The Elysian Bar, New Orleans

The Elysian Bar in New Orleans has been open for about a year.  The Elysian Bar is part of the Peter and Paul Hotel.  The Peter and Paul Hotel is situated in the rectory, convent, school, and church building of the former Saints Peter and Paul Parish in the Marigny neighborhood of New Orleans, Louisiana.  The hotel has about 70 rooms.  It has been named one of the top hotels in the world by Travel + Leisure magazine.  If you want to hang out in a hotel bar, the Elysian Bar is a nice choice.  I've been there more than once.

The napkin at The Elysian Bar

I usually go to the Elysian Bar when it's slow.  Summer afternoons are a great time to visit the Elysian Bar.  The bar opens at 10:30AM and it closes at 12:00AM.  Apertivo Hour is from 3:00-6:00PM daily.  These times come from their website.  I haven't verified all of them personally. 

I don't mind talking to guests who are staying in large hotels.  I know that hotels of 70 rooms are not considered large---they are boutique.  I live in New Orleans.  

If I were visiting New Orleans, I don't think I'd go out of my way to meet people from Peoria that I'll never see again.  You can do that anywhere in the French Quarter or on Frenchmen Street or in any hotel bar.  When the first thing that someone asks you is, "So where are you folks from?" you know you are in tourist New Orleans, not in the part of the city where people live.  There is more to New Orleans than you will read in any guidebook. 

It is very nice inside The Elysian Bar.  The snug interior doesn't feel claustrophobic because of the interior architecture and design.  You'll find a lot of yellow.

The Elysian Bar.

The Elysian Bar is a cocktail bar.  Fine wines and fine cocktails.  There is a curated (small) selection of canned and bottled beer.  I'm sure you can order a rum and coke if you really want it, but it's not gonna be Capt. Morgan.  Most people at The Elysian Bar order a spritz drink or a cocktail with an arbitrary name they've never heard of.  It'll all be good.  They have a lot of ingredients.

They have celery bitters.

My favorite flavor of bitters, even better than Peychaud.

If I were staying at the Peter and Paul Hotel, I would go to The Elysian Bar more often.  As it is, I go when I'm in the neighborhood.  It's an experience.  The locks on the bathroom doors are like on airplanes.  When you slide the bolt inside the bathroom door, a wheel on the outside changes from vacant to occupied.  No one ever has to knock.

I will say that I think The Elysian Bar is in the best of its class.  Once you walk onto the premises you'll realize why there is no other bar like it, not only in New Orleans but in the world.  It is one of a kind.  The atmosphere is comfortable and cozy, classy.  The drinks are excellent.  Try it.  You'll like it.  When you've had enough of it, there is a whole wide wonderful city waiting for you.

This is not a paid endorsement.

A word from our blog's sponsor:  

A hotel with 70 rooms is a small hotel, especially in New Orleans.  There are 36,000 hotel rooms in the city of New Orleans, not counting the suburbs.  La Belle Esplanade is a microscopic in our market.  We only have five suites in a colorful mansion on a beautiful street.  Our hotel is tiny and artisanal, with hospitality on a craft level.  The best New Orleans memories are made when you make La Belle Esplanade the headquarters for your adventure.

Each of our five suites has a sitting room, a bed room, a private bath with clawfoot tub, and a private balcony.  You can't be afraid of color.  La Belle Esplanade is located close to the things tourists want to see in every direction but it is also in a real neighborhood where you can visit New Orleans like you belong here.  Make yourself at home in style.

Ranked the #1 inn in New Orleans since April 2014 by TripAdvisor, La Belle Esplanade has also been called #2 in the U.S., and #16 in the world, having won the Travelers' Choice Award twice, back-to-back.  Go to our website, see what we have to offer.  There is tourist New Orleans and there is real New Orleans.  You belong here.  

No Name Business

A photo from our new website

When's our new website going to be ready?  I'm told next week.  So much for 30 days.  I've done my part.

I've been putting off writing a new entry for our illustrious blog because it's going to be moved to a new address.  It's going to be directly on our website, which has its advantages for SEO reasons.  [See here for my opinion of SEO.]

We're going to be switching to a Wordpress template.  I'm told I'm going to love it.  So far I'm less than thrilled because I'm itching to get started.  I don't know what's taking so long.  

So, instead of writing today's installment on Wordpress, I'm lounging around the New Orleans Odditarium sipping on A Fifth of Beethoven":



Who doesn't love Walter Murphy?  Here's a fun fact: just like Walter Murphy, your humble narrator's father worked briefly for Korvette's before moving to greener pastures.  

Today's installment is merely filler, a website update, not that anyone particularly cares about our software provider woes.  

Frau Schmitt and I have had all sorts of adventures willy-nilly all over New Orleans.  I'd love to share them with you but they'll have to wait.  I know the anticipation is killing you, just like that Heinz Ketchup commercial.  ---If you don't know what I'm talking about with that allusion, ask me about it over breakfast.  

In the meantime, I've got a meeting scheduled with the New Orleans No Name Club.  The club is interested in using our back gardens as a meeting place in the summer.  In the winter, they'd like permission to use the lobby.  We're going to negotiate terms this afternoon in the Pipkin Room at the Rib Room.  If that sentence doesn't make any sense to you, well, you've never been to the secret dining areas hidden in the Rib Room.  

