TALES OF THE COCKTAIL OPENING RECEPTION TO BE HELD AT THE NEWLY RESTORED ROOSEVELT HOTEL
TOAST OF THE EVENING TO OCCUR AT THE ORIGINAL SAZERAC BAR

NEW ORLEANS, LA—December 1, 2008 – Tales of the Cocktail, a cocktail and culinary festival celebrating the history and culture of dining and the cocktail in New Orleans, has chosen The Roosevelt New Orleans as the site of the July 8, 2009, opening-night reception for its seventh anniversary event.

Tales of the Cocktail runs through July 12, 2009.

The historic downtown New Orleans property, a Waldorf=Astoria Collection property shuttered since Hurricane Katrina in 2005, opened in 1893 as the Grunewald. In 1923, it was rebranded The Roosevelt in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt and retained its distinctive moniker until the hotel changed hands in 1965 and was renamed The Fairmont. The grand hotel will reopen in late spring 2009, reborn as a Waldorf=Astoria Collection® hotel.

The summer’s most spirited event, Tales of the Cocktail explores the history and contemporary life of the cocktail at various locations in the New Orleans French Quarter. The event welcomes celebrities, mixologists, chefs, authors and cocktail experts as presenters and special guests from around the globe for seminars, dinners and galas.  Top spirits names such as Dale DeGroff, Tony Abou-Ganim, Robert Hess and Kevin Brauch once again will take part in educating industry and consumers alike about the cocktail.

In more than a century of operation, The Roosevelt served as the backdrop for many historic events and often made history in its own right. Key among plans to restore the property to its previous grandeur and appeal will be the reopening of the hotel’s famed Blue Room and legendary Sazerac Bar. In the golden era of supper clubs from the 1930s to the 1960s, the Blue Room played host to some of the best-known names in entertainment and big bands – including Tony Bennett, Louis Armstrong and Sonny and Cher – as well as to elaborate floor shows. The Sazerac Bar, a Roosevelt landmark for decades, again will serve its signature Sazerac cocktail and Ramos Gin Fizz – both invented in New Orleans and made popular worldwide by The Roosevelt – among other delights.

“Hosting our opening night in conjunction with the newly restored Roosevelt is an honor,” said Tales of the Cocktail founder Ann Tuennerman. “Tales of the Cocktail celebrates the history of the cocktail, and what better way to introduce visitors to our city than with the city’s official cocktail, The Sazerac, at the original Sazerac Bar,”

The New Orleans Culinary and Cultural Preservation Society, a non-profit organization dedicated to raising funds to benefit hospitality industry members, produces Tales of the Cocktail annually. Its mission is to preserve the rich history of the restaurants and bars of New Orleans and the unique culture of dining and drinking famous to the city, while educating locals, visitors and the hospitality industry about this culinary heritage.

Tales of the Cocktail, a culinary and cocktail festival, allows the connoisseur or amateur to fully experience (taste, see and learn about) cocktail culture in New Orleans and around the world. The event’s annual components are Spirited Dinners, a Seminar Series, Cocktail Hour, Cocktail Luncheons, walking tours of the French Quarter, and classic and contemporary cocktail parties — all presented by the country’s hottest chefs, authors, bartenders and cocktail experts.

For more information on Tales of the Cocktail, visit the Web site at www.TalesoftheCocktail.com and register to receive email updates, or call 504-948-0511.

The artist I met is named Bernard Mattox. He paints, but most of his career he’s been a sculptor, working in ceramics. Here’s a shot of his studio, where he’s working on his latest painting.

He recommended I go to the Mint to see an installation by an artist who is from Covington, but works in Los Angeles now.

I already planned to go across the lake Saturday for a big meetup with Nolanotes and some other twitter people. It went really well. Leigh brought up Prospect.1 during lunch, and pointed out the maps they had distributed. Here is the map online, it’s a pretty big .pdf, but it has all the information for what’s installed citywide.

