John2026

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Love

Or

Lunacy

 “Fun is the best way of having a good time!” The Barking Duck Society: New Orleans 1972

        A new guy started working with us; we’ll call him J. J came from Texas last year for Jazz Fest, went back and saved money so that he could move here. Like so many of us, J drank the water and, as we all know, once you drink the water here, you’re never gonna be satisfied living anywhere else. J says it was ‘the vibe’ here that made him think that this is where he belongs. I say it was the water.

        I took an immediate liking to J; he’s friendly, funny, smart and easy to get along with; so, I exercised my right as a Who Dat national to hip him into what he needs to know as a new New Orleanian. The first thing I asked him was whether he read…. books; you know, so many young folks don’t. When he answered in the affirmative, I began my tutelage; this over the course of our initial weeks working together.

        First, the book Why New Orleans Matters by Tom Piazza “a passionate and critical look at the city’s unique culture. Spirit and deep-seated problems written in the wake of Hurricane Katrina”.

        Along with that, a most revered copy (my very own, in fact) of Sara Roahen’s Gumbo Tales: Finding My Place at the New Orleans Table; the most comprehensive book I’ve found to learn about our local foods.  

        Then, Frenchmen, Desire and Good Children: And Other Streets of New Orleans by John Churchill Chase, for when he’s curious about our street names.

        Finding out that J. is vegan put a pause for retro-internal-spection in my sussing him out about our food culture; it’s okay if he don’t ‘dig the pig’, but what about crawfish, ersters, swimps, roast beef po-boys, fish frys ed-cetera? Potato salad, turkey necks, andouille sausages and turducken? Whatcha gonna do with a boy like that, especially when we work in a restaurant that prepares and sells dead animals to be consumed by hungry people?  Good Time Eatin’ In Cajun Country by Donna Simon. Fills the bill; completely vegan and very Cajun.

        I also gave him a list of places around town that are friendly to those friendly enough to animals not to eat them, there are many. I told him about the New Orleans Community Resource Guide, available at libraries and on line (40 pages of free and affordable services that we have here).

        Next, his interest in our local spices and seasoning flavors had me donate a bottle of Creole Crack; that beloved spice blend from Kitchen Witch, which of course, now, he swears by. Although, I did follow up with the Creole/Cajun bible of cooking: Paul Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen, which not only contain all basic Creole/Cajun recipes but his spice blends (22 in all) there to peruse, examine and duplicate (a vegan can adapt recipes to suit their tastes); he also found favor in my favorite knife (KIWI brand) that I get for REAL affordable prices down the road from Dong Phuong Bakery (a place for Vegan bahn mi) on Chef Menteur Hwy in the little grocery stores that service the locals.

        I conversed with him about bicycle thieves, automobile towing, stinging caterpillars, termite swarms and our eight months of summer (very important for new folks moving here). I schooled him on the pronunciation of Tchoupitoulas and told him that he needs to be able to spell it out loud (and quickly) if he was ever to fit in. There’s a lot of stuff I feel that I need to impart; like where to find free city swimming pools, exercise facilities, music and dance lessons etc. (NORD). There is sh*t new people need to be schooled on.

And, if he’s ever in a bar and someone asks “are you a turtle?” the proper answer is an enthusiastic “you bet your sweet ass I am!” because if you don’t answer correctly, you have to buy a drink for the questioner (it’s a tradition here and across the country going back to WWII that I don’t understand and haven’t seen practiced in years, but… you never know).

WWOZ membership, Allen Tousaint, Doctor John, the Meters, Mardi Gras Indians, Dirty Linen night, Voter registration, library cards, museum memberships and Super Sunday; Second lines and red beans on Monday. Irma Thomas. Things that we learned by osmosis that someone should write a guide for: the ‘Who Dat New Dat’ (anyone out there?). Alligators in Bayou St. John; hurricane prep; timid possums and pesky Palmetto Bugs.  Great places for adult beverages, pool tables, dart boards and yes, hatchet throwing. Coffee shops, bakeries. Ya Ka Mein. Those Monk Parrots and the plethora of other birds found flitting citywide. Making friends with crows is very important. The streetcar; book stores. King cakes and Carnival Season, music clubs and festivals of every kind. All up for conversation.

