Last night Matty and I went to Darryl's Corner Bar and Kitchen to partake in the Mardi Gras party, which consisted of their delicious menu and an awesome band led by a man straight outta N'awlins.
We started off with a sidecar (for me) and the crawdad (for Matty) and an appetizer of shrimp etouffe, which had a delicious sauce and was cooked to juicy perfection. For dinner I had the catfish sandwich, that was gushing with the best remoulade I've had in the North and a side of sweet potato fries. Matty had the ribs with collards, which were delicious and had a fantastic sauce smothered all over the ribs. For dessert we had the red velvet cake (of which we did not find the baby and win a free entree) and Makers Mark (neat for Matty, on the rocks for me).
The band was just what I needed to lift my spirits and bring me back to that summer afternoon, less than a year after Katrina hit, when I was walking around the French Market during the Satchmo Festival and a band was set up underneath a white tent and a beautiful blue sky playing "What a Wonderful World" to the crowd. The crowd swayed and smiled and sang along, the lyrics "I see skies of blue...clouds of white; Bright blessed days...dark sacred nights; and I think to myself...what a wonderful world". I was brought to tears. This city, these folks who had seen so much devastation, who had lost loved ones and homes and had their city shaken to its core, singing along and thinking about the future, of which was still completely unknown, thinking nothing about nothing but that moment and those words. What a wonderful world indeed.
And there I was, in a corner seat at a restaurant in Boston, 1,527 miles away from the French Market with my husband who loves me so much and brought me out to celebrate a holiday which was all but another day to him before we met, knowing how much the day meant to me, arms around each other, enjoying the music before heading to our home together to sleep curled up next to one another before a day at the jobs that we love and before Ash Wednesday Mass at at the church that we were married in and I thought to myself...what a wonderful world.
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