Sunday, March 29, 2026
Day 5 of 6 of Saints and Sinners Festival in New Orleans with Patrick. We walked to 8:00 a.m. breakfast at Brennan's where there already was a line of people waiting to enter and be seated. A short wait—perhaps 10 minutes. We were sat at the last two-top inside adjacent to the courtyard fountain. Service by Alfredo H. We shared everything. Pot of coffee for two. Ledenheimer short baguette with butter—exceptionally soft shell and fluffy interior, like no other baguette we have tasted anywhere else. Ledenheimer baguettes are also the traditional bread for po'boys. Laignappe: two tiny lemon biscuits (shortbread) with chamomile honey tea butter. First course: café brûlot coffee cake (chicory coffee and bittersweet chocolate cake, pecans, spiced citrus glaze, whipped crème fraiche). Another pot of coffee for two. Second course: blueberry ricotta pancakes (blueberry compote, lemon curd, Brennan's honeycomb). Third course: Eggs Hussarde (housemade English muffins, coffee-cured Canadian bacon, hollandaise, poached eggs, marchand de vin sauce). All food and drink were delicious. The order of coffee cake and the pancakes could each serve three or four persons. The pancakes are particularly fluffy. The Eggs Hussarde are small and quite rich. We were too full to finish a quarter of the coffee cake and half of the pancakes. We visited the turtles in the courtyard fountain. Throughout the meal multiple staff members occasionally chatted with us, sometimes at length, and made us feel at home like we were—or were about to become—old friends. We loved that Alfredo politely insisted on taking our photo on the sidewalk with the Brennan's sign. The meal was rich, and we felt wise to have limited our selections. This meal had the most attentive and most personable service of all our full-service meals on this trip, and this was my favorite meal and restaurant experience on this trip even though we left so much food behind. Back to the hotel room. SASFest: We attended Make ’Em Laugh: Reclaiming Joy With Humor Writing with panelists St Sukie de la Croix, Ann McMan, Eric Peterson, and Genevieve Rheams, and moderator Fay Jacobs. My notes: jewelle and diane, mcd karl, moderator drew jordan, woody allen side effects short story collection, overnight to many distant cities, fran leibovitz dining room furniture, dave barry, duncan feiff (sp?), napoleon dynamite, i'm glad my mom died, joan rivers, augustin burroughs rehab, tig notaro, alan bennett, jeannette mccurdy, ulysses. Back to the room. Rain had fallen during the session. Patrick napped while I caught up on journaling. SASFest Writers Read: Patrick read from Small Spaces. Also reading: Jewelle Gomez and the brilliant Martin Sherman, who wrote Bent. Afterwards we visited the pool, but it was mostly overcast and cool and breezy and so did not stay long. We shared one cocktail with ginger and tequila. Back to the room. Rested. SASFest: closing reception with fresh fruit and beignets and drinks and hosted by Fay Jacobs. Our friend Trebor Healey was inducted into the SAS Hall of Fame. Afterwards Patrick and I walked to dinner at the darkly lit, brick-walled front room in Sylvain. Cocktails. We shared fried zucchini, salad, and burger with the world's skinniest french fries. They easily accommodated a few of my dining requirements. The burger was cooked longer than the medium we had ordered, but we did not complain about it. We enjoyed our meal and would return just for the fries. Patrick asked our server the secret ingredient in the fries, and she said it was MSG. $97 after tax and before tip. Back to the hotel room. Packed. We finished watching John Mulaney: Baby J: A Wide-Ranging Conversation downloaded to our iPad Air. To bed.