Cate St. Seafood Station, Hammond, LA

When you think of Sushi, Hammond, Louisiana is probably not the first place that comes to mind — or the second or third or hundredth, for that matter. But if there is a finer place to get Sushi in North America, I don't know about it. Seriously.

Janis and I drove up to Ponchatoula last night to visit with our good friend Keith Davis and to pick up a couple of projects he was working on for me and to take him and his family out to dinner. Keith suggested the Cate St. Seafood Station in Hammond, which is just a few miles north of Ponchatoula. This is the old train station in Hammond that has been converted to a restaurant. Keith just happens to do some odd jobs for the restaurant's owner, John Wong. Once we arrived Keith could also not resist telling us that we were now on the "Wong side of the tracks." Blame Keith for that one, not me.

Here is my endorsement: if you are going to visit New Orleans, this place is worth the 1 hour drive (gas prices and all). It is that good.

We started off with the "Bonzai Bomb," which is a large Jalapeno pepper stuffed with crabmeat and a special Tabasco cream sauce, then fried in Tempura batter and served with a sweet sesame sauce. Janis ordered California rolls, which are as good if not better than any you would get in any other Sushi restaurant. Here's where things get interesting. While the girls decided to go for more conventional meals (which they loved, btw), Keith and I stuck with the Sushi. The owner's son prepares the Sushi. We chose a couple of items off the menu and let him pick a couple of others.

We had Cajun rolls, N.O. Saints rolls, Bayou rolls, and a brand new creation called "Cowboy roll" which had Tenderloin on top and a combination of crawfish and asparagus in a Tabasco mayonnaise. While they were all fantastically good, it was the Cowboy roll that put us over the top.

So next time you are going to visit New Orleans, plan on taking a trip to this amazing seafood restaurant with us!

Key West Trip - Wrap Up

We're all back at home safe and sound after a fantastic vacation - probably our best family vacation ever. Here's a summary of the last couple of days.

Key West Trip - Day Four

We started the day with breakfast at Blue Heaven - the one place you can't miss if you go to Key West. Adam and Jarret rented bikes so they could see more of the island. Cary and Andrea opted to sleep in instead.

We have no idea how this happened, but somehow Janis managed to get blueberries on her forehead and chest at the same time:

That confused look on her face is because Adam, Jarret, and I all looked at her at the same time and burst out laughing. She had no idea what we were laughing at until I took the picture and showed it to her.

After breakfast, Adam and Jarret went off for more exploring of the island while Janis and I wandered around and did a little more shopping. We then headed back to our hotel and took a dip in the pool. Cary and Andrea went to the beach and then joined us at the pool, as did Adam and Jarret. Adam bought some Mojitos for everyone. A very relaxing time.

We decided to do sunset on one of Key West's many sunset cruise boats. The boat had a live band and bottomless beer, margaritas wine, and champagne - along with plenty of appetizers. We all agreed there is no better way to see the sunset in Key West:

Cary looked right at home with his new hat (and his "My Name Is Earl" pose):

As you can see, everyone had a great time:


While you might think that the sunset would be the highlight of the trip, on this particular cruise, it wasn't. As we were coming back into port this sixty-something year old man hauls off and belts this big guy wearing an LSU T-shirt, knocking one of his teeth out. Apparently one of them had gotten in the way of the other earlier and the LSU guy spent the rest of the evening taunting the sixty-something guy until he had had enough. We had to wait in the harbor until the police and an ambulance arrived. Sunset and a floor show!

The only other thing I found interesting on the cruise was this guy's foot:

I found it interesting because judging from the tan lines, he only owns one pair of shoes.

After getting off the cruise, we headed back down Duval street and happened upon Key West's smallest bar:

As a joke, they keep a hula hoop on the wall:


As we ambled down Duval street, Andrea and Janis did a bit more shopping and headed back to the hotel, while I proceeded to beat the boys at pinball at one of the local watering holes.

Key West Trip - Day Five

We stopped for the night in Deltona, Fl and visited with my cousin Charlene. Janis met Charlene for the first time last year when we were in Florida. This was the first time Charlene and her kids got to meet my entire family.

