I read this phrase somewhere a long time ago, liked the sound of it and decided to go for it.

Now I know I got to have a few responsibilities, but can’t they be making the travel arrangements, packing the suitcases, get the travelers checks ? Can’t these be the things I got to do. But noooooooooooo, I gota work, I gota bring home a pay check, I gota do some house work and cook a few meals. I don’t mind, really I don’t.

I actually got it made and come real close to living on holiday. One thing that keeps me in the holiday mood is Mardi Gras. I get to do something Mardi Gras related all year round. Yesterday I bought 100 nerf footballs at the Dollar store. I got to have something to throw Mardi Gras Day.

I have been enjoying Mardi Gras to the max for the last 15 years. That’s how long we have been celebrating the Mystic Fish. It’s fun getting everything ready for the parade and reception and the party the night before. The golf tournament is fun as well.

But a few years ago things changed and now I get to fool around with Mardi Gras all year long, or as much as I want.

A few years back I was invited to join one of the older more established organizations. We have meetings (drink and eat) all year round.  So whenever I’m around these guys it’s all about the parade. Who’s gonna ride where, what do the floats look like, how much money do I owe for my bad behavior from last year. You know, important stuff like that.

A couple times a year I go down to Mobile and visit my friend who builds the floats for KORs. It’s a lot of fun to check out the floats as they are being rebuilt, my favorite is when the building part is done and they all get a coat of white primer paint. It’s as if the floats are all covered with a very even blanket of snow, it’s something to see. Totally abstract to what you see on the streets.

There is so much involved with my year long love affair with Mardi Gras and really the best part is spending time in Mobile with all my friends and family.

Happy Birthday!  Do you remember the Christmas show for Frosty the Snowman, one of the kids put a hat on him and he came alive and Frosty  said Happy Birthday!  Well the clock of life ticked once more for “Little Lady”, otherwise know as Stacey.  And together with our new friends who run the local Sushi Bar, we all said Happy Birthday!

That’s kinda of what it was like last night at Wasabi.  Wasabi is the only place in Atlanta where we eat sushi.  This isn’t a rule , it’s just the way things work out.  And yea, I know there ain’t nothing southern about Sushi, but come on, good is good, and this shit is good. They also make you feel at home, you know, that home where you mother makes sushi.

Tonight we about had the place to ourselves, which is rare, it is usually crowded. But that was cool for a change, we could hear each other and the music.  I can’t think of nothing better then eating good food, listening to Sister of Mercy and hanging out with Stacey.

Nhan runs the place along with Jennifer and we always eat very well there.  So tonight after Little Lady got home, she said she wanted to go to Wasabi for dinner. For her Birthday dinner that is. 

On Wednesday it’s half price wine. Now That’s really good for two reasons. First, Little Lady likes wine, white please.  And, two, these guys have a couple good wines that become even better at half price.

Anyway, we don’t really know these guys all that well or anything.  We eat there and say hey and all that, but we haven’t really gotten to know them.  Until tonight, that is.

So we were about done eating, it was another great meal, and no kidding this is good, someone has worked very hard to get seafood so fresh we can enjoy it in this capacity.

The place is not crowded , but it has gotten very loud and we realize the Chef is working the other side of the counter, so to speak.  Tonight Nhan is happy, and having drinks with the customers, something I encourage all business owners to do every once in awhile.

He makes his way to our table and he knows our faces as semi-regulars. So he sits and chats, finds out it’s Little Lady’s Birthday and ask for three Sake Bombs. So we all drop a shot glass of warm sake in a half glass of cold beer and drink it down. We chat more with our new friend Nhan and suddenly, as if he just remembered something he ask Stacey, it’s your Birthday? He then calls for three more Sake Bombs, looks around the restaurant and then ask for eight Sake Bombs.

And so it goes.

Happy Birthday Little Lady

Happens all the time. I meet someone and as we talk we find some common connection. I mean something like, same hometown, mutual friends or something like that. I don’t mean something esoteric and to hell with Kevin Bacon and 6 degrees, this happens often and the divide is small.

So my next door neighbor rents his house. The folks who own the house lived there not to long ago and we are friends. Anyway, neighbor that rents is also a friend and he is always doing home improvement projects to the house. Just recently he bought a real nice motorcycle. He keeps the motorcycle and other thing in the basement of the house. The door to the basement was old and loose in the frame so he decided to replace it. The old door was homemade, put together with 1 x 6″ lumber and painted white. I told him I wanted that door when it came off. Next day old door is leaning against my workshop door, thank you very much.

