So often a really wonderful local festival in New Orleans goes viral and the next thing you know the lines for beer wrap around the corner and you cannot get a good space on the dance floor for all these guys from Cleveland who heard about the festival from their cousin from Palm Springs and before you know it the little local festival with killer NOLA food and great music has a high entry price and the local have ceded the event to visitors. Well, time to get in on the ground floor of what I have no doubt will be an annual tradition! Tomorrow is the first annual Street Fare Derby. Promising to celebrate the culture of street food and food trucks, the Derby will be held at the Fair Grounds (the site of that other little local festival the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival) and will have over fifteen food trucks, libations, excellent music to the tune of Big Sam’s Funky Nation as well as Kermit Ruffins. If that is not enough the Derby is being held in on the Closing Day of the track’s Summer Quarter Horse Meet so you can also watch the ponies and place a small wager if you are so inclined. So if we time it right we can start off with a gourmet grilled cheese (perhaps Havarti and Bacon) watch a race, move on to a hybrid Po Boy-Sandwich-Vietnamese Banh Mi,dance it off and then snack on an Asian Noodle Bowl and a Ginger snowball to wash things down and watch them come down the stretch. What a day! What a town!
New Orleans Food Trucks
September 23rd, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
New Orleans Brides
August 31st, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
It must have been Hurricane Irene or all the close calls up and down the East Coast but for the last two days we must have had over a dozen phone calls from women wanting to get married in New Orleans and were calling to see if the Sully Mansion would be a suitable venue for them. We host six or so weddings every year and each one is a unique delight. We have done large formal weddings for 150 complete with a perfectly lovely young women morphing into bridezilla the day of the big event to a fabulous party for forty festing a gay couple that tied the know on our front porch. People love our gardens and when we tent the side year it turns into one of those priceless New Orleans environs full of lush tropical greenery and architectural splendor. We have had the mule drawn carriages pull up to escort the bridal party to the church and the brass band fill the air with infectious music that all the high heels get kicked off and the party gets started. We have had had harpists on the stairs for the grand entrance and the adorable flower girl dawdle down the garden path. Big cakes, small cakes groom cakes and cupcakes we have served them all as part of the big day. It takes a fair bit of planning, everyone’s vision of the perfect wedding is different, in the last two days I have heard everything from wanting a wooden dance floor to assurances that the guests will have access to a tv to stay current on the college football team (I’m hoping they change their mind on that one) and despite all the difference, the emotion between the couple getting married and the smiles they reserve for each other remains the same and it delights us to no end to be a part of those moments. Bring on the brides!
Plantations’ Majesty a Short Distance from New Orleans
August 19th, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
Every once in a while we get a day off and in an even rarer circumstance we get out of town. Don’t misunderstand there are plenty of afternoons we take some time to enjoy all the wonderful things New Orleans has to offer but we rarely get to get in the car and go. This Wednesday as part of the August lull we decided to head up the river road to check out the plantations we have never had a chance to visit. Whole most of our guests stop at Oak Alley Plantation and Laura Plantation (both fascinating for very different reasons, Oak Alley is right out of Gone with the Wind while Laura is more Caribbean in feel and color and the docents are descendents of the owners who were Creole so it more complex from a sociological perspective) and decided to visit San Francisco, St. Josephs and Evergreen Plantations. All of them are less than 70 minutes from the inn along the road. San Francisco has costumed guides who are knowledgeable and we learned all about the owner who thought he was just making a quick stop to introduce his young German bride to his father to find his father on his deathbed and suddenly the owner of a 300 acre plantation. The indoor renovation is spectacular and gives you a real feel of what life was like them. The school house and slave quarters are intact as is an old inventory list of the slaves. We then took a $1.00 ferry across the Mississippi to the other side and visited the other two plantations. The grove pictured above is from Evergreen which is still a working sugar cane farm and the grove goes out to the field not the house. With all of the homes so close you could get a sens of what life was like back in the mid 1800′s. We even had fried boudin balls and gumbo for lunch sitting in a roadside eatery which we were sharing with the director Quentin Tarentino and his production crew apparently scouting locations. The old South and New Hollywood all in an hours drive away.
