Saturday, April 14, 2012.
French Quarter Festival.
Back in 1994, I inherited an annual remote broadcast on WWL from the French Quarter Festival. Chef Buster Ambrosia had hosted it for many years. Even after the station spun off his Sunday cooking program (I don't know why; everybody loved Buster), they kept this remote, even expanding it as more days were added to the event.
I say all this to give this observation extra force: it's hard to imagine the French Quarter Festival getting any bigger. It's hard to move around in Jackson Square, from which we broadcast. But the much greater availability of music and food at nearby Woldenberg Park, along the riverfront, is drawing crowds only be surpassed the Mardi Gras throngs on Bourbon street.
When Mary Ann and I left at four (we had been there since about eleven-thirty), it took twenty-five minutes to move the six blocks from St. Peter Street to Canal. I wanted to check in on some of the food booths in Woldenberg, but couldn't get close to them.
The quality of the food continues to improve. The best dish I had was the crawfish and shrimp voodoo pasta from Maximo's--but that could be because it was the first thing I tried. Tommy Wong from Trey Yuen was there with a new dish (vegetarian lo mein) in addition to the ones Trey Yuen has served since the first FQF in 1984 (crawfish in lobster sauce, egg rolls, and crawfish and shrimp fried rice). Sonny Vaucresson visited with his matchless chaurice (Creole hot sausage).
Of the new items this year, the one that grabbed me most was from a doughnut shop. Blue Dot used its long-john doughnut as the bread for a sadnwich of pulled pork and cole slaw, both with an ansian tinge. This was magnificent, and even better if you left the doughnut alone.
K-Paul's Louisiana Kitchen--here for the first time--created a long line for its Butterbeans That Make You Crazy (with its side order of spicy poultry and pork). A roast beef poor boy made with prime rib from Dickie Brennan's Steak House, and a barbecue shrimp poor boy from the Bourbon House. Baked Alaska from Antoine's, which shuttled the dessert from the restaurant, two blocks away. Muriel's great crawfish and goat cheese crepes.
We were invited to a barn dance on the North Shore tonight. Mary Ann wanted to go, but she was too tired from all the walking to square dance. I know how she feels. Yesterday I had a sixteen-block round-trip walk to speak to the dentists, and today it was twenty blocks from the parking garage to Jackson Square and back. I am very pleased that even this gave me no ankle aches at all.
