The Nostalgic Trope Became Personal As We Traveled to New Orleans
City of Broken Sidewalks
You Can't Go Home Again
For years Roy and I have talked until we’re blue in the face about the food we grew up with in New Orleans. We craved beignets, doberge cake, gumbo, flounder stuffed with crabmeat, the Ferdi Specials at Mother’s (po-boys with baked ham, roast beef and lots of gravy), spearmint flavored sno-cones and chocolate flavored ones topped with condensed milk. Muffaletta sandwiches made with olive salad, deli meats, artichoke hearts and cheese on Italian bread. Mirlitons (chayote squash or alligator pears) stuffed with crabmeat and shrimp. And shrimp po-boys made with crusty French bread only New Orleans bakeries seem to be able to bake. There was just no food like it anywhere we lived since departing our hometown, even in the restaurants that believed or professed they were cooking food in the New Orleans style. Literally for decades we yearned and craved and dreamed of the food from bygone days - until we finally decided to just get on a plane and visit the Big Easy in December to celebrate Roy’s birthday and our 36th wedding anniversary.
No sooner had we dumped our bags in our hotel we were off to Frenchman Street on the edge of the French Quarter on our way to Snug Harbor Restaurant for their trio bowls of gumbo, crawfish ‘etouffee and jambalaya. Little did I know that meal, where only one-third of it was what I remembered, would set the tone for most of the week. We found ourselves asking each other more than several times if we’d been remembering the wonderful food of our youth accurately. Were we seeing the past through rose-colored glasses? Or had those wonderful old chefs just not passed down their craft to the next generation? Yes, of course the beignets and doberge cake from Gambino’s bakery were stand-outs. Fortunately they were exactly what we remembered, but almost everything else was different.
In 30 years the department stores I walked past every day after getting off the bus on my way to work had been gutted and renovated and were now condos, hotels and timeshares. The St. Charles streetcar was still running and a real nostalgic treat as we rode it passing the guest house adjacent Audubon Park where we were married. Though the beautiful mansions along the route seemed to have lost a bit of their grandeur and seemed a bit worn and smaller than I remembered. The Ferdi’s Specials at Mother's Restaurant only earned a C+ on our food report card and we couldn’t find spearmint and chocolate flavored sno-cones. The rum and punch Windjammers however did make for a fun night of laughter. And we celebrated Roy’s birthday at the Vampire Café where he indulged in red velvet cake, drank pomegranate juice from a faux-transfusion bag (mimicking blood) as we sat among the plush red velvet curtains and chandeliers with red flickering lights. Roys still chuckles about the birthday card they give patrons celebrating their birthday there that says “you were turned on your birthday” at the Vampire Café.
I heard the nostalgic trope “you can’t go home again” ring in my ears almost every day and I now understood it in a personal way. Whether things once were actually so much better I’ll never know. Back then it was all I knew and I’ve lived a lot in the last three decades. And alongside that realization was a new one. I had not appreciated the creativity, artistry, music and architecture of the city when I lived there. Nor had I appreciated the diversity of the culture. This trip I found myself soaking it in so I’d remember it. The French and Spanish left their mark on the style of the buildings in this original part of the old city over 300 years old. The beautiful patios with stone floors, green with elephant ear and banana tree foliage, the metal fences cornstalk tops instead of points, the wrought iron balconies, the shot-gun style houses and those with old slave quarters in the rear. Even the broken brick and cobblestone sidewalks found everywhere had their charm – as if symbolizing a life well-lived. I soaked it all in because there are few places with this ambiance, this distressed charm, this diversity. Where else can you walk down the street and find a Voodoo shop, a Pagan shop, an Egyptian shop and a hoity-toity Michelin star restaurant within one block? Where else can you smell crawfish and shrimp cooking in pots in shop windows to lure in patrons? Or hear music on every corner. When I lived here I didn’t appreciate the charm of the city, but I do now. I can appreciate the diversity of cultures and spiritualities that now call New Orleans home. I better understand the allure since I’ve spent the last three years living in a very plain and conservative but beautiful white-bread almost rural town.
New Orleans might not be what I remembered from my youth but it was something different now through my lens. Maybe even something more - and this trip suggested to me the importance of living for today, not yesterday or tomorrow. Yesterday is gone and is never returning. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is certain and it’s filled with the joy and wonder we choose to seek out for ourselves.
Laissez les Bons Temps Rouler is what we say in New Orleans. It means let the good times roll. And so we shall!
Learn more about sacred places of Goddess, including New Orleans in Sacred Places of Goddess: 108 Destinations.
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