New Orleans’ Favorite Son
August 15th, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
While it was a week ago (it is hard to both enjoy all the city has to offer and find time to write about it!) memories of Satchmo Fest are still swirling in our head. It was a hot humid weekend and everything was dampened but our spirits and the beat of the music! Satchmo Fest is put on by the same folks who put together the Jazz and Heritage Festival so you know they know how to get fabulous musicians and incredible food to converge. The Festival is in honor of Louis Armstrong, old Satchmo whose birthday (according to the nest guess one can find) is August 4 1901. So we celebrated his 110th birthday last weekend with a two day long music festival including speakers, seminars and music all over town in the clubs at night and on two stages at the Old US Mint during the weekend. They had tents and misters for the first time (hard to believe it has taken so long to think of that!) and all types of music in which the coronet reigned supreme. On the 4th of August the radio was playing Louis all day long to get you in the mood. I baked two peach tortes and a savory leek custard for breakfast at the inn all to the sounds of “Sleepy Time Down South” and “They Can’t Take that Away From Me” and the most romantic song in the universe “A Kiss to Build a Dream On”. It just makes a girl want to find a dance floor and a skilled partner for a twirl or two. Luckily for me, despite the heat Guy was ready the following day when we went down to the mint and found larger than life statutes of Satchmo and dance floors inside the tents and Leon ‘Kid Chocolate’ Brown playing the tunes to make you swoon. Just another wonderful weekend in New Orleans. Who says the city slows down in August?
New Orleans Cooks
August 3rd, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
It was one of those mornings when all the guests were up and on their way by 9 a.m. so once the dishes were cleared I took myself down to my favorite restaurant supply company to see if I could find little egg warmers. I love the place we go, it is in Mid-City, a fabulous New Orleans neighborhood where gorgeous homes are interspersed with shotgun cottages and industrial warehouses. You can find that special piece of architectural salvage next to a place with classroom supplies and another with a zillion types of brick. Tucked back by the railroad tracks is Claires. You could lose yourself for hours with whisks, popover tins and frothers (or at least I could!) Strolling the aisles I ran into the chef from Katie’s and the sou chef from Coquettes which is our most favorite restaurant. Great fun to share kitchen tips with those who make this city such an incredible dining town. It is a cosmopolitan place but still a small town where you get to know the person who is cooking your meal and pouring your wine. We talked some about the quiet pace of New Orleans in August when it is hot but less crowed and the vibe continues even though the tourist are less numerous. First week of August it is pretty quite but the Satchmo Fest honoring Louis Armstrong and White Linen Night, a ten block stroll through the arts district with street bands and roving bartenders is slated for this weekend. I did not find my egg cups but left happy to be a part of the hospitality community.
A Spirited Dinner in New Orleans
July 22nd, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
Wine pairings for dinner are so routine they are almost passe. Here in New Orleans during the Tales of the Cocktail one of the special events are custom designed dinners at one of twenty different world class eateries paired with cocktails. The chefs and mixologists work for weeks to perfect a blend of tastes in food and libations. We went with friends last night to A Mano’s cock tail pairing where the chef and New York bartender duos the Tippling Brothers created a favorable and unique take on Italian Creole. Our delicious menu is below. I must admit I did not recognize half of what I was drinking, but loved every course. The risotto was a standout although the pairing had a bit more fire than I am used to. Favorite drink was the rum and bittertruth sloeberry with some file . Not your basic gin and tonic! The crowd was festive and appreciative. We went for more toady hoping to spend time in their tasting room but the event has gotten so popular that there were long lines so we bailed, had an oyster poorboy and came home to wait for our guests to arrive. Like so many wonders in this city what started as a local diversion has become a popular destination event. If you enjoy your imbibing you need to mark your calenders for the 2012 event which entails lectures, tasting of every spirit you can image, a speakeasy, luncheons and of course the Spirited Dinners. See you there!
