An embarrassment of riches
Yesterday late in the afternoon, I walked a few blocks down to the Green Market and bought two big bunches of kale, one bunch of collard greens, four filets of drum, a basket of beets, a sack of satsumas, and four pints of strawberries, and eight cookies (peanut butter, chocolate chip, oatmeal and macaroons coated with chocolate). Everything I bought was made or grown in Louisiana.
You walk over to the Ferry Building on Saturdays in San Francisco and you are blown away by the enormity of the bounty they have there. If you flew in the next day and came to our Green Market, you’d most likely snicker.
I took what I had bought and last night we sat down at the table with friends and had stewed greens with tasso, fish tacos with coleslaw marinated in Creole Tomato dressing on corn tortillas, and roasted beets drizzled with balsamic. Nobody left the table feeling slighted.
We then got in the car and drove to the 9th Ward and walked into Vaughn’s as Kermit Ruffin and the Barbecue Swingers were getting warmed up. People of all walks of life packed the room – a rather large woman with a pink dress and scarf shimmied and danced in front of us – and Kermit belted out:
My grandma and your grandma
Were sittin’ by the fire
My grandma told your grandma
I’m gonna set your flag on fireTalkin’ ’bout hey now, hey now! Hey now, hey now!
Iko, iko unday
Jockamo feeno ai nané
Jockamo fee nanéLook at my king all dressed in red
Iko, iko, unday
I betcha five dollars he’ll kill you dead
Jockamo fee nané
Our guests from Croatia were moving their hips and holding their hands in the air, joining the rest of the crowd in the pulsating rhythm of New Orleans music at its most fun. Full bellies, smiles on their faces, in our little land of plenty down here.
There ain’t no place like home.