Mayhaw Man

On a happier ice cream note-Creole Creamery is up and running, doing land office business in a neighborhood that is just barely open (it is in an old McKenzie's cattycornered across the lot from Upperline). I stopped in last night to pick up some stuff on the way home from a dinner I was attending(coincidentally at the home of the truly lovely woman who wrote the linked piece). They were really busy but happily still had some honey lavender ice cream. That stuff is subtle and delicious. For those of you who are heading to Upperline, I highly reccomend this place as a second dessert after a fine dinner. After all, you can't have too many desserts.

No bulldozers. I cannot do this without resorting to politics and large amounts of invective, but I can say that among the very few rights that are reasonably well protected in Louisiana is the right to ownership and the to control the destiny of one's own property. I believe that IF you see a bulldozer, that it will be a while. Also, from a more practical standpoint, if many buildings are going to be destroyed, that they will be salvaged/dismantled first. This place is nothing if not one giant Restoration Hardware. Surely many of you have read about the poverty and such in parts of the New Orleans area-well, it's kind of a funny thing in that the majority of homes in the 9th and the 7th (where Pampy's is) were owned by the occupants. This means that individuals will have to be dealt with before anything happens to their homes. Not only that, if the decision is made to tear them down, certainly much of the material in these homes (solid core cypress doors, heart pine flooring off of unflooded 2nd floors, beadboard on ceilings, cast iron door catches, porcelain and glass door knobs, hinges and pulls, etc., etc. etc, will be recovered in many cases. These houses, in many cases, while occupied by people with relatively low incomes, are architectural gems and have been pretty well kept by the occupants. Many of them want to rebuild/rehab, but have a hundred roadblocks in the way, insurance, frankly, being one of the lesser of the obstacles. And Jason, when you say it doesn't look that bad, make sure that you consider that this water was in there for 3 weeks, and in many parts of the city, it got in again for another couple of weeks (not sure if Pampy's flooded twice). Saying that it looks like it can be cleaned up is a pretty broad statement. All of these will have to be assessed on a case by case basis. In fact, in the scheme of things, that building is not particularly valuable from an architectural standpoint. Part of it has been there a while, but all of the various renovations kind of ruined whatever was there in the first place. It's very complicated and won't be solved anytime soon. This is going to go on for years. We're missing 2/3 of what was one of the more interesting cities in the world and no one has any idea how many people we are missing or how many actually got washed away with the tide. On a happier note, the Quarter was full of revelers in costume last night. And one thing about all of this is that we have an official theme for Mardi Gras if today's costumes are any indication. I saw walking refrigerators, guys wearing boats, big foam FEMA checks, blue roof people, lots of Brownies (not the little girls, but the kind from FEMA), and many, many folks with various kinds of survival related costumes. It was really heartening to see it all. This morning as I walked back in the Faubourg to get my car, I passed down Frenchman and there was garbage everywhere-but it was the kind that we like to see-beer bottles, food wrappers, cocktail glasses, and other accoutrement of New Orleans nightlife. People are here-they are alive-there just aren't many of us and we are missing much of what makes the place what it is. But, being who we are, we can put together a party inspite of anything. This may not be judged as much of an accomplishment by many of you, but to us, well, it's normalcy. It's still weird here, though. As I was walking down Constance last night after a fine repast of red beans and laughter enjoyed with some good friends, I heard an odd sound from way down the street (it is very, very quiet in most parts of town and you can hear things that you would never heard before), it was a large diesel truck at midnight. Even among the ruins, that's odd as the clean up guys don't work at night. I got in my car, which happens to be missing, among other things, a headlight on the dim side (I have got to get that fixed, but I never think of it until it's night-there should be nightime garages for people like me) and drove off towards the Quarter. Well, the noise turned out to be a humvee slowly driving through this uptown neighborhood. They pulled me over and let me know that my light was out (of course, I acted suprised). The conversation turned to what I was doing out at that time of night and why I was so far from home (my drivers license has Abita Springs on it) and when I told them that I had been at dinner, we immediately forgot about any potential violations that I might be guilty of and started discussing the RIGHT way to cook redbeans and how you just can't get decent sausage in this town right now (these guys were from Lafayette-they know from decent sausage). There I was, a block from the river, only a couple of blocks from that Wal Mart you all saw being looted on TV (over and over again), talking to a bunch of guys in a humvee carrying BIG GUNS, about redbeans, sausage, Lejeune's bakery, Grant Street Dancehall, the poor state of duck hunting (the marshes are in bad shape-the ducks have no lunch), and crummy politicians and women in skimpy costumes. It's a great town. All the water in the world can't take that away from us.

