sweetolive

From Spring into Summer

2008-06-04T15:30:07Z

“And whenever you smell Sweet Olive, you’ll remember this moment,” said Reverend Jerry Schwehm, as he pronounced the radiant couple man and wife, then hopped on his Harley and headed out into the fragrant evening.
A particularly memorable moment from the exchange of vows that took place under the canopy of our sweet olive tree this spring. A couple living in Ireland had decided that New Orleans’ accommodating marriage regulations would make this a simpler place to tie the knot than back home.
And so John and Anna did, the only objection coming from the mockingbird in the tree, who was not at all pleased that we had chosen her territory for the ceremony.
Each time I’ve stepped out the door these last few months I’ve tried to sort out the scents of sweet olive, gardenia, ligustrum, trumpet flowers, confederate jasmine, and many blooms whose scent and beauty I celebrate despite their anonymity.
It’s been a particularly beautiful spring. Our part of city has been abuzz these last few months—well as abuzz as New Orleans gets. It’s a good feeling. We’ve had an amazing assortment of guests, and breakfast conversations fuelled by discussions about music and food and history and politics. We walk away from each of these delightful exchanges reminded of why we decided to become innkeepers.
And now we’re looking ahead to that time in the city that is the definition of the word “languor.”
For me summer is about getting up early and walking through quiet streets into the French Quarter, then maybe a stop for breakfast at La Peniche on the way back. I have a long list of museum exhibits I haven’t made yet including the Treasures of Napoleon collection on display at the old Mint Museum just a few blocks from us. I still haven’t made it to the retrospective at the New Orleans Museum of Art of the work of George Rodrigue, famed for his Blue Dog. And the World War II museum has a cool sounding exhibition at the moment called Reel to Real, about Hollywood and the war. There’s also a brand spanking new museum that’s all about food and beverage in the South. Then, duly inspired, it’s off to try one of the dozens of new restaurants that keep popping up.
Nap. Repeat.
Our tourism folks on the other hand haven’t been all that languid and are busily conjuring up stuff to entice people here in the summer. They’ve rolled three terrific festivals into one on the weekend of June 13: The Creole Tomato Festival, Cajun/Zydeco Music Festival, and Seafood Festival all go down around The Mint and French Market. Hard to imagine that won’t be fun.
And coming up later in the summer will be two more personal favorites: The COOLinary Festival that lets you dine from July into September at places like Emeril’s for around $30 or less. The list of participating restaurants this year hasn’t been announced yet, but as soon as it is, we’ll be making our calendar of dining days.
And then there’s the Satchmo Fest the first weekend in August put on by the same folks that do the French Quarter Fest, with a weekend of awesome music just a few blocks from us.
We of course will once again be offering special summer rates: $75 in June and $65 in July and August, with the Courtyard Suite slightly more. Our 4th night free special will also continue through the summer.
So if a little heat and humidity won’t keep you away from a good time, give us a holler and we’ll keep you posted on everything that’s going on this summer in the city.
All our best,
Dave, Dale, Clara, and Happy
http://www.sweetolive.com

Carnival Season!

2007-12-26T16:48:22Z

Dave is going to be spending a lot of time on the ladder come the first of the year. Mardi Gras for 2008 is extra early this year, which means that the minute the Christmas decorations come down, the Purple, Green and Gold stuff goes up.

We’ve had several people tell us over the years, that while they are intrigued by Mardi Gras, they just don’t think they could handle all the hubbub. And we always offer the same advice. What many folks don’t realize is that the Carnival Season actually starts January 6, with fun stuff happening all the way until the big day. There are more than two dozen parades that take place BEFORE that last weekend leading up to Mardi Gras. With floats that are just as magical. And we think, somewhat more generous bead throwers.

A personal favorite is one of the earliest of all. The Krewe du Vieux www.kreweduvieux.org is a highly satirical parade that passes just three blocks from us, this year on January 19. It’s composed of “sub-krewes” created by groups of friends who costume according to some sort of loose theme (always funny, sometimes bawdy) and traipse along with hysterical floats pulled by mule or people power. There’s always a nice crowd to receive them, but not so huge that you can’t get up close for a good look, and lots of beads.

Other personal favorites in the weeks leading up to Mardi Gras include Sparta with flambeaux bearers, the flickering wands that were first used to illuminate night parades. And King Arthur, just because we have lots of friends in that parade. And of course the Krewe of Barkus, where dozens of pooches parade to the delight of both their owners and onlookers.

We are full beginning February 1, but still have room for all the earlier festivities. Please call us if you’d like to know more about our favorites of Carnival season at 504.947.4332. As many of you know, Dave was King of Endymion some years ago, and there aren’t many around who know more about the season than he does.

