With half of a king cake still sitting in the pit of my stomach from the night before, the next morning all I wanted out of life was to spend a quiet morning to explore New Orleans, watch the city open her eyes to a rising sun...and digest some of that cake. Stepping gingerly in the dark over tossed shoes and tangled clumps of beads scattered across the floor, I tried to make my way out as quickly and quietly as I possibly could without waking anyone up. It wasn't that I didn't enjoy every minute of the time that I was spending with the five wonderful members of my family of friends who came on this trip with me, it was more that I needed a moment to myself. I didn't want to have to talk about things just to fill quiet voids, which is the case when friends are still getting to know each other in a setting outside of the norm, and I didn't want to talk about me or what I wanted out of life any more than anyone else that early in the morning. I just wanted to think deep thoughts and sit in a state of wonder by myself. Being commissioned as unofficial guide of our trip, I was mentally exhausted trying to please everyone and myself all the time. I just wasn't used to being around so many people ALL of the time either. Even though I live in a big city and I'm surrounded by thousands of people every day, I've also lived alone for the last two years of my life. And, though I grew up in a large family and we were very close, I was, however, the only girl, and so I had a little more space to call my own than my brothers did. There were days when I would be tucked away in my room and the only time anyone would see me was when it was time to eat a meal. I lived in my own world and my bedroom was that sanctuary where I thought up those dreams I had for my life. My parents were the type that worked hard and talked to each other about life and their issues like everyone else, but when it was a conversation meant for their children, it was more about what we should be eating, what we couldn't do or where we couldn't go. I suppose my personality makes a whole lot of sense now. If I can get there now...I'll go. If it's edible and I want to eat it...I will. If I feel like jumping out of a perfectly good airplane or climb the Andes Mountains...I'll do it. But the advice I got from them is always a deciding factor and always up for consideration. Those restrictions and lessons of restraint were not completely lost on me.
My mission to escape didn't work however. For the second morning I've tried to slip away, I got as far as the bathroom before someone woke up and my escape had to be aborted. Luckily, Renee and Allison were the only other people in the room with me so it was a small group and they didn't care how they looked that morning, so we were out of the room in a few minutes time and still managed to experience New Orleans before the rest of the city opened their eyes. I wasn't particularly hungry that morning, but a little coffee and the mention of breakfast still sounded good. I never could say no to the suggestion of food. I'm surprised I didn't walk around wearing extra large shirts everyday. Just a few blocks from the hotel, facing the French Market by the banks of the Mississippi, the three of us found a cozy little sidewalk table at a place called Magnolia Grill. After a waitress came by and handed us menus we contemplated the menu for a few minutes and ended up ordering three different plates we were interested in and shared them between three of us. A few minutes later a man dressed in a cooks apron and dark shades over his eyes came over to hand us our breakfast.
"Good morning ladies."
"Good morning."
"Anything else I can get you?"
With our eyes drooling over a fluffy omelet, pancakes, and something called "lost bread" French toast we thanked the man and dug in.
With arms and hands crissing and crossing to grab some of this and some of that, we ate a little bit of everything and nearly cleaned our plates before our waitress came by to check on us. I had to ask her why the French toast was called "lost bread."
"Actually, I don't know. You should ask David over there." Pointing to the man wearing the sunglasses, now wiping down a chair just a few tables away. Hearing his name he walked over to us with his eyebrows poking over his sunglasses like a crow in mid flight in the distance.
"So David, why do you call it 'lost bread?'"
"Because it's for po' people. You take the old sandwich bread nobody wants, dip it in some vanilla, egg and sugar and throw it on the grill. It's for us po' people."
"Oh, I see. It's delicious."
"Where you girls from?"
"New York."
"You like Elvis?"
"What?! Do I like Elvis? Yesss." I said this like it was the most ridiculous question he could ask me.
"You gotta see the Elvis I have inside."
"Where's my camera? Do I like Elvis? Where is he?"
Like a star struck teenager, I walked after David as he lead me inside to the back of the dining room, as though I was about to be introduced to the king of rock in the flesh. Behind a glass enclosure standing well over six feet tall, was a hand painted, life size statue of Elvis singing into a microphone. Oh my Lord. I was expecting to maybe see a large signed photograph of David with Elvis somewhere on the wall, but when I saw this statue I knew I might have found an even bigger fan of Elvis than I was.
"Wow. Can I get a picture of this with you?"
"Let me get my shades back on."
