Another Weekend,

another festival.

Ah, yes. Such is life in the Crescent City.

This weekend it was the Roadfood Festival that drew us into the French Market area of the French Quarter.

We arrived about an hour before the Festival's start time, so this gave us a chance to take a short walk along Decatur Street.

This street is less traveled compared to its more famous Quarter routes, such as, Bourbon and Royal Streets, but it still reflects New Orleans.

The colors, the ironwork, and the respect paid to the preservation of the history of the buildings make the city an international city and a city unlike any other in the US, if not the world.

The festival organizers emphasize
"roadfood" as meaning
"...great regional meals along highways, in small towns and in city neighbor-hoods. The Roadfood.com website was created by Stephen Rushmore along with best-selling authors Jane and Michael Stern, whose many books have inspired the cult of celebrating great American roadside eats.

"Roadfood is non-franchised, sleeves-up food made by cooks, bakers, pitmasters, and sandwich-makers who are America’s culinary folk artists. It is almost always informal and inexpensive; and the best Roadfood restaurants are colorful places enjoyed by locals (and savvy travelers) for their character as well as their menu.

"Roadfood. com was founded in 2000. Its restaurant reviews and forums are a food-loving traveler's best friend, packed with great local color and the best regional specialties across America" (neworleansfoodfestival.com).

Specializing in beef brisket was Louie Mueller Barbecue (Taylor, TX). The wonderful aromas coming from their smokers had people salivating long before the orders were placed.

And from coolers (right) of Central BBQ (Memphis, TN) came some of the best pulled pork sandwiches we have found. We enjoyed them in Memphis and again at this festival in New Orleans.

Among the two dozen-plus vendors present, some of the other notable out-of-state representa-tives were: Lasyone's Meat Pie Restaurant (Natchitoches, LA)--Meat Pie, Crawfish Pie; LDR Char Pit (Rochester, NY)--Rochester steak sandwiches, Red and White Hots; Big Daddy's Hotwater Cornbread (El Dorado, AR)--Fried Cornbread; and Tucson Tamale Company (Tucson, AZ)--Green Corn Tamale.

Among the merchants at the French Market was one displaying this array of bottles. They were flat, appearing to have been melted into this form. We're guessing the labels were applied after a space had been created while the glass could be formed. Very interesting.

And then there was this booth, where a spokesperson introduced us to Steampunk, which he described as "Victorian science fiction, a la Jules Verne."

"The clothes are not exactly Victorian, adding in technological bits or hints of a more adventurous life than a typical Victorian citizen likely enjoyed.

"Steampunk has always been first and foremost a literary genre, or least a subgenre of science fiction and fantasy that includes social or technological aspects of the 19th century (the steam) usually with some deconstruction of, reimagining of, or rebellion against parts of it (the punk). Unfortunately, it is a poorly defined subgenre, with plenty of disagreement about what is and is not included" (steampunk.com).

Continuing our walk along Decatur Street, we returned to the more familiar scenes of the street. Here a solo banjo player is framed by a doorway.

On to more street scenes.