Where Y'eat

Of course I was wearing dark clothing when I bit into that first beignet at the new home of Morning Call Coffee Stand. And of course some of the powdered sugar I just heaped on its golden shell drifting down to decorate my shirt. Just as surely as a strawberry sno-ball paints your palate red, eating a beignet means wearing some of it. Here’s another truth: New Orleans people love it, because they love every part of the beignet experience, because it is ours.

Going out to eat with friends, catching up over a nice meal, these outings bring pleasure. Lately though they've been sparking outright jubilation. I call it the vaccination celebration.

For a year, New Orleans restaurant people have seen their industry all but closed and gradually re-opened. They’ve worked through restrictions that rise and fall like a tide they can’t predict. They’ve had their spirits crushed and revived, fears confirmed and faith renewed.

Entering year two of the pandemic, many of the things we love about New Orleans life are again being postponed, pushed back or thrown into doubt.

After a curtailed Carnival and the homebound holidays, New Orleans is now seeing another of its seasons laid low by the pandemic: festival season.

As the pandemic continues, it’s hard to feel certain of anything one day to the next. But then a whole season comes along as a comfortingly consistent anchor. It’s crawfish season, and the tough little mudbug is keeping one touchstone of local culture at least somewhat intact.

The stage was quiet at Tipitina‘s, but around one corner of the famous Uptown music hall there were the steam whistle sounds of an espresso machine and the familiar banter of a barista and regulars — evidence of everyday routines rebooted for the times.

Everyone has their favorite part of Mardi Gras. My favorite part is you. It’s the way New Orleans people put so much of themselves into the celebration, making Mardi Gras a communal experience we create, instead of just another event we attend.

On one chilly January night there was still a warm glow around Rosedale, and it wasn’t all coming from inside this snug neighborhood restaurant. Rosedale's leafy back patio pulsed with portable heaters. Some were planted in big flowerpots next to each couple’s table, like ice buckets with the opposite effect.

Lately, my drink of choice has not been about on what's in the cup so much as where I get it. I’ve been visiting bars around New Orleans, which would not normally qualify as noteworthy but these days we’re taking nothing for granted.

This Saints season brought more uncertainty than most, starting with whether we would even get one during the coronavirus crisis. But when it actually began I knew one thing for sure: The day after each game, I would eat red beans and rice while reading the sports page.

King cake at Carnival time — it’s instinctual in New Orleans. And yet this year much is different. Parades are canceled and many of the places where we find king cake have changed, from schools to offices. But the spirit of Carnival season persists in many other facets of local culture, and king cakes represent one edible, readily accessible example.

Where would you have your last restaurant meal in New Orleans? That’s supposed to be a rhetorical question, but we’ve faced a very real version of it.

New Orleans is so familiar with catastrophe, sometimes it feels like the way we answer it is part of our community character. We are defiant, we are resilient, we carry on, and we do it together.

Many of us are eager to support restaurants in the pandemic, but a lot has changed for how to do that best. That’s why I’ve been asking New Orleans restaurant people what would help them most now, and what they wished more people knew.

The cafe tables were empty at Loretta’s Authentic Pralines down in Faubourg Marigny and the display cases up front were barren. But in back, Loretta Harrison and her crew had the kitchen humming. Another batch of pralines bubbled in a copper kettle. The homey aroma of sweet potato pies in the oven filled the air. Harrison wore a pink facemask and a dusting of flour on her apron as she rolled more dough for the next round of pecan pies.

In Louisiana, we know our food has a narrative power in addition to its nourishing one, because it flows through families and is tied to place. It’s never more potent than when everything else has been kicked away. Many of us learned this on the long road back from Hurricane Katrina.

No one does Thanksgiving like Louisiana. It starts with the familiar framework - turkey, pie, bourbon, family politics. But to that we add so much from our own culture, our unabating obsession with the table. Because this is 2020 though, even this feast will be different. A holiday of togetherness and gratitude can’t escape feelings of separation and loss from the pandemic.

Before the pandemic, visitors flocked to Willie Mae’s to try this Treme restaurant’s famous fried chicken. It seemed like there was always a line for tables.