Charlene had quite a spread put out for us with pizza and some of the best fried chicken I have ever eaten.

Key West Trip - Day Six

Our final bit of driving involved one last stop in Orange Beach, AL where we had dinner at Café Grazie, an excellent Italian restaurant where Adam's former girlfriend Megan works. From there we drove the final 3 hours back to New Orleans where we were greeted with one of New Orleans' famous torrential downpours.

What a great vacation! You can see more pictures in my web gallery.

Key West Trip - Day Three

By miracle or modern science we were all up and about well before the crack of noon. We decided to do some shopping before heading out to see more sights. Jarret was very insistent that I tell you he bought over $500 of clothes - which was especially important to him since he had never bought anything that cost over $40 until now.

Adam is jealous of the coat. 100% silk. Thousands of spiders worked their web-spewing keisters off for months in a Korean sweat shop just so he could look good. He also bought a new shirt, sandals (they go well with the coat), short pants, and long pants. Oh - he even bought a walking cane!



I think our favorite place to shop in Key West is Fast Buck Freddies. Sort of a Tony Bahama meets Spencer Gifts meets Banana Republic meets the Johnson Smith Company. After everyone had had their fill of shopping it was off to El Siboney - the best Cuban restaurant on the island - for lunch.

We decided to walk down to "the Southernmost point in the continental United States." More about that in a minute. Along the way we see this:



Not very inventive, but I would imagine those walking back to one of the hotels on that side of the island after hoisting a few may welcome the information lest they confuse it with a statue of a really tall, thin person. Adam wants to put a chain with a lock around it and write "This is a pole lock." Get it? Yeah, I knew you would.

So here is the thing about the Southernmost point: As Key West is an island in the middle of an ocean, it is not actually part of the continental United States. In order to call it the southernmost point in the continental United States, you have to allow that bridges connecting islands embraces those islands as part of the mainland. Sort of like the Enterprise extending her shields around another ship in Star Trek.

All this reminds me of my favorite bar bet: Name the most southern, northern, eastern, and western states. This is not a trick question. We are talking about all 50 states, not just the continental ones. I'll bet you a beer you don't get this one right. (Unless I have already shared this with you, of course.) I'll reveal the answer at the end of today's blog.

We walked back to the hotel and rested it bit before enjoying yet another spectacular sunset. This time, we watched it from the rooftop terrace of the Crowne Plaza hotel, cleverly named "The Top." It is the tallest building in Key West, so the view was spectacular. (You can see it in the web gallery.) Want to know how much fun we are having on this trip: look at these smiling faces:

After the sunset we stopped downstairs for some appetizers, then we headed out to find a patio bar where we could enjoy the tropical climate, watch the Hornets game, and play Mexican Train Dominoes.

As with all New Orleans professional sports teams, it seems we are always a bride's maid but never the bride. The hornets lost their first home game in the playoffs. Unfortunately, it was Game 7 so it will be the Spurs - not the Hornets - heading to the left coast to play the Lakers.

We accomplished all this at The Green Parrot, Key West's oldest bar. This is really our kind of place. Cary loved the sign that says "The Management is not responsible" and wants to get one for Coop's Place. Most astonishing, however, is that they have the exact same poster in their men's room that I have in our bathroom in New Orleans:

It's called "Proverbidioms" and is a poster where you see how many proverbs or cliches you can match with their picture.

After a couple rounds of dominoes, it became apparent that a couple of the lighter weights in our party needed more food. So we headed next door to the Meteor Smokehouse. The bartender asked Adam where he was from. During the conversation he mentioned he worked at a bar in the French Quarter. The bartender abruptly cuts him off and asks "which one." Adam says "Coop's Place, across from Margarita…" The bartender cuts him off again and says "That's why your face is familiar. I was in there with a friend of mine that lives in New Orleans."

Turns out he knows a couple of regulars at Coop's. So I guess we'll be going back there tonight. Just goes to show ya: ts a small world, (but I wouldn't want to paint it).

