The way things turn out

Thanks (?) to March Madness, our latest trip to New Orleans turned out a bit different than most. First of all, we couldn’t get a hotel room at a reasonable price, so we ended up at a B&B called Lanaux Mansion. Turned out some scenes of the movie “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” were shot there, and this would not be our first encounter curiously tied to that movie. We got to stay in the enchanted cottage, which was originally the laundry room for the main house, but now is converted into a comfy suite. We also had our own private entrance through the back gate and garden. The place is run by a nice southern gentlewoman named Ruth. We got along with her great, as her son lives in Japan and is also married to a Japanese woman.

A random shot of the outside of Snug Harbor. Yeah, man! Frenchmen  Street!

We ate at Stella the first night. I ate so much I got sick. We still went to Snug Harbor after dinner, mainly to make reservations to see Ellis Marsalis on Friday night, but we ended up staying for that night’s show and saw The Peter Harris Quartet, which was fronted by an exciting young saxophonist, Derek Douget. It was all I could do, however, to not pass out and throw up. I didn't look in such bad shape before the concert:

Not feeling the Mac effects...yet.

As the night wore on, I was not in good shape, and I think it was the Big Mac and fries at lunch time that gummed up the works (I eat McDonald’s about twice a year). A good night’s rest turned out to be all I needed, and all was well from then on.

The next day looked like rain, so we basically just wandered around the city, spending money with all the basketball fans in town. I got my usual voodoo accoutrements, hematite rings, Old New Orleans Rum, and Mrs. S got her shrimp spice and a couple of knick-knacks and doo-dads. We ate at Acme, where we actually had to line up at two in the afternoon.

That night we saw Joshua Bell at the First Baptist Church. The parking lot attendant told us that if we took our car out of the lot, we were pretty much giving up all hope of parking in the French Quarter again for the day, so we took a cab instead. That turned out to lead to another interesting encounter (next paragraph). The concert was not very exciting. It was an average concert. JB was great, as usual.

We didn’t hurry to leave the concert after it was over, because Mrs. S wanted to take as many pictures of JB as possible. This turned out to work in our favor, as she took a picture of a nice woman and her husband hounded Mrs. S to be sure and send the photo to him. When he learned that we didn’t have a ride back to town, he generously offered to drive us. We accepted, and so me and Mrs. S ended up in Robert and Nell’s Buick (I think) heading back to the French Quarter. Well, when we mentioned the Benjamin Button connection with our B&B, Nell told us about how her mother’s house was used for about half the movie. The studio appropriated their house for 50% of the time over two years of filming. They met Brad Pitt and a bunch of other famous people. It was quite a story. Our ride was too short, and we bid them adieux.

From there we made our way back to Snug Harbor and were able to catch the last half of Ellis Marsalis’s show, again with Derek up front. They played a really cool version of a song I like, and I managed to keep it in my head for a day, but it got shoved out after we listened to music during dinner on Saturday after we got home. Anyway, I bought Mr. Marsalis’s latest CD and he signed it for me. Unfortunately, Mrs. S had her phone off and I’d forgotten mine, so we didn’t get a picture of that, but here’s the signature on the CD booklet:

Why do these older gentlemen always write so neatly?!?!

 The next morning, we nearly got run off the road twice before we finally got on the highway and headed home, uneventfully.

The trip turned out okay. 

New Orleans Travelogue – Part 1: Food and Edible Insects

Obviously, this blog is about music, but on my recent trip to New Orleans (July 6-9), I ate REAL good, so I’m going to write about that first.

Here’s a brief rundown:

Dinner first night: The Pelican Club. The place was practically empty, so we got first rate service and attention, which always makes the food taste better. I had steak, Mrs. S had fish. I picked out a nice Marlborough white that went with both. Excellent.



Lunch second day: Po-boys in the Riverwalk food court, shrimp for him, oyster for her. Cheap, fast, and good. I was able to eat everything despite having snacked on crickets (“chocolate chirp cookies”), wax worms (in cinnamon and brown sugar – see photo), and meal worms (in olive oil and hot pepper) at the Audubon Insectarium. (Highly recommend that destination. It’s fascinating.) All the edible insects were very tasty and even though Mrs. S almost threw up just watching me, I’ve seen enough of Andrew Zimmern that it really didn’t bother me. They allowed you to eat as much as you wanted, so I had three or four of everything. No reactions or anything, just good eating. I even bought a scorpion sucker to munch on at a later date.



Dinner second night: Stella. Got the full seven course meal with wine pairings to celebrate Mrs. S’s birthday. Place was packed but service was good and the meal was absolutely unsurpassed. We’ll never miss revisiting here whenever we come back.

Lunch third day: Muriel’s at Jackson Square. I thought it pretty average, but Mrs. S loved it. I had a middling, muddling crawfish etoufee, and Mrs. S had goat cheese crepes. She definitely out-ordered me.

Dinner third day: Arnaud’s. Average-to-below food, terrible service. Menu was funky and they wouldn’t sell you some stuff on it, at ANY price, if you didn’t order it the way they wanted to serve it. (Yeah, stupid.) They had a banjo trio playing jazz music, which was alright, but you really pay for the atmosphere. I would say unless you are dying to feel and be treated like a backwater tourist, this place is a definite pass.

I ordered Samuel Adams at EVERY single restaurant. Not one carried it. I drank Abita as a rule, which is better than your run of the mill Bud’s and Coor’s, but really not all that great. I’m writing a letter to Jim Koch (Chairman of Boston Brewery) to let him know about this wide open market with no penetration yet.