J is gonna have to find his own way around and, no doubt will come up with many ways to fit in and be strange but not a stranger. He’ll, no doubt discover things in the Marigny, Bywater, uptown, Magazine Street, Oak Street, The French Quarter and the many out of the way places that we all have come to love and enjoy.

New Orleans is home to me and I am aware of all the quirks, fantastic fallacies and foibles that make our city one of a kind. The northernmost Caribbean city and not really part of the rest of the country; even though we’re sometimes punished for being weirder than dirt and proud of it, J will find that New Orleans is not only a city that you live in, but a city that will live in you.

P.S. next book for J… Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy O’Toole, Where y’at J?

 

 

 

Restaurant26

 

  Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Dixie Chicken

Or

Tennessee Lamb

“I was always, eh, kinda want to like consider myself kind of a pioneer of the palette; a restaurateur if you will. I’ve wined, dined, sipped and supped in some of the most demonstrably beamer epitomable bistros… ” Tom Waits: Eggs and Sausage

        I’ve opened/owned two restaurants in New Orleans; and, I’ve been in the restaurant business a long time; I have one word for anyone that has taken a shine to opening a palace of gustatory delights… “don’t”.  My excursions in the Big Easy restaurant scene taught me how Not Easy it is to make a living in the biz; some people can, most people cannot. It’s work, luck, money, work, chutzpah, business acumen and more work. And the aim is the same: give you food and take your money. Having you hand over your hard earned willingly and continually is what makes a place a success.

        And, not to brag; but, my forays in the world of restaurant eating, is a sauce of another color. I’ve had what’s considered the best croissant in the world with a cup of hot chocolate, thick as tar sludge, in a little pastry shop in Paris (France) with my nineteen-year-old daughter who claimed that she had not had all the croissants in the world so she couldn’t agree with that assessment.

        I had the most delicious combination of a cheeseburger with a bowl of chili seated at a counter of a small joint in Saint Louis Mo; you know, where they give you those little packets of saltine crackers that you crush up for your chili topping. The kind of chili that is the perfect balance of tomatoes, onions, vinegar and chili powder. Yum

        The soba soup at Mifune in San Francisco’s Japantown is not to be missed; it’s a broth redolent with dashi, noodles cooked to perfection and you eat with chopstick slurping loudly with noodles, broth streaming from your mouth as you suck in as much as you can. The booths are a tight fit and you have to pass the other (sushi) spots to go there on purpose.

        Speaking of sushi, I was part of a foursome in the early nineties at Nobu Matsuhisa’s first restaurant in Beverly Hills where the person that brought me there told the master to send out whatever he wanted to and not to stop until we told him to. Three hours later the bill came to fifteen hundred dollars and not a penny was wasted. I still remember the beautiful quivering sea scallop in its own shell with a fragile broth covered with a sheet of edible gold and topped with caviar.

        I’ve never had a better slice of pizza than the one(s) I had at walking to the beach in Far Rockaway from a guy who sold out of an open front window that he made right in front of everybody who passed; you had two choices: one with pepperoni or one without. You would be served (upon payment) a slice, fresh from the oven, on a piece of waxed paper that you would then fold in half and try to get to your mouth before the tip drooped onto your tee shirt.

        In Ensenada Mexico at a stand in a line of stands that sold the same thing: Fish Tacos, I was served by a ‘woman most gypsy-like’, the perfect fresh dorado taco that was so good that I spent the afternoon drinking Pacifico beer and eating one after another until I thought that I could duplicate them. No, I never could.

        When the Dungeness crabs run up (or down) the coast of California and you sit at a deuce and order them with garlic bread and cheap red wine and get butter all down your chin, wrists, forearms, shirtfront. Erotic.

        My first Cobb Salad at the Ivy in Santa Monica, Ca. blew my mind to find that array of wonderful tastes laid before me like a gustatory harem.

