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!
Posts Tagged ‘bed and breakfast’
NOLA Summer Rain
July 19th, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
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.
Be an Eight year old for Mardi Gras
March 3rd, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
The parades for Carnival season have started, not the mega ones with the flambeaux and two story floats but the mid size ones with their masked kings throwing dublooms and riders throwing beads. The big ones start this evening with the Krewes of Chaos, Babylon and Muses, they start at 6 and should be rolling by our corner starting around 6:30 and going through most of the evening. Even though I have bags and bags of beads in the attic (and not the plain ones made in china either but the ones of Elvis in various stages of his career, or dolphins strung between turquoise beads or my personal favorite of monkey heads with banana beads ) and I have no use for the stuffed animals they throw as our dog Gracie reverts back to the behavior she has seen on Animal Kingdom and destroys the cute little thing in three seconds flat and the stuffing gets all over the floor, and it is a huge mess with the little eyes rolling under table. As I said I have no need of any of this but the parade float gets nearer, the crowd moves closer to the street and everyone’s hands go up and we actually do yell “THROW ME SOMETHING MISTER” and all bets of off, you wait to time it correctly, make eye contact with the masked rider on the float and get that one handed catch of beads, or the savior grab as you see a clump of beads heading for some unsuspecting spectator who took their eye off the float to grab a quick sip of beer and you deflect them into your own hands, or you and the stranger next to you both catch the beads mid air, you both tug towards your own bodies, there is a small moment of tension between you and this stranger, you wrestle the beads away, victory! and then, in true Mardi Gras fashion, turn to the stranger with whom you have been tugging against a few nanoseconds ago and hand them the beads and wish them (as we do to you ) Happy Mardi Gras.
Artists in New Orleans
February 15th, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
When we first moved to New Orleans to run the Sully Mansion
As sample of the art displayed at the Sully Mansion
we hung up the art we had collected and the walls looked incredibly bare. Of course we had moved from a basic three bedroom house to a 8 guest room B&B with fourteen foot ceilings so of course we had some trouble filling up the wall space. We realized that there is an incredibly vibrant visual art scene in New Orleans that not enough people knew about. So slowly we started to meet artists and those whose work we loved and were not showing in a gallery we offered up our walls for them to display their talent. That was four years and over fifteen artist ago. We are proud to have sold many pieces of original Louisiana themed art to our guest, introduce them to local talent and have beautiful things to look at all at the same time. We just got two new pieces by an artist names Stacey Milliken who does wonderful New Orleans street scenes out of glass mosaics. We hung one in our dining rooms and it make me smile every time I walk in the room. The art shown is from another artist we have here Shaun Aleman who does funky colorful cutouts of shotgun houses, king cake babies and pelicans. So many people know about our music and food but they often have no idea that there is a rich and engaging art world in the Crescent City and we are so proud to be a part of it.
New Orleans Musicians are Back in Town!
January 31st, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
Almost every Friday morning as our guests gather around the table the conversation turns to everyone’s plan for the day/weekend and of course this being New Orleans, going to hear music is high on everyone’s list. We pull out the newspaper and listings in the Offbeat magazine and begin to plot individualized music adventures. You like Dixieland- well we are probably sending you to Fritzel’s on Bourbon street, populated by European ex-patriot jazz musicians who transport you effortless back to the 1940’s. You want traditional blues in a nightclub setting, either the Royal Sonesta for Irvin Mayfield’s playhouse or the Ritz Carrolton to hear Jeremy Davenport. (There is the added bonus of midnight burlesque at Mayfield’s) Up for a little zydeco? Wish you would have told us the day before because Thursday is Zydeco night at the Rock n Bowl but we are sure to find something else. Love slide guitar? Maybe John Mooney is playing at Chickee Wah Wah, anyway you get the idea. This Friday morning we were absolutely amazed at how many fabulous New Orleans musicians were in town and playing at all the local clubs. We are six weeks out from Mardi Gras, it is cloudy and in the 50’s so we know it is not spring time and the Festival season, maybe all these talented folks from Kermit Ruffin to Anders Osbourne to Eric Lindell to Shamar Allen decided it was time to come home for a little bit. We sent one to hear our new favorite Ben Lablatt and the Happy Devils, another to John Boutee and a third to Big Sam’s Funky Nation, once again top quality a little something for everyone’s tastes. So, if you are fed up with the snow in the east and the blowing wind in the mid-west and the non ending rain on the west coast, come on down, it is hot hot hot and full of music here in New Orleans!