Well, those links should keep you occupied for awhile.  Don't say I didn't give you much today.  I let other pages do the heavy lifting for me, instead.  After all, I'm off on important business---No Name business!

Frau Schmitt and I are waving to you in this picture

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade
...where every morning is a curated breakfast salon.

Some Funny Things Happened in New Orleans Today

The Daily Double

Frau Schmitt and I went to the theater this afternoon.  A funny thing happened on our way to 'A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.'

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is currently playing at Le Petit Théâtre du Vieux Carré in the French Quarter and your humble narrator and his missus had matinee tickets.  In case you don't know, the play originally opened on Broadway in 1962 and, if my memory serves me correctly, it won seven Tony Awards during its first run.  

Le Petit Théâtre is connected to Dickie Brennan's Tableau, a pretty swanky restaurant where my mother likes to hang out for a mid-afternoon cocktail when she's in town.  Frau Schmitt and I got to the bar in Tableau just as happy hour had started (2-6 daily) so we ordered French 75s for $5 apiece and a small cheese platter before the show.

The bartender complimented us for being sharp dressers, which, compared to the crowd that was in there at the time, I suppose we are.  I struck up a conversation with the bartender.  "Tell me if this story sounds familiar," I said.

"During this past Mardi Gras I was here with my mother, who likes to pop in here when she's in town.  Later that very same day, we were at Buffa's on Esplanade Avenue and you sat right behind us."

"I remember that," the bartender said.

I added, "Then your roommate met you there and a couple from out of town wanted to watch the game on TV and they shared your table with you and he watched the game and she talked to you the whole time."

"You're right," the bartender said, "aannnnd---you bought me a root beer!"  High five.  It was a bottle of Barq's.

"That was sure was one night to remember," I said and we all nodded and smiled wistfully off into the distance.

Our trip down memory lane was interrupted by the television.  Jeopardy was on the TV and you'll never guess what the Daily Double was under the heading "Posh Hostelries."

The Daily Double

I'm not going to lie to you and say that everyone in the room shouted out, "La Belle Esplanade!" in unison.  Only about half the locals in the room did and about three quarters of those didn't phrase their response in the form of a question so they were disqualified.  

Let's just say we're starting to get a reputation around town, and I don't mean that in a bad way.  Quite the opposite.

After polishing off our cheese and libations, we watched the show.  It deserved every Tony.  Reading the program before the lights went down, I told Frau Schmitt, who, being German, is sometimes unfamiliar with The Great American Songbook, that we could look forward to two classic songs.  One was 'Comedy Tonight.'  The other was 'Everybody Ought to Have a Maid.'



It was a great rendition of Everybody Ought to Have a Maid.  I know all the words even though you'll never hear me whistling the tune as I putter around the house, myself.

During the last chorus, the woman sitting next to me elbowed me in the ribs.  It wasn't Frau Schmitt; it was the woman sitting on the other side of me, in seat 105.  "I bet this song makes you think of Tammie the Housekeeper, eh?" she whispered to me.

I was taken aback and I told her so.  "Tammie the Housekeeper is not our maid.  She's the housekeeper, from a long line of housekeepers.  It's an honorable profession and she's darned good at it, too," I said.

Tammie the Housekeeper

"I didn't mean any offense," the lady replied.

"None taken, then," I answered and we shook hands in the dark.  With that out of the way, everyone proceeded to enjoy the rest of the show. 

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum is playing at Le Petit Théâtre until June 5.  If you're in town, we recommend you go see it.  

There was also a second line parade, a music festival on Bayou St. John, and a bicycle parade down Esplanade Avenue today.  That's just what happened within a mile of our house.  I can't speak for what was going on in the rest of the city.  When you live in New Orleans, you don't have to travel far to find some culture.  Culture is all around us, thick as a termite swarm in May.  It is thick as Maw-Maw's roux.  It is thick as the egg cream on top of a Ramos Gin Fizz.

Whether you are from Paris, France; New York, NY; West Terre Haute, IN; Wewoka, OK; Bumbleton, NH; Staffordshire, England; Milano, Italia; San Francisco, CA, or Ridgefield, CT, you'll find something that will suit your fancy in New Orleans, LA.  

Use your good intuition.  Stay at La Belle Esplanade.

À votre santé nous amis,
La Belle Esplanade
...where every morning is a curated New Orleans breakfast salon.

Just Breathe in New Orleans

La Belle Esplanade

We just had some business cards made with that photo.

The following song is today's sound track.  You don't need to watch the video, which I find moronic, but the song encapsulates the way events unwound today as I went about my errands around our neighborhood.  It's not all brass bands and shrimp po' boys in New Orleans.



People ask what we do in our spare time.  Frau Schmitt and our dog compete in agility trials in which they navigate obstacle courses and win ribbons.  Our dog is quite the athlete, without an ounce of fat on him.  Frau Schmitt keeps in pretty good shape herself, too.

As for your humble narrator.  I breathe.  I also read old Gallup poll findings.  Let's look at the results of a poll released on December 23, 1950.

