TulaneLSU

Friend,

The birthplace of Mardi Gras is Europe.

The birthplace of Mardi Gras in North America is Bayou du Mardi Gras near present day Buras, Louisiana. It was there that Iberville and the crew of his two ships, sent on a mission to explore the Mississippi River, celebrated the first Mardi Gras in North America. The year was 1699.

Delusional Mobilians conveniently ignore this history.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

Friend,

I track food prices in a notebook every time I grocery shop and eat in a restaurant. I also bring my own scale to the grocery to weigh every item. Here are my findings from the past 365 days:

Fruits are up 6.2%
Vegetables are up 6.5%
Great Value and Members Mark foods are up 8.8%
Brand name foods are up 10.2%

Yours,
TulaneLSU

Friend,

Meteorology has become the opiate of the anxious: a soft science whose practitioners employ fear and the illusion of historic events to create attention.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

quote:

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It was definitely alot safer when the mob was around, that's for sure.

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Friend,

These nostalgic yearnings for the halcyon days of New Orleans Mafia rule of the underworld are fallacious, and i hope you do not take offense, also absurd. It was the New Orleans Mafia that was responsible for introducing large scale drug trafficking in New Orleans, first with alcohol, and then with heroin, marijuana, and cocaine, which led to addiction and brokenness. These problems did not magically disappear when the Mafia’s influence in the underworld declined. The Mafia laid the groundwork for generational addiction, entrenched illegal markets, and the kind of street-level violence we still see today. Today’s drug crime in New Orleans and throughout the country is the legacy of the depraved individuals who formed the Mafia and cared not what happened to entire communities so long as the Mafia’s power increased.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

Friend,

It has already been shown scientifically that HEB is the best grocer on the Gulf Coast. I have only been in a Kroger four times. It was on par with Winn Dixie.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

Dear Friends,

Houston has never been, nor was it ever destined to be, a pizza city. Mexican, barbeque, and Chinese, perhaps, but Italian cuisine has missed this endlessly concrete city. It is not an insult; it is history, or at least the result of it. While the waves of Italian immigrants arrived in the port cities of Providence, New York, and Philadelphia on the East Coast and also New Orleans and San Francisco, Texas watched those few who crossed the Gulf settle almost exclusively in Galveston. And let us be clear: Galveston was never “the Ellis Island of the West,” no matter how ridiculously some repeat that myth.

The Hurricane of 1900 was not the reason Houston climbed past Galveston, although it has been implied by some. By 1900, Houston had already surpassed its coastal neighbor in population and prospects. But the Italians were not part of that Houstonian growth spurt. Most Italians who came ashore in Texas remained in Galveston or moved modestly inland to Dickinson, not onward to Houston. Italians in Galveston grew from 255 in 1890 to 1,030 in 1910, many laboring in the grocery trade. Houston, by contrast, welcomed far more Germans, Irish, and English than Italians. There was no pizza in Houston.

By 1910, 2.3% of Galveston’s population hailed from Italy. The Galveston underworld then was controlled not by Sicilians but by a man named Quinn, himself the son of Arkansans. But change was on the horizon, as the Sicilian Maceo family arrived from Leesville, Louisiana in 1910 (this is the same family that makes the laughable claim that they invented the muffuletta!). In time, brothers Sam and Rosario would rise during Prohibition, learning under Quinn, and concentrating regional criminal influence in the 1930s. Yet even then, pizza was nowhere to be found in Galveston or Houston.

Pizza’s first documented appearance in Houston is 1947, at Vincent’s, decades later than places like New Orleans, Trenton, and New Haven. Vincent Vallone, who arrived from Sicily in 1908, introduced it at his downtown restaurant on Calhoun. Like many immigrants, he began in the grocery markets around Market Square. He rose quickly during Prohibition years, and was accused in 1937 of working with international drug organization. He beat that charge, but a year later he killed a man in an illegal casino in Houston. He was sentenced to life, but only served eight years thanks to the intervention of the Maceos, Frank Costello, and Bugsy Siegel.