The bottom of this door was rotting away just beautifully. Not to much but enough to add a nice rugged look to it. So I took off old hinges and broken hasp and sanded the table down to where it was smooth but still had some white paint left on it. I then built an apron and attached 4 legs made of  4 x4″ post, just 17″ long as needed for a coffee table. I put a clear coat on it for protection and clean up and priced it $300 and took it to the market I was working that weekend.

Well low and behold here comes the neighbors that own the house next door. Out for a Saturday morning farmers market. Hellos are exchanged and we’re chatting and I’m talking with other customers. Next thing I know the neighbors are asking about the door that is now a coffee table. I tell them I got it off a trash pile in the neighborhood and worked it into this. They are thinking about buying it, I start laughing and have to tell exactly where it came from. They think this is great, didn’t know their tennant was replacing the door and buy it from me. I gave them a $50 discount considering where the door came from.

Fried Oysters. 

Truly one of the best and most simple of dishes.  Just put a bunch of Oysters in a zip-lock with panco, flour, salt and pepper.  Red, White and Black pepper.  The Oysters don’t need anything to get the fry mix to stick.  Just throw them in a bag with this mixture.  Then drop them in a cast iron skillet with vegetable oil heated to 350 degrees.  When the Oysters float, let them keep floating till they are a golden brown.  Get’em crisp and make a good tar-tar or some kind of tricked up sauce to dip them in.

So that’s what we did tonight. Fried Oysters and Gumbo made last Friday.  Gonna make some pimento cheese soon.  MF says my Grandpa used to have homemade “puhmenahcheez” with his Gumbo, all the time.  I don’t remember. Bet it was good stuff.

Many years ago a friend made “puhmenaccheez” from scratch.  All the ingredients came from a jar or can.  But it was good.

Today you gotta roast your own red peppers, make your own mayo, get the best cheddar there is and then you got a good “puhmenahcheez”.  It ain’t that much work and it’s really worth it.  I will post a recipe soon.

 So another weekend, another Monday morning and time again to decide what to do this week. Work-wise, that is. Will I start on the king-sized bed that’s been ordered by the brilliant couple that ordered the shutter table?  Will I paint another picture with a wine theme, per another request? Will I finish reading one of the three books I have started. I am about done with Sonny Brewers book about an old mans struggle with his spirituality?  The name of the book is The Poet Of Tolstoy Park. All you monkeys down there in South Alabama should read it.  Or should I finish the Walker Percy novel, The Moviegoer? I am not enjoying this one as much as I thought I would, it’s a bit to wordy. I could start on a painting I have been commissioned to paint. It’s for a guy,  who among other things writes books. His latest book is named “zing”, it’s a book on idea spotting. He wants me to paint a large picture of 3 light-bulbs in a row, I think it will work well with my painting style.

So as you can see I got a lot of projects to choose from.  That’s not all I got on my plate, but I really couldn’t list all the things I need or want to do. I think I’ll start the week with a bowl of cheese grits and a crab-meat omelette.

Eugene Walter said “I’ve had a great life, and it all happened because I didn’t plan any of it”.   That’s gonna be my plan also.

Here is a link to the Mobile newspaper, a short piece on the book we use to find all the great hole in the wall places to eat in the southeast. A Southern Belly, by John T. Edge.      http://www.al.com/living/press-register/index.ssf?/base/living/1187169849212160.xml&coll=3

Talk to ya tomorrow.

Many Cajuns add potato salad to their gumbo and eat it with or without rice. Have you ever heard of this?  I only recently have, I’m not sure where , but I’ve heard of this.  We haven’t ever tried it, probably should. 

Gumbo is one of those things. Either ya know it or ya don’t. You can cook or ya can’t.  Look at all this on gumbo :

• Gumbo, a spicy, hearty stew or soup.
• Gumbois another name of the vegetable okra,  also known as bhindi or lady’s fingers.
• Gumbo, a particularly sticky form of clay till.                                                          Gumbo (mascot), the mascot dog of the New Orleans Saints
• Dr. John’s Gumbo, an album by Dr. John
• Gumbo, the clay-rich and hard to work soil of Southern Manitoba
• Gumbo is the surname of the family in the comic strip Rose Is Rose.
• Comic Gumbo  is Japan’s first ever free weekly manga magazine.

 Now to me Gumbo is a lot of stuff, some of the things from the list above and some stuff that makes “my gumbo”, “my gumbo” well that would be “our gumbo”.

