Our Daze Between this year was rather quiet. Rachel was off doing first-timer touristy things, while we were primarily walking around and eating. And as we know, the walking around enables the eating! Laurie had to do some work, and we had to do the usual errands like room restocking and laundry. I spent a lot of time gazing out the window at the river traffic on the Mississippi and the vehicle and pedestrian traffic on Poydras Street. Our Staybridge suite a couple of times over the years we have been there has had great views of each.
On Monday, the weather was mostly sunny with a steady 12-15 mph breeze. Humidity is on the rise, today in the 60 to 65 percent range. The temperatures were 79 in the morning, 82 in mid-afternoon, and 75 in the evening. So it was pretty warm, but that is to be expected.
When we finally got out, it was to have lunch. We went further into the Warehouse District, to a new restaurant for us, Carmo. It's a tropical restaurant featuring food from Africa, the Caribbean, and South America. They were vendors at Jazz Fest when the Cultural Exchange area celebrated Brazil, and Laurie that year had their acarajé (black-eyed pea fritters with spicy cashew sauce) and pão de queijo (cheese bread) (see Day 2 and Day 10 in 2014).
I had a yellowfin tuna salad sandwich. The tuna salad was made with house-smoked local sushi-grade yellowfin tuna marinated in a light vinaigrette. It was served on sourdough with avocado and cucumber.
Laurie had a glass of thick caja (a Brazilian fruit) juice. Caja is an orange fruit with a sophisticated sweet-sour taste. It is similar in size and shape to a small mango and found in South American rainforests. She also had veggie rico, a breadless fork sandwich made of a grilled plantain patty topped with dairy cheese, vegan meat, avocado, salsa fresca, and a tangy sweet-spicy "Rico" sauce. It was served with greens with mango vinaigrette.
Later, I took one of my patented walks along the river, all the way down to Frenchmen Street. The heat and the excess walking caused me to take the Riverfront Streetcar back to Canal Street, where I met Laurie at the Pinkberry for a late afternoon snack.
We had a late dinner at GW Fins, one of our faves in the French Quarter. It was our sixth time there, and we've never been disappointed with the food, although I must say that tonight the service was not as spot on as it has been previously.
Fins has a great wine list. However, it seems we keep going back to the same selections as in previous years. I had a Seghesio Zinfandel from Sonoma County, California, while Laurie had Plowbuster Pinot Noir from the Willamette Valley in Oregon.
We started out as always with the smoked sizzling oysters, cold smoked oysters literally cooking in their super-heated shells as the dish is served. An excellent creation.
I started with a Ponchatoula strawberry salad, with local berries and field greens, feta cheese, candied walnuts, and balsamic vinaigrette. My entree was sheepshead fish (the same type as yesterday), this time with a horseradish crust, served with roasted miniature Brussels sprouts, crispy parsnips, and truffle potato sauce.
Laurie had two small plates. First was jumbo lump crab and watermelon with wild watercress and spicy citrus aioli. Next was BBQ shrimp with an Abita Amber beer glaze and goat cheese grits.
Our dessert was Fins' take on a Samoa, with coconut sorbet in a chocolate shell, with coconut shortbread and a caramel drizzle.
Tuesday's weather had more bright sunshine than yesterday during the day, but a lot more clouds late in the afternoon. The breeze again was persistent at 12-18 mph. Humidity was in the 50 to 60 percent range, but much higher this evening. The temperatures were 82 in the morning, 85 in mid-afternoon, and 77 in the evening. Basically another typical New Orleans spring day, but it does feel like a change may be coming.
Laurie was again taking care of business so I took a long walk in the Central Business District this morning, ending up at the local Rouses market to get some provisions for the room.
We had lunch at 9 Roses, a Vietnamese cafe in the French Quarter. This is becoming one of our go-to places, especially when we want to eat something a bit lighter, as in decidedly non-NOLA. Laurie had their awesome deconstructed spring roll salad (sans pork): gulf shrimp, carrots, cucumber, celery, Thai basil, roasted peanuts, and roasted onions, served with prawn crackers and a fish sauce vinaigrette. I had a NOLA beer, the basic blonde ale, and a really good yellow curry with Gulf shrimp, coconut milk, onions, lemongrass, and red peppers, served with sticky rice and fresh broccoli, carrots, and cauliflower.