After a breakfast fit for a king, we head back towards the hotel so the girls could get ready for the day and wake Kayla and Andrew from there slumber before they missed out on the rest of the day. While they were doing that I decided to wander around NOLA on my own for a little while, without feeling like I was dragging anyone along on my geeky explorations. Breaking off from the group I found myself in front of Lalaurie House just around the corner of the hotel on Royal Street. Legend has it that this looming grey mansion, once owned by Nicholas Cage, was built for distinguished French couple, Dr. Leonard Louis Nicolas Lalaurie and his wife Delphine, back in 1832. This couple was known by the town for throwing lavish parties and consorting with the prominent social circles of the day. At the time, roomers traveled about town that she treated her slaves poorly, and that they were painfully thin and appeared terrified of their mistress. In April of 1836, after a fire broke out at the residence, neighbors and firemen rushed in to extinguish the flames and save as much of the contents as they could, finding several half-starved and manacled slaves with one chained to the very stove where the fire was said to have started. When the town found out about Lalaurie's treatment of the slaves a mob arrived intent on destroying the place but the Lalauries managed to escape unharmed, possibly to Paris. Man, I need to learn how they did that? I'm a lousy escape artist. Later the large home was turned into a conservatory of music, a gaming house, then a private residence. People still say that they can sometimes hear strange sounds coming from the house when no one is home. Who knows what they really hear? Although I didn't really believe it was haunted, it still seemed creepy to be standing in front of the building knowing what happened inside those walls. Nicholas Cage–what were you thinking? If I was a tortured slave and died in a house that was set on fire, that would be the last place on earth I would want to roam around aimlessly after living a life of misery. I'd wander about someone's beachfront property, possibly next to a nude beach, or hang out with Elvis at Graceland for a while. Those old souls have it all wrong. They really should get out of their old ways and move on.
Eventually, I found myself under the shade of a tree along the black iron fence surrounding Jackson Square. I was drawn by the sound of music drifting to me on the wind. I stood watching the people of New Orleans in front of the beautiful St. Louis Cathedral, the oldest continuously operating cathedral in the United States. It almost looked like Cinderella's castle at Disney World if you stood at the other end of Jackson Square to look at it. Scattered around the outskirts of the old square sat workers on benches taking their lunch breaks, many of them not even eating, just listening to the gypsy jazz musicians next to them as a cool breeze brushed the heat of the sun from our warm faces. It was such an enchanting moment; so calming, so mellow and dream-like. Ah, alone at last. This is the pace I like to travel. Always going, but also taking the time to let things soak in too. Traveling with others has its attributes. You have more of a sense of security, you don't get as lonely when you go for long periods of time and it's nice to have someone to guide you back to your hotel room if you find you had one too many drinks or someone to hold your hair back if you had way too many drinks. However, the down side is that it can be difficult to do things like this...sit quietly on street corner just watching and listening to the people around me, and wander with no particular place to go. It wasn't even noon and the city was alive with music on a Thursday morning. Doesn't get any better than this.
With another rendezvous at the Lafayette Cemetery before our lunch reservation, together with my five little duckies, we head out on another trek down St. Charles towards the Garden District. Thankfully, because it was hours before any of the parades rolled through town again, the streetcars were running and we caught one just as soon as we reached the closest stop. I had been wanting to ride this particular streetcar since we got to New Orleans and now I was finally on the streetcar named Desire. That's right, this was the same line and trolley model streetcar that Mr. Tennessee Williams named his famed play, Streetcar Named Desire, after. Shortly after moving to New Orleans at the age of twenty-eight, Tennessee fell in love with this city and began writing his famed play, loosely based on the bobbled relationship of his own parents. In his day, however, the St. Charles streetcar line once ran through the French Quarter down Bourbon Street, all the way to Desire Street in the lower Ninth Ward. And Desire Street was actually named in homage to one of Napoleon's fiancées who went by the name of Désirée Clary. Not the same spelling, but close enough. Sitting in the streetcar at caterpillar pace down St. Charles, I couldn't help but imagine a handsome young Marlon Brando on bended knees ripping his shirt in agony and screaming out "Marrrrccccyyyy!" A girl could dream. Where's that kind of passion these days? I can't imagine a single guy in New York ever doing that outside of my forth floor walk-up after a fight. It would be more like, "screw this bitch, I'm outta here." Then halfway down the block he'd probably flip through his contacts list and call some girl named Veronica he might have met at a club he went to last week with his pals. "Yo, girl. What you up to tonight?"
