Food=Life

I step into the taxi at Louis Armstrong airport on a Thursday afternoon. It's a big, old, smelly vehicle, but actually quite clean by New Orleans standards. I tell the cab driver to go uptown. His phone rings which means I am free of the burdens of conversations about New Orleans that would inevitably have taken place had he not been on the phone the entire trip. "Ever been to New Orleans?" "Yeah, I used to live here." "Oh really, how'd you do in the storm?" And so forth.

So, I was able to enjoy the 50 degrees of fresh air that was blowing through the open windows and free to take in the familiar sites, remembering. When we finally got off the interstate and the roar of high speed air blowing subsided, the substance of his phone conversation re-appeared. "And there were these big ribs that were so good. Woowee." Yes, back in New Orleans, where conversations about food may be more commonplace than conversations about the weather. (And there's a lot of very interesting weather to talk about.)

New Orleans is the place that awakened something in me when it comes to the appreciation and pleasures of food. Not that I'm in love with the traditional New Orleans foods per se; but, food culture, culinary heritage, food worship, food as religion, food=sex, food for food's sake. Get the picture? This is in contrast to a sign I saw in the Chicago airport advertising all the food on the go that is so readily available at airports (why do I feel so compelled to eat that crap?) The sign said something like: "Eat so you can get on with your life."

In New Orleans, eating is life.

And now, I go in search of the perfect cup of coffee, which will not be hard to find...