Lemme tell you: I’ve had menudo on Christmas Eve in Puerta Villarta; eggplant at Daino in San Piero Patti, Sicily; Barbecue at The Rendezvous in Memphis, Tenn.; lobster ceviche and pollo al carbon in the Yucatan; beans, tomatoes and eggs for breakfast in London; and, bratwurst and pomme frites in Hamburg, Germany; Oeufs a la Niege in Angers, France and more. Now let’s talk about New Orleans.  

I’ve had red beans and rice at Buster Holmes for less than a dollar; I’ve eaten Ya Ka Mein at a dozen different places; I’ve spent a week’s wages at a fancy restaurant and can’t remember what I ate and I’ve had the boiled turkey necks and pig’s feet at John & Mary’s that I still dream about. I’ve tried every vegan eatery in the city and I’ve leaned against my car in a Dollar General lot and consumed a can of Vienna Sausages.

I’ll eat anywhere that Susan Spicer is involve with; I had Christmas dinner at The Golden Wall Chinese take-out; I’ve had Pho at Eat Well and Bahn Mi at Dom Phong; I love the rib eye (Pittsburg style) at Crescent City and the gumbo at Dooky Chase’s. I’ve had ten cent oysters at some hole in the wall saloon; sipped $500.00 champagne at Muriel’s; love the hot dog and soft drink (free refills) at Costco; Betsy’s for brekkie; the food line at Ideal Market: salivatious!; I’m still eating Tres Leches wherever I find it; Borek at Fatma’s Cozy Corner (a must); I’ve stood in line for free lunch with homeless people (tried to pay but they wouldn’t accept); Ian McNulty’s recommendation for fried chicken at a gas station turned out to be gospel as is the shrimp po’boy at the Orange House. And, oh yeah, this is the Where Y’at Restaurant Issue.  

       

Halloween26

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Boo

Or

Who

“The worms crawl in; the worms crawl out, they taste your guts and they spit them out. They use your bones for telephones and call you up when you’re not at home”: Kid’s gaming rhyme

        Oh, what a rollicking time we had as young kids. It wasn’t enough that our older siblings, parents and even random strangers said and did things toward us just to see terror in our eyes and minds; no, the world had to imprint in us fear and insecurity as well. In what is called, ‘childlore’, we were sung songs like the ‘rock-a-bye babies’ that fell to earth when the tree branch broke; and when we’d ring-around-the rosy, we would all fall dead. The Itsy-Bitsy Spider would crawl up our arms and ring worms would get all of our hair “cut off up to here!”; plus, this little piggy would “wee wee wee all the way home”. Not even to mention so called ‘Fairy Tales’. They expected us to be amused: we were terrified. Peek-a-boo my ass.

        The Farmer in the Dell was a lesson in humiliation and there was even a kid’s card game called ‘Bloody Knuckles’ that dealt real physical punishment to whoever lost (does anyone know the game ‘Mumblety-peg’ where the loser literally has to eat dirt?). Does anyone else remember being the target in a dodge ball vendetta?  I do.

        In the cinema we had monstrous monsters and demented humans that could turn into wolfmen or blood sucking bats or even sew human parts into lumbering killers that even could get a bride made for them. Giants unfrozen from tundra, giant ants and gorillas, lizards, mummies and Creatures from Black Lagoons. Mad scientists, blobs of skin dissolving goo, mutated giants and alien invaders. All while eating popcorn like it was the only thing keeping us safe (gateway to overweight, if you ask me), and screaming our lungs out. We laughed as the Three Stooges physically perpetually hurt each other.

Oh, that’s not saying that there wasn’t real fun stuff; and, you had to be there to really appreciate it. Marbles, jacks, scooters, skip rope, tidily-winks, Chinese checkers, pick-up sticks and a variety of card games led us from being young kids hiding under desks from atomic attack into insecure acned bicycled hormone crazed teen years playing spin the bottle and dancing to Rock and Roll and then into the demented adulthood that believed that the ‘Commies’ were out to get us. We believed that only the strong survived. Some still do.

