My feet land in New Orleans and I instantly know this city is all about food and drink. While the masses of seemingly underage spring break college kids tote around their green grenade filled drinks hunting for the next bar, I am in search of something a little more innocent, a grape snowball. With a band rocking out on a stage set up in the French Market, people aren’t the only spectators. The scents of crawfish cakes and shrimp balls swarm the crowds. Going on a diet in New Orleans might be the greatest impossibility. With so much food and drink to be had, I brought my empty stomach and Continue Reading
Jackson Square in New Orleans Wishes You Were Here
It was on Good Friday in 1788 that the bells of St. Louis Cathedral in New Orleans went silent. The silence of the bells for the holy day inadvertently failed to alarm the city of a raging fire that would destroy much of New Orleans, the cathedral included. This would not be the beginning or end of the cathedral’s troubles, but like most aspects to New Orleans, there is an insatiable spirit to move on, fires, hurricanes and all. St. Louis Cathedral sets up in Jackson Square, the center of the original settlement of New Orleans. It boasts of being the oldest continuously active Catholic Continue Reading
A Hurricane and Hope in the Lower 9th Ward of New Orleans
The French Quarter is just three miles away from where I stand and yet, I feel like I’m in a different world. There is a sobering photograph in front of me: a picture after Hurricane Katrina and a little arrow pointing out, “You are here”. Back in August of 2005 if I had been standing under the arrow’s point, I would have been completely submerged in water and debris. A man mows an empty patch of property nearby, one where you can see the foundations of a house, the place a family used to call home. I am in New Orleans’ Lower 9th Ward, an area of the city that was hit the hardest by Continue Reading