Cajun Haggis!!!!!

We've just been to Ignatius for lunch. It is a wonderful 'french' feeling cafe on Magazine Street and is run by the same folks as Rue de la Course - my favourite coffee shop!! The food is great - all the New Orleans traditionals - jambalaya, shrimp creole, po' boys, muffulatas, red beans and rice with sausage, etouffee, gumbo.

Today as an appetizer, we had "boudin" for the first time. It is Cajun Haggis - looks like a sausage but you cut into it and it oozes its innards just like haggis (pictured below). It is made from lots of things I've been told but the kind we had was pork based. The other difference is it is made with rice instead of oats, so this means its gluten free!!!! which, as I'm allergic to gluten, is fantastic!!!

Dazza loved the boudin as did I and was waxing lyrical about his first taste of Haggis, Neeps and Tatties in Scotland. The best unique meal he says he's ever had. He did say that the haggis grossed him out before he tried it!! Dazza had a juicy half roast beef po' boy and crawfish and corn chowder. I had a big house salad (their salads are amazing too - they do a muffalata salad - everything from a muffulata but on salad instead of bread - again gluten free!!!). We both polished off our lunch with some Rue de la Course coffee!

From some mild eavesdropping, I love how in this town people have long and rich conversations all about food!! Its good to be home!

Our Botanical Welcome Home

We know what it means to miss New Orleans!!

We left N'awlins to go up North (well its pretty hard to go South...) for a couple of days. We left on Thursday and came home last night. It felt like months!! And we definitely felt like we needed a passport - everywhere else is nothing like this place. And we arrived home very tired after 13 hours in the car but very very happy to be home!!

We were welcomed home by some amazing blooming activity on the trees - I will get the camera out and divulge pics soon. I have pics of our trip too and lots to witter on about. Don't know if it fits in this blog category or my other. But either way watch this space for more very soon.....

ps the phrase" Do you know what it means, to miss New Orleans?" always makes me think of New Orleans as a beautiful (if old and party-worn) southern belle (Miss New Orleans).

Gwen

the tag thing is on my other blog

The Blame Game

Wow. I'm quite amazed by Nagin. He's got quite the brass neck.

He's got all the good sound bites. He's got all the answers: its their fault. He blamed the Feds for not coughing up the dough that NOLA was promised by that blithering idiot in Jackson Square in Sept 2005. He blames the State for having a juicy surplus whilst things are still so very much broken in NOLA. But Nagin, aah Nagin!! He's cleaned up the French Quarter to the point that eating the vomit on Bourbon Street doesn't sound so unappetizing... :)

I always feel with Nagin that he wants to be the cool kid that everyone likes. He wants to be on our side. He wants to forget that he is on the side of local government whether he likes it or not and that with that comes the responsibility to actually do something about our problems not complain about them and blame everyone else. In my humble opinion if he blames Bush and Bianco for the lack of cash and (therefore) progress in New Orleans he should have been banging down their doors, screaming blue murder in the halls of Congress and running naked across the White House lawn to get their attention.

Had he done all that then I wouldn't mind hearing him bitch....

The end of his speech I found very interesting and if anyone can help on any of this please do:

In closing, as I stated earlier we as a city are determined to have a full recovery.

[Great!!]

We have the vision.

[What is it?]

We have the plan.

[I don't know it]

We made the tough decisions to position us for a full recovery.

[They were...?]

We have chosen life over death.

[well some of us have been able to.....]

We will rebuild.

[with or without your help....]

One New Orleans, one Louisiana.

[who's he kidding? the rest of Louisiana is so unbelievable redneck that when I get too far along I-10 I want to do a screeching U-turn and head home ASAP]

I get wet, I get dry

I've been neglecting my blogs recently - I've thought of posts, not got round to posting them or quite simply just felt blah.... I'm sure its just my adjustment to my summer....

Anyway....

