Don’t get me wrong: I’d had gumbo before. I’d done pralines. I’d even been intimate with red beans and rice. But alligator? Barbecued, bacon-wrapped shrimp over cheesy grits? Fried chicken that merited a 90 minute wait from kitchen to table? I could never have fathomed these happy surprises, each one a love letter from a city that had suffered so brutally.
Attending a culinary conference in New Orleans last month was an exercise in extremes. As something of a health nut, wheat berries are my friends and greasy food my mortal nemesis. So eating my weight in glistening meats and white starches for 4 straight days wasn’t easy. Still, I learned to appreciate how, in the right set of skilled hands, a puffy, mile-high biscuit from Mother’s or the crisp pigs’ ears from Cochon could be so transformative. During a session for restaurant reviewers, Times-Picayune food writer Brett Anderson spoke about the difficulty pleasing health-conscious diners in the city he loves. When asked to recommend restaurants for vegetarian readers, he quipped: “I tell them to fly to San Francisco.”
But. But. Amidst the celebratory food, and the gusto with which our convention embraced the city full-throttle, signs of painstaking recovery hovered quietly round every bend. Painters silently stroked fences, adding new coats of gloss. Handymen fixed crackling facades. And tarot card readers set up stalls, first one, then another, patiently beckoning the lone visitor who happened to amble by.
In a taxi returning from Dooky Chase's, Lucien Miller, our 59-year-old cabdriver, pointed out water lines scaling Sixth Ward storefronts, indelible tattoos in this once water-logged city. “Look at that ironwork,” he marveled, turning our attention to a building ringed by small, carefully wrought flowers. “People don’t make those any more, which to me is a shame. It’s so beautiful.” And it was.
As we rounded a corner, a performance artist delighted a small group of travelers. “Only in New Orleans,” Lucien sang, “only in New Orleans.”
