Bourbon French: Tales of Disneyland and Custom Perfume

Mardi Gras season has started, and so we are devoting the next ten days to New Orleans and Fat Tuesday celebrations. Today's post is on a perfume store in the French Quarter that has been in business for 164 years. I am talking about Bourbon French Perfumes. 

When I was a little girl, the height of sophistication was getting a custom blend perfume made at a little shop in New Orleans Square in Disneyland. This was not cheap so my little sister and me had to save our pennies. 

Disneyland's little shop stopped selling custom made perfume in the 80s and has changed wares many times. The shop now sells pre-made perfumes from fancy perfumeries instead of those custom made, but sometimes I just go in the shop to remember telling the lady behind the counter what I liked and what I didn't to make my perfect little girl perfume. It was one of those life changing experiences that help you grow up.

What I know now that I didn't know then, was that Walt Disney modeled the little store in Disneyland's New Orleans Square after a real store on Bourbon Street in New Orleans' French Quarter called Bourbon French Perfumes. And Bourbon French has remained much the same, although it has moved from Bourbon Street onto one of my favorite streets in the world, Royal Street.  It's much quieter there.

You can see the old Bourbon French signs on top of the case.

When you go in to have a custom blend made, the perfume maker will ask you all sort of questions... Do you prefer baby powder or citrus, floral or spice...and the questions go on. Once your perfume maker understands a little bit more about what you like and you don't like, they start mixing some samples. You try them on your wrists and arm (depending on how many you can handle in one sitting). There are coffee beans to clear your sniffer in between samples. You then select your perfect scent. This custom scent can be made into perfume, bubble bath and lotion.

It was a wonderfully fun process. Next time you are in NOLA, I recommend that you stop at Bourbon French.

Party Shark

I come from a long line of over-the-top party throwers. Seriously - I've thrown fondue melt offs, Moroccan parties complete with a tent and a sultan throne and, then there are the Mad Hatter Tea Parties with roses to paint red and drink me bottles. I don't mess around and neither does my sister who excels at making large quantities of intricately designed baked goods.

I found this watermelon shark on Pinterest  and it is simply fabulous. Look at the little melon fishes in his mouth. The intricate detail of the teeth. The beady little eyes. I smell a project coming on.

This fishy dish would be perfect for the 25th anniversary of Shark Week, which starts July 27th on Discover Channel. You now have plenty of time to prepare. The top 100 shark facts are here. Start memorizing now to impress your favorite eight year old.

How to Become A More Popular Hostess

"Pull Up a Chair...And Let's Talk About Being A Popular Hostess," reads the first page of How To Become a More Popular Hostess by Joe Bonomo. Published in 1954, this handy little guide sold for 25 cents (approximately $2.14 today according to this inflation calculator).

Salient chapters include: Points for Popularity, Chucking the Children and Don't Experiment on Guest Night, but my absolute favorite is Tricks with Cheese - melt American cheese on crackers, mix cottage cheese with clam mix (anyone know what clam mix is?), drown your vegetables in white sauce choked with cheese. I'm not so sure about the first two suggestions, the last one probably tastes good, but reduces the vegetable to an over-cooked cheese delivery vehicle.

Bonomo has advice for every dinner party situation:

• Not enough for food for a last minute guest? Open a can of fruit cocktail and a can of soup to begin the meal. If that isn't enough, keep pouring the drinks to keep the edge off the appetites. 
• Habitually late guests? Tell them to come an hour early. 
• Anxious for your guests to go home? Bonomo says subtlety is the answer, but suggests you say something like this, "How long does it take you to get to work in the morning?" Because that's subtle. 

Well almost, it doesn't talk about what to do when you start a tiny little fire while hosting a fondue party, but that hardly ever happens, right? 

So who was Joe Bonomo and how does he know so much about throwing dinner parties? Joe Bonomo was a Hollywood stuntman, strongman and action hero in silent movies in the 1920s and 1930s.  In his autobiography that came out in 1968 he called himself the "Hercules of the Screen." I still don't know how he knows so much about throwing dinner parties. 

Other fun Bonomo guides include:

• How to Wear Your Hair - Where did he learn to do women's hair? We don't know. 
• Make Up and Live! - Because clearly if you don't wear make up, you can't live. 
• How To Develop a More Successful Personality - The cover features a beautiful blonde surrounded by men in tuxedos and I'm going to save further details on this one for a future post...or maybe I'm just keeping the advice to myself.