Sunday, October 21, 2012.
Polo, Horses, And Grazing.
I'm thoroughly tuned out to sports, but I'll bet even those who follow the scene intensively don't have much polo on my mind. The sport brings up associations with wealthy, wellborn people--not an heavily-populated demographic around New Orleans. But indeed there are polo matches on the North Shore, where the availability of vast stretches of open fields make not only re raising of polo ponies possible, but afford the wide spaces needed for the match. (A polo field is nine times the size of a football gridiron.)
The sport is popular enough that every year for the past sixteen a day of polo has supported a significant charity fundraiser for the Junior League of Covington's do-good programs. Aside from the fact that horses and mallet-swinging riders are racing back and forth on the field while a play-by-play announcer keeps one apprised of the progress of the match, it's just like all the other such events around town.
And a couple of dozen restaurants were there cooking, while wine, cocktails, and beer flowed. The weather was perfect for such an outing, and there was a traffic jam getting to the polo grounds, just east of Folsom.
Most of the attendees were well-attired, with interesting hats being a tradition for the ladies. As stereotypical as all this sounds, I ran into none of the people I expected, and quite a few I didn't. That was the fun part.
And the food was good too. Soup-lovers were especially lucky, what with the great oyster Rockefeller soup from the Acme, a pumpkin soup from La Provence, and turtle soup from Annadele Plantation. Fans of pasta had Carmelo's crabmeat ravioli, Bosco's tortellini marinara, and Café Lynn's pasta salad. K Gee's had an eggplant a crabmeat casserole, Zea was grilling its Thai ribs, and there were lots of desserts.
Plenty enough to fill both of us up with food for the day. And now we can say we've watched a polo match.
