Hurricane 2017

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Nate the Great

Or

Missed by That Much

            Fred: (to the porch) “Hey guys, y’all ready for the storm?”

            Ned: “We got cigarettes and beer. We okay”

            Ted: “I’m just gonna get drunk, pass out, wake up tomorrow and it’ll be over.”

            Ned: (to Ted) “Kinda like your first marriage, huh?”

            What can you say about a hurricane to hit New Orleans that simply didn’t? You can’t say that we weren’t adequately alarmed or under prepared as a city; Jeez, we did everything but erect a dome over our heads and lay in the MREs. A state of emergency was declared; National Guard were stationed; shelters were opened for the homeless; it was a full moon on Thursday and the tides were rising, time to break out the staple gun and trash bags!

            The rumors of impending doom started around Wednesday and by Friday we were all in a tizzy. I got caught up in the spirit and shopped on Thursday and Friday as if for a siege; Rouse’s, Winn Dixie and Whole Foods parking looked like used car lots and the stores were crowded as they are at Thanksgiving time.

            The folk shopping at Rouse’s had big bags of dog food, bottled water, Abita Amber, diapers, Jameson and an army of deli prepared foods. The lady in front of me had pre-baked bread, sliced turkey, cheese, Styrofoam plates, gallons of Arizona and a family size jar of Blue Plate Mayonnaise. Pandemonium reigned with cash registers ringing in the buckaroos, two liter cold drinks, ice, charcoal briquettes, movies renting at the kiosk.

At Winn Dixie, Budweiser was the king of beers, batteries, sliced bread, canned Dinty Moore, Kraft Mac n Cheese, cigarettes, and chips, with checkers checking I.D.s for booze sales; cases of water, cat litter and soft drinks jammed into overflowing carts. One man’s cart had dozens and dozens of canned vegetables, spaghetti, sauce and canned imitation parmesan cheese (plus two half gallons of cheap bourbon). Cars circled the parking area like buzzards looking for spaces and places, shopping carts littered the lot like abandoned life jackets and there was the smell of fear in the air; men gunned their motors, women looked apprehensive and kids cried out for attention.

Whole Foods had a run on Kombucha, soy products and La Croix flavored sparkling water. Spring water by the cases were stocked and sold, pizza dough, ciabatta bread, rennet free cheese, mock chicken and black bean burgers quickly evaporated. The Millennials stripped shelves and stood in line as if waiting for lifeboats. The entire hot bar was packaged and taken out, sushi swam into kids shopping baskets, IPAs shouldered by man buns and tattooed ladies bagged trail mix from the bulk section. I saw a man getting two cases of their $2.99 Merlot; it was a non GMO donnybrook of epic proportions.

We closed the shop early; there hadn’t been a customer in two days; Jonestown in the retail arena. We moved plants inside, stacked sandbags, left extra food for the feral cats and set the alarm on ‘prison break’ mode. We charged our cell phones, took down wind chimes, duct taped trash cans, froze odd containers of water and filled buckets for cooking and flushing; caught up unprepared, we improvised flash and candle lights, cooked enough for an army, parked the car on higher ground and watched the weather channel like storm ghouls; it looks like it’s headed right up our assets, to hell with the rent, let’s just hope we all get out of this alive.

The mayor comes on the Teevee and tells everyone to get off the streets, in turn twelve city officials, from levee board, Corps of Engineers, police and State troopers assure us that we are prepared, as a city, to ride this one out, “been prepared since before this thing had a name”. Sewerage and Water board officials boast of our repaired pumps and drainage. I’m mesmerized by a woman mirroring the dialog in sign language and wonder if she’s really signing or faking. All channels are riveted on the catastrophe to come which will turn out to be a hurrah that never came. Schools were let out early, festivals were cancelled, dinner reservations were revoked and the Treme Center closed the swimming pool. Hizzonah imposes a curfew that is almost immediately rescinded due to the public’s lack of interest and participation.

We wait on the porch with our neighbor Judy; we’re prepared, we have liquids, solids, hammer, nails and the Sunday newspapers that were printed early because of the impending storm. Nothing happens. Seven, eight, nine o’clock; not a breeze in the eaves; that early afternoon squall was not a harbinger of things to come. The streets are quiet with my neighbor Gallivan (and his dogs) over at his girlfriend’s house to ride it out and others on our street hunkered down. There’s a quiet hurricane party across the street and hardly any traffic to speak of.

By this time, I’m half lit, and back in television land even Margaret Orr has left the building, leaving the second string to mop up. I pop another PBR and switch to the Great British Baking Show. I feel incomplete, left at the altar; I understand the anguish of the deflated soufflé at the competition, my glace has lost its shine, and my mille-feuille has mostly fallen.

