“Ben Dover,” better known as Kristin Gilmore, health promotions graduate student, and “Lady Hollyweird,” or Jamarious Wicker, sophomore theater major, were named the 2011 Mr. and Ms. ESU at PRIDE’s alternative beauty pageant last Thursday.
“Winning was great, I had so much of fun, like I said in the show I’ve come a long way – this has really boosted my confidence,” Gilmore said. “I never would’ve seen myself doing this four years ago.”
Despite some costume malfunctions throughout the show, Wicker was still very excited to win and enjoyed the fact that his dance partner, Gilmore, also won the crown. He said this was his last year for doing the show because it was so much work, but he loved the experience.
Last year’s Ms. ESU, Austin Schopper, senior secondary English education major, hosted the show under the stage name “Valerie.”
“I (was) most excited to see the new talent this year – we didn’t have anyone that competed last year compete this year,” Schopper said.
The first event was the catwalk, followed by the talent portion, then an interview with the three judges, Giovanna Follo, assistant professor of sociology, Edward Emmer, assistant professor of social sciences, and Michelle Hernandez, the adviser for PRIDE.
Schopper’s stylist for the event was Shanon Fletcher, a stylist at Salon Del5ive, who did his hair, make up and even a waxing for the show. She said she enjoyed the challenge and all the hectic activity that happened backstage.
Schopper started the event with a dance number showing off some of the skills that won him last year’s crown such as a cartwheel in high heels. Then the rest of the participants joined in the dance number.
There were poetry readings and song and dance numbers. The questions posed by the judges offered the contestants an opportunity to show how well they could stay in character.
Emmer enjoyed the whole show and the opportunity to get a new perspective since he had just been an audience member for the previous year’s show.
Richard Stephenson, junior chemistry major, while under the stage name “Mindy the Mennonite,” sang Marilyn Monroe’s “Diamonds are a Girl’s Best Friend.”
“I’m just strutting my stuff, showing off what I have, letting it be judged in the harshest competition Emporia has to offer,” Stephenson said.
PRIDE President Josh Smith said the group plans to continue the show next year and keep drawing in the crowd.
Cocktail tour drinks in the legends and lore of New Orleans.(Knight Ridder Newspapers) go to web site court of two sisters
Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service September 21, 2004 | Kingsbury, Amanda Byline: Amanda Kingsbury NEW ORLEANS _ Not long ago, some vegetarian teetotaler wrote about his trip here to discover if the city could support a vacation devoid of sin.
Nice idea, but really, such sober sanctimony doesn’t belong in a city of to-go cups, a city with a higher number of bars per capita than any other city in the country, a city where the collective blood-alcohol level on Bourbon Street on a Saturday night measures on the Richter scale.
Word has it that during Prohibition, federal agent Isadore Einstein was dispatched around the country to see how the laws were being upheld, and cities were ranked according to how fast he was able to score a drink. New Orleans was No. 1 _ Einstein got off the train and had a cocktail in hand within 37 seconds, according to Kerry McCaffety, author of “Obituary Cocktail: The Great Saloons of New Orleans” (Vissi d’Arte Books. $39.95).
No, the best way to tour New Orleans is not to skip over the bars but to hop them _ those legendary places where O. Henry, Tennessee Williams and Oscar Wilde took intoxicating inspiration and where generals and pirates hatched world history. Bars where you can find old-school bartenders who know how to make old-school cocktails and where you can hear stories like the one about a group of old college buddies who make an annual pilgrimage to the city, toting the ashes of their dead, beloved friend in a Crown Royal bottle.
It was in New Orleans that Southern Comfort was created, back in 1874. The first Sazerac was mixed here, too, along with the Ramos Gin Fizz, the Hurricane and the Hand Grenade.
They say the word “cocktail” itself was first uttered here, though that’s disputed. But New Orleans doesn’t always care about the truth _ sometimes it just wants a good story, passed around in those places where people drink in legends and lore, where exaggeration is always on the house.
___ BOTTOMS UP: A TIPPLER’S TOUR OF NEW ORLEANS _The Court of Two Sisters: Brandy Milk Punch 613 Royal St.
(504) 522-7261 or www.courtoftwosisters.com I’m not accustomed to drinking before a certain civilized hour (say, noon), yet here it is only 9:30 a.m., and there’s a Brandy Milk Punch sitting on my table that’s not going to drink itself. In New Orleans, such eye-openers precede the morning coffee, putting the brightness back into bleary eyes.
The cold, sweet, velvety Brandy Milk Punch is a traditional a.m. favorite, and the Court of Two Sisters makes one of the best in town, mixing brandy with milk, half-and-half, simple syrup and vanilla and dusting it with nutmeg.
The historic restaurant is world-famous for its jazz brunch buffet that seems to go on for miles. But the Court of Two Sisters’ real star is a 66-year-old bartender named Flo, who has invented or perfected many a cocktail in her 40 years of mixing drinks. Her Hurricane even beat out Pat O’Brien’s in an early 1990s bartending contest.
