Here are some details from the wedding. Carla was happy to reunite with some of the attendees who once were her workmates, but have moved on to other companies.  She, and we, learned that  New Orleans has a unique wedding tradition. After the ceremony, all of the guests follow the bride and groom onto the street, where the sheriff has stopped the  traffic. This becomes a parade, complete with a band, during which everyone dances and waves a handkerchief,   going from the site of the ceremony to the reception venue.

The bride’s ancestry is from Georgia, an independent country since 1991 that was once part of the USSR.  The groom donned a traditional Georgian outfit and had learned a traditional Georgian dance that he performed. I asked about their honeymoon destination.   They were going to spend a week doing  a photographic safari in Tanzania, and then a week enjoying the beaches of the Seychelles Islands. This is quite an adventuresome couple!

We had decided  to take a tour of St. Louis Cemetery No. 1, New Orleans’ oldest and most famous cemetery. New Orleans is below sea level and has a high water table, so all of the deceased are entombed above ground. Marie Leveau,  a free woman of color who blended African, Catholic and Creole traditions and was called called the Voodoo Queen, is entombed there. The actor Nicolas Cage has secured his entombment site in advance of needing it, in this cemetery. Also, we saw the tomb of Joseph Aristide Baquie, the maternal great grandfather of Robert Francis Prevost, now Pope Leo XIV.

After the tour we were all very hungry. I suggested that since  our vacation  would soon be over, we we should all eat a muffuletta, one of New Orleans’ most traditional foods. They were available at Parkway Bakery and Tavern, which was 2.5 miles from us, and  at Central Grocery, 3/4 of a mile away. We chose to walk to Central Grocery. In doing that, we were able to approach the French Quarter from a different angle and observe more of the area that leads up to it.

A whole muffuletta is a round loaf of Sicilian bread that’s about nine inches in diameter, and  also the sandwich that is made from it. The meats and cheeses in the sandwich can vary,  but they typically include capicola, ham, Genoa salami, mortadella, mozzarella and provolone, although the one I had at Napoleon House included pastrami. The consistent element is the olive salad, the brine from which gets absorbed by the bread. The four of us shared a muffuletta, and it got high praises from all of us.  Carla declared that it was her favorite food of the trip.

Back at the Airbnb, I reviewed Debbie’s notes and saw the following: “Things you MUST try to eat: 1. oysters.” We opted to go to a place that was somewhat out-of-the way called Casamento’s Restaurant. Our Uber driver, a local, was surprised that we had heard of it and that it was open. This restaurant specializes in, of course, oysters. Nick loves oysters and had enjoyed eating many of them (dozens, as I recall ) with our friends Agnès and Jose-Maria in France, but I wasn’t certain whether I had ever eaten one. Now, that would be part of the adventure. We ordered oysters, lots of oysters, raw oysters, fried oysters, and grilled oysters. They were wonderful, tasting similar to clams, but somewhat lighter. Again we thank Debbie for her suggestions that made the trip so enjoyable for us.

Back at the Airbnb, Nicholas said that rather than leave for California the next day, he would stay in New Orlean for a few more days. There were parts of the city in which he’d be able to walk from his hotel into the not only the restaurants but  also into the music scene. That sounded like a great plan.

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