Welcome Cocktail
Averna Amaro, orgeat, guava, prosecco, cucumber
Antipasti
Tuna crudo, watermelon, herb salad
Shrimp, giardinara, Creole tomato diavolo
Grilled peach, lardo, sprouts, saba
G’Vine Floraison gin, Esprit de June, lemon, basil
Primi
Seafood Risotto-saffron
Barsol Pisco, fino sherry, red pepper, orange, Tabasco air
Secondi
Duck conservata, orange, fennel-legs, fennel pollen
Rhum JM VSOP, Bitter Truth Sloeberry, filé syrup, Bitter Truth Creole and Chocolate bitters
Dolci
Lavender panna cotta, honey, sea salt
Excellia Reposado tequila, Averna Agrumi Sambuca, pink grapefruit, black pepper, honey
NOLA Summer Rain
July 19th, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
We have been having biblical downpours for the last week. It is not that unusual in Southern Louisiana in the summertime, that is how we nourish that thick tropical plant life which looks so beautiful curling around the wrought iron fencing and creating thick foliage everywhere you look. When it gets real hot (another thing which is pretty typical in a Louisiana summertime) and it rains, once the skies lighten the streets steam! It is very romantic to be walking through the French Quarter past antique stores and the ferns are dripping and a light layer of steam rises up from the streets. Over in Uptown in the Garden District where the Sully Mansion Is located, the oak trees overhang the streets forming a lush canopy and after the rain a little six inch coating of steam covers the asphalt. It is like the soft sepia light that falls across the side of the stucco mansions in the late afternoon, it is so beautiful but hard to describe, just something you have to experience. But like everything of beauty, there is often a down side as our streets are known to flood when it really comes down which was the case this Sunday. I went out to play tennis hoping to get a game in in between the raindrops and after ten minutes the sky opened up(again!). We waited for a while under the awning until it just was raining too hard. As I was trying to drive home through the neighborhood of sweet Creole cottages and large bougainvillea plants the roads had become little lakes. Rather than chance it I decide to call my truck driving hero husband to come rescue me. Of course at that point I remembered my phone was on the kitchen counter back at the inn where I left it. Still, I am watching passing cars create wakes down the street I decided to pull the car over and find some nice good Samaritan to let me use their phone, even though I was drenched from head to toe and my sneakers were making that water logged squishy sound when I moved I braved the deluge. I parked the car and only had to walk a few steps where I spied through the rain two men sitting on their porch chatting with each other and watching the rain come down. When I explained what I needed as good New Orleanians, they immediately offered me a phone a towel and a drink! I took them up on all three and passed a half an hour sipping a cocktail with my new friends waiting for my hero husband to arrive. Gotta love this town, flooded streets and all!
Count Down to Jazz Fest
April 26th, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
Remember when you were young and your birthday fell on a weekend and you had decided every element of your party down to the type of icing on your cake and all you had to do is get through the days between now and then? That is sort of how the whole town feels the beginning of the week of the first weekend of Jazz Fest. The weekly newspapers are twice their size with advertisements for Fest Dresses , Fest Hats and music club acts. All the hanging baskets adorning porches throughout the city are overflowing with brightly colored annuals and every restaurant is advertising a Fest special (although all the good places pretty much have all their tables reserved by now ). Even the weather is putting on its Fest best with sunny skies slight breeze and no hint of the wrap around humidity which is right around the corner (maybe Sunday??)The Fest puts out their music schedule of the seven days in which the times are blocked out on a grid and these are affectionately called Fest Cubes which visitors and locals alike study closely trying to map out their time on the Fairgrounds in between the incredible food, second line and Mardi Gras Indian parades which wind their way through the paths between the stages. Out in the coffee shops people are studying the cubes like an Ouija Board. As I bolt around town doing the errands all good innkeepers do I can see New Orleans the way the thousand of visitors who are about to descend see it with its Caribbean colors, intoxicating mix of Palm Trees and live oaks, the faint sound of a trumpet in the background the clop clop of a mule drawn carriage in the foreground against this unique light which makes the sides of buildings look as if they are lit from within and even the blighted wooden shotgun with the faded sign offering hot lunches and p’orboys painted on the side looks magical. And this time of year there is a smell of crawfish cooking mingling with the scent of the confederate jasmine blooming in riotous abandon along every fence. I must admit as much as we love our visitors we do not put this joy for the sense just for you, it is our back drop everyday and we cannot wait to share it with you over the next ten days. Let the Festing begin!
