“New Orleans is, on the other hand, a comfortable metropolis which has a certain apathy and stagnation which I find inoffensive.” – John Kennedy O’Toole
I don’t need to pretend New Orleans is something it isn’t to love it more deeply than I have ever loved any city and most men. It stinks awfully, a specific stink. Acrid and sour, the stench drips from those iconic wrought iron balconies. It runs through the streets, bakes up in the heat, mellows at night. The tourism in the quarter is oppressive, and the violence is real. Just before we arrived, there was a shooting on Bourbon. 10 people hit. One dead, a nursing student, and it was senseless. For what that city pays, I can’t say. But it pays, has paid, for as long, it seems, as it’s been standing. It’s not of this world, whatever curse it labors under. But the thing about it is, that city makes you want to labor alongside it. It exists as a city on death row, a matter of when not if. It’s a mortal city for mortals.
If the stones and plaster could talk, they’d probably wail and moan like some campy poltergeist. And then, most finally, laugh themselves half to death. Because in the end, that’s what New Orleans is in the business of. It’s memento mori and joie de vivre. It’s hot sauce and chaotic jazz. Mausoleums and Spanish moss. Two story bicycles with streamers for nothing. It’s soporific heat. It’s eating a bowl of red beans and rice half naked in the middle of the night. And rolling off of I-10 into that, all of that, I cried. It was so good to be back.
I imagined when I finally went back to New Orleans with sober eyes, I’d be haunted by a thousand ghosts. But the only ghost I saw was my own. And I saw her everywhere. I saw her, seventeen in spike platform heels, slurping oysters & drinking Bloody Martha’s with pickled green beans for dinner and arranging one dollar bills just so and all facing the same way. I saw her twenty-nothing years old and in a mosh pit at One Eyed Jack’s with no shoes on, moronic and drunk with all sorts of erroneous ideas about herself, life, the universe, and everything. I saw her dressed up as Alex of Clockwork Orange fame, pupils dilated and sucking nitrous from a balloon. I saw her red faced and vomiting on sundry street corners. I saw her driving, walking, listening to Françoise, Lou, and Tom and feeling wordly. I saw her hunched over Baudrillard at the Rue de la Course, and I saw her snorting mali off the back of a toilet. I saw her at red cup college parties and waking tangled in a 9th ward shotgun.
Whether she was blue haired or corseted, in cowboy boots or black feathered costume wings, she was there. Everywhere I looked. That girl I can’t remember. The one I didn’t even have to try to forget. The truth of it is, she really is dead. And this trip was a trip to my own funeral. In the most jubilant way. Death to self is a beautiful thing, and while I was there the universe bequeathed me a shed snake skin, a shark’s tooth, and fair warning from a seer that unforgiveness & resentment is the very voodoo that could resurrect that dead girl I still love but don’t mourn.
So for the most part I did two things. Ate, and took this, my own private ghost tour, a funerary pilgrimage. We stayed at the Soniat House, my favorite B&B on the edge of the quarter by the Marigny in a quiet spot of town. The night we arrived I promptly walked around the corner to the Verti Marte and got a sandwich. A sloppy, transcendent sandwich. It’s called the Jazz and manages to incorporate grilled shrimp, sausage, and mustard remoulade. You should probably eat it. Well, eat half of it. It’s the length of my arm and twice as thick. The next morning, I went to see a clairvoyant to see what the city might have to say to me, and afterwards we ventured into the Bywater, my old stomping grounds, and had lunch at Satsuma. We went back that night for dinner and jazz at Bacchanal. Admittedly, we’re old hating haters of fun and could have lived without the loud music with our dinner. But the grilled octopus with spicy potatoes and grapefruit I had there may have been my most memorable bite of the entire trip. Though in all fairness I do have a well documented fetish for octopus. Purely culinary.
The next day, my birthday, we went uptown and spent the day antiquing (a verb I’m ambivalent about, but it’s efficient) on Magazine Street . I drove by my old home, reminiscing incessantly about the boring routes of my daily past life. I walked away with an art deco mirror with plenty of foxing, a brass tea pot, and a tarnished silver tray. And a pair of handsome monk strap shoes from Billy Reid. From me, to me. 31. Almost a decade since I called NOLA home.
