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Big Easy Breakfast 

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When you’re planning on a day of visiting live music ensues — and perhaps sampling an adult beverage or two along the way — it’s important to establish a good base.  This morning we wandered over to Hobnobbers, a place UJ discovered on-line, wound our way past the pool table and the front room bar, and found ourselves in the back room where the locals hang out and you order from daily specials at a window.  I went in for the shrimp and cheesy grits and was rewarded with a plastic plate groaning with probably three dozen succulent shrimp, cheesy, perfectly cooked grits, and white toast with grape jelly.  A bottle of water, too, to prepare for a day of 90-degree temperatures and humidity.

It was a lot of food, but now I’m ready.


Filed under: Family, Food, Travel Tagged: cheesy shrimp and grits, Family, Food, Hobnobbers, New Orleans, Travel

King Louie

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We’re staying in a VRBO rental in the French Quarter, about halfway between Bourbon Street and Louis Armstrong Park.  This morning at about 8:30 a.m., with the temperature already about 90 degrees and the humidity approximately 1000 percent, we walked to the park and checked out the statue of the legendary jazz trumpeter.  We’re traveling with two long-time music educators, so we also got an interesting tutorial on how Armstrong started off on the coronet, and how the coronet and the trumpet are different.

Educated and sweaty, we’re ready for breakfast.


Filed under: Family, Music, Travel Tagged: coronet, Family, Jazz, Louis Armstrong, Music, music educators, New Orleans, Travel, trumpet

Cheesecake With A Twist

Lucky Dog

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Lucky Dog is a New Orleans institution.  So what better way to end our trip to the Crescent City than a quarter-pound Lucky Dog with chili, cheese and onions as we wait at the gate for our flight?


Filed under: Food, Travel Tagged: Food, Hot Dogs, Lucky Dog, New Orleans, Travel

Addressing Homelessness, One Job At A Time

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What should cities do to address the issues with their homeless populations?  It’s a persistent, nagging question that often seems impossible to solve.  For decades, cities and charities have offered support and services to help homeless people, and yet the homeless remain.  And advocates for the homeless remind us that giving money to people who are panhandling isn’t really helping them.  So what should be done?

545479804_1280x720In Albuquerque, New Mexico, the mayor decided to take a job-oriented approach to the homelessness issue.  From his conversations with members of the city’s homeless population, he learned that many of the homeless just wanted to work, but didn’t know how to go about getting a job.  So the mayor worked with a charity to give some of the homeless people jobs cleaning up city streets and helping with landscaping of city properties.  The homeless people who perform the jobs are paid $9 an hour for their work, receive lunch, and are offered shelter at night.  The program has been operating for a year and has helped 100 people move on to permanent employment.  And while there is a cost, the city benefits from the work performed by the participants.  The Albuquerque program is called “There a Better Way.”

Cities seem to take different approaches to the problem of homelessness.  As the article linked above notes, many cities have begun criminalizing panhandling.  Other cities seem to simply put up with homelessness and begging, or institutionalize it.  On our recent trip to New Orleans, we saw many homeless people sleeping on the streets, with only a bit of cardboard for shelter; New Orleans seems to tolerate its homeless people and expects visitors to do so, too.  In Columbus, on the other hand, some of the homeless people participate in a program in which they receive a license and sell newspapers about homelessness at designated locations.  It’s better than aggressive panhandling, I suppose, but it doesn’t seem to be moving people on to private-sector employment.  At the street corner near our firm, for example, the same pleasant and polite woman has been selling the papers for years; she even refers to what she’s doing as her “job.”

The Albuquerque approach clearly is preferable to ignoring the problem, and those of us who have always worked know the value of having a job and earning a paycheck, but the article doesn’t say what Albuquerque does with homeless people who don’t want to participate in the program.  Those are the people who present the real challenge.  No one wants to see people living on the streets, suffering from exposure to the elements and in harm’s way, but most cities also don’t want homeless people accosting pedestrians and begging for money on street corners, either.


Filed under: America, Columbus, Work Tagged: Albuquerque, America, Columbus, homeless people, Homelessness, Jobs, New Orleans, There's a Better Way, Work

Whirlybirds Accompaniment

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I went to work this morning, and as I was working I kept hearing this great jazz music coming up from the street below during today’s Sunlight Market on Gay Street.  I couldn’t tell whether I was hearing a recording or a live band — but the music was terrific.  It was old-school jazz that had a kind of New Orleans feel to it.  It reminded me of Tuba Skinny, one of my favorite Big Easy jazz bands.

whirlybirds-facebook-picWhen I left the office and walked out onto Gay Street, I saw that the music was coming a live band.  They finished a number and took a break, and I walked up to throw a few dollars into their open guitar case and thank them for adding a little musical accompaniment to my Sunday work session.  They were a Columbus-based band called the Whirlybirds, and they were great.  You can check out their Facebook page here and hear one of their numbers here.

I’m going to keep an eye out for a chance to hear more from the Whirlybirds.

The Random Restaurant Tour — XXVII

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I freely admit that I’m a sucker for New Orleans cuisine.  So when Dr. Science and the G.V. Jogger suggested that we check out a new joint that specializes in Creole and Cajun cuisine last night, they didn’t need to twist my arm.  Our destination was Way Down Yonder New Orleans Finest Restaurant, located a few miles south of German Village on High Street in the Great Southern Shopping Center.

downloadW.D.Y. easily passes the crucial “menu test” that I automatically apply to any restaurant that serves New Orleans food.  The menu test is as follows:  when I look at the menu, are there so many obvious, mouth-watering traditional choices that it’s impossible to make a selection?  After a few minutes of careful analysis, I was still debating between the Louisiana crawfish etouffee, red beans and rice, and fried catfish with mac ‘n cheese and dirty rice.  After Dr. Science gently reminded me that red beans and rice is a core component of any New Orleans restaurant, that’s where I landed.  Dr. Science went for the gumbo, which comes with actual crab claws, and the G.V. Jogger tried the crawfish etouffee.

Way Down Yonder offers red beans and rice in medium and large portions, and I’m glad I decided on the large.  The dish checked all of the crucial red beans and rice boxes — a deep, rich sauce with a good spicy kick to it, plenty of sliced sausage, well-cooked red beans, and just enough white rice to allow for mixing.  It was excellent.  The cornbread it comes with is excellent too — slightly sweet, with a crunchy top, and baked to a perfect consistency, so that it holds together when picked up to be eaten but also is easily crumbled to mix in with the entree.  Way Down Yonder offers an impressive menu of desserts, but I didn’t try any because after polishing off every last part of the red beans and rice and cornbread, I was full to the brim.

“Way Down Yonder New Orleans Finest Restaurant” is a mouthful, but that’s appropriate because so is their food — a flavorful, tasty, mouthful of some of the best regional cuisine the U.S. of A. has to offer.  I expect that we’ll be heading back down south for more.  Having tried the red beans and rice, I feel the fried catfish calling.

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