Go Fish Galvez

That time of year again and, once again, I’ll be missing it!

Well, not all of it. Friday was the official kickoff for this year’s festivities, with the first of the parties and parades scheduled for Friday and Saturday, so yesterday Tippy and I leashed up and headed over to the seawall for our mid-morning walk, timing it just so we could hopefully catch a little bit of one of the opening-weekend parades down Seawall Boulevard.

The weather could not have been more perfect—it was an absolutely gorgeous morning, with searingly blue skies and mild temperatures that brought the people out in droves. And yes, they were everywhere, dressed in all their Mardi Gras finery and dripping in multicolored beads no doubt collected along the Strand the night before. Read the rest of this entry »

Okay, well, maybe a little. But I do like to get things right.

So you will recall, dear and faithful readers (ahem), that in my last post, I shared with you a recipe for that quintessentially perfect tropical libation, the Singapore Sling. And speaking of perfection, this recipe sure needs to be so let me tweak that ingredient list just a little for you now.

Here’s why. To double-check my earlier version, I decided to conduct a little more thorough Internet research. In so doing, I happened upon an interesting video on YouTube. Turns out, this is only one in a whole series of bartending how-to’s collectively called “New Orleans’ Best Cocktails” featuring bartender Chris McMillian and filmed in the Library Lounge (although I doubt much reading goes on there) of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in New Orleans. (And what better authority on proper cocktail preparation than a New Orleans bartender, I ask you?) Read the rest of this entry »

So today I went to the liquor store.

Two, actually.

Not to load up, you understand. Just to find the exact ingredients for a very special drink to properly commemorate this very special day.

And what was so special about today, you ask?

Well, today was none other than that magical, long-awaited day when one enormous, filthy, flea-bitten, nasty, and utterly dead and awful albatross was finally cut, and cleanly so, from around the neck of a certain semi-ancient mariner. Read the rest of this entry »

Well, darn it, I missed it this year, “it,” of course, being Mardi Gras! Galveston.

Of course, I missed it last year, too. And the year before that. In fact, I’ve never been to Mardi Gras in Galveston at all, not even once, not a single solitary time. How this can be true still boggles my mind. Verily, it must be one of the last great mysteries of the universe, right up there with quantum mechanics and how geese can fly in a perfect “V” and all. Read the rest of this entry »