Wednesday, April 28, 2010
Several years ago, Rex and I took a trip to New Orleans. It was the best vacation I've ever had- well, the besides the time my parents took me to Disney World as an eight year old. (And really, when you are eight, can anything compete with Disney World? I don't think so.)
It was the year before Katrina, and the city was simply... enchanting. Not enchanting like Disney, mind you, where you know that everything is a carefully calculated fake. New Orleans doesn't try so hard to sell itself. She's a classy vintage brothel, not a modern-day street walker. She doesn't stagger over to your car and push herself against the window, with vulgar offers; No, New Orleans whispers, "Come in if you want, sugar. Stay a spell." It was as if the city itself put an arm around me, drew me close and handed me a drink.
New Orleans isn't picture perfect in that plastic-shiny way of most tourist destinations in the US, by any means. The streets are a little grimy -- but in a picturesque way. New Orleans is a little like an aging old lady, a grand dame whose got a little mud on the hem of her skirt, and her lipstick may be a little smeared, but she's still one hell of a great gal.
NOLA really is a special place where people still live amid its history, where around every corner you find yourself just staring at some bit of architecture that still has a distinct personality. That's something hard to come by in these days of cookie-cutter strip malls. What's special about New Orleans is that .... well, it's New Orleans.
Maybe our visit was helped by the fact that we arrived the week after Mardi Gras, when most of the tourists had gone home and everybody seemed to be breathing a huge sigh of relief in a post-blowout afterglow. The people we met made us feel like tourists were not merely tolerated for the sake of the money in our pocket books, but welcome just for hospitality's sake.
We set aside one night for a special meal, the kind of "throw-away-the- budget-and-don't -even-look-at-the-price-tag" extravagance that life requires from time to time. I had researched all the options carefully before the trip, and settled on The Court of Two Sisters.
I watch enough Anthony Bourdain to know that the most famous of a city's restaurants, the one who whistles loudest at the tourists, are most often not the best food in town. Hell, I know this from living in my home town of Savannah, where tourists are always directed toward the Pirate's House -- an interesting place, to be sure, but not often frequented by the locals who know better. For years, the best food in Savannah was at Mrs. Wilkes' Boarding House, which for most of its history didn't even have a sign out front. You just knew where it was, and looked for the people lining up outside at lunch time. (I have no opinion at all on the newest tourist mecca in Savannah, Paula Deen's "Mother and Sons" -- i haven't been there. When I go home, I'm too busy eating my mom's cooking, and shoving Spanky's chicken fingers into my face.)
I'm not knocking the Court's food -- in truth, i don't even remember what I ate. I vaguely remember it being reasonably good, but the food was hardly the point.
Flash back to many years before. I was sixteen, dragged across country from Los Angeles to Savannah with my family in what has become known as the Great Yandell Vacation from Hell. Yes, we drove. At some point in the navigation, my mother -- from whom I have inherited the travel bug and food fetish -- insisted that we should detour from Memphis (had to go to Memphis, to visit Graceland) down to New Orleans. After the first 2,000 miles, does another five hundred really matter?
We trotted through New Orleans -- we had limited time -- and when it was time for dinner, my mother headed to the gated courtyard of some restaurant in the French Quarter. We could see nothing at all beyond the iron bars of the gate, only the elegant menus posted on the courtyard wall.
My father took one look at the french words on the menu and balked. If there was no hamburger steak on the menu, he wasn't having any of it.
We ate at Howard Johnson's instead.
I have always suspected this was the real reason my parents divorced.
I have no idea if the Court of the Two Sisters was the same courtyard restaurant that my mother had been denied years before, but I was damned sure it was an acceptable substitute.
It was magical. We arrived just as the sun was setting, and we were seated in the enormous courtyard, under the riotous blossoms of wisteria, obviously still celebrating Mardi Gras, sprinkling lavender petals like confetti across the cobblestones.
I have always loved wisteria, but never had I seen anything so freakin HUGE. The base was a mash of dozens of thick trunks, the whole mass as big as the trunk of a giant oak. The creeping foliage covered the entire courtyard in a lush jungle of green and lavender. The vines were like the British Empire under Victoria, spreading everywhere as insidiously as small pox.