As kids, we had kid monsters that bullied us in the playground. We had imaginary monsters under our beds; we had fathers that had fought in wars and killed people; we had older kids willing to belittle our asses, teachers ready to humiliate us in school and somehow, we made some sense of life by dressing up on Halloween and begging for candy from strangers; our brief respite from reality. We dressed up outlandishly as goblins, hobos, debutantes and spooks; no parents attended Trick or Treat. We took and gave intimidations over the hauls. Fun stuff. In life we learned that we were on our own; on Halloween it was us against the world.

        We grew up, had children that we didn’t understand, who grew up only to have more children that they, in turn, did not understand; we get it, our parents didn’t understand us either. Parents do the best that they can with what they have to work with, lessons that they learned that were, in essence, lessons that didn’t work, so, they try different lessons on their kids that, in essence, don’t work either. In my day, when I was a pain in the ass, I received a pain in the ass.

        My children got disciplined but not physically punished; their children get a motivational speech as their lesson; and in turn, their children will get to try lessons, with whatever their limited experience they have, on their children what they think might work. None of it works. The fact is, that kids will be kids (!) with or without parent’s help and will, seemingly, willfully and spitefully be as selfish and manipulating as possible to achieve their own self-centered ends; it’s not your fault or theirs...they’re kids, and that’s what kids do normally. Kids normally seek attention, love, security and candy.

        The only thing common to all generations, that I’ve seen, is the way collectively, we celebrate the holidays we are given or create. Birthdays; beach days; Halloween; Thanksgiving; pizza night; New Years and whatever floats your boat in December (Christmas, Kwanza; Bodhi Day, Hanukkah). The good, the bad and the party pooper.

        On Halloween night, Debbie and I don’t stay home to give out candy; if we did, she’d want to give out fresh fruit and I’d want to give chocolate. So, instead of that, we go out to watch the ‘Trick or Treat-ers (with their posse of adults) and have more fun than watching a litter of puppies in a kiddie pool.

        There they are, the little darlin’s: Spiderman; Captain America; Elphaba and Glinda and isn’t that Wednesday Addams? Mega Minions; a little blue dog(?): a pirate; a cheerleader and a puppy dressed like a hot dog, complete with bun. All the kids have bags for their hauls and some have already been munching (chocolate if I’m not mistaken) Parents are circling around; some also having the time of their life, some wishing that this would soon be over and ready for a glass of wine. Oh, also a couple of geezers (us)laughing at the whole scene and remembering what Billy Joel sang: “you know, the good old days weren’t always good and tomorrow aint as bad as it seems” Keeping the faith, Boo. Also, Boo!

       

       

       

         

 

New NOSOC

 

PO BOY Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Monday Magnate

Or

Flagrant Vagrant

        “I have squandered my resistance for a pocket full of mumbles such are promises, all lies and jest…” The Boxer: Paul Simon

I had been out of work for two weeks now; everybody knew why I had to resign my post. The usual excuses can be made: work load; hours and/or money; none of that really applied so much as my happiness with my life in opposition to my life as an employee. I was not unhappy; I just was not happy. It was work that I was overqualified to perform; it was professional frustration; it was culinary restlessness. And I was at the point where I was willing to leave without idea one as to what I was going to do next; I left.

I am above the age when most men retire, except that I’m passionate about my work; I love what I do. I am also insecure. Should I go back to being culinary grist for the mill? I have/had been that for half a century, but for who, and who, would want me? Am I over the hill? Have advances in my field passed me by while I insisted on ‘being happy’ where I worked? Happy and foolish? Foolish and not attentive? By not being serious enough, grasshopper?

I started as a youngster and into my early adulthood, taking odd jobs and leaving after learning enough to where the job I had was not seemingly as adventurous as that nebulous one over the rainbow. I rushed into adulthood like a kid running into a carnival fun house. I have traveled. I have lived. I have cooked, loved, have tasted and been tested. I was a somebody. I’ve been a nobody. All without trying. An escapade. A life of serendipitous incidents. A failure, Phoenix, pawn, poet and King. A culinary slut. I’ve had my fun.

