xposted to YatPundit Leave it
xposted to YatPundit
Leave it to Da Paper to spoil a pretty good article with a stupid headline:
Brett Anderson is a good factual reporter, a literate bystander in the world that is New Orleans cuisine. There's no reason to ruin what he does well with such a goofy headline.
For openers, New Orleanians don't need salvation. Well, maybe in the biblical sense, but that's a subject for another discussion. We need to eat, though, and we really only know one way to do that. The meal-as-event has been perfected in New Orleans. Forget what Michelin or the New York papers say. If you've been here, you know how we operate.
Restaurant Antoine doesn't even try to "turn the tables;" you make your reservation for 7pm, you can sit there and enjoy yourself until midnight if you so choose. Forget trying to wolf down something before the play, you went out because you wanted to go to Antoine's (or Galatoire's, or wherever your stomach led you). Most musicians don't get cranked up until 10pm-11pm, so there's no rush if you've got an 8pm dinner reservation.
Maintaining the lifestyle to which we've become accustomed will be a challenge though, as Anderson points out:
But could the city survive without them? Before Katrina, the restaurant industry was, according to the L.R.A., the state's largest employer, generating $5.2 billion in annual sales. Along with welcome economic stimulation, restaurants in the recovering city provide a visible example of the city's resolve for the visitors so vital to the city's future, and whom the restaurants will play a key role in attracting.
The state's largest employer, yes, but the vast majority of those employees are no longer in the metro area. With all the construction that will be going on here for the next couple of years (at a minimum), just about anybody with skills above dishwasher will be able to make more money in other industries. Diners are already feeling this pinch across the area, from higher prices for a Bud's Broiler hamburger to more expensive pizza, to larger checks at the better restaurants. It's going to take more than FEMA trailers to lure back restaurant workers. Those earning less than $10 per hour are making that in other cities now. Their kids are going to public schools that are infinitely better than those in Orleans Parish. In the long run, Barbara Bush, in all her rude insensitivity, may be right--some folks will be better off having been forced to leave New Orleans.
If the restaurant industry wants to once again be a major economic force in the city, they're going to have to become activists. And that means doing more than feeding emergency workers and disaster relief crews. They're going to have to get involved in the political process. The chefs and owners need to hold the School Board accountable for making our public education system work. They need to lobby our CongressCritters and other politicians to make housing affordable. The LRA will have to do more than lobby against restrictive liquor laws and turn their attention to what makes New Orleans better.
What's a Hubig's Pie
