Pancake Tuesday, 2022

Pancake Tuesday 2020: Millbrae Pancake House

Last year we skipped Fat Tuesday, aka Mardi Gras. Pancakes will be on the table tonight. The dinner will be subdued, a far cry from the revelry of years past.

Eating pancakes on the day before Lent is a tradition that goes back to the Middle Ages.

During Lent there are many foods that some Christians - historically and today - would not eat: foods such as meat and fish, fats, eggs, and milky foods.

So that no food was wasted, families would have a feast on the shriving Tuesday, and eat up all the foods that wouldn't last the forty days of Lent without going off.

The need to eat up the fats gave rise to the French name Mardi Gras ('fat Tuesday'). Pancakes became associated with Shrove Tuesday as they were a dish that could use up all the eggs, fats and milk in the house with just the addition of flour.

Get your free Parade COVID tests right here (WSJ)

The most famous celebration, New Orleans' Mardi Gras parade, will make a partial comeback this evening:

Signs this year point to a partial recovery, but not a return to pre-pandemic crowds and tourist spending. Hotel occupancy rates on the weekend days before March 1 are above 80% for the roughly 26,000 rooms in the city’s French Quarter and downtown, still below pre-pandemic levels, according to New Orleans & Company, the group representing the city’s tourist industry. The expected occupancy rate for Saturday was 80%, down from 90% in 2020. The occupancy rate for actual Mardi Gras is expected to be 66%, down from 82% in 2020, according to the group.

War, inflation, and COVID-19 have put a damper on the party.

The Big Easy Does It

What social distancing? Frenchmen Street on Saturday (WSJ photo)

New Orleans is coming back.

Indoor dining, restaurants and bars are allowed to operate at 100% capacity with distancing and masks, though dance clubs are closed...

The Royal Frenchmen’s April occupancy rates are 72% of what they would ordinarily be, up from 56% in March and a low of zero during the pandemic’s peak, general manager Tyler Daly said. The hotel has sold out every weekend since the beginning of March.,,

At many downtown and French Quarter hotels, overall occupancy has been 90% or sold out on weekends and about 40% overall throughout April.

I visited New Orleans once (on business), had a great time, took a leisure day with the family, promised myself to come back, yet never did.

If I did have a bucket list, a return to the Big Easy would be on it.

Mr. P likes this couple's porch.

Note: New Orleans visitors and residents need to watch out for Mr. P, a peacock, who has no fear of humans and takes over spaces that he takes a fancy to.

The neighborhood peacock, also known as Petey—or, sometimes, Picasso, for the abstract designs his pecks leave on cars—showed up in Pigeon Town around 2008. Mr. P found a special tree to call home until last year, when Hurricane Zeta felled its roosting branch.

“He freaked out when he saw,” said Lisa Palumbo, a University of New Orleans marketing instructor. “He either honks like a goose or heehaws like a donkey when he’s upset.”

...Pigeon Town had divided over Mr. P a few years back. Some residents complained to the city about the bird screeching all night, damaging the paint on cars and terrifying those going about their workaday lives. Peacocks are known to be aggressive and territorial, especially during mating season. In response, the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals tried to trap Mr. P. The peacock kept a low-profile until the trappers gave up and left.

Trump is the Devil

New Orleans on February 25th (Business Insider photo)

Some people--and I used to encounter them in person on a regular basis (thank God for social distancing)--think President Trump is the devil, Hitler, evil incarnate, etc. Of course, they do know that they're speaking metaphorically.

But it's not the accuracy of the metaphor that's the subject of this post, but the convenience of having a devil to blame.

New Orleans Mayor LaToya Cantrell refused to cancel Mardi Gras on February 25th and is now dealing with the consequences--151 deaths, 3,540 total cases, 1,127 patients hospitalized as of today.

Mayor Cantrell blames President Trump.

She told CNN that if the outbreak had been taken seriously on the federal level at the time, they would have called off the event.

"When it's not taken seriously on the federal level, it's very difficult to transcend down to the local level in making these decisions," Cantrell said, adding that the federal response "backed up by the response of our national leader."

Yes, we have seen this movie before. In fact, that's the opening plotline of Jaws, in which the Mayor of Amity Island refuses to close the beaches after a fatal shark attack. The fictional Mayor of a New England town and the real-life Mayor of New Orleans put the money of tourist season and Mardi Gras, respectively, over lives.

When the Mardi Gras decision had to be made, President Trump had already restricted flights from China on January 31st. In New Orleans' case, after the fact, how nice it is to have President Trump to blame.

The devil has his uses
Allows us to make excuses
For our own bad choices
When we listened to the voices
Of selfishness and avarice.
So the devil, he wins twice
When our sin leads to shame
"Not me," I say,"he's to blame."

Well, It Oughtta Be True

During a natural disaster it's not just Donald Trump that the media tries to make look bad, it's Republican presidents in general. The Washington Post, on disaster reporting standards during the Bush years:

New Orleans Mayor Nagin and Police Superintendent
Compass after Hurricane Katrina (CBS photo)

One of the great media-fed myths of Katrina was that criminality, violence and looting swept New Orleans after the breach of the city’s levees. There were apocalyptic stories about snipers shooting at rescue helicopters, roving gangs indiscriminately killing and raping throughout the flooded city, and the Superdome overflowing with dead bodies.

Almost none of it was true.

Much of the defective reporting stemmed from exaggerated or wholly inaccurate comments from official sources, including the mayor and police chief, said W. Joseph Campbell, the author of “Getting It Wrong: Debunking the Greatest Myths in American Journalism.”

Sensationalist reporting boosts sales and generates clicks. As a bonus, if it hurts politicians that the media detests, why should facts and journalistic standards get in the way of the story?

Popeye's Jambalaya Fail

A few bits of chicken and sausage in rice do not a
jambalaya make-----especially at $6.99

I had my first taste of jambalaya when celebrity New Orleans chef Paul Prudhomme came to San Francisco in 1983. I order it a couple of times a year when dining at local restaurants, but all are pale imitations of K-Paul's.

Which brings me to the new menu item, jambalaya, served at Popeye's Louisiana Kitchen in Redwood City. What a disappointment!

Originally just a fried-chicken competitor to KFC, Popeye's has been trying to upgrade its image and fare. Liking Popeye's other Cajun-themed dishes, I wasn't expecting K-Paul-like jambalaya by any stretch, but did hope for something much better than I was served. The overall portion-size was small, and one had to hunt for the bits of chicken and sausage in the bland tomato-flavored rice.

Certainly your humble restaurant critic has had much more expensive dining disappointments. However, when one is judging fast food, the cost, quality, and quantity tradeoffs are much more finely tuned. For $5-$6 one can get a decent meal, including a drink, at most places; by that standard the right price for Popeye's $6.99 jambalaya was about $2.99.

There's no escaping it, I'll just have to save for a trip to New Orleans.