Picture Sunday

Yes, it's back - and even on the right day! Welcome to Picture Sunday: The New Orleans Edition:

Yes, it's now almost a whole week since I was back home. But I thought I needed to relive some of those heady New Orleans times right here in my blog.

First and foremost, and without any further introduction, yep, you asked for it, you got it. Me and Mr M and a giant shrimp.



This was at Bubba Gumps, which sounded totally unappetizing to me at the time, but their food was good, and the atmosphere was fun. As long as you didn't look at the TVs, which run "Forrest Gump" from daylight to dark. I wonder how much you'd hate that movie if you worked there. (And hey, that giant shrimp has a dirty t-shirt.)

Our second picture comes from the same night and the same place. And I'm breaking my sacred rule of putting people's pictures in my blog without permission. It's just that I love this picture, I wanted it in, and, hell, my sister's never even seen my blog so I doubt she's going to put up much of a fuss. See, one of the cool things about Bubba's is that if you sat by the bar you could play stuff like Rockem Sockem Robots. Which is just what we did. Here's my sis and Taytie.



That was Christmas Eve. Then came Christmas (as it does), the canceled Jazz Parade, and the iced over and lonely streets of the Big Easy.



It was somewhere in between getting back to the hotel and getting to the Green Bar to get sloshed on martinis that the snow began to fall.



Then things warmed up and we went exploring on the 26th. I took a lot of pictures of me, Mr M, and Sherman in the French Quarter, but because I'm still a shitty photographer at this point and don't particularly like any of them, I'll give a pass to those. (You're not missing much - me on Bourbon St, me and Sherman on Bourbon St, Mr M and me and Sherman on Bourbon St....)

It was the night of the 26th that we had dinner at Mulate's. Big ol' tables with plastic tablecloths, lots of seafood, music, dancing, and what is undocumented but has to be the world's biggest-ass accordion. Here's the music and the dancing.



And here's the bigass accordion.



Oh, wait - here's a picture of my boy taken from the 26th. No, he's not drinking it. He's just peeking in to see what I'm drinking.



And soon enough it was time to start home. The beads in the photo above were given to me (for a kind donation of change) by a street person. Sherman took to them, and even had some fun with them on the way home. A little bead bondage music, maestro.



And a good time was had by all.

And here we have for your epicurial bemusement, our first recipe du jour of the year! And it is indeed unfortunate for us all, as this could be the most boring card of any in the recipe deck. It's that party trick that'll make you snore, the ol' marinated vegetables.



OK. This is called "pickle some vegetables and line them up on a tray." Really, not much more to say about it than that. In fact, the "recipe" as much as says it, only they tell you how to pickle them. No serving suggestion, just an earnest telling that this works in a salad or as a snack, and makes a beautiful addition to any buffet. I don't know. The green beans look especially limp. Nothing says "party failure" like limp green beans. And I think I see an eyeball in the jar of carrots.

Happy week, happy year!

Betland's Olympic Update:
* Did everyone begin the new year by saying "rabbit rabbit?" I did!
* Went to the Sauerkraut Band New Year's party on Saturday. It was fun, if subdued compared to last year's. Saw no naked people (granted, we weren't the last to leave), but it was good company, good eats, and good beer. And I only took baby shots of Jager.