Today’s paper came out with all the conditions of the armistice – unconditional surrender I should call it. Why, the terms the beaten Huns accepted do not even leave them with a tooth brush they can call their own.

My great-uncle Pete was a pilot during World War I. Fortunately, he had not completed his training when the war ended, or he might have ended up dead or injured as so many young men did, flying in machines that weren’t much more than kites with lawn-mower engines and machine guns on them.

Uncle Pete died in 1976. Among the things he left behind and passed on through my great-aunt, Freddie (who lived to see 100 years) and then to my mom, were a couple of letters he had written to his brother, Val (Valerien Dugue Choppin) from the Air Service’s massive training camp in Issoudun, France.*

Uncle Pete’s letters to his brother Val on the German surrender of 11-11-1918. (The pocket watch is from the 1940s but, hey, it looks neat).

One he wrote exactly 94 years ago today, on Nov. 12, 1918. He speaks about the war now being over, and the celebrations that went on. In honor of Veteran’s Day (originally Armistice Day, which commemorated the German surrender in World War I on Nov. 11, 1918) I’m sharing it with everyone.

Issoudun-11-12-18

Dear Val:

Today’s paper came out with all the conditions of the armistice – unconditional surrender I should call it. Why, the terms the beaten Huns accepted do not even leave them with a tooth brush they can call their own.

It is wonderful that we should have been able in four months to take them down from the haughty perch they sat on last July and today make them swallow the dregs of ignominious defeat.

The French have gone wild with joy. They say Paris right now is just one big joy factory. Yet I wish I was there, I know I would be having one hell of a time. They are keeping us pretty tight out here at camp and will not get us a chance to let loose. They know well enough what a bunch of wild birds the fliers are and if we are given the reigns once, they will have a hell of a time checking us all up when they want to call the roll again.

There was a pretty wild time last night in the little town near here. The people were going about the streets kissing every body they met and there are many Yanks who woke to sad reality and found the grizzly beard of a badly soused poilu [French slang for soldier] rubbed across their face as he kissed them with a resounding smack on each cheek. The old boys are death on kissing and they respected no one. They considered all worthy to be honored by their embrace.

I guess the military programming the U.S. will let up a little now & some restrictions will be removed & the world other wise made happy.

Peace has not been declared yet but it is not far off. The fighting has stopped and that alone is what we have been praying for so long. Don’t know what they are going to do with us now, but he powers that be say to keep our training, so training we will. But believe me, from now on, a fifteen degree bank is going to be stunt flying with yours truly.

Dearest love to you & mother,

Devotedly, Pete

In a later letter, he wrote of zipping around in hot-rod planes. Until I saw this letter, I always wondered why he didn’t remain involved in aviation when he returned to the states. The answer was, as exhilarating as he found it in France, he was terrified of flying:

Boy, I am almost an aviator, you might see me jazz around in a Newport, but never will, for when I leave France, it is fini aeroplane poir moi, they are alright during the war, in fact they are the most delightful things imaginable to make war in, but they are not peace time pleasure buses, not the ones I am flying at least, and when Uncle Sam tells me fin la guerre, it is fini aeroplane also.

My mother says he never flew again, either as pilot or passenger, as long as he lived.

*(from the Wikipedia entry) In 1917, the U.S. Air Service established its largest European training center, the 3rd Aviation Instruction Center, about nine miles northwest of the town. At the time of the Armistice, 11 November 1918, thirteen fields were in operation and well over 10,000 ground personnel, student pilots and instructors were located there. It was at that time the largest air base in the world. A single monument on Department Route 960 remains to mark Issoudun’s part in the Great War.

I’m going to stay away from any kind of review or criticism of HBO’s “Treme” and there is plenty of that, good and terrible, to go around. I’ll only say the show is deserving of both for different reasons and I’m still watching it.

“Treme” has featured a lot of music and culture which a lot of natives may not be familiar with. Basically, being middle-class suburbanites, the music and culture featured in “Treme” was that of neighborhoods we neither lived in or went to school in. (I grew up in the Aurora area of Algiers and went to school Uptown, for example). We knew it existed by rarely participated other than catching a passing parade, and never saw a Mardi Gras Indian unless it was at Jazz Fest.

The brass and jazz bands and Mardi Gras Indians featured in the “Treme” story lines arose out neighborhoods like the 7th Ward and 9th Ward as well as the Fauborg Tremé. Documenting the musicians and artists, and the people enjoying their work, was Ralston Crawford, who worked in New Orleans during the 1950s, ’60s and ’70s. If you’re a frequent watcher of the show—or otherwise—and still a fan of New Orleans’ “back of town” culture, you’ll be fascinated by Crawford’s photographs. NOMA’s exhibit consists mainly of photos, paintings and drawings from the Sheldon Art Galleries in St. Louis.

“Brass Band Parade,”by Ralston Crawford. Musicians from left to right are: Bill Matthews, trombone; Wilbert Tillman, sousaphone; John Casimir, b-flat clarinet; Andrew Morgan, tenor saxophone; and far right: Harold Dejan, alto saxophone,” 1950-1960s. Gelatin silver print, (image and paper) 10 ½ x 13 7/16 inches.

Crawford drew and did some lithographs, which are stark compared to his photographs that, for the most part, are populated by musicians and spectators. He was drawn to the city’s cemeteries (and was buried in St. Louis No. 3 in 1978) as is apparent in some of the photos, but his drawings, lithographs and paintings reflect the compositional elements of his subjects, which also apparent in some of the non-portrait photos.

“Jake’s Barber Shop,” ca. 1950-1960s, by Ralston Crawford. Gelatin silver print, (image) 5 ¾ x 8 7/16, inches, (paper) 8 x 10 inches.

“Basin street,” 1974, by Ralston Crawford. Gelatin silver print, (image) 12 3/8 x 8 ½ inches, (paper) 14 x 11 inches.

I always like trying to get into an artist’s mind and figure out how they might have arrived at an image. With Crawford, it’s not hard to see how he was grabbed by shapes and then compelled to recreate them. Take the photo above, and painting, below.

“Basin Street Cemetery,” 1975, by Ralston Crawford. Oil on linen, 17 x 21 inches.

He did similar things with street scenes and other cemetery scenes.

“St. Anne Street,” by Ralston Crawford, 1954. Oil on canvas, 24 x 18 inches.

“New Orleans Cemetery,” by Ralston Crawford. 1953. Ink on paper, page from Windsor & Newton notebook (paper) 7 ¾ x 10 1/8 inches.

His documentation of the African-American music scene in New Orleans is boundless and should be viewed by any fan of New Orleans music, no matter what the era.Venues like the Dew Drop Inn were hot their heyday but long gone. If nothing else ever comes out of HBO’s “Treme,” it will have at least given a boost to the musicians—Kermit Ruffins, Trombone Shorty, Irvin Mayfield, Dr Michael White and so many more—who follow in the footsteps of Crawford’s subjects. Part of the work in the NOMA exhibit are photographs from the Tulane archives. You can read more about Crawford and browse Tulane’s collection of his photos here.

“Dancer at the Dew Drop Inn, La Salle Street, New Orleans,” 1952, by Ralston Crawford. Gelatin silver print, (image) 9 ½ x 7 11/16 inches, (paper) 9 7/8 x 8 inches.

“Joe Tillman, tenor saxophone, at the Dew Drop Inn,” 1952, by Ralston Crawford. Gelatin silver print, (image) 9 ½ x 7 5/8 inches, (paper) 10 x 8 inches.

“Advertising the Dance,” by Ralston Crawford. 1953. Gelatin silver print, (image) 7 ½ x 9 ½ inches, (paper) 8 x 10 inches.

For all these pictures and many, many, more, I invite you to visit NOMA this weekend and get yourself lost in the world that made “Treme.

I wandered up there on Saturday during Tales, taking a break from meeting some of the local Twitterati who had purchased wrist bands for admission to the tasting rooms spread out around the Monteleone and the over at the Royal Sonesta.

Getting off the elevator I ran into Casandra from CraveLocal.com based in Orlando. There was a display of flowers and some bottles on a table by the door, and she told me they were fixing to serve Chinese food for the lunch getting ready to start, it’s for a liquor called Moutai that, as she says she heard “drinks like you’re pouring razor blades going down your throat.”

Kweichow Moutai bottles and glasses with display of sorghum.

Thus terrified, intrigued and famished in equal proportions, I entered the room and was seated at a table. This was not going to be the normal free-for-all buffet but a sit down, family style lunch. The whole place was decorated and a large partition was set up separating the tables from the area where the buffet normally resided.

A fresh spring roll began our journey into Kweichow Moutai territory.

The presentation began. Moutai (formerly “Maotai” but changed to be less scary to Westerners) is a class of baijiu or “white wine.” It’s not actually wine, though, it seems in China “wine” is loosely applied to alcoholic beverages more generally, while in the West, it would never be applied to a distilled spirit, which Moutai most definitely is.

We were being treated by the international outreach arm of the Kweichow Moutai distillery. Kweichow is the province where the city of Maotai, which lends its name to this particular baijiu, is located. We learned it’s made over a three-year period, that it begins with a dry fermentation of sorghum (a grain also grown in the U.S. but not used often as a culinary ingredient). Rather than a large distillation plant, the factory consists of many (hundreds? can’t recall what they said) small stills. This adds to the character of each individual batch distilled that will be blended together later for bottling.

Moutai in its tiny serving glass, which is necessary as guests are expected to drink the entire contents of the strong liquor at once.

Each table for the event had a host from the cocktail world, brand ambassadors hired for an international marketing effort by the distillery and its French partner, Camus Cognac. They’ve spared no expense: Christine Deussen, David Wondrich and King Cocktail, Dale DeGroff (more on Dale in a later post with T.A. Breaux and the bitters they’ve just put on the market), are helping spread the word along with the host of my table, San Francisco-based journalist and author Jordan Mackay.

Jordan was great, he was very knowledgeable about the product and the drinking culture in China. He explained that what we were drinking, despite its, as I qualified it, “moonshine” characteristics, is rare outside China and is quite expensive, selling for the equivalent of $200-$300 a bottle. The Chinese buy Moutai for holidays and special occasions; Jordan explained that often Moutai, despite its high price tag, is often rationed with customers limited to two bottles when it is available. The price tag also makes it an uneconomical mixer, so it’s not found as an ingredient in cocktail recipes. It’s served at state banquets and most famously by Chou Enlai to Richard Nixon during his ground-breaking 1972 trip to China.

With its international partner’s help, Moutai has been marketed for a few years in duty-free shops around the world but is not generally available. The lunch at Tales was one stop on a tour with Moutai making the rounds and testing the waters to expand into more markets.

We learned how to drink Moutai. It appears as a clear, somewhat viscous liquid with a sharp alcohol scent, making one think of unaged corn whiskey or just plain old “white lighting.” The tiny glasses (about one-half ounce) on the table were for the Moutai, and they were tiny because guests are expected to drink the entire glass at once. Also, it’s considered rude to drink if you are not giving a toast or being toasted and thus started off the festivities by offering a toast to everyone at the table.

In a banquet situation, there are ladies who’s sole duty is to refill the Moutai glasses. They are known appropriately as “demolition girls” and they keep busy as there is no shortage of toasts to be made.

Cyril Camus, Jordan Mackay, David Wondrich, Christine Deussen and Dale DeGroff are toasted by a Moutai exec.

So how does it taste?

The first hit is like what you would expect from its appearance and aroma, very strong and very alcoholic. Almost immediately, however, many layers of flavor become apparent and the tastes mellows after a few moments. It’s after the swallow, when you take in air into your mouth and throat, that the “razor blade” effect becomes apparent. Just as a Curiously Strong Peppermint™ leaves a cooling and stinging sensation when you inhale, the Moutai remnants produce a burning and stinging sensation upon inhalation after swallowing, it’s unpleasant until the third or fourth shot when things become altogether more pleasant. It is, after all, strong stuff and not to most Western tastes. A person without an open mind might reject it outright as “fire water” but that’s ignoring the surprising subtleties apparent in a careful, well-paced, sampling.

Jordan said that there are nearly 300 compounds found in Moutai, produced by the unique fermentation process. That’s quite apparent, and after toast after toast, it also became apparent that the Chinese know what they’re doing, because I would have indeed been demolished had the Moutai been served in Western-size shot glasses.

So I salute the folks of Kweichow and their fiery baijiu, and thank them for the rare treat of Moutai and the opportunity to learn a lot about Chinese drinking culture.

Regulations. I’ve talked about regulations regarding distilled spirits when writing about absinthe. Absinthe is not as highly regulated as are other spirits produced in the U.S. It can’t contain anything harmful and the label has to be approved by the Feds, but nothing says what it can or can’t contain, flavor-wise. This makes for a continuing practice of marketing grain alcohol flavored with essential oils and food coloring as “absinthe” even though that term should ideally only be applied to an end product made through the maceration distillation of whole herbs and spices; at least containing the “trinity” of grand wormwood, anise seed and fennel seed, which, if it is colored, the coloration is gained by the chlorophyll extracted into the distilled product through the steeping of fresh herbs.

It’s not the same with bourbon. There are minimum requirements a distilled product has to meet before one can slap a label that says “bourbon” on it. It’s not geography; while this style of whiskey gets its name from Bourbon County, Kentucky, there are no laws saying it has to be made there. Briefly, the regulations state the mash bill (mix of grains ground and cooked with water to make the “mash” (“wort” if you’re familiar with beer-making)) must contain at least 51% corn; there are limits and minimums on alcohol content at various stages of production and bottling; and it has to be aged in new oak barrels. [Side note: someone could do a master's thesis on the recycling of old bourbon barrels, since they can be used to make bourbon only once, the used barrels are exported all over the world and are used in aging rum, Scotch and Irish whiskey, as well as Tabasco sauce.]