Question #1:

"Do you think that 50 years from now [in the far flung year of 2000AD] trains and airplanes will be run by atomic power?"
Yes.................63%
No..................20%
No opinion.....17%

Question #2:

"Do you think that a cure for cancer will be found within the next 50 years [by the far-flung future year of 2000AD]?"
Yes................88%
No..................7%
No opinion.....5%

"Do you think that men in rockets will be able to reach the moon within the next 50 years?"
Yes.................15%
No..................70%
No opinion.....15%

So much for prognostication.  

Here's one last question from that survey:

"Do you think that 66 years from now New Orleans, Louisiana will still be the most magical city in America, better than ever, even though the city was completely evacuated after a federal levee failure in 2010 and there was a national discussion about whether there should even be an attempt to rebuild New Orleans after the biggest disaster to hit a major American city?"
Yes...............88%
No................12%
No opinion.....0%

Maybe sometimes the people's intuition is right.  When you are in New Orleans, just breathe.  Let New Orleans become a part of you. You can't go wrong when you are in New Orleans.  When New Orleans breathes, the world is a good place.  Dance like nobody is watching.

Wanna know where you can stay?

You can stay at:
La Belle Esplanade
...where every morning is a curated breakfast salon.

As of today, we've ranked the #1 lodging experience on Trip Advisor in New Orleans, and in all of Louisiana, for 25 months in a row.  We're not really keeping track, but we are still counting.  Be a New Orleanian, wherever you are.

Crawfish New Orleans Style

You can spot the skunk ape behind the bush

Let's take a look of an idealized French Quarter for a few minutes.  Yes, we're back to our Elvis marathon...




I wish someone would call me King Creole, but I'm from Connecticut so that's never going to happen.

Do vendors wander the French Quarter streets in mule carts singing about crawfish nowadays?  No.  Nor do they sell gumbo from a hand-pulled cart or carry baskets on their heads as they tout their wares to all who can hear.  It's a myth.  It was a myth in 1958 when Elvis came to New Orleans to shoot a movie.

Played at a theater near you

According to the film's plot, after Elvis' character's mother died and his father lost his job as a pharmacist, the impoverished family moved to the French Quarter.  Let me tell you something: today, there are very few, if any, impoverished families living in the French Quarter.  The Quarter has some of the priciest real estate in New Orleans.  A lot of it is rented out on AirB&B.

I'm not going to recap the whole plot of King Creole.  It makes about as much sense as anything in New Orleans does.  The movie is one part folderol, one part balderdash, one part myth-making, another part of nostalgia, and a dollop of sentimentality.  Toss in a  dash of bitters and the whole shebang makes for a satisfying and toe-tapping cocktail.  Sounds like any day here, really.  That's why Frau Schmitt and I love where we live.  All the world's a stage...etc.  Etcetera.

Frau Schmitt is usually right about these things.

Does a remix add any value to the original?



Regular readers already know that your humble narrator has established a reputation as being an old fuddy-duddy.  I'm not so interested in the myth and the overall narrative and the cotton candy and the pecan pie on the other side of the levee.   I just enjoy wandering our city on foot, saying hello to everyone I encounter along the way, engaging in idle chitchat and learning some actual news from the street.  We live in an amazing city.  I could make up stories about what I do every day but the prosaic truth of my errands and to-and-fro are profound and entertaining enough.

We really do live in an amazing city.  We don't eat crawfish everyday.  We don't eat jambalaya or gumbo or barbecue shrimp every day.  We do eat well, though.  In New Orleans, it is almost impossible not to eat well.  We are content.  In New Orleans, it is almost impossible not to be content.  Most people are positively, genuinely happy.  It's that kind of a city.

If you want to escape your cares, come to New Orleans.  Life is different here.  Come as a visitor but stay like a friend.  You can stay at La Belle Esplanade...where every morning is a curated New Orleans breakfast salon.  We look forward to sharing our city with you.

There was a song from the King Creole soundtrack that hit #1 on he Billboard Top 10.  It wasn't Crawfish.  It was Hard Headed Woman.  I wasn't alive then so you can't blame me.  How does a Youtube fan video compare to the original film clip in which the song first appeared?  I'm not here to judge.




New Orleans is all things to all people.  It is The City That Care Forgot.  

A tip of our fedora to Megan and Lauren!
À votre santé, nos amies.

Eating the New Orleans Way

An angle on New Orleans breakfast

Ours is a small boutique operation and we're inclined to serve things at breakfast that you wouldn't normally eat at home.  

We don't keep ketchup in the inn, for instance.  No one ever asks for it, luckily, otherwise we would have to keep some Creole catsup on hand at all times.  We use other sauces.  We don't use industrial amounts of other industrial food products either.  We go to our local cheesemonger rather than to Costco, for instance.  Costco is for toilet paper and facial tissues. 

When we serve something, it is usually something artisanal, purchased from a local craftsperson or baker or chef.  When you stay with us, you are not staying in a French Quarter hotel and you are not eating at a French Quarter restaurant that churns through thousands of guests a week.  We only have five suites and each suite accommodates no more than two people.  

The average length of stay at our inn, when all the numbers are tallied and divided, is a little shy of five nights per visit.  We encourage people to stay longer rather than shorter.  We don't encourage people to visit New Orleans longer because we'll make more money that way.  It doesn't matter to us where they stay.  

