Mardi Gras Weekend

Eating at Felipe's, sat and talked for a long time.

Getting coffee for the long night at Cafe Du Monde



Fresh Oyster Bar in the French Market



Two old men, having a cold one and enjoying the nice day

Interview

My dad’s name is Doug. Whenever we are camping, he usually does the planning and figuring out what we are going to have. He has a lot of fun with it and I think that’s why he likes to do it.. So anything that has to do with the grill, that’s his territory, what he enjoys doing. That’s why he likes to do the camping stuff, because, not like wild-man, but he enjoys the outdoors aspect of it I think. He is excited; it is like an experiment for him every time. Because he is a science teacher he likes to mess around with spices, with different ingredients. Trying to see if he can make anything interesting, and I am sure it’s all related to the fact that he is a teacher. Every year he tries to get his class to eat things like fried crickets or mealworms or something cool like that. I think one year he actually caught a snapping turtle and they made something out of it in his class. They also picked mushrooms. He has an outdoor classroom at Jamestown [Mo], so they will go out there and pick mushrooms. He likes to put weird stuff in there [the classroom]. Like the army bean stuff. So somehow he got his hands on some army packaged food, shrink-wrapped beans or something like that. And everyone in his class was terrified to eat it, so he took a little spoonful ate some and said “wow guys, this actually isn’t too bad”. And one brave kid came up and decided to try it, and he said “oh, actually Mr. Selby is right! This isn’t too awful.” And little by little all the kids came up one by one, I think by the end there were only about two kids who decided not to try it. It ended up being tasty, considering it was shrink-wrapped beans.
  

Reviews of K-Paul's

Paul Prudhomme is the man who created the modern Cajun meal. He popularized what was once considered low-class or poor people's food on a national level as well as creating iconic New Orleans dishes, blackened red fish being the most recognizable. For this and other reasons I chose to peruse through yelp.com to see what people had to say about his now famous restaurant, K-Paul's. And what I found surprised me. The vast majority of the 313 reviews were in praise of this dish or that appetizer. Thing thing that stood out were the negative reviews. Several were from the area, and they did not seem to be impressed. One called it "another tourist trap!", describing the food as nothing special or exciting. Another review said that they "could see why it isn't on the locals radar". So what was going on? Could the other 86% of people talking about K-Paul's be wrong? Could all of the people singing its praises just be tourists who do not know what they are talking about?  Or is there more to it? I decided to look back through the positive reviews to see what they were saying, and a few things jumped out at me. I noticed that some people praised the place as well as the food, such as this review with one of the last things mentioned and one of the more memorable aspects of K-Paul's was "the fun art work on the walls". Another reviewer said that the place was so welcoming and cozy that "its as fine place to go alone" to.
With so many people loving and hating K-Paul's, there could be only explanation. I cannot remember how many people said that K-Paul's was either the first or last place they went to on their visit/trip to New Orleans. After reading that for the fortieth time, I realized that K-Paul's is indeed a tourist trap. But that is not a bad thing. Brett Anderson described tourist restaurants as the ambassadors for the city. If people come to the city and can only go to one or two places, K-Paul's is on that list. Which means that it needs to be the face of New Orleans. That restaurant caters to the tourists by being as local and Cajun as possible so that the customers get the New Orleans experience. Welcoming, busy, crowded, full of life, and just a little more rough around the edges that you would expect. Paul Prudhomme started cooking country food that was part of his past. That was part of his culture, and just expected the city to accept it. And he created a restaurant that part of his city, that represented the place that he lived in. That city has always been a tourist town,so why should the face of it be any different? So sit back, eat a jalapeno roll, and revel in the unique New Orleans way of life.