It got even better as the sky dimmed to a pale indigo. The wisteria was entwined with thousands of white lights that suddenly twinkled to life.
I came home -- reluctantly -- with a dream. I would build an arbor in my backyard. I would plant a wisteria vine. I would nurture it, pamper it, coax it into glory like the Court of Two Sisters.
With only a little arm-twisting, Rex helped me build the arbor. (Okay, I assisted. I mostly handed him tools, and i did do all the staining.) I went to Home Depot and got the biggest wisteria they had. I planted it in the light of the full moon, dancing naked and chanting around it for good luck. (Luckily for me, the arbor is inside a privacy fence.)
It seemed to grow well, and then winter came. I watched anxiously as it lost all its leaves and became just a few gnarled brown twigs. When spring strolled around, I held my breath, waiting to see if my beloved had indeed survived a Tennessee winter.
Lo and behold.... it sprung green once more. It grew and grew.... but it did not blossom. Imagine my dismay to research wisteria online and find that they may take anywhere from five to ten years to bloom. If ever.
I've been praying and crossing my fingers for six (?) years now, and while the wisteria continues to grow like gangbusters, it has not yet bloomed. I'm still hopeful.
It has grown so well it's begun to invade a nearby tree. For a year or two, I pulled the invading vines out of the tree, coaxing the tendrils back into the arbor. Then for another few years, I decided, to hell with it. If it wants to take the tree, I don't care. The tree is ugly anyway. Let the wisteria run free! Let it run rampant over the whole neighborhood! Run, wisteria, run!
But alas, the storms of the last week knocked a large bastard of a branch out of the tree and onto the arbor. A branch of nearly four inches diameter managed to wedge itself into the slats of the roof, and no amount of pulling and pushing would free it.
So, i spent this afternoon perched precariously on a ladder, with telescoping branch cutters, hacking at both the tree and my beloved wisteria until I was able to free the wretched branch.
I know my beloved will recover, and probably needed the pruning, but it still hurt my heart to cut any of it. Not to mention the pain of my upper arms, which I will probably not be able to lift tomorrow.
Now, if i can just find a lumberjack who'll trade taking down that damned tree for monkees, paintings or sexual favors.
It was the year before Katrina, and the city was simply... enchanting. Not enchanting like Disney, mind you, where you know that everything is a carefully calculated fake. New Orleans doesn't try so hard to sell itself. She's a classy vintage brothel, not a modern-day street walker. She doesn't stagger over to your car and push herself against the window, with vulgar offers; No, New Orleans whispers, "Come in if you want, sugar. Stay a spell." It was as if the city itself put an arm around me, drew me close and handed me a drink.
New Orleans isn't picture perfect in that plastic-shiny way of most tourist destinations in the US, by any means. The streets are a little grimy -- but in a picturesque way. New Orleans is a little like an aging old lady, a grand dame whose got a little mud on the hem of her skirt, and her lipstick may be a little smeared, but she's still one hell of a great gal.
NOLA really is a special place where people still live amid its history, where around every corner you find yourself just staring at some bit of architecture that still has a distinct personality. That's something hard to come by in these days of cookie-cutter strip malls. What's special about New Orleans is that .... well, it's New Orleans.
Maybe our visit was helped by the fact that we arrived the week after Mardi Gras, when most of the tourists had gone home and everybody seemed to be breathing a huge sigh of relief in a post-blowout afterglow. The people we met made us feel like tourists were not merely tolerated for the sake of the money in our pocket books, but welcome just for hospitality's sake.
We set aside one night for a special meal, the kind of "throw-away-the- budget-and-don't -even-look-at-the-price-ta
I watch enough Anthony Bourdain to know that the most famous of a city's restaurants, the one who whistles loudest at the tourists, are most often not the best food in town. Hell, I know this from living in my home town of Savannah, where tourists are always directed toward the Pirate's House -- an interesting place, to be sure, but not often frequented by the locals who know better. For years, the best food in Savannah was at Mrs. Wilkes' Boarding House, which for most of its history didn't even have a sign out front. You just knew where it was, and looked for the people lining up outside at lunch time. (I have no opinion at all on the newest tourist mecca in Savannah, Paula Deen's "Mother and Sons" -- i haven't been there. When I go home, I'm too busy eating my mom's cooking, and shoving Spanky's chicken fingers into my face.)