So another day in paradise, and the miracle is I not only lived to tell about it, but didn't hurt myself too bad in the process.

Oh - the bar bet. Here you go:

Southernmost: Hawaii

Northernmost: Alaska

Westernmost: Alaska

Easternmost: Alaska

I know what you are thinking: "you said it wasn't a trick question." It's not. The Aleutian Islands cross the International Date Line, making Alaska both the westernmost and easternmost states. Look it up. Those of you who didn't get it can buy me a beer next time you are in New Orleans. Those of you who DID get it will have to come to New Orleans to collect.

Key West Trip - Day Two

Sunday May 18, 2008

With the long drive and a good night's sleep behind us, we are ready for the final leg of our journey to Key West. On the way we stop at the Holiday Isle Resort and have Rum Runners at the original Tiki Bar. Word has it that years ago, when a new owner or manager took over the bar, he had way too many bottles of certain ingredients. So he invented a drink using all those ingredients and called it the Rum Runner.

After Rum Runners and lunch on Islamorada Key, we drove the last couple of hours down to Key West, checked into the hotel and promptly did exactly what you are supposed to do on vacation - nothing. After doing nothing for a couple of hours - mostly with our eyes closed - it was time to check out the fabulous Key West Sunset.



As Key West sunsets go, this one was not all that spectacular, with the sun setting first behind some clouds and then behind an island just to the west of Key West (and you thought Key West was the western most - HAH!). But I guess it is true that Key West sunsets are a lot like pizza and sex: when they are good, they are very good. And when they're bad, they're still pretty good.

After the sunset we stopped at the Hog's Breath saloon for some raw oysters and a dinner. Yum. After dinner we are walking along Duval Street and we here this guy singing "I'll Keep Your Poop In A Jar," a Hayseed Dixie tune about love lost, but remembered in an oh-so-special way.



What a great way to start the Key West experience! Here's this guy, wearing a Kiss T-shirt with a pair of panties around his neck, singing about poop in a jar. Apparently, this song is one of his trademarks as he sells T-shirts that say "poop!" on them. He was astonished when we started singing along with him. He couldn't believe we knew the song, so I had to show it to him on my iPhone.

As the evening progressed, he would ask the crowd to shout out the name of an artist and he would do a song with just his acoustic guitar and a vocoder. Let's see, he did Pink Floyd, Dave Matthews, The Kinks, The Cars, Styx, Toto, Journey, and a bunch of others. He has been voted Key West's #1 entertainer, and he deserves it. His name is Matt Avery, by the way.

We spent a few minutes on the hotel's rooftop terrace, and left Janis and Andrea at the hotel. Cary, Adam, Jarret, and I found the Meteor Smokehouse - a nice little place Janis and I found last year - and sat on the outdoor patio drinking beers and smoking some Key West cigars. Around 11:30 we called Coop's Place and did a remote shot with Barry and the rest of the gang there.

After the Meteor, it was on to the Bottle Cap - the place Janis and I called our "Coop's Place" away from home in Key West. At midnight on a Sunday in the off season, Key West is pretty much shut down, so I was wondering what I would find at the Bottle Cap. This is where all the locals hang out after everything closes, apparently. After a beer, the night (and the last couple of days of driving), combined with the alcohol was taking its toll on us. Cary, Jarret and I decided to head back to the hotel, while Adam stayed at the Cap to play some pool.

On the way back, we decide to get some breakfast at Denny's. I know what you are thinking: "you went all the way to Key West and you eat at Denny's?" I know, I know. But at 1 AM or so in the morning and with a Robert De Niro-sized Raging Buzz there is nothing better in the world than a Super Bird or a Moons Over My Hammy. So with our belly's full and a fun first day in the Keys behind us, we ventured off to dreamland back at the hotel.

Key West Trip - Day One

Saturday May 17, 2008

We left New Orleans about 3:30 AM Saturday morning and drove straight through to Miami Beach. Cary and Andrea stayed with her cousin Tanya in Surfside (which is just north of Miami Beach), while the rest of us stayed at the Holiday Inn. We had an ocean view room on the 8th floor.