And for a bit of detail on what else is new in the city, you can read my recent piece for the New York Times here:
http://travel.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/travel/escapes/30orleans.html

Winter Update

2007-11-17T14:23:06Z

When people ask me what the best time of year is to visit New Orleans, I usually suggest December. The weather varies from T-Shirt and shorts days, to those just nippy enough to feel appropriate for the holidays. Many of the city’s beautiful historic homes are decked out and on tour. And the already amazing food gets kicked up another notch with special “Reveillon” menus at lots of restaurants.

During the mid-1800s, New Orleans' Creole families celebrated the "Reveillon" (French for "awakening") after Midnight Mass on Christmas Eve, when families returned from St. Louis Cathedral to break a daylong fast with an elaborate meal.

You don’t have to eat that late to enjoy today’s version of that meal.
Here’s what one of our nearby favorite places will be serving:

The Marigny Brasserie

Jumbo Gulf Shrimp Cocktail Amuse-Bouche

Choice of:
Grilled Hearts of Baby Romaine & Crispy Gulf Coast Oysters with Rémoulade-Caesar Dressing • Wild Mushroom Soup

Choice of:
Beef Tenderloin Wellington with Moulard Foie Gras & Portobello Duxcelle • Roasted Maple Leaf Farms Duck with Oyster-Cornbread Dressing

Choice of:
Velvet Chocolate Mousse • Bûche de Noël

Chef's Homemade Eggnog

There are lots of other choices and we’ll be glad to share our other favorites with you if you visit.

Another of our favorite holiday events is a series of free concerts at the Cathedral with some of our most talented local music folk. Here’s that schedule:

∑ December 4 : Rachel Van Voorhees and Friends
∑ December 5: Aubry Bryan, Tenor
∑ December 11 : John Fohl, Theresa Andersson and David Doucet
∑ December 12: Tyrone Foster and The Arc Singers
∑ December 18: Phillip Manuel and Leah Chase
∑ December 19: Rev. Lois J. DeJean, Gospel Diva and Friends

And there are free cooking demonstrations, horse drawn carriage tours of the millions of tiny lights that fill the oak trees in City Park, and lots more stuff we’ll be happy to share. Just call us or send us an email.

And one last piece of news before we go. We have terrific new neighbors. The huge former furniture store across the street from us is being converted into an exciting new development for our neighborhood. It will house the New Orleans Healing Center, envisioned as a facility that will provide space for yoga classes, massage therapists, natural food restaurants, and a co-op food store. It will offer short courses on a wide variety of subjects that are expected to range from astrology to language classes. The facility will also house a police substation, and our friends in law enforcement have already begun to move in. I’m sure it’s a welcome change from the trailers they’ve been working from since Katrina.

Fall Update

2007-11-17T14:21:06Z

We've been walking our Marigny neighborhood in the early mornings, camera in hand, and we've decided to put together some of our favorite moments from those walks and create a mini-poster that our guests can take home with them. Our thanks to our designer friend Francelle Theriot for creating such a beautiful environment for our pictures.

In other news, our new Courtyard Suite has been well received. It's about twice the size of our other rooms, and features a big walk in shower and whirllpool tub, as well as a kitchenette. Not surprisingly we've had lots of couples celebrating special occasions.

And speaking of celebrations, this spring we had our first Voodoo Commitment Ceremony under the shade of our Sweet Olive tree. It was a colorful, joyful, and spiritual afternoon for all of us. Our friend and Voodoo Priestess Reverand Severina Sigh has also performed a wedding and vow renewal ceremony in this very same, very atmospheric spot. Let us know if you have a special upcoming moment, you'd like to commemorate in a special way.

Summer at The Sweet Olive

2007-07-06T20:23:29Z

It’s been a terrific spring at the Sweet Olive. the perfect convergence of awesome weather and spectacular festivals. And now we settle in as the city slows to a more languorous pace for the summer. This is the season when we rise early to enjoy a cool morning, then take a long nap in the heat of the day and awake ready to party well into the night.

As usual the city tourism folks are working hard to make it well worthwhile to perspire a bit on a visit to New Orleans this summer. There are discounts on everything from admission to Mardi Gras World, to cooking classes, to Swamp Tours.

The city’s plethora of festivals continue through the summer as well. In July there’s Tales of the Cocktail—a weekend-long celebration of cuisine and cocktails, and for those of you who missed Jazz Fest—the Satchmo Fest, the first weekend in August, which takes the already remarkable music scene on nearby Frenchmen street to a whole new level.

