Mardi Gras, Tuesday, February 12, 2013.
Rex And Friends Ignore Drizzle. Crescent City Steak House Becomes Galatoire's For A Day.
When Mardi Gras comes early, the danger looms of its running through cold, moist weather. As recently as yesterday, the forecasts called for an almost continuous rain, dumping an inch of precip across the entire area. It didn't happen. A brief, light sprinkle sent people under cover a few times. A gloomy overcast ruled the sky. But it wasn't cold, and we didn't have to wear sunscreen, either.
I had a new partner for my perennial broadcast from Gallier Hall, where first King Zulu and then Rex stop to be saluted by the mayor. Jay Vise came to the radio station years ago as a newsman. He now manages the multimedia aspect of WWL's website. He is one of the better sources of current jokes in the halls of our studios. He gets my sense of humor, and I his. And he knows how to coax fun answers from maskers on the street. I hope we can keep our team together. He made the three hours I was on the air easy. The bosses even liked our show.
Rex's famous Boeuf Gras float, putting us in mind of steaks with riders dresses as chefs and the aroma of barbecue issuing forth..
Mary Ann drove in with me. She'd make a good radio foil for me, too, but the management doesn't like the idea. She had a good party to attend, anyway: the finale in Kevin Kelly's series of Carnival bashes, a few blocks away. She said the food was even better than it was at Kevin's black-tie party last Friday.
Miracle: our WWL Radio broadcast ended at exactly the moment the Rex parade did, thereby saving me the pain of trying to figure out what to say about the hundred or so truck floats that follow Rex.
Time for the boeuf gras--my very traditional Mardi Gras meal, at the Crescent City Steak House. But first we had to get there. Mary Ann doesn't like being told how to make her way around town, and rejected my route, even after I told her that there are some unexpected areas of the city where one can really get jammed in on this day. To get to the Crescent City, my time-tested strategy involves getting around the Zulu Social Aid and Pleasure Club's headquarters, which is a few blocks from the restaurant. The clubhouse is a very busy place on Mardi Gras. All the Zulu parade members end up there.
Mary Ann's plan, after she rejected mine, sounded good: get around the truck parade by sticking close to the river and heading downtown, then getting to Broad Street by way of Esplanade. I did not tell her that this would be impossible, mainly because she would have disregarded the advice. To go that way requires inching through the immense crowd that fills North Claiborne Avenue in the Treme district, and all the side streets for many blocks in every direction.
And we did indeed get integrated tightly into this happy mass of people, and creeped along for forty-five minutes. I have known about this dense street party since I was a little kid, living a few blocks away on the corner of Ursulines and Marais. It has only grown since then. I got caught in it a few years ago trying to give a ride home to Pal Al Nasser, who used to do the Gallier Hall show with me.
Of course, I kept my mouth shut. MA creates all her own guilty feelings, with no help needed from me. I didn't care, anyway. It's Mardi Gras! So what if we get there a half-hour later than usual!
Thank God for Krasna Vojkovich. She is the wife of the Crescent City's late founder and the owner of the place. She and her son Anthony saved a table of eight for me. It was just me and Mary Ann, though. To keep from abusing the Vojkovich's hospitality, I invited six of the people waiting for tables to join me. They were all there because they heard me talking about the idea of big fat steak on Mardi Gras, so they eagerly accepted the invitation.
The place was full of Eat Clubbers and other regulars for this annual event. When I saw Clark Marter step up to our table, I stood up with my wine glass and a spoon to bang on it with. "Ladies and gentlemen," I shouted to the packed main dining room. "There are three things I must tell you. First, Happy Mardi Gras!" This brought forth a loud cheer from the crowd, about an eight out of ten on a sound monitor. "Second, I'm Tom Fitzmorris." (Four or five on the applause meter.) "Finally, I give you. . . Clark The Gourmet Truck Driver!" Applause went off the scale. Pandemonium. Several ladies got up and gave Clark kisses and hugs.
Not long after, Tom and Lynn Long appeared from out of the crowd. I've known Tom since we were both at Jesuit, and Lynn and I worked together at the old WGSO in the late 1970s. They had just finished eating, and had an interesting perspective. "Imagine what Galatoire's would be like today if it were open," Tom said. "But they're not open, so that party is here!" Exactly so. Half the people at the Crescent City knew the other half, and were walking around socializing and acting like it was Mardi Gras. Exactly like a Galatoire's Friday lunch. What a world!
The food was good. Krasna favored us with her tripe stew, a pasta dish stuffed with beef and cheese, some Croatian cheese, and dried figs from her own trees. None of this is on the menu--it's just an expression of her niceness, as well as her pride in her homeland.
From the standard menu MA and I split a porterhouse. She took the tenderloin portion and sent it back to be burned. The strip loin portion was rare and just right. Perhaps too big, but I consumed about two-thirds of it. The epitome of the boeuf gras, sizzling in butter.
Retired veterinarian and oenophile Tom David brought by the remains of a good bottle of Cabernet. Other people sauntered over with bottles and shared. I discovered that the upstairs dining room was full, and so was the little first-floor private room. As people finished eating, the tables turned, but the stand-up bar didn't have an empty spot, and people were milling around in the parking lot.
It all added up to the happiest Mardi Gras I've had in a long time. I started having a Carnival steak at the Crescent City over thirty years ago, when I was about the only one dining there that day. Now it's a habit for at least a few hundred people. May it outlive all of us.
Crescent City Steak House. Mid-City: 1001 N Broad. 504-821-3271.
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