Why yes, as a matter of fact I have...

I got another message from Cassie the other day.  Hi Cassie!  It was a really nice message.  All the messages she sends me are really nice.

I don't really know Cassie.  I've never met her.  Cassie might not even be her real name.  I know her only through the internet, through this weird little blog-world that fascinates and terrifies me all at once.  We are aware of each other because we both like to take pictures of shadows.  You can see hers here.  She also has a thing for Norwegian singers, apparently, which means she's a dirty, lusty lady just like me so no wonder we get along so well.  I would love to steal her URL fifty years from now, although I think she's using it unfairly.  It's way too early for that.  Old lady?  Really?  I don't think so, Cassie...

Anyway, she asked if I had burnt out on blogging since my thirty day marathon last month, and my only reply was well, yes I have, as a matter of fact, I've burnt out on life COMPLETELY over the past month and a half and I'm wondering if it isn't time to go find a job pitting olives or labeling cheese somewhere, somewhere where I'LL NEVER HAVE TO SPEAK TO ANOTHER HUMAN BEING AGAIN, something, you know, away from the general public, just so I don't spend the rest of my days locked up for mass murder or something crazy (yet completely logical) like that.

Yet I'm stuck behind a bar, where my very livelihood depends on pretending to be nice to people.  Kill me now.  I beg you.

The other night, over fancy beer and trail mix, I expressed to D.G. my desire to go "Down the Line" with a baseball bat and he slowly backed away with a pleasant, yet terrified look on his face.

"Another beer, wanderlust?  Or three?"

Absolutely.

Anyway.

Yes, I'm still here, but you really don't want to hear from me right now.  Really.  Trust me.  It's best for everyone.  There's no telling what might come out of my mouth right now.  Next thing you know I'll be strung up by my earlobes in some whacked-out republic no one's ever heard of for insulting their version of Allah and I'll end up holding all of YOU responsible for it, because I'm rational like that.

Give me a minute to stop hating everyone and everything and I'll be back with random, senseless photos and postings any day now, thank you very much.  (most likely when motherfucking Chri$tma$ is over)  Also, if I'm feeling nice in the upcoming day or two, (that means don't piss me off, people) I'll tell you about my dinner at Dovetail.  Now THAT gives you a reason to wake up tomorrow, doesn't it?  Mmm, Dovetail...

Yes please

I don't know what on earth could make a copper pot worth six hundred dollars, but I know that I want one...

        


I love walking around the housewares department at Zabar's and fantasizing about all the things I will buy when I am incredibly wealthy and money is no object and presumably I have a larger apartment so I have room for it all.  A full set of Mauviel Copper Cookware is obviously on the list now, along with that fancy wine chiller thing.  And all the pretty plates and fabulous appliances, an awesome juicer that realistically I would probably use once then it would collect dust on a shelf until I gave it away or moved out.

The food and deli department downstairs is even better, I imagine it's how an Amish teenager might feel on his first visit to a porno shop.  Do they even have porno shops anymore?  Why would anyone rent porn videos when they can get it for free on the internet?  Anyway, you get what I mean.  If I could I would buy the entire Zabar's cheese department and put it in my basement.  I would also hire one of the bread-makers to live in the basement too and bake me fresh rye bread every morning.  My refrigerator would be stocked with caviar and truffle butter.

I fucking love Zabar's.  It's like a magical fantasyland of kitchenwares and deliciousness.  Good shit.

Busted

I guess some people are paying more attention than I thought.  I got a text from Janson this morning:

"Surprise!  I just landed at JFK to surprise you!  Call me."

Hmm.

A few seconds later:

"LOL just kidding, I know u are here u crazy bitch!"

Ha ha.  Very funny.

So now he knows I'm here, God knows who else he's told.  Everyone's going to hate me.  Oh well.  So much for sneaking in and out of town under cover of night.

Janson's supposed to come to Mandina's for turtle soup with us tonight.  Seafood and turtle soup.  Lots of turtle soup.  I really don't care about the seafood.  I can take it or leave it.  The turtle soup I can't live without.  I'm wondering if I should say fuck it, damn the torpedoes, call every-fucking-body, tell them I'm here and they should come to Mandina's tonight.  Thirteen hours and counting, people, get it while you can.

