Food Finding and Swamp Romping in New Orleans, La.

St. Louis Cathedral on Jackson Square

New Orleans' French Quarter

New Orleans offers up all kinds of adventures, and I’d say I had my fair share there last month. I stayed in the French Quarter and spent many an hour wandering its historic streets. I took a carriage ride, perused the museums, caught some live jazz, and had a few too many sugary beignets. I even fed an alligator.

On my last day in the Big Easy I had an afternoon to kill, so I asked the hotel concierge for some recommendations. She rattled off a few things I had already done, then handed me a brochure for a swamp tour. The brochure cover pictured a happy family zipping along in an airboat, smiling and grinning at their swampy surroundings. I opened the brochure and read about up-close-and-personal alligator interactions, rare bird sightings and the pristine ecology of coastal Louisiana. Plus curbside service to and from the hotel. I was sold.

A 35-minute shuttle ride ended at a river dock about 25 miles outside of New Orleans where Jason, our guide and captain, loaded 20 passengers into an open-topped airboat. (You’ll understand, in a moment, why the adjective “open-topped” is significant.) I settled into my cushy foam seat and put on my big yellow earphones. They were intended, as Jason explained, to “protict yer eers.” The fan engine was noisy, but within a few minutes we were darting down the Mississippi River at about 45 miles an hour and I was having fun.

Carriage ride in the French Quarter. (Credit: Tony Cenicola/The New York Times)

Until I turned around and noticed that Jason was wearing a raincoat. A full trench coat, actually. I looked around at my fellow passengers, wondering if I’d missed some important instructions, but noticed no one else was dressed in rain attire, or even a sweater for that matter. Two teenage gals at the front of the boat were in tank tops and flip-flops. The Australian tourists behind me, already a little pink, were lathering each other with greasy sunblock. I, myself, had just put on a hat.

And then there was a giant clap of thunder.

“Yip. This here storm’s gonna git us pritty good.”

No sooner than Jason had finished his sentence did a enormous raindrop fall from the sky and splatter across my knee. And then another, and another. And then billions more, all around us and as far as the eye could see. Raindrops the size of golf balls, the kind that hit the earth’s surface and explode like small water balloons flung from the heavens. Within seconds, I—along with everyone else on the boat save Jason—was drenched to the bone. Smoky black clouds filled the sky and the swamp went dark.

Jason stopped the boat and assured us that the storm would pass quickly. “If ye don’t like the wither in New Orleans, jist wait fift’n minits n it’ll change,” he said matter-of-factly. Wet and hunched over, we waited. Thunder delivered a deafening clap and lightning danced across the sky above us. Nothing much happened, except we all got wetter.

After a good 10 minutes, the golf ball-sized drops subsided and Jason started up the engine.  With great consideration for our comfort, he promised to keep the throttle under 20 mph for the rest of the trip.  Because high-speed boating in wet clothing and 98% humidity is not much fun.

We did get to feed an alligator and we spotted a blue heron and several white egrets. Most of my fellow passengers were good-spirited about the rain, the women laughing and joking about whose runny mascara looked worse, the men making bets on who could fill a bucket with water wrung from their shirts. And the swamp was indeed beautiful, in a wet and soggy sort of way. But then I suppose that’s the way a swamp ought to be, albeit unwelcoming to humans. Perhaps that’s Mother Nature’s intention.

The bus ride back to New Orleans was wet and sticky, and I took a long, hot bath when I got back to my hotel.  It was the last thing I thought I’d be doing on a muggy, 98-degree summer afternoon in Louisiana.

Bananas Foster French Toast (Credit: Chris Litwin)

Stella Restaurant (Credit: Chris Litwin)

Back in the French Quarter that night I stumbled across a gem of a restaurant, and my soggy woes were quickly forgotten. The chefs at Stella, an eight-year-old restaurant run by chef-owner Scott Boswell, served up some of the most inventive dishes I’ve had in all of my travels. Consider, for example, the beet salad: shaved raw beet “carpaccio,” diced red and yellow beets, whipped beet honey, beet sorbet and an airy beet foam. Garnished with tiny, delicate basil leaves, it is a beet salad like no other.

Also on the menu: a refreshing vichyssoise with roasted corn and raw peas, gnocchi with Australian winter black truffles, sea bass with udon and soba noodles in a shark fin broth, and a whole shelled lobster—body sauteed and claws lightly fried—in a sweet dill bechamel.

Stella is known as one of the more romantic dinner spots in town, but while it certainly is formal (at a table for six, six servers deliver six entrees to the table in one grand gesture, and silverware is refreshed after each course by white-gloved hands) the servers themselves are genuinely warm and unpretentious. They are knowledgeable about the menu—and food in general—and they make smart wine pairings upon request.

All of this good cheer obviously comes from the top. Chef Boswell came out to visit with a few guests late in the evening, and we got a chance to talk with this profoundly kind and talented gentleman. A former banker and pet shop manager, he is ridiculously humble for what he has accomplished.

Stella isn’t the only feather in Boswell’s culinary cap. He also owns Stanley, a more casual joint on Jackson Square just a few blocks away. If Stella is the elegant older sister, Stanley is her playful little brother. Stanley’s menu features family-friendly brunch and lunch fare with a sophisticated twist: omelet sandwiches, soft-shell crab poor boys, onion rings, bananas foster French toast, and milkshakes whipped up from house-made ice cream.

All in all, New Orleans was a great adventure. The locals were friendly, the food was fantastic, and the weather, while unpredictable and a little wet, offered a nice change of pace from San Francisco’s hum-drum foggy summer season. Next time, though, remind me to pack a raincoat.