In the morning, naturally, it’s a beautiful day and life goes on as if nothing happened, which is exactly the case. Except, I take myself aside and remind myself in no uncertain terms that I need to be grateful that we dodged that bullet while others have not been so lucky; there’s fires out west and earthquakes and other hurricanes that have really f**ked with people’s lives and here I am getting out of bed looking forward to my coffee and New York Times. Blessed be that we were spared; now let’s see how we can help others less fortunate.

Restaurant Lingo

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

A la Mode

Or

Café Quips

             I weave into The Hummingbird at dawn’s crack—the cashier-- yells to the cook/server: “burn one with whiskey, cuppa Joe!” and I sit, knowing a well done burger on rye toast and a cup of coffee is on the way. Mama, I’m home.

Pair of drawers; Adam and Eve on a raft; wreck two with frog sticks; gimme a Pittsburg with wheels; one Blue Plate, 86 Eve with a lid and fire table twelve; hubba hubba!”  All restaurant lingo; ask any waitress that’s spent time slingin’ hash front of the house or a shoemaker that’s worked a left handed spatula on a turn and burn hot line.

            “Comin’ through; make a hole; on your ass; I’ll burn you!” is food service speak for ‘get the fork out of the way (!)’ and anyone who has done time behind an apron (and who hasn’t?) is familiar with words strung together like short-hand- commands barked in kitchens  indicating instructions to avoid mayhem or confusion. Unless I’m totally ignorant of the way kitchens around the globe will work efficiently, there are probably the same types of phrases used in Brighton, Brittany, Bangkok, Bombay, Bangladesh and Beijing; equivalent to verbal skeet shooting, they are power punches to your cerebral cortex signaling immediate action on your part in a cacophonic madhouse. There may be such thing as a quiet kitchen-- I think-- perhaps in a monastery.   

Pearl divers in the pit (dishwashers) are rattling racks of utensils, computer terminals are spitting out tickets, the wheelman barking “all day”s or “dragging kitten fish for my four top!”, pots and pans beating like timpani on fiery stovetops, oven doors being slammed open and kicked shut, the hiss of steam, the smell of sweat and the prospect of bloodshed and temper flare ups are all part of the job, and when someone yells “HOT STUFF!” they ain’t talking about your mama. The dash and dare of demented dervishes; timing food orders, getting food ‘right’, in line, on time and everyone at the table being served in the same minute is an art unapparent to customers. In the dining room it’s all a Vienna waltz; in the kitchen it’s like a prison riot. I’ve been part of both sides and I kid you not.

            “I need this on the rail, put a wiggle on it, rush me an order of fries, where’s that steak, fire the salad, goddammit, who’s got table three? Soup’s low! ORDERING!” is part and parcel of communications between gourmet gladiators and hash slinging heroes alike. 

            To work the front of the house in the home of the brave you have to know the difference between a deuce and a dumpster, a four top from a fork lift, a banquette from a biscuit. You have to know that when a cook slides a plate at you and says—no matter how softly—“hot plate” that they are very seldom joking; that when a bartender says – loudly—to the world: “PICK UP!” you turn to make sure that they’re not talking about you; when someone at your back yells “behind you!” they’re not getting fresh. You dread the triple seating that can occur during the rush; shift double backs; you grow to hate campers; you’re constantly on the lookout for dine and dashers and roll your eyes at that verbal tip.

.           Approaching the kitchen is as demeaning as asking for alms: “Chef, do we fry in peanut oil; is there any dairy in the soup; can we make that gluten free, can we split the main course, can we heat up this baby bottle?”

“The customer says that this is not medium rare; they say they found a hair; they said that they didn’t like it (but they ate most of it); here’s that ice water you wanted”.        No matter what capacity you work in a place of eating it’s an exercise in humility and in training running the gamut of a sadomasochistic pecking order survival course. “Tenderfoot is in the weeds; her food’s dying in the window; she’s buried, slammed, in the sh*t”. “PANS DOWN!! ORDERING!!”

            The more experienced staff members can be cruel to newbies; in many cases it’s a get tough or die sandbox mentality with managers looking on to see where/who the weak links are. Schedules are arbitrary and nebulous in logic; you work when you’re needed and ‘cut’ when you’re not. It’s easy to cop an attitude and become cynical about the whole dining experience; I believe “kiss my grits” is an apt way of putting thoughts into feelings.

            The examples that the media and motion pictures have portrayed gives us pause to consider the workings of food service as anything but cheap theatrics; Mel’s Diner; Franks Place; Frankie and Johnny, Chef, Feeding the Beast, Julie and Julia, Burnt. The Cook The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover. Babette’s Feast; Chocolat; A Chef in Love; Like Water for Chocolate; to name a few, showing romance, adventure, mystery and buffoonery.

 Books like Kitchen Confidential; Roasting in Hell’s Kitchen; Heat; The Soul of a Chef; How I Learned to Cook. Kitchens, White Heat, The Perfectionist, The Apprentice and Iron Chef all show how being a chef is a man’s job. A job that goes by title and demands no disrespect; as usual, a woman in the same position has to work twice as hard for less money (and be capable of being twice as malevolent) to accomplish the job and will still be excluded from ‘celebrity’ status. Waiters must use guile, charm, dexterity, intuition, resourcefulness and bladder control to survive.