So we set out to the Mint. Bunch of artists there, the guy from Covington, Stephen G. Rhodes, had an interesting installation. Here’s the Times-Picayune’s review of it. It’s difficult to describe, pretty large scale, overwhelming almost. You’re inside of it, it’s like the aftermath of a large post-election party in a room full of video screens. Disney’s Hall of Presidents, ghost portraits, torn furniture, popped balloons, it’s wild. There were a lot of coins on the floor, loose change. I decided to take out some pockect change and throw it on the floor, too.

The art is spread out citywide. We followed the map from the Mint to the Lower Ninth, and hunted down two of the installations put in near where the levee broke there.

This one’s called Window and Ladder – Too Late for Help. It’s by Argentine artist Leandro Erlich.

That area’s still pretty barren. There was a refrigerator all busted up and moldy on the street in front of it. Whether it’s been there since August 29, 2005, or not, I don’t know. It could have been, but I somehow doubt, put there on purpose.

It’s the area where Brad Pitt’s Make It Right Foundation is building green homes for residents to return to the area. They’re different than what was in the area before, that’s for sure, but affordable and renewable, incorporating features like solar panels.

Here’s one that was across from another Prospect.1 installation.

The area is still pretty darn bleak, and full of odd sights. This could well have been considered an art installation anywhere else in the world. In New Orleans, it was just a motorcycle on a slab.

We had lots of wind, not so much rain. It gusted up to, I’d say, 50 mph, enough to start peeling the copper roof off of my cousin’s outdoor kitchen area. I did the manly thing, (I’m camped out with my Aunt, a cousin, and her 3 teacher friends) and got a ladder, hammer and nails and secured the roof before it tore off and went into a window.

Today, I drove around to check on our office and my home in Mandeville (both with no damage, but no power). Traffic on Hwy. 190, the main drag into Covington, was sparse. Most of the red lights were without power; some blinking yellow. Amazingly, the drivers that were out and about did an extremely civilized job of both driving under the speed limit and treating the intersections as four-way stops.

Getting back to the house (equipped with generator large enough to handle air conditioning, thank gawd) I was treated to more doom and gloom on TV. Lots thunderstorms were in the area with the dreaded suspicious “hook” echoes that mean there could be a tornado. The Bogue Falaya river behind the house was righteously rising up, swollen by the rain and blocked by a storm-surged lake at its mouth.

All this gave way to a great evening after the thunder cells of doom passed. As I mentioned in the last post, one of the great hurricane traditions is the feast-of-the-food-that-will-go-bad-unless-we-eat-it-now. The neighbors came over with food gathered up from fridges unprotected by generators. Baked salmon and tilapia, chicken alfredo, smoked salmon, various cheeses and veggies were on the menu. I met 10 new people, and made 10 new friends, because I managed not to talk politics or otherwise piss anyone off.

I feel a little guilty. Many people I keep up with on the internet, fellow NOLA bloggers, were forced to leave their homes. Not many had good experiences, between being caught in contra-flow gridlock or seeking safety in places that ultimately were not safe at all, everyone’s going to have some interesting posts in upcoming weeks.

So shout-outs go to NolaNotes, Stacey, Charlotte, HumidCity, Greta, WetBankGuy, LipRap, Wendy, Katie, RDPeyton and everyone else who had to flee; hope you will see home again in days, rather than weeks this time. And hats-off to YatPundit, Ryan, and GentillyGirl and others who intrepidly stayed behind to share on-the-scene updates.

It would be nice if power is restored tomorrow. I’ve had a surreal vacation, and deadlines that were breathing down my neck are extended, but not extinguished. A little normalcy would be nice here. At least we won’t have to spend 4 months getting used to the “new” normal that defined life after Katrina.

Remains of the West End lighthouse and Southern Yacht Club.

A view up the canal along Hwy. 11 in Slidell, you know, where Tites used to be.

And, finally, I give you Boat Mountain.

Neighbors had been feeding the cats, who, needless to say, were freaked out when I got back. The one in the first picture finally came out after 2 days of hiding from me under the furniture.

The last picture I took on my first gawking venture down Highway 11. It was about a week before they were letting people back into New Orleans. There was a marina, called Tites, at the end of Hwy. 11 before the bridge. It, and every other business, on that end of the road was wiped out.

