So we got in at 12 am. It was several hundred dollars cheaper than all the other flights... We got our rental car. Oh, I mean we got our rental truck. Yes, I mean truck. Big truck. I don't know if you know what I look like, but I'm 5'2. I had to drive this big monster all around town, and try to parallel park the bitch too! It was a Nissan Titan. One of the most ridiculous rental "cars" that Hertz has ever rented out. Here's the picture.
So anyway, we hopped into the cab (king cab of the truck), (and I mean hopped). Then we drove straight to the quarter. Luckily, it was kinda dead around there, so I found a nice big spot on Decatur st. It still took me forever to get into the spot though, don't think that I just eased in...
We walked down Decatur, and it was like we were just there a couple of weeks ago. We got to Coop's Place, which we had been dreaming about, and we pulled the door. It was locked. We look inside and there is no one there. What the fuck? Where the hell are we going to eat? I didn't want Angeli. So we were standing in front of Molly's trying to decide our plan b. Then the Food Pimp said, hold on, I want to go say hi to someone. So he strode into the bar and sat on a stool right next to PTG (Piercing Tattoo Glasses). PTG looked at him and asked, are you still in town? So obviously we got some drinks. the FP had 3 vodka sodas to my 3/4 of a Red Stripe. At one point I decided to see if the kitchen in back was open, even though I had no faith. So it was open! I looked at the menu, and I decided on crawfish etouffee. Two of them. I figured if I got some bar food and the etouffee was way better I would be sorely disappointed. So the food came.
It didn't look that sloppy when it first came to us, I just forgot to take a picture. So we were hungry, but this was deceivingly a lot of food. It was good. It wasn't etouffee though the way we knew it. It was more like crawfish and sausage stew with bell peppers. It didn't have that rich buttery flavor that coats your mouth. It was good. Not as good as the crawfish etouffee at Pappadeux's at the Houston Airport...
So we ate, then we went to our friends' house - Dr. Authority on Everything (no, he really is) and Bubbles the Lawyer. We had to wake him up to get into the house. I felt really bad. He had to get up in a few hours. But what the hell, he's a doctor, he was used to not getting enough sleep.
So their alarms went off at maybe 5 am. And then they went up again, and again and, you get the picture. It seemed like they had set about 3 alarms, and they kept hitting snooze on them for what seemed like an hour or more. At one point, the one aeh aeh aeh aeh alarm went off for about 15 minutes before someone turned it off. It was really kinda funny. Doctor and a lawyer. They hit snooze just like us regular folk.
Anyway, they left, and I would drift off to sleep, then wake up, then sleep. At around 8:30 we just got up. We went to CC's. The one on Esplanade. This was all weird to us, because we had always lived on the other side of the Quarter. This was strange territory. We couldn't remember simple streets that we had been down before. It must have been the Titan. Anyway, I got a minisippi and the FP got an iced coffee. The iced coffee was great. I forgot that the minisippi was for kids, thus no caffeine. So I poured a bit of the iced coffee into my minisippi. It was delicious. Nothing like a shake for breakfast!
So it was early. The only logical thing to do was to climb into our V8 and drive down to St. Bernard Parish and take a look around. There were dilapidated shacks with trailers in front of them (those formaldahyde tainted ones), shopping center after shopping center that were boarded up and empty.
There were some functioning businesses and houses in repair, but a lot were not. It was hard to see this, but we felt the need to. Most of the area we had been hanging out in during Mardi Gras was fine. Either minimal damage or repaired structures mostly. But St. Bernard was like a forgotten parish. The Long John Silver's we used to go to was empty.
We went into a Walgreens. At least that was open. The FP needed an inhaler because he stayed awake all night trying to breathe. All the inhalers were out of stock. Weird. We drove back into the city.
We stopped by Martin Wine Cellar, which had relocated to where a catering company used to be on Magazine Street. It was small. No food, just alcohols. The FP used to work with the manager at the Martin's in Metairie, so he got to say hi to him.
We bought a bottle of champagne. Then we headed to Mz Snowbliz and her fiance's crawfish boil.
As soon as we walked in, we noticed Mz Snowbliz all hunkered down popping open oysters. So we decided to help. It reminded us of Vega. Sadly, the oysters weren't very flavorful. They were watery tasting, not much briney flavor. But it was fun to open them anyway.
The sack of oysters was killed. Then we were just waiting for the crawfish. Some guy was doing them, we were doubtful. Then finally they came out. Everyone was crowded around the table. I tried to squeeze in and get a few. There were no potatoes, corn or garlic left. I guess I had to be at the table waiting for the boil to get that stuff. There were peanuts though. I've never seen that. I've boiled peanuts in the crawfish boil seasoning before, but why did I never think of boiling them with the crawfish or shrimp or crabs? Oh, cause I'm so dumb when it comes to the prospect of eating boiled seafood that I can't think properly, even more so than usual.