They can stay at one place for two nights and with us for three nights.  They don't have to stay all five nights with us, though most people who split their time between two locations, though, find themselves wishing they had just settled here.  Our experience is that people who stay longer understand New Orleans better.  They have a richer experience.  They appreciate the city and its many flavors with more gusto and savor.  If you want to stay in New Orleans for a day, there are plenty of hotels anxious to fill rooms.  

To us, you aren't a body filling a bed.  You are company.  We hope you don't choose to stay with us because we have a roof at night and a hot meal in the morning.  We hope you choose to stay with us to learn about New Orleans.  We are New Orleans ambassadors.

We use some name brand condiments, but they are Louisiana name brands.  Our dislike of the Heinz family of products has nothing to do with an alleged dislike of Secretary of State John Kerry.  He's welcome to stay here anytime.  We always look forward to the conversations.  It's just that you can eat Heinz ketchup (or any other Heinz condiment) anywhere in these great U.S. of A.  

You won't find this in our pantry:

When we first started out as innkeepers, we stayed at a bed and breakfast in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  Everything on the breakfast table was unabashedly from Walmart.  Now, we have nothing against Walmart, but for the prices we were paying, we weren't paying to eat cream cheese or butter or waffles or pre-cooked scrambled egg dishes fresh from the local Walmart freezer.  The Walmart in Arkansas isn't so different from the Walmart in Louisiana.  It is no different from the Walmart where you are from.  Argue what you want to the contrary, but I'm not believing it.  That breakfast was the proof.

You don't stay with us to eat food you can buy at Walmart.  You stay with us to sample a taste of New Orleans.  That's why we support our neighbors who are much better at making crawfish pie and bread pudding and apple fritters and buttermilk drops and quince jam and pickled quail eggs than we are.  If you want to eat scrambled eggs, stay home.  At our inn, every meal is a taste of the various neighborhoods that make up our kaleidoscope of a city, full of history and nuance and, frankly, delicious.  Every morning at our inn is a curated New Orleans breakfast salon.  

Try getting a curated New Orleans breakfast salon at a hotel, even the Ritz-Carlton, or the Astor Crown Plaza, or the Roosevelt Hotel. We don't consider other bed and breakfasts in New Orleans our competition.  We expect our standard of service to exceed what you would find in a five-star Canal Street hotel.  You don't hunker down to breakfast and expect to talk to the general manager of the Ritz-Carlton for the next hour, do you?  At our inn, that's what you do.  And, unlike the general manager of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel, Frau Schmitt and I have spent innumerable hours investigating every aspect of New Orleans culture.  We aren't cooped up in our back office going over spread sheets and balance sheets and composing Power Point presentations for our corporate overlords.  

We own the brand.  We are the franchise.  An army of one inn.  Whatever happens, for good or for ill, is our responsibility.  Happily, for everyone concerned, it is mostly for good.  If something breaks, we fix it in a flash.

I'm a first name basis with everyone in the hardware store.  I tell them my problem and they tell me how to fix it.  How many hotel GMs can say that?  I wear a necktie on occasion, usually on Sundays, but my handyman apron is always at the ready.

We don't offer room service.  We don't offer Vol-Pak condiments either, whether they are made by Heinz or by some other food conglomerate.

We don't offer Corn Flakes, either.  You're in New Orleans.  Who want's Corn Flakes?  Even Superman won't deliver them.  



Some people refer to Frau Schmitt as a super woman because of her feats of hospitality.  I do.  As for me?  They call me all thumbs most of the time but it all works out in the end.

I've always had a soft spot in my heart for Zasu Pitts.  She had a great name but it wasn't a name that many people knew how to pronounce.  She started out as a dramatic actress in silent movies.  When talkies were introduced, she switched to comedy.  

However you are reading "Zasu," now, you are probably pronouncing it wrong.  I did it, too, for the longest time.  What is the right way to say her name?  "Say-Zoo."  It doesn't matter what the opening credits of this next clip say, it was "Say-Zoo."  That's what Zasu always said.  Feel like you're in New Orleans, yet?  

It's Esplan-AID Avenue, not ES-plah-nahd.



Thelma Todd knew how to say it.

Whatever you want to know about New Orleans, we can probably tell you.  We won't give you a canned and homogenized answer.  We'll give you the real deal.

When are you coming to New Orleans?

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade
Where every morning is a curated breakfast salon.

New Orleans Favorite Pickled Pigs Lips

From the folks at Farm Fresh Food Suppliers

I know what you're thinking.  You're wondering if this is a gag (in more ways than one).  The answer is no.  At any hour of the day or night, you can walk into your local New Orleans grocer and pick up a jar of pickled pigs lips.  People tell me they're delicious.  I haven't tried them, myself.

Let's back up a little bit:

100% authentic and world famous

I have no doubt that these pigs lips are authentic.  How famous they are, though, I'm unsure.  Locally famous?  Yes.  World famous?  I'm doubtful.  According to the Farm Fresh Food Suppliers website, you can buy them by the quart or by the gallon.  Let's repeat that last part:  You can buy them by the gallon.

Let's back up a bit further:

It's a tradition

On the Farm Fresh Food Suppliers homepage, there is this sentiment: "In Louisiana, great food is not only a meal...It's a tradition!"  That is certainly true.  People say this all the time.  They tell me the same thing, in one variation or another, several times a day.  It's not just the pigs lips, either.  It's everything that people eat in Louisiana and, believe me, they eat a lot of things in Louisiana that you don't eat where you're from.  The reverse if probably true.  I'm thinking about the lutefisk eaters in Minnesota.  Watch the video.  