Flo likes to make the French 75 but says humbly, “I don’t have no specialty. My specialty is doing it the way they want it _ whatever drinks the people order.” _Tujague’s Restaurant: Grasshopper 823 Decatur St.
(504) 525-8676 It’s easy to justify a second eye-opener: one for each eye. Besides, it’s barely 11 a.m., and the woman next to me just lit a cigarette and ordered a double margarita to go. She appears to be making one of those cursed transactions with the venerable piper, and I think she’s still wearing her pajama bottoms.
The last time I ordered a Grasshopper, I was underage, attempting to get served in an off-the-highway dive bar in the Midwest (a bar whose specialty, I’m sure, was dessert drinks for novices). But, standing here at the bar _ the original stand-up bar in New Orleans _ it seems the right thing to order, given that the drink was invented by one of the former owners in the 1930s.
Paul the bartender makes it the old-fashioned way, with brandy, creme de menthe, creme de cacao and milk. Meanwhile, Eddie, a scruffy regular, is offering some historical perspective on the bar. Eddie says there used to be a trough in front of Tujague’s bar, so men could unzip and conveniently relieve themselves.
Paul says that’s dubious, though there’s no doubt that the restaurant has a colorful history. It opened in 1856, feeding the dock workers, seamen and market laborers who crowded the riverfront. Tujugue’s has since pleased many a famous palate _ from world leaders (Charles de Gaulle) to women who have romanced world leaders (Monica Lewinsky).
None of them get any special treatment from Paul. “The only thing that matters to me is if you’re an (expletive),” he says. “That’s the only criteria in how you get treated.” _Brennan’s Restaurant: Bananas Foster Martini 417 Royal St.
(504) 525-9711 Can I make the case for a third eye-opener? The menu at Brennan’s lists 14 liquid kick-starts _ among them, a Red Rooster and a Mr. Funk of New Orleans. Obviously, I don’t have three eyes _ but there’s always the possibility of seeing double, which would then technically give me four eyes, which would then qualify me for that third eye-opener, and hey, if I felt like it, a fourth, even.
But I drunkenly digress. Brennan’s may be renowned for its aristocratic breakfast tradition, but what diners really go bananas over is the dessert. In 1951, Chef Paul Blange of Brennan’s invented Bananas Foster _ back when New Orleans was the major port of entry for bananas shipped from Central and South America.
The dessert was named after Richard Foster, a friend of Owen Edward Brennan, the restaurant’s founder.
This summer, the restaurant concocted a drink just as scrumptious as the dessert: the Bananas Foster Martini, served in a martini glass rimmed with brown sugar and cinnamon. It tastes best sipped in the shade of a big old magnolia tree on the patio.
_Napoleon House: Pimm’s Cup 500 Chartres St.
(504) 524-9752 or www.napoleonhouse.com Three drinks and two slurred words later, it’s time to join the official Southern Comfort Cocktail Tour, led by Joe Gendusa, a New Orleans native with a sense of history and a sense of humor. Southern Comfort’s sponsorship is likely the only reason we’re being handed plastic cups full of a Southern Comfort concoction _ because the Napoleon House is famous for the Pimm’s Cup, made with Pimm’s (a gin mix developed in the 1840s), lemonade and 7UP. here court of two sisters
The charming, crumbling Napoleon House was intended to be a New World residence and refuge for Napoleon. Nicholas Girod, then the mayor of New Orleans, conspired with one of Jean Lafitte’s pirates to rescue the exiled emperor from St. Helena, where he was under guard by the British fleet.
Napoleon died three days before the ships that would rescue him were to leave New Orleans. But his presence still resides here, in portraits on the peeled-paint walls, in the oft-played Beethoven’s Symphony No. 3 (Eroica), composed for the famed general, and in the form of out-of-towners at the bar who apparently suffer from an alcohol-induced Napoleon complex when it comes to conquering women.
_Ritz-Carlton’s Library Lounge: Mint Julep 921 Canal St.
(504) 524-1331 By this time, I think I’ve drunk as much as I did last New Year’s Eve. In my muddled mind, that calls for some resolutions.
I will never drink another appletini.
I will never again order a drink from a blithely authoritative bartender dressed in all black at a bar that looks like it was designed by someone on Ecstasy.
Sometimes, you just want a bar _ and a bartender _ with a soul. At the Library Lounge, Chris McMillian concocts drinks with the precision of a chemist and the lyricism of a poet. His bartending colleagues say he’s so good, he can make a drink to match your mood.
McMillian, a fourth-generation barkeep, considers himself a classicist. “There are only four seats at my bar, so I have the liberty to be able to take the time to create the cocktails, to handcraft them in the ways that made them classics in the first place,” he says.
In this dimly lit bar _ lightly perfumed with cigar smoke and peppered with jazz _ his favorite cocktail to make is the noble Mint Julep. More so than making the drink, he performs it _ taking five to 10 minutes to wed the ingredients and presenting it in a silver cup. Properly enjoyed, a Mint Julep should take an hour to finish, he says.
