** Louisiana PING **
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Posted on 12/28/2005 7:02:12 PM PST by caryatid
[. . .]
As of Dec. 22, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals had recertified to open 21 percent of the 3,718 retail food establishments that operated in Orleans Parish pre-storm.
Tom Weatherly, vice president of communications and research for the Louisiana Restaurant Association, said that percentage is lower than he might have predicted two months ago. It's also deceptive in gauging the restaurant culture's comeback, as those total retail establishments include groceries, convenience stores and national chains, which have been reopening with far less frequency than the locally owned restaurants -- and are far less central to the city's cultural identity.
Nonetheless, Weatherly said the festive aura found in New Orleans restaurants should not be taken as a sign that everything in the industry is fine and dandy. Employee shortages, a problem since day one, have taken a physical and mental toll on local restaurant professionals, who are working harder and longer hours than ever before.
[. . .]
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
Only in New Orleans where people live to eat as well as eat to live! LOL
And it's not just that nothing in New Orleans right now looks quite as good as the inside of one of its restaurants, but that those restaurants only reinforce what made New Orleans worth loving in the first place.
** Louisiana PING **
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Can the restaurants save us?
Sure, why not? Restaurants have saved my marriage!
Living in the boondocks, where there are no restaurants, we would be in real trouble . . . LOL
When I used to wait tables in New Orleans (often serving many of my service-industry brothers-in-arms) I liked to joke that NOLA's non-tourist economy was based on our ability to sell food and drink to each other. :)
Muleteam1
We have our faults but one thing we do right is cook. It's c'est ci bon.
Muleteam1
How right you are!
Unlike other places, in South Louisiana good food is the rule ... bad food is the exception. Any time anyone asks me what I miss ... the good food is always at or near the top of the list.
Y' gotta eat ... and, where else but New Orleans does one go out to eat ... and sit in a restaurant talking about all the wonderful meals eaten in other restaurants.
Events and rights of passage are marked by food ... and by particular dishes ... and by dining in favorite restaurants ... always served by one's own personal waiter.
Yes, I do know what it means to miss New Orleens ...
Only in New Orleans do you plan on what you are going to eat for supper while eating your lunch.
"Only in New Orleans do you plan on what you are going to eat for supper while eating your lunch."
LOL! So very true.
You're From New Orleans if.....
Your sunglasses fog up when you step outside.
No matter where else you go in the world, you are always
disappointed in the food.
You get up in the morning and start a pot of rice to cooking
before you give any thought to what you'll fix for dinner.
Your loved one dies and you book a jazz band before you call
the coroner.
You think the breeze from a flying roach feels good on a hot
summer night.
Your accent sounds nothing like Harry Connick Jr's.
You can sing these jingles by heart: "Rosenberg's,
Rosenberg's, 1825 Tulane" & "At the beach, at the beach, the Ponchartrain
Beach...."
You were a high school graduate before you realized that
Catholic and Public were not two major religions.
Your baby's first words are "long beads."
You ask, "How they running?" and "Are dey fat?", but you're inquiring
about seafood quality and not the Crescent City Classic.
When a hurricane is imminent, you have a lot more faith in
Nash Roberts than Super Doppler 6000.
Your town is low on the education chart, high on the obesity
chart and you don't care because you're No. 1 on the party chart.
Nothing shocks you. Period. Ever - not politics, hurricanes,
red lights, parking tickets, the Saints, Mardi Gras.....
Your one-martini lunch becomes a five-bloody mary
afternoon...and you keep your job.
Being in a jam at Tulane and Broad isn't the same as being
stuck in traffic.
You're walking in the French Quarter with a plastic cup of beer.
When it starts to rain, you cover you beer instead of your head.
Your idea of health food is a baked potato instead of fries
with your seafood platter.
You have to take your coffee and favorite coffeemaker with
you on a three-day trip.
You have sno-ball stains on your shoes.
You call tomato sauce "red gravy."
Your middle name is your mother's maiden name or your
father's mother's maiden name or your mother's mother's maiden name or
your grandmother's mother's maiden name or your grandfather's
mother's maiden name.
You know you recycled too much newspaper when there isn't
enough for the dinner (or crawfish) table.
You are going through customs and the agent asks you where
you're from and you answer, "Gentilly."
On certain spring days, crawfish monica is your breakfast.
You eat sno-balls instead of throwing them.
Your house payment is less than your utility bill.
You've done your laundry in a bar.
You push little old ladies out of the way to catch Mardi Gras throws.
You look forward to being smashed by a hurricane.
You don't show your "pretties" during Mardi Gras.
Catching "crabs" makes you smile.
You write "crookedpolitician" as all one word.
You know it's "ask" but you purposely say "ax".
You understand it when someone describes their favorite
color as K&B purple.
You know how to mispronounce street names correctly.
(Melpomene, Terpsichore, Chartes, Clio etc...)
You know that Tchoupitoulas is a street and not a disease.
You can "boo" the mayor on national television.
Beignets are the major cause of your gallstones.
You wear sweaters in October because it ought to be cold.
Someone asks you "Where you at?" and you tell them how you are.
You are left behind at an out-of-town bar searching for a "go cup" .
You think of potholes as naturally occurring speed bump.
You suck the heads, sing the blues and you actually know
where you got them shoes.
You shake out your shoes before putting them on.
You don't go buy groceries, you make groceries.
You know that "super doppler" does not refer to a generously endowed
woman's chest.
You know why you should never, ever swim by the Lake
Pontchartrain steps (for more than one reason).
You cringe every time you hear an actor with a Southern or
Cajun accent in a "New Orleans-based" movie or TV show.
You have to reset your clocks after every thunderstorm.
You waste more time navigating back streets than you would
if you just sat in traffic.
You still call the Fairmont Hotel the Roosevelt.
You consider garbage cans a legal step to protecting your
parking space on a public street.
You fall asleep to the soothing sounds of four box fans.
You ignore cockroaches because you know the only ones you
could kill are the weak or infirmed, and it would only serve to
strengthen the breed.
You eat dinner out and spend the entire meal talking about all the other
good places you've eaten.
Best line I have heard from all of this. What a great comparison!
My most recent favorite restaurant - Drago's. Is it gone?
Hmmm, I think I will make some boiled shrimp for supper, or red beans and rice. Bless you all.
Not only is Drago's still in business, but they were out feeding people in Lakeview in the weeks after the storm. When people were coming back to see their damages and to start working on their homes, Drago's was there with free food for all of them.
Thanks. Maybe sometime soon we will be back in NO to eat at Drago's again. On a side note, not significant, but some news that I found interesting. Our son plays on the PGA TOUR. I have been wondering what would happen to the tournament that they hold in New Orleans every year (usually during Jazz Fest). Just found out last week that the tournament will go ahead in 2006. The TPC course was destroyed, but the tournament will move back to the old venue, English Turn Golf and Country Club.
I ate some of that free food in front of St. Dominic Church. It was terrific.
Do not ask what meat is int he gumbo.
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