I'm not knocking the Court's food -- in truth, i don't even remember what I ate. I vaguely remember it being reasonably good, but the food was hardly the point.
Flash back to many years before. I was sixteen, dragged across country from Los Angeles to Savannah with my family in what has become known as the Great Yandell Vacation from Hell. Yes, we drove. At some point in the navigation, my mother -- from whom I have inherited the travel bug and food fetish -- insisted that we should detour from Memphis (had to go to Memphis, to visit Graceland) down to New Orleans. After the first 2,000 miles, does another five hundred really matter?
We trotted through New Orleans -- we had limited time -- and when it was time for dinner, my mother headed to the gated courtyard of some restaurant in the French Quarter. We could see nothing at all beyond the iron bars of the gate, only the elegant menus posted on the courtyard wall.
My father took one look at the french words on the menu and balked. If there was no hamburger steak on the menu, he wasn't having any of it.
We ate at Howard Johnson's instead.
I have always suspected this was the real reason my parents divorced.
I have no idea if the Court of the Two Sisters was the same courtyard restaurant that my mother had been denied years before, but I was damned sure it was an acceptable substitute.
It was magical. We arrived just as the sun was setting, and we were seated in the enormous courtyard, under the riotous blossoms of wisteria, obviously still celebrating Mardi Gras, sprinkling lavender petals like confetti across the cobblestones.
I have always loved wisteria, but never had I seen anything so freakin HUGE. The base was a mash of dozens of thick trunks, the whole mass as big as the trunk of a giant oak. The creeping foliage covered the entire courtyard in a lush jungle of green and lavender. The vines were like the British Empire under Victoria, spreading everywhere as insidiously as small pox.
It got even better as the sky dimmed to a pale indigo. The wisteria was entwined with thousands of white lights that suddenly twinkled to life.
I came home -- reluctantly -- with a dream. I would build an arbor in my backyard. I would plant a wisteria vine. I would nurture it, pamper it, coax it into glory like the Court of Two Sisters.
With only a little arm-twisting, Rex helped me build the arbor. (Okay, I assisted. I mostly handed him tools, and i did do all the staining.) I went to Home Depot and got the biggest wisteria they had. I planted it in the light of the full moon, dancing naked and chanting around it for good luck. (Luckily for me, the arbor is inside a privacy fence.)
It seemed to grow well, and then winter came. I watched anxiously as it lost all its leaves and became just a few gnarled brown twigs. When spring strolled around, I held my breath, waiting to see if my beloved had indeed survived a Tennessee winter.
Lo and behold.... it sprung green once more. It grew and grew.... but it did not blossom. Imagine my dismay to research wisteria online and find that they may take anywhere from five to ten years to bloom. If ever.
I've been praying and crossing my fingers for six (?) years now, and while the wisteria continues to grow like gangbusters, it has not yet bloomed. I'm still hopeful.
It has grown so well it's begun to invade a nearby tree. For a year or two, I pulled the invading vines out of the tree, coaxing the tendrils back into the arbor. Then for another few years, I decided, to hell with it. If it wants to take the tree, I don't care. The tree is ugly anyway. Let the wisteria run free! Let it run rampant over the whole neighborhood! Run, wisteria, run!
But alas, the storms of the last week knocked a large bastard of a branch out of the tree and onto the arbor. A branch of nearly four inches diameter managed to wedge itself into the slats of the roof, and no amount of pulling and pushing would free it.
So, i spent this afternoon perched precariously on a ladder, with telescoping branch cutters, hacking at both the tree and my beloved wisteria until I was able to free the wretched branch.
I know my beloved will recover, and probably needed the pruning, but it still hurt my heart to cut any of it. Not to mention the pain of my upper arms, which I will probably not be able to lift tomorrow.
Now, if i can just find a lumberjack who'll trade taking down that damned tree for monkees, paintings or sexual favors.
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