New Orleans

Holocaust memorial
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Breakfast at the Old Coffee Pot on St Peter, another one we eat at every year without fail. Wilhelmina was there but Pearl was off and Shirley is slowly recuperating after surgery and was missed. Wilhemina hasn’t changed a bit - when Rick told her she didn’t remember him, she said, “I remember every face I see now sit down and shut up”. As we left she was telling us about her evacuation to Baton Rouge during Gustav last year.  She insisted she made it to Baton Rouge in an hour; I’m sure she couldn’t have made it that fast but I wasn’t about to argue with her - she would win.  

Brangelina's house
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Before dropping off the rental car we drove a few miles over to the lower 9th ward to see Brad Pitt’s Make it Right homes (http://www.makeitrightnola.org/home.php) on Tennessee St. Things were very busy over there- lots of construction going on, people sitting on the porches of their homes. Not sure I like the designs of some of the houses but loved that they were being made.  From there we headed over to the Habitat for Humanity area to check on the area we worked on two years ago. We found the house we worked on and there were a lot more done surrounding it. Again, lots of work going on and it was great to see at least a little progress being made. That being said the majority of the area is still devastated, lots of houses looked like no one has ever come back and huge swaths of overgrown weeds. 

Tom and Rick outside the Clover Grill
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Back into town to drop off the car and over to the Southern Food and Beverage Museum (http://www.southernfood.org/) located in the back of the Riverwalk Marketplace along the river. Fun to go through but by far the best area was The Museum of the American Cocktail area and seeing all the ads and sheet music for songs from the Prohibition era (“I Married the Bootlegger’s Daughter”, “Oh Gin Gin Ginny”, etc).

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Walking back along the river to Decatur St we stopped at the Holocaust Memorial (http://www.holocaustmemorial.us/index.htm)  and then on to Central Grocery, an Italian grocery store that’s been there for over a hundred years now.  We split a half of a veggie muffaletta (yes, a quarter of one is a meal in itself) and a bag of Zapps (www.zapps.com)  chips at the back table. The ritual is also supposed to include Barq’s Root Beer, but they were out - damn them. We continued our way down to the end of Decatur St to look for the locally made coasters and found the woman’s store but she didn’t have much of a selection. She sent us off to the French Market across the street where her boyfriend was manning booth 83. He was super friendly and talking about people sending her cocktail napkins with local landmarks on them so she could have even more designs and she did have a lot more - now she had all the old long gone local department stores and obscure out of the way bars.  As we were talking for a good 20 minutes and picking out a few he told us about seeing Angelina in the deli behind his house (great face but really skinny legs) and told us where they lived (521 Gov Nichols but he had just given us the description) so we headed over there so we could take pics of each other outside eating a blueberry Hubigs pie. No, no reason for a blueberry pie, just seemed right. Not being able to top that we headed back to the hotel for a rest.  

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Dinner at Mona Lisa at the other end of Royal St.  One of our standbys and a good place to get away from the local cuisine and get a big dose of garlic. Had a nice pasta primavera with a tangy lemon sauce. Split some tiramisu and a raspberry cheesecake for dessert. Wandered over to Bourbon St and hung out outside the Clover Grill and had a too big beer and watched the scenery. Some guy stripped down to his jock strap and Rick was offended that it didn’t match his sandals.  He also didn’t want his picture taken but as far as I’m concerned if you choose to walk around like that on the street your rights to any privacy are waived.

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