The Finale of New Orleans...

Canal Street from our Hotel room at night

Besides our community service commitment, we were also having a destination book club meeting. We had been discussing this since last year and made plans in April to make it happen. Everyone was excited about going and some like me, haven’t visited the city since Hurricane Katrina. So it was a bit disappointing that the week of departure so many of my members were unable to go due to some unforeseen circumstances. If I learned anything from this last trip I learned, have folks do a deposit with only a portion of it refundable should they be unable to go, set a date and do not change it – because we will never do something trying to make everyone happy and always have a contingency plan in place so we aren’t homeless for a couple hours before our arrival. LOL!


We were hoping to have our meeting the lobby area of the hotel, but hell I forgot about the college football games and the area was full, plus it was happy hour. So we met in our room and discussed Some Sing, Some Cry by Ntozake Shange and Ifa Bayeza, maybe I should say I discuss with a little participation from those who managed to read a bit of the story. LOL! Sad, I know, but the book was well over 500 pages and really could have been shorter, but I did encourage them to finish it because although the length was daunting the story itself was really interesting. And we finished the meeting with another bottle of wine.

We decided to go to Mother’s for dinner. Can I say New Orleans finally redeemed itself with food? Thank goodness because I was really sadden by the food this go round. I tried their famous Ferdi sandwich, and it didn’t disappoint and the much raved about by Sunny Anderson bread pudding, which was okay, but not something I would order again. The sandwich is a ham, roast beef, debris and gravy with cabbage, mayo and pickles. I loved the sandwich because it was flavorful, moist and just an explosion of food contrasts that went well together. But it was too much to eat in one sitting. Their bread pudding isn’t typical because they make it with fruit cocktail. I wanted some raisins and if you are a texture person, this will not work for you, very mushy. It was tasty, but not something I really want to try again. Folks enjoyed the etoufee and fried chicken as well. We were all satisfied up leaving. In fact, that is probably why seeing the lady who was walking around topless, but painted was nothing to get up in arms about.

Famous Ferdi Special Sandwich.  Look at that juice!

 From there to walk off some of that food, we did some more shopping and I found a Fedora to fit my big head. Yes! We headed back to the hotel and drank some more wine and talked until we all fell asleep.

We saw a lot of these guys out performing.  No money, no dancing.  Money and they move.  LOL!

 

Sunday we headed home at check out to try and miss the traffic for the Saint’s game. We should have planned a bit better and maybe tried to attend since it was an early game. We all had a wonderful time bonding and just loving on a city that has had its share of hard times. Although everything wasn’t perfect, I think we it was perfect we were able to go and fulfill our community service commitment and bond. Fini!

Back home safe and sound.  I finally took my braidout down Sunday before our depature.  Hair looked good too.  

Bread Pudding.  Tasty, but no something I would try again.  Oh, I ate all of it I think I like the sauce more than the bread pudding.

Blurry picture of etoufee.

Fried Chicken and turnip greens. 

Part 5 - New Orleans:  Some things change, some things stay the same

Some things stay the same, but most things change is how I would describe New Orleans right now. Saturday after a good work out, I ventured out onto Canal Street to people watch. Yes, there are still panhandlers, but they basically walk up to you and ask for a cigarette if they see you smoking or money. I was asked for money but since I had just finished working out and had my cup of coffee from Starbucks, I didn’t have any on me. Plus, I do not give folks money on the street. However, this guy was really nice and we chatted for a few about how beautiful it was outside and our blessings. The street was coming alive with people and transit, so I knew the day would be quite interesting.


On our agenda was shopping because some folks needed shoes much more comfortable than what they had with them. We did eat at the IHOP down from our hotel, where I proceeded to eat an egg substitute that ignited a nice little allergic reaction from me making my eyes look like Quasimodo’s. Someone should have explained it thoroughly to me that egg substitutes have eggs in them, just not yolks. FYI – I am allergic to eggs and can only consume them cooked in food items. After, the shopping on Canal Street we took the trolley to the French Market. New Orleans temperature was quite mild and I have been there when you are sweltering. So it was pleasant outside.

Famous Cafe Du Monde

We went through the French Market and shopped along the streets as well. What we found was that I remember when things in the French Market were reasonable prices, but I purchased nothing because I could get the same things cheaper in other places. I wanted some Shea butter and the tub I wanted was $10, but I can get the same tub here in Alabama for $5. So things truly changed. What I noticed while people watching, was that the fashion trend is to wear boots, mostly tall ones, with dresses and short shorts. I said the temperature was mild, but it wasn’t cold or cool enough for me to even consider sweating my feet. Ugh! But that didn’t seem to stop the fashionistas I witnessed in that attire. Cute, but a mess.