From a long and exhaustive tenure in food service I can look back and say that it is theater, an ad lib performance that happens every shift of every day;  the cast assembles, the curtain rises and the person in charge looks knowingly and announces “Show Time!”

            

Free People of Color

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Free People of Color

Or

New Orleans’ Third Society

            It might be important to note, as we reach our three hundredth birthday, that New Orleans is not, what can be considered, an old settlement/colony and that for over two hundred years before us the societies that fashioned our world here were in full swing; long before Sieur de Bienville brought the first two slaves (George and Mary) into the French outpost that was in the crescent of the river that the Ojibwa Indians called misi zibi or Father of Waters.

            The period of exploration and land grabbing was pretty much a white man’s undertaking and the subjugation of ‘primitive’ peoples (indigenous American, African) for pleasure and profit was part of the modus operandi of the male Anglo explorers and exploiters. It goes without saying also, that a shortage of European women did not deter the conquering heroes from exercising their sexual impulses with whatever female happened to be on hand; Indigenous Americans were harder to handle and soon were either displaced or destroyed, however, the slave trade was well established and provided ample opportunity and supply of feminine companionship. As a result, Africans, as time went on, were subjected to a genetic melding with Europeans, these mixed blooded Africans multiplied in numbers and became a new culture and class of citizenry; and they needed to be reckoned with, much for very practical purposes.

            Exploring and evidencing was part and parcel for this third race of peoples to fit into Anglo/Afro society, and the complexities of this racial bridge had astounding consequences. From the beginning of our French and Spanish occupation-- with the occurrence of manumission and the outright ability of an enslaved person to purchase their freedom-- a class of peoples did arise throughout our colonies and was labeled Les Gens de Couleur Libres--- Free People of Color (FPC). As time went on, classes within this class gave rise to definitions and labeling concerning the degree of proportion of blood—Black compared with White--that these Creoles of Color had running through their veins. Mulatto (50% African); Quadroon (25% African); Octoroon (1/8 or less); “not all Free People of Color were Creole and not all Creoles were free people of color but over time there has been some tendency to conflate the two, or use the word to refer to people of mixed race, which many but not all free people of color were” (LSU libraries).

Generation after generation, through the systems of outright taking of concubines and the more formal Placage arrangement, placed women of color into the arms of European men--perpetuating the systems themselves.  And, with the rearing and educating of the resulting offspring and subsequent societal mobility as a side effect, not only was eventual freedom a likelihood but, the ensuing possibility of economic security and solidarity from this closely knit society (FPC), as well, was practically guaranteed.  Against all odds the FPC actually thrived and prospered. ‘On the eve of the Civil War (1862), in New Orleans alone, there were 18,000 FPC owning and paying taxes on $15,000,000.00 worth of property.’ (Le Musee de f.p.c.) That’s literally between ten and fifteen percent of the population working in professional capacities, as artists and artisans, opening businesses, owning land and in some cases purchasing slaves for personal use.

            As first generation American and a northerner to boot, the scope and importance that FPC had that influenced not just the United States in general, but New Orleans in particular is somewhat beyond my ken (and possibly yours); however, I can tell you from what I have read and can understand, if you are going to understand this city to any degree, you need to know how FPC formed the foundation of our world here; the very fabric of our Joie de Vive.

            That being said, me expounding what I know about the FPC would be like you listening to a child trying to explain what’s inside a book by looking at the cover; however, I can tell you how to find out the whole story of the FPC from the people who study and live this historical American phenomenon; they are here in New Orleans and hold the pieces of the puzzle that make up who we are, where we came from and where we’re going.

            For sure you could just go to Professor Google and that would end up with inaccuracies, confusion and besides it would keep you from discovering the real deal. There’s a place that you can physically go to and have an immersion that will leave you wiser in spirit and intelligence while opening up your heart and your mind. It’s Le Musee de f. p. c. at 2336 Esplanade Ave. New Orleans, La. www.lemuseedefpc.com open Wednesday through Sunday; call for times and to book a tour 504-323-5074

            Book a tour? Yes. Situated in a wonderful Greek revival (I call it a) mansion are documents and photographs and art work and a knowledgeable staff that gave me more information in forty-five minutes than I could digest in weeks. From the French Quarter it’s about a twenty minute walk or bus ride or whatever, past stately large homes and shading oak trees where at one time many FPC had homes. The neighborhood is called upper Treme, where also, FYI was an enclave of Greek, Lebanese and Syrian peoples; but that’s another story. Heck there are more stories here than you can shake a stick at.

            So, there you have it (or as much as I have room to spill out to you) for those of you that want to know more about this city than red beans and rice on Monday and where to find a decent happy hour; know this: unless you learn about our heritage (s) here, you will never fully understand New Orleans.