Thirteen hours and counting!  Holy shit, what the fuck am I doing lazing around on the motherfucking internet!  Excuse me.  Sorry people.  Gotta go...

Dining!

Ducale
79th and Columbus, New York, NY

Octopus and fennel salad

You've got to be careful about ordering octopus.  When it's good, it's good.  But when it's bad, it's just all wrong.  It's so easy to overcook it, then you've just got chunks of flavorless bicycle tire.  Not what you want to be chewing on.  If I'm the least bit skeptical of a restaurant I won't bother to even try it.

But I had ultimate faith in Ducale, a restaurant on my corner that also happens to serve an outstanding Bolognese sauce.  They did a great job with the octopus, light and fresh and perfectly cooked, tender and flavorful.  I approve!

              

Shadow Shot Sunday

New York, NY
At the deli down the street from work


Because I like to make up rules as I go along, I've decided that regarding my current challenge, (see previous post here) photos count as long as I write something to accompany the photo.

So I took this photo after work the other night.  To be honest, I can't even tell you the name of the place.  I just stop in from time to time because it's open late and it's on the way to the train and they have good paninis and snacks and I can sit in the window and stare outside and people watch and wonder how long it's going to take to get home.  My kitchen is still somewhat dysfunctional, so I don't cook at home too much right now, and who needs to anyway in NY, what with all this great food everywhere.  The guys who work here have heard the whole story about my kitchen.  They're always trying to get me to take something home for breakfast the next morning, but I can't find it in my heart to tell them that I'm cheating on them in the mornings with the deli on my corner, where the guys can tell how much I've had to drink the night before by what I choose for a morning beverage.  Ginger ale for a hangover.  Fresh squeezed orange juice when I'm healthy...

                                    

   http://heyharriet.blogspot.com/

A reasonable request...

I saw this in the bathroom at my favorite pizza place in my work neighborhood.  I'm working on finding a favorite pizza place in every neighborhood I frequent in the five boroughs.  Four, really, because who the hell ever goes to Staten Island?  (apologies to my friends and co-workers who live on Staten Island)  My very favorite pizza place of all is literally around the corner from where I live, lucky fucking me.

So anyway, Palermo Pizza is a few blocks away from where I work, and I'm guessing they were having problems with people urinating on their bathroom floor, because otherwise, you know, why put up the sign?  It's not something I want to think too hard about, because it's not going to stop me from going in there.  At all.

Palermo Pizza.  West Broadway and Murray.  Really good fucking pizza.  Use the bathroom at the Whole Foods around the corner.

yeah...

Always

New York, NY
In the kitchen at Per Se

      

Dining!

New York, NY
Per Se


What we ate:

            



What we drank:

    

Snoballs on Piety

I know I've said in the past that Hansen's was the only snoball stand I would ever go to, but I lied, OK?  Sorry about that.  Hansen's is still the best as far as taste, no question.  Snoballs on Piety is perfectly acceptable taste-wise, but has won my heart for different reasons.  It's on Piety, (no shit, huh?) right off of Chartres.  They've been there about a month.  Go.  And when you do, make sure you say hello to this little girl:

                  


Actually, she'll probably say hello to you first.  She's not shy.  Trust me.  She's quite a remarkable little girl.  She managed to make a really shitty day completely disappear, at least for a couple of hours.

I was having a shitty day.  From the minute I opened my eyes.  Literally.  Shitty enough that on my way home from work I turned around on my bicycle to try to chase down my best friend's ex-boyfriend, after first texting and getting permission from my best friend, of course.  I was fully intending on starting a verbal altercation with him.  Oh, don't look at me like that.  He has it coming.  Trust me.

Anyway, once my shitty day was over, I decided to go for a long, angry bike ride, at the end of which I was hot and sweaty and still in a pretty shitty mood.  I figured it was a perfect time for a snoball, and Piety is only two blocks away and I'd been meaning to check it out because it was so close and blah blah blah so I stopped and meant to just get a snoball and eat it and go home, but I ended up staying for over two hours.

Because of Ava, of course.

Her parents own Snoballs on Piety, and she hangs out there with her mom all day when she's not in school.  She started talking to me before I even had a chance to order.

