If, for whatever reason, you've decided to make Oshun's Friday night procession through Uptown your first ever experience of a Mardi gras parade, don't expect to be blown away. This parade is as bare bones simple as they get. There are about 15 or so floats even the largest of which are light enough to be pulled by pickup trucks and vans. The riders aren't throwing much. Our entire haul tonight consisting of one toy tomahawk plus one frisbee recycled from an Endymion parade is pictured below.
On the other hand, if it's your first time around, there's no better introduction to the basic template than this. Slight crowd, uncomplicated floats, one or two dance teams, and several very good marching bands like Mcdonough 35 here.
The cynic may come away from this parade feeling a bit ripped off but I don't think that's the right attitude to take. Often this time of year we will resort to a cliche which reminds us that Mardi Gras is a marathon, not a sprint. If that's true, then Oshun is only the first quarter mile and all we're trying to do is get our feet moving and find a comfortable pace.
To that end, we decided to go ahead and take the opportunity to experiment a little here in the early going. Earlier, I'd said that I was contemplating making my own king cake flavored vodka on the cheap. Well... yep pretty much.
As you can see, what we've done here is we've broken off a little chunk of plain Rouses king cake and dropped it into a shot glass filled with regular Stolichnaya. That's step one. Step two is... well actually that's pretty much it. What happened next was I just left this on the counter and moved on to drinking Abita Jockamo IPA which is conveniently now available in cans just in time for parade season.
By the way, I don't understand why anyone would want to complain about having a parade in cold weather. I can fit a large number of these cans in my jacket pockets for easy carrying. And, of course, they stay cold longer there in this weather. This is what I took with me on a walk around the neighborhood scouting out parade route food.
The only discovery of note is that Le Viet Cafe near St. Charles and Jackson is offering a $5 breakfast special this year (Eggs, grits, and biscuit or sausage) that I may have to take them up on at some point. Either that or just order the pho which is every bit as effective as a hangover cure.
After the brief walk came the parade, which didn't take long, and then it was back home where the slice of cake had begun to dissolve into that vodka still sitting out in the kitchen. It tasted... sugary... cakey... and only slightly vodka-ey on account of all the sugar having taken the edge off. Not being a fan of any flavored vodkas, I'll defer to Menckles who says it's actually better than the now famous Lucky Player King Cake vodka she tasted a few days ago. I realize that's not saying much.
Anyway if you must do this horrible thing to either your king cake or your vodka this year... and I've got a feeling it will be all the rage... rest assured in the knowledge that it isn't the worst of all possible combinations. This is.
That's a raw oyster and horseradish sauce suspended in a shot of vodka which the good people at Acme are all too happy to sell to any idiot who asks them to. Take it from this idiot, that shit could definitely use a little icing.
No comments:
Post a Comment