Where’s Cheryl?

The Microbrewery Post

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

The old Jackson Brewery in New Orleans has been converted into a collection of tourist shops and offices. There is a Crescent City Brewery pub just over the road, but I haven’t had a chance to try it. I have, however, been drinking a raspberry wheat beer from Abita, who are Louisiana-based. It is very good. And what is more it is called Purple Haze.

I mean, how can you not love a beer called Purple Haze?

According to the web site, you can buy it at Wine Warehouse in Richmond, as well as many non-Bay Area locations. The full list of brews is here.

Hard Core Jazz

~ Cheryl

The brass band boys were out again tonight, and we caught them just starting up. I think they are trying to do a Brazilian thing, and they were very good, but we couldn’t stay long as we were off to Preservation Hall.

This is an old building on St. Peter’s just south of Bourbon. It looks like it is falling apart, it is quite dark inside, and the seating is mainly wooden benches and cushions. You pay $10 to get in for the night. The bar consists of a bucket of water bottles, but you are welcome to wander in and out to get drinks. (We popped out briefly for some soul food at the nearby Old Coffee Pot). This place makes no concessions. It is all about the jazz.

Although they have a resident band (who once supported the Grateful Dead at Filmore West), they feature other bands as well. Tonight we saw the St Peter’s All Stars, which I suspect might mean whoever they can get together for a night. They play traditional tunes. There is nothing electronic in sight, not even a microphone. And they take requests. If you know a traditional jazz song, the chances are they’ll have it in their repertoire.

I’m not a great one for sticking with tradition myself. I like to see people experiment. But equally it is great that other people like to preserve the way things once were. This is jazz as it used to be, and in this small corner of New Orleans, as it always will be.

Kevin, who is a clarinet player himself, will probably have something to say about the amazing instrument we saw in use tonight.

Update: here’s Kevin’s take.

Serious Temptation

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

Every girl needs a custom couturier, right? And if you don’t get to Paris very often, and can’t speak much French, why not just go to New Orleans instead?

Much of the stock at Fleur de Paris is 1920’s in style which doesn’t suit me too well, but there were plenty of lovely dresses and hats there, if only I could have afforded anything. Not even if we hadn’t eaten anything all the time we’d been here. One day, though. And in the meantime we had a lovely chat with their talented milliner. Kimberly Benn, if you happen to Google yourself, many thanks for being so welcoming. I’ll be back (as we say in California).

Beignets with Busking

~ Cheryl

My second visit to Cafe du Monde was a definite improvement on the first. The beignets were cooked through, the hot chocolate is better than the coffee, but best of all we got to listen to Tanya & Dorise. That would be Tanya Huang (violin) and Dorise Blackmon (guitar). They were really good. Pop over to their MySpace page and check them out.

Or, thanks to the magic of YouTube, here they are performing “Stand by me”. (I seriously considered videoing a song, but it seemed kind of cheeky.)

Body Art

~ Cheryl

New Orleans is full of art galleries, but my favorite is one that only sells prints because the “canvas” that the artist uses tends not to stay painted. Craig Tracy specializes in painting on bodies, and yes, he is available for party hire. In the meantime he has created some stunning work which you can see on his web site. If Kevin and I hadn’t spent so much on food this weekend I would have been taking a print or two home. My favorite is Inferno.

Morning, What Morning?

~ Cheryl

We managed to get out of the hotel by noon. Breakfast, as Kevin reports, was at the lovely Court of the Two Sisters. It is a buffet, so the food wasn’t brilliant, but it was still better than most bunch buffets you could find, and it has a fabulous setting. I determined to find a recipe for Oysters Bienville (which I have since done). It was also half the price of breakfast at Brennans (but possibly not half as good).

Bourbon Street was up and watching the Saints game. Fortunately they were not playing the 49ers, and we managed to get back to our hotel before Campbell and Moss ripped the beat-up Saints secondary to shreds in the 4th quarter. The quarter was a little subdued when we went out for an afternoon walk, but I managed to find several very interesting places, all of which deserve a post of their own.

Weather Update

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

The wind is howling around outside, but we continue to be very lucky with the rain. I did remember to bring an umbrella, but it would be totally useless in this wind so I’m leaving it in the hotel room. The biggest problem with the wind is that my hair, being very fine, turns into a rats nest in minutes. It doesn’t really matter how much gunk I put on it – wind makes it look a mess. Furthermore, because it is so fine, most fancy hair clips don’t work. Fortunately I have some scrunchies with me, and they will have to do.

Street of Contrast

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

This evening we went for dinner at a place called Arnaud’s. I can happily say that it was one of the best meals I have had in my life. The Alligator Sausage and the Petit Filet Lafitte were both wonderful, and while the Strawberries Arnaud that I had was merely good, the crepes that Kevin ordered were phenomenal – something to do with adding a little cream cheese to the cream stuffing, which worked brilliantly.

The other thing that struck me about this evening was the level of contrast you get in Bourbon Street. Inside Arnaud’s, had it not been for one rather loud table (who had come “All The Way From ATLANTA!!!!”), and the somewhat less rigorous dress code, we might as well have been in 1918, when the restaurant opened, not in 2008. Outside, on the other hand, Bourbon Street was in full Saturday Night swing, and was full of drunk people eager to lap up cheap booze and sex (and doubtless getting overcharged for both).