While I was taking this picture, a Humvee with National Guard people pulled up. So did a a lady, who got a box of crackers out and started feeding the ducks. She must have been feeding them regularly, because they started hauling ass towards the road where I was standing when she got out.

Will Smith’s streetcar is located at the Prytania Theatre. It features Stella and Stanley from Streetcar Named Desire. He added sponsors John and Gayle Gish to it as well. Will was at Tales selling his Mardi Gras krewe giclees. He also had a new line of burlesque girl paintings on hand for sale.

Also posted at StreetcarArt.com.

But first things first. Today’s kick-off event was Toast to Tales of the Cocktail in the Riverview Room of the Hotel Montleone. NOLA blogger Loki of Humid City and the Krewe of Chartreuse offered up the first ceremonial toast of the day, which was dedicated to the Sazerac cocktail’s enshrinement as New Orleans’ official cocktail.

Ann Teunnerman, founder of the New Orleans culinary and cocktail event, spoke this afternoon and went over some of the highlights of the five-day celebration. When Ann announced Tale’s revival of the Green Hour and return of absinthe to America, the crowd went wild.

I have been assigned to write a story about absinthe and New Orleans, so my attendance at the various Tales of the Cocktail events will be centered around those featuring the spirit. There are many, many other events taking place: seminars, symposia, luncheons, dinners, tours and tastings. Here is the listing and ticket information.

Today’s event was tasting of absinthes offered by Lucid, Marteau and La Fee.

That’s the money shot of the day: absinthe being prepared the old-fashioned way with an ice water drip from a fountain.

The Absinthe Museum of America, opening this Saturday, is located at 823 Royal Street and hosted today’s event. Many absinthe artifacts—absinthia to the collector—will be on display, including this still, the fountain and glasses below, and many spoons, old bottles and artwork.

Ted Breaux, a New Orleans native and a driving force behind absinthe’s return to America was on hand. He is the also the creator of Lucid and several other varieties at Jade Liqueurs, overseeing its production at the Combier distillery in France’s Loire valley.

Marteau is made by Gwydion Stone, founder of the Wormwood Society, which is dedicated to bringing absinthe back to its rightful place in cocktail culture.

A number of bloggers/twitterers were there this afternoon. Loki, John Martin of Off-Focus, Leisa, Mr. Gunn and Robert Peyton of Appetites braved the afternoon heat to attend. Here’s a photo of John, Mr. Gunn and Loki, I’m sorry I had to leave for dinner with my folks and didn’t get more people in the picture.

More from Tales later this week. There is another absinthe event Friday at the Montleone’s Carousel Bar. I’ll attend that and make another report.

It was a nice place. Very pleasant. And there was internet. So I broke down, and at Christmas, gathered all my resources and located a nice laptop. I shopped around–a lot. I finally found one, for the geek among us, one with a dual-core AMD Turion64 processor, 15-inch screen, 2 gigs of RAM, a decent, though built-in video card (ATI X1250), a slot-loading dual-layer DVD drive/burner, a built-in camera and to seal the deal, an HDMI output port.

It’s a Gateway, and Best Buy had them advertised on sale. I headed on down, and there was one left, the display model. After some haggling with the geeks, it was mine for $649.00. I was very happy; I was expecting around $900 or so.

I’m telling you all this because I really don’t have a whole lot to write about and haven’t posted in a week. The big news is that I’ve moved again. To Mandeville proper, and only 5 miles from the office. Today Charter came in installed teh internets. I bought a wireless router, a D-Link DIR-655 Xtreme-N Gigabit Edition sucker that’s really cooking.

WEP enabled, no prying eyes or suckers like me (I glommed onto a neighbors connection last night, fool had the admin password still enabled). Think I’ll do some downloading tonight.

That’s a glass of Abita Strawberry on the table.

The new visitor’s center is located adjacent to the brewery. Tours need only go out the back door to enter into the chamber of holies.