Along the Art's District

From the French Market we headed to lunch at Deanie’s Seafood Restaurant. A word of advice, drinking beer and walking a mile to eat ain’t fun or comfortable. Luckily, I didn’t do that but I saw the effects on those who did. LOL! We were immediately seated and when I opened up the menu I was trying to find their famous boil, which I did but of course it didn’t have a price on it because you had to ask the waiter. When Harrison arrived, he brought to our table some boiled potatoes. Um, that was different. Initially, I didn’t know what the hell they were. I thought they were hushpuppies. Anyway, I did inquire about the boil and he told me the individual prices for the shrimp and crab. I found that interesting and odd. We all ordered and were blown away with their fried seafood platters, which were huge. I personally do not care for much of my seafood fried except for catfish because the batter can be overbearing and caused the seafood flavor to disappear. After our orders were placed, Harrison came back to the table and told me that they were out of crabs. A seafood restaurant in New Orleans was out of crabs, yeah okay. He wanted to know if I wanted to change my order or get additional boiled shrimp. Mind you he was standing beside me with a plate of boil shrimp. Remember I ordered their seafood boil and when I think of boil I think of shrimp, crab, corn, potatoes and sausage. I got a plate of boiled shrimp. I couldn’t concentrate on what the hell he was saying because before me set a plate of about 8 jumbo shrimp. I just said I would just eat the shrimp, at this point thoroughly disappointed. One of my book club members ordered one of their salads and although she prefers vinaigrette the only one they had was sweet fig balsamic vinaigrette, which was on the side. Harrison assured her it was very tasty. Well, it was too sweet for her and when she asked about additional dressings this was the only vinaigrette they offered. She didn’t eat her salad and it sat there while she read from her Kindle. Harrison returned to the table and asked if she was finished with her salad and then he took it away and he charged her for it. I found the food and service at Deanie’s Seafood to be deplorable. As a waiter, when Harrison noticed his customer was not eating her food, he should have offered an alternative or suggested another meal option he did neither and he should not have charged her for the salad, but he did and said, “There wasn’t anything wrong with the salad.” Yes it was. You recommended a dressing that was deplorable and you had no viable options, so yes something was wrong with the salad. She didn’t argue but the rest of us knew it couldn’t be us. So far all the food in New Orleans was blah. I have always enjoyed my food in New Orleans and to find that Katrina took away the flavor too was a bit much. So some things did change, but at least the people, the history and ambiance hadn’t.

My Famous Deanie's Seafood Boil...yeah right!

 

Next up: Book club meeting and finally some good eats and we say goodbye!

Part 4 - Lost looking for Dinner...

Our young mother recommended as well as other folks we consulted with recommended we try Deanie’s Seafood in the Quarter. According, to the directions we were very close to the restaurant. Hey, we all saw the street when we were going to our hotel. Please tell me how we missed the street and were on our way to the hood? Not only were we lost, but folks were whining about the walking, the heat, can’t we take the trolley, yada yada yada. Needless to day, I was at my breaking point. One, I do not like to be lost. Two, I can’t deal with folks complaining. When you visit New Orleans you prepare to walk, riding the trolley is cute, but you miss the sights and sounds of the Quarter when you do that. And the weather in New Orleans was wonderful. We were hot because we had already started drinking. Some of us can handle our liquor, and some of can’t. I ain’t calling no names.

My 1/2 dozen raw oysters, they were yummy, but no one else wanted to taste them.

Shrimp Po Boy.  Which was blah...no flavor

One of my members Grilled Chicken Club Sandwich

Anyway, they stopped and asked a woman passing us, who politely instructed us to go back the way we came because we were heading into hood territory. I was already walking back. I wasn’t waiting on a trolley; hell I was ready to eat something. We finally made it back to Dauphine and would you believe when we turned on Dauphine; there was Deanie’s Seafood on the corner and a long as line to get in. Of course that was a no go. We took a walk down Bourbon and ate at Desire’s Oyster Bar. I have eaten there plenty of times and I was truly disappointed in the food and service. My oysters were phenomenal and my shrimp po boy was okay, but my usual hurricane was horrible. I couldn’t taste any liquor and normally one will make life right, this time I just drank a glass of orange juice. No one was completely satisfied. One member liked her gumbo, but most everyone was talking about the lack of flavor. Oh well.

This horse was so beautiful and fiesty as hell.  He kept an eye on me.

Then we proceeded to venture down Bourbon Street. It was still early around 9ish or so. Bourbon Street hasn’t changed much. Still smelly and a disgusting street, but the party atmosphere was still quintessential New Orleans partying. I did notice a lot more “gentlemen” clubs. You couldn’t miss them because the scantily dressed workers were in the doorways and on balconies tried to entice customers to come in. I didn’t see the female impersonators club though. You can still get a tall daiquiri, but I suggest you pay the extra money for an additional shot of liquor, because those were weak too. All the liquor on Friday night was weak. No buzz and no one got tipsy, well almost no one. I did do what I do almost every time I go to New Orleans, and that was to pat the police horses. I love how majestic they are and usually the officer on its back isn’t too bad to look at either. LOL!

You should have seen what drunk folks were doing to this art piece.  Because he wasn't real and the artist showed us that he wasn't by emptying the bucket of money and placing him on his bike.  Some folks let liquor go to their heads.

Sights of New Orleans...

As we went back to our hotel on Canal Street, there was a band on the corner doing its thing. I loved it. And it reminded me why I love New Orleans, the culture; the music, the art and the people make it a city worth visiting often.