Pardoned, Vallone resumed his restaurant work. He sought to expand with an ambitious new project at 1499 Fannin, the Sorrento. Part restaurant, part entertainment house, with rumors of an underground casino, he never saw Sorrento completed. He was gunned down in a high speed chase not far from his house south of downtown. His last phone call was to Carlos Marcello. Was it a Mafia hit? Almost certainly, but no one ever was convicted.

Yet his family endured, and Tony’s, opened in 1965 by his grandson Anthony, still stands as Houston’s most distinguished restaurant over the last six decades.

Though Vallone introduced pizza to Houston, it was Valian’s, founded in 1955 on South Main, that became the city’s first true pizzeria. It was for many Houstonians their first pizza experience. Antonio’s Flying Pizza, opened in 1971 by Sicilian immigrant Antonio Rosa (who had previously owned a shop in Brooklyn), remains Houston’s longest continuously operating pizzeria. Star Pizza followed five years later, founded by a Chicago native and best known for bringing deep dish to Houston.




The 1970s and early ’80s brought a wave of national chains, but also the founding of cherished local establishments like Barry’s (1983) and Fuzzy’s (1984). Fuzzy’s was famously President George H. W. Bush’s favorite, a reminder that growing up amidst the fine pizzas of Connecticut does not guarantee one carries the wisdom to judge them rightly. Founded by a Syrian immigrant who claimed to have arrived in America with just $50, Fuzzy’s is testament to the fact that anyone can make it on the Houston pizza scene.

The 1990s changed little. There were more mediocre chains, some respectable newcomers like Candelari’s and Frank’s, but no genuine transformation.

Real Neapolitan quality finally arrived with Dolce Vita in 2006. Pizaro’s followed in 2011, the city’s first VPN certified pizzeria. Pizaro’s, though, has tumbled. My last visit there was bad. Today, the only VPN certified pizzeria in the Houston area is a food truck in The Woodlads. Is this a humiliation for Houston or evidence that VPN is an elitist, worthless institution? I will let you decide.

The 2010s brought a wave of Neapolitan pizzerias, followed by Detroit-style enthusiasts. And yet, for all this proliferation, Houston still lacks a single respectable slice shop. If anyone ever suggests Home Slice or Pink’s as evidence to the contrary, you may safely disregard all future pizza opinions from that individual.

Houston history, like most of its pizza through the years, lacks any flavor. Writing about it is both difficult and nap-inducing. Nevertheless, I shall still embark on a top ten list, for your education and edification.

Friend,

That arguably a majority of the OT is applauding this decision has given me new insight into what was previously an utterly baffling film, Eddington.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

Friend,

What do you consider the “uptown area?” Uptown as an idea has grown and shrunk over the years. In the late 18th century uptown was simply a geographic concept to describe areas upriver from the French Quarter.

In the early 19th century, when my family arrived in the area to help Andrew Jackson, the term hardened to include street boundaries. By the time Canal Street was carved from soil in 1810, according to Grandmother, who knows these things, Uptowner was a term of insult the Creoles used to describe people like my family. They saw us as apostate, cake-eating money hounds. The Americans, sometimes called Uptowners, were quick to plat the areas between Canal and Jefferson Avenue, which until the 1920s, was called Peters Avenue. We have family that have lived in the same house on that street all the way back to the Peters days.

Uptown until 1870 had the boundaries of the river, Canal Street, the back o’town cypress swamps, which roughly followed Barrone, and Peters/Jefferson Avenue. In 1870 New Orleans, foreshadowing New York’s Great Consolidation of 1898, absorbed Jefferson City and all areas of Jefferson Parish to the parish line. By this time, uptown’s boundary exchanged Peters for the current Jefferson Parish boundary line with Orleans. It was an enormous area, representing the majority of livable New Orleans in the early 20th century.

In 1974 the City Planning Committee, seeking federal funds, a story Uncle has details of which would make your head spin, chopped up the city into much smaller neighborhoods. Uptown lost its directional colloquial usage and became a nebulous idea of a smaller neighborhood.