Festival Saturday in New Orleans
April 4th, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
Now I know I am supposed to be a regular blogger, how else do I keep my loyal readers and build up my fan base? But how can a girl both live her life and find time to write about? Delayed recap is the best I think I will be able to do while New Orleans is in full tilt festival mode and the Sully Mansion bed and Breakfast is hopping with guests! This last weekend there was five different festivals to chose from, one in Algiers across the river offering up good eats and gospel music, another at City Park celebrating all flora and fauna of the area culminating with Arts in Bloom in which there are sculptures made of flowers and plants, there was the Jammin’ on Julia down in the Warehouse District where art galleries open at night accompanied by is music and cocktails in the street, or the two we decided to go to, the Fete Francaise which was a fund- raiser for Ecole Bilingue de la Nouvelle-Orléans. It celebrated all things French complete with can-can girls berets galore and delicious food. The photo of the French poodle was taken there. Many French restaurants were offering their bests frites and moules as well as crepes, champagne and fantastic cheeses. The music was an eclectic mix, my favorite was Sunpie Barnes doing a full Cajun set in French. We then moved on to the Feret Street Festiuval which was a one day huge block party with three stages of music, food which spanned the usual po’boys to cucumber and dill smoothies. I had some cerviche which was incredible and flavorful as my friend lam kebob. While the music and art were great what was most exciting was the nine block stretch was with new stores and commerce in a neighborhood which was decimated after Katrina. There are corner doughnut shops, art galleries, dog grooming places and interesting bars and a vibrancy I do remember just four years ago. Some say that Ferret Street may blossom into a vibrant corridor like Magazine Street in a few more years. Yes French Quarter Fest is next week and the Jazz and Heritage Festival in two weeks after that, but it is the smaller little jewel festivals which makes this city so special, so much fun and so hard to find the time to write a blog.
The Jasmine is in Bloom in New Orleans
March 18th, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
It is time to put away the socks and sweaters boys and girls as it is spring in New Orleans and everywhere you walk your olfactory glands are in overload with the scents of jasmine, sweet olive and wisteria. Walking around the Garden District every block brings a different delight, while Gracie goes wild sniffing the sidewalk her trusted walker is following the scent from the vines which wrap around the wrought iron fences and stucco walls. Everything is in bloom from the azaleas to the pansies to the crepe myrtle and the fragrant vines are starting the first of their three blooms from now till August. The sky is robin egg blue and gentle sunshine is everywhere glittering off the Mardi Gras beads dangling from trees left by an exuberant float rider. There is zero humidity and suddenly everyone is out on their porches and sitting in parks, along café tables on Magazine street. There is no better time or place to be than New Orleans in the spring (unless it is New Orleans in the fall!). And did I mention it is the beginning of festival season? Every weekend if it is eating crawfish, watching Tennessee Williams plays, dancing to salsa or listening to Haitian drum circles, or good old N’awlins jazz -there is a festival for that. While most of the country is still looking at that last bit of frozen tundra the March weather has not erased, we are digging out our flip flops all set and ready for fun.
Keeping the New Orleans Music Tradition Alive
NOLA's Loney Planet
We Love a Good Parade