A not so schmaltzy story by Rabbi Ribeye.

Indeed. The cold wind has been blowing here since August 29. Benny Grunch, local satirical songwriter, has a great song called, "It ain't dere no mo." Sadly, he needs to update the lyrics to include Post K additions to the song.

Sadly, not this year. Budgets and schedules are both tight. Sorry I won't be there to tell you in person how much your posts after the storm moved me. Give yourself a virtual hug around the neck from me. ← Virtual hugs, well, they just aren't the same. I'll miss seeing you though. It's going to be a little bit of a release for some of us and thank God for that. Even going to the grocery store is a military operation these days.

Ditto for people covering one more place that has the "best fried chicken" and those that use the phrase "down home" in any way, shape, or form (this includes Southerners, by the way). You going to Oxford? It's only a week away, you know.

Andi! Carbon-Off? Tell me all about it. Please. I thought that I knew about all of the dangerous chemicals available.

Just so I feel like I am being clear on this: I am not, nor is the paper (I don't think so anyway) damning E. What we are saying is that it's time to get to work. It's time to show up, suit up, and get moving. Sending in the second string is not good enough at this point. Someone like Emeril, who has been a stupendous ambassador for New Orleans, and who has continued to say, over and over again, that "he can't wait to get back" should do just that. Get back here. Get in front of his flagship, holding a big plate of something or other, and say, "BAM, I'm back. I need some folks to work. I've got good jobs for people who want to work. Come see me!" Two weeks later, we need him standing in front of the same place talking to Al Roker saying, "Taste this, formerly bigboy! We're open for business. Come on down!' That's what we need from guys like him. High profile guys who generate press like hurricanes generate water and broken refrigerators. We need positive stuff coming out of here. We need to show the rest of the country that we are doing what we can to help ourselves and that in order to continue helping ourselves we need their help. Eventually, the sattelite trucks (they are everywhere-Canal Street looks like NASA on any given evening at 5 o'clock) will go home and people will forget all about the fact that it's a wreck down here and we have a very, very long row to hoe. People like Emeril can help. All will be forgiven if he shows up and suits up. That's all anyone is ultimately saying. This place is a mess. No one can get help, there are limited amounts of just about everything here (the only exception seems to be "blue ribbon commissions"-we have waaaay more than enough of those at this point-ironically they are being formed by the same guys who, just 6 weeks ago, were making impassioned please to "stop having meetings and come help!"), and it is really hard to run a business. For example, most grocery operations close at 6 because they don't have any help and they have to make enough time to clean and stock with the same employees who were operating the store during the day. Emeril is a good guy with a big investment in New Orleans who has made a ton of money here and used it as a springboard to bigger and more lucrative things. It's time for him to come home and pay the piper. I'm finished now.

Sadly, I just realized this is one more thing that I will be making on my own for a while-New Orleans East, home of one of the largest Vietnamese population concentrations in the US, ain't dere no mo. My favorite local, the one that I mentioned above, is no longer in business. They're building collapsed. I can see it from my office window. I hope that wherever those people are that they are ok. They were really nice folks. As for the coffee, after Coffeeboy's directions, I am getting dependable results. I generally use CDM, but sometimes I use some locally roasted (well, not right now, but they didn't flood, so I guess they will be open soon) dark roast that I get from The New Orleans Coffee Exchange. I love that stuff. I have taken to keeping an extra couple of drippers because everytime that I make it for people hanging around the house, they want to know where to get them. And at $2.50 apiece, they make a nice, inexpensive gift.

