Leaving New Orleans – Moving On
A full year and a full season have passed since I left New Orleans. I began a journey – a longer one than I thought it would be – of resettling in a new house, in California. For those of you who haven’t figured it out yet, I have ended up in the East Bay Area, where I went to both college and to culinary school, and where I have a community of long-time friends. New Orleans, at this moment, is in the height of Carnival season, which will culminate on Mardi Gras, next week. The celebrations and parades have resumed, in full force, after being cancelled last year, and I am feeling nostalgic for the city. I had so many what I can only describe as magical moments there – sitting in the Jazz Tent at Jazz Fest, thrilling to the sound of beating drums of marching bands as they approached along St. Charles Avenue and feeling the excitement as the first neon lit float approach. I’ve eaten meals that were a revelation, and marveled at giant bowing limbs of ancient oaks. I’ve walked past colorful, abundant gardens and landscapes that enchanted and awed me. I loved my charming 140 year old house – a house that delighted me as I entered the front door and was embraced by the vibrantly warm colors – the rusty orange, taupe and salmon. I loved – thanks to its shotgun layout – the view of each room, framed and topped with a lintel, unfolding into the next. But sadly, I came to learn that one can enjoy, appreciate, love spending time with, and even, truly love something, somewhere or someone, but sometimes still cannot spend the rest of our life living with them. So – it was time to move on. My new house looks through large picture windows and sliding glass doors onto a tranquil, almost forested, scene. I can sit on my wrap-around deck and listen to the creek that runs just below the the property. In the summer, I sometimes had a little doe who visited near the creek, and I love watching the hawks fly overhead. It is a lovely sanctuary, so I really have to be grateful for each new adventure that life brings, right? Who knows what’s coming up next in life? But whatever it is, this last year plus’s experience has taught me I must be open to...
read moreVisiting Montgomery, Alabama
This is the sign that greeted me, painted on the side of the building as I drove up to the Legacy Museum. On a long winter’s weekend – before this period of “self-isolation” we all currently find ourselves in, before Ahmaud Arbery, Breanna Taylor and then George Floyd, before this momentous period of civil unrest, and after a couple of days in Pensacola, Florida, I headed north to Montgomery, Alabama – the first home of the Confederacy. It was mixed kind of weekend getaway. Pensacola is mostly a beach town – although, as it was the first settlement by Europeans in the U.S., one visits the town center for the early American history. While Montgomery is mostly – maybe only – a town one visits if interested in civil rights history. It wasn’t like the issue of our civil rights history didn’t come up in Pensacola, either, though. The Florida Panhandle is still the Deep South. I signed up for a local historical tour of the old town area while there. In chatting with the tour guide, my interest in history became clear to him – he liked that, but (don’t ask me how it happened) it wasn’t long before the issue of Confederate monuments and the Civil War came up. He told me that the Civil War was fought over taxes. I said, everything in this country – taxes, the electoral college, gun rights and the 2nd Amendment – they all have their roots in slavery. Thankfully, the only others on the tour were a couple from Canada. They knew where I was coming from, and I felt silent sympathy and support from them. I don’t think I could have stood a Southern couple traveling along. And thankfully the tour guide was amiable, and ended by saying “well, at least you love history, and I can see that you’re passionate about this”. So it was from there, that I headed to Alabama, into the belly of the beast, “the coffin” as Ta-Nehisi Coates calls it in his newly released novel, The Water Dancer: A Novel, which I had recently read. There was a line stretching down the block to enter the museum when I drove by. And after wandering a while around downtown Montgomery looking for a parking space, I finally made it there by mid-afternoon. The area is a somewhat jarring mix of civil rights monuments (the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church, the Southern Poverty Law Center’s Civil Rights Monument designed by Maya Lin, the Rosa Parks Museum) right alongside Alabama state office buildings and ever present reminders of its Confederacy past. Southern Poverty Law Center’s Civil Rights Monument I decided after being told tickets to the museum had to be purchased at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, commonly referred to as the lynching memorial (The Legacy Museum and the Memorial are two parts of the museum at separate locations a few blocks from each other), and that there was good chance I wouldn’t get into the museum that afternoon, I decided to go to my hotel and try again early Sunday morning. It was a drizzly morning, as I drove through Montgomery, trying my best to follow the GPS, when there – I saw them in the distance, peeking through the houses of the nondescript...
read moreHoney Harvesting at La Provence
A visit to La Provence, John Besh’s country restaurant with small backyard farm, yields facts about bee keeping and honey harvesting.
read moreSometimes money is the cheapest way out
My coach made this statement to me earlier this week. It's a statement I couldn't agree with more when it comes to hiring a caterer. A few years back someone I know well (who shall remain nameless!) had a big bash to celebrate her 50th birthday. She was trying to save money, so decided to do the work herself. She selected a great menu (she is a great cook), planned her shopping and prep work, shopped for a couple of days, cooked for a couple of days, pulled out all her serving platters, bowls and utensils, and decorated her buffet table. And then, of course, she had to clean her kitchen before her guests showed up, since we all know guests always like to hang out in the kitchen. Especially when the hostess is still doing last minute cooking when her guests show up. She was at least smart enough to hire a helper to be there at the time of the party. The night before the party the hostess/honoree tossed and turned in her sleep being overtired and concerned about everything going well. She hadn't spent time deciding what she was going to wear at the party, and still wasn't quite dressed before the first few guests started showing up, and she didn't have time to fix her hair the way she would have liked. While her guest all heartily enjoyed her party, she was pretty exhausted through it all. Her helper had kept the kitchen clean during the party, and was able to wash many of the platters and serving dishes, but when she woke up the next morning, she still had to pack them, along with all the table cloths, away again. Later that day she had to return the items she had rented. A couple of years later, I catered a 50th birthday party for a client. I met her at her home a couple of weeks before her party. Together we walked through her home and yard, decided where we would place buffet and guests tables. I was able to see what her decorative sense was. It was clear that she loved lots of color, so I made a point of bringing brightly colored fabrics to drape her buffet table. On the day of her party, my staff and I arrived a couple of hours before her guests were scheduled to arrive. She let us in, said hello to everyone, then disappeared into her private quarters from which she emerged an hour or so later looking fabulous- coiffed, made-up and dressed to kill. She greeted her guests in a relaxed manner and partied hard all night long. My staff greeted her guests as soon as they arrived with drinks, passed hors d'oeuvre and at the appropriate time, a beautifully appointed buffet. At the end of the night, when my staff and I had put away the leftover food, packed up all the serving pieces I had brought, we stopped off to say goodbye to my client, who was still enjoying drinks with her last few guests. I'm sure she slept in the next morning. The contrast between these two provided a stark lesson for me. While it certainly cost more to hire a caterer, isn't it nice to really be able to enjoy your...
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