What is Lagniappe?

The professor is in.

If you aren't from Louisiana, at least the southern part of the state, then you may be confused by the term "lagniappe."  It's actually a term common along the Gulf Coast in territory that was once under Spanish dominion.  In New Orleans, lagniappe is a kind of art form, something that is taken seriously because providing lagniappe is the custom hereabouts and if New Orleanians are concerned about anything, it's tradition.  Here's the skinny on lagniappe:

It comes from an Andean Indian word, "yapa," which means "a little extra."  It arrived in New Orleans via Spanish overlords even though at the time, and for many, many years after Spanish government, the people who lived here spoke French.  The bastardized Spanish version of yapa is "la ñapa."  Make it francophone and you come up with lagniappe.  It's pronounced the way it's spelled, with a silent g and a silent e.

Cigar box museum.

We have a cigar box museum in our lobby.  The boxes are all from American cigar companies that are still in business.  There aren't many of them.  Most of the boxes are from old-timey machine made cigar factories that still remain in operation, as of this writing.  These are not the kind of cigars that you read about in Cigar Aficionado Magazine.  They're the kind of cigars I like to chew on when I putter around in the garden.  These are the kind of cigars your father's mechanic used to smoke.

The most popular question I've been asked recently is if I'm excited about the chance to buy Cuban cigars.  As Frau Schmitt, who knows me very well, will tell you, good things are wasted on me.  She is usually right about these things, except in the case of herself, of course.  

A cigar box museum is lagniappe.  Nobody expects it.  Nobody pays money to stay with us so that they can study my collection of cigar boxes.  (The second most popular question I'm asked about this: "Did you smoke all those cigars?"  My standard answer: "They didn't smoke themselves.")  If you are interested in something like this, then a chance to discuss these old fashioned machine made cigar brands is like finding a pomegranate Tootsie Pop under your pillow (another form of lagniappe).  If you aren't interested, then it's just more eye candy that makes passing through our lobby that much more interesting.

There is more than obscure cigar boxes in our lobby.  If you look above the highest shelf, you'll see the loving pheasants.

Loving pheasants.

I'm not going to tell you the story about the loving pheasants because there isn't room here, but let me tell you that they are also a form of lagniappe.  You're not going to find them anywhere else except out in the bayou country.  They're cajun, not creole.  I think our New Orleans B&B is the only one to have stuffed loving pheasants on the wall.  I'll be happy to be proven wrong if anyone knows of another.

Breakfast is not lagniappe, no matter what anyone tells you.  When you stay in a bed and breakfast, you should be expecting two things unless you're told otherwise at the time of reservation.  You pay for a bed and you pay for breakfast.  The bed isn't lagniappe and the breakfast isn't either.  Even if it's an over-the-top breakfast like we serve.  You're paying for that.

A partial view of our breakfast buffet.  There's more to it than this.

As a professional innkeeper, let me tell you that you don't pay for the lagniappe we provide.  We do.  That includes the complimentary beer, wine, juice, Big Shot soda, and praline in your suite's refrigerator.  They're complimentary.  It includes the local potato chips next to the coffee maker in your suite.  It includes all the little extras we provide that you don't ask for, that you don't expect, and that make you smile.  If I told you what they are here, they wouldn't be a surprise.  I'm not going to spoil the surprise.  

We also cover the taxes you incur by staying with us.  At a hotel, you pay 13% on top of the bill.  Here, the rate you pay is the price.  It's never more than that.  It is never less, either.  I had to add that last comment to be totally honest.  We are honest to a fault, if honesty can be considered a fault.  Not being nickel-and-dimed is another form of lagniappe.  Most people find it refreshing.  We don't charge extra for taxes.  

Tammie the Housekeeper

I was talking to Tammie the Housekeeper the other day about lagniappe.  She's a Cajun.  She paid the extra $5.00 to have it printed on her driver's license.  "You and Frau Schmitt give so much lagniappe, it's ridiculous," Tammie told me.  "You give more lagniappe than my cousin who lives in Terrebonne Parish, and she's a lagniappe queen."

I met Tammie the Housekeeper's cousin once.  She was in town for Zydeco Night at the Rock 'n' Bowl (every Thursday night).  

Muriel Hauptmann

That was one Thursday that nobody is ever going to forget anytime soon.  Every time Muriel Hauptmann's name is mentioned, Frau Schmitt says, "She was one hot ticket, that Muriel."  Frau Schmitt is usually right about these things.  Muriel turned out to be a real pistol packin' mama, if you know what I mean.