Sour grapes. Everybody loves to hate a winner. I don't watch her (actually, after 7 weeks without TV and just getting it back, I just realized that I haven't even turned on the Food Network-not much there for me anymore, I guess). She's not doing anything that I (or 99% of you) can't do, and I find all of that chirpiness a little irritating, but I kind of feel like if she gets a few people into the kitchen, and out of the drive through line at Taco McNuggets, well, I guess that she is kind of doing a service. I have to say I've only seen her cooking show and one single episode of the $40 a day thing. That one was in New Orleans and was, for a local, excrutiating. I suspect it might be that way when she comes to anyone's town and you are forced to watch her. On the whole though, I guess if people are watching her cooking show and heading into the kitchen she is probably doing some good, somehow.

Sometimes you can't win. I Emeril had showed up on the local news there others would be accusing him of grandstanding. He's done a lot for the city, and I'm sure he'll continue to contribute in the future. Considering all the work there is to be done, the criticism seems a bit snarky? SB ← No, actually to me, someone who is in the middle of this mess, I don't think that it's snarky at all. Let me tell you something. I got a paycheck on the Monday after the storm and I got one on the 15th and I got one at the end of the month and I got another this week. I am one lucky guy and I promise that, in the future when I feel like smacking my boss, I will think about this and how much it meant to me to check the mini bank the day after the biggest natural disaster in the history of North America and know that I could feed my family with no interruption in our lavish lifestyle. I don't know many people who continued getting paid throughout this ordeal unless they were doing something to earn it. Some employers did handle it as best they could and paid until they ran out of dough or could put them back to work, and others immediately laid off and told everyone thanks but no thanks. The one's who just wrote checks, and in many cases, are still writing them, are to be congratulated in public and loudly as far as I am concerned-and I think that you might have some trouble finding anyone down here to disagree with me. Emeril has alot of employees. He has made his career here and this city, New Orleans, has, in fact, made him as much as anything that he has done on his own. Do you think he would be yelling BAM from the rooftops if the had landed in Dubuque, or Denver, or Raleigh? I suppose that it could have happened, but it's hard to imagine. Nothing snarky about it. This is kind of "put up or shut up" land. We've been torn down to the raw wood, no veneer left. Little things don't mean much. It doesn't even bother me one bit that it takes two hours to make groceries or that it is now taking me 4 hours to get back and forth to work when it used to take 90 minutes. I know this is happening because many of the people who are clogging the road and the checkout lines are here because THEY DON"T HAVE A HOUSE ANYMORE and I know better than to bitch about it. I also know that it's perfectly ok for the Picayune, or anyone else , to praise the folks trying to do it right or to chastise the ones who might not be quite so selfless. Good on The Picayune, says I. It's not just restaurant guys who are getting this treatment. It's everybody and that is exactly what the paper is supposed to be doing. Reporting. Maybe to many of you this kind of stuff seems trivial, but the restaurant business here is a big, big deal. The operators here are (sadly) our titans of industry and people want to know what they are doing. Everyone has family or friends in the business and many, many people here have worked at one time or another in the industry, so they are interested in how the things are being handled. Do good? Hurraahhh. Do bad? Boooooo. Don't get me wrong. I like the guy. I've been eating his food since he (and I) was a young man working on Washington Ave. for Ella Brennan. I like his restaurants. I am all over this website in various places saying exactly that. I'm happy for him and his success, but at this point, most observers, including me, (and no doubt the people on his payroll who are here and want to work-very few in reality are here, most likely)believe that it's time for him to come home and take care of business here. It's time for some truly NEW New Orleans Cooking.

Bam! Bam! Put up or shut up says today's editorial in The Picayune

Fat Guy in Profile

It's as bad as it gets. It's so hard to find a bright spot. So I guess I am glad to hear that there are some in Acadiana. There is nothing, and I mean nothing, left in lower St Bernard or Plaquemine to save. Start over or get out. Not much in between. Sadly, I suspect that many will just get out. I had some Alabama satsumas last weekend. They were delicious. They are grown on high ground between Moss Point, MS (which got jacked) and Mobile (which got double jacked) but only the coastal parts of the area were destroyed. The growing areas seem to have faired ok, with just minimal wind damage.

That's what happened to me! I was skinny as a rail until we had the first one, and after that, well, it's been all downhill. ← more specifically known as the pounds that you put on after the Happy 10 which both men and women gain during the honeymoon period of a marriage/partnership. ← Is this supposed to be per year? When does it stop?

