Happy Halloween from The House Where the Black Cat Lives

A Haunting Weekend in New Orleans

New Orleans is one of my two favorite cities in the world. And I am so lucky that it is only a two-hour drive and, therefore, accessible at whim, as opposed to my other favorite city which is an ocean away and not as easy to get to on the spur of the moment.

While this may sound odd, New Orleans has always been where I go when my inner batteries wind down.

You can have your bucolic weekends in the country, the sun-soaked beach getaways, the bracing mountain hikes. Give me a day or so -- heck, even a few hours -- in this filthy, stinking, decaying, dysfunctional yet WONDERFUL city, and I can take on the world again.

If ever my batteries needed recharging, it was this weekend. As always, New Orleans did not disappoint. The weather was beautiful, the food was great, and the city was full of haunted happenings.

I ate the seven-course "taste of New Orleans sampler" at the Upperline. The gumbo, duck with ginger peach sauce, barbecue shrimp and the bread pudding with toffee sauce were divine. The turtle soup, fried green tomatoes remoulade and duck etouffee were good, but not great. On the whole, I think this art-filled restaurant in the Garden District realized its glory days a decade ago, but still it was worth a visit.

On the other hand, my meal at Bacco in the Quarter --oyster artichoke soup and lobster ravioli with caviar -- was every bit as fabulous as it sounds.

I always look forward to taste revelations in New Orleans. This weekend it was the unexpected, yet delightful, seasonal pairing of Louisiana satsuma with fennel in a scoop of gelato at La Davina Gelateria on St. Peter.

Got my Halloween fix with two tours, the Friends of the Cabildo's "Ghostly Gallivant" and The Historic New Orleans Collection's "Historic Haunts." Now I can hear my more high-falutin' friends tsk-tsking my low-brow choices, but these were not the overpriced, lurid and inaccurate ghost tours that draw in the flip-flop and T-shirt crowd slurping down hurricanes from plastic go-cups. These two tours, attended largely by locals, were carefully researched history lessons as much as ghost stories.

Lest you think me a snob, I did hob-nob with the go-cup packin' Midwestern tourists at the "Boo" Carre Halloween parade Saturday night. The second annual parade, sponsored by Blaine Kern, the name behind those incredible Mardi Gras floats, offered the same level of witty, detailed rides -- and the great throws -- as what you'll see a few months down the road. Check out my haul in the photo above. And, nope, I didn't even have to show 'em.

Some of my favorite vignettes from this weekend:

Two nuns in billowing white habits floating past like ghostly apparitions bearing flowers.

Ladies of a certain age, bedecked in the full purple and red regalia of The Red Hat Society, walking single-file past the burlesque and tranny shows of Bourbon Street .

A middle-aged man, wheeling his bike home, as he sadly shook his head and loudly bemoaned the number of heterosexuals taking over the old neighborhood.

I believe that last remark may have been aimed at my Recurring Gentleman Caller and me. We had chosen that moment for an impromptu, and we thought discreet, PDA.

Only in New Orleans could my boring, normal life ever be considered an exotic alternative lifestyle.

Now do you see why I love this city?

The Football Pizza Gourmet

As much as I love fall, I can't say I'm a football fan --although I am always happy when the Saints or the University of Southern Mississippi Golden Eagles win as they both did this weekend.

However, when you live within a stone's throw of a football stadium, as I do, like it or not, football lives at your house during the fall. The kitties aren't sports fans, either. They hide in the closets and under the bed when the booming stadium sound system brings every touchdown, field goal and half-time show number into our family room.

I've learned to adapt. Except for one thing. It seems that every time we have a home game invariably, I get a craving for pizza -- piping hot, cheese-dripping pizza. And that's too bad because while you can't always predict the outcome of a football game, you can lay money on not getting a pizza delivered to your doorstep in less than two hours on gameday in Hattiesburg. And that's only assuming you make it through on the continuously busy pizza delivery phone lines.

You have three options when your craving, like mine, just won't go away. You can wait and wait and wait knowing your pizza, if and when you get it, probably will be cold and possibly not even what you ordered.

You can brave the throngs of tail-gaters and go get it, not a job for the faint of heart.

Or you can make it yourself.

I usually choose option 3. Two things I always have in my kitchen: ready-made pizza crusts and chocolate.

I must say I am turning into something of a pizza gourmet.