After we got settled in we walked down the boardwalk about 28 blocks to T-Mex, a Mexican hole-in-the-wall place that was featured on Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations show a couple of years ago. Cary and Andrea met us there shortly after we arrived. T-Mex's claim to fame? Very reasonably priced Mexican food, a good selection of Mexican beers, and the Stupid sauce. Adam and I had the Stupid sauce, everyone else wussed out. Sunday morning Adam wished he had put some TP in the freezer overnight. Me? I just wanted more Stupid sauce.

After dinner we walked about a block to the home of Miami Ink, a tattoo parlor that is featured in a show of the same name on The Learning Channel. Janis has been talking about getting a tattoo for years, and tonight - with her family in tow - was the night. The question was, what to get and where to put it?

After combing through their books, nothing was jumping out at any of us. So we called our local New Orleans tattoo goddess, Juli Green, who offered one bit of advice: make sure it has something to do with New Orleans.

Using a necklace Andrea was wearing, the tattoo artist came up with the following design:

A little while later, she had a beautiful Fleur di lis inside a heart on her leg:

While Janis got her Tattoo and Andrea took pictures, Cary, Adam, Jarret, and I went to "The Deuce." Mac's Club Deuce. Reportedly one of only two true, original dive bars in Miami Beach, and with a name that starts with "Mac's" how could we not go there? $8 shots of Maker's Mark and $5 Miller Genuine Drafts, Bull Riding in Hi-Def on the TV and one pool table, strangely situated at an angle under the pool table light. Adam won most of the games of course.

With the Stupid sauce coursing through our veins, and all of us quite literally stupid from lack of sleep, it was time to call it a night. But in the process, several goals were achieved: I had the Stupid sauce, went to The Deuce, and Janis finally got her tattoo.

See more pictures in my Key West web gallery.

Man dies in spitting contest plunge

Man dies in spitting contest plunge

From correspondents in Zurich
May 14, 2008 07:58am

A SWISS man died when he fell from a hotel balcony during a spitting match with a friend, a Swiss newspaper has reported.

The daily Blick said the 29-year-old man took a run-up from inside the room so he could spit further, but lost his balance and plummeted 6.4m to the street below.

He died in hospital.

The man had suggested the contest when he and two friends returned from a disco to their hotel in Cadempino in Switzerland's Italian-speaking Ticino canton in the early hours.

One of the men went to sleep, but the two others decided to see who could spit furthest from the balcony of their room.

Whiskey Geeks Keep Moonshine Tradition Alive

We made it to Miami Beach - our first stop on the way to Key West - safely. Tonight we are going to walk along the beach down to Club Deuce to play some pool, then go across to Locos Tacqueria to try the "Stupid" sauce. (We'll take pictures.)

Saw this and couldn't resist sharing…

Whiskey Geeks Keep Moonshine Tradition Alive: "

Making moonshine has gone from a backwoods black art to a high-end hobby practiced by 'whiskey geeks' with a taste for top-shelf hooch.

Unlike their bootlegging predecessors, who cooked up big batches of white lightning and distributed the illegal booze out of the backs of cars, today's moonshiners focus on quality rather than quantity.

'It took me years, but with practice and dedication you can make any spirit every bit as good as a commercial distiller,' says Dave Robison, 42, owner of Pioneer Spirits, a single-batch distillery in Chico, California. 'You might not be able to reproduce it exactly, but it will be as good as anything you can buy on the top shelf.'

Home distillation of liquor used to be the province of backwoods bootleggers. Up until 1974, when the world price of sugar skyrocketed, commercial moonshiners throughout the Southeastern United States made enough money making hooch that it was worth the risk of getting caught by federal revenuers.

Today, making your own liquor is as illegal as ever, and a lot less lucrative. In fact, it's considerably cheaper to buy it off the shelf.