That's what happened to me! I was skinny as a rail until we had the first one, and after that, well, it's been all downhill.

That's what all of the signs say. It's pretty clean and stuff, with lots of shiny new stuff to see through the windows. It looks like they could have opened a week ago ( I walk by it every afternoon on my way to the Moonwalk for my daily "how few people will I pass today?" walk. If it opens, it will be doing some quick business. Coffee shops are one of the things that are having a hard time getting going, as they have seemingly been hard hit by the employee shortage. And as far as K Pauls go, I wonder how those many jars of Cajun Martinis held up? They are probably as hot as fire by now, as they start out pretty damn hot to begin with.

I had to run down to see a client on Decatur for something this morning and parked on Chartres (parking situation in the Quarter is awesome-one plus for post Katrina life in New Orleans-no meter maids) and went by K-Paul's as I was in the neighborhood. It will be opening today at 5 for business. I believe that I will be forced to go have a snack. It might be fun to go by Peristyle and have one there, as well. I'll let you know how it went.

First of all, I have known Emeril for years and Brett is a friend. Second, I know that the location of his flagship restaurant had much to do with the revitalization of that section of downtown and that, Hurricane relief or not, the guy has been at the center of a serious upping of the ante in the New Orleans food scene and clearly has been the most visible chef from New Orleans (or anywhere else for that matter) around. Hurricane or no, these things have been important to New Orleans. That being said, it's a shame that he hasn't done more, though this situation is so bad that it's really hard to judge, with any certainty, anyone's actions. And, as someone who has been "on the ground" here in New Orleans and the surrounding area, I can tell you that he has some big shoes to fill in the "doing the right thing" dept. It is hard to imagine a company going to longer lengths for their employees than Dickie Brennan's restaurant group or an operator being any more selfless than Paul Prudhomme (though there have been several more, though much smaller (well, everybody is smaller than Paul-he's a big guy, after all ) operators who have opened their kitchens for relief with no hope of renumeration). We here in this part of the country have seen alot in the last two months, and the little things just aren't that important anymore. We have much larger issues to worry about. Brett was talking about some pretty big issues (after all, he is covering one component of one of our biggest industries) and I, for one, share most of the view points that he discussed in his piece. Am I, or do I think Brett, saying that Emeril is a useless cad and should have his NOLA passport revoked? Of course not. I believe that his point was, and I agree, that as someone who has made an entire career basing his work on the cuisine of this city, that he could be doing more, locally, to help out. For the record, Brett (and virtually all of the writing, editorial, and photographic staff of The New Orleans Times-Picayune-if they don't end up with a boat load of Pulitzers the whole thing is rigged. Their work has been exactly what great newspaper work should be-quick, accurate, and digestible) has been doing an amazing job under some circumstances that have been, according to many of the reporters, soldiers, and relief workers, worse than ANY war that they have ever seen. I interviewed a sherrif from New Mexico last week, who had been in Lebanon when all of the Marines got blown up and in Desert Storm I and II, and he verbalized the same thing that I have heard over and over again-this is the worst destruction that he had ever seen. It ain't pretty here. Not even a little bit.

I was there yesterday looking around (in fact, I was the only person within a block of the place at 6 pm on a Friday. It's very weird around there now. It is all shiny clean and it looks like they have gutted the kitchens and put in new stuff. I am looking forward to being there. Frankly, if they get open before anywhere else, it will be the only coffee in the Quarter. Even the Starbucks in the Sheraton on Canal is closed. CC's, Royal Blend, and all of the little independents are closed-even most hotel coffee shops aren't open for business. They can't get anyone to work there and if they can, they can't get many of the supplies they need to operate. Coffee, other than the convenience store kind, is in short supply. This is ironic as one of the first groups of businesses to get up and running in New Orleans were the coffee handlers and roasters. In fact, other that Martin Marietta they may have been the first to open in an otherwise completely devestated area. They have, even now, basically the only electricity line in The East.

Well, maybe. But this stuff is the real thing. No doubt about it.

