HumidCity

The other night I took the wife and a friend out to a place I have not been since well before the levee failure: The Upperline. I was thrilled to observe that seems to have survived and thrived unchanged. The small dining room was festooned with an array of local paintings, photos, and memorabilia that must have exceeded the surface area of actual wall space by a significant amount. The owner, JoAnn Clevenger, was her usual vivacious self as she wandered from table to table engaging the diners in lively conversation. (NOTE: you can click on any of the images in this post to be taken to a larger version with its own independent comment stream. -Loki)

In short order we were escorted to a table in the front dining room of the 1877 town house in which The Upperline delivers its unique offerings. Our server, Jenn B. as I recall, was lively and attentive as she started us off with wine and classic New Orleans coffee and chicory.

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Allow me to begin by saying that my mother’s side of the family is French Creole. We got here wth Bienville and helped to found this City of New Orleans. As a child I remember steaming cups of Cafe Au Lait on the breakfast table every morning and wine with dinner every night. I started learning to cook when my age was tallied in single digit numbers. My maternal grandmother has been a proud and vocal keeper of our family’s creole heritage for as long as I can remember.

That makes it personal when a lackwit like Alan Richman makes statements about creoles such as, “I have never met one and suspect they are a faerie folk, like leprechauns, rather than an indigenous race.” Not being satisfied he continued to shove his foot further down his own throat by adding, “the idea that you might today eat an authentic Creole dish is a fantasy.” There are 8 pages of this tripe in his article in GQ Magazine (”Yes, We’re Open” November ‘06 Issue).

I know I am late jumping on the bandwagon with this one having been out of the country for awhile, but I feel impelled to address it. The NY Times has had their say on the subject, now ’tis my turn.

The idea that someone who shows such a fatuous and willfully ignorant attitude is seen as an authority in his field is mind boggling (although not surprising these days). His lack of even a cursory attempt to do any historical or cultural research before making blanket statements of such an insulting nature calls into question his reliability as a food critic and a writer. I guess its okay, after all he didn’t use the racially explosive “N Word,” and he didn’t present a definable epithet. Denying the existence of an ethnic group isn’t the same as actually calling them names, is it? Merde.

I would like to ask everyone reading this to please take a minute and sign the online petition to have him fired from GQ. Ill informed people will always exist, as shall both the narrow minded and the woefully unpleasant. I do not believe that they they should be allowed to spew their ignorance forth as fact .

It only takes a moment and it’s the right thing to do. In addition I will view every signature added as a personal favor to me and to the many generations of creoles that are my forebears. Merci beaucoup!