The Differences

The differences between brands of whiskey come in due to a number of factors and in the flexibility of the factors that are not regulated. At the base of it all is the mash bill, especially differences in the the grains other than the required 51% corn. I’ve learned that most manufacturers up their recipes to call for around 70% or more corn, give or take a few percentage points. Other grains usually include barley (to provide enzymes needed to turn starches in the mash into sugar, which the yeast eats during fermentation and turns to alcohol) and wheat or rye, but, it seems, never both.

On a personal note, I never did like Maker’s Mark bourbon. I wanted to, it seemed traditional, had a great bottle, etc., but I never really cared for its taste. My favorites over the years included Booker’s, Baker’s and Knob Creek on the higher end; Old Charter and good old Jim Beam on lower end. I also had a professor, a Southern-drawling gentleman, who offered the class this observation: “That Jimmy Beam is a damn fine whiskey” that always played in my mind when shopping for booze. Later I learned that the high-enders were all Jim Beam brands. Back then (mid-1990s) other premium brands like Bulleit and Woodford Reserve weren’t really available.

In 2008 I discovered Tales of the Cocktail and started learning a lot more about spirits. It began as an assignment to write about absinthe being newly-restored to the market, and my attending one of Ann Tuennerman’s Sazerac Academy events. The Sazerac cocktail, official cocktail of New Orleans, is made with rye whiskey. I was attached to rye from then on. It’s drier than bourbon, is sharper than bourbon, and has, I came to realize, more character than bourbon. Rye whiskey has it’s own set of regulations, the important one being, it has to be made with at least 51% rye. But rye isn’t appropriate for all drinks and there are fewer brands by far of rye out there than bourbon.

Back to Makers Mark: I later saw an interview with one of its founders, who said that when they were gearing up in the 1950s, they thought it impractical to brew and distill several different recipes, wait for them to age, and then pick which one they’d run with. Instead, they baked bread with different ratios of grain and picked their mash bill from there.

I found this astounding, as there are so many chemical changes that happen during fermentation, distillation and aging that would affect the whiskey’s taste that baking bread couldn’t replicate. The founder also noted one thing: the mash bill they settled on contained no rye.

But when I learned that Maker’s Mark, a whiskey I just could not love, had no rye, it was a revelation.

“No rye! That’s why I don’t like you. It’s not me, it’s you!” I yelled at the bottle.

Larceny Bourbon

Now we’re getting to the title of the post, the Saturday tasting room featuring Larceny bourbon. On hand were some folks, the master distillers, who were Beam family members. At least their last names were Beam. I never figured out what the connection was, because Larceny is produced by Heaven Hill distillery in Bardstown, Kentucky.

During the tasting, which featured a short skit, of all things, that attendees had to watch before being allowed to grab a sample bottle, I asked one of the reps what the mash bill of the whiskey was. [Pro tip: if you meet a whiskey maker, ask what the mash bill of his product is.] He said, and I forget the exact amounts, something like “75, 15 and 10, corn, wheat and barley.” I said, “No rye?” He said, no, they never use wheat and rye in the same recipe.

The skit, by the way, featured an actor who played the legendary Fitzgerald, a treasury agent who kept an eye on the barrel warehouses and stole a bit of product every now and then; he was said to have ferreted out the best-tasting barrels, which became known as “Fitzgeralds.” The long-time Heaven Hill produced brand “Old Fitzgerald” is supposed to honor this agent. They’re now resurrecting the story in a bit of branding shenanigans with Larceny, Heaven Hill’s brand-new brand named for Fitzgerald’s “infamous act” of stealing some “damn fine whiskey,” as a Southerner might say.

So, I finally got to taste it and Larceny was, I’m afraid to say, dull. It was well-aged, had a good oak character, a complex flavor profile only careful aging can produce, etc., etc., but it was dull. It just lacked something, which is that sharp bite rye provides.

I had wrongly assumed that Maker’s Mark was an anomaly. I started doing some research after the tasting and learned there is a whole slew of what are known as “wheated” bourbons. Maker’s Mark, Old Weller, Old Fitzgerald, Van Winkle and Rebel Yell among them.

And, upon further review, I learned that my favorites from the past, the Booker’s, Bakers, Jimmy Beam, Old Charter and Knob Creek, are all rye recipe whiskeys, as are Bulleit and Woodford Reserve.

So we learned something. There are “wheated” bourbons and there are rye recipe bourbons, and, to quote the mythical most interesting man in the world, “I don’t always drink bourbon. But when I do, I prefer rye recipe bourbons.”

Update: On cue, I see this article about Julian Van Winkle and Buffalo Trace making his family’s wheated bourbon recipe in Garden and Gun. It’s a great story with a lot of history and details the nuances in bourbon production.

Unlike The New Orleans Cookbook, which is still in print, The New Orleans Underground Gourmet is a little harder to find. My copy of the book was a gift, courtesy of Nola at NOLAnotes.com. You can still find copies on the internet, depending on its condition, at a price from about $6 all the way to $237 for one that’s listed as being “new” in condition. Collin’s main gig was as a history professor at UNO, and it shows.

I had a conversation with James, The Accidental Cajun, a recent transplant and chef who’s learning everything he can, as fast as he can, about New Orleans. I told him I was working on this post, and asked if he was familiar with the book. He said he had a copy, and I asked, “Well, have you looked at it yet?” A quick look, he said, but he didn’t see any of the restaurants he was interested in learning about.

That summed up my first impression of The Underground Gourmet: it’s a perfect illustration of the city’s changed landscape, both physically and gastronomically. James first noticed all restaurants that weren’t included (because they didn’t exist when Collin wrote it); I noticed how many restaurants Collin did include that, as they say, ain’t dere no more.

The historical analytical tidbits:

In the last update of Collin’s book in 1973, he ranked approximately 154 local restaurants (plus a handful of out-of-town establishments) from 1 to 4 stars.

Approximately 21% of the local restaurants he gave rankings to are in business today. Only a couple, Brunings and La Cuisine (I greatly miss both of them), I could determine are not around today solely because of Katrina. Many had gone out of business long before the storm.

Collin awarded 4 stars to only 3 restaurants, Galatoire’s, Le Ruth’s, and Maxim’s, a Houston restaurant. Galatoire’s is the sole survivor; Le Ruth’s folded in the 80s, I believe, a victim, more than anything else, of the oil bust. Maxim’s I know nothing about other than it doesn’t seem to be around any more.

Of the 22 restaurants receiving 3 stars, 8 remain in business (36%): Acme Oyster House, Antoine’s, Brennan’s, Bon Ton Café, Commander’s Palace, Manale’s, Chris (now Ruth’s Chris) and Mosca’s.

Two-star restaurants fared worse. Of the 41 restaurants, only 8 remain, (20%) Angelo Brocato’s, Mother’s, Pancho’s (yes, that Pancho’s), Bull’s Corner (which moved to Laplace), Camellia Grill, Casamento’s, Delmonico (now an Emeril joint), and the restaurant at the Fair Grounds.

Sixteen of Collin’s 89 one-star restaurants exist today; Arnaud’s, Broussard’s, Café du Monde, Central Grocery, Felix’s, Gumbo Shop, Coffee Pot, Morning Call, Charlie’s, Parasol’s, Ye Olde College Inn, Dooky Chase, Parkway Bakery, Crescent City Steaks, Steak Knife, Bud’s Broiler and Middendorf’s.

He covered many places in the guide that earned no stars, mainly to serve as warnings to the reader to not make the mistake, as he had, of visiting them. Today, of course, we can argue over Collin’s rankings and whether they remain accurate until the proverbial crabs return to their traps, or something like that.

The Platonic Dish

Collin brought us the concept of the “platonic dish,” which, he says,

“…is my own personal accolade. The term is derived from Plato’s Republic. It simply means the best imaginable realization of a particular dish. “Perfect” would be a good translation.”

Examples of platonic dishes abound in his 1973 Underground Gourmet. From Antoine’s (oysters Rockefeller, tournedous marchand du vin, chicken Rochambeau) to the (ain’t dere no more) Zum Zum Room (honey smoked barbecued ribs).

In between those two alphabetical bookends, dishes Collin labeled “platonic” one can enjoy today include Dooky Chase’s Creole gumbo, Galatoire’s trout meuniere amandine and shrimp remoulade, Mosca’s Italian baked oysters and spaghetti Bordelaise, and Bon Ton’s Crabmeat Imperial.

Reviews and Criticism

The teacher in Collin comes out at every opportunity. His restaurant reviews are opportunities to educate readers, there was something about each establishment he though was important for them to know.

The ins-and-outs of Antoine’s labyrinthine dining facilities (and menu, for that matter) weren’t the only things Collin chose to educate his readers about in the course of his review of the old-line stalwart. It was an opportunity for him to present his philosophy of fine dining and what a customer should look for while dining in general. Discussing whether one needs to have his own waiter there, (an active issue for discussion at Galatoire’s and Antoine’s 40 years later) provided Collin the opportunity to segue into diners’ expectations:

As a newcomer you obviously are not going to get the welcome or the service a patron of twenty years who dines at Antoine’s once a week can expect. However, you will get a gracious and efficient waiter who will be willing to explain the entirely French menu and make some suggestions. You will do well to trust him. He will be making several assumptions:  that you are not an expert on Creole cooking or on Antoine’s own version of it; that if left to your own devices with the huge Antoine’s menu you will inevi­tably make some inappropriate choices.

Now we are at the crux of the problem, not only of An­toine’s but of a great many restaurants. A few great restau­rants can prepare everything on their menus well, but these are rare. A restaurant that has specialties it prepares exceed­ingly well is no worse a restaurant simply because it lists on its menu other dishes some of its patrons may occasionally like to order. Ordering a grilled pork chop at any New Orleans restaurant is wasteful to the point of contemptibly. Most food—and especially great food—is incomparable. Cook­ing is an art form. The art of dining consists in eating what a restaurant prepares best.

I think that might be the most important thought anyone can take away from Collin. As much as one might like to blame a bad dining experience on other factors, we really are responsible for educating ourselves before we spend our money. I have proven to myself many times that I have not learned this lesson yet.

What Collin didn’t address, but obviously strove to prove, is the premise that criticism can be an entertaining art form, too. Evaluating and discussing the pros and cons of the city’s eating establishments wasn’t to be a dry, “just stick to the facts, ma’am” exercise.

Famous for not holding anything back, he enjoyed embellishment, and the reader gets the idea Collin relished the opportunity to unsheathe the rapier and eviscerate, as efficiently as possible, an offending establishment. Forewarning the reader came with entertainment. Rather than make a list entitled “Downtown Places You Might Want to Avoid,” Collin instead has a chapter entitled “The Great Center City Disaster Area.”

The Poor Boy Sandwich

The poor boy sandwich (shortened in today’s vernacular to “poboy;” now an almost universally accepted spelling) was the working man’s lunch of choice and remains rightly so. The shortening of “poor boy” to “poboy” was an inevitable event, as the word “poor” would have been pronounced “po” by 99% of the working population in the city. That it became accepted as a written representation of the word, when referring to the sandwich, is not without controversy which is too insignificant to me to address further. I will use Collin’s unfailing referral to the “poor boy” sandwich hereinafter.

Poor boy sandwiches were a topic that put Collin in rapture. Rather than sum up, I’m going to reproduce his thoughts from the book entirely:

Poor boys are great sandwiches. They may resemble heroes, submarines, and grinders from other areas, but they are in a class by themselves, in the special taste of New Orleans’ own French bread and in the infinite variety of fillings.

The stand­ard poor boy is the roast beef. The roast beef for the New Orleans poor boy most resembles pot roast. It is cut thin, placed on the hot French bread, and then slathered with a jus made from the beef gravy. A dressed poor boy then has shredded lettuce, sliced tomatoes, and mayonnaise added to it. The wetter or squashier the roast beef poor boy, the more closely it approaches that mystical perfection New Orleanians demand of this substantial sandwich.

There are other fillings that compete for first place with the roast beef. A form all its own is the oyster loaf:  buttered French bread filled with fresh fried oysters. The magic that results is the mystical blend of two supernatural forces: a newly fried New Orleans oyster and freshly buttered warm French bread. The oyster loaf is the aristocrat of the poor boy family. It generally costs twice as much as the regular poor boy or comes in half the size.

Other favorite poor boys include ham and cheese, broiled ham, smoked or hot sau­sage, and even such unusual fillers as veal cutlets and soft shell crabs. Fried potato poor boys are just about a lost art, but they do still exist in certain heavenly outposts. And on Friday, trout and catfish poor boys can be found here and there.

One must not assume that all poor boys are alike. There are sharp differences in quality. Indeed, so bad are some of the new (and some careless old) practitioners of the art that what they serve as a poor boy is simply a loaf of French bread and some mediocre filling, merely a large and gross sandwich. The true poor boy has a magical glow best recognized by the warmth of the French bread (an unheated poor boy is an abomination), the aroma (one should be impatient to devour it), and in the case of the roast beef, an incredible moisture (it should literally leak on everything in sight).

His reviews of poor boy restaurants provide great examples of Collin’s critical style. Places that were and remain local favorites today were among the victims of his wit. Take Domilise’s for example:

Domilise’s is a popular seedy uptown poor boy stand and bar. The emphasis here is on price. Poor boys come in two sizes and cost 65 cents and 80 cents. The sandwiches are less than mediocre. The roast beef has a floury gravy, and the beef is cooked even longer than the average overcooked poor boy roast beef; the fried oysters are in no way distinctive, and the smoked sausage is unpalatable. Chacun à son gout.

That last little bit in French I thought might be some warning about a chance of getting gout from eating there but a quick look on the internet corrected my ignorance; it’s basically French for “to each his own taste.” Collin doesn’t mention the Domilise’s trout po-boy I enjoyed back in the day or the shrimp po-boy, which they are probably most famous for nowadays. People are still warned to stay away from Domilise’s roast beef.

