this is an instant favorite, favourite in fact, and blows the draft I had going straight out of the water (what little there is of it here.)

Here are the 2 passages that cause me to curtsy to you now:

 I met my first Orleanian in San Francisco, of all places. I was quite youthful and adventurous.  It was love at first sight. He had atypically blue eyes and bright red hair, Bukowski in his back pocket and thought that San Francisco was a sterile and uncultured place. Are you insane, I asked? Where are you from that you could say such a thing? New Orleans, he answered very slowly, and very languidly. [more on flip]

fucQue-'in A (or "et", but New Orleanians might pronounce it "ette," making me love them even more.)

..my thoughts exactly! (although i haven't bothered to go to san francisco, to be honest - i respect it, but it just doesn't sound like me, and i just never got around to it. that's a whole other topic, i suppose.)

then this

I pictured jasmine and moonlight coming in through a window in a house that looked very much like Tara. The reality was quite different. After I got over my initial shock, I realized that the beauty of New Orleans was entwined with its decrepitude. It was found in its secret, dripping gardens, in its special mind-numbing concoctions, in its refusal to really assimilate into the United States,.

swooning  - so true, so right.

i want to hit recommend some more times...