Some of my favorite creations: prosciutto, goat cheese and basil pizza; fried artichoke and spinach pizza, and, quite possibly my favorite, the one I made yesterday, barbecue chicken pizza. It was a great way of finishing off Thursday night's rotisserie chicken and summer's half-used bottle of BBQ sauce.

BBQ Chicken Pizza

1 large ready made pizza crust (Boboli, Mama Mary's or the like)

Cooked chicken cut into bite-size chunks (about 2 cups). May also use leftover pork roast.

1/2-1 cup of BBQ sauce

1 sliced green pepper

1 sliced red onion

2 cloves of garlic, minced

1 1/2 cups of shredded Mexican cheese or a Colby/Monterey Jack mix

2 T olive oil separated

2 T chopped fresh cilantro (optional)

Salt and pepper to taste

Preheat over to 450 degrees. Brush pizza crust with 1 T of olive oil, then brush the crust lightly with BBQ sauce to taste (I use about 1/4 cup). Heat remaining olive oil in skillet and saute pepper, garlic and red onion with salt and pepper until crisp-tender. Scatter over the BBQ sauce on the crust. Toss the chicken chunks in the remaining BBQ sauce. to coat evenly Scatter over the veggies on the pizza. Scatter cheese over all.

Lower oven temp to 425 degrees.

Place pizza directly on the middle oven rack. Bake about 10 minutes.

Remove from oven. Sprinkle with chopped cilantro

I think this may become the official pizza of The House Where the Black Cat Lives.

Go Eagles!

Musings on a Rainy Fall Weekend at The House Where The Black Cat Lives

It was a long rainy holiday weekend here at The House Where The Black Cat Lives. Usually October is quite dry, but not this year. So what does one do when you have four days off and the weekend isn't conducive to much else?

• Decorate the house for fall.
  
• Bake pumpkin chocolate chip muffins in honor of the season. For the recipe, visit my other blog Mike and Mary's Kitchen: Recipes and Memories from Point Cadet.
  
• Take the cat with the neverending urinary tract infection to the vet one more time. I swear Koko's bladder should be lined with gold by now considering all the money I've thrown at fixing it.
  
• Read. Right now almost through "Laura Rider's Masterpiece," by Jane Hamilton. Pretty good. Great 1950s vintage looking cover jacket though the book is set now.
  
• Shop for my costume for the office Halloween party. Our department's theme is "Pirates of the Arctic." Got the pirate part down. Not sure yet about the Arctic. Anybody got any ideas?
  
• Watch Anouk Aimee movies on TCM. I can see why she is such a style icon. I covet everything she wears.
  
• Wish it were a five-day weekend.

The House Where The Black Cat Lives Goes Green

Don't be alarmed by the title of this post. I have not turned into one of those annoyingly ardent environmentalists.

You won't find bamboo flooring or solar-powered anything (not even a calculator) at the House Where the Black Cat Lives.

But sometimes it just makes sense--morally and financially -- to do the green thing. Therefore, I van pool to work, recycle and use natural homemade house cleaning products. Frankly, there's not much that vinegar and baking soda can't cleanse, sterilize or deodorize.

Since I'm doing my part, I thought it was time the cats chipped in and did theirs.

Last week their litter boxes went green.

Anyone who reads this blog more or less regularly knows I have a lot of cats. Following the one for each plus one more formula, I have eight litter boxes. Which get emptied into the trash every week. That's a lot of kitty litter sitting around in landfills.

The average scoopable cat litter is made of all kinds of unnatural stuff with names you can't pronounce. But you don't have to be able to say it to know that its probably not biodegradable.

Actually, I didn't know that until I saw it on TV.

So I began searching for an alternative. First I tried Feline Pine, one of the first "natural" kitty litters. Outside of being ungodly expensive, it bore an uncanny resemblance to the kibble that I feed them. Since feeding and scooping are both among my 4 a.m. pre-work chores, I thought it best to avoid an unfortunate mix-up before it occurred.

Also the litter had an unnervingly strong pine aroma. Unnerving because it reminded me of the smell of all those toppled pine trees oozing sap after Katrina. Not one of my fondest memories. So ix-nay on the Feline Pine.

Next I tried some new stuff made of ground up corn and baking soda. It looked like sawdust, had a nice soft texture and a very pleasant scent.

I love it.

The cats hate it. Or they're waiting for a special occasion to use it. I'm beginning to wonder (and worry). Just how long can they hold it?

Has anybody out there got a suggestion or tried something else that works? And please don't say shredded newspaper. Not going there.

As Kermit the Frog always said, "It's not easy being green."