Remembering New Orleans

Art and I were having sandwiches with muffulata sauce and it brought back memories of our short trip to New Orleans from December 26 -30th, 2003.

I remember us going to the Cafe Du Monde because everybody said we had to try their beignets.

Yes, it was good... wonderful actually!

We visited the d'Estrehan Plantation which was very interesting.  They showed us how the levees kept the water from destroying the property.  I wonder if it survived Katrina.

We tried the Po' Boy sandwiches, shrimp, and fish fry.


We took a boat ride on the bayou and saw alligators, walked along the Garden district to see the stately old houses, rode a paddle wheel boat on the river, visited the aquarium, listened to a lot of street music, enjoyed the Old French Quarter, checked out the New Orleans Mint and toured the Chalmette battlefield.

We went to Preservation Hall to listen to Jazz.  We were shocked to see the LONG lines to get in as we were leaving.

We took a tour of Lafayette Cemetery No. 1 and learned about voodoo.  We saw tombs of the famous and infamous people of New Orleans.

Our absolute favorite eatery was the Central Grocery Co.  They had the most amazing muffulata sandwiches.  We'd never had it before and the flavor was out of this world.

We bought a sandwich and ate it along the riverside in the warm sun.  It felt wonderful since we knew it was snowing in Chicago.  We also tried muffulata at two other places and they were not as good.  We went back to the Central Grocery before we left to return to Chicago, but they ran out of the muffulata sauce for the sandwiches.  We'd been standing in a long line and were really disappointed along with a lot of other patrons.

Several years later, we found muffulata sauce sold at Whole Foods in Chicago.  It's not perfect, not exactly like the Central Grocery, but like today it brought back lovely memories.