"Have we met before?"

"Um, I don't think so.  This is my first time here."

But she didn't give up.

"Where do you live?  Where do you work?  Have we met in the French Quarter?"

She sat down and talked to me while I ate my snoball.  We ended up looking at Youtube videos on my phone until the battery died.  Then she noticed the make-up in my bag.  She asked if she could wear some.  I said she should ask her mom.  Mom said sure.  So I painted her face up.  Then she busted out some nail polish.

"Can I paint your nails?"

"Yeah, sure.  Why not?"

I swear.  Something about letting her paint my nails completely defused whatever time bomb had been ticking inside me since I opened my eyes that morning.  Of course, my fuse ended up being relit a few hours later, but that's another story.  For a couple of hours, I was free.  She let me paint her nails, too.  We joked and laughed and took pictures of each other.  We jumped up and down on an old mattress in the back that she used as a trampoline.  She jumped on my back and made me run back and forth until my fucked up knee was begging for mercy.  I was free and I was happy and it was just me and Ava hanging out and life was good for a while.

I think I need to go to Snoballs on Piety more often.  I think you do, too.

        
P.S.  yes, Ava made the sign she's standing next to.  Not bad for an eight year old, huh?

Dining!

I was trying to tell Sweetheart yesterday about those delicious donut things that I ate in Hawaii when I was visiting Alika.

              

Me: "They were called, uh, cassas, or casadas.  Or cass, something.  I can't really remember."

Him: "Um, casadas doesn't really sound very Hawaiian."

Which was true.  So I went home and looked through my pictures to find the name of the damned things.  Because apparently I'm incapable of remembering anything anymore, unless I take a picture of it.  Or tattoo it on my forehead.

    


Right.  Malasadas.  Which, actually, doesn't sound very Hawaiian either, now that I think about it.  Hmmm...

Oh, yeah.  Right.  They're Portuguese.  I had forgotten that part.  Good thing I took a picture.

          

Good stuff.
                

Dining!

                  

Addendum

If you remember, when I left you in my previous post I was heading off to Jack Dempsey's to get my fill before a seventeen dollar oyster platter turned into a sixty-seven dollar oyster platter.  When I arrived, this is what I saw:

                    


Pretty depressing, and I'm not just talking about the grammatical errors.  A seventeen dollar oyster platter is already a nineteen dollar oyster platter.  Two dollars extra today, five in two weeks, next month, who knows.  Get it while you can...

It begins

Not the first casualty, to be sure, but a significant one.  I woke up to this article today.  Serious shit, people. Not good.

P&J Oyster Co. has been providing oysters to local restaurants here in New Orleans for 134 years.  Well, they were.  They've suspended operations as of today.

Just yesterday our chef was talking to a guy at the bar about seafood prices and availability, and how we don't really know what the long-term ramifications will be, and we're starting to see changes right now, and who knows what the fuck is going to happen.   I know I have an over-active imagination, but I don't like what's going on in my head right now.  Could twenty-five dollar fried oyster po-boys be on the horizon around here?  The disappearance of the 25-cent oyster-on-the-halfshell happy hour?

Say it ain't so.

I beseech you once again, my friends.  I know you're sick of hearing it, but fuck you.  I'll keep saying it until I think you're listening.  Lower your air-conditioner.  Downsize a little bit.  Recycle.  Reduce the amount of crap you buy.  Use less fuel, use less electricity.  Hey, it saves you money, right?  Isn't that the American way, worship of the almighty Dollar?  Use your car less.  Much less.  I know it's a necessary evil and you need to use it sometimes, but you don't need to use your car that much.  No, you don't.  You have options.  Yes, you do.  You aren't "above" public transportation.  No, you're not.

You aren't too good to walk places, either.  Weren't you complaining about wanting to lose those extra five pounds?  Here's your golden opportunity.  Can't really walk that far, maybe your knees hurt?  I can relate to that.  Ride your bike.  Don't have one?  Get one, they don't have to cost that much.  Borrow mine.  Steal your sisters.  It may not be as comfy as your nice, cushy private auto with the AC and all, but this can't be all that comfortable either...

                              


That's a bird, by the way.  You've seen that one already, right?