Laurie went back to work this afternoon, so I took the streetcar up to City Park and visited the New Orleans Museum of Art. Laurie and I had visited the museum's large and beautiful sculpture garden in 2017 (Day 6), so I was interested in seeing what was inside the museum.
The Museum of Art, aka NOMA, is the city's oldest fine arts institution. It was initially funded through a charitable grant by local philanthropist and art collector Isaac Delgado, a wealthy sugar broker. Delgado was born in 1839 in Kingston, Jamaica. His grandfather, whose name he shared, was one of the "great merchant princes" on Kingston's famed Port Royal Street. His family was prominent in the Jewish community, where his father was president of the local synagogue.
Isaac emigrated to New Orleans at age 14 to help ease the financial strain on his parents, who by this point had 11 other children to care for. There, Isaac moved in with his uncle, Samuel, who worked as a banker. Isaac's first job was as a clerk in a local steamboat agency. Samuel later established Delgado and Company, which went on to become a successful sugar and molasses trading firm in the then-bustling Sugar Row alongside the wharfs of the Mississippi River. Following his uncle's death in 1905, Isaac inherited the business, which he continued to expand, slowly becoming a self-made millionaire and a prominent figure in Crescent City society.
Isaac slowly began to share his wealth among his favorite causes and charities that he felt could benefit. Some of his larger donations funded Charity Hospital in honor of his uncle, and the Isaac Delgado Museum of Art in City Park, which is now NOMA. His most lasting legacy was an idea born shortly before his death, when his friend and confidant, Elenora Moss, suggested possibly establishing a trade school to educate boys. His reply: "I'd love to give a boy a trade."
Upon Isaac Delgado's death in 1912, a codicil to his last will and testament bequeathed a portion of his estate to the City of New Orleans for the establishment of a central trades school. After years of planning, Delgado Community College opened its doors in September 1921 and was formally dedicated on November 23, 1921. Today, Delgado Community College has the second-largest enrollment among all the institutions of higher education in the state of Louisiana, serving more than 19,000 students each semester on multiple campuses.
The NOMA building itself was partly designed by the former chief engineer of New Orleans, Benjamin Morgan Harrod. It opened in December 1911 with only nine works of art. Today, it has an impressive permanent collection of more than 40,000 objects, noted for its extraordinary strengths in French and American art, photography, glass, and African and Japanese works. The building itself is a gem, with a large central atrium surrounded by galleries on two floors, and a newer section with more galleries behind.
The museum made it through Hurricane Katrina and the resulting failure of the Federal levee system relatively unscathed. Here's an article from the New York Times about its experience in 2005.
Among the highlights today was an exhibit of works by Keith Sonnier, a pioneering figure in conceptual, post-minimal, video, and performance art of the late 1960s. Born in Grand Mamou, Louisiana, in 1941, Sonnier was one of the first artists to incorporate light into sculpture, in particular neon, an innovation that forms the foundation of his subsequent work. Since the late 1960s, he has continued to forge a sculptural language that defies easy categorization. From his earliest investigations of fleeting and unstable materials like lint, latex, and neon, to his later expressions of the way architecture, light, and form come together to shape human experience, communication and interconnection, Sonnier's art has radically reframed sculpture's role and function.
The exhibit had more than 30 works created between 1969 and 2018. Although he is most recognized for his neon sculptures, Sonnier is also known for his exploration of a vast range of materials, including cheesecloth, satin, glass, and bamboo, as well as sensory matter such as sound, light, radio, and satellite. New and different modes of communication were a steady source of inspiration for him, and travel throughout the world has profoundly shaped his view on life and art. Bringing his signature work in neon into dialogue with these lesser known aspects of his practice, the exhibit showed Sonnier's defining role in reshaping the boundaries of what constitutes sculpture over the last half-century.
