Twelve

On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me:

A dozen Manuel's Tamales

Eleven Schwegmann bags...

Tenneco Chalmette Refinery.

Lower Ninth Ward

ATE by ya mama's.

SEVENteenth Street Canal

Six Pack o' Dixie.

FRIED onion rings.

leave it alone, ya make me nuts!

three french breads

Tujague's recipe

for the crawfish they caught in Arabi.

Manuel's Tamales have been part of New Orleans since the 1930s. The store was on S. Carrollton, in the first block off Canal Street. It was really just a take-out window. My parents weren't big on Mexican food, so I didn't really discover these little gems until high school. When I would take the Carrollton bus home from Brother Martin, I'd go from Gentilly Blvd. to Carrollton and Canal, then transfer to the Canal bus there. At the corner, Manuel's would have a guy out with a push-cart so you could just pull over and pick up a dozen or two on the way home from work. That push cart would be so busy that I figured the guy had to be selling weed in addition to the tamales. Those push carts were all over town, and trucks would re-supply them during the evening with more tamales from the restaurant.

When I had some with a couple of buddies later that year, I finally understood. Those were the best bloody tamales I've ever had. Just the right amount of meat, spice, and grease. As we got older and beer became part of the experience, a dozen Manuel's tamales was a late-night staple.

Manuel's didn't come back after the storm. The taco truck invasion from Planet Hooston is still strong in the city proper, even though Jefferson Parish cracked down on the mobile taquerias a few months back. A more upscale Tex-Mex place, Juan's Flying Burrito, is across the street on Carrollton if you get a craving for tamales and tacos in Mid City.

We've come to Twelfth Night! Benny ends the song on a Mexican note, but the big theme of the day is, of course, King Cake. King's Day, the Feast of the Epiphany, Twelfth Night, "Little Christmas." The day has many names, and different cultures have their take on how to celebrate the day, but in New Orleans, we do it in classic Yat style, a mixture of the Catholic and the Pagan.

The Phunny Porty Phellows will do their traditional streetcar ride tonight, and it's a long one this year. The original PPP would ride through the streets in wagons and on horses, announcing the start of Carnival. This tradition was renewed in the 1980s by a group of folks led by writer/publisher Errol Laborde and his wife Peggy. They charter a couple of streetcars and would party from the Carrollton barn to Lee Circle and back. This year, the PPP will ride from Beauregard Circle by City Park, down Canal Street to St. Charles Avenue, then up St. Charles, so they'll announce the start of Carnival to an even wider section of the city.

While the PPP are partying on the rails, the society folk of the Twelfth Night Revelers will hold their traditional bal masque tonight. This event marks not only the official opening of the Carnival season, but also the start of the debutante season in New Orleans. The TNR, the second oldest Carnival organization in the city (Comus is the oldest), will wheel out a huge wooden "king cake" that has several small drawers in it. Each drawer has a small bean. Young ladies (debutantes) will be invited to pull open those drawers and get the beans. The debs that get the silver beans are maids of the court, and the gold bean goes to the queen. Lots of dancing and drinking into the wee hours will ensue from there.

This year, Twelfth Night takes on a collegiate air, as thousands of LSU and Ohio State fans fill Da Quarter in preparation for tomorrow's BCS Championship Game in Da Dome. Several of the bakeries in town left off the green decorations on some of their king cakes, making them LSU-style purple and gold.

And yeah, we'll be partying from now until Midnight on Mardi Gras. It's what we do here.