I've just been to my local (and favourite) coffee shop, Rue De La Course on Magazine St and devoured the Sunday Times Picayune and the Sunday NY Times. Lots of fodder for my grey matter (and future posts..). However I do miss the Observer and Scotland on Sunday - reading them online just isn't the same and the chances of me smearing my forehead with newsprint ink is far less likely. I love having a Sunday to commune with newspapers. I firmly believe that was what God truly intended "His" day for!!

I was walking home along Magazine when it began to drizzle. I thought about how rare it seems in N'awlins to find drizzle, that widely loved and hated Scottish phenomenon. N'awlins Fog there is plenty of - particularly in the Autumn and "Winter". But drizzle, no. And I thought that, other than my newspapers getting a little soggy, how nice it was to walk in warm drizzle.

It made me think of Stefan, one of my parents' friends from Belgium. We went on holiday as a family to Brussels to see Stefan when I was about ten. I remember we went for a walk in the woods and it began to rain. My Mum quickly got out our waterproofs and kitted us out. But Stefan just stood there in his shorts and T-shirt in the rain getting wet. My sister, brother and I used to the bone-chilling aspect of Scottish rain, were shocked. "You'll get wet!!" we cried. "I'll get dry again!" Stefan replied.

So I was walking in the spirit of Stefan when N'awlins decided to defy me and show how rare indeed the event of N'awlins drizzle is, and really rain. Luckily I was spared the usual downpour - when the heavens open and God dumps his bath water on your head! But my newspapers are decidedly soggy!!

Post-Traumatic-Stress in Post-Katrina New Orleans

A very good friend of mine from the BBC sent me an email this morning. In it is details of a paper “Prevalence of Posttraumatic Stress Disorder Following Hurricane Katrina” by Lisa D. Mills MD and Trevor J. Mills MD. This paper will be presented at the 2007 SAEM ( Society for Academic Emergency Medicine) Annual Meeting, May 16-19, 2007, Chicago, IL on Friday, May 18th, in the Psychiatry poster session beginning at 9:00 AM in the River Exhibition Hall A & B of the Sheraton Chicago Hotel & Towers.

This paper is to report that Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) is ten times the national average in New Orleans. 38% of people who have visited the Emergency rooms in New Orleans exhibit signs of PTSD compared with 3.6% for the national average. Dr. Peter DeBlieux, MD,
Director of Emergency Services at Louisiana State University in New Orleans was asked about this study and commented:
“The incidence of PTSD in our population post-Katrina reported in this research study is noteworthy and worth following as recovery efforts move forward. The prevalence cited in this study is not alarming to those professionals caring for patients who have been traumatized by the storm and challenged by the recovery efforts.”

This should come as "news" to no one. Katrina turned this city into a war zone and most people involved in war suffer PTSD. Big parts of this city still look like a war zone. I drive up Louisiana Avenue to Clairborne to get onto I-10 and every time I do I look at the huge housing project on the right hand side. It is empty and abandoned after Katrina. The windows are cracked, the roof starting to crumble and it is quite eerie. It always reminds me of photos of war torn Germany during the 1940s. That's what Katrina did. She left big swathes of this city war torn.

I don't know if this paper will include this - although I hope it does - but I look at that housing project and the size of it and its emptiness and I wonder where all those people ended up. The PTSD in this city is 38% but what about all those other souls spread throughout the US? They surely also have PTSD. But being the poorest in society are they getting adequate care? Being the poorest in society they were the ones who didn't leave. They are the ones that really experienced the war zone and all its wrath.

The magnitude of loss here is staggering. It is present on a continuum from the smallest possession to loss of a loved one. As part of the story in my friend's email stated:
"The magnitude and duration of even a single mental health care diagnosis after this disaster demonstrates the need for long term, coordinated mental health response as part of disaster relief. Interim or temporary mental health response is not adequate for this population."

The scars from this disaster run deep. The rate of suicide is up. The number of people who are dying from stress is up. This city needs to be rebuilt but not just physically. Souls are hurt and they should be cared for and helped to heal as best they can.