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Published: December 20th 2013
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I am still trying to come to terms with our experience in New Orleans. The birthplace of jazz was the city on this road trip for which I had the most enthusiasm and highest expectations. And it was in New Orleans that I experienced the most disappointment.
New Orleans is a city with many faces. It is proud to call itself the ‘birthplace of jazz’ and rightfully so. Yet, for the most part, the jazz played in the many clubs on Bourbon Street and Frenchman Street is ‘party jazz’. There is nothing wrong with this; I prefer jazz more serious and was disappointed. There was only one ‘proper’ jazz club that I could fine, Snug Harbor on Frenchman Street, where the jazz was played for listening and not as background music for a party.
New Orleans is a city troubled with its past and its future. There are equal parts joy and menace, enthusiasm and anger, fun and disappointment, elation and depression, sex and sleaze. There are too many beggars and panhandlers to make simple strolling even the streets of downtown New Orleans feeling completely comfortable and safe.
We arrived on Thursday evening after a long slow drive
through the bayou and swamplands from Lafayette and New Iberia. We parked Rudy V in a gated RV Park about 5 miles outside of New Orleans city centre and the next morning took the bus into the city.
The RV Park was located on a street called Chef Menteur Highway. We parked up and walked to a nearby convenience store and a Dollar discount store. We had to walk along the side of the roadway as there were no sidewalks. The staff and other customers seemed very protective of us when we asked directions to a local grocery store, Winn-Dixie, and all told us to drive there, stating that it was too far to walk. Americans don’t walk anywhere, but we decided we had enough to get us through until the next day and just walked the few hundred yards back to the RV Park. The next morning Joan read online of a drive-by shooting on that same highway later that night!
The next morning we took the bus into the city, excited to be visiting the jazzy city of New Orleans after too many years! We had visited for the first time nearly twenty years ago and
had a most enjoyable experience. One of Joan’s cousins was resident there at the time and he took us to one restaurant located in a backstreet house and we had an unforgettable dining experience there (unfortunately we couldn’t remember the name of the restaurant). We remembered having an extraordinary time here and I have been eager to return ever since, both to revisit and visit anew!
The bus terminated on Canal Street in a rather dodgy area and we boarded the Canal Street streetcar with our day ticket and rode down to the French Quarter. This part of New Orleans is slightly higher in elevation and was only slightly affected by Hurricane Katrina and the subsequent breaking of the Levees that did so much damage and killed so many people here. We walked down Decatur Street and our first stop was Cafe du Monde for the traditional New Orleans breakfast of Cafe (laced with chicory, the New Orleans way) and Beignets covered with powdered sugar. This is one of the ‘must things to do’ when in New Orleans: we did it last time and again this time! The coffee is tart and the beignets (a donut-like concoction) smooth to
eat.
We spent the entire day walking the many famous streets of the French Quarter : Basin, Bourbon,Chartres, Decatur, Frenchman, Magazine and Rampart Streets. These streets are filled with all range of restaurants from takeaways to Michelin-starred eateries, hotels and guesthouses and bed-and-breakfasts; all manner of bars and strip clubs from the House of Blues to Larry Flynt’s Hustler Club, tourist tatt stores and art galleries, Madame Laveau’s House of voodoo store and the Louisiana Music Factory. We sauntered aimlessly up one street and down another, browsing the shops, watching the continual people parade on the streets, stopping to listen to a song or two from street musicians. As we wandered, I took many photographs: shotgun houses and wrought iron balconies hung with a combination of ivy and Mardi Gras beads, unusual signs and statues, and streetscapes with and without people. I took photos of the jazz-themed paintings surrounding Jackson Square, and the horse drawn carriages, as well as photos of as many ‘No Photos’ signs as I could find. I took so many photos I had to download the disk onto the computer and start over again.
We had a wonderful lunch of another quintessential New Orleans
tradition, the Muffaletta sandwich, at the Central Grocery on Decatur Street. We remember having this same sandwich the first time we visited here and were surprised when asked did we want a quarter, half or whole! A ‘whole’ muffaletta is served on a round loaf of bread about eight inches in diameter and over two inches tall. The whole sandwich we ordered lasted us for two lunches: a quarter is a perfect size for a lunch appetite. The muffaletta contains layers of cured ham and Genoa salami, mortadella, provolone, and mozzarella cheeses. The key ingredient, however, is the olive mix overlaying it all and which soaks into the bread. The exact recipe of the olive mix is unique to each sandwich maker. World famous New Orleans chef Emeril Lagasse offers this recipe on his website for the olive mix: stir pimento-stuffed olives with the giardiniera, capers and their respective liquids. Add Calamata olives, garlic, shallot, oregano, parsley, thyme and crushed red pepper. Stir in the olive oil and let the mixture stand for 1 hour. We cannot too highly recommend this sandwich. Even Joan agrees that it is one of the best sandwiches she has ever eaten; and she also
has come to the conclusion that ‘Americans do sandwiches very well’.
We sat awhile and watched the Mississippi River and listened to the screeching sounds coming from the paddle-wheel steam-boat. We arranged a tour the next day of the areas of New Orleans most affected by the hurricane.
We visited some of the live music venues on Frenchman Street in the afternoon, hearing an early set from a blues guitarist/singer songwriter at the Spotted Cat and then the party jazz of Kermit Ruffins at the Blue Nile. Kermit Ruffins is ‘a modern day Louis Armstrong’ in that he plays the trumpet and sings. He is not a very good singer (neither was Louis Armstrong but that doesn’t stop him still being listened to to this very day!) but he is certainly full of enthusiasm and the joys of life! I had never heard of him before seeing him featured in the television series Treme. He is a local celebrity now and even has his own club on the edge of the Treme district. Our next stop was the Three Muses where another Treme alumnus, trombonist-singer Glen David Thomas was scheduled to appear. He was too busy mixing his
newest recording and sent a replacement and the music was nice, but it was secondary to the food. And the food here was excellent; this kitchen is serious. We sat at the bar and had a couple different tapas-sized starters with a drink and listened to the band, led by a trumpet player who apologised for the absence of Thomas and tried his best to lead the band through its repertoire. The drummer was an in-uniform Marine soldier!
We walked back via the chaos and madness that descends on Bourbon Street when the sun sets and the neon lights up. This street is closed to traffic and the party spills from its many bars out into the streets. Every night is mardi gras: a festive celebration of life in all its guises.
The convention business has returned to New Orleans and the streets are full of people looking for a good time. There are long colourful drinks in plastic ‘to go’ cups. There were hawkers on the streets offering ‘two-for-one shots’ in their bars. There were glimpses in these bars of men and women dancing on the bars in their g-strings. From the balconies of one of the hotels a gang of guys were throwing necklaces of beads to women who ‘showed their tits’. This is standard New Orleans Bourbon Street behaviour!
We decided to walk the two miles or so up Canal Street, which separates the French Quarter from the Central Business District, back to the bus stop. The newly renovated and recently reopened Saenger Theatre was featuring a concert by Celtic Thunder on Sunday, which was also the day the New Orleans Saints football team would be playing San Francisco 49ers at the Super-dome.
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