafe to The Temptations.

Gene's Po'Boys

By: Amy Thomas

I just so happen to live two blocks from the pepto-pink beacon of po'boy greatness, Gene's Po'boys, located at St. Claude and Elysian Fields.


Out of all of the po'boy spots in all of New Orleans, this one is my favorite.  It's open 24 hours, it's so close to me, and it is that dirty little food secret that is sooo bad and sooo good all at once.  I already know that their roast beef po'boy with cheese is something that I will crave no matter where I am in the world for my entire life .  For me, it's a toss up between the hot sausage and the roast beef po'boy, but I have to say I think the roast beef wins for me.  Steaming hot roast beef, gravy, gooey american cheese, lettuce, tomato, pickles, mayo, on fresh french bread, mmmmm...makes my tummy happy and hungry just thinking about it.  And it is huge, I can never make it much further than half-way through the sandwich, and it is always great later.

Gene's only has something like 5 or 6 sandwiches on their menu, a couple breakfast ones (I'm not really sure, I stick the roast beef or sausage), the hot sausage, the roast beef, and hot ham and cheese.  That is it.  No sides, no bullshit, just a po'boy and a free soda.

The location is considered by some to be a 'bad' part of town, I guess thats relative, go in like you know what you are doing, you already have all the menu items to choose from above.  I literally only go at night, for some reason Gene's isn't the same in the sunlight, a couple beers in your belly doesn't hurt either.  They are cash only, and our favorite daquiri spot is right around the corner on Elysian Fields--andt they are owned by the same guy.
Keep it local.

I know what I'm eating for dinner....

Dodgy Drunks & Pissed Up Wankers: A Continuing Saga

Opening a Cafe on Frenchmen Street at 6 am on a Sunday is like walking into the Ceasar's Palace suite of The Hangover before everyone woke up meets a really lame zombie attack .   It smells, there is trash everywhere, people are milling about aimlessly crashing, stumbly, drunken and/or coming down from whatever they took the night before.  And there is always an interesting situation that arises when one of them meanders into the cafe to attempt to purchase breakfast or coffee. 

Last week this hipster Brit arrives and painstakingly orders a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich.  After much miscommunication between he and the barista the transaction is completed and he takes a half step over and procedes to fall asleep leaning against the counter.  Another customer entered and ordered around him, none are really surprised.  You have to be slighty desensitized to these kind of things here.

After tthe party...trash dat!

I rush his sandwhich, throwing it in a to go bag, no matter what the ticket says, and shoo him on out the restaurant.  This poor cat attempts to eat his sandwich on the chairs outside, this went unnoticed to us inside until I took a box to the trash and find him passed out, slumped down in his chair with the remains of his sandwich trickling from his mouth down his chest where the last remaining bite is resting in a sloppy mess of deli paper and melted cheese.

I wake him up with an abrupt, "Hey dude! You can't sleep here man.  Dude!" After a while he comes to and begins to argue and almost yell at me claiming that he was definently not asleep. 

"Asleep or passed out, you gotta get the hell out of here you pissed up wanker."

After another of these exchanges (I was a little hungover this particular morning and was feeling fiesty) he finally made his exit.  Mounting his bike like a man with brand new legs, and wabbled about 20 yards before literally just falling right over onto the ground.  It's like he just turned to dead weight, whatever happened, he and his bike fully ate it.  He popped right up like he was totally cool, as if nothing happened, remounted, made it to the corner where he tried to stop for a car, and ran into the curb busting his front wheel.  Taking it like a man, or the worthless drunken piece of clay he was at that moment, and vomited his sandwich right back on himself.

Shots Fired. Nothing New in New Orleans

We have now been here in the New Orleans's lower 7th Ward for over seven months and have seen a lot of good and a lot of change, and a lot of new experiences, good and bad. 

New Experience #1: 

Gun Shots. 
Gun shots are not something I have ever gotten used to in my travels around the world.  I was in a bar that was shot up/held up in Charlotte, NC one horrendous night, which was also one of the first nights I have ever actually heard a pistol shot with the exception of the reverberations of a hunting rifle in the distance while playing in the country growing up. 

In New Orleans, gun shots are something you can face on a weekly basis, sometimes more, sometimes less.  Things have been relatively quiet around here lately, but I can now precisely determine the difference between gun shots and a car back fire or fireworks. 

