My good friend Marcos tells me that the subject of MRE's is not as interesting as I seem to think and he advises me to stick with the "here's what I did today" stuff. I suspect he felt inclined to add that he could have done without the “Noxious Weed Mouseketeer Roll Call” as well, but was too polite to mention it. Other feedback, or notable lack thereof, suggests that he is correct on all counts, so I’ll confine my remarks on military food to merely mentioning that it is perfectly edible. The beef ravioli might not make the cut at [View Full Entry]

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Origin of a dumb idea The last time I was here I dropped about ten pounds despite the fact that I spent most of my time in the kitchen. You meet a lot of professional chefs around here and I can't say they're a thin lot. I was considering this while reading the nutritional information on an MRE envelope and wondering if combining a volunteer service program with a weight loss regimen might interest anyone. I've heard stupider ideas: look up DigiScents "iSmell" product some time if you want to know where the bar for genuinely dumb is set. MRE stands [View Full Entry]

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Bring out your pitcher! Bring out your can! Get your nice fresh oysters from the Oyster Man! Chapter Two of Gumbo Ya-ya catalogues the calls of the street criers heard in early twentieth century New Orleans. This chapter is a little tedious, to be honest, and since the street criers are all but gone now anyway, you might be inclined to skip over it. Between the unstoppable force that is Walmart and the monument to conspicuous consumption that is Whole Foods, the independent street merchant, rapacious fellow though he was, has been done in at last. He didn’t have a supply [View Full Entry]

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Today I am proud to say I have officially earned a personalized rejection letter from Lonely Planet. I’ve been sending applications and writing samples to small-time independent blogs, etc but I thought I’d aim one at the top just for the fun of it. I figured I could give the poor subeditor with the dreary job of wading through the slush pile of unsolicited manuscripts a little laugh if nothing else, so I sent my application in the form of a rejection letter. Excerpt: Dear Sir or Madam: In the unlikely event that your publication’s slush pile should be in need [View Full Entry]

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A Salute to Independant Krewes, the Real Carnival Back when I wrote about the Krewe de Vieux parade, I think I said something about the small krewes capturing the original Mardi Gras carnival spirit. Obviously that’s a bunch of grandiose nonsense because how the hell would I know about the original Mardi Gras spirit anyhow? But I hope it’s true. I love the scaled down and ad-hoc approach of the independent ones that pop up one year and may be gone the next. This entry is my salute to some of those folks without whom Mardi Gras might become a serious [View Full Entry]

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Mambo on St. Charles Avenue The parade atmosphere on St. Charles is a little different than it is on Canal or in The Quarter. A parade down Bourbon Street is the crushing mass of drunken fools you’ve heard about and expect. On Canal, it’s an organized riot with barricades and crowd control ready to pounce on anybody that crosses the line. On St. Charles, uptown of Lee Circle, it’s a giant tailgate four miles long. If you’re going to bring kids to Mardi Gras or are looking for a more relaxed and sociable experience, find a spot on St. Charles somewhere [View Full Entry]

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Got my laptop fixed and couldn't wait to use it I know this one’s been a little overdue, but now that I have my laptop back, I can start catching up on a few things. First I have to pause to tell everyone how impressed I was by HP’s service. Since the unit was in warranty, they shipped a box to my front door complete with packing materials, a pre-paid shipping label, and even a little roll of packing tape. I packed and shipped it, they fixed it and shipped it back in Less than ten days and at no cost [View Full Entry]

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I went to Yo Momma looking to grab a bite to eat and a beer or five before meeting up on Frenchman Street for Krew de Vieux. There was probably going to be nonstop imbibing for the duration and while (as you know) I don't approve of that kind of behavior I didn't want to run the risk of getting cited for public sobriety during a Mardi Gras parade; how embarrassing? Yo Momma makes a perfect foundation for serious drinking. You go there when you're in the Quarter and want to eat, but another round of oysters isn't going to fill [View Full Entry]

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I'm buying postcards, wading through racks of pictures featuring the familiar wild drunken revelers packing the streets of the French Quarter, overcrowding the balconies, and thronging the parade floats. You see the jazz bands with brass buttons, the red steaming crawfish on top of mounds of corn and potatoes, the nutty eccentrics in ludicrous costumes, the battered streetlamps. There's music, there's neon, and there's noise...and there's noise; above all, there's noise. Bourbon Street is a wall of color and sound. Those are the memories the postcards try to capture, and they're the same ones [View Full Entry]

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AAE Hostel It's turned cold again. Not very cold, but cold enough for me to feel like sitting here instead of walking around in the wind. So I'm spending the day working on a new watercolor and, in between washes, updating everybody on the accommodations I've found through Hostels.com (a web site you want to know about). AAE Bourbon House is on the corner of Annunciation and Felicity, which puts it just outside the Lower Garden District and within a few blocks of Magazine Street and St. Charles. This is a good location since you can pick up the streetcar on [View Full Entry]

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