I love New Orleans

I've been to New Orleans many times in the last 25 years, and I have great memories -- some of which involve food. Beignets at Cafe du Monde, good Mexican food at Tortilla Flats, jazz brunch at Commander's Palace. My brunch menu is the 3 soups (turtle, onion, and du jour), pecan crusted trout, and chocolate Sheba. Mmmmmm chocolate Sheba. Oysters Benedict at Brennan's. The first time I went to Brennan's a man in the restaurant had a heart attack and was taken out on a stretcher.

My friend who lived there dated a Bourbon Street jazz musician. She went to work, and he gave me a personal tour of Bourbon Street. How fun was that! The last night I was there, he sang "Do You Know What it Means to Miss New Orleans" to us. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band. Being down there before Christmas and seeing people wearing fur coats in 50 degree weather! For me, it was spring. Also, seeing the outdoor heaters on the patio at Pat O'Brien's.

Drinks in "to go" cups. $5 cokes in the bars. Jackson Square and the artists. I have 4 street scenes from New Orleans in my kitchen. The jazz festival.

I hope they get lucky tonight.

Damn. you beat me to it! I, and my other NO expatriate clan have been huddled around the Weather Channel/CNN to get all the latest Katrina info. I'm by no means a religious man, but all my prayers are certainly out for my good old beautiful southern home.

For those who want to help, there's an excellent list of links to relief organizations being kept by the blogger Instapundit (as of this writing it's being maintained at the top of his main page).

http://www.instapundit.com/

One thing I learned during the Tsunami releif effort is that if you contribute to the Chicago Chapter of the Red Cross, there is no guarantee where your money will go. I suppose if you must contribute to the Red Cross, you are better off contributing to the New Orleans Chapter or the Mississippi Gulf Coast Chapter, Biloxi if you want to have a shot at making sure the money goes where you intend it to go. There are probably better places to donate, but the Red Cross is the 1,000 lb gorilla, so I thought I would mention it before your good intentions get wasted elsewhere.

When I donated on redcross.org, there was a section where you could specify where your money would go. It wasn't Katrina-specific, just "Hurricane 2005 Relief". But that's good enough for me.

I've mentioned this before, but it warrants repeating. If you work for a company, large or small, find out if they match charitable contributions. My employer matches up to $5,000 a year to qualified organizations.

Best,
Michael

I understand the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago has set up a relief fund and that 100% of the monies collected are going directly to victims of this horrible disaster.

If you are interested in donating through the Federation, please make checks payable to JF-Katrina Relief Fund.

The address of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago is:

1 S. Franklin Street
Chicago, IL 60606

Suzy

sdritz wrote:I understand the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago has set up a relief fund and that 100% of the monies collected are going directly to victims of this horrible disaster.

If you are interested in donating through the Federation, please make checks payable to JF-Katrina Relief Fund.

The address of the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago is:

1 S. Franklin Street
Chicago, IL 60606

Suzy

That's great. My biggest beef with donating to the Red Cross is that their ovehead costs are so high that only 50% - 75% of the money you donate actually goes to help others. The rest goes towards paying for the bureaucracy. Someone giving 100% of the money to the victims is more of what I am looking for.

We circulated an email in our office today soliciting donations for the victims of Katrina. The vehicle for distributing the money to purchase what's necessary that we've chosen is Robert R. McCormick Tribune Foundation. The Trib Foundation is absorbing all of the administration costs AND is matching each donation received up to the first $1 million - 50 cents to each Dollar donated.

McCormick Tribune Foundation
Hurricane Katrina Relief Campaign
435 N. Michigan Avenue, Suite 790
Chicago, IL 60611
http://www.mccormicktribune.org/mtf/hurricanerelief.htm

An addendum to my earlier comments about contributions at my firm:

Our Executive Committee has decided to, in addition to the match by the McCormick Tribune Foundation, to match, itself, Dollar for Dollar, funds contributed from our office. A nice doubling-up of funds! My sense is that lots of bigger organizations will be doing a match (we have about 2,000 people in several offices around the country).

Thanks for the info about the McCormick Tribune Foundation.

Steve Z's comment about the Red Cross's overhead is something that bothers me too. An alternate is the Salvation Army. A friend (who was a devout atheist!) wrote the SA into his will because they have low overhead (I think he said about 5% or so). He disagreed with their message but liked their works.

The SA has a hurricane relief effort. You can read about it here: http://www.salvationarmyusa.org/USNSAHome.htm

The Instapundit list has some info on low overhead and such. Mennonite Disaster Services is one I would consider for that reason, as well as the fact that they tend to get there quickly and accomplish a lot.

Please do your own due diligence. At fema.gov, they list three organizations that will accept cash donations:

1) Red Cross
2) America's Second Harvest
3) Operation Blessing (Pat Robertson's "charity" vehicle).

They also list a number of organizations that will accept cash donations or volunteers, including many faith-based ones. Operation Blessing only wants cash.

Can I designate it to go toward assassinations?

Yeah, I just saw that here.

LTH,

I spoke to ChiNOLA, who was in New Orleans. He's ok and on the way back to Chicago.

Enjoy,
Gary

Tribune story discusses Bannos of Heaven on Seven benefit.

Culinary jewels also feared lost

Registration required.

LTH,

Ellen just saw on the news that Johnny White's, a 24-hour bar in the French Quarter, reopened. A small step to be sure, but New Orleans is on the road to recovery, one wobbly step at a time.

For those that have never been, Johnny White's is a locals 'dive' that is an institution among New Orleans residents. One morning, around 6am, after my friends had petered out, I wandered into Johnny White's. My greeting, from the 6-7 locals in the bar, was "no tourists, this is our time" in a kidding (sort of) friendly (sort of) fashion.

My response, I may be a tourist, but I'm buying the first two rounds. Needless to say, I was welcome with open arms. Only problem was they all insisted on buying me a drink back and they were drinking AppleJack. I can still conjure up the squinty eye, brain pounding headache from that morning.

Enjoy,
Gary

There are a couple of articles today that I read that had some updates on what was going on foodwise in New Orleans. Although I can't believe word one out of this administration about anything, especially the environmental state of New Orleans after the b.s. in New York after 9/11, I must confess to a mild hopefulness about the city's recovery.

From the LA TImes: http://www.latimes.com/features/food/la ... lines-food

From the Dallas Star Telegram: http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/living/food/12641285.htm

I love Food Wednesday in the newspapers!

this time from the NY Times.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/21/dining/21cook.html

I'm afraid the latest news out of N.O. is not positive w.r.t. the restaurant scene.

The latest estimate that I have heard (regarding the Uptown / Garden District area where my condo is located, and also such notable restaurants as Commander's Palace, Brigtsen's, Clancy's, Upperline, Pascal's Manale, Dante's Kitchen, and many more) is that while power may be restored relatively soon - as soon as this weekend for some areas, they are still two months away from having potable drinking water.

While most of these places could get by with bottled water for drinking, without safe water for washing dishes, etc. they will not be able to re-open.

For those interested, Entergy's web site (LINK) has a list (updated daily, by zip code) of estimates as to when power will be restored. Safe water is another issue entirely.

All this, of course, assumes no major additional damage from Rita.