Now, let's back up one last time.  Where is this pickled pigs lips ad located?

A New Orleans bus stop

The bus stop shelter at the corner of Esplanade Avenue and N. Broad Avenue is graced with a new advertisement for Pickled Pigs Lips.  It's a handsome and direct ad, don't you think?  It works.  I'm getting hungry just looking at it.

There are busses wrapped with pickled pigs lips ads.  They're really something to see.  The first time I passed one I drove my motor scooter up on the sidewalk.  

Frau Schmitt and I have known about pickled pigs lips since we moved to New Orleans.  If you're in our dining room and you look up on the shelf, you'll see a jar we've kept there since we opened the inn.  We don't open the jar but we do invite people to inspect it if they are interested.  We only bought a quart jar.  We don't see the need to have a gallon on hand.  Our jar is for conversational and educational purposes only.  

For conversational and educational purposes only

If you want to try pickled pigs lips while you are in New Orleans, you are welcome to buy yourself a jar (a quart or a gallon) but please, open it in the back garden to enjoy.  Better yet, take the jar to City Park with a nice bottle of white wine and have yourself a picnic.

As with boiled crawfish, we ask that you don't eat pickled pigs lips in the house.  Outside, however, we encourage you to smack your own lips with gusto as you go about your meal.

Bon apétit,
La Belle Esplanade
...the inn brimming with vim. TM

How's the Weather in New Orleans?

A parade went in front of our house

Reading this where you are, you probably don't get to say that a parade went by your house last week.  

From where we are, this is something that happens a couple of times a year, each time as enchanting as the last time, or more so.  I'm not telling you this to boast about the parade-worthiness of our address.  It's just a fact of living where we do.  Next weekend, a marathon will be run in front of our house.  Next month, it will be another.  There is never a dull day on Esplanade Avenue.

People ask why we live in New Orleans.  It isn't just because of all the parades we see.  There are a lot of reasons we love living in New Orleans.  One of them is that New Orleans isn't in Canada.  We have nothing against Canada but when we saw this picture, well, we're happy we're in Louisiana at the moment:

What's the weather like in Ontario?

Then, when we look at pictures from Sweden, well, let's just say again that we're still happy we're in Louisiana:

What's the weather like in Uppsala?

Sheesh!  What do you people do with all that snow?

If you ask Frau Schmitt, she'll tell you that your humble narrator loves living in New Orleans and he isn't interested in living anywhere else.  Frau Schmitt is usually right about these things.  She'll also tell you that I generally like everybody no matter where they come from.  She is right about that, too.

Wanna know what people I like the most?  When I say I like them the most, I mean I like them the most at this moment.  I like whoever is sitting in front of me, as a general rule.  There are no strangers in New Orleans.  There are only friends you haven't met yet.  Of course, in our line of work, we tend to meet people as soon as they arrive from the airport.  We make a lot of friends, and I don't only mean the tangential Facebook kind of friend. You are always welcome to like us on Facebook.  I mean friends whose company we enjoy.  The kind of friends who share adventures and insights.  The kind of friends you don't forget.

I like people who come from Jacmel, which is a city in Haiti.  

There are longstanding ties between New Orleans and Haiti.  After the Haitian Revolution, the population of New Orleans doubled because displaced Haitians (I am trying to phrase this as politely as possible) wanted to live where people spoke French.  Voilá. Bienvenue à la Nouvelle Orléans.  

You will hear people say, and your humble narrator says this on occasion when prompted, that New Orleans is the northernmost Caribbean city.  It's true.  New Orleans has more in common with Jacmel than it does with New London, Connecticut or with Wewoka, Oklahoma.  

Mardi Gras season ended last week in New Orleans.  What does Carnival look like in Jacmel?



We recently had a gentleman from Haiti stay with us for a week and his lovely bride.  Yves turned me on to Carnival in Jacmel.  I've been talking to Frau Schmitt about it and we may have a trip to Haiti in our future.

Our recent guests, not the ones from Ontario or Sweden but the ones from Haiti, were on their honeymoon.  They are moving to a new country in the next month or so.  Guess where they are moving.  They are moving to none other than Port Moresby which was detailed in an earlier installment of this very same blog.  That was just two months ago.  It's a small world when you have omnivorous interests, even if the country in question is Papua New Guinea.

What's the only place better than Louisiana?



By the way, remember the picture of the giant crawfish we featured in the January 3 installment?  That picture comes from a restaurant in Sweden!  What did I say a few paragraphs above about not wanting to live in Sweden?  I take it back.  We have a chap named Orc to thank for pointing this out to us.

Do you know what they call crawfish in Swedish?  Swedes call them kräftfiske.  Anywhere where they boil up kräftfiske is okay with me.  God bless Sweden.

If you can't make it to Haiti, Ontario, or Sweden, and, really, who would want to at this time of year? you know where to find us.  We're on Esplanade Avenue in New Orleans.  Good memories are made every day on our street.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast
....where the rest comes easy.    

Some Real New Orleans History

The mantle in our Clio Suite

Remember, in New Orleans, it's usually the rule that most things are pronounced differently than you think, especially if street names or Greek Muses are involved. 