The last remaining location of the originator of the poor boy sandwich, Martin Bros., was still in business on St. Claude in 1973, and Collin bestowed its roast beef and fried potato sandwiches with the coveted “platonic dish” rating. But, that came with a couple of warnings: the sandwiches were so small you needed to order two, and,

Martin’s is a rather seedy-looking restaurant with a large counter and a handful of tables. It is not unpleasant to eat here, but if you have any qualms, the takeout service is fast. Just be sure that you take home enough. One of the ad­vantages of eating on the premises is the joy of being able to order that tempting second sandwich.

His favorite poor boy restaurant was Mother’s, which he gladly recommended but which locals now shun as a tourist trap. His reviews of local favorites Parasol’s and Parkway Bakery validate the solid reputations both places enjoy today and are a comforting reminder that some things haven’t really changed:

Parasol’s is a good Irish Channel bar and poor boy restau­rant with excellent, freshly made versions of roast beef and ham and cheese poor boys and oyster loaves (all recom­mended).
…

The Parkway is an old-time favorite poor boy establish­ment near the Fair Grounds and the New Orleans Art Mu­seum. All of the Parkway’s sandwiches are good; the roast beef (highly recommended) is first rate, as is the ham and cheese.

Creole cuisine: An endangered species?

What, exactly, is Creole cuisine? Before the railroads came, New Orleans was basically an island; water routes were the only practical means of getting in and out of the area, at least on a commercial basis. New Orleans has a unique history of cultures that came to populate the city. French colonists from Canada France and San Dominque (now Haiti) African slaves and free persons of color (former enslaved persons and their descendants), Spanish colonists, English and Americans all came to call New Orleans home by the time Louisiana became a state in 1812.

The term “Creole” came to mean any one, of any color, born or descended from the French or Spanish, enslaved persons or free persons of color, who were born during colonial days. Creole cuisine (or Creole tomatoes, or Creole eggs or even Creole horses) was simply whatever was produced by the Creoles. Absorbed into the Creole repertoire were also many of the ingredients and techniques brought here by Italian immigrants in the late 1800s.

I’ll leave it to Professor Collin to analyze what the elements of Creole cuisine, as it evolved to the year 1973. It’s safe to say it’s pretty much the same today. I’d add that Collin’s historical explorations are really what make The Underground Gourmet a gem. I recommend getting a copy and reading everything, but a complete analysis of Creole cuisine that could not be presented more concisely except in bullet points and whether it’s wise or not, that’s what I’ve done: edited and, in some instances, paraphrased and re-arranged, Collin’s expositions on New Orleans cuisine.

Cultural influences:

• Creole cuisine is as different from classic French cooking as it is from other American cuisines. Creole cuisine has absorbed both French and Italian influences without being engulfed by them.

• French and the Italian culinary traditions have greatly enriched New Orleans cooking, but they have done so on New Orleans’ terms and with New Orleans’ ingredients.

• Local seafood resources adapted to the characteristic talents of the Italian master chef are but another example of the strength of the local Creole cuisine.

• In many ways the entire Creole cuisine is a form of soul cooking.

• African-American chefs were involved in New Orleans cuisine from its inception.

• Creole cooking tradition has long been transmitted by black chefs working in wealthy Creole homes.

 Ingredients and techniques:

• A phenomenal abundance of seafood defines the genius of the Creole cuisine.

• Basic are the shellfish and the fish—oysters, shrimp, crabs, crawfish, trout, redfish, pompano, red snapper, and turtle.

• Oysters are at the heart of New Orleans grand cuisine and a staple of the workingman’s diet.

• There are two principal types of crab, a major ingredient in New Orleans cooking: the hard shell crab and soft shell.

• The hard shell crab is boiled in heavily seasoned broth and eaten with the hands or used in gumbos and salads.

• The soft shell crab is fried, sautéed, or sautéed with almonds.

• Soft shell crabs are unknown in European cooking; in New Orleans grand cuisine they are one of the most important and triumphant ingredients.

• A tour de force of local cooking is the decoration of an already elaborate dish (broiled fish, sautéed veal) with a sautéed soft shell crab.

• Lump crabmeat forms the basis for many sauced dishes and is also often used as a magnificent final touch to a restaurant specialty.

• Local trout is much more akin to striped bass in the rest of the country than it is to brook trout.

• Trout is prepared in every way, shape, and form in New Orleans.

• Trout amandine is one of the triumphs of grand New Orleans cooking. A slim margin of cooking genius separates trout amandine from fried fish with a sprinkling of nuts.

• Chicken and beef are important elements of the Creole cuisine but they are not nearly as important as seafood.

• Vegetables that are essential and central to Creole cooking include red beans, okra, artichokes; peppers; mirlitons and Creole tomatoes, a local variety with a pronounced taste.

• Tabasco and hot sauce are present on every Creole table.

• French bread, a great crusty local loaf which is the basis for the poor boy sandwich and is the accompaniment to any important meal.

• Coffee in New Orleans is dark-roasted and double-dripped and has been mixed with chicory, although it is declining, still a favorite way of making coffee.

• Café au lait is one of the distinctive New Orleans specialties.

• Delicacy is not the great hallmark of New Orleans cooking.

• New Orleans hollandaise is heavier, has more lemon (and often more cayenne), and is more often glazed than the French.

• Remoulade sauce used with shrimp and crabmeat cocktails is a hearty blend of hot Creole mustard and vinegar generally mixed with a mayonnaise base and much more vigorous than the French version.

• Every great restaurant has several elaborate baked oyster dishes.

• French chefs would no more think of baking oysters, which in France are scarce and expensive, than he would of serving crawfish without a sauce.

What’s Changed?

Fine dining in New Orleans circa 1973 meant dining in a Creole restaurant. There was no Stella!, August, Herbsaint, Bayona, Cochon, La Petit Grocery, Patois, or their equivalents, in existence. These are all great restaurants and the city is enriched by their presence, but they do offer competition for the classic Creole dining experience.

You also won’t see anywhere on any of Collin’s lists sushi joints, coffee shops, Vietnamese phở joints, Lebanese shawarma joints, Indian or Thai restaurants, brew- and/or gastro-pubs or “new American bistro” offerings. It’s the opposite of “ain’t dere no more”—they weren’t here yet.

While the city had its share of humdrum Chinese and Mexican restaurants, it didn’t get much more exotic than the old Bali Hai back in 1973. The present gastronomic landscape is a result, I theorize, (and of course I could be wrong or missing something) of local palates having been educated on a greater variety of cuisines by travel and vastly increased media exposure to cooking and restaurant shows via cable and satellite TV. Also and, I think, very influential, the proliferation of amateur and professional restaurant review and cooking how-to sites on the internet.

So the concern becomes, what will all this competition mean for the future of Creole cuisine? There’s already a backlash of sorts. While restaurateurs like Donald Link, Susan Spicer, John Besh and Paul Prudhomme take pride in presenting classic dishes and also using traditional Creole ingredients and techniques in newly created dishes, some popular restaurants have specifically spurned or minimized Creole influence on their menus. Sylvain, Ste. Marie and Capdeville come to mind, and somewhat perplexingly as the owners are aware of and celebrate New Orleans culture through their restaurants’ architecture and history to a much greater extent than through the food they produce—and by all accounts they do a good job with the dishes that they do serve.

Is Creole cuisine an endangered species? I don’t really think so, despite all the competition for diners’ attention nowadays.

I’ll leave it to Collin to present the case for its preservation. For those with modern concerns, it boils down to it being 1) regionally unique and, 2) it’s the quintessential “localvore’s” cuisine (although that word had not been invented when Collin made his case).

Creole cooking was long accessible to everyone in New Orleans, and it could be produced much more cheaply than any outside food; it was good, it was plentiful, and it could be cheap or lavish. Thus New Orleans very early became a culinary island unto itself, with a charming regionalism both provincial and sophisticated that persists to this day.

New Orleans is a city for the gourmet and always has been. From the start, with its rich European heritage, New Orleans has had great restaurants, which flourished during the days of New Orleans’ prosperity in the 1830′s, and which have given the city a tradition of fine dining unknown to any other American city. Because the cuisine is regional and because the customs and the specialties have not passed beyond New Orleans, in a sense every restaurant in the Crescent City is an underground restaurant, one that is exotic and strange.

Once the misconceptions about New Orleans cuisine are cleared up, and the necessary comparisons with French cuisine are made, understood, and accepted, one can better enjoy the undeniable glories of the grandest remaining regional cuisine in the United States.

Anyone who is wondering, or anyone who needs a refresher course on what it means TO BE New Orleans should start with Collin, at least concerning food culture. I’ve tried to present as much as I could of what I think is important in this book. I have to reiterate as strongly as possible, however, that you should get your hands on a copy and read. All of it. You will not regret it.

And remember, kids, for maximum eating benefit: “The art of dining consists in eating what a restaurant prepares best.” Now, more than ever.

Thoughts, comments, rock throwing and pitchfork-thrusting can be had in the comments below.

Back around the beginning of king cake season this year (January 6, twelve days after Christmas, a/k/a “King’s Day” or, “Twelfth Night”, the Catholic holy day of the Epiphany, the day when the three wise men discovered the baby Jesus in Bethlehem), there was a round of tweets where the writers were of the opinion they did not like king cake—too dry, too sweet, too much filling—all valid complaints that I’ve expressed myself over the years concerning various king cake samplings. I’m not going to disparage an entire genre of pastry just because of some bad examples but I fully recognize that bad king cake is bad king cake.

Two tweets in particular caught my attention. “It’s not even the real French king cake,” observed one tweeter; another, “It’s just brioche.”

“Just brioche?” Harumph, I said, tweeting:

We know king cake is “just brioche” and trout meuniere is just fried fish, gumbo is just soup & crawfish are just boiled bugs. So boring.

I decided to get to the bottom of all this and found out, after all, it’s real French king cake AND it’s “just brioche.”

What I had learned in the past was that the traditional French king cake, called a galette des Rois, was a completely different affair than the braided (yes, it’s brioche) dough with cinnamon and sugar that’s formed into a ring, baked, then covered in icing and sugar dyed in the Mardi Gras colors of green, gold, and purple.  The galette des Rois is made of puff pastry surrounding an almond filling. I remember that back in the day, I think it was Maurice French Pastries that got some attention for offering a “real” French king cake, which got a lot of people tittering over it. (People tittered long before Twitter. Dreadfully low-tech, though.) Maurice still offers a “French King Cake” on his king cake menu, which describes it as “Flaky buttery puff pastry filled with rum flavored frangipane (Cream of Almond).” I’ve had it before, it’s a very, very rich concoction and quite delicious. But definitely not what we’ve grown up with as “king cake.”

So, if we’re a “French” city, (well, French, Caribbean, Spanish, African, Italian, American…but that’s another post), where does this cake that’s “just brioche” come from?

King Cake Tasting party samples lined up.

Fast-forward to last night. Leslie Almeida threw her 4th annual NOLA Eats King Cake Tasting Party, and one of the judges was Liz Williams, executive director of the Southern Food and Beverage Museum. We got to talking about king cakes after she filled me in on SoFAB’s expansion plans (stay tuned and sign up for SoFAB’s newsletter, people). “At what point,” I asked, “did New Orleans king cakes evolve from this almond-stuffed galette into a brioche ring?”

It didn’t, she said. Basically, there’s a parallel pastry universe in France (my characterization, not hers). She explained that in the south of France, the king’s day cake is, traditionally, a brioche ring called a gâteau des Rois and that, unfortunately, the word galette has been interchanged with gâteau frequently enough to cause confusion. Liz believes Louisiana, during its French colonial days, was settled with more people from southern France than northern, thus the king cake baked predominately in New Orleans was closer to the gâteau des Rois in style. So, even though it’s not puff pastry and it’s “just brioche,” New Orleans-style king cake has some very traditional French roots.

I’ve concluded that one could, I presume, safely call the NOLA-style king cake a Creole king cake, as I’m guessing that braiding the dough with cinnamon and adding the colored sugar are purely New Orleans additions, and, after all, like with other Creole foods (and furniture) it’s that purely New Orleans twist to something adopted by us from somewhere else that, historically, gets it labeled “Creole.”

Here is a recipe for Le gâteau des Rois Provençal. It’s from a French site, the link is to the Google-translated page. Photo:

Le gateau des Rois Provencal—Copyright not mine, used for educational purposes, see link to original site.

As you can see, it resembles a New Orleans king cake, although the sugar sprinkled on it is not colored Day-glo green, yellow or purple, is in big hunks, (can we get that here?) and the decorations are made with dried fruit.

BUT WHAT ABOUT DA BABY????

The New Orleans king cake contains, nowadays, a plastic baby. Whoever is served the slice that contains the baby is tagged with buying the cake to bring to the next party (usually at the office or classroom). Historically, and it seems to be a tradition with King’s Day pastries world-wide, not just in New Orleans, there was a token of some sort baked in, often a dried fava bean (which has its own religious significance as the St. Joseph Day “lucky bean“). I believe the baby is supposed to represent the baby Jesus, and some snarky people on Twitter have been known to pray to “King Cake Baby Jesus,” especially during Saints games.

In 1870, the first ball of the Twelfth Night Revelers took place at the French Opera House. According to La Cour’s New Orleans Masquerade, the carnival krewe began its tradition of presenting slices of a giant “Twelfth-Cake,” one of which contained a solid gold fava bean, to the ladies in attendance. Whichever lady received the bean would be crowned queen. The organization’s king, who is not called “king” but “the Lord of Misrule,” remains anonymous, his identity a secret, which remains the case with the krewe today. However, at that first ball, La Cour reports,

[S]lices were distributed with grace and courtesy by the Maskers. Some passed the cake on their spears and others in their enthusiasm threw slices to ladies in the Boxes. While this method of distribution created much merriment, the Gold Bean was lost in the confusion and the Lord of Misrule was without a Queen.

