The Good Side of the Crescent City

I spent 9 days in New Orleans with my family and we had a ball. I got to see and do things that are great memories. We checked into the hotel and had always heard of the beignets and hot black coffee and chicory. We ask the clerk and we went just off Jackson Square and waited in line for a table to try this treat! Wow! They don't ask what you want, you each soon get a hot cup of coffee and cream and a plate of these wonderful little tasty donuts. They melt in your mouth and the taste is really indescribable.

I think over the 9 days there, we began almost every day with this treat along with other New Orleanians. It was maybe a degree or so safer back 20 years ago before the drug culture was so very bad.

All along the iron fence at Jackson Square are would be artists willing to do charcoals or pastels for you for a small fee. I have the two of me and kids and their mother hanging in the hall. It cost more to have them framed than what we had to pay the artist to do them?

We did the tourist thing but soon found the haunts of the wonderful people there and got off the beaten track and ate Creole cooking, fish and gumbo, and yes even crayfish. They were so wonderful to our kids and brought them special plates and bibs with little servings of all these wonderful treats. You have to get out of downtown New Orleans to do this and it is worth it. One of the restaurants was just off the street car that goes by the Tulane Campus. It was just a white clapboard house and no sign! You had to know the house number to find it.

The clerk at the hotel put us on this one described above and that is was family owned and operated and you would be served by the owners kids. There were only 6 or 8 tables in the restaurant with red and white checkerboard table clothes. The table cloths and napkins were all in red and white checkerboard and most interesting. The owners came over and talked to our kids during our dinner and brought each of us an un-ordered dessert, his treat! Again wow!

We visited the above restaurant two or three times while there and they recommended another like restaurant only a block or two away. Suggesting another restaurant? They did and wanted us to have the true New Orleans experience. Both the restaurants were small and family owned and the food was different but excellent at both.

The Al Hurt experience was the standout in my memory. We got a baby sitter and went to his club and the big man walked out the door directly behind my chair. I held my hand up as the spotlight came on and a huge hand shook Jeff's hand! We were treated to almost 2 hours of beautiful jazz music with solos by each of his band. Words, my words, are not sufficient to describe this. It is a feeling, a shiver up your spine, and the sound reverberation in your ear. Thanks Al for my true New Orleans experience!