Judy had to go down to New Orleans for a conference, and I decided to go along, as the Hotel, like most of them in this day and age, promised broadband access. We flew in a day early (my first trip on SouthWest airlines), grabbed a cab to the Hotel (the , which may rate an entry of its very own), and spent the afternoon re-acquainting ourselves with the French Quarter, starting with stuffed crepes at the Palace cafe. We then found a new-for-us used book store to spend a rainy afternoon at, discovering old favorites and the kind of obscure, old, out of print books that you can never find at amazon, and which can only be seen at the olde booke shoppes around the world.
To me, New Orleans is about food. Come to think of it, lots of fun
things in life are anchored around food 
. And this time around in
the big easy, we got to sample a new restaurant – , where the chef (Kevin) leads a class of cooking
the meal that you are about to eat, all the while regaling the crowd
with quips, history, cooking tips, and local color. It was a great
performance, both of culinary skill and a stand up routine, drawing
the audience in while preparing a stupendous meal – and I have learned
how to make Bananas Foster and Pecan pralines.
While Judy was busy at the conference, I worked through the morning, then went walking, soaking in the soul of the big easy, visiting old friends like Jackson Square, the Bakery down exchange alley, the Ursuline convent. On Sunday, Judy and I continued revisiting old acquaintances – Beignets for breakfast on Royale – and making new ones, discovering another used bookstore, going up and down the river in a paddle boat to the .
manoj