La Cour tosses out another interesting tidbit; TNR paraded in its early years and one of its maskers, in 1871, dressed as Santa Claus. He handed out favors to people in the crowd, birthing the idea that maskers should throw trinkets to parade watchers, so maybe it should be “throw me something Santa.” Nah.

TNR’s ceremony has evolved from this cake-tossing free-for-all into a more refined process not involving real cake at all. Instead, a large wooden representation of a cake with individual slices that are boxes which may or may not hold the bean, are distributed. The queen, however, is  not chosen by this random process at the ball but by krewe members earlier in the season. There’s a display representing this whole TNR tableau at the Presbytere’s Carnival Time in Louisiana exhibit, by the way.

Different bakeries do different things. Haydel’s is known for their ceramic figures which change every year and are quite collectible; Cochon Butcher’s cakes came with a little piggy. I keep my collection in a little “jail tableau.” Haydel’s latest, “Red Bean Lady” and “Rice-ly Yours,” are on either side of the baby riding Cochon’s baby cochon.

Cute, aren't they?

If you’re wondering about the tasting party results here they are: special guest judges favorite in the traditional category was da Bestbank’s own Hi-Do Bakery and for the non-traditional category, Cake Cafe. The people’s choice for traditional was Nonna Randazzo’s and Domenica for the non-traditional. (Here is the link to Leslie’s site and write-up on the winners.)

Personally, I had voted for Hi-Do, which was judge’s choice of traditional, and for Domenica, people’s choice for non-traditional. As far as being a “dessert” item, Domenica’s offering of a caramel and banana king cake was my favorite nosh-o-the-night. Unfortunately, they say that Domenica’s is only available at the restaurant, so if you’re down near the Roosevelt and a bit peckish, it’s worth a stop for the winning king cake and some coffee, and be on the lookout for next year’s party.

As for the life-size thing that’s supposed to be King Cake Baby that terrorizes the crowds at the Hornets games, we are not going to discuss it. At all.

Every time I go to Galatoire’s, I find it hard to resist their Turtle Soup. My last bowl of it got me thinking about making it at home. So after talking it over with Pontchartain Pete, we decided to take it on.

Historically, turtle soup gained popularity with the European explorations of the West Indies, where turtles became an important food resource for sailors and pirates and a luxury item on English tables.

~ New Orleans Cuisine: Fourteen Signature Dishes and Their Histories, Edited by Susan Tucker.

Turtle soup has been a New Orleans dish since, well, forever. New Orleans’ turtle soup is different from other regions’ soups by the inclusion of another Louisiana food staple: tomatoes. Where elsewhere turtle soup is a thin brothy soup, in New Orleans, it’s a thick, rich stew-like soup.

Pete learned that although there are as many recipes for Creole Turtle Soup as their are Creole kitchens, all of the recipes had these things in common: turtle meat,veal or beef stock, onions, celery, tomatoes, parsley, thyme, chopped hard boiled eggs, lemon and sherry.

Pete:

For the soup, I looked at several of the recipes available online. On his website Gumbo Pages, Chuck Taggert had two recipes, from Commander’s Palace and Arnaud’s. I also looked at Galatoire’s cookbook recipe and decided that I liked elements of all three.

I also wanted to make a lot of it to freeze for later and kept that in mind. Most recipes call for one and half to two pounds of turtle meat, which, I learned, is carried in two-pound packages, frozen, at a few local seafood markets and groceries. It ain’t cheap; the two-pound pack I got in Covington at Pat’s Seafood ran about $30. I’ve heard a lot of people say that most restaurant turtle soup is not made with turtle meat but with veal and after spending that much on meat that isn’t filet mignon I can see why.

Arnaud’s recipe called for both turtle and veal, and since I wanted to make a lot of soup, I also bought two packages of ground veal, which, at $6.00 a pound, seemed quite reasonable.

As far as seasonings go, the recipes were basically the same, although in addition to the onions, celery and garlic Arnaud’s and Commander’s called for, Galatoire’s also called for a lot of bell pepper and paprika–3 peppers and a quarter cup of paprika.

Commanders calls for beef stock, Arnaud’s and Galatoire’s, veal stock. I took the expensive route. Rather than buy a couple quarts of Swanson’s beef broth, we went with frozen veal demi glace from Langenstein’s, at $14.99 per 2-cup package. I figured 4 cups demi cut with 12 cups water would make for a gallon or so of veal stock. I cooked that down a bit for about 30 minutes with bay leaves, thyme, garlic and two tablespoons–not a quarter cup–of paprika, before adding everything else and it worked out perfectly.

The “everything else” consisted of the turtle meat, veal, vegetables, tomato puree, salt, pepper, hot sauce, lemons and sherry.

I’ve never dealt with turtle before and if any of this required cleaning a dead one, we wouldn’t be here today. Not that getting what was labeled “boneless turtle meat” was a piece of cake. Boneless though it was, there was an awful lot of silverskin and connective tissue that needed trimming, which, with my unskilled knife work, cost about about a half-pound of lost meat.

Here’s the method.

1) Have someone else (Nolanotes) prep all the veggies for you. It ended up being a lot more than needed, but I was thinking big when telling her what quantities to buy and chop.

2) Brown the turtle meat. A little salt and pepper on the meat, a little vegetable oil in a hot pot, and brown the turtle meat on each side, just like if you were making grillades or whatever. After cooling a bit, I chopped the meat up in about 1/4-inch pieces.

3) Brown the veal. Same thing, it was ground already and I just browned it and put it in the bowl with the turtle until the stock and veggies were ready. I taste-tested some of  the browned turtle, which tasted more like beef than anything else. Alligator I find to taste like dry chicken with a fishy aftertaste and don’t care for it too much. Turtle tasted much better.

4) Make the stock. Next time I’ll probably start with some boxed stock. This time, though, it was $30 worth of frozen demi glace which I melted down and cut with water, added some bay leaves, dried thyme and oregano, salt and pepper, garlic, one lemon cut into quarters and the paprika and simmered all that while I…

5) Made the roux. All the recipes called for making a separate butter roux to add later on to thicken the soup. Two sticks butter, one cup flour, cook until light brown and set aside.

6) Sweat the veggies. I ended up measuring out two cups each of chopped onion, celery, bell pepper and one cup green onion. Sweated with a little butter until clear, then I added 3 cups of canned tomato puree to the veggies and let that simmer for ten minutes.

7) This is some really involved stuff. I’m taking a break now.

And….back.

8 ) Add the tomato and veggie mixture to the stock and 1/2 cup of sherry. Get it back to a boil and simmer 10 minutes.

9) Add the browned turtle and veal meat and all the juices that were in the bottom of the bowl. Bring it back to a boil, let simmer 20 minutes.

10) Chop up the boiled eggs and add the roux. WHAT BOILED EGGS??? Alright, that was another step that Nolanotes had taken care of before I started. Chop up three boiled eggs, add to the pot. The roux was sitting in the pot and the excess butter floated to the top. I just poured it off and put the browned flour paste into the pot. It thickened fairly well, I probably could have used another 1/2 cup. Bring to boil and simmer 10 minutes more.

11) Taste and adjust for salt, pepper and heat. I added a few shakes of Crystal. I would have added Tabasco instead but couldn’t find it.

That’s it. Pour in bowl, splash on some more sherry and some more chopped eggs if you like.

”

Bowl of Pontchartrain Pete's Creole Turtle Soup.

A note on the sherry: I used Hartley and Gibson’s Amontillado from Martin Wine Cellar. I had chosen a Manzanilla but consulted with Steve Perret, who suggested a nuttier, more full-bodied, Amontillado for use with turtle soup. That’s why it pays to shop where people know their stuff. It was inexpensive, too–only about $12 for the bottle.

Hartley & Gibson Amontillado Sherry.

There’s flame coming out, it’s breathing and wheezing and whining, you realize the vehicle’s alive. It’s just hanging out there full of 3 1/2 million gallons of rocket fuel, ready to take flight.
—STS-135 commander Chris Ferguson on arriving at the pad on launch morning.

It starts out as this teeny tiny point of light. As you get closer and closer, it keeps getting bigger and bigger and bigger. Even if you’ve seen it before, you keep wondering how much bigger is it going to get?  This thing is huge! Oh my gosh. It’s a building, and it’s running around our planet in orbit every ninety minutes.
—Mission specialist Sandra Magnus on approaching the International Space Station.

Yep. The crew signed my NASA Tweetup badge.

I was invited to cover today’s meet-and-greet with the STS-135 crew held at Stennis Space Center (SSC). Shuttle commander Chris Ferguson, pilot Doug Hurley and mission specialists Dr. Sandra Magnus and Rex Walheim came to personally thank the employees at Stennis for the role they’ve played in fulfilling the shuttle program’s mission. If you’re not familiar with the Stennis Space Center, it’s the facility in southern Mississippi built for static testing of the Apollo program rocket engines, and has since tested all of the shuttle’s main engines to ensure they were flight-worthy.

Stennis director Patrick Scheuermann explained that unlike the Michoud Assembly Facility a few miles away in New Orleans, SSC has a relatively bright future even with the shuttle program coming to an end. Michoud built the non-reusable main fuel tanks for the shuttle and has wound down operations for the most part. Stennis, on the other hand, has been testing the next generation of engines for NASA and has been hired to test engines built by commercial ventures as well. Sheuermann expects that not only will Stennis not lose any employees, it may gain some in the near future.

Chris Ferguson presents SSC Director Patrick Scheuermann with mission photos and a flag that was brought into orbit on STS-135.

Signs on the interstate as you approach Bay St. Louis state you’re entering Stennis’ buffer zone. Use of the 125,000 acres surrounding the facility is limited due to the noise generated by testing the big-ass rocket engines. I can personally vouch for that. On occasion when I was living in Slidell, about 20 miles away from Stennis, I would here what sounded like thunder, although it was more like a low roar that went on for a time, like a plane passing overhead. The first time I heard it, I asked my neighbor, “What the hell was that?” He replied with one word: “Stennis.”

Despite the curiosity that raised, I’ve never visited Stennis before today. I was one of the many people who, as Scheuermann pointed out, zip by the big green sign on I-10 without a thought. A new visitor’s center is under construction now right at Exit 2, where visitors now must park and be bussed in for tours of the present visitor’s center on site in the test area. It is worth the trip, though, with a surprise attraction: the re-entry scarred command module from Apollo 4 (an unmanned test mission).

"Don't cry because it's over. Smile because it happened." STS-135 crew members Ferguson, Hurley, Magnus and Walheim at Stennis Space Center.

After a video presentation of the mission, the astronauts gave their personal observations and fielded questions from the audience. Ferguson talked at length about the mission and shuttle program in general. He said this of the Space Shuttle Main Engines (SSME):

They are one of the true success stories of the program…

Someone likened the SSME to a 7000-pound Swiss watch. If you look at it from the operating temperatures and pressures at which it runs, it is an incredible piece of machinery and it’s one thing I brag about everywhere I go. The amount of horsepower you can generate from a 400-pound LOX or hydrogen turbopump is just incredible.

When you start talking numbers like that to young men who are interested in Camaros and tell them, ‘I can give you an engine that puts out 85,000 horsepower as opposed to your 400 horsepower,’ they’re going to be suitably impressed. And they are.

Hurley told the Stennis crowd that in 135 flights, there were no SSME malfunctions, “A flawless, flawless, 135 flights and everyone in here should be very proud of those engines and what they’ve done.” He also went through the launch from a pilot’s perspective. After going through ignition, lift-off and throttle down, he said:

Throttle-up is just like a catapult shot for us Navy/Marine Corps guys who got to do that. You get kicked right in your bottom side and get headed towards the space station at that point. As we go towards MECO [main engine cut-off],the engines start throttling as the orbiter builds G’s. That really does feel like someone sitting on your chest. And then, boom! Cutoff, and you’re floating in your straps instantaneously.

Ferguson went on to talk about the last shuttle launch, STS-135, which I witnessed in person, thanks to the NASA Tweetup program, in particular what happened when the countdown stopped at 31 seconds:

The age-old question of, what happens to the astronauts when the clock stops at 31 seconds? The image probably is, we’re very professional, we know exactly what to do, we have checklists, we have switches to throw…in reality, we all looked at each other and said, “Huh?”

We really don’t practice things like this, but I was absolutely amazed at how quickly the launch team was able to identify the problem. From the time you realize has started ticking again from 31 seconds, it takes about ten seconds to realize that, “Whoa! Maybe we’re not going to be here in ten minutes, we’re really going to be in space.” The engines start at 6 seconds so that leaves you with 15 seconds to come to terms with the fact that you’re leaving. Considering that just a few short seconds earlier you had an abort/recycle procedure open and you were ready to start shutting the vehicle down, it happens really quick, 3,2,1…boom! You’re on your way. I think I launched with the abort procedures in front of me.

Sandra Magnus answered a question from a young lady (about 10 years old, I’d guess) about being the only woman on the mission by saying the guys had become like brothers to her, and, like the young lady would know, “Sometimes you have to keep your brothers in line.” She also fielded a question about the effects of zero-g living on the body and provided her insight:

Bone loss starts after about 2 weeks. Exercise is the key. For longer missions, you must exercise. We exercise 2 hours a day. We do a cardiovascular-type exercise on a bicycle or a treadmill; you strap yourself into a treadmill, and get some cardio and it loads your bones somewhat, too. We have a resistive exercise device on station that really loads your bones and your muscles. If you do that religiously, faithfully, 2 hours a day the way you’re supposed to, you can come back and be strong.

