The south is chock full of history. It looks as though the dirt from a hundred years ago is still covering everything. Broken sidewalks and streets, overgrown vegetation – even growing on roof tops! Like, in abundance! – ancient buildings and cemeteries…it’s all been preserved down in New Orleans, completely un-renovated. I traveled down to that time warp last Friday and tried to take it all in about 4 days. Somehow, I managed to walk the French Quarter, the French Market, took a stroll down Pirates Alley, saw super-duper old buildings (still with the dust of 1770 on them), majestic St. Louis Cathedral, strong and proud Congo Square in Louis Armstrong Park, we haunted St. Louis Cemetery Number 1, drove through some of the Garden District, traipsed up and down Magazine Street, the Treme neighborhood, and ooh’ed and aw’ed at the stunning beauty of Tulane University and its surrounding mansions. Home base was the Loews Hotel, which was a real treat. Our room was on the 19th floor overlooking the Mighty Muddy Mississippi River and the Natchez Steamboat with its daily musical toots. And, to my delight, I walked out of my hotel room Sunday night headed to dinner and ran into actor Derek Luke by the elevators. I think he was surprised that I actually knew his name and didn’t mistake him for Omar Epps, like most of the non-black people he encountered did. He thought I was a fellow celebrity because I confidently addressed him by name when I saw him. He said “You said my name like you knew me.” Well, because I do know him. He’s the actor that played Antwone Fisher and Sticks, not the guy from Love and Basketball. We talked for a nice little while and he told me about his brief walk down Bourbon St the prior night where he encountered a topless, titty-glittered woman, and that he’d lived in Pasadena for 15 years before moving. Then we took a picture together and his wife rushed us on our way, lol. But that was more exciting than I would’ve thought it’d be. I beamed for hours afterward. I stood shoulder to shoulder with a beautiful dark chocolate man and resisted the urge to ask him to “hug my neck, n*@#A!” So major.
No one puts money into New Orleans except, maybe, Brad Pitt. The sidewalks are all broken and everything is crumbling and filthy. With all that tourist money and all those McMansions, nobody sees fit to fix the decrepit city up. Their cabs look like our police cars – black and white. I nicknamed them “copper cabs.” And their cop cars looked like our cabs – blue and green. And for some reason, every other flat-assed white woman had on a pair of cheap rhinestone-pocketed jeans, and every other black man had a thick, neat, head full of dread locks, a la Lil Wayne. This was the first time in my life that I couldn’t tell one brother from another.
The weather was schizophrenic. Our first day was overcast and warm. The second day was cool with sudden rain from the wee hours of the day until about noon when it suddenly turned into a sauna. We had to go back to our hotel to change clothes. That evening it was raining bizarrely. Despite having an umbrella, my entire body was wet after just walking a block. Mist was flying in all directions, rendering my umbrella worthless. The third day was super windy and cool. The wind literally blew our car doors out of our hands upon opening them. And on the fourth day, it was 30 degrees and windy as hell.
The food in New Orleans is overrated. Yep, I said it. California doesn’t get the credit it deserves, apparently, because we are leaps and bounds better than NOLA in many areas, including cuisine. The first night we ate at Luke’s, which was a nice establishment but severely overpriced, overhyped, and lacking just a tiny bit in quality. First, we ordered raw oysters. The black guy shucking them said “I can tell y’all aint from here,” to which I replied “why, because of our accents?” and he said “Naw, because y’all eating them thangs” referring to our raw oysters with a scowl. According to him and his other black coworkers, black folks don’t eat shellfish…but they DO eat turtle soup and alligator. Never mind the fact that alligators will eat virtually anything and the more rotten it is the better. These guys had the nerve to turn their noses up high at our oysters as if they were the slime of the sea, and were confused about us eating them. I’ll have to say the feeling was mutual because I wasn’t about to put alligator or turtle in my mouth. Gross! So we had raw oysters at Luke’s, which were fine, and we ate fried oysters there, too, which weren’t properly seasoned. Some were over seasoned and some were under seasoned. Like, we could see the salt on a few of them. Then, the shrimp we ordered hadn’t been peeled. For the price we paid, I expected the shrimp to be peeled already. It was reminiscent of a Las Vegas buffet where all the cheap shrimp is piled high and ready to be peeled and eaten, except the price is much less in Vegas. Then it got worse. I had a $10 bowl of gumbo from Café Adelaide’s that was like liquid lead on my belly, way too much roux. Although, the cheesecake at Café Adelaide was very good and the apple caramel pancakes at The Ruby Slipper were worth the money, as well. Deanie’s was, by far, the worst yet had the largest crowd. Our waitress plopped a bowl of boiled red potatoes and butter down on our table and my travel companion asked “what are we supposed to do with those?” lol. “Ya jus eat em,” the waitress replied. We didn’t. No one wanted to bite into a boiled red potato with skin and all. When our food finally arrived we sat back in bewilderment as every single thing on the plate was fried! And, we discovered, without seasoning. Just batter and lard all tasting like a flavorless melancholy heart attack. Everything was rolled in the same unseasoned batter and deep fried with the same grease, sitting on top of a mass of oily French fries. Frying is clearly there preference for all things edible. Oh, and the crab claws that we ordered were each no bigger than 3 inches long, one inch wide, and swimming in oil… for $15. Turns out, blue crabs are the southern crab of choice (this wasn’t stated on the menu though. We thought we were getting a regular-sized batch of crab claws) and they weren’t in season yet so they were smaller than average. I’ve had bigger, fresher, and much better local crab at Fisherman’s Wharf in San Francisco for $6…FOR THE WHOLE DAMN CRAB PLUCKED RIGHT FROM THE OCEAN, not just its claws. But all in all, I enjoyed my time away from home and the culture I got to witness was worth the brief excursion. I highly doubt I’ll ever be back. I came, saw, and I appreciated them keeping things just as they were centuries ago so I could see it all.
Pictures soon come!
