Wesly and I barely, just barely, began to try to imagine what life and the world will be like without our dear friend Mary, and we simply cannot.

Her loss has left a huge hole in the fabric of our lives, and although we’ll never really be able to fill it we can … I don’t know, hold up a big sign in front of it that says, “OH NO YOU DON’T!” and tell Mary stories. Ghu knows we’ve got enough of them.

Countless adventures in New Orleans, basking in the best music in the world and fabulous meals ranging from Commander’s Palace …

Wesly and Mary anticipating our fabulous Commander’s Palace meal in May of ’07, which you can see by clicking on the photo.  While most of it was from the menu, there was a very, very special hours-to-cook main dish that Chef Tory started preparing the day before when he heard Mary and her friends were coming in.

… to bacon-wrapped hot dogs on the street.

Mary (and we) ate these beautiful things with gusto and relish (and onions!), and we really wish the LAPD would leave the vendors alone!

That’s Mary on the right, whom you can’t see because she’s quite logically and rightly more concerned with devouring that glorious bacon-wrapped hot dog than posing for my dopey picture.

There was Mary and Steve’s wedding 15 years ago en bas du chêne vert, underneath the big green oak tree behind the home of Marc and Ann Savoy in Eunice, Louisiana. We danced to the music of Marc and Ann and Michael Doucet and several other Cajun musicians, while people pinned dollar bills to Mary’s veil in the old tradition, and then all the assembled guests devoured about 700 pounds of crawfish. Fortunately when you’re already dressed for a crawfish boil you don’t have to worry about getting crawfish juice all over your nice clothes.

There was porkchop-eating and hog squealing in Basile, Louisiana (and the spine-tinglingly wonderful story of Mary happening to come across an old cemetery next to a high school football field, wandering around and wondering out loud where the great Cajun fiddler Dewey Balfa was buried … only to find herself standing on his grave.

There was the New Orleans music box set she and I worked on together, for which we co-wrote the book — she wrote the traveling to and life in New Orleans essay, and I did the music one.  What a joy it was for us to have done that together, and we were so proud of the end result.  For that matter, there was Mary’s endless and passionate love for my home city of New Orleans, a city in which she was not born and was not raised but ultimately became just as New Orleanian as everyone else in that city, and who constantly helped me see and experience and love my own city better.

There was the fact that she’s been responsible for a great deal of content on this weblog over the last 10 years, not only because of lots of mutually enjoyed musical and gustatory experiences, or of her own exquisite food porn often sent my way, but because if I happened to go five days or (horror of horrors) a week without posting, I’d get a phone call. “Hey!” she’d  holler. “Where’s my free content?!”

There was the legendary trip to Las Vegas where we became The Fat Pack, sitting around a big table at the wonderful Rosemary’s Restaurant and all eight of us, without planning, each ordered a different appetizer and entrée, with sixteen dishes orbiting the table all night and much gustatory delight and laughter.  And there was later that trip, when Mary informed us that her editors at Frommer’s had complained that one of the sections of the Las Vegas book was out of date and she’d have to re-review the places in it… so she packed us all up in the minivan and together we made the rounds of three Vegas strip joints.  Good gravy, what a strange night that was.  We have stories. (Hi, Melinda! Your two new gay friends say you’re their favorite non-male stripper ever!)

There were a dozen and a half or more Jazzfests, the Bayou St. John house they owned with Nettie and Diana and so many great days passed there, and on the Fair Grounds so many magical musical moments we all shared, and there was dancing in the rain, which I think made for the most fun Jazzfests of all.

This is how the professionals do it.

There were peaceful, relaxing times at beautiful houses on the Cajun prairie …

Mary and Robin and a serene afternoon at the Seale Guest House in Eunice, LA

A rare photo that includes the entire original Fat Pack. And why is Mary on the phone? Undoubtedly hearing something juicy!

And there were many, many crawfish boils.

You call that a crawfish? That’s not a crawfish, mate … THIS is a crawfish!

And as Wesly said earlier, there were books and talks and deep conversations and endless amounts of love and so much that she brought to our lives (to name but one, how she gently pointed out to Wesly what a good idea it’d be for us to move in together already … and that went well!).   It’s going to take us 20 years to remember and recount all the stories.

Since sometimes my words fail me  I wanted to bring you some words from Mary herself, first.

On her website cancerchick.com there are archives of the articles she wrote for the Los Angeles Times about her initial diagnosis and first two go-rounds with cancer, plus the archives of Merry Maladies, the mailing list she maintained for her Best Beloveds, so that the people in far-flung locales around the world who loved her could keep in touch with what was going on with her, interspersed with regular doses of food porn.  It’s a lot of reading, but it’s really, really worth it … and of course, for a subject so serious, it’s always funny.