Each of these fermenting tanks holds 600 kegs of beer. Brewmaster Mark Wilson gave us the tour. It included a little introductory talk at the center’s 26-foot long polished mahogany bar.

He explains the differences in barleys and hops and yeasts that make for different styles of beer. Abita uses water from its own wells, untreated other than by sand filtration. It’s an ideal water for making lager-style beer like the Abita Amber. They use malted barley from the U.S. and U.K., hops from the U.S., U.K. and Germany.

Fifteen taps, fifteen brews.

Lots of Abita merchandise is on hand at the visitor’s center, which opens to the public this weekend.

There’s a cool mosaic at the entrance, and great artwork by Eddie Mormon (who Abita president David Blossman said is color blind).

Jockamo IPA bottle by Eddie Mormon.

Abita Amber by Eddie Mormon.

Hops and barley out on the bar. Blossman showed everyone how to tear open the hop pods and rub them on your hand to activate the aroma. My hands still smell like essence of beer.

It was a pretty good time. Northshore luminaries like Abita Springs Mayor Louis Fitzmorris, Abita alderman and owner of the best snow ball stand ever, Bot & Nola’s Sno Balls & Other Cool Stuff, Sheri Campbell (I also learned she is a Bonerama freak) and Mandeville pol and publisher Dennis Bechac were in attendance.

Beers tasted: Jockamo IPA strong and hoppy), Abita Strawberry (very crisp and clean, much better than what I expected) and Abita Amber.

So if you’re looking for a nice Sunday drive before gas prices hit $10, head on up to the Abita Brewery for some beer and a tour. The little town of Abita Springs is also home to the Abita Opry, a nice trailhead complex and visitor’s center on the Tammany Trace and the kitchiest roadside stop on the face of the earth, the UCM Museum, home to Darryl the Doggiegator and The House of Shards.

The Northshore doesn’t always suck.

Then I passed Pat’s Seafood in Covington and saw all the cars packed into the parking lot, and thought, “Shrimp.” So I turned around. Bought one pound of boiled shrimp, two big boiled crabs, some potatoes and corn.

Of course I’ll share.

As the crowd grows, lines for food in the tents can grow pretty long. It’s not too bad, waiting in line offers the opportunity to socialize. One of the longest was for Sake Cafe, where I waited for about 15 minutes while the chef refilled the sushi offerings by making some of the longest rolls on record.

Big crowds, beautiful weather, lots to eat and drink (for a good cause, of course).

While moseying along Columbia Street down to Brunner Gallery, I ran into Sandra Scalise Juneau, a food writer and and expert on Italian/Sicilian Creole culture. She’s been featured on a couple of Channel 12′s documentaries and Chef John Folse’s program as an authority on New Orleans’ Sicilian community’s St. Joseph’s day altar tradition. Nola and I will be posting about the altars in the near future. Hopefully Sandra will let us use some of her vintage altar photos from the 50s and 60s.

At Brunner, I talked to Linda Dautreuil, artist and the gallery’s curator, about their featured exhibit, works by Vicki Grant. She is a sculpture/mixed media artist who retired from a career as an architect and decided, as Linda said, “To get into the mud.” We also talked about Brunner’s now representing legendary northshore artist George Dunbar.

A favorite of mine, Arless Day, also had works on display at Brunner. Arless is a collage artist who builds scenes from elements he finds in books and magazines, his own photos and elements he paints into the scene. Dreamy and evocative, his works, often rooms created wholly from cut-photos of fireplaces, couches, chairs, plants and books are frozen in time, and make the viewer feel that something is about to happen in them. Arless also creates collages depicting sprawling Italianate villas and landscapes often featuring boats.

Next stop: Fort Isabel gallery, home to a bunch of great artists. Painters Suzanne King and Carol Hallock, glass artist Wes Koon, potter Kelly Landrum-Hammell, artists Carol Lapari, Martin Needom, Johnny Stout and Beryl Carbon are all member/owners. Carol Hallock has submitted a streetcar design I’ll be getting up on the site soon.