And by far the BEST incentive of all, the annual COOLinary Festival, during which you can dine at many of the city’s most acclaimed restaurants (including Emeril’s, Antoine’s and Arnaud’s) for $30.07 or less. (And the number of fine restaurants in New Orleans has now actually surpassed what was available before Katrina.)

And one final note, we’re delighted to announce that our new Courtyard Suite is now available. It features a whirlpool tub, large walk in tiled shower, king sized bed, and mini-kitchen. The perfect spot for that afternoon nap.

If you’re pondering a visit to the Big Easy this summer and haven’t been for awhile, please give us a call and let us give you our first hand account of what’s going on in the city. We think you’ll be pleasantly surprised.

P.S. I almost forgot. Our summer rates start at $65. And we’re still running our 4th night free special!

Spring in the Marigny

2007-03-16T19:33:09Z

The jasmine is in full bloom, a wave of yellow washing over our fence. I love it.

Tax Time in New Orleans

2007-03-07T21:28:48Z

It's tax prep time at the Sweet Olive and even that gets a bit of a New Orleans spin. We've discovered that bobblehead dolls caught at Mardi Gras parades make great paperweights when you're sorting receipts!

I'm likin' this link on the neighborhood...

2007-02-01T21:34:55Z

Wikipedia's travel companion has a great piece on our neighborhood, Faubourg Marigny.

http://wikitravel.org/en/New_Orleans/Faubourg_Marigny

Mardi Gras is off and running!

2007-01-31T22:24:37Z

So Dave has now swapped out all the decorations from Christmas to Mardi Gras and the place is a vision of purple, green, and gold. Our favorite Mardi Gras parade is up first...Krewe du Vieux...wildly satiric, and it passes just a few blocks from us this Saturday night. We're so pumped!

Andrei Codrescu

2007-01-05T20:18:29Z

I'm reading Andrei Codrescu's "New Orleans Mon Amour" right now. It's a month overdue at the library but I refuse to let go of it just yet. My jaw drops at what a brilliant writer he is even more remarkably in a second language, and how he so "gets" New Orleans, the good and the bad and why the bad and the good are sometimes hard to distinguish. Here he writes about the St. Roch Cemetary a few blocks from our B&B.

"The graves of New Orleans follow social standing, just as their residents had. I have not looked rigorously into the distribution of angels, but I assume that they were commissioned by the wealthy. Marching past St. Roch Cemetery one time around twilight, with a group of antifascist protesters, I was struck by the proliferation of angels massed in the sky. They were in flight, taking off toward each other, as animated as large winged creatures ever get. Their milky white flesh glowed, their robes came undone, the flowers they held glistened, their hair was on fire. David Duke, the racist against whom we were marching, was defeated the next day. Miracles are very much part of St. Roch: Look at the prosthetic limbs left by the faithful in the St. Roch chapel. They were healed and made strong enough to march against racists. Well, maybe. Faith may have no politics, but it does seem to belong disproportionatley to the poor. Which makes it all the more fair to employ the angels of the rich to the purposes of justice."

The Perfect Segue

2007-01-04T22:11:51Z

One of the things that I LOVE about New Orleans is that there is no first of the year after holiday let down. Because on Twelfth Night, as the Christmas season ends, Carnival season begins. So Dave will soon be up on the ladder swapping out the swags from red and green...to purple, green, and gold. And one of our favorite Carnival parades is just a few weeks away. The wild and wackily satiric Krewe du Vieux marches through the neighborhood just a couple blocks from us on February 3. This year's theme is Habitat for Insanity and the amazing local writer Chris Rose will be king this year. Check out their plans at www.kreweduvieux.org.

New York Times says New Orleans is fun again!

2006-11-26T15:37:56Z

I was delighted to see the New York Times reporting that New Orleans is still a fun place to visit, not to mention a great value. I was a little amused that their "frugal travel" reporter, paid more than he needed to for both his room and his dining. Had he stayed in a B&B he would have had friendly local folk to guide him :-)

http://www.nytimes.com/traveldispatch?8td&emc=td

Halloween Highlights

2006-11-09T21:14:03Z

In many parts of the country Halloween is strictly for kids. In New Orleans, you need only to still be in touch with your inner child. This year the city's gigantic costume party on the Saturday before was back, with thousands of costumed revelers filling the Sports Arena next to the Superdome. My personal "best of" costume award goes to the group wearing overalls over T-shirts silk-screened with "E-coli Farms: Spinach to Die For."

Halloween night we headed into the French Quarter for dinner at Muriel's, next door to the St. Louis Cathedral, chosen in equal parts for its amazing cuisine and for its strategic location in the heart of costume clad celebrants filling the streets.

