New Orleans Bacon-Stuffed Mushrooms

New Orleans is many things but it isn't jejune.  There is nothing naive, simplistic, or superficial about New Orleans.  The texture of New Orleans culture is densely woven and richly textured.  You never know what you'll find when you walk under a bead tree in New Orleans.  It may be half a recipe for New Orleans Bacon-Stuffed Mushrooms.

If that introduction doesn't whet your appetite for the rest of this story, I don't know what could.  Let's go.

I was walking under one of the bead trees on Orleans Avenue, along the Endymion Route.  My eyes were focused on the ground.

As I had approached this particular tree, I had seen a man walking his dog.  The dog was peeing against the tree and when it was done, the dog turned and bit the man.  Dog bites man isn't much of a story.  

Wait.  There's more.  

There will be a recipe for New Orleans bacon-stuffed mushrooms in a little bit.  Hang in here.

When the dog bit the man, something fell out of the man's pocket before he ran away with the dog chasing him.  The man held the leash all the way down the street with the dog chasing him.  They were connected by the leash.  Neither one could get away from the other.  That's what's called a co-dependent relationship.  

Either one of them could have tripped but neither the man nor the dog fell to the ground while I was watching them.  They were both running like the Devil, himself, was chasing them, too.  It was an accident waiting to happen.

If I had been in a comical frame of mind, I would have found it funny.  The whole episode was like a scene in a Buster Keaton movie.  Since I was far enough away, it was all silent slapstick pantomime from my vantage point.  

I wasn't in a comical frame of mind.  With a nose for news, I wanted to see what had fallen out of the man's pocket.  That's why I didn't watch man and dog run all the way down the street until they turned a corner.  I was focused on the ground under the bead tree.

There was a neatly folded scrap of paper, folded into crisp sixteenths, like after the guy made each fold, he pressed down and rubbed on it to make sure it was really, really folded real good.  It was a solid little rectangle of paper.

When I unfolded it, it was half a recipe for New Orleans Bacon-Stuffed Mushrooms.

The recipe was neatly written in a firmly masculine, no-frills, script.  The person who wrote is may be a draftsman, the penmanship was that precise.  It was easy to read.  Here is what the paper said:

New Orleans Bacon-Stuffed Mushrooms:

8 oz. softened cream cheese

1/2 lb. bacon

1 tbsp. chopped onion

1/4 tsp. garlic powder

1 lb. whole mushrooms

NEW ORLEANS BACON-STUFFED MUSHROOMS.

That's all the paper said.  There must have been a page two that hadn't fallen out of the man's pocket.  Maybe the dog already ate it.

CREOLE-STUFFED MUSHROOMS:

I've never seen bacon-stuffed mushrooms in New Orleans.  Creole stuffing is crab-based, as a general rule.  One of my favorite dishes in the city is the stuffed crab at Sammy's, on Elysian Fields Avenue.  That's a double whammy: crab stuffed with crab stuffing.

Based on the part of the recipe I found under the bead tree, New Orleans Bacon-Stuffed Mushrooms are, what people on the Downtown side of Canal Street call, "Protestant Food."  It's good enough but it's best when enjoyed in the Garden District.

I spent a lot of time under the bead tree, and around it, looking to see if a second page had been dropped.  I only retrieved this one page.  There wasn't another page under the bead tree.  That's all the writer wrote that we can read.  

Someone, somewhere, probably Uptown, maybe in Metairie, can read us the rest of it.  They may be reading it now, at this very moment that you are reading about this part.

I hope the man didn't trip while being chased by the dog he was tied to.  That would be a tragedy.  A lot of people call New Orleans, "The Man-Breaker."  It's true.  We live in a city that has a reputation.

Even if the man got home okay, he only has half his recipe for New Orleans Bacon-Stuffed Mushrooms.  He knows how to prepare the ingredients but he doesn't know what all the ingredients are, or what their proportions should be.  Many a meal has been ruined for the very same reasons.  

Taking action with half the necessary information has been the ruin of many a meal, and a lot of other things, too.  I am sure it will all work out okay.  I hope and pray that it all works out for him, and for his little dog, too.

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