Got Gumbo? 2012

Where can you get all-you-can-eat gumbo from over 20 NOLA restaurants and help out the United Way? The annual Got Gumbo? event at the Royal Sonesta in the French Quarter. With competitions for best traditional, seafood and exotic gumbos, the chefs show off their best recipes on tables decorated as parade floats complete with throws. There’s even a dessert competition.

Treme and Bayona Restaurant

Week 2 of HBO’s Treme covered topics from the Danziger Bridge incident and the school system to the governor’s race, FEMA subcontracting, Bounce music and fried turkey for Thanksgiving. As someone who’s lived here over 17 months and is still learning this city, I sometimes wonder how someone unfamiliar with the politics, food, music, history and tragedy of this place 14 months after Katrina (the setting of this season) can even begin to follow all the intricacies. I’m so glad people are watching and making the effort. 

Got Gumbo?

Tonight, I attended the 11th Annual Got Gumbo? cook-off at the Royal Sonesta in the French Quarter. My taste-buds are still after-glowing. The ballroom was lined with tables from 20 different local restaurants competing in up to 6 categories. Half were judged by a panel and the other half were determined by our votes. There was even a Jazz band. What fun!

L.A. to N.O.LA’s Favorite Things (in NOLA) 2010

I can’t get you all of this stuff, Oprah-style, but every item has links to their site. If you’d like to know more about why each is my favorite, use the search window on the lower right to find photos, videos and stories.

I continue to accumulate favorite things about New Orleans, but here’s my first year favorites in a nutshell.

Caroling and great food

With Christmas approaching, there are fewer tourists and conventions, New Orleans is quieter. I thought I’d take advantage of being able to get a seat at a new popular bar/restaurant, Three Muses.

http://www.thethreemuses.com/

Refuel – What’s for Breakfast?

Once in awhile, there are things in New Orleans that remind me of L.A. There’s an area of Uptown where there’s a Pink Berry right across the street from a Whole Foods. That’s a one-two L.A. punch. But I was always a Trader Joe’s and Cantaloop girl, preferring cheaper food with more “character.”