Anyway, I managed to get about 8 crawfish and 4 peanuts in a napkin. We ate them. They were pretty damn good. Lots of boil flavor, spicy, cooked just right. And still warm! The peanuts were not like boiled peanuts, they still had a little crunch. So I was thinking maybe they were roasted peanuts? Either way, they were delicious. I needed more. Luckily Mz Snowbliz's sister saw us huddling with a napkinful of crawdads. So she had pity on us and got us a tray. It just happened to be the very same old sunbeam tin cover that Mz Snowbliz had brought to our house for our Thoth party. We had that thing for a year, because of course we kept forgetting to give it back to her... So I got a respectable pile, and the boys went to smoke, so I got to eat most of them! Then there were no more. They were all waiting on the next boil. Which meant it was time for us to go. We said our goodbyes, then we climbed into our white Titan, RR Fireman in his Xterra.
We headed down to Stein's Deli. It's only maybe two years old, but is has the feel of an old deli. And Stein has the bearing of an old deli owner. When we walked in, we saw him. Funny, he remembered the Food Pimp more than me, even though I knew him better. But I realize that the FP outshines me in every way, thus, he is way more memorable than me. That's just how things are.
So there is just all this deli meat, and cheese, and weird sodas and beers and they make their own bread right there in the back where you can see and it's just a fabulous place. We looked at the menu, and it all looked good. But we were looking in the deli case and it all looked good. So we ordered the only thing that seemed logical. A cheese and meats plate. We ordered from the guy at the counter, but of course Stein put it together. He even sliced the meats himself. He asked if we wanted lunch or a snack. We said a snack. Good thing we said snack. The board we got was huge. It must have been 3/4 a pound of cheese and 1/2 a pound of meat. I wish I had taken a picture. I wish I could tell you what the meats were. You know, a bunch of cured salame-like meats of different sizes and proscuitto. I was buzzing a little I think, from the heat, from the abitas and the crawfish. So I don't know what they were. But I can tell you that there was St. Andre cheese, which I had been thinking about, RRF too, so it was great to get that one. We also got Cashel Blue, which is nice, and then a firm goats milk cheese. Obviously everything was great. And the bread! He gave us two nice loaves of like muffaletta bread. Nice and hot. God, that bread was defuckingeatyourassoutlicious. (No, I'm not sure what that means. That's jut how good the bread was) RRF ended up eating a lot of it though. I ate until I thought I might vomit. Stein gave us a nice discount, and RRF paid the $26 tab, which was nice. So after that, it was time to head back and maybe catch a nap before dinner...
So anyway, we hopped into the cab (king cab of the truck), (and I mean hopped). Then we drove straight to the quarter. Luckily, it was kinda dead around there, so I found a nice big spot on Decatur st. It still took me forever to get into the spot though, don't think that I just eased in...
We walked down Decatur, and it was like we were just there a couple of weeks ago. We got to Coop's Place, which we had been dreaming about, and we pulled the door. It was locked. We look inside and there is no one there. What the fuck? Where the hell are we going to eat? I didn't want Angeli. So we were standing in front of Molly's trying to decide our plan b. Then the Food Pimp said, hold on, I want to go say hi to someone. So he strode into the bar and sat on a stool right next to PTG (Piercing Tattoo Glasses). PTG looked at him and asked, are you still in town? So obviously we got some drinks. the FP had 3 vodka sodas to my 3/4 of a Red Stripe. At one point I decided to see if the kitchen in back was open, even though I had no faith. So it was open! I looked at the menu, and I decided on crawfish etouffee. Two of them. I figured if I got some bar food and the etouffee was way better I would be sorely disappointed. So the food came.
It didn't look that sloppy when it first came to us, I just forgot to take a picture. So we were hungry, but this was deceivingly a lot of food. It was good. It wasn't etouffee though the way we knew it. It was more like crawfish and sausage stew with bell peppers. It didn't have that rich buttery flavor that coats your mouth. It was good. Not as good as the crawfish etouffee at Pappadeux's at the Houston Airport...
So we ate, then we went to our friends' house - Dr. Authority on Everything (no, he really is) and Bubbles the Lawyer. We had to wake him up to get into the house. I felt really bad. He had to get up in a few hours. But what the hell, he's a doctor, he was used to not getting enough sleep.
So their alarms went off at maybe 5 am. And then they went up again, and again and, you get the picture. It seemed like they had set about 3 alarms, and they kept hitting snooze on them for what seemed like an hour or more. At one point, the one aeh aeh aeh aeh alarm went off for about 15 minutes before someone turned it off. It was really kinda funny. Doctor and a lawyer. They hit snooze just like us regular folk.