We have also had two drive-by's happen at the trap house (look it up) a block up the street.  One of which I was home for. I was on the phone with my boyfriend when the shots started, I stopped talking and hit the floor (bar shooting flash-backs have taught me something), subconsciously counting the shots as the echoed in my mind even to this day.  They stopped shooting.  I turned the lights off in the den and looked out the window to see people in the bar catty corner to me run out to see what happened.  Immediately after a police car actually came down the street (this ONLY happens when there are shots fired, the police are absolutely non-existent in my neighborhood otherwise, and I must note, my neighborhood is five blocks from the French Quarter). I went outside more to be with these people then to find out what happened.  I know what happened. But what I need is people to talk to about it and to feel that they feel the same terror and exasperation that I do.

Two men shot, the residents of these two blocks emptied out into the street to find out more information.  Drive-by, silver Chrysler, two men hit, one of them in the neck, 8 shots fired, the facts and questions now seem standard conversation.   The police erect their giant glowing night-time crime scene light stick that rises to over eight feet.  We are all now used to this.  The people that have lived here their whole lives are still concerned because these are there brothers, uncles, sons, and fathers. These are their streets and neighborhoods, friends and loved ones. 

We decided to go out after this. Stiff drinks help, they don't help to understand, but they help.  We saw one of the homeless guys that hangs on our street and comes out to the Marigny to beg telling us the guy shot in the neck passed away.

We return to a quiet and empty street and wake to buses of upper middle class white people being carted out to the Lower 7th to work on Habitat for Humanity houses oblivious to the tragic and constant battles of the night. And, no police presence until it happens again.

Red Beans & Rice...Let's Get Dirty

I was finally put to the most arduous task of making red beans and rice and be critiqued by the native masses.  This is no small task.  I am from the South, I understand how serious things like this are.  If you don't make it like they remember there grandmother's making it, then it is wrong.  At the same time, there are no two recipes that are alike, thus continuing Sisyphus' trip up the hill. For me, there is really only one way to make grits, fried chicken, or collards, yes, there are variations on additions, but at the core there is only one way.  One way.  So, I began by doing my research.

Red beans first came to Louisiana via the Haitian Slave Revolt that began in 1789 and flushed out all the refugee plantation owners and eventually freed and slave Africans up the Mississippi to New Orleans.  Now this emigration brought so much to New Orleans, variations on voudoux, new musical instruments, and sugar cane know how.  It shaped the depth of culture and tradition in the city in so many ways.

Red Beans and Rice is traditionally served on Mondays--it's all about leftovers.  As well, as something mindless to make that you can ignore to clean the house, wash the clothes, etc.  Also, the sausage is traditional served on the side, but this is not how my recipe goes, I cannot give up the unbelievable flavor of pork fat from beginning to end.

1 lb Camellia Brand red beans, its a good Louisiana company.  Soaked overnight and drained. If you have the money add some white wine to the water you soak them in overnight.  You can also add an onion quartered and some dried peppers to infuse more flavor into the beans.

1 lb Louisiana Jasmine rice

1 ham hock
1 1/2 lb smoked sausage, halved and sliced

1 vidalia onion, minced
2 celery stalks, minced
4 garlic cloves, minced
1 bell pepper, minced

1/2 c. white cooking wine
6 c chicken stock

1 t. cayenne, depends on how hot you are ready to go!
4 bay leaves
8 sprigs of fresh thyme
salt and pepper

2 Tbl butter

• Sear the ham hock on all sides in a large pot.  Add the halved and sliced smoked sausage and get a good sear producing pork fat to suate the vegetables in.
• Lower the temperature on the stove unit and add the vegetables, being careful not to burn anything. 
• Add the well drained beans.
• Deglaze the pan with 1/2 c. white cooking wine, and cook until almost all of the wine is gone.
• Add the chicken stock, you can also just use water here or a vegetable stock depending on monetary and dietary restrictions.
• Add the cayenne, bay leaves, thyme, and a little salt and pepper.  This will be cooking on low for about two more hours so you don't want to add too much salt too early, the taste will intensify.
• Let it ride on a slow boil for about two hours.  Make sure the beans are neither crunchy or smushed.
• In the mean time, about 20 minutes before the beans are done, cook the rice.  Slightly season with salt and pepper.
• Add butter to the beans when it is done, stir until the butter melts, taste for salt and pepper and add more if needed.
• Garnish with green onion if you are going for flare

Halloween: Costume Your Face Off...In New Orleans!!