Over the course of the trip, we managed to find every magic shop and curiosity cabinet, and also found ourselves, more than once, at Cafe du Monde, with it’s green and white striped awning and shuffling waiters in little paper hats. It’s filthy. If you really look, it starts to look back, the grime. But that bitter chicory coffee, so bitter the story goes that they brewed it with chicory to deter the reportedly effete tastebuds of Union soldiers, served alongside plates of misshapen, rectangular beignets piled precariously high with a careless, preposterous amount of confectioners sugar—it’s unmatched and worth all the indignities of being an utter tourist. I lived in turbans, linen, crop tops, and sandals to combat the heat, and I made sure to pay homage to Felix’s Oyster Bar, where I had my first oyster on the half shell as a teen runaway, and ate as much as I could of a muffelatta from Central Grocery, all the while realizing that taste memory and emotion are inextricably intertwined. I feel like that sandwich might just be okay. But to me it will always be the best sandwich on Earth.
I leave you with my guide. It’s by no means comprehensive, and I mostly entertain myself by wandering the streets. But here are some of my favorite places, old and new. Also, I am not as sad as I look in that photograph. Some people have resting bitch face. I have resting forlorn face. You win some, you lose some.
|Local Milk Guide to New Orleans|
Stayed
Packed – essentials
Elder Futhark Runes & Wild Unknown deck
Elizabeth Suzann crop top & Ryan pant
American Apparel linen pants & knit cropped tank (pictured)
Hackwith Design House Chandler top & Millie kimono
Jeffrey Campbell Romero Sandal from Free People (pictured)
Birkenstocks
Block Shop Textile’s scarf (pictured as head scarf)
Lulu Organics Lavender & Clary Sage dry shampoo
Osei Duro bag (pictured)
Breakfast & Coffee
Elizabeth’s
Stanley’s
Cafe du Monde
Rue de la Course
Lunch
Coquette
Verti Marte – jazz sandwich
La Petite Grocery
Satsuma
Cochon Butcher
Ancora Pizzeria
Central Grocery – muffaletta
Felix’s Oyster House – dive oyster bar
Luke’s – oyster happy hour
Bag of crawfish from Big Fisherman on Magazine
Booty’s Street Food
Mother’s
Dinner
Bacchanal
Jacques Imo’s
Peche
Cochon
Irene’s
Mariza
Maurepas Food
Marti’s
Late Night
R Bar
The Saint
Molly’s at the Market
Mimi’s
One Eyed Jack’s
The Spotted Cat
Shopping
Billy Reid
Funky Monkey – vintage clothing
Antiques on Magazine
Top Drawer
Bargain Center
Magic Shops
Hex
Starling
Bottom of the Cup
Esoterica
Marie Laveau’s (reported to actually have good readers despite what you’d think)
To See
Lafayette Cemetary no. 1
Magazine Street
Frenchmen Street
the Bywater
Audubon Park
Did I not mention your favorite NOLA haunt? Leave it in the comment section!
Last, a song. This one is for you Andy & Drew, wherever you are.
I want to go there!
There seems to be no end to your talents lady. I find myself in awe over and and over again, your pictures, your food, your words.
Also, you are so beautiful! Never saw a picture of you before. And that top is just good.
Lastly, much love for including magic shops in your guide. I’ve never been to NOLA, but I sure will check back to your guide if I’ll ever find myself there.
This is wonderful, takes me back to my semester at Loyola 5 (eek!) years ago. Good times!
what a beautiful post beth. love it. i’m travelling to new orleans next month and definitely will be hitting up some of the places you mentioned. thanks for the awesome ideas and photographs.
Yes – the jazz sandwich from Verti Mart! Love your guide so much, it’s a reason to go back sooner than later. The way you write about it, makes me miss it too.
All I can say is WOW! You leave me speechless. Your photos are outer worldly and your descriptions are so very vivid I feel as if I’m right there with you. You are so very talented — I can only hope that one day . . . .
I feel like I have just read the best, most honest novel, complimented with the most stunning photographs. You are so incredibly talented. It’s always a pleasure to read and re-read your stories.
I have always wanted to go to New Orleans. I have this strange pull to go there. a curiosity that is even stronger now.
Simply lovely, photos, words, and recommendations. Perfect!