“If you sip it slowly, it melts together and takes on a quality it didn’t have at the beginning,” McMillian says. “And by the time you’re done, you’ll wish it had never ended.” _Fairmont New Orleans’ Sazerac Bar: Sazerac 123 Baronne St.
(504) 529-7111 or www.fairmont.com/neworleans I have stormed the Sazerac.
There’s a challenge on the table, too _ in 1949, when women were first allowed into the Sazerac Bar, a lady named Jenny Martin drank 13 Sazerac cocktails in one night. “She was out of this world!” a bartender told Dixie magazine. “The next day, she called up and said she’d lost her glasses.” Every Sept. 26, the bar celebrates equal-opportunity drinking with a “Stormin’ the Sazerac” party.
Tonight, it’s a party of one _ because I’m the only person here drinking the bar’s namesake drink, said to be “the” original cocktail, created by a New Orleans apothecary named Antoine Peychaud in the 1830s. He served his brandy-and-bitters concoction to ailing customers in a ceramic double-ended cup called a cocquetier (kah-kuh-tay) in French. But people kept mispronouncing it, and it devolved to “cock-tay” and then “cocktail,” or so the story (unlikely story, some say) goes.
The original Sazerac _ named after a popular bar that served it in the 1850s _ was made with bitters, cognac and absinthe. The modern version is made with bitters, rye whiskey and absinthe substitute. The sweet, spicy drink seems to warm up as you sip it, leaving you positively glowing _ or is that flushed?
Cheers to Jenny Martin for drinking 13 Sazeracs and losing only her glasses. I’ve had one, and I’ve already lost my room key.
_Hotel Monteleone’s Carousel Bar: The Goodie or Vieux Carre 214 Royal St.
(504) 523-3341 or www.hotelmonteleone.com Is my head spinning? Or is it the bar?
`Round and `round we go at the Hotel Monteleone’s Carousel Bar, a merry-go-round for merrymakers. The revolving 25-seat bar finishes a rotation every 15 minutes, though sauced patrons often accuse the bartenders of turning up the motor speed.
The Hotel Monteleone is famous for two drinks: the fruity Goodie and the dry, complex Vieux Carre. It’s also famous for its imbibers. Tennessee Williams drank Sazeracs and Brandy Alexanders here. Oscar Wilde drank anything here. Former Louisiana Gov. Earl Long courted famed stripper Blaze Starr at the Hotel Monteleone _ the notorious affair inspired the movie “Blaze,” starring Paul Newman and Lolita Davidovich.
Across the bar, one of the men from the earlier cocktail tour is courting a woman whom will most likely not meet his standards after sunrise.
I decide to call my sister, for no reason except to make the point that I’m in New Orleans and she’s not. Cell phones really should come with Breathalyzers that prohibit irresponsible dialing after a certain blood alcohol content is reached.
_Pirate’s Alley Cafe: Absinthe 622 Pirate’s Alley (504) 524-9332 “The first stage is like ordinary drinking, the second when you begin to see monstrous and cruel things, but if you can persevere, you will enter upon the third stage where you see things that you want to see, wonderful, curious things.”_ Oscar Wilde, describing the stages of absinthe intoxication Yes, that’s what I need: a 110-proof nightcap.
But no self-respecting reveler would miss a visit to Pirate’s Alley Cafe, a spooky little bar across from St. Anthony’s garden, where Creole gentlemen used to settle their differences with swords and where Lafitte sold his pirated loot and gave part of the profits back to the church.
The house specialty here, Gendusa warned earlier during the tour, would “separate the men from the boys.” Absinthe.
No, you can’t get the real stuff here _ the potent elixir, blamed for murders and madness, along with Van Gogh’s missing chunk of ear _ has been banned in the United States since 1912.
But you can still see the seductive ritual of absinthe performed at Pirate’s Alley Cafe. The bar substitutes Absente, a licoricelike liquor that contains Southern or “petit” wormwood _ a less-toxic, FDA-approved version of the wormwood said to cause delirium and contribute to permanent mental deterioration.
Bartenders rest a slotted spoon atop a tall glass and place a sugar cube in the spoon. Then they pour an ounce of Absente over the sugar and light the cube on fire from underneath. Cold water, poured over the cube, dissolves the sugar and completes the drink, which is stirred with the slotted spoon.
Halfway through the drink, I realize I’m making eye contact with a guy sitting at the bar who’s dressed like a pirate. “Who arrrrgh you?” I want to ask. And that’s when I realize it’s time to go home.
___ IF YOU GO:
Drink in the legends, lore _ and yes, libations _ of New Orleans’ famous bars and restaurants as part of the Southern Comfort Cocktail Tour. The 2 {-hour tour leaves at 4 p.m. daily from the Gray Line Lighthouse at Toulouse Street and the Mississippi River. Stops include Jax Brewery, O’Flaherty’s Irish Channel Pub, Galatoire’s, Arnaud’s, Cafe Lafitte in Exile, Tujague’s and others. Cost is $24 per person; you must be at least 21. Reservations: (800) 535-7786 or www.graylinetours.com.
___ Amanda Kingsbury: akingsbury@star-telegram.com ___ Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.
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Kingsbury, Amanda
