Cheap "Date" Wednesday: Book club and Dirty Linen

For those NOLA readers, don't forget that this weekend is Dirty Linen, the French Quarter version of White Linen. Participating art galleries place hampers of dirty laundry outside like OPEN signs. Read more here. That is the only time I'll ever link to Ask.com, which is usually a pit of non-information.
Dirty Linen is, of course, free.

Tonight I'm heading over to Banquets and Books, my book club for people who are obsessed with food. I love that this group gathers people who are so in love with food that they read about it for fun. Growing up in a restricted-diet household (my parents were food fad people...we were alternately organic, vegan, macrobiotic, juicers, junk food eaters, gluten-free. Add to that my mom's inability to cook.) I used to read cookbooks just to stare at good food, and this club allows me to continue that as an adult.

Next week another group is meeting at the Columns to discuss Amanda Boyden's Babylon Rolling, a book that covers the peri-Katrina time on one particular street in New Orleans. This meeting is going to be fabulous because the author is joining us for a few drinks!
I actually haven't finished the book yet because I just got it in the mail. My library's copies were checked out, but I found it online - hardcover - for $3.99 including shipping (don't tell Ms. Boyden). I'm a major prude, so I don't love the amount of language and sex in the book. But certain passages resonate with me so much, especially the way newcomers to the city are confused with how things are done here.In the prologue, the author describes the choice to live in New Orleans beautifully:
"But, oh, the comeliness. We have fallen for snowy egrets and high ceilings as naturally as we would our own mothers on the days of our births. Weak-kneed, we lunge for oysters and must authors and mean tongued rappers with gold and diamond teeth worth more than our homes. We swoon for the glassy surface of our shallow lake, the one that appears in photos taken from the moon; traipse, loopy, behind brass bands on the street; slurp crawfish heads fr their yellow fat, our favorite. It is more than enough of, the flooding of, everything that we must have, even though not all of us know this. Out want wears out our sleeves...We love a place that cannot be saved by levees. We are brilliant losers. But, of course, those of us living Uptown on Orchid Street do not know this yet. Katrina is a year away."

I'm leaving the hubby home for both of these "dates" but that's the beauty of book club. You can go alone or with other(s) and have the same amount of fun. And usually there is yummy food (and wine). Do you book-club? Does your club have a theme? What are you reading?