Who are the Nine Muses?  In alphabetical order: Calliope, Clio, Euterpe, Erato, Melpomene, Polyhymnia, Terpsichore, Thalia, and Urania.

You think this is trivia, but everybody in New Orleans knows this and everyone in New Orleans pronounces those names differently than you probably just did if you are reading this blog aloud.

I recommend reading it aloud.  Rex Hollywood reads each installment aloud to his sweetheart.   I know this because Rex told me this himself and his sweetheart confirmed it.  It's no wonder people who know him (what, you don't know Rex Hollywood?) call him "The Last of the Red Hot Lovers" behind his back.  I know this because one of Rex's pals stayed with us and he told me that in confidence.

Anyhow, one of our suites is called the Clio Suite because there is a statue of Clio in the park across the street from this suite's balcony. You, and most of the world that speaks English, French, German, Latin or Greek, Spanish, Albanian, Polish, Magyar, or Arabic, would naturally pronounce the name "klee-OH."  You would be wrong.  In New Orleans, it's pronounced "kl-EYE-oh."

Now you know.

A float in the Rex Den

I know what you're thinking.  You're thinking, "Waitaminnit!  This is Mardi Gras season and you said you were going to post pictures of all the floats you saw in the krewe dens you visited two (2) weeks ago!"  

I did say that and I'm getting around to it, but I was looking through some old photos when I found something else that caught my fancy today.  Wanna see it?

A relic from another time

By the usual loopy narrative logic of this blog, let's travel back to one fateful night two years ago when I visited the men's room at The Steak Knife Restaurant on Harrison Avenue in New Orleans' Lakeview neighborhood.  It was strictly for professional reasons.  

Frau Schmitt and I have been to The Steak Knife twice.  We both like it, but with about 800 restaurants to choose from, we have to eat at as many as we can so that we can talk about them knowledgeably with our guests and make recommendations.  The Steak Knife is in a part of the city that few of our guests ever visit (though Alan and Shelly were there just the other day for ice cream --- to Harrison Avenue, not to The Steak Knife).  If you want to learn more about The Steak Knife, here's a link to their website, though, I have to admit, I don't think you're going to learn much there.  They apparently don't feel an urgent need to publicize.  After 40 years in business, they're probably right.   

Let me get to the point, already.  

This particular men's room is full of old pictures and magazine clippings and this one of the guy holding two fish caught my attention.  Here's the caption under the photo:

Big news about a big catch

In case you can't read the tiny print:

"TWO BLACK BASS, both slightly over two pounds, were caught the other day in a back lagoon at City Park by Jack Crowley, 2422 Laharpe.  The fish were taken on a plug casting rod.  City Park's fishing season closes for two months, beginning Monday."

Our inn is located at 2216 Esplanade Avenue.  2422 Laharpe Street is just four blocks away from where we live.  You can stroll over and take a picture of Mr. Crowley's house if you want to.  I just might do that later this week even though Jack doesn't live there anymore.

Coincidentally, I was walking our dog around a back lagoon this morning and two gentlemen were fishing there, in two different locations.  I asked one of them if he had had any luck.  He said he had just hooked a bass and he showed it to me.  He was a kindly looking, elderly gent.  It wasn't Jack.  I know Jack.

You never know what you'll find as you wander the byways and restrooms in New Orleans.

And, on that note, we must conclude.

Frau Schmitt's mother-in-law is coming to visit.  If installments don't come as regularly as we've recently become accustomed, you can't blame my mother.  Blame it on Mardi Gras.  The whole city shuts down during Mardi Gras.  Though Mardi Gras is next Tuesday, the real serious parading begins today and it's not going to stop until Lent.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade
...where the rest comes easy.

My Favorite City Is New Orleans

Corner of N. Tonti and Barracks Streets, New Orleans, LA

Somebody asked me recently, over breakfast, what my favorite city in the world is.  I looked around, stretched out my hands, shrugged, and let the question answer itself.  Frau Schmitt was putting a plate of crawfish pie on the table and she chimed in to answer.  "His favorite city is New Orleans," she said.  Frau Schmitt is usually right about these things.

Let's face it; Wewoka, Oklahoma is nobody's favorite city, at least nobody that I've ever spoken with, and that's including the people who live there.  I'm not saying I don't like Wewoka.  Far from it.  I'm just saying it is far down on my list of favorites. 

A lot of places are like that.

When the tide goes out, that's when you'll see who's naked.  I had no reason for typing that except that it popped into my head just now.

Apropos of the conversation, I decided to list five things today that I like about New Orleans, five of the things that make this my favorite city.  Lists are good ways to build blog traffic but you have to put the fact that you are featuring a list in the title.  Otherwise, nobody knows you're giving away a list.  Nobody's ever said I was savvy about these things.  If you happened to land on this page by happenstance, more power to you.  Maybe you'll browse the deep archives we maintain for your perusal.  Maybe you'll be tempted to visit New Orleans.  If you are tempted, I can tell you that reason number 6 of why I love New Orleans is because La Belle Esplanade is in New Orleans.  You'll love La Belle Esplanade.

Let's begin.  We are going to proceed without illustrations.  You'll have to use your imagination until you get here.