The other thing you have to deal with when you come back from spaceflight, whether it’s a long stay or a short stay, is neurovestibular effects. The fluid in your inner ear uses gravity to figure out your orientation. When you get into orbit, that gets completely messed up.
…

The minute you get a 10th of a G or 2 10ths of a G when re-entering, you feel it. You feel heavy. It’s amazing what gravity’s doing to you just this minute; it’s pressing you into your seats. You don’t realize it because you’re used to it. But, it’s like, “Oh my gosh, this is just horrible.”

I don’t know about you guys, but I can’t get enough of these space travel anecdotes. I’m going to stay tuned for future NASA Tweetups, and Ferguson said that hopefully there will be U.S. manned spacecraft launches starting in 2016. Meanwhile, missions to the International Space Station will continue, although we’ll have to rely on the Russians to get us up there until the next gen of U.S. rockets (tested at Stennis, of course) are in service.

Note: for more coverage of today’s event, see NOLA.com’s write-up and photos.

Koerner has been around over 100 years, with the third and fourth generations of the Koerner family now operating the business that was started in 1906. Ann said she first worked with the Koerner company when it was basically a bakery supply firm. After Katrina, the company regrouped and expanded its offerings to include the cutting-edge equipment and ingredients used in creating the types of dishes and drinks one thinks of when you hear the term “molecular gastronomy.”

Tim Koerner explained that the techniques perfected by chefs like Ferran Adrià at Spain’s El Bulli restaurant (which is closing, I’m seeing on internets) presented flavors of classic ingredients and dishes in new formats. Ingredients—pine nuts, asparagus, fruits or beans, for example—could be transformed into foams, gels, spherical “caviar” or instantly frozen into ices that retain the ingredient’s original flavor. Koerner sells all of the obscure equipment and food chemicals any would-be Ferran Addrià could ever want.

The supplies and ingredients to make “caviar,” Tim said, agar-agar and calcium chloride, are known as spherification agents. Mixing a flavored liquid with agar and then dropping the mixture in the calcium chloride bath instantly creates a gel skin on the droplet which burst when put in the mouth, like fish eggs, thus it’s called “caviar.” Here’s a NYT story on Cointreau’s attempts to get bartenders to spherify their orange liqueur and include the resultant eggs into fancy cocktails.

One other way to molecular bliss is through making foams and ices out of concentrated flavors. Koerner sells all the equipment; the insulated bowls and buckets and so forth, needed to handle it. Tim noted that working with liquid nitrogen is preferred to dry ice as it freezes whatever foodstuffs you’re working with much faster, preventing cell walls from bursting and causing freezer burns dry ice can cause.

Purity Vodka held a brunch at the Bombay Club on Friday where they presented their own spin on molecular mixology. It was a great brunch, by the way, and a typically great Tales event, where free booze and food combine with great networking opportunities. I met up with some old friends and made some new ones as well, Jonas from San Francisco and DrinkofTheWeek.com and Emily from NYC and MouthOfTheBorder.com. The Bombay Club put on a great spread with chicken and waffles, eggs Benedict, gumbo, shrimp creole, creme brulee and more.  But I digress from the molecular thingy.

Making Bloody Marys the molecular way with Purity Vodka.

Rather than mix up a batch of Bloody Marys using tomato juice and other ingredients, participants were invited to place ingredients (cubed tomatoes rather than juice, pickled vegetables, other traditional garnishes and even sausage and shrimp) into a whipped cream vessel that was then charged by a canister of nitrous oxide gas. Under pressure, the alcohol and gas would extract all of the ingredients’ flavors into the vodka and after a 30-second shake, the gas is released, the cap unscrewed, and the mixture strained into a waiting glass chilled with a perfectly clear ball of ice.

That seems to be a lot of trouble to go through, but it really worked. A lot of what was presented at Tales of the Cocktail this year were ideas and products (like bitters) that would serve to give an edge to one product or bartender’s offerings over another. Purity Vodka was a good example, going all out with its promotion and showing consumers how to do something different with their product, which, by the way, is a damn fine vodka that I enjoyed cut with just a little water in the vermouth-less martini they also served. And that’s not just the brunch talking. Really good stuff.

This is where Koerner comes back in. Manufacturer iSi (pronounced “ee-see,” I learned, not “eye-ess-eye”) makes the cream-whippers, soda siphons and gas chargers (N2O and CO2) needed to make the Purity-style Bloody Marys and the Ferran Addrià foams and gels. Koerner, of course, sells iSi products. For you cutting edge chefs out there, you Blackened-Out and Appetites wish-they-could-eat-at-El Bulli-and-never-will-because-now-it’s-closed-forever-types, Koerner also carries the equipment needed to sous-vide, smoke-inject and foam your little hearts out.

You can order for delivery from their very extensive website, or if you’re in town, call to order and pick up items at their headquarters, 4820 Jefferson Hwy. Keep in mind they’re geared to commercial supply and while they do sell to the general public, it’s not a retail store and they’re only open Mon-Fri until 4pm, and closed noon-1pm for lunch.

The Bitter Truth's Creole Bitters.

The German guys behind Bitter Truth, Alex and Stephan, were out at Sunday’s Cocktail Bazaar. Alex said they were just a couple of bartenders in Bavaria when they started making their own bitters, and their business has just taken off from there (their Celery Bitters won a Tales of the Cocktail Spirited Award for best new product in 2010).

Alex gave me a taste of the Creole Bitters. Bright red in color, like Peychaud’s, floral scent like Peychaud’s, but definitely brighter and less sweet and, well, more bitter than Peychaud’s. I exclaimed they would probably indeed make a fine Sazerac cocktail, but Alex quickly noted, “We are not allowed to say the “S-word.” Or the “P-word,” due to the Sazerac Co.’s trademarks. That’s fine, but the guys know what’s what in cocktail history and have a recipe on their website for an “Improved Brandy Cocktail” that is closer to Amedee Peychaud’s original concoction than the official Sazerac recipe is today. Another shopper at the Bazaar said Bitter Truth’s products were available at Martin Wine Cellar. I’ll have to check that out.

Improved Brandy Cocktail

50 ml (1 1/2  oz) Cognac*
2 dashes The Bitter Truth – Creole Bitters
2 dashes Absinthe
10 ml (2 tsp) Sugar Syrup*

Stir in mixing glass with ice and strain into a chilled tumbler or cocktail glass. Garnish with a lemon twist.
*Metric conversions are mine,  not the Bitter Truth’s.

Ballast and Keel Bittering House's offerings.

The table next door to Alex and Stephan was occupied by another bitters producer, Ballast & Keel Bittering House. The bitters they are creating are more concentrated flavoring combinations than classic “bitters”—Strawberry & Indian Fennel, Saigon Cinnamon & Walnut, Wild Cherry & Tahitian Vanilla, Cocoa Nib & Chili Arbol are just a few of the combinations. I didn’t detect even a hint of gentian or overt bitterness in anything I sampled. That’s not a bad thing at all, as someone looking to concoct a drink with that “I don’t know what that taste is but I like it” element would be well-served to give Ballast & Keel’s bitters a try.

Throwing out the “P-word,” I told them I’m a big fan of putting a dash of Peychaud’s on top of my absinthe frappes and asked which would go well with absinthe. Without hesitation, I was told the Strawberry and Indian Fennel. Duh. Fennel seed, of course is one of the holy trinity ingredients in that make up all absinthes. He handed me small sample bottle, the taste was aromatic and floral, like Peychaud’s and the Creole bitters, but lacking the gentian bite common to both of those bitters. Again, that’s not a bad thing. They’d probably go good with Ramos Gin Fizz, too.

Let the experimentation begin!

Bitters were back this year, although they probably never went away. “The Emperor’s New Bitters” was the Thursday afternoon seminar I attended that was conducted by Jacob Briars, Sebastian Reaborn and Francesco Lafranconi. Since I did a poor job of keeping track of who said what during the seminar, I’m just going to attribute everything to “the presenter(s).” It was a sellout crowd; over 200 people came to hear the presenters describe the history behind the various bitters available today. Added bonus: was the presenters’ views on which liquors mix well with each bitter, which ones they don’t go with and surprise uses for each.

Samples lined up for "The Emporer's New Bitters" seminar at Tales of the Cocktail 2011.

Cocktail bitters are highly concentrated extracts made from botanical flavoring agents–herbs, spices, flowers and/or fruits. Gentian is a common ingredient as, the presenters noted, it has one of the highest bittering concentrations. Bitters not only add their own flavor profile to a drink, they enhance and carry the drink’s other flavors, said the presenters. Bitters stimulate the salivary glands, which in turn stimulate the digestive system. In Italy, beverages containing bitter compounds are traditionally taken 20 min. to one-half hour of a meal. These apéritifs and digesifs include Campari and Fernet (different brands available) and vermouths like Punt e Mes and can be ingredients in many other classic mixed drinks.

[The] cock-tail, then, is a stimulating liquor composed of sugar, water, spirits and bitters—it is vulgarly called a ‘bittered sling.’

This quote from an 1806 New York state newspaper is the first written definition of “cocktail” and illustrates a couple of points. The first steals the jelly right out of NOLA’s doughnut  by negating the legend of Amedee Peychaud’s invention of the cocktail. The lore is that, in the 1830s, Peychaud served bitters and brandy and sugar in little cups called coquetiers, and the Americans bastardized that word to “cocktail,” ergo, the cocktail was invented by Amedee Peychaud in New Orleans. Now, Peychaud’s bitters (a family recipe brought to New Orleans by his father, a San Domingan refugee, in 1795 are still around) and his concoction, with in the 1870s, rye whiskey substituted for brandy and absinthe added, are enjoyed as the Sazerac cocktail. That Peychaud’s bitters and cocktail idea are still around is a marvel of history and NOLA culture, but, alas, it’s not as romantic as being able to say the cocktail was purely a New Orleans invention.

Sidenote: It seemed like a dig to me, and I could be wrong, but one of the presenters showed a photo of himself in front of Cohen & Sons (see previous post) saying something to the effect of, “Only in New Orleans would one of the greatest bars in history  be turned into an antique gun store!” That’s not an exact quote, but it still seemed like a dig and shows a lack of research. Cohen’s ancestors started the business at 437 Royal St. in 1898, so it’s been an “antique gun store” and New Orleans landmark for a lot longer than it was ever Peychaud’s apothecary shop, and it’s been a worthy successor to Peychaud for that long-standing retail location.

The second, and more pertinent point about the quote from the seminar’s perspective, is that the cocktail and the ingredient “bitters” are intertwined, i.e., it is the addition of bitters to a mixture containing spirits makes that mixture a cocktail. The moderator pointed out an important fact; back then, bitters were medicines and it was the addition of spirits to bitters that made the bitters palatable. A spoon full of sugar helps the medicine go down, so to speak.

The Bitter and the…Bitterer

The grandaddy of cocktail bitters is the Angostura brand of aromatic bitters, which was formulated in the 1820s, although throughout the 1800s in American bars, one was more likely to find Bokers or Stoughton, but both brands extinct. Regarding Angostura, ”There is not a bar in the world that doesn’t have a bottle and if it doesn’t have a bottle, it’s not a bar,” said the presenter, commenting on the ubiquity of the brand. The presenter said they go well with whiskies, rum and lime but not cognac, and to give it a try in coffee and Coca-Cola.

Surprisingly good was one of the cocktails we sampled, the Angostura Sour, a concoction made by the fine folks at Cure in New Orleans. Rather than the bitters being added a few drops at a time to spirits as a flavoring agent, the bitters are the base of the drink, 1 1/2 ounces of Angostura bitters, to be precise. It turns out the bitters are 90 proof. Lime juice, sugar syrup and an egg white rounded out the drink.

The once-extinct Boker’s bitters have been reversed-engineered and resurrected, thanks to a Scottish bar man, “Dr.” Adam Elmegirab. My notes indicate presenter’s comments of  “insanely bitter on first taste. Aroma, Christmas pudding, orange, cinnamon, cardoman.”

They were ga-ga over Bob’s Bitters recreation of another extinct brand from the late 1800s, Abbotts. Described as “completely gorgeous” but hard to find in the U.S. due to an ingredient, the Tonka Bean. The bitters are available on the internet but expensive, about $40 for 100 ml. Great for Manhattans, bad with tequila, surprisingly good by itself on ice with a little sugar.

I have to say that one of the bitters we sampled I found to be just too much on its own. Bittermens (no apostrophe, dammit! says the moderator) is a company that is set on creating new cocktail bitter varieties, rather than recreate or reverse engineer old ones. On first taste, their Hopped Grapefruit Bitterstasted bright and strong, grapefruity as advertised, but quickly the taste turned bitter to the point of reminding me only of regurgitated bile. That’s nasty, I know. I wouldn’t rule them out for an addition to a drink, but wouldn’t recommend trying them straight. My presenter’s notes say, “Great with Tequila or Mescal, bad with dark spirits, surprisingly good with beer or ginger beer.”

The Biter Truth bitter makers mentioned in the last post are making a version of Jerry Thomas’ bitter recipe contained in his 1862 Bar-Tender’s Guide. One ingredient left out of that recipe, we learned, was the snake root. Some fuddy-duddy bureaucrat somewhere along the line discovered snake root can cause liver failure, as if anyone who drinks enough to make their own bitters from an 1862 recipe would really care. We were not given, unfortunately, a sample of The Bitter Truth’s Creole bitters so I can’t say whether they’d be a great alternative to Peychaud’s or not.

We did spend a little time on Peychaud bitters and were treated to a sample of a Peychaud Swizzle, a drink with an ounce of Peychaud bitters as it base (with Cognac, pineapple puree and juice along with some of those Jerry Thomas bitters. As a bitters-based cocktail, I didn’t like it as much as the Angostura Sour. I think it was the pineapple more than anything, though, so could be a fave with some tweaking with the fruit element.

