Friday, March 11, 2005
Back from Nawlins
My flight to Newark from New Orleans was late, so I didn't get home until after 9 pm. I am bushed, but I have a few thoughts, notes and links for your consideration.
Beignets. Delicious fried dough covered with powdered sugar, they are the must eat breakfast, lunch and dinner food for the Yankee tourist visiting New Orleans. I love them. But here's the thing: they taste exactly -- I mean exactly -- like funnel cake. This fact -- and it is a fact -- does not seem to influence my fried-dough purchasing habits. While I would only order funnel cake at a county fair because the TigerHawk daughter has me wrapped around her finger, I order beignets in New Orleans sua sponte. The same atmospheric license which permits women to flash their breasts for plastic beads and yuppie northerners to watch jazz in a smoky nightclub until 4 a.m. also apparently liberates our lust for lumps of fried, sugary dough.
Nazis. Meanwhile, the Argentines have finally caught up with an actual, bona fide, Hitler-era German Nazi. This guy is not your garden-variety get-along go-along Nazi. No, he's a full-fledged Nazi whack job complete with his own followers:
They should have called in this woman a long time ago. She certainly knows how to handle cults.
The Hawkeyes. Iowa is against all recent odds hanging on to the frail reed of its basketball season, having beaten Michigan State in the second round of the Big Ten tournament. The dream of a ticket to the big dance is still slightly alive. When the 'Villain gets back from his round-the-world business trip, which should be any day now, we may here more.
Sleep tight.
Beignets. Delicious fried dough covered with powdered sugar, they are the must eat breakfast, lunch and dinner food for the Yankee tourist visiting New Orleans. I love them. But here's the thing: they taste exactly -- I mean exactly -- like funnel cake. This fact -- and it is a fact -- does not seem to influence my fried-dough purchasing habits. While I would only order funnel cake at a county fair because the TigerHawk daughter has me wrapped around her finger, I order beignets in New Orleans sua sponte. The same atmospheric license which permits women to flash their breasts for plastic beads and yuppie northerners to watch jazz in a smoky nightclub until 4 a.m. also apparently liberates our lust for lumps of fried, sugary dough.
Nazis. Meanwhile, the Argentines have finally caught up with an actual, bona fide, Hitler-era German Nazi. This guy is not your garden-variety get-along go-along Nazi. No, he's a full-fledged Nazi whack job complete with his own followers:
Schäfer, one of South America's most enigmatic fugitives, was the leader of a notorious German cult in southern Chile known as Colonia Dignidad.
A former corporal and medic in the German army during the second world war, he moved to Chile in the early 1960s. He established a self-sufficient colony in the mountains near the city of Parral, 218 miles south of Santiago. Surrounded by barbed wire and electric fences, and largely populated by Germans, the cult remained cut off from the rest of Chile.
In 1996, a number of former residents testified that Schäfer had systematically abused the colony's young children, some of whom were taken from their parents at birth. Others alleged that cult members had been mistreated and forced to stay in the colony against their will. Chilean officials also believe the colony was used as a centre for torture between 1973 and 1990, during the Pinochet era, with former Gestapo and Nazi officers giving torture lessons.
They should have called in this woman a long time ago. She certainly knows how to handle cults.
The Hawkeyes. Iowa is against all recent odds hanging on to the frail reed of its basketball season, having beaten Michigan State in the second round of the Big Ten tournament. The dream of a ticket to the big dance is still slightly alive. When the 'Villain gets back from his round-the-world business trip, which should be any day now, we may here more.
Sleep tight.
2 Comments:
By 
, at
Sat Mar 12, 08:07:00 AM:
Biegnets are also exactly the same as the Italian version: the zeppole. Which you'll find at your Italian feasts like San Genaro etc.
Been to NO 2x, can't wait to go back.
Rob A.
F?WF?
By 
TigerHawk, at
Sat Mar 12, 08:20:00 AM:
I heard the same from some of my Italian-American co-workers, actually, and should have woven the point into the post. But zeppole sounds almost as exotic as beignet, and therefore more dignified. I would definitely also eat zeppoles, even if I wouldn't order funnel cake.