Just as the definition for Old Metairie is yet to be agreed upon — does its northern boundary only reach Veterans or does it extend all the way into Bucktown? — so too do arguments rage about what is Uptown today. The most agreed upon boundaries of Uptown today are the River, Claiborne, Broadway, and Jackson Avenue. Its center would be the JCC, where I was once known as the king of sock hops.

Are these the boundaries you are using? Perhaps TulaneLSU’s top 10 pizzas in New Orleans will be of benefit. I will say that I do not recommend Midway and pray your friend did not become misguided to that locale.

Yours,
TulaneLSU

Friend,

The undisputed king of gourmet canned seafoods is Josephson’s in Astoria, OR. I will not visit Oregon without visiting Josephson’s. Every item there is excellent, but I have a particular love for their sturgeon. And if in person their fresh smoked salmon and hot chowder are better than anything you can find in Seattle.







Their items make perfect Christmas presents as well as dinner party gifts. If you are on a budget, however, it is hard to surpass Walmart’s Great Value label smoked oysters. Whether eaten alone, on a GV saltine, or added to a dip, at $2.50 — a price that has doubled in less than four years while Josephson’s has remained constant — you will be hard pressed to find a better dollar to dollar rival.



Yours,
TulaneLSU

P.S. I have read good things about Great Lakes Tinned Fish, which to my knowledge is the only fish tinning company in the Great Lakes. When visiting the UP, Leland was always a must stop for us for its delightful fish town. We regretted that we could not bring home edible Christmas gifts from the smoke houses there. But now they carry this new canned fish and will try it next time we are there this coming May.

Dear Friends,

Thus does Mother declare, without blush or doubt, Front Day will arrive by the next morning. The soul which chooses hot chocolate over liquor and sacred hymns over cacophony has chosen rightly. For in such choices dwell gentility, grace, and that quiet gladness which neither ennui, anxiety, nor Satan’s snares can undo.

Glory to God in the highest! Front Day has come once again, and we are here to celebrate and give thanks. Another hurricane season behind us, our cups overflow with thanksgiving and joy and maybe even marshmallow cream on this high day of our Crescent City. I think it not an accident that, this year, Front Day coincides with All Saints’ Day, the first ever All Saints’ Front Day. And so today, after our labors to wash and clean our family's portal of the Resurrection have been accomplished, we shall open our party with William How's sacred canticle For All the Saints.

Today is our day. We shall drink and be merry. Our cups will warm us with chocolate, whose steam ascends as an incense at the altar. Chocolate shall pulse softly through our veins as a whisper of love. Bring forth laughter lacking lunacy, warmth without wildness, communion without corruption. Kakawa, Ghirardelli, Max Brenner, Saxon, Scharffen Berger, or Swiss Miss: we shall taste of the Lord's glory. Our merriness is in the Lord, our Rock, Fortress, Might, Captain, and Light!

Dear friends, I pray you join us in our home tomorrow evening as the shadows begin to emerge on the eastern side of City Park’s haunting oaks. Mother's famous Calliope Chocolate Chip Cookies shall mound on an oversized pecan wood Industrious Susan that Uncle fashioned this year for the occasion. We have 27 types of drinking chocolate available, and each year we are in awe of the offerings our friends bring. Will we break last year’s Front Day record of 36 different hot chocolates? We gladly welcome all and we desire that each of you bring one hymn request. Although we can never guarantee that all requests will be filled, we shall do our utmost. Blessings to you and compliments of this glorious season to your loved ones.

Faith, Hope, and Love,
TulaneLSU

P.S. The history of Front Day stretches all the way back to 1911. Mother claims to have invented Front Day in 1998, but Grandmother always corrects her when she makes that claim. Grandmother is happy to tell you the story of her grandmother minting the day in 1911 after that brutally hot summer, which was the standard for hot New Orleans summers for 69 years until 1980 reared its sun on us. Grandmother tells the story like this:

“My Grandmother, your Great, Great Grandmother was the first known New Orleanian to celebrate Front Day. Your Mother heard my bedtime stories about Front Day as a little girl, and she has done well to revive and cultivate the holiday. But she was acting on an idea my Grandmother created.
“Grandmother talked about the heat during the summer of 1911. She was part of a volunteer women’s auxiliary from Christ Cathedral and First Presbyterian Churches tasked with decorating the Isaac Delgado Museum of Art in City Park. This is the museum that later became NOMA, which I know you so love visiting. It opened during the Advent season, I believe December 15, of 1911.

