4 // COASTWEEKEND.COM
NEW ORLEANS,
CLOSE TO HOME
HOME AWAY FROM HOME
By DAVID CAMPICHE
FOR COAST WEEKEND
‘Music is sound, in time. All sound in
New Orleans is a drumbeat, a rhythm
tapped out to the tune of 300 years of
melding culture. And that is something
to celebrate.” — Laurie Anderson
he skies opened and rain fell
last night in the Big Easy. Along
the iron rails that tangle like
spider webs through the city, winds
rifled. I kicked myself for forgetting
my raincoat, but needn’t have worried.
By lunchtime, the sun was back, and
the typical jamboree that defines New
Orleans was in full naked display.
This city is full of tap-dancing sur-
prises. One came in the human form of
Uriah Hulsey, the famous and beloved
owner-chef, along with his lovely wife,
Jeanine, of the Columbian Café in our
own River City. Having known Uriah
for decades, we sought him out in his
second home. For the next several
days, Uriah became our guide, the go-
to-guy in untangling the urban gifts in
a city built on the bayou.
Hulsey has huge presence in a me-
dium-sized body. One can’t compare
the look except to say, he is a painterly
individual, a Fauve. He makes few
apologies and doesn’t suffer fools
easily. He has earned his stripes: It is
hard to find a more accomplished or
articulate chef.
T
DAVID CAMPICHE PHOTOS
Uriah Hulsey cooks at his shotgun house
in New Orleans
like an area (district or quarter) get off.
The tariff is as easy as the city: $3 a day.
Start with the Garden District and
later push into the opposite direction, a
destination called the French Quarter,
a section of this city often defined by
centuries-old buildings and a free spirit
seldom replicated across America.
This year the city is celebrating three
centuries of habitation from the likes
of Jean Lafitte, the pirate, to slews of
Spaniards, Frenchmen and free slaves.
Yes, there were others: Pierre Maspero’s
Restaurant was an original slave house,
and ghosts of the past flutter down the
narrow cobblestone streets that are en-
hanced by some of the finest collections
of 18th and 19th century mansions, Cre-
ole cottages, single and double shotgun
houses, antique store fronts and stately
homes in North America.
New Orleans remains a cornucopia
of the living and the dead, as well as a
city imbued with the power of now.
Cruising on the big river outside New Orleans
A Vietnam vet, he may be cynical at
times, (“The war taught me one thing:
I’ll never trust my government again.”)
but during many of the remaining
hours of our adventure, he helped us
to explore fine food, sweet bourbon
and jazz, those swinging moments that
forever tattoo this city.
Exploring the sublime
Immediately, get on a streetcar. Go
to the end of the line. Roll down the
window and don your camera. If you
Dusk on the Mississippi River at the Port of New Orleans
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