Walking into the Lafayette Cemetery was like walking onto the movie set of Double Jeopardy for me. I had seen that movie so many times as a young twenty I knew exactly what this place was like before I ever actually saw it. It could have very well been filmed at any one of the similar cemeteries in New Orleans, but they were one and the same...creepy and fascinating at the same time. Wandering the walkways between rows of raised tombs, like houses on city streets, I couldn't help but picture the skeletal remains of the poor souls that were mere inches away from my face, behind thin layers of brick and mortar. Most of these people had died within the same few months or years of each other due to a yellow fever epidemic that spread throughout the city during the mid-nineteenth century. In 1853 alone, nearly eight thousand people died of the disease. I couldn't even imagine what this city was like in that year, but there in that cemetery lied the evidence of that terrible loss. Of course, we didn't let it get us down for more than a few minutes before we began taking morbid pictures of each other levitating between the crumbling crypts and decayed corpses around us. David Blain is not the only master of optical illusion you know.
At the Lafayette Cemetery, the girls and I changed from our flip-flops to high heels and with Andrew as our male escort, we head over to Commander's Palace across the street for a two o'clock reservation. Nick decided to opt out, whether it was because he was intimidated or he wasn't particularly hungry at the time, I don't know, but it was down to five of us when we got to the restaurant. I was a little nervous about this place, not because it looked pricey and a little upper class for us, but more because I was afraid that my friends would end up resenting me for suggesting a place I've never been to before, gambling on food that could end up tasteless, the portions too small and overpriced, or the service experience lousy. They would never trust another suggestion I had to offer again. It wasn't until we got there that I realized that some of them had never eaten fine dining before. That's when I got excited about this decision. How have you never eaten fine dining before?
When I was a little girl, my father would sometimes take my younger brothers and I to the bistro where he managed. I loved watching him busy around the kitchen and dining room, setting up for breakfast and lunch while the wait staff cooed and coddled us like we were Al Pachino's children. Having started as a dishwasher thirty-two years ago, my father slowly climbed the culinary ladder to cook status, head chef and then management. Whether he knew it or not, my father taught me everything about the restaurant business I know today. Watching him work I learned managerial procedures, gracious hospitality, proper dining etiquette, what made a good chef, manager and waiter. Little did either of us know that even with a college degree I would end up spending most of my adult life working under people just like him, but always feeling most at home in a restaurant than anywhere else in the blue-collar world. Although I've never actually enjoyed being a waitress, I love being in a restaurant setting and I believe it's due to growing up with my father. In a social setting, there is nothing more enjoyable to me than sitting in a fine restaurant with friends, eating great food and having a professional wait staff cater to our every culinary need. Eating in an environment like the Commander's Palace was certainly a luxury we only got to experience when we attended fancy weddings together, but from my father's line of work at the bistro, I quickly learned to appreciate the art of culinary cuisine and fanfare.
When we entered the lavish restaurant, the maître d' lead the five of us, down a hall and through the open kitchen. It almost felt like we were on a tour or granted special access to an area reserved for clientele who wanted to dine in a private setting. In the kitchen, at least eight men and women dressed in clean white chef's coats and hats chopped, stirred, sautéed and grilled all kinds of delicious and colorful foods with as much ease as someone lathering sun tan lotion at the beach. It was the most harmony I think I've ever seen in a kitchen setting. I was in awe. From what I saw from my friend's expressions, they too looked just as fascinated as I did. So far, so good. Surrounding the kitchen were large glass doors and windows that overlooked a courtyard where natural light flood the room and bounced off of shining pots and pans everywhere. It could have possibly been one of the many factors that set the mood in the kitchen. There's nothing like feeling as though you were still a part of the outside world when you could still see it while you worked. Talk about an office with a view. Through the beautiful courtyard dressed with tables and chairs under large oak trees rustling in the wind and a small manicured garden to the right, the maître d' continued to lead us into the next building which held one of seven dining rooms at the palace and overlooked the courtyard and kitchen across the way. At a large round table in a corner by matching windows, our group sat and studied the menu like an exam, our eyes watered as much as our mouths reading the colorful descriptions of the food options before us. Satisfied with our choices and cocktails in hand, we toasted our friendship and patiently waited for our food.
