Wow, we had a blast! There is truly no place like New Orleans, especially during Jazz Fest! We saw more music than I can remember. Not only did we have an incredibly talented and diverse musical smorgasbord to choose from at the festival but then at night we had a huge selection of music at the clubs. Standouts from the festival were Kermit Ruffins, Widespread Panic, the all female brass band The Pinettes, John Butler Trio (blew me away!), Stevie Wonder and local SF fave Michale Franti & Spearhead.

At night, The Howlin Wolf became home base mostly because the fierce musical showdowns they hosted every night. We saw a mash-up of musicians including Marco Benevento, Stanton Moore, Garage-A-Trois, Russell Batiste, Karl Denson, Paige McConnell and DJ Logic. We caught the late night show at the House of Blues - when I say late night I mean Greyboy Allstars didn’t take the stage until 2AM! We boogied to The Lee Boys at Chickie Wah Wah’s and lastly caught Galactic at Tipitina’s, a legendary music venue where my feet ached from dancing in flip flops for three days.

I made sure to hit Cafe Du Monde for amazing beignets and we grabbed a late night pulled pork po’boy that knocked my flops off. We dove right into a steaming hot bowl of crawfish Monica at the fairgrounds and ate our weight in gumbo. We didn’t tour around too much but we did spend time in the French Quarter - but avoided Bourbon Street, too many tourists in tacky t-shirts. One of our best meals of the trip was at the memorable Tujaques. The place is so old school, set menu, best Pimm’s cup in town, tons of celebrity photo’s on the wall, not a waiter under 45 years old. We couldn’t resist our own photo with the chef - hey Tubbs and Crockett were proudly featured, why not us!

New Orleans is still a beautiful city despite the wreckage Katrina brought. The people were really warm, the food is incredible, the music is like nowhere else on earth and the spirit of the city is very much alive. I can’t recommend enough a trip down there. We are definitely going back, there is still so much I need to see….and eat!

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