New Orleans, I love you.
I love your sidewalk brass bands, your Cajun spices, your feathers and beads. I love your smoked rabbit with smothered greens, your tipsy tourists, your cochon de lait, your red beans and rice.
I love your melting pot makeup, your Dixieland percussion, your bourbon and beignets. I love your African backbone and your French accent, your shaded gardens and your late-summer swelter. I love that you gave birth to jazz. I love that you wear seersucker to brunch.
I love that you get up after you’ve been knocked down hard. I love that you’re working to put things right again. I love your pride, your mettle, your joie de vivre.
I love your Greek Revival mansions, your Creole cottages, your Victorian filigrees and peeling-paint front porches. I love your Streetcar Named Desire, your Vampire Chronicles, your Confederacy of Dunces. I love your cemeteries and your parks and your parades. I love that you call me ma’am, that you smile on the street and hold open doors. I love that you’re like no place else I’ve ever been.
And maybe most of all, New Orleans, I am in love with that chicken and andouille gumbo of yours. I’ll be back as soon as I’m able.
Vieux Carré Cocktail
invented in 1938 at the Hotel Monteleone in New Orleans
- 3/4 oz Brandy
- 3/4 oz rye whiskey
- 3/4 oz sweet vermouth
- 1/4 oz Bénédictine liqueur
- dash Peychaud’s Bitters
- dash Angostura Bitters
Stir ingredients with ice and strain into a glass. Laissez les bon temps rouler!
scarpetta dolcetto 
I’m off to the store for some Peychaud’s bitters and Benedictine . . . be right back . . .
You’ll love it! Manhattan-y, but lighter and with a little sweetness to smooth out the whiskey.
well, ma’am…you captured the spirit of new orleans perfectly. i’ve spoken with the powers that be here in my fair city and it is unanimous…you are ALWAYS welcome here!
Thank you, ma’am! 🙂 I hope to visit your beautiful city again soon. What a special place it is!
Love the photos – – – they brought me back to my visit years ago. A city that is all about food and music, what could be finer, as they say! I hope you’re fixin’ to post one of those chicken and andouille sausage gumbo recipes, ma’am!
I’m on it! Dinner tonight. Stay tuned…
Beautiful photos. I’d love to visit New Orleans one day. Liking the cocktail recipe. Thanks for sharing.
Thanks, Trish!