Let’s see, gumbo defiantly means Mardi Gras.  Gumbo also means 30 minute roux or 2 beers consumed slowly.  It also means the “holy trinity” of celery, bell peppers, and onions.  It means you better have a lot of homemade chicken stock on hand.  Gumbo means at least double the recipe, dumb ass.  Christmas Gumbo means oysters and chicken. 

Gumbo is best after a few days, whenever I make it I try to not  pay attention to it, just ignore it and cook it and put it away for a few days and then eat it.  I usually have to have something else to eat while I cook the Gumbo , so as not to think about eating the Gumbo I am cooking. 

Here is a loose outline for 50 cups of Gumbo.  You know what you like , so work it in to this recipe, sausage, chopped chicken, crab bodies are great cooked down in Gumbo.  My Grandma Hartley used to always have crab bodies in her Gumbo. I remember Grandma Hartley had Gumbo often. I bet she had  it on the table at least 2 days a week. It was regular at their house.

3 lbs shrimp cleaned

2 cup celery

4 cups onion chopped

1 cup bell pepper chopped

2 gallons fresh chicken broth (or use what ya got, slacker)

salt / pepper

2 cups roux ( take cup of Wesson oil and a cup of flour and cook it in a cast iron dutch over or heavy duty stock pot for about 20 - 30 minutes or until looks like peanut-butter, cook it hot but slow)

So do your roux and as it finishes add celery, onions, and bell peppers and cook til onions are clear, about 15-20 minutes.

Then add hot chicken stock and simmer for about 45 minutes.

Then add shrimp, oysters, chicken, sausage or whatever ya want and cook for another 20 minutes.

At this point you can always think about adding something like file, crab boil, or Zatarans is good.

You have got to let this cool for a long time uncovered and stir it every once in awhile otherwise it will “sour”.

So put it away for a day or two and when ya go to serve it, cook some rice to layer the Gumbo on.

You could just serve it on tater salad.

Today,  Stacey went up the street to the Mexican Grocery Store for shrimp ceviche makings.  She was getting a couple pounds of shrimps, about 7 or 8 limes, 2 oranges, a few tomato’s, couple of onions, a few peppers and cilantro.  The peppers were probably poblano and they are whole roasted in a skillet with the tomato’s and garlic.   Right now, as we speak I can hear and smell the peppers and tomato’s roasting in olive oil.  And it is a good thing.

She, Stacey that is, will blanch the 2 pounds of shrimp we have just cleaned.  She will rough chop the peppers and tomato’s, add all this together, squeeze the limes and oranges over the mixture, cover and refrig for 24.  Hell yea.  It’s good with avocado.

But that ain’t the best part.  While she was there,  she spied this woman buying a large amount of tamale fixings.  Stacey commented to the guy who owns and runs the store ” I wanna go eat tamales with her”.  So he gave Stacey the ladies name, Maria Hernandez, and phone #.  But we’re gonna call him and just let him order for us,  since Stacey thinks the tamale maker only speaks Spanish.

Here is a good book, if your looking for something to read. Milking the Moon, by Eugene Walter as told to Katherine Clark.  I read it years ago and am gonna read it again.  Soon I am gonna write a little something about Eugene Walter.  I do remember it was an enjoyable and easy read.  But I am partial to stories about Mobile and the monkeys who made it what it really is.

Shutter table is coming along just fine.

All is well, thanks.  Hope the same for you.

So we checked out Sunday morning and dropped our bags at Lisa’ apartment. Then we took the subway uptown to the MOMA to see the Richard Serra show. Stacey and I had seen his work about 5 years ago in Bilbao, Spain.  We wanted to see the Guggenheim Museum designed by Frank Gehry.  The museum was new and all the rage, I am not sure I knew who Serra was at the time.

Well the show blew us away. These huge, beautifully rusted sheets of steel that had been twisted and fashioned into simple, organic, flowing sculpture.  Talk about abstract, what the hell did this stuff mean.  Why did he do it?  I’m glad he did it, but why?

It was beautiful and like I said before, I would like to live in it. Just put a roof over a few of the pieces and add a little plumbing and I’m there.  The show consisted of some of his work from the last 40 years and there were other pieces besides the large steel sculptures, but they are by far my favorite.

The MOMA has just had a huge renovation and addition job. The new, outdoor sculpture garden had a few of  Serras’ huge pieces on display.  I tried to take a photo showing part of a sculpture and some of the apartments that over looked the garden. 

Stacey and Lisa were picking out which one they would like to live in.  I decided I would live in the garden and they could both keep an eye on me.