Beth! You give all of your stories life but this one has a very special soul. It captured me and brought the place to life in such a cool way.
Hope you’re doing well!
– Leah
Just WOW. You are so beautiful and talented. I really enjoy your writing and photos. Thanks for this guide– I hope to visit NOLA one day!
Wow. I want to make this my browser’s starting page so I can read it and look at the pictures over and over and over again. This is utterly brilliant!
I’ve only lived in New Orleans for 5 months, but the city has a way of staying with you … probably forever.
I’m so glad I found your blog, I enjoy it tremendously!
I am so grateful for this post, for it’s beautifully poignant remembrances of a past self that has grown into another person, and also for the travel guide to a city that is next on my travel bucket list. These words and images spoke to me on more than one level. Thank you.
Your words, your photos. You captured so perfectly the New Orleans I see and feel in my dreams. My ghosts live there too, Lovely.
Haunts: Trashy Diva ( on Magazine)
Luke: 50 cent oyster happy hour.
Cafe beignet
The Fly
Night market
I love to watch the giraffes peek their heads over the fence at Audubon park.
Ohhhhhhh! amazing and lovely! beautiful photography!
reading this was definitely the best start to my day. forever in awe of your story telling ways. so, so very lovely.
YAY! So bummed that I missed you at LUKE…. but glad to hear that you enjoyed the oysters! Thanks for the awesome post…. it’s wonderful to look at pictures of our good New Orleans from your perspective. 🙂
-Madison
Such beautiful photographs. I have always dreamed of visiting New Orleans. It seems like such a mystical place. You have captured is beauty impeccably. Also, I’m with you. I could usually do without live music. I like being able to focus on my food and the one I am with.
Bravo Beth! You are continually an inspiration. These images are stunning. I could look over them endlessly.
Wow – what stunning photos. New Orleans is on my wish list of places to visit should I ever get to the USA. Your moody evocative photos, almost make that trip unnecessary. Thank you for sharing them.
PS: Most restaurants/cafes have music too loud these days, I think to encourage everyone to yell over the top, thus making extra drink purchases a necessity.
so glad I’ve found your blog! Love your pics, your writing and your style. Have always wanted to visit New Orleans. One day…
Your photos are beautiful – you are very talented. Great compositions!
I reread your post again — this time for the actual content. Your soul spoke out so vividly. Yes, I could feel a darkness but I think you are getting out of it. Your talent is amazing. Not only with the photographs but also with your words. You are amazing.
I have been to New Orleans once a life time ago. Now I want to go back, with your post as my guide.
I am speechless over this post… You’ve got a way with words and storytelling! I’m planning on going to New Orleans next summer and I’m so glad you wrote this post. I’ll definitely be checking out some of the places you listed. I can’t wait to try the food there. Also, your style is fantastic!
This. Love.
Seriously such a handsome and completely fresh post…love it all. I just did a post regarding death, to me very much a necessity, in more ways than one. Brilliant photos, keeps me coming back for more xoxo
stunning photos. and i simply adore your writing 🙂
Beautiful.
such a beautiful capture of New Orleans
WOW I found your blog via ruthielindsey and will be visiting New Orleans this month from New Zealand and cannot wait now. Thank you x
My breath is stuck in my throat after reading your words, so wrought with emotion and honesty. Never have I read something so open, so haunting, so achingly true. You are a beautiful writer, and I’m so pleased I stopped here today, and gave myself the opportunity to read.
Amazing.
So beautiful, Beth. xo
This is a breathstoppingly beautiful post. Your photography, the story, and the way it is written are all stunning.
Just beautiful Beth! So awesome you could go back & understand the past, while moving forward with a wonderful birthday celebration that will hold special memories in your future! Just wonderful photos of you we rarely see, so inspirational, yet reflective. Best wishes for many more birthdays! Thanks for your personal wander guide as well. Mostly thanks for making my move to TN early this year easier by having your amazing blog as a guide! Don’t stop! Best wishes for continued success.
Evocative writing, superb photos and a comprehensive link list? I die. (I’m going to NOLA post-holidays with my mother. Last time was on a cross-country trip 20 years ago… whoa.)