Kelly Landrum-Hammell is the proprietor of Three Dog Pottery in Carriere, Mississippi. She makes raku pottery, but also specializes in her own brand of horsehair and feather pottery. She throws white clay pieces, and when the kiln reaches 1500 scorching degrees, she removes the piece and applies horsehair and/or feathers the hot piece, leaving unique carbon patterns on the finished ceramic. Though not Kelly’s, this site has some good examples of what can be accomplished with this technique.

Down the street I went into Spectrum Gallery next to the Columbia Street Taproom who were featuring Garland Robinette and Robert Cook. Garland was there showing his portraiture work done in oil; he’s got a unique style that you wouldn’t guess came from this New Orleans television and radio icon.

While there I ran into Annie Strack, an artist and art writer best known for her nautical-themed watercolors and “boat portraits;” she is an official authorized artist for the U.S. Coast Guard, with paintings featured in the permanent collection of its fine-arts outreach program. Annie participated in the ForeKids Fleur de Lys public art project, but, unfortunately, she said she is not one of the streetcar artists this year. She did introduce me to another artist, Mary, who submitted a streetcar design. She’s going to email me with it for posting soon.

The final stop of the evening was Atelier, an interior design and antique house that is home to artists Marcia Homes and Jim Seitz. Jim’s pleasing impressionistic landscapes are a far cry from the precise medical and engineering illustrations he did for years before embarking on a new creative phase in life.

Sometimes being exiled on the Northshore isn’t too bad after all.

Pete-in-Exile is forced to frequent a little laundromat in Abita Springs. I don’t mind this, as I can do 3 or 4 loads at one time, cutting laundry time by a good 1/2 or more. It’s not a bad little place. The machines work; it’s 75 cents a load, the building is pretty clean and it’s next to the town library and a stone’s throw from a pizza place, a coffee shop, 2 groceries, and the Abita Brew Pub.

You hang out long enough at one place and you get to know its quirks. The laundromat has maybe 12 washers, regular size, and one of those big honkin’ triple load spin washer jobs. The dryers are all of the huge commercial persuasion that can easily dry two loads at a time.

The thing is, unlike the washers, the 10 dryers are a mix and match of differing brands and models. A quarter gives you so much time on different models, and each delivers a differing level of heat. One dryer might take 6 quarters and 45 minutes to dry a load, one might take two and 20 minutes.

What’s a guy to do? Consult the Wise Man of the Laundromat, of course. See, twice I’ve been in there when this other guy was there doing his laundry. He stands around, chain smokes, has 5 or 6 machines going at once, and is quick to tell all comers about his laundry life, and to share his bottomless knowledge of the machines.

The first time I saw him he pointed to the most decrepit of all the dryers. It’s a beaten, scratched and rusted monstrosity. Whatever paint or decal that once displayed its brand name has long since been obscured. It is truly out of place among the shiny Dexters and Maytags, and would be the last one to be chosen by any sane laundry-doer. The Wise Man of the Laundromat knows better. “That one lasts the longest and runs the hottest. You put your towels in that one. Or jeans. It works good on a load ‘a jeans.”

He was right. Every time since then I’ve been sure to use that dryer; inevitably, no one else does. It kicks ass but you’ve got to keep checking it. Once the clothes get dry, they get really hot.

Today the wise man was there and talkative to the point where ignoring him and putting on the MP3 player and zoning out while waiting would have been rude.

“I’ve been coming here a year and half—sometimes three times a week,” he said. “She don’t never do it.” He didn’t explain whether she is his wife, daughter, girlfriend or mother.

Although today he had dibs on the kick-ass machine, he still didn’t hesitate to share his knowledge of all the dryers in Abita Land. He stopped me as I started putting clothes in one of the nice new Maytags. “If you wait a minute I’ll be finished with this one,” he said, fishing clothes out of an older-looking Dexter model. He dumped them into a basket. “I ain’t foldin’ these—them’s hers.” Getting back to the dryer, he told me, “That one looks good, but it don’t run hot.”