We also covered Fee Brother’s Whiskey Barrel Aromatic Bitters. Very powerful, noted the moderator, and aged in Woodford Reserve Bourbon barrels. Goes well with Bourbon, of course and dark rum and are surpriseing good with chocolate and lemon.

Overall this was a great seminar. Like most of Tales of the Cocktail, it was geared toward bar industry professionals but had a lot of great info for enthusiasts. As the presenters pointed out, while bartenders can’t, as a practical matter, make their own Tequilas, gins and whiskeys, they can make their own bitters to add a personal touch to their repertoire.

I’m looking forward to the seminar entitled “The Emperor’s New Bitters.” Bitters, as the name implies, are flavoring agents, usually highly concentrated, which add that “there’s something in there but I can’t put my finger on it” taste to a cocktail.

New Orleans’ own Peychaud bitters are a prime example. They were concocted in the 1830s by pharmacist Antoine Amédée Peychaud at his shop on Royal St.; the building (437 Royal) now houses Cohen’s Antiques. Cohen’s, by the way, is worth a drop in. While everything in there is for sale, most items would be at home in any decent museum. Coins, NOLA memorabilia such as Carnival favors and krewe badges,Civil War items and many antique guns are on display.

I heard a representative of the Bitter Truth bitters company on Eric Asher’s show yesterday. She said Peychaud’s recipe is not the same as it was back in the day, and her company had located a sample of Peychaud’s from the 1800s and analyzed and reverse-engineered to make their version, which they call “Creole Bitters.” Their website doesn’t mention any reverse engineering but says:

The Bitter Truth – Creole Bitters are reminiscent of a style of bitters dating back to an era before cocktails even existed. Back then, bitters were made by doctors and apothecaries, primarily for the use in liquid tonics and then eventually as an ingredient in alcoholic beverages. The Bitter Truth – Creole Bitters reflect the Creole way of life with all its beautiful complexity and spiciness.

Science or marketing hype? I don’t know, but I’m willing to buy a bottle to try in the next Sazerac I fix.

Lift-off Atlantis STS-135!

It was over way to quickly.

One thing I noticed the first time I went to see the ponies at the Fairgrounds was, when I turned the corner coming into the grandstand and saw the pack running on the track, the horses looked to be going MUCH faster than I would have ever thought watching horse racing on TV.

Multiply that by at least ten for the shuttle launch. What looks like a huge, lumbering machine taking off slowly while the TV camera tracks its every move is a lie. It happens just about as fast as that bottle rocket taking off on New Year’s but on the grandest scale imaginable. And there are people riding on it.

We were at the NASA press site. I was situated to the right of the countdown clock with a clear view and could hear the countdown audio coming through the speakers in the tent behind me. When they said “main engine start” I saw the instantaneous blast of exhaust billow out of either side of the launch pad. Lot’s of whooping and clapping from the crowd and then the big boosters kicked in and it was off

Atlantis STS-135 going, going...

They warned us not to watch our first launch through a viewfinder. I kept that in mind, but didn’t realize how right they were. As I kept mashing the camera button as fast as I could, Atlantis was well up in the air in seconds and I decided to put the camera aside just as the sound hit full-force. I perceived it like a breeze, an instantaneous cooling on my bare arms and face, and with an imperceptible lag right after, the thunder hit, cracking in my chest.

The next thing that registered was that it was really bright. That was it. “Wow. That’s really bright.”  Then  Atlantis broke through the cloud cover and it was over.

Poof. Or maybe BOOM. Like that. Over.

The cloud deck kept us from watching it head down range, something I was afraid would happen. But the weather was safe for it to launch, so launch it did. Consolation prize: the shadow cast on the cloud cover perpendicular to the smoke trail below it.

Buh-bye Atlantis!

The aftermath in the crowd alongside the lagoon was one of amazement. One of my fellow Tweetup attendees, a guy well over six feet tall and built like a linebacker, was bawling like a baby and reached out to hug another one of our fellows. Whether bawling from the shear magnitude of the launch or at the realization that this was the last launch ever or from a similar lack of sleep or overwhelming sense of camaraderie or the totality of it all I don’t know and it really doesn’t matter. This launch meant a lot to a lot of people, not just the Tweetup attendees but thousands and thousands more whose lives and livelihoods revolved around the shuttle program. The vast emptiness I felt in the huge Vehicle Assembly Building behind us we toured on Thursday (yes, it was so empty I could feel it) spoke literal volumes (129,428,000 cubic feet, to be exact) on the finality of the launch.

An empty sign in an empty building means it's all over...for now.

But it’s not that there isn’t a future to the country’s space program, it’s just that it’s not super clear, and that there will be a period of inactivity before the next big thing and a lot of people are going to lose jobs in that period. A little bit of the future was on display at the Tweetup site as Lockheed Martin and Boeing both had mockups of their contributions to the Orion program on display. While not as roomy looking as the shuttle, the capsule did look like it had a lot more room to work in than the proverbial FEMA trailer, not bad for something that’s got to spend time in the vacuum of space (and go to the moon, and asteroids and possibly Mars, actual missions in mind when designing it).

Local-area space facilities, the Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans East and the Stennis Space Center just across the Pearl River in Miss. will remain in business. Michoud was where the Saturn V first-stage booster module for the moon launches was constructed in ’60s and ’70s and where the shuttle’s main fuel tank has been built. It will be involved with the Orion capsule manufacture and testing along with some of the systems for the Ares cargo rocket systems. I was told, though, that the work was not as extensive as in the past and the workforce needed would be in the hundreds rather than the thousands. Stennis will continue its role in as an engine testing center, testing the newer and bigger rocket engines Ares will require. Here’s some pics of the Orion mock-ups:

Lockheed's Orion testing model.

The experience was overwhelming. I’m writing this after getting the first sleep I’ve had after 40-plus hours of no sleep and non-stop activity. I want to thank Dvora, Alex and Oscar who were my passengers to and from NASA and Orlando on launch day. I greatly appreciated their company and navigational help as we re-routed around a traffic jam on the way back to Orlando. From Mexico City (by way of Philly and New Jersey), San Francisco and Los Angeles (by way of Puerto Rico), respectively, I loved hearing their stories and hope they didn’t mind my rantings as we had a short tour of off-the-beaten path American rural south. We saw giant alligators (fake), orange groves and what I’m assuming was a sandhill crane. The big bird (looks kind of like the herons we see all the time but at least twice as tall) aren’t as rare as I thought (I told my passengers they would be able tell their grandchildren they saw one) but it was still a neat sight.

"Swampy" on Hwy. 50 outside of Titusville.

I came back to the hotel after a shower and a trip to the get some dinner and could hear the post-launch gathering of  some of the group who were staying at the same La Quinta as me. Too tired and grumpy to be good enough company to join in, I did hear, though, over and over, one common theme floating out of the lobby: “THE most amazing experience of my life!” As we say in NOLA: Yeah you rite!

And it was. Overwhelming and unbelievable and two straight days of “Wow!”

Launch is set for Friday, July 8 at about 11:30 a.m. Eastern time. I’m leaving New Orleans tomorrow for Destin, where I’ll help celebrate my cousin’s 50th birthday, then head to check in at the hotel in Orlando and hopefully have enough time to pick up my credentials before 4 p.m. on Wednesday.

Thursday is Tweetup activity day. I just got the email for the itinerary. Highlights for the day include a bus trip to the launch pad to view one of the pre-launch procedures, retraction of the Rotating Service Structure, followed by “a tour of NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, including visits to the Apollo Saturn V Center and the Vehicle Assembly Building and a drive by the Launch Control Center, Mobile Launch Platform and Orbiter Processing Facility” to quote the email.

Launch day starts at 5 a.m. NASA Tweetup pro @ageekmom gave us a heads-up to this Florida Today article about how they’re expecting 1 million spectators in and around the space center for the launch. They are also predicting the three roads leading back to Orlando probably are going to be choked with traffic for at least five hours after the launch. So I plan on leaving Orlando early. Like 3 or 4 a.m., then camping out at the press site for as long as they let us after the launch.  If there’s a delay, there are launch windows for Saturday and Sunday mornings, and I’ve got the room booked until Sunday just in case. But there will be no delays!

Anyone who wants to catch the action can check the following:

Beginning at 10:30 a.m. on July 7, NASA will broadcast the Tweetup program on http://www.ustream.tv/nasatelevision. Other portions of the Tweetup may be broadcast on NASA Television, online at http://www.nasa.gov/ntv. Photos will be posted online during and/or after the event at http://www.flickr.com/photos/nasahqphoto.

If you’re not familiar with the New Orleans area’s connection with the country’s space program, take a look at this from the Times-Picayune from yesterday. I’m also going to try to meet up with some Slidell folks from the Stennis Space Center, where they test the shuttle engines, and will be interviewing Stennis’ director for the day job the week after the launch.

I’ll be posting later on once I get situated.

Nonetheless, I’ve been selected to attend a NASA Tweetup and if all goes well have the best seat in the house to watch the space shuttle Atlantis launch on July 8, 2011. Tweetups, for those who don’t know, are get-togethers IRL (in real life) organized by people who are on Twitter who normally only communicate to each other on the internet. I’ve been to lots of tweetups. Mostly organized as get-togethers for drinks or lunch in New Orleans. I’ve met a lot of good people through these things.

I was late in the game learning about the NASA tweetups, not really hearing about them until Leigh, one of our local bloggers (Liprap’s Lament) attended Endeavour’s launch last month (her posts are here). A couple of weeks ago, she tweeted that it was the last day to sign up for next NASA tweetup and posted a link. I decided what the hell, signed up, and last Friday got the email that I had been selected.

Now, everyone who’s been chosen has been whooping and hollering and jumping for joy. They’re big fans: engineers, teachers, scientists and students who’ve been waiting for this chance and applying forever.  My reaction was, wow, great. Now what am I going to do?

It’s not that I don’t realize the enormity of the situation. It’s the last space shuttle launch. Ever. I was one of only 150 people out of about 5200 who applied. And now that I’ve got some arrangements made and financing in place, I’m beginning to get to the whooping and hollering stage myself.

I’m not a scientist or teacher, I’m a writer. It’s going to be a great story. And I’m a fan. Here’s my space story so far and I’m ready to write the next chapter.

I vaguely remember (I would have been 4 or 5) watching one of the Gemini missions launch on our black-and-white TV. In first grade, my brother and I built a model Saturn V rocket that was taller than both of us. That was all normal kid stuff back then, but why I’m starting to get psyched for the NASA tweetup is this: I was THIS (tiny pinched fingers) close to watching Apollo 11 launch but wasn’t quite there and I have ALWAYS wanted to see a launch since that disappointment as a 7-year old.

We were living in New Iberia, Louisiana and my dad was great at piling us all into the Country Squire and going on a long vacation every year. The summer of 1969 happened to be a Florida vacation. We were in Fort Walton when Apollo 11 launched and then traveled to Miami, where I fell asleep in front of the TV what must have been just a few minutes (I tried so hard to stay awake) before Neil Armstrong took his one small step and his giant leap all in one breath.

Update: Mom called. She says she woke all of us kids up when Armstrong was first setting foot on the moon. I must not remember it. She also says she made sure my older brother was looking at the TV when Alan Shepard launched (from his crib, he would have only been about 7 months old at the time). Plus, she said, going to the Apollo 11 launch was never in the plans.

I never found out why we didn’t go to Cape Kennedy to watch the launch. Maybe they felt it was too much to handle with all the crowds and three very ill-behaved children. Maybe it was just the timing. I don’t know. I was still a fan, though, and watched all the Apollo launches after that.

In 1981, I was a freshman at college and anticipated the first shuttle launch. I remember dreaming the night before the launch that I was at the launch and that I watched it launch but that it blew up in sky. That wasn’t really a premonition of Challenger; there was a lot of talk about the untried technology and how that was a possibility which must have crept into my dream. Needless to say, I was very happy nothing like that happened.

In 1984 I was working in a camera store in New Orleans doing photo processing. One of our customers worked at Michoud, where the shuttle’s main fuel tank was manufactured.  He had gotten VIP employee access to one of the launches and let me keep a copy of one of his photos. His description of what it was like to feel the launch planted the seed, that one day I would go witness a launch.

I kept up with the shuttle as best as a twenty-something with a lot on his plate could do, but it is Challenger, unfortunately, that is the next thing that sticks in my mind. I remember that day. I was back at LSU. It was cold, I had ridden my bike to class. In class, I wondered if my mom was watching the launch because she was a teacher and this was the one with the teacher in space. I decided I’d go straight home and catch the replay and when I got home and turned on the TV it was the replay, the replay of those two pillars of smoke coming out of those two boosters as they started to fly uncontrollably apart. It took a few seconds and I still hadn’t realized what had happened when Dan Rather’s voice kicked in to tell me. Later I learned that my mom’s class (I think she was teaching kindergarten then) had not been watching the launch.

After that, graduation, work and life happened. The shuttle returned and became, once again, routine.

In 2002, I was reading about an upcoming shuttle launch. I thought, I have some extra time. There’s nothing stopping me from driving down there and watching a launch. And I was ready to do it, too, only to hear about some problems and a very long launch delay that went past my personal window of opportunity. Then the Columbia tragedy the next year, and I pretty much put any thought of going out of my mind.

So that brings me to now. And I’ve been picked to see the last launch and meet the people who have made it all happen and meet the people whose tweets and Facebook postings I’ve now been following. And I’ll get to write about it, too, for my day job. I think I’m starting to get a little tingly. And thanks, Leigh!