Then there was the final Merry Maladies missive, written by Rick, her best friend of 20 years:

Her husband Steve, her mom, her dear friend Nettie, and myself were in the room, talking about how today is Fat Tuesday. I looked over at her and said, “We’re going to go get on a plane and go to Mardi Gras, right Mary?” And she raised her head slightly and then was gone.

She always had great timing.

Rick wrote more on their joint website Plucky Survivors, which recounted their 10,000 miles of travel around the smaller corners of America.

There was the first public mention, the next day on L.A. Observed, and a really lovely brief piece in the L.A. Times the day after, which is a must-see because of the fabulous picture of Mary with her and Steve’s dogs.  That was one I didn’t have, and it’s in my phone forever now.  The Times today published a superb full-length obit, plus their own links to Mary’s articles for them.

There’s the wonderful outpouring from the Threadhead community; i.e., the Jazzfest fans from all over who hang out in the Jazzfest online forum. (Threadhead Records and all the wonderful work Chris Joseph and friends do for New Orleans music sprang from that forum.)

And the love just kept coming in. Tuesday night after she passed, Phast Phreddie wrote Steve to let him know that Dave Alvin dedicated a song to Mary during his show in New York.  The next day, Joel Savoy and family and friends played a Cajun fiddle tune and said a prayer for her at the grave of Dennis McGee, and bade Steve “prends courage.”  And as I write Jellyroll Justice, one of my favorite DJs on WWOZ, has dedicated his show to her.  All of them and many more have comforted us, and our thanks is mighty.

In the midst of our grief and deep sadness I have to confess I also felt flashes of anger. It’s so damned unfair, and we’re really, really sick of cancer. On Tuesday I wanted to break something (when I got really angry as a kid I used to break molded plastic coat hangers, which shattered quite satisfyingly). Fortunately I take comfort and joy, as Mary did, in music and song, and the beautiful words of John Boutté and Paul Sanchez helped to soothe me.

Don’t waste your time being angry
When a moment is better with a smile.

That is the opening line of one of my very favorite songs in the world (and one that Mary loved too), called “At the Foot of Canal Street,” written by John Boutté and Paul Sanchez, and performed by them both, singly and together.  All I have to do is think about her and I’ll smile, and the moment will be made better.

The song sprang from a comment John made when he and Paul were comparing their backgrounds and neighborhoods; John said, “Well, it don’t matter whether you’re rich or poor, black or white, sooner or later we’re all gonna be together at the foot of Canal Street, baby.” That’s because where Canal Street ends in New Orleans is a cluster of cemeteries … also some of Mary’s favorite places. (Her personal tours of St. Louis Cemetery in N.O. and Hollywood Forever here were great.)

When Diana called me with the news, this song broke through the numbness and the tears … I thought, she has laid her burdens down at the foot of Canal Street.

Listen to the song, and listen closely to the words. Now that you know what they mean, you’re a little bit more local now, and you’ll appreciate it a lot more.

“At the Foot of Canal Street,” by John Boutté

And one day, my dear Mary, I’ll see you there at the foot of Canal Street.

(P.S. – If you came here directly and haven’t seen it yet, don’t miss Wesly’s post.)

We’re gonna take a li’l Christmas break for a coupla days, and I hope you do too. Well, of course, after you look at the gifts we’ve got for y’all in this post!

For me, it wouldn’t be the holidays without Benny Grunch and the Bunch doing “The 12 Yats of Christmas” …

And while this is still a New Orleans Christmas classic, the sad truth is that you have to be of a certain age to get most of those references now, in post-Federal Flood days … ’cause most o’ dem places ain’t dere no more …

And, of course, the greatest Christmas song ever.

If you love this song as much as I do, you might want to watch an excellent one-hour documentary on its making, in six parts: Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5, Part 6.

So Happy Christmas, I love ya baby, I can see a better time when all our dreams come true …

xo

Audrey Saunders, that is, cocktailian extraordinaire, until late 2004 bar manager at Bemelmans Bar at the Carlyle Hotel in New York, and since spring of 2005 the proprietor of her own joint, the forthcoming Pegu Club. That bar will be worth a trip to NYC alone! [UPDATE: And as of December 2009 the co-owner of the wonderful bar and supper club in Hollywood called The Tar Pit as well!]

I don’t subscribe to Food and Wine magazine, so occasionally I miss out on some good stuff, including a nice, long article about Audrey and her mixological adventures in preparing to open the Pegu Club. For one thing, at that bar there’ll be … no vodka! Hooray! (Well, they’ll have a little, but it’ll be hidden under the bar, out of sight.) There’ll be 23 different brands of gin, and cocktails on the menu that she’s dug out of Charles Baker’s The Gentleman’s Companion: Around the World with Jigger, Beaker and Glass. I may swoon.

For our cocktail of the day, let’s revisit the namesake cocktail of Audrey’s wonderful new bar, a favorite of Wes’ and mine. It’s wonderful.