And now look at me. Unemployed. Unemployed and uncertain. I write letters to places that I want to work. No responses. One chef I wrote four times with not the courtesy of a rejection, just silence. Lesson learned.

        Then, one day, one answered. It started with “Dear, we were delighted to find the letter you wrote…” and ended with “we would love the chance to meet with you” and gave me times and days to respond and respond I did. The meeting, scheduled and met, lasted over an hour and was like a conversation with friends; a small cooking school bursting at the seams with ambition, drive and passion; bright eyed enthusiasm and with a trunk load of experience and history behind them.

The director gave me a tour of three floors of class and event space as well as a peek into ‘The Lab’ where recipes are tested; very impressive. The small space that I had seen before, a gift shop, a room with dining tables and a stage for an instructor was the tip of the iceberg. Big spaces with big ambitions; just up my alley. I sent them a thank you note the next day, as I waited for the next step.

Now, this school like other businesses in New Orleans has a slow and a busy season; the busy season can be terrifyingly full and tiring, while slow season is like someone shutting a light switch off: excruciatingly sluggish. We agreed that I would not start full time until September and that I would, until then slide in softly like syrup into the stream. Which was fine by me as I had been working for seven months like my pants were on fire and my ass was catching; and non-stop four years before.

So, the next step came with me attending a hands-on class with Chef Austin which was a grand experience; three hours of making gumbo (including roux) barbecued shrimp with cheese grits and bananas Foster on crepes with vanilla ice cream. Next would be me as an assistant instructor in the nearer future. Everyone that I met in the organization was welcoming, hospitable and utterly dear; and I thought “you know, I believe that I’m gonna love this place; I think that I could be happy here”.

In between time I had a staycation of sorts; shopping; haircuts; a manicure; movies; little chores around the house; making homemade pizza, bread and biscuits. Lazy breakfasts; sleeping late, reading the newspaper daily; feeding outdoor cats; thrifting; connecting with my house, home and love ones. Getting good nights sleep and waking refreshed ready for another day’s adventures. Dipping into the savings that I accrued by making money that I didn’t have time to spend. Swimming at NORD and water aerobics… life.

Back at the school I was offered an assignment to work up curriculum, study material and syllabus for a class on Creole Sicilian; writing the recipes and testing them in the test kitchen. Cool. It’s something I could do, have done before and was happy to do it again; exercising my brain instead of what brawn I have left. I made out a list of over a dozen dishes to work with and we narrowed them down to six, plus their accoutrements. Ten recipes, each tailored to two students, class time three hours including time to sit and enjoy the fruits of their labor.

Wish me luck. I went in today to familiarize myself with equipment and supplies, a ‘shopping list’ was made out, so that I would have what I need to test and with luck, by the time you read this, you’ll be able to take a class of Creole Sicilian food at The New Orleans School of Cooking taught by Chef Philipe LaMancusa. Ciao!

 

 

Unhomed

 

Po Boy Views

By

Phil LaMancusa

Do it

Or

Don’t

 

“Yes, the strong gets more, while the weak ones fade; empty pockets don’t ever make the grade… God bless the child that’s got his own” Billie Holiday

The Buzzed Buddha sits atop a neutral ground concrete slab on Esplanade Avenue somewhere off Dauphine Street, New Orleans; she could use a bath. She waves at the passing cars with her scepter of a tall PBR nestled in brown paper, grinning like a Cheshire. The tribe that she belongs to line our streets and they are wherever you look and however much you’d like to avoid seeing them, they’re here. 69% are locals that have lived here over 5 years or from birth (UNITY.gno.org).

Over fifteen hundred (Fox8live) uneasy humans in The Big Easy (and counting) are considered ‘unhoused’ a term used with pathos rather than the brutal fact of them being, in fact, homeless (without a home). They litter, beg, freeload, hustle, survive and anesthetize themselves as best they can, however they can, to relieve the helplessness of their condition; some are families. Many sleep outdoors.