For a time, there was the Maison d’Absinthe and the Absinthe Museum of America which opened on Royal Street in 2008. I heard rumors last fall that it was closing (sad) and then, not too long afterward, that Ray and B.J. Bordelon’s collection of vintage absinthe ware, bottles and ephemera would find a new home at the Southern Food and Beverage Museum at the Riverwalk (yeah!). Both rumors proved true; business turmoil on part of one of the owners resulted in losing the Royal Street lease, and Liz Williams, SoFAB’s director, offered the collectors space in the Riverwalk museum. It’s a perfect fit, as SoFAB is also home to the Museum of the American Cocktail; La Galerie d’Absinthe is a perfect complement, with an expanded focus on absinthe’s role in the culture of both Paris and New Orleans.

Saturday March 26 was the grand opening. B.J., Ray and T.A. Breaux were there and slinging Lucid samples to visitors, many of whom had seemed to just have wandered into the Food and Beverage Museum without a clue that the Green Fairy was about, until they saw the girl dressed as a green fairy who was serving pastries.

Ray has done some tireless research and uncovered some of the earliest documented mentions of absinthe in New Orleans. He has reproduced a newspaper ad from the New Orleans Bee in 1835. It was common for suppliers to take out ads listing the goods they’d just received from the latest ships arriving at the port, and the ad touts the arrival of cases of absinthe from France. Other ads on display include some from the 1870s taken out by Cayetano Ferrer, owner of the shop that became first the “Absinthe Room” and then re-named the Old Absinthe House.

The exhibit goes on to display vintage absinthe bottles from France, as well as a display of antique absinthe ware.

A most pleasant display is the re-creation of a Parisian sidewalk cafe setting.

There’s more at the Gallerie d’Absinthe, displays of ornate absinthe spoons, and a sampling of contemporary absinthe bottles and packages.

One thing I’ve learned, and anyone interested in absinthe needs to learn, too, is that there are no set standards for what can and cannot be put into a bottle and labeled absinthe. For example, for a product to be called Bourbon, it must, by law, be made of 51% corn and aged in new oak barrels for at least two years. There are more regulations, but those two help set a baseline for what someone can expect if they buy a bottle labeled “Bourbon.”

Unfortunately, anyone can add wormwood oil and food coloring to grain alcohol and label it absinthe. Traditional methods involve the maceration of whole herbs (anise, fennel and grand wormwood at a minimum) in alcohol (traditionally grape alcohol) which is then distilled; essential plant oils in the distillate flavor the product and create the “louche,” or cloudiness, when water is added. The product is then naturally colored green by chlorophyll extracted from an additional soaking of fresh herbs. Adding wormwood oil to alcohol and calling it “absinthe” is no different, Breaux explains, than adding vodka to Welch’s grape juice and calling it “wine.”

There’s a video display at the museum of Breaux’s segment on the History Channel’s Modern Marvels which follows Breaux as he makes a batch of his super-premium absinthe Jade Nouvelle-Orléans. I highly recommend watching it for an appreciation of how the hand-crafted product is made. The layers of aroma and complexity of flavor in traditionally made absinthe brands make them well worth the price.

The Krewe of Hermes floats are designed in the classic style by Henri Schindler.

On Friday, as always, Hermes and Le Krewe D’etat rolled Uptown. The weather was sketchy but the showers held off most of the evening. We caught the parades at Magazine and Napoleon, where Mardi Gras guru Arthur Hardy was there, doing parade spots with reporter Siemny Chhuon, who was enjoying her first Mardi Gras.

Arthur Hardy and Siemny Chhuon get ready to report on Friday's parades for WDSU.

Krewe D’Etat didn’t disappoint, the satirical theme this year was “D’Etat’s Wild World of Sports.” The Krewe’s “Dancin’ Darlin’s” performed as the LSU Turf Munchers, skewering LSU coach Les Miles in advance of a float doing the same that was entitled “Two-Minute Thrills.” An unlikely cast of characters caught the sports-themed roasting at the Dictator’s hands; Bobby Jindal (“Featherweight”), Brett Favre (“Pocket Pool”), Lil’ Wayne and Edwin Edwards. (No float pics this year, I only had the cell phone camera. Maybe NOLAnotes has some to share? But I see Uptown Messenger has some, as does Liprap’s Flickr, along with Muses and Hermes parade pics). New Krewe D’etat throws included krewe logo blinking rings and bracelets.

Le Krewe D'etat's new blinky skull ring.

Marching on…

Saturday all hell broke loose weather-wise. Endymion had been canceled and re-scheduled for Sunday night, to parade Uptown after Bacchus. The weather was great Sunday, and after a long odyssey (is that redundant?) trying many different routes to get to Point B on the other side of Napoleon and Magazine, I parked and walked the mile or so Laurel St. near Tipitina’s. Armed with the big gun camera, I continued my yearly quest to capture some of the motion and action of the Mardi Gras night parade. I think I did o.k. See for yourself.

[Show as slideshow]

The New Orleans Carnival is descended from ancient religious rites of the Greek and Latin World. Ovid described the Greek shepherds of Arcadia who, five thousand years ago, celebrated a spring festival in hopes of better pastures and the remission of sins.
–Henri Schindler, Mardi Gras in New Orleans, 1997.

I was reading the Times Picayune recap of the annual Caliphs of Cairo bal masque (Caliphs does not parade). I had assumed this was an affair having nothing to do with the paranoia of Glenn Beck over Egypt’s revolution being the first step in establishing a Muslim/Communist one-world government, what he called a “Caliphate.” But after I read this description of Caliphs, I’m thinking I could be wrong. I doubt that Beck is a student of Carnival customs, but if he was serious about rooting out Caliphate cells within U.S. borders, he might want to start in New Orleans, where there is a Caliphate whose members only meet hidden behind masks and the identity of its leaders kept completely secret:

Caliphs of Cairo

The title assumed by former sultans proclaimed investiture with absolute authority in all matters of state. The Caliphs governed in the capital of Egypt for centuries and their descendants in the valley of the Nile ceremoniously observe the traditions of ancient Cairo.

The Caliphs of Cairo, successor of Mohammed, made their appearance in the Carnival world in 1937, where they have introduced a series of realistic spectacles and scenic triumphs, with glamorous courts of beauteous maidens.
–Arthur Burton La Cour, New Orleans Masquerade. La Cour’s 1952 book is the definitive guide to the early history of our carnival krewes.

Beck paranoia aside—I think he’d get thrown off track by the “realistic spectacles and scenic triumphs” not to mention “courts of beauteous maidens”—Caliphs is a serious organization that has been around for almost 75 years now. (For more on Caliph’s, see Ryan’s posts here and here.) Although the krewe chooses a king and queen, maids, princesses and pages, as do parading krewes, Caliph’s entire carnival activity is limited to a ball. As with many of the old-line krewes, all the members mask, the king’s identity is kept secret and the ball is a specialized production known as a bal masque; a masquerade where the participants ceremoniously enact scenes based on a particular tableau, or theme.

Caliphs’ first tableau back in 1937 was “Joloco, the Rainbow God” (you can try to Google it, but I can’t find anything on Joloco). The Times Picayune described this year’s theme:

The Caliphs of Cairo staged the organization’s annual bal masque Saturday in the Royal Tent at the New Orleans Country Club, presenting a tableau depicting the Battle of Vienna in 1683, when King Jan III Sobieski, king of Poland-Lithuania, rescued Vienna from the invading Ottoman Turks. The sultan’s grand Vizier, Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha, had marched 150,000 Janissaries into Austria. The sultan had threatened death to Holy Roman Emperor Leopold, who fled to Passan with his court. Fortuitously for Leopold and the Viennese, several months earlier, King Jan had signed the Treaty of Warsaw, agreeing that he would come to Leopold’s aid if he were attacked by the Turks. Beseeched by Pope Innocent XI, King Jan Marched on Vienna with 80,000 men, Hearing the thundering charge of his winged husaria down the mountainside, the Turks retreated in panic and were defeated.
–Times-Picayune, February 6, 2011.

It goes on to explain some notable pastries were created to commemorate this battle: the croissant (symbolizing the defeated Turks’ crescent moon flag) and bagel (representing a stirrup, the symbol of King Jan’s cavalry).

Seeing this reminded me, to paraphrase Dorothy, that, on so many different levels, we’re not in Kansas. We never were in Kansas, or any where near Kansas.

In which diverse local habits, some of ancient origins, are enumerated, leading to the suggestion that everything in New Orleans may not be changing after all.
– S. Frederick Starr, introduction to Chapter 3: Habits. New Orleans Unmasqued. 1985.

So I say New Orleans’ Mardi Gras is the last bastion of civilization. Where else would groups of everyday people (alright, some may well be filthy rich. But I know several members of krewes like Caliphs who, although college graduates, some with professional degrees, are basically working stiffs at this point in their careers) put aside time and money to plan a good old-fashioned bal masque?

Imagine the committee meeting.  “Let’s see. We’ve done Joloco. We’ve done Cindarella, the marriage feast of Alexander the Great, the reception of the Marquis de Vaudreil at New Orleans, the Three Muskateers, the return of Marco Polo to Venice, the Bard of Avon and even Fiesta, South of the Border [all actual tableau from Caliph's early years]. What to do, what to do? Wait—y’all remember the Battle Vienna in 1683, you know, with the Vizier and the Polish winged cavalry that ensured the place of Christianity in the western world and gave us pastries? Let’s re-enact that next year!”

Starr’s quote really puts my whole thesis in a nutshell. We take the time and make the effort to maintain our local habits, that are ancient in origin, to make sure New Orleans’ core really won’t change, despite all the forces at work on its exterior—Katrina destruction/reconstruction, the new hospital’s re-working of Mid City and even recent observations regarding the creeping influx of European-inspired (but thoroughly mid-American in origin) “nouvelle” cuisine on the city’s restaurant scene.

Starr goes further and explores the role of allegory in Carnival, noting even suburban krewes might have such distinguished themes as “Tales of Gilgamesh,” “The World’s Worships” or “Tales of Josephus.” He notes that one year, Comus (when it still paraded) had a theme of “Ophidian Lore.”

To save a trip to the Encyclopedia Britannica [note lack of Google in 1985], this refers to the suborder ophidia, which comprises all snakes. Hence, Comus produced floats on “Eden,” “Aesculapius,” “Dumbala,” “Abraxas” and “Python”…

Now imagine hundreds of potbellied rednecks from Mississippi, North Florida or Manhattan lining up to watch some New Orleans businessmen represent this all allegorically. Picture businessmen anywhere dressing in outlandish costumes in order to present samples of Ophidian Lore to the masses, and paying every penny of the costs to do so. It staggers the imagination.

Which is precisely what Mardi Gras is all about. Beneath the superficial vulgarity, it is a poetic festival steeped in the exquisite high art of allegory.

Now, Starr is spot-on in his observations, and the thought of rednecks from Manhattan seems novel. But sometimes, the outsider over-thinks things. I prefer Bunny Matthews‘ take on allegory and Carnival themes, as channeled through Nat’ly Broussard, who in one devastating cartoon skewers all sides. Nat’ly, who you have to imagine, is simply talking on the phone:

Vic? Nuh uh. He’s at a Krewe meetin’…yeah…nuh uh…dey decidin’ on da theme fo’ da truckfloat—eithuh “Greek Gods” or “Salute to Soaps”—so I guess I’m gonna be Aphrodite or Susan Lucci—one of dem! Rite—talk to ya later…

How do you plan on celebrating our little spring festival? I’m taking inspiration from Henri Schindler’s ancient Greeks and continue my quest for greener pastures and the remission of sins.

Addendum—Looka’ dis-Bunny Matthews takes you on a guided tour of A Carnival Ball In Municipal Auditorium.

The result is a comprehensive guide to early Louisiana furniture with over 550 pages and 1000 images. I’m not a furniture collector or scholar, but love the book for its comprehensive coverage of our history and culture as reflected in our natively-crafted decorative arts. Chapters on early cabinet makers, woods and hardware not only talk about the “nuts and bolts” of furniture making, but tell the stories of early Louisianians as their country changed from colonial French to Spanish, then to American control, influence and, finally, statehood. And it’s all beautifully illustrated with period maps and images in addition to the photographs of furniture.

The colonial times are interesting, as we forget that Louisiana once encompassed the entirety what is now the United States west of the Appalachians.

"La Louisiane et Pays Voisins" by Jacques Nicolas Bellin, 1763; The Historic New Orleans Collection, 1975.35.

Items of early Louisiana furniture are rare finds. Fire destroyed many a plantation home along the river over the years and most of the city of New Orleans—twice—in 1788 and 1794. Another hazard, flooding, is illustrated by this engraving of a levee breach near Bonnet Carré from 1871.

"The Landing Near Bonnet Carré" by Alfred Rudolph Waud, 1871; The Historic New Orleans Collection, gift of Harold Schilke and Boyd Cruise, 1953.100ii. Note the armoires and tables being rescued on the right.

Some of the stories are tales of intense research and detective work. City directories of the late 18th and early 19th centuries list many names that have the occupation of menuisier or ébéniste; cabinet and furniture makers and inlay specialists; however,  correlating a piece of furniture to a particular maker is often difficult as pieces were rarely signed. Vermin, mold and all the other hazards of a hot and humid climate destroyed paper labels.

To a certain extent, the story of a craftsman dubbed “The Butterfly Man” (for a signature device he used to join side panels) and the extant furniture attributed to him, make his armoire the star of the book.

Creole-style inlaid armoire, attributed to the “Butterfly Man,” 1810–1830, from the collection of Mr. and Mrs. Robert J. Patrick, New Orleans; photo by Jim Zietz.

Coming out of the collection from the Houmas House plantation in 2003, this armoire set a record for Louisiana furniture when it sold for $140,000. The detailed account of the experts who examined the armoire’s construction and style of its inlaid decorations in an attempt to identify its maker is one of the book’s engrossing mystery stories (in a geeky, research-y kind of way; not necessarily one for Scooby and the gang).

