French Quarter Fest – Day 4

French Quarter Fest ended with a slightly warmer version of the same glorious weather we’d had all weekend. The Friendly Travelers started our day with standards like Down By The Riverside, then took the crowd to church with praise music. The lead singer came out to the crowd and got people on their feet and holding hands. Toward the end of the set, the band played an original from their upcoming album. It was gorgeous and moving and the crowd did something I hadn’t seen before at any fest – they gave a standing ovation in the middle of a set for a song no one knew.

Saints Draft Boil (Crawfish!)

Almost exactly 2 years ago, we became Saints season ticket holders. After 8 years on the waiting list and with only 2 days until our wedding, we considered finally getting the coveted tickets to be our wedding gift from the city. As fun as it was bouncing around the Superdome, seeing the game from different angles and meeting new people, I love having an “address” in the stadium. Even better are the many events open to us including the 2016 Draft Super Boil – a giant Who Dat Nation crawfish boil at the Saints Practice Facility. 

Crawfish and BIRNout Boil

Jazz Fest started last week which means lots of things including packed hotels, music everywhere nearly all night and day and plenty of crawfish boils. Sunday was my annual family reunion crawfish boil and Monday was the 2nd annual BIRNout Boil at the Sandpiper Lounge hosted by Billy Iuso and the Restless Natives (BIRN).

Only in Nola is it perfectly normal to expect people to show up at 3pm on a Monday for a concert and boil and only in Nola would we all do it less than an hour after tornadoes and a mini-hurricane blew through. The storm was so strong, thousands are still without power and perhaps you saw the footage of winds so forceful they blew a long train off a bridge.

French Quarter Fest Saturday

The French Quarter Fest is as much about local cuisine as it is about our amazing music with over 65 local vendors tempting tastebuds with everything from spicy seafood to sweet snowballs. Saturday, the  festival was also the proving ground for Rouses Crawfish Eating World Championship. There were several rounds of competition culminating with the 4th annual win for Sonya Thomas AKA “The Black Widow.” She managed to pack 2.2 pounds of crawfish into her 100 pound body in 10 minutes. Louisianan hunk Adrian Morgan came in second with 2 pounds. I finished one Pulled Pork Sandwich topped with Cole Slaw ($6) from The Joint while watching

Spring in New Orleans

The annual Spring Fiesta parade marks the coming of Spring and brings a whole new meaning to having flowers delivered. The Treme Brass Band led the horse-drawn carriages carrying women in hoop skirts and men in suits. Rather than beads, the paraders tossed fresh roses, carnations and daisies which I gathered into a bouquet. It may have been  colder than it’s been all year, but the flowers and the bouquet of women in pastel-colored flounces brought sunshine to my day.

Family Reunion

My parents met as students at LSU before my father’s job took them to Maryland. My mother returned later in life but my father continued to build his life in the D.C. area. Last year, he and my brother and I attended a family reunion in Baton Rouge and I got to meet many members of my family for the first time. This year, my dad and brother returned for the 25th annual crawfish boil reunion, this time accompanied by my stepmother who’d never seen New Orleans.

St. Joseph’s Day and Italian Parade

After parading ourselves silly through Carnival season then St. Patrick’s week, St. Joseph’s Day was the next citywide celebration in New Orleans. Celebrated predominantly in parts of Sicily, St. Joseph (of Mary and Joseph fame) is credited with ending a famine during the Middle Ages by answering the city’s prayers for rain. Since then, the people of Sicily and their New Orleanian ancestors have been preparing an annual feast on elaborate altars, turning no one away from the bounty and giving the leftovers to the indigent. Like with St. Patrick and his festivities, the vast majority of New Orleanians are neither Irish nor Italian, but they know a good party when they see it.