[title type="h5"]Mardi Gras! Tuesday, February 17, 20115.
Angela's Gloves. The Hottest Restaurant In New Orleans Today.
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Only half of the bad weather forecast for today comes to pass. The rain ended overnight, and all the parades rolled as planned. But temperatures are as chilly as expected--in the high thirties, amplified by an insistent north wind. I arrive at Lafayette Square around a quarter to ten, and mount the consolidated broadcast platform for all the television stations. We are displaced this year from our usual spot on the steps of Gallier Hall, across the street. Some structural problems with the old city hall keep us from being there today.
Angela Hill--the only reporter here who has broadcast this spectacle more times than I have--greets me with a welcome offer. "Would you like a pair of gloves?" she asks. I remember that she made the same gesture last year, when the weather was even colder. I meant to buy a pair for myself, but gloves are not on my wardrobe list, and I forgot. These plain black loaners alleviate some of the sting, but after a half-hour my fingertips have begun to turn white, even though I am well layered.
I wonder about the young women in the bands and dance teams that fill the gaps between Zulu's many floats. That parade is running well ahead of schedule, and it only stops a few times. How do the baton twirlers show off their skills? Especially the throwing and most especially the catching of their spinning sticks in these temperatures? They can't wear gloves, can they? But most of these girls have bare legs. How can they stand it? Angela tells me that they're wearing hosiery that holds in more warmth than one would think. I'm glad somebody here understands women's wear.
And then I am thunderstruck by Channel Four weatherman Carl Arredondo's getup. His face is made up in black and white--not in the Zulu minstrel style, but like a member of the rock group Kiss. Much more shocking is his costume, which has him more or less naked from the waist up. How could he not know it was going to be frigid today? Did he lose a bet with another weatherman? He is a brave man.
About an hour into our broadcast comes a moment I will never forget. The overcast clouds have been thinning out all morning, but now the sun jumps into a blue hole and send bright beams down. The whole crowd breaks into applause. It's the first ovation I ever saw the sun receive outside an eclipse.
Zulu trucks on by, and here comes Rex, dappled with sunshine. He was selected unanimously by the School of Design (as the Rex organization is officially called), save for one dissenting vote: his own. Christopher Brown is a successful businessman (chairman of the board of Tabasco, among other involvements), and very active in the community his entire life. I skim past all the details looking for one datum--ah, here it is. Yes, I suspected this. Some years ago, for the first time, Rex was younger than I was by a few months. That began a trend, and the trend has reached a new milestone: Rex 2015 is ten years younger than me. Someone mentioned that Chris Brown is the first brown-haired (as opposed to gray) Rex in history. He's not--I looked it up on the wall of the Rex Room at Antoine's. But there haven't been many.
The parade's theme is excellent. Each float recalls a war that occurred early in the history of America, and explains what the upshot of the fracas was. The cavalcade ends very appropriately with the Battle Of New Orleans, which five weeks ago passed its two-hundredth anniversary.
Angela Hill offers to stay the full four hours that I will be here, instead of leaving as scheduled at one. I tell her it's not necessary, that I have been doing the last hour of the parade solo for many years. But now I think I should have asked her to remain, because she seemed to be having a good time. Or, I may just be flattering myself.
Rex's passage at Gallier Hall ends exactly at two o'clock. I have missed nothing but the truck floats that follow, but that is a plus. I make for my car and drive directly to the Crescent City Steak House, where I will indulge my own tradition of three decades standing. The eating of le boeuf gras, and thereby fulfilling the farewell-to-meat meaning of the word "carnival."
The Crescent City is one of the oldest steakhouses in town, having opened in 1936 as a place for guys who had a good day at the nearby Fair Grounds to celebrate their windfalls. Even though it's always served dry-aged USDA Prime beef, it's an unprepossessing neighborhood café, with prices to match. While most other first-class steakhouses are long past the $40 or even $50 line for their steaks, the Crescent City still sells their main cuts for less than $30. For the first twenty years I dined there, it only rarely had many other customers in the house. On some of my early Mardi Gras dinners, I was the only one.
But no more. Krasna Vojkovich--whose late husband opened the Crescent City--tells me that it filled up the moment the door opened. Now, at two-thirty, it is not only full in all its dining rooms (there's one in back of the bar, and another one upstairs), but about twenty people stand at the bar, another twenty cluster inside the entrance, and another twenty or more stand in the parking lot.
But they always save a table for me. As soon as I sit down, I circulate among the waiting people and invite the ones I know to join me. This year we host Clark, the Gourmet Truck Driver and his wife. Dr. Tom David, a retired veterinarian for horses who is also an oenophile. He always brings an interesting bottle of something big, old, and rich to share. He is there with his wife. And one more couple and a single who have attended Eat Club dinners in the past.
I find many other friends in the room. Dave Lagarde, retired sportswriter for the Times-Picayune. Tom and Lynn Long, who I just know from past decades. Two UNO fraternity brothers of mine. And many other Eat Clubbers.
Also here is a surprising number of restaurateurs taking the day off. Susan Spicer. Frank and Marna Brigtsen. Rodney Salvaggio and Paul Varisco, two of the three owners of Mr. John's Steak House and Desi Vega's Steakhouse. Given the excellence of those two places, their presence says something big about the Crescent City.
I get the same impression I had last year: this little old restaurant in its funny old neighborhood is, on Mardi Gras, comparable to Friday lunch at Galatoire's. Indeed, it's a lot of the same customers here and there. How did such a phenomenon get started?
"You know what started it!" Mary Ann says. "And every time you say you're not taking credit for it, everybody knows that you are taking credit for it!" Mary Ann always has my number.
Anthony Vojkovich--son of the founder--takes care of our table personally. He knows I don't mind if we have gaps in the service, as he and the rest of the staff battle their way though this barrage of customers. You don't go to the Crescent City on Mardi Gras if you're in a hurry. I am just happy to be here, surrounded by friends, people in costumes, and lots of purple, green, and gold.
In between, Krasna brings us a few treats. First, the tripe stew she makes for us every year. Several people eat tripe for the first time in their lives--at least knowingly. Krasna also makes some small pastries filled with mushrooms, onions, a little cheese and anchovies that we find tasty. And some fresh collard greens she grew in her own garden.
Then we have steak, of course. Evenly divided among filets and strip sirloins, sizzling in butter (that idea was created in this place). Broccoli and potatoes au gratin. Fresh-cut fries which, in alkl my years, I don't remember ever having had. If I did, these are much better than those.
Our table breaks up at a bit after six--almost four hours and five bottles of wine (for eight people? is that all?) after I arrived. Mary Ann, who came to this carnival once years ago and never came back, is astonished when I don't get home until seven-thirty. She calls at 11 p.m. She and Mary Leigh have just arrived at the airport from Los Angeles, and they have both a flat tire and a dead battery. She says I should not worry, let alone come to get her, as I offer to do. A guy at the airport jump-starts dead-battery cars. When she gets the car started she plugs in her air pump and fills the tire, and gets home at one-thirty in the morning. Weeks later, she will still not have replaced either the tire nor the battery. How can she live like that? And skip town for Mardi Gras, too?
[title type="h5"]Crescent City Steak House. Mid-City: 1001 N Broad. 504-821-3271. [/title]