The Pegu Club

2 ounces London dry gin.
1 ounce orange Curaçao.
1/2 ounce fresh lime juice.
1 dash Angostura bitters.
1 dash orange bitters.

Stir with ice and strain.

Have these at home, and if you can find a bartender near you who knows how to make one of these (and actually has orange bitters), you’re a lucky individual indeed.

UPDATED in April 2012

ORIGINAL ARTICLE from 2000: Wesly and I have grown fond of many “classic” (i.e., more commonly quaffed by sophisticated cocktail drinkers 60+ years ago) cocktails, one of which is the Fancy-Free, consisting of 2 ounces of Bourbon, 1/2 ounce of Maraschino and a dash each of Angostura and orange bitters. Wes, who seemed to be itching to create something new, decided that he was going to concoct a cocktail called … the “Footloose”. In an ideal world, once this cocktail has been unleashed, one could theoretically walk into a bar and say, “My friend here will have a Footloose, and I’d be delighted with a Fancy-Free.” (Sadly, this world has yet to come into existence.)

Regarding his Top Sekrit Cocktail Project, I got mysterious updates all week as he tweaked unnamed ingredients and their relative proportions. I was finally presented with one last Friday. Initial impression … pretty! Pink not unlike a Cosmopolitan, but slightly opaque and with a lovely green twist of lime floating in it — a nice change from the usual lemon. The aroma was familiar yet unfamiliar, with a bouquet of fruit that I couldn’t quite place. I sipped it, and the familiar-yet-unfamiliar sensation intensified. It’s a yummy drink, but I just couldn’t place the ingredients. It was fruity without being cloyingly sweet, and with a nice bite to it (or, as my friend Jordan said, “Oh, like Paul Lynde.” Heh. I was tempted to ask Wesly to call it the “Uncle Arthur” after that). The contrasting color of the lime twist made for a beautiful garnish too.

He finally let me in on the ingredients. They combined together so well that I might never have guessed. I found it to be very different and quite nice. Try one sometime. We often refer to it as our “Cosmo Killer.”

The Footloose Cocktail
(Original recipe created by Wesly Moore, 2000)

2 ounces Stolichnaya Razberi raspberry-infused vodka
1 ounce Cointreau
1/2 ounce fresh squeezed lime juice (NOT Rose’s!)
2 big dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Combine ingredients in a cocktail shaker with cracked ice. Shake and strain into a chilled cocktail glass, and garnish with a long twist of lime.

2012 update: Despite the fact that after 12 years we still can’t walk into a bar and ask for a Footloose and a Fancy-Free (or most of the time even a Fancy-Free, for that matter, unless it’s a really good bar who know their history), the Footloose has done rather well for itself. Gary Regan was kind enough to include it it The Joy of Mixology (it helped that he really liked it, so yay!), and it has been out there a bit.

Wesly is still proud of his first original cocktail, as he should be, but these days he’s wont to point out that it’s not the kind of drink that he’d make anymore. Many if not most of us had our flavored vodka period a dozen or so years ago and we’re long past that; Wesly is as well. (This is not to mention our infused vodka period, although I must say that apple-infused vodka I used to make was pretty good. But I digress.)

We weren’t ready to completely give up on the good ol’ Footloose, though. Fortunately, last year a new product came on the market which made us think the old girl was ripe for reintroduction. Nolet’s Silver Gin, produced by the same family that makes Ketel One vodka in the Netherlands, decided to make a “London-style” gin, although Nolet’s gin is decidedly not a London dry. It does contain juniper and licorice and some of the other typical gin botanicals, but Nolet’s decided to go fruity and floral with their gin. The primary flavor is raspberry, plus peach and Turkish rose. It’s a weird gin — I almost hesitate to call it a gin at all; this is most certainly not a Martini gin — but I like it; it’s a really good spirit. As soon as I tasted that raspberry-forward flavor profile, I knew what cocktail I wanted to try it in first.

Unsurprisingly, it works beautifully in a Footloose. There’s enough raspberry flavor to make that magical familiar-yet-new fruitiness with the Cointreau, lime and bitters, but the other botanicals give it a depth and sophistication you would never get from using a raspberry-flavored vodka. This cocktail is now officially rewritten as seen below, although in honor of the original (and its publication history!) we’re appending a numeral to the name. Oh, we’ve cut down on the Cointreau as well, given that our palates prefer less sweet cocktails these days. Feel free to use the original proportion if you prefer your drinks that way, or if your limes are particularly tart. (For us, the tarter the better, though!)

Footloose No. 2

2 ounces Nolet’s Silver Gin
3/4 ounce Cointreau
1/2 ounce fresh lime juice
2 big dashes Peychaud’s bitters

Combine with ice in a shaker and shake for 10-12 seconds until chilled. Double-strain into a chiilled cocktail glass and garnish with a lime peel.