Things aren't that bad.

A lot of the pundit class are always saying "It's not that bad." George Will and David Brooks love to swing that way. It usually means some vareation on "Shut-up and be glad you have a job." Now when I say it it's because while the fight goes on things do get better once and awhile. I just stumbled across this video by accident, but give it a watch. I don't care about Hunter Thompson grizzled hack writer and faux tough guy nor do I care about the hells angel hack humane being and faux tough guy. What facinates me about this is the studio audience. The last 2 minutes are amazing.



If you still don't know what I am talking about you might want to give yourself a gut check. Since when is it hilarious to talk about beating your wife, ecspecially when your buddy actually did the deed. Since when would a television host allow that to go unchallanged? Plus he cuts off the one person, Thompson, who seems to find the "beat women" thing offensive. That tape is only 40 years old. Where's Oprah when you need her?

So we are evolving. We may be trigger happy apes with narsistic personality disorder that write women tweaking blogs, but we are light years ahead of that studio audience. Not being a wife beater is no reason to pat yourself on the back, but it is an improvement over actually doing it then thinking it is perfct audience entertainment. To PC? I don't think so. So here's to us evolving even if we have to keep trying. Makes me want some cold beer and some grown-up food.

Mmmm! processed meat!

Don't you get tired of the usual beer food? I do. So today we are going to make pate. There is an accent mark over the e, but I am keyboard illiterate. There are several kinds but we are going for a classic silky pate which is really a dip that will stop you heart. Then because Erin asked nicely and I am feeling good about everyone being so evolved we'll do a country style tureen.

Carnival; It's everybody's party.

Who said Fat Tuesday and Carnival belong to New Orleans? They are kicking it all through South America, the Caribbean, and southern Europe this week. Anywhere catholics hang out. So there's Mighty Sparrow another famous guy that you probably never heard of because you live in the United States. Now I know you're not digging on those tunes, but for today just let yourself go. You're on a cruise ship, it's hot, even if you'd never buy his record, you're knocking back rum punches and having a great time. In America it should be all melting pot all the time, so let's move from your ears to your mouth.

                                           Manuel González Olaechea y 

A little ceviche maybe? Hey, you've been doing sushi for about 15 years now so you know you're ready for this. What! OK you sissies, not too much new odd stuff in one post. Instead of fish we will use shrimp.

Get a pound of small to medium shell on shrimp, a habanero or serrano pepper, a medium purple onion, 3 limes, 1 orange, 1 tablespoon catsup, fresh cilantro if you like cilantro, parsley if you are a complete sissy.

1. Get a pot of salted water to boiling, toss in the shrimp. 2 minutes tops. Drain and hit with cold water.
2. Peel and devein the shrimp. Lose the tails. If you are using medium cut them in half.
3. Cut the pepper in half. You can take away a lot of the heat if you lose the seeds and the white membrane inside. Cut it in very thin strips.
4. Peel the onion. Cut it in half, then slice it very thin.
5. Chop the cilantro, or the parsley (sissy)
6. Mix everything in a bowl then chill for 2 hours so the acid from the citrus has time to permeate the shrimp.
7. Serve with crackers, tortilla chips, crudites, whatever you want.

 If you are feeling brave and you trust your fish monger just get a nice piece of white fish like flounder, cut it into a 1 inch dice, skip the boiling water and combine everything in the bowl. Give it 4 hours instead of 2. I'll be the guy in back dancing around in a Hawaiian shirt and a speedo.

It must be good, It's Authentic!

Time to get our Mardi Gras party rolling. We're going to have some authentic food, play some authentic jazz, drink authentic cocktails, get authentically banged up, no, no, no... We're going to have a great time, eat some tasty food, drink dangerous cocktails and definitely get banged up. It's Fat Tuesday! They had Fat Tuesday in Germany 500 years before New Orleans ever existed. That's the beauty of the place. It is as American as it gets. French settlers, Spanish settlers, slaves from west africa, Native Americans, Acadians banished from the Maritime provinces , Colonists from the first push west, people following the Mississippi south; all kinds of people from all kinds of places showing up in one spot. Maybe they wanted to, maybe they had to, but there they were blending their music, their culture, their lives with the local flora and fauna. Authentic New Orleans just means you picked a point in history and decided that everything that happened before isn't important. Authentic New Orleans means you picked a point in history and decided that everything that happened after isn't important. Authentic... it's the death of New Orleans, it will be the death of America.

Did that sound preachy? It did didn't it? My bad, we're supposed to be getting ready to party! So forget authentic. What kind of a party do you get from authentic anyway...

                                           Arria Belli

"Hey Babe! I'll go try to kill something that tastes good or at least something we can digest. I should be back in 3 days unless it kills me first. You take the kids down by the river and see if those red berries are safe to eat. Give them to little Johnny first, he's looking a little scrawny and we need to figure out if he can survive the winter."

Even the loin cloths put a crimp in things. Trust me, me in a loin cloth, unless the room is very, very, very dark, is going to be a buzz kill. So if we are going to leave the authentic cuisine to run free out in the woods, and we are going to protect the eye sight of all by including a blanket to cover my loin clothed form, how do we get this party started?



There we go. Fat's is a little old school for modern tastes, but that will take care of itself after a few sazeracs. If you don't like Fats play something else. You won't hurt my feelings. I just figured that since this is a web sight about food, politics, our dumb culture, our brilliant culture, history, art, life-style and me bloviating, you might like to try some things that you aren't familiar with. So now that we have the music on track how about some food? We started our roux yesterday so in keeping with the spirit of New Orleans how about some gumbo?