12/29/11

All Night Long

You made it! Congratulations.

Here you are on the brink of kissing good-bye to 2011 and about to enter 2012. But only yesterday, didn’t we just party like it was 1999? Wasn’t the turn of the century about 20 minutes ago? Evidently not so, in either case.

We’ve all earned the right to a kick-ass party because the clock is moving right along and we are about to turn the calendar. Beginning right now, it’s going to be a long bout with a whole trainload of parties rolling at us in short order. New Year’s, Sugar Bowl, beginning of Carnival, Saints first playoff game, BCS and then, hopefully, more Saints playoff games. Did I mention the seasonal balls with parade season right around the corner?

Do you realize that in most...

Posted at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments: 0

12/22/11

Ho! Ho! Ho! Where's My Drink?

It’s crazy out there. Possibly you have not quite been in the Holiday spirit to this point, but you are there now. And even if you have been in the spirit, this is the time when it does not get old. It gets nice. Or naughty. Or both – lucky you.

Special holidays, like Christmas, or the “holiday season” (choose your preference), require special responses from the liquor cabinet. Oh sure, you could just go the champagne route, and there’s no down-side there. You’ve put much emphasis on getting the home in order and decorated, then you’ve actually spent a few bucks on presents for friends. Maybe...

Posted at 04:45 AM | Permalink | Comments: 0

12/15/11

Hot Holiday Toddy for a Cold Body

My friends from New York and Chicago think we are all a bunch of wussies down here. Whenever the temperature heads below the 50-degree mark, they get a big kick out of us moving into panic mode about what we are going to wear, do we really want to go out, and should be just pack it in and wait for the cold to pass.

I chillingly point out that I don’t see a lot of them around New Orleans when we are at 85-percent humidity and 95 degrees in August. However, that is a column for another day.

Today, we are in the “grips” of our winter. And that means it may be 45, then tomorrow we will see 75. Long stretches of cold, wet weather are not our style, thankfully. I know our wintertime guests from already snow-bound locations appreciate a few rays of...

Posted at 05:00 AM | Permalink | Comments: 1

12/08/11

Wishing You a Bubbly Holiday Season

There have been two contemporary attempts, both based on science, to count the number of bubbles in a 750-milliliter bottle of champagne.

The first took known science, which included the volume of gas, CO2, in the bottle, and then working backwards on liquid volumes, pressures, temperature and the size of bubbles, came up with the answer of over 49 million bubbles in every bottle of Champagne.

The second methodology had to do with computer camera-work and digital medium observation about the behavior of the bubbles when the cork is extracted. That answer was more than 250 million bubbles in every bottle of champagne.

So much for science being exact. A plus/minus factor of 200 million bubbles is a pretty big range, even by the standards of, say, a...

Posted at 04:45 AM | Permalink | Comments: 0

12/01/11

A Blog About the Nog

Onward, all you merchants and radio stations. On Christmas tree lots, bakers and candy stick makers. Get on with yo’ bad self, Parks City and Lafreniere. Rejoice, oh, Canal Street, Lakeside and Jackson Square. Now, yes, now, it’s Holiday Season, when it was not before.

I know it doesn’t rhyme, but the whole Holiday thing just starts too early, what with the music and the ads and the shopping inserts and all. But we are now officially in Holiday Season. Was not in that mood in early November, but now, go on ahead with your/our celebration.

Two of the culinary hallmarks of Holiday Season, wrapped up in all the parties, the great finger food and the beverages, are items that are always appropriate yet receive very little respect. Oh, you know...

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