James just walked into my office offering a spatula full of goodness: "king cake cracklins," or icing, butter, and cinnamon that he scraped up from around the edges of the king cake he's making.
(Did you know I got to know this amazing man in a kitchen? Our first date was on the Saturday before Mardi Gras, 12 years back. We'd been working together 14 hour days for 2 weeks at a cafe right on the parade route near Louisiana Avenue. We decided to have a little fun before the season ended by closing up after the Saturday parades and heading down to the Marigny. When he walked me all the way home because the streetcars weren't running, I knew this might last past Lundi Gras.)
We're having some dear New Orleans friends over for dinner (all the way down from Park Slope :) There will be crawfish gumbo for dinner and great Mardi Gras mixes this year from Brent, and from years past from Kat and Alex (Oh ye Royal Duke and Duchess of Schweg, may I please have my copy of 2009?). I'm hoarding a big mason jar of doubloons I inherited that goes back to parades that rolled in 1969. They've got Abita at my local beerstore. So we're all set to laissez les bon temps rouler.
I feel like the Queen of Rex in exile.
Can't wait to go down for a long visit in March. We're gonna see Celeste shoot her own wedding, check out Cedric and Mia's contemporary art gallery AMMO, visit our peoples on Laurel street. Then I'll head to Monroe for a week with family. Call me then if you wanna hear me slide into my native accent.
Hope you all have a good gras, but if you're finding it hard to get your funky on, call us a little later on, and I'll see if I can't hook you up with a bowl of James's gumbo.
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