Good news because Mardi Gras pumps literally a billion dollars into the economy of New Orleans ← Well, it may pump dollars in at the best of times, but at this point I don't know what it will do. Sure, it would be great to see a parade rolling through Uptown or down Canal , but in reality we are missing several of the components that will make this all possible. 1) There is no one here, and believe me, no one will be here in 5 months. There is NOWHERE FOR ANYONE TO STAY. The rooms are all taken up by contractors, many of the krewes are missing members and the ones that have plenty of members, well, many of those guys aren't going to be able to pony up for the ride, as they have to spend their money on places to live. 2) There is no one to clean up. Normally, prisoners from the OPP are allowed to follow the parades, under guard, and clean up. This also involves tons of trucks from Streets and Parkways, The Fire Dept., The Police Dept., and the State Police. 3) Where will the tourists stay if they do come? All of the hotels are booked, many of them until well into next year, with clean up crews, insurance adjusters, and the like. 4) Where will the money come from? Well, as Eddie Sapir, sleazebag councilman suggested, we should lift the ban of corporate sponsorship for Mardi Gras in Orleans Parish. Sure you could do that. And you could pretty much write off much of what many people consider to be "right" and "cool" about Mardi Gras. Do you really want to go see the "Coca Cola Rex Parade" or the "Bacchus Pepsi Parade"? Instead of a the Bacchagator, we could have some out of town stars riding on each float. Just like Superbowl Halftime! Hopefully cooler heads will prevail here, but I just don't know anymore. No one is really in charge. This is pretty much a situation where anarchy is raining supreme and the Mardi Gras announcement is just one more example of it. Have they consulted with anyone about the logistics? No. It's just Blaine Kern (a great guy by the way) hoping for the best and promoting Mardi Gras because that's what he does. We already had a Mardi Gras with The National Guard and The State Police hanging around (the NOPD was on strike), it wasn't alot of fun. I am a parade kinda guy, and I will be the first one on the neutral ground when the first parade starts rolling, but at this point there are alot more things that I think need to happen first. After all, you can't stop Carnival. It will be a small, spontaneous clebration no matter what happens, and it will be fun and probably more meaningful than ever-but giant parades every night for two weeks with millions of people lining the streets? That's just crazy dreaming.

One of the most interesting things about the ice that I ended up getting from FEMA, The National Guard, and The Red Cross is where it came from. It was being shipped in from as far away as Canada, Maine, Colorado, and California. Not that I am any kind of shipping genius, but surely there were supplies closer than that. I wish that I had kept a list of all of the places that it came from, but it pretty much covered the US.

When I first moved here, this was really a rural area, as opposed to suburban, and the strip outside of town was referred to by local wags as "The Abita International Airport" as there seemed to be some pretty regular traffic in and out of there (very fast turnaround times) on a regular basis. Most of these flights, judging from the few that ended up not making the return trip, seemed to originate in South America and were bringing in agricultural products of various sorts. With the coming of the blimps and AWACS, this trade seems to have moved away from the area, though the bayous of South Louisiana continue to be an illegal import center, just as they have been since the days of Jean Lafitte and his band of entrepreneurs and independent contractors. It's not really an airport, it's a single strip with a hangar that is primarily a fueling station for seaplanes and helicopters working the area and a base for the mosquito patrol that sprays the parish. It was kind of funny to think that's the one that they would pick, but the only other one in the parish is even smaller than that-though there is a strip that can land a 747 over at Stennis Space Center, but that's a bit more of a drive.

Naah, gold leaf is more like it. Anyway, I was wrong. Dinner last night was at Bacco. Our most frequent tourist dined on a Ceasar Salad, filet of beef, and bread pudding for dessert. His wife had a Ceasar Salad and a bowl of Gumbo. This morning I was unable to leave my house as there was an army of security personnel of various ilks floating around Abita Springs. Turns out that Bush decided to visit a Habitat for Humanity house in Covington and used the Abita Airport as his landing zone. It's only about a 1/2 mile from the house and so I went down to the end of the street to watch the circus. The motorcade was pretty incredible. He didn't have his usual selection of vehicles, so it was pretty much a motly assortment of local and state police vehicles and some army guys mixed in for good measure. This one hour visit turned traffic in St Tammany, which is pretty horriffic by anyone's standards, to a total snarl for hours. Now he is off to Biloxi to go to an elementary school opening. He loves it here. He said that he would be back soon to see how it is going down here. No word on what he is having for lunch.