Alas, the Wise Man of the Laundromat will soon be no more. “I got a new place up north…” (I’m thinking—Alexandria? Monroe? Even further? No.) “Out by Folsom. I’m gettin’ a new washer dryer delivered in two weeks. Guess who’s ass is gonna be doin’ the wash?” It’s only fair, he says. “She takes two baths a day and uses two towels every time. She changes clothes every fifteen minutes. And she keeps the dogs clean. Which uses even more towels.”

Now, I don’t think the Wise Man of the Laundromat was joshing. He did have two full loads of towels tumbling around (one in the kick-ass ugly machine, of course) and let me tell you, they were all sparkling white. What’s his secret? Guess what—I don’t really care so I didn’t ask.

But it is for me to pass down the wisdom of the laundry. The next schmuck I catch putting a load into that no-good Maytag will be told of the Hierarchy of the Machines. Once I get my clothes out of the ugly dryer, that is.

Now, Thursday’s weather forecasts were all doom and gloom for Friday. Flash floods! Twisters! Hail the size of canned hams! In fact, sleep was difficult from about 2-4 in the morning, lightning and thunder at the rate of about 1 per second kept even me awake. I got up around 7:30, not knowing how long the normally 1 hour or so drive to the city would take, given the possibility of street flooding and accidents on the roads.

I had plenty of time to catch the morning news and weather while having coffee. No really bad reports, just some power outages on the Westbank. Radar showed the city clear, although there was major rain to the west outside of Baton Rouge. That chunk was moving towards the Northshore. The weather girl said the city was clear, and that it looked like it should be over for New Orleans proper.

I decided to avoid the Causeway and headed west to Slidell and entry to the city from New Orleans East.

So far, so good and long story short: the sky stayed clear, I picked up my sister, we got to the condo at the appointed time, and there was no plumber. After waiting an hour, we took time for lunch at the nearby Russell’s Marina Grill, home of the original Onion Mumm (Outback’s menu once recognized their Bloomin’ Onion as a creation of Russell’s, I don’t know if they still do).

Lunch is a misleading term, we both had breakfast dishes. Mine was the house special with pancakes, scrambled eggs and bacon; hers was two fried eggs, toast and fresh fruit salad. High spot of the meal: fresh orange juice, squeezed right before my eyes (but only because we sat at the counter where the juicer is).

We left the restaurant to return to the condo to see if the plumber had shown up. It was raining when we left and starting to rain pretty hard. I thought this was odd as the rest of the day’s rain was supposed to stay to the north.

I drove her back to her French Quarter apartment, dropped her off and decided that going back to Covington and the office was foolish at this point. I gave Nola a call, who said Captain Sarcastic was abandoning Jazzfest due to rain. I was pretty close to the Fairgrounds and said, “It’s not raining that bad” and hung up.

That’s when the bottom of the sky fell out. Traveling up Orleans Avenue I could barely see ten feet in front of me. I got to Bayou St. John and decided to head to the nearby New Orleans Museum of Art for shelter, enlightenment and clean bathroom facilities.

After a visit to the Femme, Femme, Femme! exhibition (83 paintings on loan from 45 French museums–Picasso, Manet, Monet, Degas, etc.—a must-see) I went upstairs to the New Orleans Arts and Crafts Club exhibit. It’s NOMA’s first joint exhibition with the Historic New Orleans Collection and is well worth a visit. One painting from the 1940′s depicted an outdoor art show with works hung on the fence at Pirate’s Alley. It could have been painted a couple of weeks ago; the French Quarter Festival and other events still feature outdoor art shows in the alley.

After spending an hour and a half or so at the museum, I decided to brave the elements and drive on out to see Nola and CS. The rain had dwindled to a drizzle. But when I turned on the radio in the car it was people calling in to report flooded streets, closed streets and power outages all over the city. The storm I drove through to get to the museum dumped 5-8 inches of rain, depending on what part of town you were in.

Other than almost getting stuck in some street flooding at the Tulane/Airline/I-10 interchange area the rest of the day was uneventful, with a return home to Northshore later in the evening. A busy, yet unfruitful day with a nice interlude.

Oh, and did I mention another Nor-Joe’s muffaletta found its way to Nola?