We spent hours checking out the Serra show and the rest of the museum. There was a lot to see, five floors of art and the garden and we gave it our best shot. But our dogs started barking and we needed to get off of them. So we headed back to Lisas’ hood and had some Margaritas and some good Mexican food. We met Richard Marx, he waited our table and was really nice. It was starting to rain so we hurried back to Lisas’ place and got our bags then got a cab,  then got a plane, then got another cab and were in bed by 12:30. We were tired. Stacey took Monday off and we took it easy for the day.

From what I’m hearing Belize got smacked hard and it might be a while until Stacey and I can make that trip, but the rooms are paid for so you can count on a report as soon as we can get there.

So Stacey and I have been planning to go to Belize for about a month now. We were going to leave Saturday the 18th. Well, seems Hurricane Dean has plans of his own. We had to postpone that trip and by the path of Dean it may be a while before Belize is ready for visitors.

Things have a way of working out.  It’s always been that way for me, just let it all unfold and deal with it.

I had heard about the Richard Serra show at the MOMA and knew it was only there until September 10. We decided to go Saturday morning and return Sunday night. This is how it all unfolded…

We started like we always do before we go to New York, making a list of restaurants we wanted to visit. After expanding that list to about 10 we started thinking about a place to stay. My cousin Lisa lives in a really great apartment in a really great neighborhood. If it wasn’t the night before arrival we would have planned on staying with her, but not cool calling the night before and asking, hey we’re coming to town tomorrow and we were wondering…….

So we got up the next morning, used Priceline.com and got great room.  60 Thompson is a boutique hotel located at 60 Thompson St.  The rooms start at over $300 a night and we lucked into one for half price. We didn’t know at the time about the Roof Top Bar and Sun Deck.

We had been in touch with Lisa and of course she offered to put us up for the night. She was at the beach and wouldn’t be back until about 9 p.m.  So it was good we had a room to throw our bags in and to use as a home base while we checked out our SOHO neighborhood.

One of the restaurants on our list was Lupa.  This is part of a group that has about 5 restaurants in N.Y.C.  It is billed as a osteria romana and is one of the many restaurants under the Mario Batali umbrella.  At the time we didn’t know this was was one of his places. We just found it on the internet and I remembered reading good things about it.  So this is where Stacey and I headed after checking in and checking out our hotel, which by the way, was very nice.

Check this out for a degustation.  Stacey ordered a caraf  of Sauvignon Blanc and me a Italian style beer brewed in Brooklyn.  This is what we ordered and we asked the waitron to bring it all at once.  A cannelli bean and tuna salad with olive oil and mint leaves, a plate of coppa cotta, escarole salad and sweetbreads and fried artichoke.

The cannelli beans and tuna is just as it sounds, a very simple dish, which is the norm for this place. You have the beans mixed with tuna which was probably from a can, which if you have ever had a can of tuna in olive oil imported from Italy, you know how good this can be. Add small, whole mint leaves, mixed and served in a bowl, and that’s it. More is not needed. It’s perfect just these 4 ingredients.

The salad was maybe the best plate on the table, and again very simple. Escarole greens,  red onion slice very thin, toasted walnuts with just oil and vinegar dressing. On top was a generous amount of grated Pecorino cheese. Pecorino is one of my favorite cheeses, it’s hard and great as a replacement for any dish calling for parmigiano.

The coppa cotta was beautiful, sliced, house cured meat. Laid out on a long thin serving tray. Places like this are all about curing their own meat and they offered about 4 different choices. This to was sublime.

I haven’t had sweetbreads in a long time and don’t get the chance to eat them in the U.S. very often, so I had to have them. They were fried with small artichoke hearts and served with lemon wedges. Again, simple and wonderful.

After that we just strolled around and tried to walk it off as they say. Whoever “they” are. SOHO was good for walking, so many neighborhoods in N.Y.C. are so crowded it’s a pain to walk around. Tons of art Galleries and lots of vendors selling original art on the street. Then back to the hotel.

We hang out in the room for a few and then like always,  realize where we are and head out again. This time straight up to the Roof Top Bar. Two $18 cocktails each and we are back on the streets. But let me tell you the roof was cool. I have never been on a roof top in N.Y.C. and in SOHO the buildings are not as tall so the view was great,  even at only 13 stories. It’s a nice place to have $18 cocktails. Check out the photo we took.

So we’re footing it around the city and Lisa calls, she’s back and ready to go.  We meet her in the lobby of our hotel, which is only about 10 blocks from her place. We sit and chat for a minutes and then up we go for a good view and more cocktails. We were charging the drinks to the room and they automatically add 20% tip, so when we checked out the cocktail bill was more than the room itself.  Thank you, thank you very much.