New Orleans is full of surprises.  Our inn is, too.  If you are looking for an interesting place to stay while you visit our fair city, we provide a link at the end of this post.  Click on it.  We only have five suites and they fill up early in advance.  It's a boutique operation.  You can call if you want to, but the online calendar on our website is accurate and the best way to make a reservation, unless you just want to chat a bit while I log onto our website to check what's available.  If you want to stay somewhere more generic, there's a Best Western on North Rampart Street, just outside the French Quarter.  I've never stayed there, but I don't think they offer the same lagniappe that we do.  Or that Muriel Hauptmann does, either, for that matter.

There's a statue of Clio across the street from us.  Of course, in New Orleans, her name is pronounced "kl-EYE-oh." The same way yapa is pronounced lagniappe, here.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast. 

Louisiana Has Two State Songs

The sun is bright in New Orleans

In my line of work, people ask me a lot of questions off the cuff, almost randomly, whatever occurs to them while they are eating a slice of crawfish pie for breakfast, and they expect me to know the answer.  Luckily, I usually do know the answer and I can talk about it for five or ten minutes until I run out of material and then the conversation tapers off until the next unexpected question appears.  I don't want to present this as a case of "Stump the Innkeeper."  It is always a lively morning in our dining room.

So, somebody asked me about Louisiana's state song.  There are two official state songs, actually.  One of them is "Give Me Louisiana," a song I have never heard performed.  I only know it is one of the official songs because I read it on Wikipedia.  Maybe there are parts of the great state of Louisiana where people gather around a bonfire and sing Give Me Louisiana.  They're probably tipsy and can't remember the words to this stirring ditty.  

I know the other official state song, though.  Everybody does.  You do, too.  It was written by Louisiana's "Singing Governor," Jimmie Davis, who was governor of the Pelican State 1944-1948, and then was elected again to serve as the head of state for the 1959-1960 term.  He was that popular.  So was the song he's most famous for.  You probably know most of the words.  If you don't, you can certainly hum along:


"You Are My Sunshine" is the Louisiana State song that everybody knows.  God bless Jimmie Davis, our singing governor.

It's a popular song.  How popular?  They'll be singing it in the future:


They'll be singing New Orleans' praises in the future, too.  There is no other city like it.  It's a place full of details and delightful surprises.  The street musicians in the French Quarter burnish renditions of old chestnuts all the time, including You Are My Sunshine.  The musicians in the clubs play the standards, including You Are My Sunshine.  People walking down the street, or sitting on their front porches, or taking their trash cans out to the curb of their stretch of the banquette whistle the same refrains over and over again.  You Are My Sunshine.

I was eavesdropping on a mother talking to her baby girl at the playground in City Park the other day after the girl had skinned her knee.  What did that mother say?  "You are my sunshine, baby, you are my sunshine."

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

What is pure New Orleans?

Another beautiful New Orleans day

Rachel was nagging me this morning about what today's blog post will be about.  I don't want to give you the impression she was annoying me.  After all, she has an English accent.  She is absolutely charming and it makes Frau Schmitt and I very happy that she's the first one down for breakfast every beautiful day she's been staying with us.  She likes to chitchat, and, well, that's one of those things that we like to think we do best.

So, to satisfy Rachel's curiosity, and presumably yours, gentle reader, we're opening up the old mailbag today. 

First off, we got a letter from Ann, of Ann, Anne, Ana and Jackie who stayed with us last year.  Who could forget them?  They were a real hoot and we're looking forward to them coming back this year.  Every one of them got their own suite, too.  They were very nice.

Anyhow, Ann wrote us that our house appears in the PBS show "Genealogy Roadshow."  I didn't know there was such a thing.  Didja know that you can watch TV shows on the computer?  I didn't until I watched this episode.  Our cameo is at 19:26.  The weather was beautiful the day they shot that scene.  It usually is, of course.

Another beautiful afternoon in City Park

I don't enable comments on this blog.  It isn't because we don't want feedback.  It's more because most of the comments are spam and I got tired of deleting links to other people's B&Bs or to sites that don't pertain to what we're talking about.  You know the kind: "Thank you for writing this very informative blog.  I think this might be of interest to your readers: corncobpipe.com."  [Note: this is just an example.  We've never been spammed by Missouri Meerschaum.  I just wanted to give them a plug but couldn't tie it in to the topic at hand any other way.]

We do get emails though, as Ann's correspondence proves.  We welcome these.  Keep those cards and letters coming!  The other day I got another email in our inbox.  It read:

"Dear Mr. King, 

It appears that you are bragging about your pricey gym membership in your blog post dated January 31.  This seems out of character for you.  Can you explain your motivations behind this unexpected and unseemly hubris on your part?