Like a conga-line, one behind the other, three waiters carrying our food carefully placed them in front of us and walked away. In silence, we stared at the works of art in front of us, inhaling the savory scents drifting up to meet our noses, having no clue what to do with it first...frame it, paint it, eat it? It was too beautiful to disturb but too appetizing not too. When our waiter appeared before us and asked how everything looked, in perfect unison, Allison, Andrew, Renee and Kayla clapped their hands together and with big grins on their faces chanted, "Hurcules, Hurcules, Hurcules." I had never seen the Eddy Murphy hit, The Nutty Professor, but I've seen previews and heard the quote a million times before. Apparently, for reason's I'm not quite sure of, this came to everyone's mind in that exact moment and from the beaming smiles on their faces, I could safely assume that this was a good thing. So I was relieved, if not slightly embarrassed by their enthusiasm when the rest of the dining room looked at us like we came from the zoo. I think the waiter was just as lost as I was, but entertained non-the-less. I really need to see this movie. I feel left out.
After eating an amazing plate of crusted haddock and fresh French Market vegetables drizzled with some kind of sauce I couldn't even begin to describe, I thought I had tasted the best this place had to offer. However, when it came time for dessert and the waiter came over with an order of Creole bread pudding soufflé, I was the one making a scene. As the waiter placed the warm soufflé in front of Allison and I, he continued to dip a creamy vanilla custard into the center of the dessert and I think I accidentally let out a moan because as the waiter went in to drop more of that custard into the pudding, he grinned and said, "take it easy girls," and that's when I closed my gapping mouth before I let out a sigh and lit a cigarette. Oh my Lord, that bread pudding ruined all bread puddings I'll ever have in the future. We enjoyed the whole experience so much we ended up sitting in the courtyard for another hour, sipping our twenty-five cent happy-hour cocktails laughing under the canopy of trees above our heads. We were just not ready to let go yet.
Before the parades started down St. Charles, we took a walk through the Garden District and ended up in the same spot we were the day before. In front of the St. Charles Bar we found the same DJ but the crowd surrounding him was a little younger this time. More like seven years old young. With the theme of the parade having to do with knights and jesters and the floats being drawn by horses and mules, it made sense that parents would take their children to see the Knights of Babylon versus the Krewe of Ancient Druids that rolled through the day before. I don't know if it was that Wednesday's parades were better, it was our first Mardi Gras parade, or it was the younger crowd, but Thursday's parades seemed a little somber in comparison. However, two parades later, we had more beads and flashing pendants than we knew what to do with. It helps when you're taller than the seven year olds surrounding you. Marching down St. Charles jangling our beads with every step, we head back towards the French Quarter and Allison and I, never tired of listening to some good Jazz, found ourselves back at Maison Bourbon and the Frenchman Street scene while the rest of the crew explored the other side of Bourbon Street.
There's just something about Frenchman Street that feels like a magnet to me. That area, just outside of tourist grounds, where the locals all like to meet, is a whole different world. This Bohemian side of New Orleans seems so beautiful to me because it's based around a collected affection for the same attachment, the sound of jazz. These people come here to play, listen and dance to the same tune and the players are good at it, REALLY good at it. When these musicians play their instruments, it's as though they're releasing some sort of load off of their shoulders, or stepping into a warm bath. Walking down Frenchman and seeing the gypsy jazz bands play on the sidewalk, surrounded by their friends, is like the social settings you might see anywhere else, but instead of people having conversations with each other, they're playing and singing to one another like they were living a musical. Inside the Spotted Cat, the same club we were in the night before, the local crowd was even bigger than the night before but it had a more intimate a setting. As the kids spun around doing their swing dances and the six piece jazz band played their instruments, Allison and I sat in the background watching everyone and it almost felt like we crashed someone's party. I suppose it was something like when Jennifer Gray's character from the much-loved film, Dirty Dancing, came unauthorized as Patrick Swayze's guest to an after hours staff party. This scene was like that but without the dirty in the dancing and it was a band, not 80's pop music blasting over a stereo. We bought the band's CD before we left, contributing something to keep the music alive and take something of the scene back with us to New York but I couldn't help but feel a little jealous that I was a tourist instead of a native there. I could have get used to a place like that.
On the way back to the hotel, buzzed on life and the music culture scene, we came across two middle-aged men, one stumbling more than the other. Apparently, we weren't the only ones out late.
"Does he look convincing?" the sober of the two asked me.
"I don't know, what is he trying to convince you of?"
"That he's not drunk and can walk a straight line."
"In that case...no."
"See, she agrees with me."
"Sorry, I sold you out. Happy Mardi Gras," I told his drunken friend.
"–appy, –ardi gars."
To be continued...
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