Beautiful Exchange Alley Sunday Morning
He and She Said:
Remarkable weather once again and a perfect closing day at the Fest. We wrapped it up early this year, so no Trombone Shorty for us. But don’t cry for us too much: an invitation to our out-of-town guest’s birthday dinner at Commander’s Palace was hardly a penance. A bit off topic, but Commander’s remains one of the very best places to eat in NOLA.
Back to FQF. The highlights: Continue reading
Posted in Better Weekends, Festivals, Food, He and she said, Music
Tagged French Quarter Fest
He and She Said:
The third consecutive day of great weather, no annoying complications associated with work and jobs, a glittering finale, and a world championship were all on the plate yesterday as we opened and closed FQF, arriving before 11:00am and leaving more than 10 hours later.
The highlights: Continue reading
Posted in Better Weekends, Contests, Festivals, Food, He and she said, Music
Tagged French Quarter Fest
100 Year Music Protection
He and She Said:
Friday Funday at the fest! We found the crowds noticeably larger than Thursday, but they were still a people-bargain compared to what we’ll see today. We focused on the Mint stages and Jackson Square. Continue reading
Posted in Better Weekends, Festivals, Food, He and she said
Tagged French Quarter Fest
FQF 2012 Begins
He and She Said:
Day one in the books: unexpectedly great weather, predictably lovely Thursday crowds, some new items, an early candidate for best set of the Fest, and a one of the more unusual stories we’ve ever heard. The quick, the dirty, and the really dirty: Continue reading
CC Image courtesy Laity Lodge Youth Camp
He Said:
What the hell was I thinking?
Somehow, someway, I find myself matched up against a phalanx of eating machines, including somebody known as the Black Widow, in the professional division of Rouses World Crawfish Eating Championship this Saturday at French Quarter Fest.
Sonya Thomas, as the Black Widow is known to those unfortunate enough to compete against her, is a two-time winner of this event and the winner of the women’s division of the 2011 Nathan’s Hot Dog Eating Contest. She saves time by eating the shells.
Seriously.
My qualifications? A lifetime of peeling and eating, training at backyard boils for many years. Add to that a persistent willingness rush in where angels fear to tread and you pretty much have my total competitive profile.
This may not go well for me.
We’ll see. I concede nothing to the Widow or to any of the other challengers out there. I may sweep through this contest and discover a new avocation. There can’t be much better than one-upping the insurance salesman next to you at a cocktail party by letting the group know you’re a freaking competitive eater. I mean, how cool is that?
Yeah, right.
Pretty unlikely I’ll manage to outdo my formidable opponents. But what I will do is have a great time and find out just how fast I am. If you want to cheer me on, or just laugh at my stupidity for getting myself into this, I’d love to see you. The crustacean conflagration goes down at 1:30pm this Saturday on the Barracks Street side of the Mint. Practice up on our competitive eating smack talk and don’t be afraid to heckle the Black Widow. I could use all the help I can get!
Posted in Better Weekends, Contests, Festivals, Food, He Said
Tagged crawfish, French Quarter Fest, Rouse
He and She Said:
Welcome to the 2012 French Quarter Fest.
Remember that story about the ant and the grasshopper? The one where the ant busted his ass on trips to Home Depot and Wal-Mart while the grasshopper partied at every festival in town, trusting that things would just work out? Winter came, the liberal arts degreed grasshopper shivered, froze and starved, and the organized, plan-centric ant did just fine, letting the grasshopper know that starvation was the predictable result of his frivolous ways.
As we approach the Fest the lesson for us in that story is obvious, isn’t it?
Ants are a-holes. Avoid them at all costs. I mean, what kind of smug, self-righteous weenie crowns himself king of the I-told-you-so parade and lets a guy who committed the unforgivable sin of attending one too many Wednesday’s at the Square freaking starve to death just to prove a point? Feel free to mercilessly crush any anthills you encounter at the Fest, because you can feel confident those guys aren’t listening to the music.
But we can learn, even from our enemies, can’t we? In that spirit, here for your reading pleasure is our marginally popular, nearly critically acclaimed guide to the logistics of the French Quarter Fest, revised and updated for 2012 with new maps, tips, flotsam and jetsam . A sundry farrago of navigational curiosities designed to make your festing journey more rewarding. We’ll help you steal a bit of the ant’s planning expertise and incorporate it into your glorious grasshopper routine.
Let’s dive right in: Continue reading
She Said:
You’ve just set up your blanket (chairs if you haven’t heeded our previous warnings), the drink is in hand and your sights are set on one thing: food. The only problem is how to choose from the plethora of culinary deliciousness that meanders around you. Look no further as we have this gig down to a science. The amount of food collectively consumed last year by He Said and I is astonishing or shameful, depending on how you look at it.
Here is your first tip: stay out of the restaurants. That is unless you are planning a group late-night dinner post festival. I wouldn’t even suggest breakfast- just get out there for 11am and nosh-on.