Sincerely yours,

Stinky Carmichael"

Well, Stinky (whose name has been changed for privacy purposes, as have all the names mentioned so far), your humble narrator wasn't really bragging.  It's true a membership at the New Orleans Athletic Club does cost a tad more than membership at Anytime Fitness on St. Claude Avenue, but it doesn't cost that much more.  I did that to whet your appetite.

We've worked out a deal with NOAC, as we like to call the New Orleans Athletic Club hereabouts.  Just like if you stay in one of the ritzy hotels downtown, you can go to NOAC, too, if you stay with us.  It does cost $20.00 a day, but you'll get access to a real palace of a gymnasium that has a pool, boxing ring, indoor track, and all the usual fitness machinery, as well as a bar and a library, a sauna, and a steam room.  

What we offer at La Belle Esplanade is a chance to share in our world.  Live like a local, if you will.  You can exercise in style if you choose to.  Of course, most people do so much walking while they stay with us, they aren't looking for more exercise, even if it includes the sweet science of pugilism.  

Our location in the middle of Esplanade Avenue virtually guarantees a good night's sleep, especially when you consider how you'll exhaust yourself walking everywhere all day, from one good rich meal to the next.  That's what Sherry (not her real name) told me after she slept through breakfast while Rachel was peppering me with questions about the blog.  She must have been really tired; nobody ever skips breakfast.  It's the most important meal of the day!

And then, Mr. Okra came around the corner

Mr. Okra's truck passes through our neighborhood once or twice a week.  The Roman Candy cart, not so much.  When we see both of them on the same day we go to the race track up the street because it's a beautiful omen when it happens.  We always walk home winners.

With that in mind, we'd like to direct your attention to the Roman Candy Rum website.  Watch the video on their homepage.  That's pure New Orleans, friend, pure New Orleans.  It's pure New Orleans.

A bayou afternoon

If there is one thing I've learned from the all the mail we've gotten from our former guests, it is that it's great fun to wear a hat at a jaunty angle, chaw on an unlit cigar, flourishing the cigar for emphasis, and read this blog aloud to friends and family.  I'm going to try it some day.  It's all in the delivery.  

À votre santé,

La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.

Beware of pickpockets, loose women and Chinese food

Happy Mardi Gras, kids!

King cake season in New Orleans lasts between Joan of Arc's birthday and Ash Wednesday.  Everyone who lives here knows both dates by heart.  Joan of Arc was born on the feast day of the Epiphany.  That's January 6, if you didn't know.

A new Chinese restaurant opened a few months ago on St. Bernard Avenue, where it intersects with North Miro Street.  It's in the old Love's Seafood building.  Before it was Love's, it was another Chinese restaurant.  It's right next to the Rally's on St. Bernard.  Rally's is a drive through hamburger chain, though you can walk up for take out if you don't have a car.  

Rally's is only called Rally's in some places, like in New Orleans, for instance.  In other places, it's called Checkers.  Maybe you have a Checkers near you.  One or the other is in 28 states according to Wikipedia.  The two brand's websites look interchangeable for as long as I bothered to look at either of them.

The other day, the new Chinese restaurant left a menu in our mailbox that boasted that they make the "best Chinese food in town."  I don't even remember the name of the place even though I went there after reading the flyer.  Let's say it's Hunan Wok, which it probably is.  Even if it isn't Hunan Wok, it is something equally bland and generic that certainly won't get your tastebuds excited thinking about it.  The same is true of the interior.

Most Chinese joints look the same.  It's no strike against them.  They're all pretty much the same, so the look, like the difference between Rally's and Checkers, is just part of their identity.  The food at Hunan Wok was pretty good, though.  I ordered a Number 32 and that's what I got.  I also got a fortune cookie.

Frau Schmitt opened the cookie and read me my fortune: "Be on the lookout for any unexpectedly easy companionship from new-found female friends."  That's the same instructions the Republican National Committee handed out to delegates at the convention where Barry Goldwater was nominated for president.  

The fortune cookie's message was also remarkably similar to what the old signs in bar rooms and train stations used to say in New Orleans.  The signs were put up by the New Orleans Police Department.  You can buy replicas of them in the French Market:

NOPD's got your back

I doubt you're coming to visit to New Orleans to eat Chinese food from a nondescript takeout joint on St. Bernard Avenue.  That's not why I'm telling you this story.  It's like some of the old Creole ladies say at the Seahorse Saloon on Gentilly Blvd, "Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose."  Ain't it the truth, though?

We'll be seeing you at the French Market.  While you're here, I won't say you have to be on your guard, but you should use common sense.  If you need any other advice, just ask.  We've got you covered.

Here's an extra tip: Never eat at a Chinese restaurant called "Yummy Yummy."  That's a sign it probably won't agree with your tummy.

À votre santé,
La Belle Esplanade bed and breakfast.