Broken dreams, broken hearts, broken promises, broken homes; poor education, poverty, poor choices, poor spirits. There’s nowhere to run from your problems when you’re homeless, there’s no place for you to run to; unless it’s to something, anything, to deaden the pain. Living without a home could certainly lead a person to excesses.

Bad decisions, bad timing, bad conditions, bad loves and bad luck; 22.6% of NOLA citizens live below the poverty level (US Census 2025); and that’s not automatically counting the homeless in that group. So many are so ‘food insecure’ (HUNGRY!) that buying food most times trumps paying rent… or doesn’t. We have services here the help with food, clothing, school supplies, rent assistance and health care. Most of these programs are being cut by The One Big Beautiful Bill Act passed by the people in government that you voted into the majority (Ballotpedia.org) to serve us. Head Start programs also are in jeopardy of being defunded (NYT.0rg)

3%-4% of this city’s adult male population (1in25 - 1in30) are under active correctional supervision as is 7%-10% of women (prisonpolicy.org); meanwhile, unemployment rate in NOLA is 5.5% (BLS.gov)

Louisiana ranks 49^th in the country for childhood poverty (Mississippi is 50^th) that’s 24.8% of the population (neworleanscitybusiness.com). In New Orleans 26-29% of kids are in that number, and that’s children under the age of 15 (axios.com/local/neworelans). Almost 82% of kids now graduate from high school here (Yay!); up from 54% before Katrina (NOLA-PS Data Dashboard). 49% of NOLA households live below the ALICE threshold (WDSU Ella Wales) meaning that they’re not considered poor but could not survive a major income shock (i.e.one paycheck away…) All of this means what?

It means that New Orleans, Louisiana and America have and has failed miserably in options for a large percentage of our population--for generations. Our society has not provided a purpose driven life for many of its citizens.

When you see ‘them’ in traffic intersections holding a square of cardboard “anything helps, God bless” you easily turn a blind eye. “It’s their own fault” you might say. “They could do better if they wanted to; look at me, I’m alright; there’s help for them if they want it; ah, they’re just bums, what can you do with people like that? They’d probably just spend it on drugs.”

What makes ‘them’ different from ‘us’? What influences ‘Life Satisfaction’? What defines ‘Purpose’? --to me, Purpose is a personal, emotional, and spiritual feeling of security and worth. Science, studies and surveys cannot track causes for impedance of personal meaning; we only see the positive results of its absence. ‘Housing first’ doesn’t get to the root of mental illness and/or the intersection of systemic abuse and scars that have led to homelessness.

The rationale that a person can be cured of facing a life and future as futile and less than meaningful with a hot lunch and a ‘Praise Jesus’ is a myth and a feel-good assuagement for folks who naively believe that they’re making a difference to someone who lacks: strong family and community ties; steady work and financial health; access to health care and safe neighborhoods; and, creative outlets like art, music, and local traditions.

“Addressing homelessness with a roof over head and a bed to lay on does nothing to solve the problem; it treats the symptoms and ignores the disease; this approach does not work” says HUD Secretary Scott Turner. He goes on to advocate for treatment both medical and mental, citing that “homelessness in this country is up 80%”.

Doing the math, it appears that just a little over half of the NOLA population is doing alright while the rest can go suck eggs (r/etymology). The common overall view, as I see it, is that those (that can be chronologically documented as) less fortunate than the ‘rest of us’ are vagrants and not victims.

Here’s what you can do. You’re sending cards out anyway for the holiday; set aside those throw away bucks: money for that pack of cigarettes, extra drink, the quarters you’ve been hording, money from your next tattoo fund etc. and write a check.

There’s a place right here in town that gives free resting space, case management, showers, toiletries, phone service, laundry, food pantry, morning snacks and hot lunch to our city’s indigent. Saint Joseph Rejoin/Rebuild Center 1803 Gravier Street NOLA 70112 We need to support places like this; Just do it.

“We live on a planet well able to provide a decent life for every soul on it, which is all ninety-nine of a hundred ask. Why in the world can’t we have it?” Jack Finney: About Time