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05/10/12
So many of our comments about New Orleans start out with the phrase, “Is there any other city anywhere that ...?”
Why fight it? Is there any other city anywhere that loves their sno-balls more than New Orleans? I’ve done a lot of traveling, and the closest area I can say that does like sno-balls, maybe not as much as we do, is the Gulf Coast over to Panama City. There are numerous stands along the way that boast New Orleans-style sno-balls.
Finely shaved ice provides excellent texture with long no-melt times, then slathered with syrups of every imaginable flavor, often topped with cream, mostly because it’s damn good. We don’t have enough sense to stop when it comes to food additions. “Just one more thing and that should do it.”...
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05/03/12
One of the really big turn-offs to people who simply want to enjoy wine, without going all geeky about it, is that friends and, sometimes, business associates (in most cities those are the same folks - not necessarily so in New Orleans) tend to get all uppity about how wine must be enjoyed.
And for something that’s supposed to be fun and a pleasure, having rules that are ironclad is not always inviting. “Yeah, well, you enjoy that Chateau Frou-Frou. I’ll take a beer.”
To be fair to all parties, there are some actions that add to the enjoyment of wine. They are simply stated: See, Swirl, Sniff, Sip, Swallow or Spit, depending on what kind of a crowd you are with and how much wine you intend to come in contact with. Those suggestions about enjoying...
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04/26/12
Growing up Catholic, our family abstained from eating meat on Fridays. Now seems quaint, doesn’t it? And a couple of Fridays a month, my mother would fix some sort of salmon casserole dish, made with canned salmon. Fresh salmon back then was not something good Catholic families could obtain - at least, ours could not. I guess most of it went to delicatessens. Being not only Catholic, but southern U.S. Catholics, delis were pretty rare, and they were expensive.
Point is, I really did not like salmon. On Fridays, when the salmon casserole was trotted out, I was at the waffle iron.
Later in life, I attended a writers conference in Portland, Ore. One evening during a banquet they served salmon. Fresh and beautifully prepared, but salmon nevertheless. I was focused on the...
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04/19/12
Listening to our (now) two candidates for the presidency of these United States, you get a mixed picture of whether things are good and getting better, or we’re all going to hell in a handbag, and it will likely happen in December if you don’t vote the correct way.
Forget the Mayans and their predictions of apocalypse at that time. The Democrats and Republicans will scare the bejesus out of us with stories of how horrible it will be if we allow the other party to rule the land for the next four years.
I’m not going to wade into that morass of conflicted opinions and thorny issues. Why would you want me to weigh in when you have at least 18 television channels of talking heads who are at it 24 hours a day? Not to mention the additional tens of thousands of...
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04/12/12
Locavore. The word sounds like it probably was something made up in California. And it was.
The term locavore was coined in the San Francisco area just a few years ago to denote a consumer, mainly of food, who is concerned about the environment and good nutrition, and who concentrates on ingredients that are grown locally - within, say, a 100-mile radius. This approach to cuisine has the benefit of assuring the freshest possible ingredients, and the environment will benefit by eliminating transportation over long distances. Carbon footprint, you know.
Of course Californians, notorious for crazy ideas and concepts that soon make it into the mainstream of American thought and actions, believed they were onto something new. New Orleanians have been committed to locavore...
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04/05/12
The indigenous people who populated Central and Latin America before the arrival of the Spanish conquerors liked to have their fun.
They had a great ball game, assuming you did not lose, played in stadium-like settings where the object was for one of the teams to score by putting the ball through a stone hoop. Of course the other team was doing all they could, and they could do a lot, to keep the opponents from accomplishing that, with the losers of the contest suffering humiliation and sometimes death. At times, hearts were ripped from the loser, literally. Then the lifeless bodies were tossed down the steps of great pyramids that dotted the scene.
Good thing Roger Goodell is not a student of Latin American history.
The celebrations among the victors often went on for...
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03/29/12
But That Doesn't Mean It's Any Less Fun
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03/22/12
People standing just outside wine’s circle of appreciation look at the gyrations wine lovers perform as they enjoy the beverage, and they, the outsiders, shake their heads in confusion, irritation, misunderstanding or just plain humor.
All this sipping, sniffing, swirling, maybe even spitting, is embraced by the true believers and not believed by everyone else. What’s all this crap about, and why does it have to be such a big dramatic production? For chrissakes, just drink the wine and don’t make so much fuss.
Maybe the Lovin’ Spoonful captured a similar situation with the memorable John Sebastian lyric, “But It’s like tryin’ to tell a stranger ‘bout rock and roll.”
Let’s just say that the ritual of opening a...
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03/15/12
The dilution of the actual and direct Old World heritage in the American population continues at a rapid rate more than 200 years after our forefathers declared independence from the tyranny and oversight of Great Britain.
For most of us, on the world stage, we truly are labeled Americans and for many others still joining our nation as citizens the beckoning of the “lamp beside the golden door” means their children will also enjoy that designation.
But we as individuals have never quite gotten over the fact that originally our ancestors were all from someplace else. Millions of dollars are spent on genealogy and investigations into the distant past to a point in time when some guy had his way with some girl and, through a series of continuing human dalliances,...
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03/08/12
In the pantheon of cocktails associated with New Orleans, which would include the Sazerac, Hurricane, and Hand Grenade, among others, relegated to the second-tier is the Ramos Gin Fizz.
When was the last time you were out enjoying all manner of adult libations and someone ordered a Ramos Gin Fizz? Bet you can’t remember when that was, and the truth of the matter is that’s a shame. Ramos concocted a very fine beverage and we don’t seem to be enjoying it any more.
Henry Charles Ramos was, by all accounts, a gentleman’s gentleman. Soft-spoken, and a man of grand talents “behind the stick” (an old term very little in use anymore, meaning the guy behind the bar). Back then, it was hardly ever a woman. Women, in fact, were not even welcomed...
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Tim learned to appreciate wine from his wife-to-be, Brenda Maitland, and it has been a fascinating 35-year journey for the couple. Tim graduated from Jesuit College Prep in Dallas, then earned a journalism degree from the University of North Texas. He came to Louisiana because of his love of New Orleans, then fell in love with Brenda and simultaneously fell in love with all things wine.