Tip number 2: bring a print out of the food list with you. If you haven’t planned ahead, bring our list and the big list. You’ll regret it if you later realize that Love at First Bite is ¾ of a mile from your current lounge over at the Mint and you’ve got your heart set on the Cochon de lait po-boy.
As was the case last year, I’ll follow our patented, world-changing Mardi Gras Indian rating scale to clue you in on the best of the best among the Fest food choices. Here’s how it works:
Big Chief: The can’t miss, kick-ass, hate yourself tomorrow if you didn’t eat it featured item.
Flag Boy: Close to the Big Chief. Our pick for second best in the area.
Spy Boy: Light on its feet. Refreshing and reviving choices.
Medicine Man: Good for what could ail you. Festival comfort food hearty enough to absorb some alcohol.
Wild Man: Step out of your comfort zone and try something unusual. Continue reading
Bart Ramsey and Zazou City in 2011
He and She Said:
As we said last year, it’s hard to go wrong musically at FQF, but sometimes the volume of acts can overwhelm and the default response is to just camp out at one of the big stages.
Don’t do that. Get out and discover something new. For 2012, here are our best bets by day. If there’s someone below you’ve not heard of, why not check them out and expand your repertoire a bit?
Limited action on the 12th, with music only at Jackson Square and along the Riverfront.
11:00-12:15 Jackson Square: Preservation Hall Stars. The ensemble usually features drummer extraordinaire Shannon Powell (who does his thing at the Windsor Court these days). A perfect shot of jazz to kick of your FQF.
3:15-4:15 Louis Louis Pavillion Stage: Kipori Woods. Last year we said ‘old school in the mode of B.B King as Woods travels the blues highway from the Delta to the South side of Chicago.’ That still applies. One of the best bluesmen at FQF. Check him out:
3:45-5:00 Cajun Zydeco Showcase: Bruce Daigrepont Cajun Band. Get some use out of your two-step and maybe your Rosetta Stone French. Good stuff that’ll make you wonder where the closest boucherie is.
5:45-7:00 Riverside Legacy Stage: Rebirth Brass Band. Two very good brass bands weren’t on the bill in 2011. This is one of them. Close day 1 by doin’ whatcha wanna with the legendary band that Kermit Ruffins founded years ago.
Posted in Better Weekends, Festivals, He and she said, Music
Tagged French Quarter Fest
John Lisi at the Decatur Stage in 2011
He and She Said:
Only a few weeks until our favorite NOLA festival, the one-weekend, all things local, love-in that is French Quarter Fest. We’ll be navigating the streets of the Quarter April 12-15, making the tough decisions about which stage, which band, and which food. If you’ve not been and you’re wondering what all the fuss is about, you can find a recap of the 2011 festivities for Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and the whole thing by clicking through the links.
As we did last year, we’ll endeavor to help you in your own fest navigation with revised for 2012 guides to the music and food and an updated version what proved to be a very popular guide to logistics including maps and arrows and drawings and stuff.
No one knows it all, and that includes us. Our fest was made better yet again last year thanks to the suggestions of other event savants, and you’ll see some of that wisdom reflected in the 2012 revisions. (Many thanks in particular to our devoted reader Becky who clued us into how great the Singer Songwriter Stage is.)
If you have a tip, suggestion, secret place, band, or food that is too good not to share, let us know. Post a comment or send us an email or tweet. We’d love your help in adding to our growing storehouse of FQF knowledge.
Look for those revised guides over the next couple of weeks and rest up, ‘cause festival season is upon us!
FQF 2011
He and She Said:
Four days, ten stages, more than 20 different eats, more than 22 different acts, a small army of friends old and new, plenty of sunscreen, more mimosas and mojitos than we can count, and even a giant swarm of bees.
The 28th edition of the French Quarter Fest, our favorite NOLA event, is in the books. Our review, he said/she said style, and an answer to a mystery at the end:
She Said: Best Eat?
He Said: Hmmm, gotta go Boucherie 12 Hour Roast Beef. The combination of onion, horseradish and beef is as good as it gets.
He Said: Best musical act?
She Said: Trombone Shorty. On his A-game start to finish, the vibe was contagious, and I super-liked when they all switched instruments.
She Said: What was your most inspiring moment of the fest?
He Said: Huh? that’s a tough question. I am going to have to go with when John Lisi did a slow blues with his harmonica player on vocals, the best single song I saw at the entire festival. Watching the crowd become aware they were experiencing something amazing was very cool.
He Said: What was the biggest surprise?
She Said: The huge swarm of bees that took over the Lexus parked on Toulouse Sunday morning. And the man who claimed to “own” the bees as he scooped them into his large jar. With his bare hands.
She Said: Most underrated stage:
Posted in Better Weekends, Festivals, Food, He and she said, Music
Tagged French Quarter Fest