Number One:  Just before the wee small hours of the night turn into the wee small hours of the morning, if you are on City Park Avenue in New Orleans, your eyes will be drawn to a beacon that never dims its neon: Bud's Broiler.  It's a 24-hour hamburger stand.  Step in for a Number 9 with onions, an order of fries, and a frosty bottle of Heineken.  Life doesn't get any better in a city that refuses to keep normal hours or normal habits.

Number Two:  You can't get a good bagel in New Orleans.  

Sure, there is Humble Bagel on Freret Street, but they keep funny hours that I can never keep track of and Freret Street is far out of the way.  Plus, their bagels are very puffy; they hardly have a hole.  

Sure, there's Manhattan Jack, but just about every woman in there is wearing yoga pants, not that that matters because every scruffily bearded man in there is staring at his phone.  And don't forget the slow discombobulated service, but hey, they have an iPad instead of a cash register!  

Sure, there is also Maple Street Patisserie and Deli on Eighth Street of Magazine.  I had a bagel there this morning and it was a predictable disappointment.  I was walking past a trash can after finishing half the everything bagel I had purchased and I thought, "I wouldn't mind throwing this away."  So I did.

This isn't New York.  You shouldn't expect good bagels in New Orleans, and I no longer do.  That's one reason New Orleans is my favorite city.  I am forced to accept New Orleans on its own terms.  It's liberating.  I don't need to go to Panera Bread Company on N. Carrollton Avenue---their bagels aren't any good either.

[We interrupt this blog for a short commercial message featuring Joanne Worley...]



Number Three:  Whenever we're in the Riverbend, which isn't often enough and looks nothing like Fodor's describes, Frau Schmitt and I like to stop at Cooter Brown's.  They serve the best pastrami sandwich in the city, and they have a very extensive beer selection, but the reason I like Cooter Brown's is the collection of celebrity caricatures that line the walls around all the rooms.  These are celebrities I know, like W.C. Fields, Mickey Mantle, Jackie Gleason, and Albert Einstein.  They don't have Miley Cyrus, at least not that I've seen, though, I have to admit, I have only the vaguest idea of what Miley Cyrus looks like nowadays.  Cooter Brown's is also justly famous for its oysters.  'nuff said.

Number Four:  Oysters with caviar.  I was just talking to a guest from Japan and she asked me for a good seafood restaurant.  I don't recommend it often, but I recommend it often enough because I do enjoy the Bourbon House, even on a bad day.  Is is the greatest restaurant in New Orleans?  No.  Not by a long shot.  But, the Bourbon House does deliver good oysters, especially when they are delivered with a little spoonful of caviar on top.

[Another commercial message featuring the inimitable Joanne Worley...]



Number Five:  In New Orleans, people dance like nobody is watching.  People live according to the dictates of their hearts.  Faith, hope, and charity are a way of life.  Whether you are a gangster or a comedian, whether you are a banker or a busker, whether you are waiter, a secretary, a carpenter, a shoe store clerk, a supermarket cashier, a bricklayer, a plumber, a stripper, a gutter punk or a minister, you do your best to be the best New Orleanian you can be.  We are all in this big shebang together.  Be nice or leave.  Most people who move to New Orleans stay.

Whatever you are known for best, be it a comedian or a gangster, you know how to dance like you mean it.  It's all jazz in the end.  Every day is a joyful improvisation.  And there is tap-dancing, too.



If you want to learn more, come to New Orleans for a few nights.  A longer visit is better than a shorter one.  Better a day in New Orleans than a week wherever else you are thinking of visiting.  A week in New Orleans will inaugurate a new chapter in your understanding of life.  New Orleans air sets a soul free.  Take a deep breath and be careful what you wish for.  It'll be better than good.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade
...Like Kleenex Tissues, the only real choice.

It Takes More Than a Village To Make a Great City

Flat Stanley

Sometimes, I wish I could travel the world just like Flat Stanley.  Then, I realize that I don't really like to travel further than about a mile from our house, having all my wants and my appetite for adventure satisfied in that meager radius.  I love our neighborhood in New Orleans and I don't really need many changes in my scenery.  Frau Schmitt will tell you that I think going to the other side of the city is too far, and it's only about a twenty minute trip by motor scooter.  Frau Schmitt is usually right about these things.

Don't ask me to go to the mall.

I was listening to Glenn Campbell on my stereo hi-fi last night.



He was a lineman for the county, but we don't have counties here in Louisiana.  We have parishes. 

I don't mean church parishes.  We those, too, of course, but I'm talking about civic parishes.  There is a separation here between church and state, but it's sometimes difficult to discern where that line might be.  God Bless Louisiana.




This is my absolute favorite of the God Bless Louisiana spots.  "Someday we'll be together in the only place better than here."  Amen.

Witchita, a city and county in Kansas, has a very sharp looking flag.

Witchita flag

It's nicer than the New Orleans flag, and by nicer, I mean only that it packs a bit more vexillogical oomph, or, chutzpah, if you will.

New Orleans flag

Unlike in Witchita, the linemen in Orleans Parish don't work for the county.   They work for Entergy, which is the local gas and electricity monopoly.  What's an Entergy lineman look like?



It may not seem as romantic, and nobody has written a song about it, but the Entergy lineman knows exactly what he's doing, a one-man crew.  You might think that the background music in that video has been added post-production.  Nope.  That's the ambient noise in New Orleans.  A brass band happened to be practicing a block away.  It happens all the time all over the city.  There is always music in the air here for those with the ears to hear it.

