Eating in New Orleans...

The food was great in New Orleans. It was so great that on the way home yesterday when I stopped for a fast food hamburger my stomach yelled "what you putting on me?" It yelled again today when I cooked a hot dog with wolf brand chili for supper. It's hard to get something good to eat after a long weekend in the big easy. Here Pop downs raw oysters in Casamento's on Magazine Street.









A shot of Cathy in the long narrow tiled covered dining room. Lots of famous people eat at Casamentos. In addition to being a favorite of hipsters like us you might also spot the odd movie star, pro quarterback, rock singer and so on. In fact I think I have some photos I took in about 1985 of a equally hip crew I was with at the time (no singers, quarterbacks etc..,) dining here. Looks about the same. The place, not the crew.

Here's Geneva. I like all the little tile inlays that you find in places like these around New Orleans. I also like the fact that the spray soap is handy. You need that a lot in New Orleans. Not you Geneva, but things like that come in handy for me.

The door in the back ground is passage through the kitchen where the frying takes place. Food is all fried or raw at Casemento's. If you have been to my fish frys my outdoor man kitchen is a built to scale model of the set up they have even down the walk through to the bathroom.

This is a photo of music in the Economy Hall Tent at the Jazz Fest. It's the New Leviathon Oriental Foxtrot Orchestra. They play dance band music like was popular around the turn of the century. This music bridged into ragtime which bridged through Jelly Roll Morton into dixieland with Louie Armstrong who bridged jazz on into a popular form of music recognized today by everyone.

Casemento's Restaurant dates back to 1919. As I listened to the New Leviathon play the old time music I kind of imagined that had I lived in 1919 I might have well been in the same place as I was this past weekend, in New Orleans with a plate of oysters, listening to low down bad jams.