By:  Amy Thomas

In a town that thrives on masks, parties, mischief, and mayhem, Halloween is just the kind of holiday for New Orleans--and the nerve center of all this mayhem culminated in an exploding atom on Frenchmen Street.

 I work on Frenchmen so Halloween weekend meant a lot of work and long days and nights watching others on debaucherous jaunt in the street.  It also meant I had an excuse to wear ridiculous costumes at work, one night I was an overdosed disco chick and the other I went Tori Spelling in her Saved by the Bell Years. 

The payoff to all this work and no play was that I somehow had Halloween off. This was going to be trouble.  My costume for the big night was a murderous bad-ass Mayan forecasting the end of the world.  It took my a hot minute to get this costume together. I had chicken feet hanging from this giant neck piece/top I had, along with fake ears, cryptic writing, and blacked out eyes.  Like I said, costumes are taken very seriously in these parts.

I started out at R Bar, which is always nice, and conveniently is at the end of my street. People were spilling out of the bar in any and every type of costume.  The streets were starting to fill and cars were starting to be completely blocked from passing through.

 I didn't know what to expect at this point walking around the corner off Royal to Frenchmen and getting slapped in the face by thousands of people packing the streets for blocks and blocks.  It was a leviathan sea of enunciated inebriation.  There were unfortunate cars being danced on, DJ's in the street, bearded women, jello shots, kegs, a lot of men dressed as women, Tobias in blue men phase, glow sticks, elicit drug exchanges, trumpets and saxophones dancing into the streets from every bar, and Jersey vampires giving it to you with attitude.  It was a completely beautiful party. 

See you on the Halloween flip side, as Elvis says goodbye to the Leprechaun.

Catching Up

I haven't posted in a couple months...and I have been contemplating over the root of my complete lack of ambition towards writing things about settling in to New Orleans.

And I still couldn't tell you.

Isaac came and went, we spent a good week without power but nothing too horrible happened to the house.  The best part was the communities reaction to this event.  This is something you roll with down here, but it helps when there is a neighbor to help you collect branches, bring in trash cans, make sure you have water, and the ever present food trucks that majestically appear in your hood so you don't have to travel twenty minutes to wait in line at McDonalds or awful Rally's for another hour or so just to be disappointed and ridden with guilt and gas for the rest of the day.  The food trucks and Verti Mart kept my tummy full, and the Spotted Cat came through with a generator, a band, and cold beer.

We got disaster food stamps, went to the arena, saw the army corp, registered to vote in Louisiana-it was an experience, but after losing our entire fridge and freezer and a week of work, it was worth it.

Getting through a hurricane on these coasts is like making it through your intitiation to become an official resident.  Now, a couple months later, you can share stories with others.  Conversations have something in them like, "I ate there during Isaac" or "We met them during Isaac".  That means you've been here, you aren't a tourist, you aren't one of those tourists that stays on extended stay, which means you stay for a couple months contemplating moving here. You live here. 

There have been more incredible parades, more festivals, more anything in the world you can do outside once the weather went from hot wet wool blanket to the cool breeze of paradise. 

I have settled in to my job on Frenchmen Street, and we feel like we have friends, the ability to navigate the town without the GPS, the exact location of our favorite chicken fingers (Today's Cajun Seafood on St. Claude, believe me), po'boys (we stick to Frady's), pizza (Sugar Park), daiquiries (behind Gene's), bar (ever revolving), and so on.  We live in an incredible and unique paradise. It is now our home.

The part that is hard to write about New Orleans are the social issues.  The school system here is to shit.  The roads in neighborhoods off the Quarter or Garden districts are shit.  The mental health hospital for all of New Orleans shut down and moved and there have already been three deaths attributed to released patients.  There are gun shots, drive-bys, the constant threat of getting jumped.  The constant game in your head...look them in the eye when you walk by, say whats up, look straightforward, angry, assured, on a mission.  Watch out for groups of teenagers. Keep open businesses on your walk so you have somewhere to run if something happens.  These are all things that you have to consider every time you go somewhere. We live in the Seventh Ward, this shit gets serious.

If you write this out like this it looks like you would have to be a little insane to live here, and maybe that is true, we are definenlty a lot weirder than Austin thinks they are, but the pros so greatly outweigh the cons that sometimes you don't even notice them until there is a shooting a block away. 

