The last time I was in New Orleans was for a wedding in February 2006. It was two months delayed because of the big K, when the bride and groom evacuated with the dress safely tied up in a trash bag. The streetcars weren’t running, the only people in our hotel besides wedding guests were SBC workers restoring phone connections, and I was able to walk up to Arnaud’s in jeans at 8 PM without a reservation…and get seated immediately.
The only repeats this time, I believe, were Cafe Du Monde (of course) and the Carousel Bar. I have come to the conclusion that most Sazeracs outside New Orleans are far too unsubtle about the bitters and the absinthe (or Herbsaint or Pernod or whatever). It’s a rye whiskey cocktail; you should be able to taste the rye, and both Carousel and a new-to-me place called Cure did a phenomenal job. (Although I think a trip to Bourbon and Branch for a refresher drink is in order soon.) New pickups included Crabby Jack’s for po-boys, Port of Call for burgers, and Cafe Atchafalaya for Easter brunch, complete with build-your-own-Bloody-Mary bar. A success, even if the bartender couldn’t tell what’s in a Cuba Libre.
Perhaps it helped to be primed by Mobile, but New Orleans – especially in and around the Garden District – felt old. More than in years past, I felt the reason the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland is in New Orleans Square – or why Blue Bayou is the opening of Pirates of the Caribbean. The image of a big old house, with the gaslamp still hanging and flickering in front of the door on one side, with porches top and bottom – yeah. That was cool.
New Orleans strikes me as a place where socializing is critical. Yes, there’s amazing food, phenomenal drink, awesome music – but you are clearly meant to go out and do these things with people. A solitary sort of person, I think, is going to struggle with the lifestyle. By contrast, I think I would do remarkably well there as long as I knew plenty of people, because if your favorite principal form of recreation is hanging out, you could hardly do better than the 504. Not for the first time did I wonder how things would have been different if I’d done as many of my high school fellows did and decamped for the city that is both the South’s Las Vegas and its San Francisco at once.
Easter Sunday itself was interesting. Holy Name, on the campus of Loyola University, has learned a great deal more than many places I’ve been when it comes to handling large crowds for Holy Communion on the big days. I’ve never seen a church that size turn over so many parishioners at once. But even more than that – and more than the impressive array of big hats and seersucker – the whole Mass had, well, a triumphal feel to it. Exactly the sort of feeling that you should have expected from what is essentially Christianity’s Rose Bowl national championship moment. It was…uplifting.
Even the heat and humidity didn’t bother me as much, largely because I knew damn well I was going to New Orleans. 85 degrees and sticky is acceptable for a city built below sea level on the Gulf Coast, especially in late April. It’s NOT acceptable in the Bay Area when I pay a ridiculous amount of money to avoid just that sort of thing, which is probably why I’m indoors right now with the lights off to avoid the beating of the direct sun from a cloudless sky. Yes, DSC-in-law, it will get plenty hot out here, fear not.
I have to say, too, it looks like getting fully stuck into supporting the New Orleans Saints is going to be an easy jump, now that they’ve added a Heisman winner from Alabama and a Cal sack machine in the first round. Throw the satellite radio into the mix, add the fact that my Redskins bar is no more and consider the possibility that Sonny and Sam might not be on the mike when the football starts up again…well, I already own plenty of black and gold. While there is no cure for Redskins herpes, adding a football team that’s having some success to the current crop of WTF in the house might make the autumn easier to take (since that’s the real warm season in these parts).
Would I go back? Yeah, I would. I could think of a lot worse places to winter…