Nathalie Abejero

Watching Obama’s Inauguration in Phnom Penh

21 January 2009 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

That was a pretty nice event.. Lots of energy and a huge crowd at the Gym Sports Bar: we had about 180 people throughout the night and well past 230am– was not a good idea to have an 8am meeting like some folks did! And here, our two most favorite things– ZULU and BARACK– we just found our theme for the Mardi Gras Madness event!

And on a side note, a hmmm moment… Bush will be the first ex-president not to get a lifetime security detail. [[cocking head to the side]]] ..of all the living POTUSes that’d need it most…!
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…hark the Twelfth Night revelries [sic]

17 January 2009 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

Christmas is amazing for the fact that everyone– even strangers– gets caught up in the goodwill and cheer and carries it forward. But then that atmosphere fizzles after the New Year, and it isn’t even a nice segue into calmness– more like someone pulls the plug and abruptly the party’s over so go home.

Not so in New Orleans. The end of the holidays marks the start of another season also tied to the winter solstice, Mardi Gras. The trees and lights don’t go down, they just get the green, purple and gold ornaments added in. Adults get to be kids again and it all starts with the Twelfth Night Revelers bal masque!

Avoid the French Quarter frat scene– where Mardi Gras is reduced to a tacky garish spectacle that metrosexual yupster tourists looking for fast hard fun so they can feel cool lap right up– and you’ll see the magical transformation of N’awlins into a formalised make-believe world of monarchic rule in all its pomp, finery and regalia. Twelfth Night brings to life the Lord of Misrule, the Goddess of Chance, the enchanted courts with its jesters, the aristocratic pompadours and rituals of old…. Any life list should include this Mardi Gras and an invitation from a Krewe to either the Bacchus, Rex or Endymion Ball. These galas are an entire year in the making and are extraordinary sensory events.

I thought about this because K and I went to a dinner party the other night. One of the couples could hardly speak English and we command just a lick and a half of French, so needless to say our conversation with them wasn’t hopping. Then “la galette des Rois” came out, and suddenly conversation knew no boundaries, starting with this most token of culinary traditions associated with the run-up to Fat Tuesday across cultures.

The French “King Cake” is a flaky puff pastry with a dense center of frangipani– totally unlike our King Cake (I sooo want a Gambinos king cake delivery right now!). It’s served traditionally to draw the King to the Epiphany, with the youngest person in the group (likely a child) sent under the table to pick at random who gets the next slice of cake. The slice with the trinket in it (a collectible porcelain baby jesus in olden times) designates that person the new “King” (regardless of sex), and it becomes her/his turn to bring a cake to the next party.

(Ours had a glass duck, and I had the treat of finding the first trinket of the season. And we’re having dinner again with that couple tomorrow!)

So N’awlin’s King Cake (brought over by the French settlers) kicks off the Mardi Gras season, with the Twelfth Night Revelers using it to choose the Queen for their Ball… The Gambinos family is renowned for the past decades for their King Cakes. They will even deliver… So we are in the Carnival spirit, along with all the Tulane alums and Louisianans(sp?) in Phnom Penh. Unfortunately this year won’t be the year of the masqued gala (we’re too busy celebrating Bush’s departure to plan another event!), but the annual festivities must continue– even if it’s just a Pimps and Hoez murder mystery affair ;-)

countdown to a new era

17 January 2009 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

I have to say that Keith is the most amazing graphic artist ever. He just reaches into his creative depths and pumps them out. How cool is this?? We plan on making the Huffington Post again, as well as the other major news carriers, so keep an eye out for live feed from Cambodia! (and I’m angry with Ben for planning his dinner party on the same night and without me!!)

Bye George!

10 January 2009 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

Join us in the countdown pandemonium nearly a decade in the making, and share in the merriment of 43’s imminent and much anticipated departure! What started with some hanging chads in the Fall of 2000 will finally come to an end! No weapons of mass destruction will be unfound; no Vice Presidential shotgun will be uncocked! Watch the West Wing purge of 8 years of carnage and idiocy and toast the End of an Error at two events!

If you can’t catch the Beltway action on the 20th, then join us at the Gym Bar for the LIVE inaugural soul cleansing! In honor of the Accidental President, we celebrate his departure with a nostalgic trip down memory lane with a Pub Quiz before commencing with the ceremonies. So get your game on, test those brain cells, have some fun and win great prizes! And in true Phnom Penh tradition sure to inspire a drinking problem worthy of Bush’s past, the evening will end in a special toast to the return of reason and a period that can only head in one direction– up!!

And no festivities worth the 8 exhausting years of getting beaten up, stolen from, knocked down, lied to and laughed at can end with one event! The going away revelries for our favorite cowboy continue at CHOW on Saturday 24 January with a rebroadcast of the most exciting POTUS torch pass in a generation! We wanted change and we made it happen! So once again, let’s GIDDY UP, GET GLAM and PARTY HARD-Y with friends who helped make history!!

Book review: The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen

10 January 2009 by Nathalie Abejero Leave a Comment

Wow. Despicable characters trapped in contrived lives freefalling to hell. No plot. Hackneyed social commentaries. And yet, I loved it!! Don’t read it for a good story. If you want technical brilliance and stylistic writing– cartwheeling between streams of consciousness, juggling fury with humor, in pretentious yet witty ramblings– you’ll enjoy this work.