A New Orleans with No Hubig's Pie, 7 Days and Counting

It has been a week since the 90 year old New Orleans institution Hubig's Pie burnt down.  I was slated for the 6am shift for that Friday morning and as I groggily turned the TV on to the news I was quickly awakened with the then four alarm fire that had overtaken the factory.  By that time the front facade had already fallen, the roof caved, the insides demolished, it was already over.  It would become a five alarm fire in the next couple minutes.


On my bike ride to work I could see the smoke billowing into the awakening sky, breaking the news to drinkers outside La Peniche, I rode down Elysian to see Dauphine closed off by the 35 trucks and 95 firefighters on the scene.  
  

I work at a cafe on Frenchman and it was all anyone talked about, we sold out of the pies within thirty minutes of opening.  One of the buyers was me, and it was my first Hubig's Pie purchase.  It's in this picture, and I actually just ate it.   I don't own a microwave, per the packages instruction, but I warmed it in my oven, and it was delicious.  It reminded me of a famous Southern Italian delicacy I have had with delicious fried pastry filled with a fruit flavored cream, and finished with a perfectly sweat sugar glaze.


It's not about the pies as much it is about the institution.  Hubig's is something New Orleans takes pride in and it burning down right in front of them tore at a sentimental part of their hearts.  


I wasn't worried that my first Hubig's Pie buy was my last.  As my dear friend Kenneth, a New Orleans native, said when the subject of rebuilding came up, "Oh, Hubig's will be rebuilt, we will rebuild it."

And that is why New Orleans is incredible.

Bastille Day 2012 in New Orleans, Fête de la Fédération

It's Bastille Day in New Orleans, or rather 'Fête de la Fédération'.  For some reason my boyfriend has been looking forward to Bastille Day for like 10 months, since before we even knew we were moving down here.  So it is a meritorious coincidence that we are here in costume in the middle of the maelstrom of Bastille Day, French Quarter style, on this Saturday night.  


First I must tell you about our outfits because they were ridiculous.  Bastille Day commemorates the day that the people rose up and actually stormed the Bastille in order to have ammunition to defend themselves from Louis XVI's Royal Military.  Parisians really knew how to do things in large numbers back then.  Their success brought about the Declaration of Rights of Man and of the Citizen and the end to feudalism.  I searched images of paintings of the 'storming' and all I could really find was an image of a topless woman with an off white sheet draped around her wielding a firearm and a flag of France.  The other kinda looked like Dr. Quinn Medicine Woman with a du-rag.  Otherwise, it was peasant wear, done.  We went and bought fabric and I got a brown color for my skirt, couldn't figure out a top, and finally ended up with this very cave womanish get up.  We had the brilliant idea for my boyfriend to wear a toga and he picked out fabric with the Saints logo on it. I know.  So our outfits ended in his time traveler Saints toga and me in the worst looking brown skirt ever, a cheetah shirt, and some strange leopard fur Russian looking hat thing, and a brilliant faux silk red sash.

The coolest outfit ever

We ended up storming a building on Frenchman 
Street, traveling around with the parade dancing, singing, stopping every  couple blocks to dance and sing some more, traveling along Decatur and  up the stairs to the balcony overlook of Jackson Square for the finale. 

Running of the Bulls, New Orleans

By: Amy Thomas

Its 7 am.  I do not want to be up right now, the alarm annoys, and I rise.  Coffee.  White clothing.  Bike across the Quarter at 7:30 in the morning to get your butt smacked.  Literally :)

Today is not only the same day as the Running of the Bulls in Pamplona, but it is also Bastille Day, the celebrated storming of armory for weapons in Paris of the people, and New Orleans is taking full advantage of both.

Why the white clothing you might ask..well, first up for the day at 8am is the Running of the Bulls, which consists of hundred of white clothed, partially inebriated 'runners' and Roller Derby girls wielding plastic bats  and horned helmets as 'bulls'.  

The horn blows and we are off, actually running from these ladies, getting smacked in the but every couple minutes or seconds, scurrying when one comes up from behind, and taking in the other 'runners'.  You have everything from families, girls with their hair straightened and their short skirts and tiny flip flops unable to hack it in the early heat, old men dressed as matadors, a motorized cooler bike, and my favorite a Zach Galifinakis look-a-like with white cut-off shorts, a white shirt tucked into these oh so tiny shorts, suspenders, a white matador jacket, a beret, a case of beer in his hand, pilot goggles,and the most hilarious jaunt fleeing from oncoming bulls.