I'll bet when that Entergy lineman was done with this job, it was lunchtime and he went over to Sammy's Food Service and Deli on Elysian Fields Avenue for a Ray-Ray po' boy.  A man who works hard deserves a hard working man's lunch with all the trimmings.

Here's a shout out to all of New Orleans' physical infrastructure workers as well as the cultural ones.  It takes more than a village to make a great city.

Tourism may be the main driver of New Orleans' economy, but it's the people who live here that make the city a place worth visiting.  Remember that as you stroll our picturesque streets.  The people who live in New Orleans are the most welcoming people on earth.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade.
...Where the rest comes easy.

Creole Syria and Other Mistaken Mysteries

Macaroons!

Someone recently wrote to me about Creole Syria and he sent me a link about what he was talking about.  It turns out he was confused.   Things currently or anciently in the Middle East are not my forté.  I specialize in Louisiana Creole, which means things that have happened and do happen in New Orleans.

Creole people live in the city of New Orleans and in the surrounding Louisiana civil parishes.  Creoles are people who are descended from people who came before them who lived out their Louisiana lives during the time the royal French or the royal Spanish or the imperial French governments had jurisdiction in our out-of-the way part of the world around the mouth of the mighty Mississippi River.  

What about the Cajuns?  Cajuns are descended from French Canadian settlers who relocated in Louisiana and they are different from Creoles.  The easiest way to put it is that Creoles live in the city and Cajuns live out in the swamp.  As far as I know, and I'm no expert, there is neither a Creole nor Cajun settlement in Syria, though I may be proven wrong as current events shake out in that region.

If there were a Cajun outpost in Russia, Vladimir Putin would be eating chicken gumbo while shirtless.  I guarantee he would.


Now you know what a Cajun sounds like.

If you can't understand Justin Wilson, you aren't alone.  Frau Schmitt can't figure out a thing he's saying.  He was the King of Cajun Comedy as well as a chef on public television.  My father used to love to watch his cooking show, but my father loved just about anything that reminded him of New Orleans.  The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.

Macaroons!!

"Macaroon" is a fun word to say, isn't it?  We get our macaroons at Sucre on Magazine Street.  We don't have them all the time, so don't expect them.  We have them when we have them, which means that we have them when one of us visits the cigar store across the street.  I'll leave it up to your imagine who that one of us might be: could it be Your Humble Narrator or might it be Frau Schmitt?  

Some people write us to ask if there are jaguars in New Orleans?  A:  Not recently.  The last sighting of a jaguar in southern Louisiana was in June of 1886 in Donaldsonville, which is about an hour's drive away. 

There was a recent sighting of a black panther in southern Louisiana in Iberia Parish.  Anything is possible in Cajun Country no matter how improbable it might seem.


Does that mean there may be black panthers in New Orleans?  It ain't necessarily so.  Certainly not the way you mean.  There are plenty of feral cats in our neighborhood, though.  They aren't around our house, but there are some blocks that are overrun with feral cats.  They help to keep the feral chicken population down.  We have feral chickens in our neighborhood, too.

The sitting room in our Les Pêches Suite

This may come as a surprise to our regular readers, but I'm not the biggest "Weird Al" Yankovic fan.  I can hear a lot of you saying, "You could knock me over with a feather," but, truly, if Weird Al releases a multimedia song parody, odds are I have no idea of what his source material might be.  That said, I got a critique from a Weird Al fan recently.  He sent me a link to a video.



"Dear Mr. King," our correspondent began, which was a very polite and proper way for him to start his correspondence.  I always enjoy being called Mr. King, as the people at the bank where I do my banking (where else would I do it?) well know.  It is one your humble narrator's names, after all.  Wanna know another one?  Another one is, Cutie-Scootie.  You can call me Matthew, which is my first name and it's the name that most people use.  (If you are reading this at the bank, you can keep calling me Mr. King.)

Our correspondent continued, "You may not realize it but your grammar is sometimes less-than-perfect.  You use Oxford commas capriciously and you sometimes omit or include possessive apostrophes without rhyme or reason.  While I am sure your sentence structure, which is usually immaculate and readable, is intended to reflect the way by which you intend to be heard in your readers' heads, your dangling participles leave much to be desired.  Your use of colloquialisms and gerunds sometimes muddies your message."  Etcetera, etcetera, etcetera....and so on.  The letter went on and on until I nodded off and dreamed I was in New Orleans.  Then I woke up and my dream had come true.

Thanks, Buster.  I'll take your critique under advisement.  Remember, though, I'm living in New Orleans and I've picked up the local lingo and en-FLEX-zee-ohn.  If you want to know what it's like to live in this magical city, you'll stay at La Belle Esplanade.  Mispronounce everything and everyone will know what you're talking about.  Living la vida local is what it's all about in our part of New Orleans.  It's nothing like this:


You won't find (m)any shopping malls in New Orleans.  You have to go to the suburbs for that.  When a brass band plays in New Orleans, people dance like nobody is watching.  If I commit any word crimes, please remember, I live in New Orleans, a Creole city.   I'm not a native.  I'm a convert.  There are worse crimes of mistaken identity that a person can commit.

We hope to meet you soon.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.