More Southern Goodies with Miss G!

After we got to NOLA yesterday, Bubba G and I found out that Harrah's and Budweiser sponsor an even every Thursday during crawfish season call Bugs, Buds, and Bands, out on the street near the casino. What a deal! with a Total Rewards card, crawfish were $1.00 a pound, and Budweiser products were $3 each! We even got our picture taken for free by a chick from the BreweKrewe! What a great time we had!

Today, it poured a gullywasher here in NOLA! Such a storm that there was NO WAY Bubba and I were going out to the Fairgrounds for JazzFest! What a muddy mess that would be!! So, we stayed close to the hotel at first, and went to Felix's on Iberville Street for lunch. Felix's is cattycorner across the street from the famed Acme Oyster Company, where there is always a line. Miss G is constantly amazed as to why! Acme is delicious, don't get me wrong, but Felix's is just as good, if not better, and NEVER has a line!!

While many parts of the country serve these lucious bivalves as "raw oysters", here in NOLA they are more commonly known as "royerstyas" and they are served in a very special way! Do you see the little cup in the middle of the plate? It comes to the table with only a couple of lemon slices in it. On the table upon arrival there is a big jar of ground horseradish, a bottle or Tabasco, and a squeeze bottle of ketchup. Since everyone has there own tolerance for heat, one is allowed the chance to create their own cocktail sauce with just the right amount of "kick". Miss G always starts with a big glob of horseradish, and works her way from there.

After lunch, we needed to find a place to hole up and shelter from the rain, so Miss G took Bubba to the Bourbon Pub, figuring we could at least grab a brew and run if it wasn't fun or if Bubba wasn't comfortable there.

Well, wuncha know that Lisa and Tim were working, so it was like old home week for all at the back bar! Lisa has worked at the Pub as long as Miss G can remember, and Miss G and Bubba went to college with Tim, so there was lots to talk about and catch up on, plus lots of fun sharing stories about the "glory days" of old! We drank and carried on until almost dark, when Miss G realized she better get some food into Bubba pronto!

After a pit stop at Clover Grill, we headed to Molly's at the Market to visit our favorite NOLA feline, Mr. Wu. As usually, Mr. Wu was holding court on the back bar, and was as happy to see us as we were to see him!

Don't Eat the Dead Ones!

Here we are in Baton Rouge, and all we want is some boiled crawfish, and we can't find any ANYWHERE!!!!!

Actually, we are coming to the end of the season (crawfish boils are an Easter thang!) but some places still have them. We went to a little place for dinner called Parrain's, because we were told they had boiled crawfish. But guess what. They didn't! But, it was a really enjoyable evening, and Miss G kinda stuck to her diet by eating a dozen roy erstas (raw oyters) and a shrimp remoulade, which was delish. And, we were sitting by a window that overlooked the porch, and there was a little teeny tiny baby kitty playing out there and he was SOOOOOOOOO cute! I totally wanted to catch him and keep him, but he was waaaaaaay too skitterish and would have none of that!

By the way, Parrain (say pah-'ranh) is Cajun French for "grandfather", so it reminded Miss G that someday she shall have to post pics of her Parrain and Marrain, but they are on the computer at home, (the pictures, not the grandparents!) so that will have to be later!

So, during our crawfishless dinner, we decided that tomorrow we would have a 3 hour workday, and then go have crawfish and beer for lunch, then make the hour drive back to New Orleans to catch our flight back to Houston! Well, of course, the late Momma G is looking down upon her child from the heavens to remind him that beer for lunch in Baton Rouge before a drive to New Orleans is dangerous and illegal. But, since she's dead and can't talk, she just insured that there is not one singe restaurant in all of East or West Baton Rouge parish that serves boiled crawfish for lunch- I called them all! That's just the way Momma G rolls! You gotta love it!

Anyho, we'll still cut out early and eat something, and I'll bet by 2pm there will be a bloody mary or 2 at the little bar near gate D-3, because they are so awesome!

Oh, and as for the title of this post- "Don't Eat the Dead Ones!" It's kinda of a standing "joke" in South Louisiana to tell first-time crawfish eaters "don't eat the dead ones!" They kinda go "huh?", because, of course, after being boiled, they are all dead! Of course, within a 40lb bag of wriggling live crustaceans, there are sure to be some "casualties", but it's way too laborious to try to pick out the ones who didn't survive. Plus, how do you tell if they are dead or just resting? So, you dump them all in the boiling water and hope for the best! But after they are cooked, the little tails curl up on on the fresh, live ones, and anything that went into the water dead cooks up limp and straight. So, everytime someone picks up a straight one, someone always says "don't eat the dead one!" They are spoiled and not fit to eat, so they are trown into the "burial pile" with the rest of the shells! Ya see, you never throw away crawfish shells- it would stink up the garbage something awefull! No, you dig a hole in the back yard and bury them so they return to the earth. At our house, first one up had to dig the hole. Man, we could sleep late after a crawfish boil!

Who's up for a crawfish boil at Miss Ginger's next year? Start saving your plane fare! Boy G will start digging the hole!