The sickness grew and mutated. It had a name and a face, though I promised the sickness that I wouldn’t tell anyone what it was. It tormented me like a bully at school. It pushed me down and let me get up and then pushed me down again. It was psychedelic. It entered my brain and made me hallucinate. It distorted the edges of reality. It became a new reality.

We had to drive from Chicago to New Orleans in one day, down the entire spine of the United States, and I was still deathly ill. And actually, for awhile, being behind the steering wheel was a salve that made me feel better. I thought I could actually drive us the whole distance, but once we stopped at a restaurant– or, rather, a “roadhouse”– outside of Memphis and our meal took too long to arrive, I was done for. Scott took the final leg, and I got sicker and sicker as I sat in the passenger seat. At one point, one hour from New Orleans at three in the morning, I felt completely dehydrated and told Scott to pull over at a rest stop, as there was not a drop of water in the car. I ran out in the sticky sweet air of Louisiana and started putting quarters in a vending machine. I finally dug enough of them out of my pockets to get to a dollar fifty, and when I pushed the one button for bottled water the digital readout said, “SOLD OUT”. I started kicking and punching the machine. I overheard Scott, on his cell phone with a friend back home, narrating, “Nick is now beating up a vending machine.” I went over to the drinking fountain and swallowed as much metallic water as I could handle.

New Orleans is the worst place in the world to be sick. Alcohol is everywhere, the air is heavy and moist, and everything is broken, backwards and upside down. It is not a healing place, it’s a destructive place. If you’re healthy, a little bit of destruction can be invigorating. But if you’re sick, it’s just destruction on top of destruction.

New Orleans is a city of wonderful food and drink. My dad, a civil engineer, was in town on a six month contract to help work on the levees. He went out with us to the Napoleon House, a restaurant in the French Quarter where I used to work long ago. Somehow nothing in New Orleans changes, and even after nine years and one horrible hurricane, I still saw at least four people at the restaurant who I knew from my time there, still working the same shift, still with the same look on their face. One of them was a man who worked in the kitchen who inexplicably used to call me “Robocop”. I don’t know why, but one day he just started to call me that and everyone laughed, so he kept calling me that. Ironically, one day while I was working there the actor Peter Weller came into the restaurant for a drink and I said, “No look, HE’S Robocop. Like, for REAL. The actor who played him.” But no one would listen.

After the Napoleon House we went to my friends Meghann and Luke’s wedding. I had gotten the “Save the Date” card three months prior, and it was remarkably the exact weekend that I was already planning on being in New Orleans. So, on our one day off in New Orleans, with me still deathly sick, we went to the wedding. The ceremony was outside and was still beautiful even when it started to rain. Later on in the night, the groom asked me to play a song, and I agreed, even though my voice was worse off than it was in Chicago, and I felt broken and confused. We played one quiet song low in my range and I managed to just get through it. Everyone cheered and called for another song. “What do you want to hear?” I asked Luke. He suggested “Bottles on the Tracks” a song with some notes that go fairly high in my range. My voice cracked and gave out during the song, but it was a wedding and people were happy, and it seemed to work out alright.

The next day I laid in bed and slept, in preparation for our show. While onstage I was still sick, sicker than ever, to the point that every sound we made came back distorted and weird to me. I couldn’t figure out what was real and what was in my head. I thought everything sounded wrong. Strange frequencies poked through and made it sound like we were out of tune. And my voice was still in shreds. It was, even considering Pittsburgh and Chicago, the most difficult show I had ever played, and would ever hope to play. The band and the audience thought it was alright. I didn’t believe them.

But enough of the sickness. The saddest part about being sick in New Orleans was missing out on all the food. We’ve had so much great food on this trip, from the sushi in Boise, to the chicken curry in Wichita. Most of the good meals have come in the morning, when our own Scott Magee, aka Cookie Parker, makes up his special eggs and bacon. I asked Scott for the recipe, and I will finish this post with his words for you to enjoy and share with those you love:

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Eggs Cookie Parker

Ingredients
2-3 eggs per person
Butter
Good shredded cheese: sharp cheddar, parmigiano reggiano, gorgonzola etc.
A single vegetable, optional (I like roasted red peppers or asparagus)

Preparation:

I know it may seem this dish is childlike in its simplicity given the ingredients list, but it’s in the preparation that the eggs take on their beauty and deliciousness.

Crack open and put all your eggs in a dish, and this is important even though you are going to scramble them. Do not whisk them!

Bring a saucepan (preferably calphalon or other non-stick) to a medium heat, give it a few minutes to get the pan to the proper temperature.

Next you add the butter to the pan. It is important to use more butter than you otherwise would (the secret to all French food.) About a tablespoon per 3-4 eggs. It should melt and start to bubble but show no signs of browning. After you have melted all the butter and swirled it around the pan, add the eggs as if you were going to fry them whole (if 1 or 2 have broken yolks don’t worry but still do not stir them.)

This is where the magic happens!

Let the eggs cook until you notice the whites starting to actually turn white and at this point the yolks should start showing early signs of hardening as well. Turn the heat to a low-medium. Throw your cheese and optional vegetables in and start to gently stir with a wooden spoon, breaking a yolk here and there. As you continue to stir (give a few seconds here and there for other bits of egg to cook before they mix together) the eggs will become a medley of textures; a bit of hard cooked yolked here, a bit of hard cooked white there and a goodly amount of blended light yellow throughout. The last step is determining when the eggs are done and if you cook eggs like most American folks do, they are done sooner than you think. The eggs should have a glistening quality to them but no obvious liquid still floating around.

If you want to feed yourself and hopefully your friends like I feed my band, serve your “Eggs Cookie Parker” with 3 rashers of bacon, toast and juice (if you’re feeling extra salubrious, add some hash-browns to the plate, a dish I also have a special recipe for and will gladly give out if asked).

Links:
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Photo: The Nick Jaina Players (Not a New Orleans Photo, we couldn’t find any of those!)