There were folks of all ages, some in costumes that they'd obviously worked on for weeks, and some that had just thrown on anything that could be remotely called a costume—an orange wig, a rubber nose, a recycled Mardi Gras mask—just so they could be there and feel like a part of the scene.

A good time was had by all.

Commander's is back!

2006-10-09T17:01:34Z

We had brunch at the recently reopened Commander's Palace yesterday, to celebrate our visiting friend Ron's birthday. What a treat it was to be back at this amazing restaurant that has been a part of the lives of New Orleanians for the last 125 years.

They had some significant wind damage from Katrina, but the place has been completely renovated now and is more beautiful than ever.

The food and service are also as amazing as ever. And with brunch prices that start at $28, it's one of the city's best fine dining values.

I only wish we'd had more time to spend in roaming the neighborhood after we ate. Commander's is across from one of the city's most beautiful and historic cemetaries, the historic neighborhood that surrounds it is as beautiful as ever.

New Orleans Mon Amour

2006-10-02T01:38:10Z

I'm reading Andre Condrescu's book, New Orleans Mon Amour. I'm always in awe of anyone who can write so brilliantly in a language that isn't their first language. Here's my favorite passage so far:

There are certain cities and certain areas of certain cities where the official language is dreams. Venice is one. And Paris. North Beach in San Francisco. Wenceslaus Square in Prague. And New Orleans, the city that dreams stories. Writers come and eavesdrop and take some of those stories with them, but these are a just a few drops from a Mississippi River of stories. The Mississippi brings all its stories here from the rest of the country and can barely contain itself from bursting when New Orleans adds its own stories.

sweetolive @ 2006-09-16T17:39:00

2006-09-16T22:41:59Z

Just ran across a really interesting road trip with a beginning and end in New Orleans, and an amazing story behind it. Read about the "Plucky Survivors Road Trip" at cancerchick.com.

Better than ever

2006-09-10T23:24:16Z

Had brunch this morning at Elizabeth's, our favorite Bywater Brunch spot. Dave had duck and sweet potatoe hash on a cornbread waffle, I had a variant of Eggs Benedict with poached eggs on fried eggplant slices with hollandaise sauce. The food here just keeps getting better and better. My personal favorite is still the "pork candy"—bacon topped with praline sauce and broiled.

Our life in the city this week

2006-09-10T14:49:30Z

A few current observations about our day-to-day life in New Orleans:

It looks like fall has come early this year.

Around here fall is measured not by a significant drop in temperature, but by a drop in humidity. It’s amazing what a difference it makes. We’re having absolutely beautiful evenings this week.

One of our favorite outdoor dining spots is the patio at Café Rani on Magazine Street under the outstretched arms of Branche DuBois, the giant live oak in the center of their courtyard named in an homage to A Streetcar Named Desire.

We were there with a visiting friend the other night and ended up moving inside, despite the great weather, because the Cicadas were obviously as thrilled by the weather as we were, and their exuberant singing was drowning out our conversation.

Next time you’re here remind us to tell you about their amazing Eggplant Rani appetizer.
Speaking of restaurants, rumor has it that Commanders is set to reopen in October, one of the last of the city’s culinary icons to do so.

And for the foodies among you, there has NEVER been a better time for fine dining in New Orleans on the cheap. Dinner at Emeril’s for $30? Lunch at Galatoire’s for $20? It’s part of a special promotion the visitors bureau put together called COOLinary New Orleans. And this year it includes dozens of famous restaurants and lasts through September. Get a list of all the restaurants participating at www.neworleanscvb.com.

Dave and I had the good fortune to be invited to the taping of a new television program featuring legendary New Orleans musicians. This taping was at Preservation Hall, in celebration of the Preservation Hall Jazz Band’s return to the city.

Somehow, despite living in Louisiana all my adult life, I’d never made it to a performance in this tiny little room with rough wooden benches, and no air conditioning. So it’s all about the music. Which was of course amazing.

And we have yet another new live music club on Frenchmen street, our neighborhood music mecca. Ray’s Boom Boom room has a terrific lineup of local performers including frequent appearances by Kermit Ruffins and the Barbecue Swingers.

And on a final upbeat note, Dave was indulging in one of his favorite pastimes, reading the blogs at weatherunderground.com, and despite my concern that he really should get a life, he happened upon some very encouraging stuff.

The weather geek bloggers are reporting that an El Nino is forming in the eastern Pacific off of South America. That warms the waters there and reportedly produces increased windshear across the Atlantic basin. And windshear is bad news for hurricane formation. Which is good news for us. The prediction is that the phenomenon will last throughout 2007.