As a result, today's home distillers are quintessential do-it-yourselfers. Many are engineers and techies, much like the liquor connoisseurs who attend the Whiskies of the World Expo each year in San Francisco. 'We have a whole audience that we refer to as the whiskey geek,' event founder and organizer Riannon Walsh says. 'I think 90 percent of them are techies.'

John Spidell misses the moonshine tradition. A former federal revenuer, the 65-year-old spent the first half of the '70s 'busting up' illegal stills in North Carolina. His job sometimes required living in a sleeping bag under a piece of canvas for weeks at a time, watching a big still, waiting for the owner to appear. Smaller stills got less attention.

'A five- or six-hundred-gallon outfit wasn't worth wasting time on,' he says. 'I'd go back to my vehicle, get the C4 explosives and blasting caps, and I'd blow it up. There were only so many of us, and only so much time.'

Spidell was blowing up simple pot stills, which were used to distill mash made from sugar, water, yeast and hog 'shorts' (corn feed for hogs). After it was fermented, the mash would go into the boiler, where it was heated.

Because alcohol boils at a lower temperature than water, the vapors that rose from the mash contained more alcohol than the mash itself. Those rising vapors traveled through an angled lyne arm to a condenser, traditionally made of copper coil. The condensed spirits were collected and redistilled until they reached a sufficient proof, then bottled in quart-size mason jars or gallon-size plastic milk jugs.

Bootleggers delivered the illicit liquor to 'shot houses' in the cities on Wednesdays and Thursdays, ensuring they were stocked for the weekend.

Today's home distillers are more likely to build a small reflux still and hide it in the garage. Unlike a pot still, the vapors rise through a column packed with copper wool or another high-surface-area material before being directed into the condenser. A beer keg makes a good boiler, and a homemade column and condenser are within the reach of anyone with basic welding and soldering skills and access to copper pipe.

The packed column makes the reflux still more efficient than a pot still, so it produces a higher-proof spirit on the first distillation. Still, the average home distiller isn't making any money on the endeavor.

'People are trying to keep a tradition alive,' Robison says. 'They're not selling it. That's looked down on in the home distilling crowd. Most people I know aren't making more than a gallon at a time. Some people on the forum come from the moonshiner tradition, and we've learned a lot from them. But I've never met anyone who makes it for money.'

Robison runs the popular Home Distiller forum with more than 2,000 registered users and 50,000 unique visitors per month. Other online home distilling resources include Smiley's Home Distilling and American Distiller.

Depending on the efficiency of the still, home-distilled alcohol can vary from 120 to 192 proof, or 60 percent to 96 percent pure alcohol.

The concept may be simple, but high-quality home-distilling isn't exactly easy. The moonshine tradition spawned a lot of misinformation, which Robison tries to rectify on the forum. First and foremost, he makes it clear that home distillation of liquor is illegal in all 50 states and just about every country, save New Zealand.

Besides being illicit, white lightning has earned a reputation for blinding and killing people who drink it. Many sources attribute these effects to methanol ('the heads'), which boils off naturally during an early stage of the distillation process.

'The heads will make you blind if you drink it, but I defy you to try to drink it,' says microdistiller Michael Heavener, co-owner of Highball Distillery in Portland, Oregon. 'If it doesn’t make you wince when you smell it, it's probably not going to make you go blind.'

The real culprit in poison moonshine was usually radiators, according to Spidell. 'Copper coils are not the most efficient condenser. If you're making 10,000 to 25,000 gallons at a time, you might immerse a truck radiator in the water. Chemicals in the moonshine leach out lead salts from the soldering. As a result of that, here comes the lead poisoning.'

Made properly, home-distilled spirits are as safe to drink as any commercial liquor. Still, Heavener warns, 'I'd be more concerned with the danger of explosions.'

Most stills are heated with propane burners. Purified ethanol is highly flammable, and its clear blue flame can be difficult to see under certain conditions. Open flame plus high-proof alcohol equals one potentially explosive combination.

Even innocent mistakes -- such as using lead soldering or plastic parts in the still - can lead to serious consequences. So Robison encourages would-be home-distillers to do their homework first and make liquor later.

After all, he says, 'This ain't stamp collecting.'

