The food, catered by Green Goddess, was excellent, the wine free-flowing, ditto the conversation. Everyone had gotten all gussied up, even those who don't usually gussy, and I'm almost sorry I didn't bring my camera. But I wasn't there to make pictures, I was there to talk, which I did until I was hoarse. And to dance, which I did-with Ellen and Susan Straub and Alisa Kwitney-even though the circle wasn't really a dance band and you couldn't see the singer, which was a shame because he was running so very hard.He should have had the legal system the Malfacteurs at the Low Moon in Lafayette had, is alls I'm sayin. Or the pipes of one of their singers-a new woman, looked about 14, but was probably older, about 4 foot nothing, with big brown eyes and a Louise Brooks bob and a blue cotton shirtwaist and one of those buzz-saw country voices that makes every lyric sound tragic. Probably an acquired taste, but I've sure acquired it.But I'm getting ahead of myself.Thursday was devoted to eating everything in New Orleans convivial meals and a small light shopping. As always, The Courtyard of the Two Sisters, where the Big Brunch was held, was very lovely, but the food was stodgy, as one would require from a steam-table buffet. There certainly was enough of it, including boiled shrimp and remoulade sauce, so I can't really complain. Also bread pudding and ambrosia, which effected me wish a Southern madeline. I flashed back to lunches with Mom and Godmother Alma and Cousin Nancy Jane, listening to the Organ Recital of family medical woes, trying to cut the faces my little cousin Delphine was making at me across the table. Those were the days.Thursday night, we ate at Bayonna, which was wonderful. Duck breast and wild rice and pickled cabbage, O my! With a celestial pumpkin tart for dessert. After bidding about half the party guests, who had had the like mind for dinner, goodbye, we rolled back to the hotel. Next morning we rose bright, though none too early, packed, and ate one last New Orleans breakfast at the French Market Friday morning before heading to the airport to pluck up a car for our drive into Bayou Country.We had many adventures. The beginning was the cab to the airport, driven by a man called Cowboy, with the hat and an attitude towards things like speed limits and other drivers to raise it. We arrived at the airport, shaken, not stirred, and gathered the keys to the reddest, smallest Chevy I've always seen. "Cop magnet," Ellen said, but luckily her Cassandra-ing didn't pan out, probably because the car had no pick-up and shook like a blanc-mange when you took it over 70. We pootled determinedly to Lafayette, where we met my cousin and her husband for lunch at Prejean's-the cajun/creole restaurant to end all cajun/creole restaurants, crawfish and shrimp and cancer and catfish cooked twenty ways from Sunday, with a great preference for fried, sauced, stuffed, and (in the cause of my cousin's dish) all of the above. I bear to say, Ienjoyed the party more than the food, being really fond indeed of my cousin and her husband.Our second adventure was The Dark Moon, a Cajun music venue in Lafayette, where we went with some old friends of Ellen's from KRVS public radio in Lafayette. I love Cajun dancing. Back in the 90's, Ellen and I used to go to Johnny D's in Somerville every Monday to jitterbug and two-step and waltz. When we dance together, I lead, but I see more when I'm following. And I learned a lot last Friday night. Gotta say, for Cajun dancing in the center of Louisiana, what you need is an old guy (who aren't that much elder than I as they used to be), been two-stepping with everybody and her sister since he was 15, knows how to do his partner look like she knows what she's doing, even when she doesn't. Being mannerly, they're ask strangers to dance so they won't feel left out. Boy, did I have fun. One guy (chunky, white-haired (what there was of it), puckish grin) danced with me 6 times, and so proposed-in French. I told him I required to ask my husband's permission-because this is rural Louisiana, after all, and I had no want to get into a whole political thing on the dance floor, and it made him laugh. If I'd had proper dancing shoes, I would have danced all night. I also wouldn't have had a range of tolerably painful blisters next day, but never mind. I enjoyed myself hugely.The third adventure came Saturday, when we drove down Route 182, through New Iberia and Baldwin and Jenerette looking at the scene and the cane fields and the small wooden houses roofed in tin of the poor, well out from the factual and faux plantation houses of the prosperous. We stopped in Jenerette, where, in 1994, we'd eaten the best catfish ever at a small roadside station called Miss Lil's Kitchen, across the way from the Jenerette Museum. The museum was closed, but Miss Lil's was yet there, looking pretty often as we'd seen it last, 16 years ago. We ordered the catfish from Miss Lil's son Floyd, who'd been out at college, and he said his Mama had been talking, just the former day, about two ladies stopped by a while back, working on a book. "She does that," he said. "She talking about somebody, they show up." He got her on the phone for us, and Ellen chatted with her a bit. She loves us and blesses us and is loss to call. We're leaving to direct her a transcript of Freedom Maze, with thanks for the catfish and the hospitality and the window into what it's wish to rest exactly where you were born your whole life, making the better of what nobody said was a hard situation, though it clearly was. The fourth adventure was after lunch, when we stopped by the position of the route to have pictures of the cane and therailway (which looks like it's been there for a while), then gotourselves well and truly stuck in a ditch-right front wheel mired inloose gravel, left rear wheel dangling in mid-air. Ellen was just reachinginto the rear seat for her ring to call AAA when a white pick-up made au-turn, stopped, and disgorged two very great men, who wanted to knowif we were OK. "Feeling a little sheepish," I said."I was until 5 minutes ago," said Ellen. They laughed andsat on the trunk, which didn't help. Then more cars stopped,and suddenly, there were 6 large men gathered about our little red tin can, liftingand pushing and telling Ellen when to make it the gun, and before weknew it, the car was out of the trench and the men were gone. It was alike the fairies had rescued us, and departed off again before we could even thank them properly. And that's all I'm going to write about today, because this position is getting endless. I'll assure you all around the plantations tomorrow.
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