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| Jackson Square |
Frieda and I spent the MLK weekend in
New Orleans. She'd been there a couple times during her college
years but it was new to me. I'd avoided the deep south to that
point. But Tennessee Williams said the US has only 3 cities: New
York, San Francisco, and New Orleans, all the rest are Cleveland. So
I felt obliged to check it out while avoiding the craziness of Mardi
Gras.
We arrived Thursday night around 7 and
cabbed to our B&B on the northwest edge of the French Quarter.
Our greeter, who seemed a bit lit, warned us not to cross nearby
Rampart, which separates the Quarter from the Treme district, or
venture onto Bourbon Street after dark, stipulations that made me a bit
apprehensive, but hunger inspired me to lead the charge into the
crepuscular streets in search of the restaurant, called Eat, where we
had an 8 o'clock reservation. It was only a couple blocks away.
From Frommer's we knew it lacked a liquor license so we picked up a
six pack of Stella at a tiny grocery on the way. It turned out to be a small,
quiet place tucked into a corner with a friendly waiter who, for no
corkage fee, gave us cold glasses and stashed the rest of our beer in
the fridge until we were ready for it. We shared some gumbo and
slow-cooked pork with collard greens, a delicious introduction to New
Orleans cuisine. On the way back to our B&B we encountered a
parade of bicycles, including some bike rickshaws, all decorated with
neon glow sticks and meandering through the nighttime streets to the
accompaniment of music and shouts of “Happy Thursday!” Every
night's a party, apparently, in New Orleans.
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| Royal Street |
Our host brought us warm croissants in
the morning and then we set about exploring the Quarter in earnest.
Our B&B was on St. Ann and following it southeast into the glare
of warm morning sunshine took us right past Jackson Square to the
banks of the mighty Mississippi. A long line had already formed at
nearby Cafe du Monde for beignets but the croissants had pardoned us,
allowing us instead to take in the river views before circling back
to the church end of the square and listening to a brass band that
had set up to play dixieland. A small crowd had formed and a
couple of people were dancing by themselves. Already it was clear
that New Orleans was about food and music (possibly also parties and
parades), and maybe liquor, as I suspected those solitary dancers
might have already had a tipple or two. In fact, as I looked around
I noticed more than one person with a suspicious plastic cup in hand,
despite the early hour. Not to be outdone, we ducked into a bar
adjacent to the square where I tried a Pimm's Cup and Frieda had a
Bloody Mary. Fortified, we started walking again, wandering the
quieter, northeast end of the Quarter the rest of the morning, acquainting
ourselves with it. When we eventually did get peckish we headed
southwest for Johnny's on St. Louis and stood in line for a couple
po'boys. I had roast beef and Frieda had shrimp. Both were
exceptional. Thus prepared, we ventured onto Bourbon Street for the
first time which, in the early afternoon, was tacky but innocuous.
The sound of live music drew us into a bar called Fat Catz where The
Daywalkers were playing. They had a washboard player who really tore
it up so we had a couple of beers and listened for a while.
Early in the evening we strolled over
to Frenchmen Street, in the Faubourg Marigny, a district adjacent to
the Quarter on the northeast side. Unlike California where anyplace
with live music charges a cover, here there were many live music
venues that were free or at most had a one-drink minimum. We stopped
in a place called Bamboula's and listened to Chance Bushman's Rythmn
Stompers. Every so often Chance would jump up and start tap-dancing
on a little square of flooring he'd brought along for the purpose.
When we tired of that we wandered down the street to The Spotted Cat,
a well-known music venue, but there were too many people smoking
inside and I wasn't used to that as it's been illegal for years in
California, so I didn't want to stay, even though we had some good
seats at the bar. Frieda got a bit annoyed as she wanted to hang
there, but I led her back up the street to a place called BMC where
Big Al and the Heavyweights were playing and it turned out they had
an amazing harmonica player who reconciled her to the change of
venue, so we ordered drinks and stayed for an hour or more, while the
band never took a break. But then they started inviting people from
the audience to come up on stage and play
tambourine or washboard and it got a little cacophonous and chaotic
so we bailed. We threaded our way down Decatur past all the
panhandlers and lowlifes to get back to the Quarter. I needed a
break from the crowds and craziness so we ducked into Pere Antoine's
on Royal, which was nearly empty at that point, for some gumbo.
While we were there a number of parade floats inexplicably slid by.
New Orleans does seem to love a parade. By the time we got back to
Cafe du Monde the line had evaporated, and so we finally had the
famous beignets, a square donut smothered in powdered sugar that has
become emblematic of the city (every park bench has a dusting of
white powder on the pavement in front of it).
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| Street Musician |
Saturday morning we headed for Canal
St., the southwest border of the Quarter. Beyond Canal you're out of
the Quarter and into a city that could be Cleveland. There we caught
the St. Charles streetcar that runs past Emeril's restaurant to the
Garden District, the old American Quarter, full of ostentatious
mansions, including Anne Rice's old place. It was a spacious and
somnolent contrast to the crowded and vivacious Quarter. We wandered
around on a guidebook tour, ending up at a cemetery with white
above-ground tombs, then rode a packed streetcar back to the Quarter.
Frieda bought some beads on Bourbon Street (the town was already
gearing up for Mardi Gras although it was still a month away) and I
bought her a t-shirt at Preservation Hall (which does charge a $20
cover).
For dinner we had reservations at
Vacherie, a sister restaurant of Eat. We ordered crawfish cornbread,
broiled oysters, and breaded pork chops with collard greens, plus a
bottle of Malbec. Our food was a long time coming. The waiter
apologized and offered us free drinks by way of compensation, so we
ordered Sazeracs, a signature cocktail of New Orleans that we hadn't
tried yet. We weren't that crazy about them but of course couldn't
let them go to waste. The food, however, when it finally showed up,
was excellent, and between the Sazeracs and the Malbec we got fairly
loaded. So, even though it was after dark, we defied the warnings
and headed for Bourbon Street where we found people who made us feel
sober. I saw a guy who looked like a zombie shuffling down the
street. There were guys pulling down their pants and mooning the
crowd, there were gals in nothing but their underwear, it was a crazy
scene. But it wasn't threatening. A few people bumped into me and
politely apologized. Everyone seemed in a good mood, no one was
belligerent. For a while we just stood aside at an intersection and
watched bemusedly as the besotted parade flowed by.
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| Backstreet |
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| French Market |
Monday morning, MLK day, the Quarter
seemed almost deserted as we took our last circuit, returning to
Johnny's for po'boys to take with us to the airport. Before leaving
we finally ventured across Rampart into Louis Armstrong Park which in
the daylight seemed perfectly safe and actually rather nice. We
circled around past Congo Square, credited with being the birthplace
of jazz, and saw a Mardi Gras Indian in full regalia standing by a
van. We waved farewell to him before hailing a taxi and heading out.
So long New Orleans!
The French Quarter certainly had a
novelty appeal to me. It's charming, quaint, amusing, unique, and
worth a visit. But I wouldn't want to live there. For one thing,
superstition and religion play too prominent a role in New Orleans
cultural heritage, not to mention the after-aroma of slavery. Of the
3 American cities, I'd pick San Francisco as the most congenial and
beautiful. Frieda found New Orleans a bit more sympatico than
I did. She said she could live there for a year. I don't think I
could last that long. But we may go back for another visit.