Eating in New Orleans
January 21st, 2011 by Nancy Fournier
We love to eat and that does not make us unusual residents in New Orleans, maybe in Paris and San Francisco does going out to eat make up such a large part of one’s social activity. There are definitely a zillion restaurants in New York City but I think that is because everyone’s kitchen is so small. Here dining whether it is classical Creole with white table cloths or elbows propped up on oilcloth munching a fully dressed oyster po-boy food consumes a great deal of time, attention and delight. Most of our guests come for the music and the food and we love talking to them about both. In fact we have our own four page list of favorite places to eat we provide our guests when they arrive. Our website lists our most favorites all within walking distance of our inn. We take pride in our list, revising it every few months (they disappear – guest take them when they leave which is the sincerest form of flattery) and I take as much enjoyment adding a new found treasure as I do taking off one which may have a great reputation but we just don’t find the food special enough or the staff attentive enough to make it on our list. Changing the list meets my need as a frustrated food critic, and we try to have a good sample for those who are headed up to Tulane, down to the Quarter or strolling the streets of Uptown. Now don’t misunderstand me, the demands of inn keeping and the fact that it does get pricey to eat out all the time, we do not get to sample all the choices nearly often enough- but there is one place which is on short top twenty fabulous places we went to last night after all the guests were taken care of and all the chores were done. The lines were not as long as we sometime find them and the choices were abundant and seasonal. After hemming and hawing and a long discussion with the server and a few samples I settled on the malt mocha chip and Guy had the salty caramel. I cannot be convinced that an ice cream parlor does not belong on a list of great places to eat! The Creole Creamery is in an old drug store a half a mile up the road from the Sully Mansion Bed and Breakfast and the 1950’ neon McKenzie’s sign still hangs out front. With selections like Creole Cream Cheese, Steen’s Molasses Cookie, Mexican Hot Chocolate and Salty Smoked Chocolate Almond, the ice cream is rich, inventive and flavorful. They have seasonal specials like blood orange sorbet and in the summer they are well known for both their dill and cinnamon ice cream. Old, young, rich, not so rich, black, white, the place is always mobbed with customers peering intently over the counter to make their choices and they can savor their ice cream inside or on benches on the street. If you cannot decide they have four and six scoop samplers and for the really gluttonous among us you can order the Tchoupitoulus with eight scoops and four toppings. If you finish it all (by yourself) they take your picture and put it up on their hall of fame.
Yes there is a place for blacken redfish and bar b que shrimp and stuffed mirlton but between the bread pudding and beignets rich delicious ice cream stands on its own and I know just the right place to get it!
New Orleans’ Ten Best
December 31st, 2010 by Nancy Fournier
It seems every magazine and newspaper article has their selected ten best lists of 2010 today so while I am waiting for the guests to come down for breakfast I decided to compile my own 10 best New Orleans personal experiences in 2010.
1. Fishing for redfish in Barataria Bay – A month after they capped the well in the Gulf ad some spots were open for fishing, we decided to support our local charter boat captains and spent the day out on the water catching redfish. They were plentiful and shimmering in the water and delicious to eat!
2. Listening to roosters’ crow on an early morning in the Marigny- We stayed with friends in the Fauborg Marigny (the neighborhood to the east of the French Quarter) who have a large backyard garden. Sitting with coffee in hand in the diffused morning sun we heard roosters throughout the neighborhood and it brought me back to times in the Dominican Republic. We really are the northern most Caribbean country!
3. Treme at Treme- Going to the Treme Gumbo Festival and seeing Wendall Pierce and Clark Peters from the HBO Treme series there eating gumbo and dancing to Shamar Allen like the rest of us.
4. Beignets at café Du Monde- Yes a touristy thing to do but something every local enjoys every once in a while. Our son and girlfriend were visiting, the sun was shining the café au lait was perfect and the powdered sugar five inches deep, good company and yummy beignets.
5. Marching with the Krewe of Dead Pelicans- when the BP oil spill happened we all felt so angry and helpless and worked out our frustration with a good old New Orleans parade complete with costumes and a brass band.