Gotta eat again. We decide on a place we had never heard of until our internet search the night before. The name is Kuma Inn,  and the Chef’s name is King Phojanakong. It was only a short cab ride from our hotel.  Check out their cool website.  They advertise themselves as a Pan Asian Tapas Bar.  This was our degustation.

Sierra Nevada beers,  pork wasabi shumai, steamed edamame with thai basil lime sauce,  Chinese sausage with thai chile lime sauce,  seared ahi tuna in a thai chili miso vinaigrette,  shrimp shumai,  whole fried dorado and pan roasted ocean scallops with bacon, kalamansi and sake. 

The shumai dumplings exploded in your mouth.  Lisa said the chinese sausage was as addictive as crack.  The WHOLE fried dorado fish was a work of art.  Scored and deep fried and plated to look as if the fish was swimming on the plate, so we were told.  It was a great meal, in a tiny upstairs restaurant that seats only 28.  Bet Lisa goes back real soon.

After I went downstairs and checked out the Bulgarian Nightclub, for about 30 seconds, we said goodnight to Lisa, as she was headed to some friends birthday party.  Stacey and I walked home which was just what we need after those two meals.  Went to sleep with the very loud bass sounds of the bar one floor below us.  Good thing we are only staying one night,  it’s loud and we can’t afford the cocktails. 

continued…

I have my sister to thank for turning me on to Fay Jones. She has lived in Arkansas, on and off for the last 25 years or so. I never thought much about this awesome state until I started to visit my sister and her family. They have taken Stacey and I to many great places.

Two of my favorite places to visit are the chapels Fay Jones has built, both are in rural, wooded areas. One is named Thorncrown Chapel in Eureka Springs. The other,  Cooper Chapel in Bella Vista. The great thing is they are open to the public and last time I was there it was free.

Fay Jones died in 2000. He had a very long, distinguished career. He attended the University of Arkansas for two years before becoming a Navy Pilot during WWII. He then earned his Master of Architecture from Rice in 1950.  He taught for a few years at the University of Oklahoma, then served as a fellow at Taliesin West under his mentor Frank Lloyd Wright. He returned to the University of Arkansas and spent many years teaching and running a private practice. He designed 135 residences, 15 church’s and chapels. He also designed gardens, fountains and commercial projects.

The chapels we have visited are two of the most incredible places I have ever seen. Jones learned from Wright that using local materials and incorporating the structure with the natural landscape were the most important elements of design.  Simplicity is also something they both practiced.

It is easy to see these three elements in each chapel. The materials are wood and glass mostly. The chapels tower towards the sky and come to an apex like the tall trees surrounding them. The transparency of all that glass lets you see straight through and allows the chapels to blend seamlessly with surrounding trees, bushes and natural setting. It is something to behold.

Stacey and I have been fortune enough to have attended a wedding at Thorncrown.  A friend Stacey worked with invited us. Approaching the chapel at night, with the light just pouring out was quite a sight. Then sitting there during the wedding and listening to a young lady play Pachelbel’s Cannon on the organ was a religious experience.

It has been way to long since I have visited these beautiful places. I am telling you here and now, before the year is over I am going to go eat at James at the Mill, in Johnson Arkansas, spend the night at the Inn at the Mill and visit both chapels. I an going to visit another chapel my sister has taken us to. I can’t remember as much about this place as far as facts go, but I can see it clearly in my head. It is a stone structure, much different from Mr. Jones chapels. It was built by a man for his wife.  I think she ask him to build it for her. I remember it was small and tall and had a organ in the loft. It was also on a beautiful piece of property. I will learn more about the chapel and report again after our visit later in this year.

A year or so ago, I was hired to build a mailbox. Funny thing is, I had been thinking of building one for myself. I wanted to do something in the style of these chapels. So when I was ask to build one, I told my client my ideas and she was all for it. Here is a photo of it.

                                                                              Another one of Mr. Jones creations that I want to visit is the Crosby Arboretum in Picayune, Mississippi.  Click on it and check out another wonderful structure by Mr. Jones. This is the Pinecote Pavilion. I love this mans work and I refer to them as structures because of their airiness and openness. Are these even words? If not they should be, just to be used to describe some of Mr. Jones work.

So this will be a great trip. Three chapels, the Pinecote Pavilion and eating at James at the Mill. I will tell you more about this restaurant and it’s chef/owner Miles James after my next visit. I hope he is still there.