Viva San Giuseppe!!!!

Today may very well be my favorite holiday of the year and I never miss the chance to celebrate, even if I am not with my nearest and dearest. If you don't know about the tradition, check this out. Last year I had my own altar and table but this year, well, I am just so tired of entertaining and having a house full of people (Mardi Gras was great but I'm glad it is over!). So instead, I decided to altar hop. I ended up going to SIX different altars today, ate my own body weight in cuccidati, made my own abbreviated dinner in Joe's honor and ended the day with some gelato. Love this day and LOVE celebrating it in New Orleans where the tradition is still going strong!

First, I went to St Alphonsus. This was the church I went to for my first St. Joseph's Day in New Orleans many years ago. There weren't nearly as many people there as I remembered but it was still lovely; we ate at tables set out in a pretty courtyard with azalea bushes in full bloom. This is where I ate my main meal of the day and it included baked redfish, shrimp risotto, artichoke milanese, pasta with egg and salad. THe risotto was new for me and it was delicious. Everything else was good, not outstanding, but solid. Next year, I will have to bring my own red pepper flakes (absent) and a bottle of wine (not box).

Next, I went to St. Stephen's. I didn't eat there but they looked like they had pasta con sarde! It was also a much bigger crowd. Not only did they have an elaborate altar, but there was also the lady playing "O Sole Mio" on the ukelele. Awesome.





I love in New Orleans that they have bread shaped like crabs, crawfish and alligators. I'm used to just plain old crosses and staffs.



Next I went to someone's house that was open to the public, how cool is that! This was an extremely lavish altar, with bowls of boiled crawfish and plates of stuffed crab (that was only for the altar, the food offering was just pasta and some fried cabbage and artichokes). I don't know if people there knew each other or not but I really got a kick out of overhearing other people talking about which of their family members came over from Sicily and other little personal tidbits.





St Augustine's, small but sweet. And the first altar I saw with honey balls! (Pignolata)

St Joseph's, apparently the largest church in the South.

Finally, I went over to the gelato shop around the corner, Brocato's.

Weary and heavily laden with cookies, prayer cards and fava beans, I returned home, all altared out. But I wanted to make an appropriate meal so I made Gramma Bondi's cabbage patties and cooked up some skate with a butter-lemon-caper sauce. It fit the bill perfectly! Then, what the hell, I walked back over to Brocato's, where Ben and I finished up with gelato and espresso, a very fine day indeed!