Anyway.  I'll get off my soapbox and leave you alone.  I've got to pedal down to Jack Dempsey's and get a huge plate of fried oysters before my bank account won't let me.


**ADDENDUM**   CLICK HERE



          

Dining!

Somewhere on the road to Ollantaytambo, Peru
August, 2009

It was a beautiful two-hour journey to Ollantaytambo.  My driver was all personality, regardless of how little English he spoke, and was extremely patient (and amused) with my pathetic grasp of basic Spanish.

"¿Foto?  ¿Aquí?"

He was also very patient and accommodating of my desire to stop for pictures...

          


We were having a lovely afternoon.  He asked if I was a vegetarian.  ¿Que?  Apparently he knew a place that had good chicharrones, did I want to stop?

For chicharrones?  What's the Spanish word for always?

            

Seriously.  Best fucking chicharrones ever.  Big, fatty hunks of pork drenched in even more fat.  The most flavor you can fit on a fork.  Red onion relish, plump, juicy corn, spicy peppers.  Sr. de Huanca has got it figured out.  The "two pigs fucking" logo is just an extra bonus, really.  Like lagniappe...

  

Dining!

It's a beautiful morning...

        

One egg over easy.  Wheat toast, no butter.  Boudin from Big Fisherman.  I know I've mentioned Big Fisherman before.  That's right baby.  They're more than just seafood.

Good stuff

If you don't already know about it, I probably shouldn't tell you.  The line is long enough as it is.  All the damn time.  Back when I lived at the Compound, Hansen's was only three short, sweet blocks away.  Now I'm over in the Beautiful Bywater, so it's a bit of a hike.  Takes a long time to get there, even in the car.  I pass countless snowball shops on the way, and I wouldn't dream of stopping.  Not even if you paid me.

            

Road trip

Had a busy week in New York.  Had lots of fun, saw lots of friends.  Spent a lot of time Getting Things Done.  Life is looking good.

In the middle of a long drive back to New Orleans.  Resting here with Leigh for the weekend in Rural Hall, North Carolina.  We're going to visit Wooo Bobby tomorrow.

I had fun on the road today.  Got into a long conversation about rolling papers with the cashier girls at a gas station in the middle of nowhere, Pennsylvania.  Folks are so darned friendly in that state.

I got hungry in Virginia.  I saw this sign somewhere off I-81, and was skeptical:

                  


Truck stop BBQ?  Could be hit or miss.  I've had some pretty good truck stop food before.  I still dream about that chicken-fried steak from that greasy spoon off I-10 in Texas.  So I decided to give it a shot.

I recommend the pulled pork plate, Carolina style, with applesauce and coleslaw.  Douse it with some BBQ sauce and a little hot sauce.  Mix some applesauce and coleslaw in with the meat.  I don't know if it's the best in Virginia.  But it's pretty fucking good when you've been in a car for seven hours.  Maybe it was the rolling papers.

          

Dining!

New Orleans, LA
Jazz Fest 2010

The best dish at the fest.  No contest.  No kidding.  I eat it every day that I go.  It's unbelievable.  It's a thick, rich, flavor explosion, all dark and delicious.  I had a gallon delivered to me in San Francisco once, for the party I threw when KKV was leaving town for South America.  They shipped it frozen, overnight delivery.  The shipping cost more than the gumbo.

Worth.  Every.  Penny.

Look them up.  http://prejeans.com/  Call them and tell them you want the Jazz Fest gumbo.  They'll know what you mean.

Overrated

                          

I hate to say it, but it is.

I'm sorry.  I know it's the most famous dishes of Jazz Fest Dishes.  I know that there's an army of New Orleanians out there who would have me tried for treason right now.  But it really is.  Overrated.  So fucking overrated.

People line up for that shit, as you can plainly see.  You know what, people?  It's just crawfish in cream sauce, with some Tony Chachere's thrown in.  Seriously, that's all it is, more or less.  You can make that shit at home, so easy.  Plus, they always overcook the fucking pasta.

I hate mushy pasta.

Although, if you don't live in south Louisiana and don't have easy access to crawfish, crawfish like they were coming out of your fucking ears, I guess I can see the fascination.

Mmmm, crawfish...