Monday, October 31, 2011.
Unspooked By A Buffet.
Halloween. The word from the street is that it's too dangerous for kids to be out there without close parental supervision. And sometimes too dangerous even with the parents. A lot of kids aren't hitting the streets at all, but going to well-planned, safe parties. Boo to that!
I think the shrinking of Halloween started when I was in my late teens. The holiday was in its prime when I was eleven and twelve and thirteen. My buds and I covered a vast amount of territory in what was not yet called River Ridge, and came home with so much candy that it became difficult to carry it all.
In college Halloween was still a special night, but with trick-or-treating replaced by drinking. My friend Alan Francingues--who also had ranged widely on Halloween in The Day--told me that his ten-year-old brother Kenny (who would later be a football star at Tulane) was limited in his costumed quest to one block of their safe Metairie neighborhood. "What kind of crap is that?" Alan exclaimed, completely disgusted by the wimpiness of it all.
As in all other matters that remind her of the golden years of our kids' lives, Mary Ann tried to recapture the spirit by giving out candy at her sister's house. Still a lot of little kids in that neighborhood, but not as many as when Jude and Mary Leigh were that age. She came home with a lot of surplus candy. Good stuff, too. I hope she gets rid of it before I begin working on it.
Earlier in the day, Mary Ann declared hunger for lunch. I talked her into the Camellia Café, which has begun advertising on both the website and the radio show. I needed to flesh out my data to do the commercials. "Uh-oh," she said. "It's fried chicken buffet day over there." I knew that. What I wanted was a plate of red beans. I could pass easily enough on the chicken.
Mary Ann could not. She returned from the buffet--which has tripled in size since the last time we were here--with three pieces of fried chicken. "They just brought it out," she said, "so I got some for you, too." We both knew that was not her intention, and that by God she was going to eat all three pieces.
It turned out that the boofay had everything I wanted: salad, soup (chicken with bowtie noodles), and red beans and rice. I disdain buffets, but like most guidelines for eating that one has exceptions. Red beans actually get better in a steam table. (Anyway, even when served a la carte, a steam table is where red beans comes from.) The same is true of most soups. The lettuce looked crisp enough. The bread pudding was cut into modest cubes, and I could get away with eating just one. Ten bucks, and I am fed as well as I can imagine from a boofay.
Camellia Cafe. Abita Springs: 69455 LA 59. 985-809-6313.