After the meal we popped into Cafe Beignet where they promised live jazz from Steamboat Willie. The band was perfectly competent, but after a few numbers the phrase “easy listening” started to come to mind. Willie and the band were playing for the audience, and assumed that audience knew little about jazz. The bands we saw on Thursday and Friday were playing for jazz fans in the audience, and because they loved playing.

There was a rather good brass ensemble busking at the entrance to Bourbon Street, but they were already posing a (pedestrian) traffic hazard and I didn’t want to have to listen standing up, so here we are back at the hotel instead.

Cities of the Dead

~ Cheryl ~ 2 Comments

One of the streetcar lines that we rode ends at an area of New Orleans given over entirely to vast cemeteries. One of them has a huge, neo-classical mortuary that claims to be “certified haunted”. I’m not sure I’d want my relatives buried somewhere that the dead had a reputation of not staying where they were put, but each to their own, I suppose.

Anyway, there they all are, in serried ranks, the houses of the dead. There are so many that they have street names. But they are not all alike. I spotted an obelisk. And several of the larger tombs bore a distinct resemblance to Celtic burial mounds. There is something odd going on here. New Orleans is, after all, something of a multi-faith city.

Talking of which, the police cars all bear a symbol of crescent and a star, and the local NBC affiliate’s offices look distinctly like a mosque.

Miss Manners Advises

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

If you are out walking somewhere hot and sticky such as New Orleans, do not wear pants that change color when wet…

Special note for Texan tourists: when in a famous New Orleans cafe, do not ask the staff for directions to their main competition.

Weather Update

~ Cheryl

We appear to be clear of tropical storm warnings here for a while. Meanwhile Galveston seems to have dodged a bullet in that the sea wall, though it was taking a serious battering last night, appears to have been just high enough to prevent a major disaster. Houston, on the other hand, is looking pretty wrecked. Hurricane winds are always stronger high up because there’s generally little to get in their way. That is, until they come upon a bunch of tall buildings with lots and lots of glass windows.

One of the things about being in New Orleans during a storm is that you get to see the great, gray, greasy Mississippi river snarling. Old Man River is actually a wild beast that has been caged up by the Army Corps of Engineers for many years. Right now he looks like it too.

Jazz Club Caveat

~ Cheryl

Louisiana does not ban smoking in bars. Be prepared to have to wash your hair every day.

Ah well, at least there is no water shortage here, so no one minds how long I spend in the shower.

Hot Summer Night

~ Cheryl

This evening we had dinner in a place called Cafe Orleans on Decatur that doesn’t seem to have a web site. It isn’t one of the famous restaurants, but it was very good. I had red snapper; Kevin had a pasta seafood medley. The price was reasonable too. I suspect that there are plenty of places like that in the city.

After that we took a long walk around the Quarter and ended up in a German pub called Fritzel’s which had an excellent jazz band. We ended up sharing a table with two very sloshed gay boys who were totally stoked to learn that we were from San Francisco. The City’s name acts like a passport to friendship with the Queer Nation all over the world.

By the way, Fritzel’s describes itself as “European” rather than “German”, though there’s no doubt as to its origins once you get inside. I guess there are obvious reasons for that. But for some strange reason Larry Flynt’s establishments appear to be using “European” as a code word for “topless”. Go figure.

Weather

~ Cheryl ~ 1 Comment

I was woken several times in the night by Godzilla roaring, shaking the windows of our (7th floor) room and taking Godzilla-sized showers in the street outside. I believe that his general point was that he has been to New York and it never sleeps, so why should Bourbon Street start shutting down around 5:00am? I tried to tell him that he’d find Houston deadly boring in comparison, but I don’t think he heard.

Arrived

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

We are safely in New Orleans. Kevin has already blogged about the trip.

It didn’t take me long to warm to this place, and that wasn’t anything to do with the blast of hot, humid air that greeted us as we got off the plane. No, it was the airport. Most airports have totally predictable and very boring shops. Here, within a few yards of each other, I found “Creole Kitchen” and “House of Blues”. Food and music. This is my sort of place.

We don’t have much in the way of plans right now, so suggestions are welcome. Tomorrow we are having breakfast at Brennans and will be visiting the Arthur Roger Gallery because the Dale Chihuly exhibition closes on the 13th.

So far everything is going well. The only mild mistake I appear to have made in the packing is not to bring hangers. Yes, I know we are only here for 5 days, but if you can’t over-dress in New Orleans where can you do so?

Of course you can under-dress as well. The cover of the tourist guide magazine in our hotel room features an article about the burlesque revival, which I’ve seen various of my New Yorker friends getting excited about (mainly the lesbians).

Hmm, I wonder if it is dinner time yet?

Green Light for N’awlins

~ Cheryl ~ 3 Comments

Well, hurricane Ike is pretty firmly pointed at Texas. Apologies to all of those currently in its path (not to mention all of those in the Caribbean that have already felt its wrath), but it seems like Kevin and I have lucked out this time. We’ll be heading off to New Orleans early tomorrow. I expect to find some new music to collect, put on a lot of weight from eating good food, and get even further behind with processing video recordings. If I meet any ghosts, vampires or voodoo sorcerers I shall be sure to let you know.