Remembering Buster Holmes' Kitchen

I awakened a little while ago and brewed coffee and chicory and cut a couple slices of French bed for breakfast and had a memory flash: I was back in Buster Holmes' kitchen in the French Quarter in New Orleans, Louisiana. I was sitting  at the counter in his kitchen eating red beans and rice. On the side was two pieces of French bread spread with real butter. I had a small glass of iced tea. Mr. Buster was watching me eat. I had just paid him seventy five cents for the plate of food and the tea. If I had wanted just water, my tab would have been 45 cents. It was hot in there. Not every place in the Quarter had air condition in those days, and certainly there was none in the kitchen.

"He asked me, "Hey Lil' Blondie. Are you a runaway?"

"Naw," I told him. "My daddy is working  for Mac McConnel down on Bourbon street." Buster sighed in relief.  He was used to seeing teenage  runaways in the Quarter and he had a big heart.

It was 1969 and I was 15 years old.

Buster  had a towel over his shoulder and he was cutting up onions and bell peppers. He had  a huge pile of them he was throwing into a large bowl. There were no food processors in those days. Cooking was laborious.  I remember going there quite often to eat, not because it was good, nor because it was cheap. I went to watch Buster and his staff cook. I found it fascinating to watch him prepare fish and fry it. I guess, I learned how to fry fish by watching Buster. He had pork chops in a pan and GOD THEY SMELLED FABULOUS!

Through a screen door (my memory sees a screen door!)  one could see the inside of the restaurant. It was not fancy, just clean and respectful. It had a nice comforting, homey feeling.  There were photos on the walls of local musicians and celebrities. That is where you went to get the fancy, more complicated Creole fare that Buster could cook up. Oysters, fried Trout dinners, and all sorts of Creole delicacies were on the menu. Turnip greens, Pork chops, soul food, Buster cooked  it all. Buster was famous for his cooking.  

But, back in the kitchen was where the action was. I loved to sit at his counter and watch him cook.When some black street performers (tap dancers) came in to eat, he shooed them all the way over to the other end of the counter. I was surprised he did that. I guessed he was afraid that the tap dancers might get out of line and I would  go back and tell daddy that I had to sit next to black street people. Buster had a great sense about running a business and  making sure he was managing his customers. But, that is what was  intriguing to me about Buster's. EVERYONE was welcome to eat in the kitchen. Sitting next to black  tap dancers from the street had an appeal to me. It was exotic. It was not THE WHITE BREAD SIDE OF LIFE. So, to hang out in Buster's kitchen, the only qualification was, you had to be hungry and at least half the people in your group had enough money to pay.

I went back to Buster's kitchen counter many times. I wish I could go back there now. If  I recall right, it was on the corner of Orleans and Burgundy street. My recollection is beans and rice was 45 cents. I have read articles that a say people paid 25 cents and a penny tax. Well, not in 1969, but maybe earlier in time that may have been true.

I am including a link to a wonderful blog that has a lot more info about Buster Holmes' and the characters  that went there. It was close to Cosimo Matassa's recording studio (J and M Studios) and may famous people went there. It is a hundred more fascinating than my remembrances, but to me, these are dear memories of a man that could not let the little people of New Orleans go hungry, if only they had a quarter..............................

RIP Buster Holmes                 1905 - 1995

OOXX
Patty McGehee


http://peroldaeus-musicandart.blogspot.com/2010/02/busters-by-per-oldus.html

The Musicians worth--according to Frenchman Street.......by Patty McGehee

Summer is going to wind down in a few weeks. It has been slow for Dan and I concerning going to see live music for several reasons. The biggest reason is the entrance into the world of out new granddaughter, Patricia June Wilson. She weighed in at 4 pounds 6 ounces and is  tiny and fragile. She is also very healthy and cute.

So, in between waiting  for the baby to come and doing household projects, I had a lot of time to think. One night in July we went down to Frenchmen Street in NOLA and walked around checking out the scene out there. While the amount of quality music emanating out of the clubs was impressive, there was a lot of garbage on the streets for a Saturday night. I began asking myself, "Why don't club owners do something about the garbage piling up?"  I know that on Bourbon street, the business owners wash down their sidewalks themselves every morning. It looks like the business owners on Frenchmen street have no clue about keeping things clean  down there. Look, I am not a big Bourbon Street Fan. Since I am basically not into drinking huge quantities of libations, I don't really enjoy going there. Hanging out with scores of drunks is disgusting to me. The only time I have been there in the  past 25 years is when I had out of state guests that HAD TO SEE IT TO BELIEVE IT. In fact, I had to do that with a visiting guest in April. One thing I noticed in comparison to the two locations is, at the start of the early evening, Bourbon Street is a lot cleaner. As the night comes on, well........I am not so sure because I don't  go there late at night.