Another exhibit was photography by Timothy Duffy, who creates one-of-a-kind portraits of older American blues and roots musicians using tintype, a photography process that goes back to the 19th-century. A renowned photographer, Duffy has been recording and photographing traditional artists in the South since the age of 16, when he became interested in ethnomusicology. Originally from Connecticut, he earned a B.A. from Friends World College and an M.A. in Folklore from the University of North Carolina. Timothy and his wife Denise founded the Music Maker Relief Foundation in 1994 to assist traditional musicians in need. He feels very strongly about capturing the essence of the musicians he photographs and not to exploit them.
I also checked out the African and decorative arts galleries, found some pre-Colombian artifacts that were fascinating, and cruised through the French and Italian stuff from the 17th and 18th centuries (the latter just doesn't do much for me). There were some other special exhibits as well, including one called Ear to the Ground: Earth and Element in Contemporary Art. Working with natural elements like earth, wind, water, and fire, the contemporary artists in this exhibit showed how nature can spur artistic innovation and spark new thinking about human culture and community. This is definitely a museum worth visiting ... and returning to.
Outside, I spent a bit of time in the sculpture garden and walked around City Park's many ancient live oak trees while listening to music coming from the 15th Annual Threadhead Patry (yes, Patry) taking place across Bayou St. John at the Deutsches Haus, an event facility that has an outdoor stage.
The Patry is a major fundraiser for the Threadhead Cultural Foundation, which provides grants and assistance to musicians, artists, and others involved in endeavors relating to music and other artistic expressions. It is a day-long affair that features a great lineup of local artists from year to year. I was listening to one of those improvised New Orleans All-Star bands, who today called themselves Haus Band 119. This band featured George Porter Jr., Stanton Moore, Brian Stoltz, David Torkanowsky, and Khris Royal.
The New Orleans institution Café du Monde is taking over the snack bar concession in the old casino building at City Park. They were still renovating, but had a truck parked outside, which allowed me to get an iced café au lait, which really hit the spot on this very warm afternoon.
Eventually I hopped the streetcar back downtown. City Park is the end of the Canal Street line so there is always a seat available after you watch the fascinating ritual of setting the car up to go back in the opposite direction. Soon we were heading back down Carrolton Avenue to Canal Street and wherever it was that I exited. The streetcars are a very cool way to get around. Extremely retro, they add to the otherworldly feel of New Orleans.
Tonight we met Rachel and went to one of Emeril Lagasse's four restaurants in town, Meril (named after his daughter). For drinking, I had Hop Blooded IPA from the Crying Eagle Brewery in Lake Charles, Louisiana. Laurie had Radical Rye IPA from the Gnarly Barley Brewing Company of Hammond, Louisiana.
I decided to forego seafood tonight with Korean fried chicken with a sweet gochujang sauce and then saffron pappardelle with braised lamb leg, oyster mushrooms, and parmesan. Done as only Emeril could do.
Laurie had oyster and mirliton (a popular local squash) soup and then yellowfin tuna lettuce wraps with jalapeno, ponzu, crunchy noodles, and citrus.
My dessert was an incredible French toast bread pudding with Fireball whiskey sauce, Laurie's was a parfait with almond cake, pineapple curd, kiwi, and blueberries, topped with mounds of whipped cream.
The change in the weather arrived on Wednesday, but it wasn't that big of a deal. The day could best be described as cloudy, with at least one pretty substantial rain shower, and wouldn't you know that was while we were walking back from lunch.
The sun finally came out around 5 p.m. Humidity was around 70 percent all day, and the breeze again was pretty steady at 12-14 mph. Temperatures were 81 in the morning, 83 in mid-afternoon, and 77 in the evening. Basically another typical New Orleans spring day, but it still feels like more change may be coming.
This morning Laurie caught up on her job(s) while I did the inevitable laundry using the hotel's barely operating washers and dryer. We have heard that the Staybridge is being converted to a boutique hotel, so this may be our last rodeo there. That would be OK, because it is definitely suffering from lack of attention.
