March 2 & 3: Mini-Muffulettas. Red Beans Against The Cold.

[title type="h5"]Sunday, March 2, 2014.[/title] The weather has been nice, allowing the super-krewes Endymion and Bacchus to roll their parades to big crowds yesterday and today. Mary Ann attended the former with her siblings, and before that hung out at her brother's Uptown place. I only bring this up because she brought home from a pair of mini-muffulettas, which I put away as my supper. It was just those two things and one of the biscuits I baked this morning to get me thorough the day. I felt hungry in the afternoon, but that's a feeling I welcome. You can't lose weight without feeling hungry. That's my theory, anyway. [divider type=""] [title type="h5"]Lundi Gras, Monday, March 3, 2014. Red Beans And Hot Sausage Versus The Cold. [/title] It's hard to be lieve that it's three years and a little bit since that fateful Lundi Gras evening when, at the Windsor Court Hotel, I collapsed in an elevator and broke my left ankle. That fact dominated my life for months. Now, with hardly any remnant of the accident affecting me, it's as if it hadn't happened. The only lasting effect is that I never have more than one cocktail anymore. Mary Ann was across the lake with her sisters again, going to the parades, even though the weather was taking a turn to the Arctic. The bunch of them saw Orpheus from the perfect vantage point: Kevin Kelly's balcony on St. Charles Avenue. It didn't hurt for there to be a buffet of Chef Jeremy Langlois's food from Houmas House Plantation. In late afternoon, I went to dinner at Camellia Café. We don't go there often enough. The menu is solid New Orleans eats, served insanely generously and tasting good. Which is just what you want from a plate of red beans and rice with hot sausage--the perfect meal on Lundi Gras in New Orleans. All I had besides that was a salad, so I saw room for bread pudding. I keep forgetting that the Camellia Cafe's bread pudding comes out on a plate big enough for four people to have dessert. What's more, it's the only restaurant bread pudding I know about made with a layer of meringue over the top. That's my mother's distinctive recipe for the classic New Orleans dessert. I wonder why so few restaurants make it that way. On the way home, it was raining a little and getting colder fast. The predictions for the weather on Mardi Gras do not look good. [title type="h5"]Camellia Cafe. Abita Springs: 69455 LA 59. 985-809-6313. [/title]