The city is just beautiful especially seen through your lens. Fantastic photos as always:)
I’m from south Mississippi and visit New Orleans often. Every time I go, I love it more and you pinpointed these reasons beautifully. I love reading about others’ experiences there!
I also think it’s fitting that you felt jubilation when attending the soul – funeral of your past. Like a jazz band ushering you into a new life, right? 😉 What a celebration!
Beautifully written! You put into words what my heart felt while in New Orleans. Have you tried Sylvain (http://www.sylvainnola.com/)? My husband and I adored that restaurant. We took our first trip to New Orleans together back in January – I have a few polaroid photos if you’d like to see them on my little blog.
http://sketching-clouds.blogspot.com/2014/04/ghost-town.html
Thanks so much for sharing this post!
Next August will be the 40th anniversary of my freshman year at Sophie Newcomb. This took me back in such a great way. I’m going to return next year and do the same thing-hopefully with my old friends. Thanks so much for the inspiration!
Wow, beautiful. I so appreciate your talents. You took me back with your words. Merci.
Wow. These photos: the colors, the light, the mood. And that portrait of you truly took my breath away. Gorgeous. Thank you, as always, not only for sharing a post but a story. Have never been to New Orleans but would love to see all of this with my own eyes (okay, and to eat those beignets).
Beautiful Beth, almost as good as going home. (Except I always preferred the Mushroom Mountain to the Jazz.) I particularly like the shot of the Clover Grill. Miss that place.
Great photos Beth! I’ve never been to America but the South has always been interesting to me, New Orleans, Carolina and all the cities in between.
“It’s memento mori and joie de vivre.”
That line. I could drink that line. Well written! This post is gorgeous.
i loved this post! i’ve only been to New Orleans once, but loved every bit of it. next time i go i’ll check out some of the places you mention. the one place you didn’t mention that i know of is the New Orleans Healing Center and Island of Salvation Botanica.
thanks for sharing your view of New Orleans with us.
blessings
~*~
delicious writing. Words that roll around my mouth and make me salivate.
Glorious photos, hauntingly beautiful.
When can we go?
Your prose is as haunting and enchanting as your images. I have visited New Orleans many times over the years as it always draws you back. The mystery, the history, and OH the food! all of it. A fave of mine is Napoleon House on Chartres. Great muffuletta and the Pimms Cups are divine. xo
confederacy of dunces is one of the best books of all time 🙂
and your work is beautiful work as usual!
here is my favorite “touristy” thing to do in new orleans: get a n.o . city guide that provides a self guided tour of the garden district, catch the st. charles streetcar at canal to the garden district, see the g.d. from the car, then take a self guided, walking tour of the G.D. so much fun! love seeing the home where Anne Rice set her book, “the mayfair witches, ” etc. on the way home, get off at the columns hotel for a french 75 (sounds like a sex act, but it’s actually a cocktail :)).
Gorgeous photography! Loved this post.
New Orleans is unique. This place has a soul. I fell in love with the city when I was just years old and fighting depression. I flew from the other side of the world just to be there. It had been a dream of mine since I was 13. I don’t know why, it just was. It’s a magic place to me. The only other place I felt the same about was Nashville. I feel like I belong there for some reasons. There and the shores of Brittany, France. And here I am stuck in Paris. I need to go back!
Wow, you sum up perfectly my feelings about NOLA as a city. I’m moving from washington state to attend school at Tulane in a few months, a choice I made partly because I was captivated by the place itself. It is imperfect in nearly every possible way, but I think that’s part of the attraction, what makes it seem so beautiful. Thanks for the post.
I “grew up” in new Orleans from second grade until I graduated from ben franklin senior high, then located across the street from the best burger and milkshake I can remember, the Camellia Grill. don’t know if it is still there, but it most likely is.
I had a love /hate with NOLA and haven’t returned since I left it behind all the way back in 1987!
I also remember snow cones but don’t remember the names of the many places we would get them .
and of course oyster po boys. again, can’t remember the name of the place, I think on st.charles ave, but maybe not. some other streetcar lined big avenue in that general area..Carrolton ave??? can’t remember
it’s been too long
more burger remembering (I lived there as a kid after all!)