Check out more at nolabulls.com

'Uncle' Lionel

What an incredible weekend to be in New Orleans.

I stop here because I don't even think I can begin to explain the happenings of my day.  The great brass drummer 'Uncle' Lionel Batiste passed away this week, and ending the week long celebration of this incredible musician's life the Treme's second line went on parade starting in North Treme and ending on St. Claude at Sweet Lorraine's.  Sweet Lorraine's is less than a hundred yards from our house so I rush us out with the first trumpet sound I heard and step onto the street to see hundreds of people lining the streets and gathering about a block down a St. Claude and St. Bernard.  The parade began and with that came the music, the white clothes the lady's in their Sunday hats, the umbrellas, the dancing, the occasional tears.

The joy of this life, this incredible loss to New Orleans soul, it was indescribable.  Two bands slowly made their way down St. Claude, one U-turning to end at Sweet Lorraine's, and one going rouge and traveling down Touro rounding out onto Frenchman Street from Royal.  This was the path we chose along with a train of locals, gawking tourists, bee-bopping happiness hop stepping its way around Marigny.  On our way home we ended up walking back by Lorraine's and stopping for a while finalizing our excursion with a couple Coronas and a most excellent char grilled sausage.  


A couple moves with my man the 'Dancing Man', roof top solo's, and musicians I now recognize, it was a good night.  It all ended with us finding out we have an incredible view  from our front sidewalk of the river fireworks celebrating the eve of Bastille Day.  I close the door immersed in the air of New Orleans's unwillingness to allow its heritage, history, scars, and glory to fade into line with the rest of the country.

GW Fins

By:  Amy Thomas

My mom is visiting for a couple days, which means I not only get to see my mommy and have a familiar face around in this new town, but also we get to eat somewhere schmoozy that I could not otherwise afford.  We made reservations and Aaron, my mom and I hit the town for an impressive night out at GW Fins.  As nice as the restaurant is, the decor reminds me of one of those bland high end prohibition big band joints, sans the band and debaucherous jaunt of illegal mischief.  The ambiance was simple, tight, and extremely polite.  The service on every single level was outstanding, from the front of house manager, to the general manager, to the water top-offer, we met every single one, they were all immensely professional, helpful, observant, and well spoken.  

Blue Crab Potstickers with Pea Shoot Butter

I'm a chef, so the front of house is important but I'm about the back of the house-so lets get to the kitchen.  We started with the Blue Crab Potstickers with Pea Shoot Butter.  They were filled with blue crab, chanterelles, roe, country ham, and catfish, I'm really not sure how you can go wrong with this.  Give it a light pan fry and top it off with this earthy and delicate pea shoot butter and this melange of land and sea come together in this delicious appetizer.

Blackened Swordfish with Crispy Shrimp, Spinach, Mashed Potatoes, Roasted Corn Butter, & Chili Hollandaise

Next came the entrees, my mom and Aaron don't understand how to eat somewhere incredible and diversify their orders, and both ordered the Blackened Swordfish with crispy shrimp, spinach, mashed potatoes, roasted corn butter, and chili hollandaise.  Yum.  The Swordfish wasn't overcooked which is sometimes a concern of mine, it was juicy, meaty, with just the right amount of seasoning, and mating perfectly with the flavorful chili hollandaise and the sweet crunch of the roasted corn butter.  The mashed potatoes and spinach justly served themselves, reconciling the serious flavors in the dish.

Red Snapper, with Shrimp Etouffee, Louisiana Jasmine Rice, & Lobster Butter

I ordered the Red Snapper with shrimp etouffée, Louisiana Jasmine rice, and lobster butter.  The Snapper was perfectly seared with perfectly crisp flavorful skin. The etoufee was light and delicate, and the lobster butter savory.  I can only say that I would have liked some actual lobster meat in the butter, I either missed out on the ladle or it was an infused butter.  I was determined to finish my plate, almost to the brink of over-fill, avoiding the allowance of one scrap of food on my plate to be wasted on a trash can.

It was good, everything was cooked perfectly, everything was done right.  I guess I wanted a little more, it was stiff, unimaginative, and without the playful New Orleans culinary personality I expect everywhere I dine in this city.