Of course, comparing the type of music between the two streets, well, Frenchmen Street wins hands down. There is more variety and more of what I call, "THE REAL DEAL" down there. Frenchmen Street is one of the places where the creative spirit lives in NOLA. Now, I don't want to insult some of the  other venues that I respect, so I am going to make a shout out right here about my other favorite places in the NOLA area that are showing righteous music.  I don't want to hurt any feelings. This list is not going to be in any particular order, so if your venue  is listed last, it means nothing:
Mid City Lanes Rock N Bowl
The Maple Leaf
Old Point Bar

Deckbar on Jefferson Highway
Chickie Wah Wah
The Kerry Irish Pub
The Republic
Howling Wolf
The Rivershack
The Beach House in Metairie has some good shows every now and then
Monkey Hill
The Bon Ton Roule Bar on Magazine Street
Tipitina's uptown
Vaughn's
House of Blues
Ruby's Roadhouse in Mandeville
The Beach House in Mandeville (Formerly Lucy's)
One Eyed Jacks
Louisiana Music Factory in house shows Saturday afternoons


Now, the reason I am  writing this is that I found Frenchmen Street too dirty to be pleasant. It did not help my opinion when a member of band that was performing on the street began yelling at me when I took a photo of them. I had planned on writing a blog about how good they were and post their photo, but when the young woman  began yelling at me to pay up in tips for taking photos, I told her, "NO WAY! Tip you after this  rudeness? I don't know at this point if any of the photos I have taken in this dark light are of any use, and since I do not profit off my photos, I would not pay you for them. Are you  a musician or a model?"  I sauntered off pissed.  She and a few other people followed behind me yelling at me , "Who the Fuck do you think you are stealing our images..and Pay up, bitch. Fuck you thief  ..." I kept my back to them. It was a bit frightening. The incident made me very angry.  How insolent!

Now, I am a seasoned veteran of traversing the street in NOLA at night, and that was sickening to me. But, I began to talk that night to another street person displaying and selling artwork on the street. I was impressed with his pen and ink drawings. Since I am an art teacher and artist myself, I was interested in his work. One of the things I was interested in was how was the money flow for the artists. I told him about the incident with the musicians up the street. He said, "Please don't be too hard on her or judgmental. Everyone here is scratching out a living. Most of us are basically starving. Here you are in nice clothes and being older like you are, she just saw you as a person who could afford to give and she was frustrated."  I went on to explain that I was financially stable, but not necessarily solvent enough to shell out big bucks for street musicians.(Earlier in the night, I had paid two cover charges at the club named DBA, paid a tip to a band and had no more cash to spend at that point. I had bought a coke and two bottles of water. I was financially done for the night. The tab was approximately 25 bucks. And, I still needed to pay for the parking lot yet, which turned out to be 14 dollars.Gasoline from my home north of the lake to NOLA had cost me approximately 18 dollars.Earlier in the night we had cups of coffee at Envie on Decatur Street. This meant that my foray to Frenchman Street totaled in cost of about  sixty bucks)   Plus,  I was well acquainted with many street musicians who had made their living on the street performing and I had NEVER witnessed any of them yelling at a person who possibly might tip them.

So, I began to wonder, how much money do musicians make on Frenchmen street? Why did the young street musicians feel they had the right to verbally abuse a person on the street who stopped for half of a song and snapped two photos? I repeat: I snapped two photos on a dark street and did not even  listen to a whole song, much less, a set of their music, yet the young woman began to verbally attack me for money AND follow me down the street for a half a block bullying me.I know a lot of people in my age bracket that would NEVER return to Frenchman Street if that happened to them.

It is food  for thought and I am still thinking.........

Looking in the window of The Apple Barrel on Frenchman Street

Next: What do musicians get paid for  on Frenchman Street vs Bourbon Street