“Anyway, Grandmother talked about how that summer was unrelenting. Three times each week, she took the St. Charles and Canal St. streetcars before fetching a horse drawn carriage from Canal St. to City Park. She talked about how hot working in the stone building was.

“September of 1911 was hotter than any month she had ever felt, and this was in a time when Septembers were usually closer weatherwise to what we think of as October or even early November weather.

“When the morning of October 18, 1911 broke, my Grandmother was up with the sun. She recalled until her last days how it was one of the most beautiful days of her life. The sunrise was perfect and a light northerly wind brushed her face with temperatures in the low 50s reminding her of the goodness of creation. She felt so wonderful that she left early that morning and walked the entire distance to the museum, which was a five mile jaunt.

“Once the women were finished with their duties that afternoon, my Grandmother invited them all back to her Prytania home. There she had a lovely spread which included hot chocolate from Switzerland she purchased from the Katz & Bestoff on Canal, which became the future site of the failed Hard Rock Hotel. Thomas, the church organist, was summoned, and quickly arrived to play their custom home organ. I can still picture her indelible, childlike smile when she reminisced about singing those hymns and drinking chocolate on that first Front Day.

“She and her friends gathered for years on each first sunny day of Autumn with highs below 80 and lows below 60. When Front Day came on October 21, 1929, celebrations were held as usual, but three days later, Black Thursday hit America. Some of her friends were ruined, and they associated Front Day with the stock market crash. And never again in her lifetime did the people of New Orleans celebrate that great day. It disappeared until your Mother revived it.

“Unlike your mother, the original Front Days did not have to be on Saturday. I wish your mother would change that requirement.”

Previous Front Days:
1911: October 18 (77/53)
1912: October 24 (79/50)
1913: October 13 (79/56)
1914: October 15 (69/53)
1915: October 8 (74/56)
1916: September 30 (73/52)
1917: October 9 (77/51)
1918: September 21 (73/51)
1919: November 3 (78/54)
1920: September 30 (79/49)
1921: October 4 (79/59)
1922: October 9 (70/54)
1923: October 20 (68/50
1924: September 30 (71/53)
1925: October 20 (73/48)
1926: October 2 (79/58)
1927: September 23 (78/55)
1928: October 19 (78/58)
1929 October 21 (76/57)

1998: October 10 (75/56)
1999: October 23 (72/57)
2000: October 7 (71/56)
2001: October 20 (79/56)
2002: November 2 (66/53)
2003: November 15 (80/50)
Mother projected a high of 78 this day, making it the only time in 25 years she has failed accurately to predict Front Day.
2004: November 6 (71/47)
2005: October 29 (71/49)
2006: October 28 (69/54)
2007: October 27 (70/55)
2008: October 25 (77/52)
2009: October 17 (67/54)
2010: October 30 (76/50)
2011: October 22 (75/53)
2012: October 27 (64/53)
2013: October 26 (74/51) The week before met the temperature definitions, but was rainy.
2014: October 4 (73/57)
2015: November 14 (67/57)
2016: October 22 (75/57)
2017: November 11 (72/54)
2018: October 27 (75/55)
2019: October 26 (79/57)
2020: October 31 (70/52)
2021: October 30 (68/53)
2022: October 22 (79/56)
2023: November 4 (77/55)
2024: October 19 (77/57)
2025: November 1


Front Day 2020
Front Day 2021
Front Day 2022
Front Day 2023
Front Day 2024


We tarry back now to our home, delayed only briefly by the lack of air traffic controllers. We shall see you tomorrow.