6. Attending the Burlesque Review- New Orleans hosts a national burlesque competition in the fall. Curious about how burlesque is making a resurgence we went to the final night review showcasing the winners of the competition, while I enjoyed the acts, it was the merchandise in the lobby I really loved, who knew there so many versions of fishnets and pasties existed?
7. Wearing my Saints shirt every Sunday- I never really rooted for a team before and living in New Orleans in 2010 means you are a Saints fan. Everyone dresses on game day and you cannot go anywhere without seeing folks in saints shirts, and that includes nurses working in the hospital, wearing them under their scrubs. I sport my “12” Colston jersey with pride and feel part of something larger than myself on game day.
8. Listening to Kermit Ruffins rehearse with a full orchestra swing band – We made the rounds on my birthday and one stop was at the Mid City Rock and Bowl (dance hall and bowling alley for the uninitiated) and before the show we went in and listened to my favorite trumpeter play and croon songs from the 1940’s, even took a spin on the dance floor!
9. Surrounded by tubas- Tuba Fats was one of New Orleans most famous tuba players and they had a second line for him this year at the jazz and Heritage Festival with all the best tuba players in the city participating. I don’t know how but I ended up in the middle of them as we marched throughout the Fairgrounds, tubas as far as the eye could see and the swell of their music, it was like marching in the midst of musical elephants.
10. Landing a Drew Brees football during the Bacchaus Mardi Gras Parade- Long story, suffice it to say there were crowds, Superbowl champions , Saturday before Mardi Gras and Drew Brees throwing plastic footballs to the crowd. I am my far the smallest and most sober of those around me, but when the smoke cleared, we have a keepsake on our mantle! Here’s hoping for a wonderful 2011 and Two dat to all!
Christmas Shopping in New Orleans
December 16th, 2010 by Nancy Fournier
Yes Christmas is coming and there is baking and shopping to be done as well as parties to attend. If most of the country is finding their bundles for under the tree on line or at the mall, here is New Orleans we prefer to perform our elf duties at street festivals. After all our guests were settled on their activities for the day, Guy and I spent the entire Saturday going from one street festival to another to get our fill of presents, music and of course food. We started at the Kingpin Christmas Fair which is a small little watering hole
a few blocks from the inn, described in Zagats as one of the greatest dive bars in the city.. Every December they host an art market for the holidays, it is strange to enter a bar (the contrast from a bright sunny day to the dark diffuse light of a dive bar was a novel Christmas shopping experience!) and see handmade masks and pottery on the bar and hand painted purses next to the jukebox. My favorite this year were necklaces made of zippers fashioned as flower petals and rosebuds. A friend of ours was selling her small ceramic dolls which looked like a cross between Mexican Day of the Dead figures and Toulouse Lautrec dancers. Very bohemian and perhaps a bit much for early Saturday afternoon so we headed to Ferret street for their annual Ferrestivus a fusion of art market, libations and music. So many wonderful crafts to choose from, I particularly loved the antique leather fingerless gloves refashioned through a batik tea stain and small rosettes at the wrist made from the fingers. There were beautiful ceramics and soaps and heavenly jewelry. Strolling through the aisles to the sounds of the Free Agent Brass band, munching on a tasty cochon du lait po-boy and sipping fresh spiced tea. There is a friendly neighborhood vibe there and everything to hand rolled tamales to Christmas wreaths done up in black and gold in honor of the Saints. 
We then headed down to the Treme Gumbo Festival which is put on by the Jazz and Heritage Foundation. Again more Christmas present possibilities (we picked up a 2008 Jazz Festival tote bag for $5, what a bargain) and admired the blown glass pelicans. The highlight of the festival is the multiple samplings of gumbo available and the music. We arrived in time to hear Shamar Allen and Kermit Ruffins play. Fabulous music and food all for free. While catching up with friends and the gumbo and music was great the highlight was seeing Wendell Pierce and Clark Peters both featured actors on the HBO series Treme. How perfect to see the cast of Treme in Treme! That was all we wanted for Christmas. Beats a day at the mall anyday!
Keeping the New Orleans Music Tradition Alive
NOLA's Loney Planet
We Love a Good Parade
