I'm Sorry I Peed on Your Joy

I’m sorry I peed on your “Joy of Cooking”

~ Dr. "Tennessee" Gabriel

Yeah, it was that kind of weekend: a semi-earnest and demi-coherent apology from a good friend who got turned around about five in the morning and mistook a living room bookcase for another piece of household furniture—porcelain, bowl-shaped furniture. With over 2,000 cookery books in the house, thank god I had the foresight to Brodart many of them. And that I bolted out of bed at the sound of books crashing to the wooden floor to stop any further action against books that would actually be difficult to replace.

Three guests descended on the house (making it three anesthesiologists, a physiatrist, and me) for five days of camaraderie, cooking, eating, and drinking. As the old man in the group, I generally head to bed before the festivities wind down or get so wound up that cops* are called. I refrained from talking marketing and advertising, but got an ear full of shop talk about nitrous, Diazapam, Versed, and a laundry list of other drugs designed to take patients to the brink of death, hold them there while surgeons did their tricks, and then bring them back.

I do that, too, but with rum, whiskey, and brandy. Or at least to the brink of respectability. Oh, and without the surgeons.

Speaking of which ~ headed off to New Orleans Tuesday morning for Tales of the Cocktail. Brett Anderson writes that moonshine closes in on respectability for the Times-Picayune and talks a bit about our session. There’s a wee typo in the story: I was talking about poitin, the Irish moonshine, not poutine, the Canadian dish of frites and cheese curds. Mmmmm…what a good meal both together would make, though…

Rowley, seated, pre-Joy, back of his head being held in place, surrounded by minions friends. If you seem him at Tales, say hey.


* Cops have never been called to my parties, but years ago, I won a motorcycle at someone else's shindig. Cool! Next morning, the owner showed up at my back door, sulking behind two officers, claiming I'd stolen his bike. When reminded that he was the one conducting the contest, he admitted that, yes, he'd maybe had something to drink and had forgotten that part. The coppers, poor guys, at least had the sense of humor to laugh it off as the sweating, hungover host pushed his bike back home. I still want a bike...
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