French Quarter Fest 2022 – Sun.

The 4 days of French Quarter Fest came to a close on Sunday. Employing over 1,700 local musicians, the fest features genres from funk, R&B and jazz to rock, gospel and Zydeco. Over 1,500 volunteers and a variety of local companies handling sanitation, security, stages, sound, etc. insure that all of the money spent producing the festival remains within the local economy.

We started the day with Shrimp Ragivote over Fried Green Tomato ($9) from Tujague’s Restaurant.

Favorite Things 2015

Better late than never, I’m finally updating my favorite Things list. First, I’d like to thank everyone who reads this blog (in over 100 countries!). Here are Your Favorite Posts of 2015:

5 – French Quarter Fest – Sunday

4 – Southern Decadence 2015

3 – Big Easy Birthday

2 – Endymion Extravaganza – My First Ball!  (your favorite post of all time)

1 – Street Musicians – Tanya and Dorise

Now to the list! The categories are: Food & Beverage, Music & Entertainment, Culture, Shopping and Giving & More. 

French Quarter Fest – Thursday

My favorite festival of the year is always the French Quarter Fest, the world’s largest free concert. Featuring only local food and music, the festival runs through Sunday expanding to 23 stages. We started the day, as always, at the Muriel’s booth in Jackson Square for a combo plate of Crawfish & Goat Cheese Crepes Shrimp & Eggplant Stuffing ($11). We stopped on our way to the river for Two Pieces of Fried Chicken with Potato Salad (or Cole Slaw) ($8) from McHardy’s Chicken & Fixin’. 

Food Fest

For 7 years, Food Fest has been bringing comfort food together for a weekend of feasting and music. Celebrating informal food, the Fest presents local fare as well as dishes from as far away as Tennessee, Connecticut and Rochester, New York. Like at most fests, you can tell the favorites by the lines and Miss Linda the Yakamein Lady seemed to be the consistent favorite along with Gus’s World Famous Fried Chicken from Memphis.

Jazz Fest from a Distance

The 45th New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival started last weekend treating hundreds of thousands of guests to artisan booths and demonstrations, fest food and cooking demonstrations, pop-up book and CD stores, interviews with musicians and, of course, over a dozen stages playing up to 8 shows each a day. I think that comes out to somewhere around 400 different concerts over the course of 2 weekends all on the Fair Grounds Race Course. But what if you couldn’t get here? Or what if you’re one of the locals fed up with yet another price hike? (It’s up to $65/day at the door now). You may not be able to eat the food or watch the Mardi Gras Indians parading past, but you can still hear Jazz Fest in a number of ways.

Harvest Wednesday Is Back!

Harvest the Music, a free Wednesday concert series benefitting Second Harvest, began its 2011 series with Mia Borders and Big Sam’s Funky Nation. After Katrina, Second Harvest became the largest food bank in the history of the world. September is Hunger Action Month, a time to remember that 49 million Americans go to bed hungry every night. An even better time to go to Lafayette Square, listen to great music, run into friends and buy plenty of fabulous food and Abita Beer because every dollar spent on food and beverage can feed a family of 4 one meal.