A Streetcar Named Desire

Two weeks ago, I went on a work-sponsored trip to the Big Easy to plant things and build stuff. Arriving on Sunday evening we went straight to business at Franky and Johnny's with alligator nuggets. That's right, delicious fried reptile. Mmmmm. I never knew what I was missing living in NY where alligator is not readily available. Moving on to other items in the Nawlins repertoire I ordered red beans and rice which you are evidently only supposed to eat on Mondays. Don't ask.

Have you noticed that thus far I've only talked about food? I'm afraid it will continue as cuisine and New Orleans seem to inseparable. If anything can be made bigger, better or deeper fried, it can be done there.

Day 1: Donning our waders and braving poisonous stinging caterpillars we set out to City Park to plant trees, dig up marshgrasses and just get dirty. At 1300 acres City Park is one of the largest (and oldest) urban parks in the world. It has an amusement park, golf course, botanical garden and so so many big beautiful gorgeous 600 year old live oak trees. After Hurricane Katrina, the whole park was under water and much of the vegetation was destroyed. Five years later, the Park's staff still works out of a trailer. But they are a few hundred trees closer to being restored after our work day!

It's gonna eat me! These suckers dropped out of trees and lurked everywhere waiting to sting the unsuspecting.

A spring chicken of a live oak tree. Their branches can reach lengths of 40ft!

Night 1: When most people think of New Orleans they think of Bourbon Street: the traditional center of drunken debauchery where open container laws hold no stead. But as upstanding young citizens we opted to go for sno balls instead! According to several culinary websites, sno-balls are an institution unto themselves not to be confused with sno-cones. Sno-cones are made with crushed ice. But a snow ball? light and fluffy shaved ice. Made with the one and only Hansen's Sno-Bliz and you can get just about anything you want on top, including sugar syrup, sweetened condensed milk and chocolate sauce.

...And then we went to Bourbon Street. At the Gumbo Shop I ate my first crawfish ever and drank my first hurricane of the trip. Actually four of us girls split a hurricane because we might be a bit lame for New Orleans. After dinner we popped into a voodoo shop selling Virgin Mary tokens (that looked an awful lot like Frida Kahlo), charms (unfortunately all for fertility) and a wide variety of cigars. I was tempted to peek into the aura reading happening in the back room but the posted signs promising death and doom to those who looked without paying scared me back on to the street. We moved on to souvenir stores selling beads, boas and bourbon and walked by Big Ass Beers several times. And then headed to bed.

All right ladies and gentleman, please watch Spike Lee's When the Levees broke before reading the next installment of Nawlins for lame-os.