"

(Via Wired News.)

OK - A Blog It Is

I finally did it. I have joined the Great Blogosphere.

During the last couple of years I've been trying to find the time to modify my web site. In the process I ignored one of the things that made the web site popular in the first place - frequent updates. So while I am still trying to figure out how and when to update the site, I decided to start this blog.

So why the sudden entry into the Great Blogosphere? Let's see if I can get you caught up with our lives, with a Cliff Notes update. Let's work backwards from today:

Key West, Here We Come

Janis and I spent last Easter weekend in Key West and fell in love with the place. Having experienced the before and after effects of a hurricane there is no way we would live there, but we do see it as a place we'd like to visit ever so often. So we are leaving tonight to take the entire family - Cary, Andrea, Adam, and Jarret - for a family vacation. We are really looking forward to it. Look for some posts, as well as updates on my Dot Mac Web Gallery.

Unemployed

MacSpeech closed their "Louisiana office" on April 18th, leaving Janis, myself, and one other person out of a job. No official reason was given, and I won't go into details here. It wasn't a complete surprise, but it represents a sad state of affairs and the closing of a major chapter in my life. As the Key West vacation was planned months in advance, we have taken the past month off to catch up with some projects around the house and explore options. I'll have more to say about what I will be doing in the immediate future around June 1st.

The Wisconsin Trip

Just before being laid off from MacSpeech, Cary and I, along with a couple of other Coop's Place employees took a trip north. We made the trip so Travis - a cook at Coop's Place - could visit with his Grandfather in southern Illinois, who has taken ill. Barry, another bartender at Coop's Place went with. As we were going to have a couple of days to waste, Cary and I decided to take Barry up to Racine so he could see where we came from. (During evacuation from Katrina, we spent some time in Barry's home stomping grounds in Kentucky). I took a few pictures, mostly of the Wind Point Lighthouse and at the Historical Museum, which you can see here. I haven't added any titles, and you probably won't find any of them interesting unless you know the people and places in the pictures.

Cary and Andrea Got Married

Yep. You heard right. Cary and Andrea were married on the levee across from Jackson Square on April 9th. While we weren't necessarily surprised by this, it did happen very suddenly. From what I understand, they were planning on getting married in January. Then Andrea's mom and aunt decided to come to visit from Ecuador. As they would not be able to afford another trip to the states in January, Cary and Andrea decided to move up the wedding. Cary took Janis and me out to dinner at Maximo's Italian Grill on Monday, April 7th. I knew something was up because Cary works until the wee hours of the morning on Monday at Coop's Place and normally can't be rousted with anything short of nuclear weapons on Monday. Basically, it went something like this:

Cary: What are you doing on Wednesday?

Me: This Wednesday?

Cary: Yes, this Wednesday.

Me: Nothing we know of. Why?

Cary: Well, if its not too much trouble, I was wondering if you could come to my wedding at 5PM.

A master of understatement, that boy is.

It was a beautiful wedding, with all the typical New Orleans sounds: trains, boat whistles, police sirens, street vendors, and even a brass band towards the end. You can view pictures here and here.

New Orleans

New Orleans is still here, and thriving. The "sliver by the river" is beyond what it was before the storm - in both population and the number of businesses that are open. The part of the city that was flooded is recovering slowly. Estimates are that it is 2/3 to 3/4 repopulated. But there is still a lot of work to do. The important thing to know is that New Orleans is definitely open for business again, and since tourism is the #1 industry, we need you to spread the word!

The Rest of the Family

Adam and Cary are both still working at Coop's Place. Adam works Monday thru Wednesday evenings and Cary works Thursday through Sunday evenings. Jarret left Coop's Place last summer to start working as a Cook at the Orleans Grapevine. He loves it there, and I highly recommend it as a place to eat when visiting New Orleans.

More to Come

Well, time to start packing for the Key West trip. To those of you who have been bugging me about an update, I hope this will satisfy you for a while. Now that I have decided to join the Great Blogosphere, maybe I can update more often.

Chuck Rogers