Our lunch was the highlight of the day, as we went to Bayona, the James Beard award winner Susan Spicer's restaurant in the French Quarter. A native of Key West, Florida, Spicer has been named one of Food and Wine's 10 Best New Chefs and received the Beard Award for Best Chef, Southeast Region. She first moved to New Orleans as a child, and it felt like home right away. But it wasn't the food that first drew her in. "Even as a 6- or 7-year-old, the New Orleans music really spoke to me, and it has ever since. I think that's what made me really fall in love with being here."
Spicer's cooking style has a variety of influences, including some gathered from training with chef Daniel Bonnot at Louis XVI, a classic New Orleans establishment, but she mainly credits her adventurous palate to her mother. She founded Bayona 28 years ago in a 200-year-old Creole cottage with a beautiful courtyard and several small dining rooms inside. The restaurant features creative, locally sourced dishes influenced by Spanish and French cuisine but with Spicer's own unique touches.
Laurie had the Capriole goat cheese crouton with oyster and shiitake mushrooms and Madeira cream. Then she had the watermelon salad, with jalapeno, arugula, and feta.
I had Spicer's sautéed veal sweetbreads, with tiny cubes of potato and beet, mushrooms, and a sherry mustard sauce. Then I had another specialty, the smoked duck PB&J. The duck, prepared with pepper jelly, is served in Wild Flour multigrain bread spread with cashew butter. It's served with an apple celery salad. Both dishes are way out there but very good.
Both the atmosphere and food were terrific, but the service was a bit off. We'd probably give it another try nonetheless.
We walked back to the hotel ducking under balconies to stay out of the persistent rain shower, which started and was much heavier while we were in the restaurant.
My afternoon "highlight" was a walk down to the Riverwalk outlet mall, where, given my feeling about the weather, I replaced the umbrella I left in one of the portable toilets near the Acura stage last Thursday at the Nordstrom Rack store. May it not be needed. But be prepared!
Around 5 p.m. we went to Lafayette Square for the weekly Wednesday at the Square concert. This week it was the Trumpet Mafia, a group of at least a dozen young trumpet players from around the city, even including some students. It's led by Ashlin Parker, who started the band after a bunch of friends got together and started jamming one hot summer day.
The band also features an outstanding rhythm section of Pat Casey on bass and Julian Addison on drums. And today they featured guest trumpet Maurice Brown (see Day 5) and vocalist/sax player Chelsea Baratz. Parker and Brown paid tribute to the late Roy Hargrove with an impressive couple of songs.
We've seen Trumpet Mafia before, last year at Lafayette Square and in the Jazz Tent on Day 11 in 2016. It's always a great time, and a truly awesome sound. Here is my video from today and here's another one from the square in 2018 with Maurice Brown and Nicholas Payton.
Also on the bill was Deacon John Moore and his big band. Deacon John is a local legend, a guy who played on all the hits that came out of NOLA back in the day.
You can hear Deacon John's guitar on Irma Thomas' Ruler of My Heart, Lee Dorsey's Working in the Coal Mine and Ride Your Pony, Aaron Neville's Tell It Like It Is, Robert Parker's Barefootin', Ernie K-Doe's Mother-in-Law, Benny Spellman's Fortune Teller and Lipstick Traces, and Chris Kenner's Land of a Thousand Dances and Something You've Got. Wow! It was a thrill to see him.
After the music we took Rachel to the French Quarter's brew pub, the Crescent City Brewhouse, whose food, as you can imagine, is a cut above the usual bar food. That's why we go there, because frankly the beer is just OK. Today we had their Hefeweissbier, an unfiltered wheat beer, smooth with hints of banana and cloves and a spicy finish. It wasn't bad by any means.
Laurie had seafood cheesecake, with crawfish, shrimp, and crab, served with a green onion vinaigrette, fried onions, and crostini. I had the brewhouse BLT: brioche, lots of bacon, fried basil, tomatoes, fresh mozzarella, mayo, and romaine-heart leaves. For dessert we shared a shortcake with strawberry ice cream made from those fresh in-season Louisiana strawberries. All of it was very good.
And that's it for the Daze Between; it's back to "work" tomorrow, Jazz Fest Day 5.
