Getting To Know Natchez Better

     Visiting a new city is a little like meeting a new person.  Spend time getting to know more before you make any kind of a judgment.  Now that we've spent more than three weeks getting to know Natchez, we know we're going to miss being here and we want to make a point to visit again.

     Since the last posting we have continued to walk and explore.  The weather has cooperated and there hasn't been a day we couldn't walk outside.   There's been opportunity for golf, walking through the city, watching a Mardi Gras parade and attending a literary conference.  The most fun we've had lately has been meeting some of the people who live here.

Mardi Gras parade

     The Mardi Gras parade down Main Street in Natchez was our first ever Mardi Gras type celebration.  We were not expecting it to be on the order of the New Orleans celebration, and it wasn't.  However, it was interesting and it was entertaining.   There were marching bands (more dynamic drum lines and dance routines than those found in small town parades in the North), plenty of music, color and lights (it was a night parade), and tons of beads being thrown.  Like sitting in the box seats at a ballgame, it pays to keep your attention focused on the action.  I was hit often and sometimes hard by flying strings of beads.

The 25th Annual Natchez Literary and Cinema Celebration
 

     After the parade we decided to walk a few blocks to get a drink at the King's Tavern, the oldest building in Natchez.  Eileen, the accountant for the movie about James Brown that wrapped up shooting in Natchez and Jackson recently and who we met on a walk on the Trace, had suggested we do so.  The only place to sit was a picnic style table for 6 and we were joined at the table by three young people who we had the chance to get to know a bit.
     Turns out that Chris was an architect who mainly designs jails.  His wife, Rachel, is museum project coordinator for the Goldring Woldenberg Institute of Southern Jewish Life and Stuart is executive director for Mississippi Humanities.  They told us they were in town to attend the Literary and Cinema Celebration Conference and, in fact, Stuart's organization was a major sponsor.  We had seen signs at the convention center that there was a conference in town and based upon their enthusiastic recommendation (and the fact that attendance was free), we decided to attend the next day.
     The theme of the conference was "60 Years and Counting: Voices of the Civil Rights Movement".  During the time we attended, literary awards were given out to Kathryn Stockett (author of The Help), Tate Taylor (the writer and director of the movie, The Help, and director of the upcoming movie on the life of James Brown) and civil rights activist James Meredith (who has written several books and was the first black student, with help from federal troops,  to integrate the University of Mississippi ).  Other speakers and persons doing introductions included the mayor pro temp of Natchez, who is an African American woman and David Jordan who began life working in the cotton fields in Mississippi and became a state senator.
     In the time we attended we learned a great deal about the struggle for black civil rights in this state and more.  The fact that this type of conference was here in Natchez was one more aspect of this small city that has impressed us.

 

 

Kathryn Stockett, author of The Help

The Best Manhattan Ever!

     Not everyone has the same fascination with alcohol as do the people of Wisconsin.   I enjoy ordering a Manhattan as a before dinner drink and it has often been a source of amusement to see what I get in response.  Sometimes inexperienced bartenders in other states are a bit unsure of what to do with that order.
     As mentioned before we went to the King's Tavern for an after parade drink.  I thought I'd have some fun, possibly at the expense of the bartender, and I asked Ricky, the bartender, if he knew how to make a Manhattan.  The joke ended up being on me as Ricky replied, "I will make you one that will knock your socks off".
     Turns out that Ricky has quite the resume as a bartender.  He owned a club in New Orleans and was once offered the opportunity to be the person overseeing the bars in a major hotel chain.  His job before his current position in Natchez was in the South Beach area of Miami.  Apparently he was a winner of some sort of national bartending contest.  He returned to Natchez to live and work closer to his elderly parents who need family assistance at this point of their lives.
     The Manhattan was the best I've ever had and when he explained how he made it I was even more impressed.  It's a very complicated process that includes a cedar blank, a blow torch,  moonshine, trapping the cedar smoke in the glass, a drop of a substance that is used as a topical anesthetic. plum bitters and other alcohol.  Turns out that Ricky knows how to make a Manhattan and my question to him about that was crazy silly.
    

the King's Tavern - oldest building in Natchez

Ricky making the best Manhattan ever - notice the smoke trapped in the glass on top of the recently torched cedar blank