Mardi Gras Finale

I must say that I have impeccable timing. I managed to put off succumbing to the bug that’s been going around until after Mardi Gras was over. Once the thing did get a hold of me, it certainly didn’t waste any time knocking me on my ass. I haven’t been able to breathe easily, walk straight, or think clearly in two days. Ok so the only thing unusual is the breathing but stay with me here. Clearly, after taking five days off for Carnival, I very well couldn’t call in sick to work. So I managed to tough it out for two of the crazy busiest days of the 2005 liberry calendar thus far. It seems the kids are all trying to get their assignments done at the last minute before the Mardi Gras holidays are over; nothing new. Add to that, about a thousand projects that I’m too dizzy to think about now and you’ve got a couple of miserable post Mardi Gras days for Jeffrey there.
But as a wise man once said, fuck a buncha work. The Fat Tuesday photos you’ve been waiting for are finally here.


Look! Pirates!


Hail Rex. King of Carnival


Hail Jeffrey. King of the Drunks


Jeffrey: Look it's Bo Dollis
Daisy: Who's Bo Dollars?

I didn't feel like "Helloing" these myself so I stole them from Daisy's site where there are more.

To complete a Carnival season in which I hardly missed a single event, I managed to see as much of Tuesday as I possibly could. When the silver sequins on the Zulu King’s headdress reflected the first sunshine of the day on Jackson Avenue, I stopped worrying about the weather. After all the fretting about rain, we ended up with a near perfect, if a little muggy, day.

One of my favorite parts of every Mardi Gras morning happens when all the folks who have camped out and erected ladders facing the right side of St. Charles, suddenly realize that Rex is coming up the wrong side of the street. They cross the over during the Garden District portion of their route so that the King of Carnival can stop and toast in front of the Downman House at the corner of Third Street. The crowd displacement usually makes for a lot of elbow room on my side of St. Charles. It’s a great spot to see Rex. Don’t tell too many people I told you that.

Much of the rest of the morning was spent waiting for the red beans to cook while marching around the Uptown/Central City area looking for Indians. We saw a few but they weren’t ready to start moving yet. Once the truck parades started coming by, Daisy took a nap and I managed to out on the bicycle for a while. In addition to finally catching a few Indians, I also made it up to the Claiborne Avenue overpass where r’s people were all camped out.

We finished up downtown at the Alibi, some of us barely able to stand, eating chicken fingers and nachos waiting for the grand midnight clearing of the streets to wash over before heading home. Having partied to the point of exhaustion, we didn’t see the point in sticking around for the “after party.”

Jeffrey’s Great Big Pot of Carnival Red Beans
Soak overnight 2 pounds of Camelia brand red beans in a big pot
Remove beans from pot and drain
In that same pot, brown 1 pound of sliced smoked sausage in about ¼ stick of butter.

Quick aside re. butter: If your mamma had taught you anything about cooking, it would have been the importance of working a stick of butter into every recipe. This applies to just about anything from a pot of red beans to a bowl of cornflakes to a glass of ice water. Stick of butter makes it better.

Remove sausage from pot. Add a little more butter and sauté chopped onion, celery, bell pepper, and garlic.

Theological aside: New Orleanians will recognize the those first three vegetables as the “holy trinity” of creole cooking. I have long held that had St. Patrick gotten a hold of a four leaf clover, we’d be obliged to throw a little garlic in there too. As it is, I always do it anyway.

When the vegetables are ready, return the beans to the pot and cover with water.
Add the smoked sausage and about a pound of chopped pickled pork.
Season with salt, pepper, red pepper, bay leaf, and with a liberal sprinkling of thyme.

More food theology: Notice that this dish is almost as much about the pork as it is about the beans. It so happens that on the day that God made the pig, He immediately recognized that He needed something to put on it. Hence, thyme.

Simmer on low heat (drop a little butter in there while you’re at it) for hours and hours until creamy.

If you start these around 7:30 am, they should be ready to eat around 1 pm.