Anyway, they left, and I would drift off to sleep, then wake up, then sleep. At around 8:30 we just got up. We went to CC's. The one on Esplanade. This was all weird to us, because we had always lived on the other side of the Quarter. This was strange territory. We couldn't remember simple streets that we had been down before. It must have been the Titan. Anyway, I got a minisippi and the FP got an iced coffee. The iced coffee was great. I forgot that the minisippi was for kids, thus no caffeine. So I poured a bit of the iced coffee into my minisippi. It was delicious. Nothing like a shake for breakfast!
So it was early. The only logical thing to do was to climb into our V8 and drive down to St. Bernard Parish and take a look around. There were dilapidated shacks with trailers in front of them (those formaldahyde tainted ones), shopping center after shopping center that were boarded up and empty.
There were some functioning businesses and houses in repair, but a lot were not. It was hard to see this, but we felt the need to. Most of the area we had been hanging out in during Mardi Gras was fine. Either minimal damage or repaired structures mostly. But St. Bernard was like a forgotten parish. The Long John Silver's we used to go to was empty.
We went into a Walgreens. At least that was open. The FP needed an inhaler because he stayed awake all night trying to breathe. All the inhalers were out of stock. Weird. We drove back into the city.
We stopped by Martin Wine Cellar, which had relocated to where a catering company used to be on Magazine Street. It was small. No food, just alcohols. The FP used to work with the manager at the Martin's in Metairie, so he got to say hi to him.
We bought a bottle of champagne. Then we headed to Mz Snowbliz and her fiance's crawfish boil.
As soon as we walked in, we noticed Mz Snowbliz all hunkered down popping open oysters. So we decided to help. It reminded us of Vega. Sadly, the oysters weren't very flavorful. They were watery tasting, not much briney flavor. But it was fun to open them anyway.
The sack of oysters was killed. Then we were just waiting for the crawfish. Some guy was doing them, we were doubtful. Then finally they came out. Everyone was crowded around the table. I tried to squeeze in and get a few. There were no potatoes, corn or garlic left. I guess I had to be at the table waiting for the boil to get that stuff. There were peanuts though. I've never seen that. I've boiled peanuts in the crawfish boil seasoning before, but why did I never think of boiling them with the crawfish or shrimp or crabs? Oh, cause I'm so dumb when it comes to the prospect of eating boiled seafood that I can't think properly, even more so than usual.
Anyway, I managed to get about 8 crawfish and 4 peanuts in a napkin. We ate them. They were pretty damn good. Lots of boil flavor, spicy, cooked just right. And still warm! The peanuts were not like boiled peanuts, they still had a little crunch. So I was thinking maybe they were roasted peanuts? Either way, they were delicious. I needed more. Luckily Mz Snowbliz's sister saw us huddling with a napkinful of crawdads. So she had pity on us and got us a tray. It just happened to be the very same old sunbeam tin cover that Mz Snowbliz had brought to our house for our Thoth party. We had that thing for a year, because of course we kept forgetting to give it back to her... So I got a respectable pile, and the boys went to smoke, so I got to eat most of them! Then there were no more. They were all waiting on the next boil. Which meant it was time for us to go. We said our goodbyes, then we climbed into our white Titan, RR Fireman in his Xterra.
We headed down to Stein's Deli. It's only maybe two years old, but is has the feel of an old deli. And Stein has the bearing of an old deli owner. When we walked in, we saw him. Funny, he remembered the Food Pimp more than me, even though I knew him better. But I realize that the FP outshines me in every way, thus, he is way more memorable than me. That's just how things are.
So there is just all this deli meat, and cheese, and weird sodas and beers and they make their own bread right there in the back where you can see and it's just a fabulous place. We looked at the menu, and it all looked good. But we were looking in the deli case and it all looked good. So we ordered the only thing that seemed logical. A cheese and meats plate. We ordered from the guy at the counter, but of course Stein put it together. He even sliced the meats himself. He asked if we wanted lunch or a snack. We said a snack. Good thing we said snack. The board we got was huge. It must have been 3/4 a pound of cheese and 1/2 a pound of meat. I wish I had taken a picture. I wish I could tell you what the meats were. You know, a bunch of cured salame-like meats of different sizes and proscuitto. I was buzzing a little I think, from the heat, from the abitas and the crawfish. So I don't know what they were. But I can tell you that there was St. Andre cheese, which I had been thinking about, RRF too, so it was great to get that one. We also got Cashel Blue, which is nice, and then a firm goats milk cheese. Obviously everything was great. And the bread! He gave us two nice loaves of like muffaletta bread. Nice and hot. God, that bread was defuckingeatyourassoutlicious. (No, I'm not sure what that means. That's jut how good the bread was) RRF ended up eating a lot of it though. I ate until I thought I might vomit. Stein gave us a nice discount, and RRF paid the $26 tab, which was nice. So after that, it was time to head back and maybe catch a nap before dinner...
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