Next up: Some things stay the same but most change…



Part 2 - New Orleans:  Homeless

My left eye was jumping all Thursday evening. I trust in my left eye because it usually means something bad is going to happen or I will get mad as hell. On Thursday, I went to the hotel website to check on availability of rooms and actually tried to book a room as a precautionary plan or back-up plan. Originally, our Activities Coordinator had booked 2 rooms, now this was when we had 10 folks committed to going to NOLA. We stated we expect those who committed to be going because getting a refund of the deposit was non-existent and we didn’t want the AC to be charged if folks weren’t going. This was stressed heavily for 2 months straight. Well, as I mentioned before the week of the trip, Tuesday to be exact, folks started emailing their issues and inability to go on the trip and dropping like flies. My people, this is how we do and why I stopped doing these type trips years ago because only a small fraction of us would attend and it defeated the bonding purpose because the same 5 or so folks were the only ones bonding. Anyway, the AC cancelled one of the rooms on September 21th, so she thought. When we finally hit the road on Friday, we decided to call the hotel to insure we still had a room and to see if we could get an early check in. Everything was a go and they told us they would let us check in early if there is a room available. When traveling to LA from AL, there are areas where cell phone reception is dicey at best. So when I looked at my phone about 2 hours later, I saw a call from the AC, so I checked my messages and knew exactly why my left eye had been jumping since Thursday.


Unbeknownst the AC, she didn’t cancel one room, she cancelled the entire reservation. She was assured only one room was cancelled when she did it, but we were homeless ya’ll for about an hour. I called the AC back and had another member on the phone with the hotel to get clarification. A mess. They could only promise us one night because they were booked through the weekend. You know the Saint’s played on Sunday. I was so angry, but I tried my best not to act unruly and let my other member deal with the hotel. I told the AC we would have to look for another hotel because I’ll be damn if I was going to unpack and repack my stuff and move. I can’t handle uncertainty, I am a true Virgo and this glitch was sending me over the edge. Homeless.

Luckily one of the members is a gadget guru and she had her IPad. BTW, it’s okay, but it ain’t all that. One member found the hotel and the other member booked and we were only homeless for an hour and a half. By this time we had been on the road long enough to get gas and finally stop for lunch. And when we hit the road again we were 45 minutes away from bonding, fun and really New Orleans!

The trade off for the changed hotel was a $10 price increase, $3 parking increase and no free breakfast or free wifi. However, the service was good and the hotel was clean. Just needed a bigger room. Oh well, next up…

Our meeting with our adopted family…

Part 1 - New Orleans 2011

Canal Street



Okay nobody guessed, but I did mentioned it a while back that my book club was having a destination book club meeting in New Orleans in September. And let me tell you this was a meeting that threatened not to happen.


Here is the scenario. We start discussing this back in January or February and decided to make it happen in April at our annual business meeting. Each month until our meeting in August we discussed what we were going to do, stay and completing our community service commitment. I had one member in charge of locating a school for us to donate books to in New Orleans and a family that was still struggling years after Hurricane Katrina. After a couple of months we found a school and a family. However, my book club members were being wishy-washy. We had decided to get books, but a month before we leave folks wanted specific books or magazines they needed. Well, that part of the community service got scrubbed because the contact just didn’t have the time to compile the information on such short notice. One of the members was in contact with the young woman we had adopted to see what her children needed for school and the member was astounded to discover her kids were in a charter school where they had to wear a uniform which could only be purchased from one supplier and the uniform cost $50 each and she had 2 daughters. Each child had one uniform, so she was hand washing the uniforms every night. Upon hearing this, I decided then and there the books to the school were out, because I already discovered on my own there are a lot of drives going on in New Orleans to help replenish the libraries and frankly this mother doesn’t need to be washing clothes every night because the school system requires uniforms that are really too costly for most folks. So imagine my thoughts when the week of our scheduled departure we had lost more members who were to attend, which meant our hotel costs would escalate. I was so disturbed by this I shut down for about 8 hours and when I returned I sent out an email that basically stated: We made a commitment to this family and we will follow through on it, all members are to donate at least $20 towards us getting her uniforms and the book club will make up the balance and as much as I really want to go to New Orleans we will not go if do not have enough folks for bonding and if we can’t even garner a measly $20 to help someone else. I was hot. Not because I didn’t understand folks have hardships and shyte does happen, but the week of the departure you acting shady and not thinking about the others this decision would affect was not cool at all. Needless to say, folks responded immediately and once we had the drivers in place, 6 folks firmly committed and money pledged New Orleans was still on.

A few members wanted the trip to be cancelled and we meet at a local restaurant, but honestly I wasn’t having it. I wasn’t. I thought about this and I had saved my money from April until now and I had family vacation in between this scheduled event. We had actually changed the date to accommodate folks, who incidentally didn’t even go. I just could not see myself sitting at a restaurant with folks who didn’t plan or save better for a scheduled and planned trip. I would be resentful and plus it just wasn’t fair for those of us who took leave and really saved our money.

So with a revised budget, we were headed to New Orleans on Friday, September 23. Why was my left eye jumping?

Part 2 tells why my eye was jumping…