Snug Harbor…biggest burger with a baked potato the size of my head all wood paneling and dark and cool
thank you for reminding me of a place I knew well, in my own way, so long ago
I’m sure it has changed a lot and not at all
You are an extremely talented writer, it’s been a long time since I have been genuinely sad a blog post was ending. This post reads like a short story, one i wish was longer. Also you’re photography is as equally as amazing as the words that accompany it! thank you for sharing!
Thank you for a lovely post Beth, you evoked distant memories from 2011 when I finally made it to this beautiful, sad, wonderful city. We stayed in The Marigny, it was such a great neighbourhood. Our favourite place to eat was Adolfo’s on Frenchman. A window seat on the second floor was perfect to people watch and the Grouper with Ocean Sauce is to die for.
What wonderful pictures. I’ve never been to New Orleans but would give my left arm to go and you’ve made that no better. 🙂
I wish I had found your blog earlier. I left for New Orleans this past weekend and your guide would have been helpful (I sort of winged it). These pictures are so beautiful and makes me yearn to go back one more time to capture the beauty of it all.
New Orleans, I dream to go there ! Such a mythic place, and such a wonderful, amazing, beautiful post you’ve offered to us.
I’ve discovered the city only through “the Confederacy of dunces”, one of my favorite books…
Elisa
From Australia I have come to love New Orleans through the series Treme. I was so sad to get to the end of that and finding this is like a reprise. I have been reading as I listen to ‘This city will never drown’. Maybe climate change makes that an unrealistic hope ultimately but it has a transcendent defiance to it.
Incredible, you are my inspiration.
Found your blog via Huffingtonpost (10 best foodblogs..) – and love your New Orleans pics. Like a road back to memory lane.. you’ve captured the mood of the city perfectly. We visited 2 years before Katrina and we’re absolutley mesmerized by the city.
Thanks for the beautiful pictures.
All the best from Holland
Nadja
Everything about this post is sublime.
Your words and your images – they are out of this world.
Thanks Beth for allowing us to see New Orleans through your eyes…
Ronnie xo
Wow! I absolutely loved reading this post! I have long admired your photography for it’s distinctive moody style. This beautiful post truly does read like a short story as others have mentioned in the comments. I have never been to New Orleans, but I will definitely go there one day. Your photos and words describe the essence and the soul of the city. Thank you. Jennifer
Nailed it!!!!!! Everything that I love and miss about NOLA. You have a way with words . Words that draw you in and take you on a voyage.
I just want to say THANK YOU!!! I try to explain my love of NOLA, I live in Oklahoma, so there is not one person who knows where NOLA is located, and have never been able to get it right. You said it perfectly! My first trip was when I was 14, and then I not to many years ago I took my children for the first time…they are just as in love with it as I am! It gets into your soul, your bones, my heart hurts when I think of how I used to live so close and now I drive 12 hours just for Cafe Du Monde and “Buffets” as my baby girl calls them!!
Thank you for your guide and your words!!! My family and I will be spending Thanksgiving there, I cannot wait!
I was born and bred in louisiana. 20 years later I now reside in RVA. Every word resonated with me, bittersweet and beautiful.
What type of camera do you use? Like the fact that you are shooting with available light–both the food styling and exteriors.
Found your site via pinterest. Love the entry on NOLA. Such beautiful photographs, and so evocative. Can’t wait to visit, with your list close to hand.
Your photos are as beautiful as your words. Thank you for this post – it’s a lovely tribute to our amazing city.
What a lovely article. Next time you end up in the Big Easy stop by Katie Koch Home. We would be honored to show you around! XO
super photos the coffee on the table looks welcoming.
Yes, the Funk of New Orleans. Nice complete picture. Sober it is of little interest to me.
The combination of your amazing photgraphs punctuated with jewels of text scattered through its tapestry has captured that quintesstial New Orleans essence that is like nowhere else on earth. I plan to use this text with my honors students to show them how words can capture and create a world far from their own, yet allow them to savor and taste its flavor so that it becomes someplaee they have been. Thank you for a lovely trip.
The combination of your amazing photgraphs punctuated with jewels of text scattered through its tapestry has captured that quintesstial New Orleans essence that is like nowhere else on earth. I plan to use this text with my honors students to show them how words can capture and create a world far from their own, yet allow them to savor and taste its flavor so that it becomes someplace they have been. Thank you for a lovely trip.