History buffs will also be interested in the account of Creole and Creole-style furniture found in the Mississippi Upper Valley—in Missouri, Indiana and Illinois, for example—and the appendix listing furniture makers found in early city directories and newspaper advertisements.

Furniture buffs can spend countless hours perusing the catalog that makes up the bulk of the book. Photos and descriptions of every piece of furniture the authors could get their hands on are displayed in sections divided by armoires, chairs, bedsteads, buffets, tables, utilitarian pieces and the furniture of the Upper Valley.

The book is available for pre-ordering online through the Historic New Orleans Collection’s website, and I assume at the Collection’s gift shop at 533 Royal St. when it arrives (which, they say, should be sometime next week (of Dec. 13). Check the website for updated information or call the shop at 598-7147.

The Collection’s Royal St. gallery now has an exhibit of Mignon Faget’s work throughout the years. The research center at 410 Chartres St. features an exhibit of early Louisiana furniture from the Magnolia Mound plantation in Baton Rouge and an exhibit of photographs documenting life in New Orleans’ 7th Ward.

Update: I mentioned artist Rolland Golden’s work in a previous post. Fourteen of the 32 or so works he painted in the wake of Hurricane Katrina and exhibited at NOMA were acquired by the Historic New Orleans Collection and New Orleans Museum of Art.

This isn’t new news, but I thought anyone who’s interested should know they are on display at the Collection’s Williams Research Center. It’s free and open to the public, so if you’re wandering around the quarter think about popping in. There’s the furniture, the paintings and the photography to peruse. While you’re there you can take a peek into the reading room upstairs. It’s an impressive space, the former courtroom of the building’s original incarnation as a police precinct and municipal courthouse. The Williams Research Center is open Tue-Sat and the gallery and gift shop on at 533 Royal from Tue-Sun. Both are free.

New Orleans Musical Legends Park is a little nook of sorts at 311 Bourbon, across from the Royal Sonesta hotel. The foundation that runs it has installed life-size bronze statues of NOLA entertainers Al Hirt, Pete Fountain, Fats Domino, Ronnie Kole and Chris Owens.

After years of lobbying and fundraising, the Prima family finally saw their patriarch get his due, his own statue in the park. The unveiling ceremony was a star-studded event, with Chris Owens, Ronnie Kole and Louis’ family present. Some of Louis’ pals from the old days were there. I met his son, Louis Jr. (who performed with the NOCCA Jazz Band) and one of his daughters, Joyce Prima. I also met Paul Ferrara, who was drummer for Louis’ band The Witnesses (and of course, Sam Butera) for a time, and Joe Segreto, who was Louis’ agent. Segreto now owns Eleven 79, a classic Italian restaurant at that address on Annunciation Street. Segreto gave a good talk, giving a nod to Eddie Sapir, who he said was instrumental in founding the park.

At the height of his Las Vegas career in the 1950s, Louis performed with his wife, Keely Smith, who many people still associate with him. Segreto gave a shout-out, however, to Gia Maione Prima, Louis’ wife and performing partner from 1963 until his death in 1978. In the 1950s, Louis had purchased some land in Covington where he built a home (and restaurant and golf course) named “Pretty Acres.” He and Gia raised their two children, Louis, Jr. and Lena, for most of their childhoods at Pretty Acres. Louis, Jr. and Lena live in Las Vegas now and both have successful music careers of their own, keeping their dad’s legacy alive. There’s a detailed story about Louis and Gia and Pretty Acres here, with lots of photos from the family’s days in Covington.

Louis would have turned 100 on Dec. 7 this year. Segreto paid tribute to Louis Prima’s importance to the city, saying, “He never failed to mention New Orleans no matter where he was. He is us. He is our fun. God bless you Chief, we love you.”

Louis Jr, Joyce Prima, Chris Owens and Councilwoman Jackie Clarkson.

Louis Prima, Jr. performs his dad’s classic Jump, Jive and Wail with the NOCCA Jazz Band.

Preeminent bluesman Robert Johnson was dubbed “King of the Delta Blues.” Johnson’s early recordings influenced legions of musicians, both pure bluesmen and rock ‘n rollers who followed him. He is the stuff of legend, allegedly selling his soul to the devil in exchange for blues prowess. The story is he made his deal with the devil at the crossroads of Hwys. 61 and 49 south of Clarksdale. Johnson’s song “Cross Road Blues” (which doesn’t address any satanic deal-making) has been covered by over 30 artists. The most famous version is Eric Clapton’s arrangement “Crossroads” performed by Cream.

So what made the Delta region (not to be confused with the Mississippi River delta found where the river meets the Gulf) the cradle of blues? The region covers (according to the Wiki) north west Mississippi, along the river from Vicksburg (Willie Dixon’s birthplace) in the south to Memphis in the north, and east to the Yazoo River. It’s the ancient flood plain of the Mississippi River and seems even flatter than the swampy ground surrounding New Orleans, if that could be possible. Thousands of years of the river’s meandering and levee jumping  have tortured, scoured and scarred as well as flattened the land. Louisiana and Arkansas have their own Delta regions encompassed by the alluvial flood plain on the west side of the river with similar agricultural and cultural background notes (musicians Jerry Lee Lewis and Conway Twitty from the Louisiana Delta; Johnny Cash the Arkansas Delta).

Satellite view of a portion of the Delta country illustrates the tortured scarring inflicted by the river over millennia.

Cotton was king here. Many of the blues artists came from sharecropper families or worked at one time or another in the fields. It was oppressive work performed by poor people who weren’t treated much better than the slaves they descended from. The Delta country was the scene of much bloodshed and violence during the civil rights era, and it’s no wonder that following WWII returning GIs fled the area in search of better living in cities like Chicago, where blues recordings by Chess Records made the likes of Muddy Waters famous and paved the way for Chuck Berry and the rock ‘n rollers. The movie Cadillac Records provides a well-produced but fictionalized account of the Chess Records story.

Hwy. 61 (Airline Hwy. in the New Orleans area) starts in Louisiana and ends in Minnesota (where Bob Dylan is from, his album Highway 61 Revisited is a classic), following the river most of the way. It cuts right through the Delta and is the route I take to get to Arkansas every Thanksgiving.

Traveling through the Delta from Vicksburg to Greenville (where there is a bridge that crosses into Arkansas). I jump off Hwy. 61 on to Miss. Hwy. 1 where 61 meets the town of Rolling Fork, home town of Muddy Waters himself (links to DeltaBlues.net, a great resource on the Delta’s byways and juke joints).

It’s always been the week of Thanksgiving that I take my trip through the Delta, and the weather is usually cool and clear. The fields have been harvested and tufts of leftover cotton gather up along side of the road like mini-snowdrifts. Looking at all the fields and the run-down shacks and shanties, silos and cotton gins alongside the road and I can tell I wouldn’t want to be working outside in the summer around here.

The Delta fields stretch on forever.

It’s not without inherent beauty, though. I’ve always been struck by it, the vast emptiness of the fields, the rusted-roof shacks and the occasional splendid plantation home. I’m not the only one; scores of photographers and artists have tried to capture the Delta’s essence. Mississippi public radio was playing an interview with artist Rolland Golden while I was driving through the Delta. He talked about the Delta scenes he’s painted for decades and remembered the days when, as a boy, his family lived in Grenada, Miss. and his father would take him on drives through the Delta country. Some of Rolland’s Delta work can be seen here, here, here and here. His latest exhibit of Mississippi River paintings is on display in Jackson now.

I love the Algiers ferry pictures here and here, he said they were painted recently from photos he took in the ’60s, when, as an artist raising his young family in the French Quarter, he and his wife and kids would occasionally ride the free ferry back and forth on weekend outings. The free ferry ride is still something people enjoy today; being on the river amid the ships travelling to and from foreign ports, enjoying the New Orleans skyline that, in Rolland’s paintings, is bare but for the cathedral and Hotel Monteleone as his photos pre-dated the CBD building boom of the 70s.

I always forget to pack a tripod and camera when traveling through the Delta country, but listening to Rolland on that beautiful afternoon  inspired me to at least get some shots with my phone.

Crop dusters in their hangers along Highway 1.

Grain silos in the Delta country along Hwy. 1.

Elmwood Cemetery outside of Rolling Fork.

Now, if I’d known
They’d line up just to see him
I’d trade in all my money
And bought me a museum
From Steve Martin’s blockbuster hit of the 70′s, King Tut, inspired by the exhibition touring America

I remember it being towards the end of King Tut’s NOLA reign, it was either in the fall or winter; I remember it being cold. Maybe that’s why I also remember not having to wait too terribly long in line to get in—or maybe my dad had bought a museum membership that year because members were admitted immediately—unlike many who had waited 8 or more hours for admission at some points during the exhibition.

The museum had been transformed into a tomb-like interior, they had constructed plywood paths taking you from from priceless artifact to priceless artifact, ultimately leading to the pharaoh’s solid-gold death mask. The sight of that mask up on a pedestal in its glass display case still comes to my mind when I hear the word “priceless,”  no matter in what context the word has been uttered.

Now, when I die
Now don’t think I’m a nut
Don’t want no fancy funeral
Just one like ole King Tut
(Steve Martin)

I’m telling you all this not just because of the impact it made on me (I rattle on like Grandpa Simpson every time I’m in front of NOMA—”King Tut came here and they painted this whole drive blue. Blue, I tells ya!!!”—to anyone within earshot) but because it marked the first big blockbuster exhibition brought to NOMA after John Bullard became director in 1973. He’s now Director Emeritus, having passed on the reigns to Director Susan Taylor, a passionate art lover and veteran museum administrator.

I had a chance to talk to Mr. Bullard as NOMA was gearing up for its latest exhibition, Great Collectors/Great Donors (links to Doug McCash’s nola.com article for more details), the first of many to celebrate the museum’s centennial in 2011. He told me the story behind King Tut’s arrival in New Orleans in 1977.

Egyptian president Anwar Sadat was looking for some extra PR for his country during the time of the Camp David peace negotiations between Egypt and Israel. The exhibit was presented as a gift to the American people in honor of the U.S. Bicentennial. A New Orleans businessman had heard about Egypt’s plans, and the lobbying for New Orleans began.

Mr. Bullard recalled, “Verna Landrieu was head of the local bicentennial commission, so she got Moon [Mayor Moon Landrieu] to go to Washington, D.C. to see the Egyptian ambassador and we had our congressional delegation going to see him as well. They did want a specific geographic distribution—Washington, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Los Angeles—and then they wanted somewhere in the south. I was somewhat skeptical this would happen; surely it would go to Houston or Dallas or Atlanta, where they had a bigger resident population.

“We made a good case, we talked about the two great delta cities in the world, and the Mississippi and the Nile, and they selected us. That was before we expanded in 1990 so the museum was not quite half the size it is now. We didn’t sell tickets in advance, so we had bleachers for people to wait in, and sometimes it was an 8-hour wait.”

The exhibit’s impact was enormous, and had far-reaching economic consequences for the city. “In a normal year before Tut, we would have had maybe a 100,000 visitors,” said Mr. Bullard. “In the four months of Tut we had 900,000 visitors—it was a transforming experience for the museum. It made the politicians and businessmen realize that a big exhibition could generate as much money as a Super Bowl, over a longer period of time, and with upscale visitors.”

Many big exhibits were to come. During his tenure, NOMA’s permanent collection expanded from just under 5,000 items to over 35,000 today. The latest exhibit, and the first to celebrate the museum’s 100th year, is called Great Collectors/Great Donors.  It is a history of the museum as seen through the works of art donated by patrons since NOMA opened as the Isaac Delgado Museum of Art. The name change to New Orleans Museum of Art came in 1971.

Mr. Bullard gives a thorough run-through of those great donors in the museum’s publication Arts Quarterly. (Click to download a pdf). It’s a fascinating tale that reaffirms our city’s interest and support for the arts.

John Bullard talks about the upcoming NOMA centennial and the Great Collectors/Great Donors exhibit. In the background, New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu is either contemplating the occasion or planning on whose ass to kick next at City Hall.

Mr. Bullard walks us through Great Collectors/Great Donors. Looking on are two delightful ladies, Margarita Bergen (left) and Wendy Rodrigue. Margarita writes for NewOrleans.com and is in attendance at every event I have ever covered. Wendy is a NOMA board member and is married to George Rodrigue, whose work warranted its own mega-exhibition at NOMA back in 2008 (here is a post on the Blue Dog exhibit, and a little story about an encounter I had with Mr. Bullard then). She writes the blog Musings of an Artist's Wife, a must-read for any Blue Dog fan and a great place to see George's art, with the added bonuses of George's reminiscences about and Wendy's insight into the images he's produced over his career.

Mr. Bullard with what he said may be the rarest item in the museum, a Hawaiian god collected during Capt. Cook's ill-fated third visit to the islands.

The exhibit runs until January 23 and is a great chance to see all the best works that are in NOMA’s permanent collection. It’s a visual telling of how NOMA grew by donation to donation over the last 100 years. Many of the items are often on loan to other museums, so go while you have the chance! Check NOMA100.com and  NOMA.org for events, times and admissions policies. It’s free from noon to 8pm on Wednesdays and always free for members, so that’s a great reason to join. Centennial exhibits and activities continue through 2011.

About five other people stopped in their tracks coming out of the store, whipping out their phones to document the brief-lived wonder.

Later, I noticed a lot of Twitter activity and decided to round up all the photos I could find. The pics link back to their original posts. Thanks everyone!

I wish I had taken this one, the winner if this were actually a contest, from @mattjparks, Rainbow Over Dome (my title):

Here’s the French Quarter view, from @LunaNola, @CallMeAlva and @winshuttle:

And downtown from @BrittanyHornets:

Over the river from the Algiers ferry from @SHarney:

And more, from @necs, @NCantarano, @BigadShaban and @marcadelman: