I went to New Orleans recently to do some guerrilla vlogging. I asked people what they wanted to say about New Orleans today and their future. I asked people what they wanted me to know about their city. They wanted me to tell you that they're alive.
They are alive.
It's not the politics. It's not the water. It's not the death and devastation. It's not the humiliation that Katrina brought to all of our homes through the scenes of government failure and abandonment.
They are not pathetic, doomed, corrupt, racist, lawless or any such nonsense.
They are alive and struggling to bring themselves back from the absolute worst thing that any one of us can face in our own lives. They got wiped out.
But they are alive and I've got the tape to prove it. Follow me below the fold to meet Ed and Hillery Moise.
Ed and Hillery Moise (like Lou-ise) run two restaurants in the Hotel St. Marie: Hillery's on Toulouse and Bistro Moise.
No time? Try the highlight reel, but come back and hear what they have to say.
Video: Ed and Hillery Moise - Highlights (9:56)
First up is Hillery Moise; she gave me a great interview and we touched on just about everything in her experiences surrounding the storm and the re-build. Hillery and Ed are born and bred New Orleanians. They had moved to Houston, a great food town, where they ran successful restaurants, but the Moise family just had to come back to New Orleans. You'll see why in both Ed and Hillery's interviews, it has a little something to do with the water, the river water.
Video: Hillery Moise - Part 1 (4:22)
Were you here during Katrina?
We left the Saturday before Katrina. We went first to Jackson, MI and we had animals with us so we could only stay one day. Then we went to Ruston, LA. and we got a phone call going into Ruston from a person that lives in Ruston. It was very strange that he happened to call us and offered us a stay with them. It was Tim Kennedy and his wife, he has large plumbing company there. We were very fortunate because - we had no idea where we going to stay.
All you had was your car?
Actually it wasn't even our car. We took someone else's car from the neighborhood. She was in Colorado and we couldn't fit the animals in our car and one of our neighbors was out of town.
So you had someone else's car and someone else's house to stay in?
We were very lucky they are fabulous people.
Hillery tells us how she and Ed came back to the restaurant on September 13th, her birthday and a great day to be born. And she "never thought she'd be spending it the way," she did. "You have these thoughts of your sixtieth birthday. Staying in the Caribbean or having something wonderful going on, but we were very fortunate to be able to get back in." Hillery was cleaning out her restaurant on her hands and knees with no electricity or water in the heat and humidity. They weren't able to reopen until October 21st when they got electricity back. They ate MREs to sustain themselves because that's all anyone had in the whole city. Hillery puts a good face on things here, but to a New Orleanian born and bred and a real gourmet those first bags of "food" must have been hard to swallow. "They're pretty tasty. After a while everything taste pretty good." I've heard that hunger is the best sauce and this is proof positive.
Video: Hillery Moise - Part 2 (6:02)
Walk me through the evolution of your business since then.
Well in the first days it was almost like being in a third world country. There were armed guards everywhere. We had food that was left out ... So it was a pretty disturbing site. We had a company come in to clean the refrigerators in the main kitchen and when they saw the condition of what everything was like in there they pulled out and doubled the price on us.
Because it was so bad.
Yeah, but we got it done. It was a tough haul. It was probably one of the worst things I've ever experienced. But it had to be done, we just kept ourselves up and we thought about the people that put this city together. You know? My family, both sides are from Ireland, and thousands [of them] died digging the canals in this city. And that's what got us back. We kept thinking what it took to build it and what it's going to take is a lot easier for us to rebuild.
That's an excellent point and an interesting perspective about what people did when they came to this country. What would you like to say about the French Quarter [today] ?
Well it's exceptionally clean. The diehards that have been here for many, many years are trying very hard to stay open and keep the, umm - I guess, the class of the French Quarter what it is. And not shops closing and a Gap coming in or a Limited or these other stores that we have in shopping centers. And that is a lot of the fear [right now], but lots of people are coming back to the city and then going home to their neighborhoods and their states and cities and telling people: it's not what you think. It's wonderful.
Yeah, I was surprised. It looks pristine and everything is open.
And that's what we want, people to come back and celebrate with us the history of the city and not just walking up and down Bourbon street and forgetting the weekend that you were here because they think it's all about drinking. The history is so rich here. And we have so much lagniappe (lan-yap) here which means extra. We will treat you better than you've ever been treated. People here love the hospitality industry here. It's not just a job; it's a way of life for us.
It's not a world like Disney built for entertainment. This city breathes entertainment. It has a soul that you're not going to find anywhere else and it's what has gotten us all back home.
A magnetism you can't find it anywhere else.
No, and you miss the people and the food and the taste of the river. Once it's in your blood you never get it out.
Video: Hillery Moise - Part 3 (5:36)
Tessa: And Hillery is very positive, but she has suffered tremendously. She had three restaurants at the time this happened.
Yeah, our business is, um, we had 31 employees here and now we probably have about seven full time. It's a big load with lots of extra work on people. Our business is maybe a third of what it used to be.
But you're going to bring it back. I have a lot of confidence in you.
Oh yeah, we're working it and we're trying very hard. We don't want our city to go away and have other things open in these wonderful old buildings that, um, they don't understand.
They don't have the appreciation, they don't have the taste of the river in their blood.
I end up on a smidge of a soapbox here with Hillery, my apologies.
Most of our devastation was from the levees breaking.
And that was a man made disaster. And we all have to accept responsibility. And, um, one of the reasons that I'm trying to do this is because I'm trying to make people aware that you can have a government that functions properly.
Absolutely
And you can have a government that provides for people. But we all have to take responsibility for making that kind of government a reality everyday and demanding accountability from our public servants.
Well we tend to forget that we are the government. We need to be more proactive. Because in most cases people sit around and talk about things and they do nothing. If you do nothing then you're part of the problem. And that's what we're all trying to do here. We're trying to make people aware that it's a wonderful city. The people here love one another and we do every and any thing to help one another out here.
And you want to show that to us.
Yes
So come on down and don't just get hammered on Bourbon St. Get off Bourbon St. and talk to people...
Talk to people...
Talk to people about the city because they want to tell you about their beautiful city that they love and cherish.
Tessa: And this restaurant is a wonderful restaurant. Chef Ed made me a soup one day that I sat there and cried it was so delicious.
That comes from the soul.
And now we turn to Chef Ed Moise. I taped the interview with Hillery first and then I spoke with Ed. When I ended with Hillery we were saying that Ed is an artist about food, boy he couldn't have given us better proof then in this clip. You can almost smell the jambalaya coming right through the tube in this interview. It’s inspiring to talk to someone who has found his true calling in life. Even though Ed doesn't get too fancy, the passion and the true love for his city which is all tied up in his work sings in this clip.
Video: Ed Moise - Part 1 (4:58)
We've been in the restaurant business for 25 years. We've been in this location for eight, actually the day that Hurricane Katrina struck was our seventh year to the day. Kind of an auspicious day.
August 29th anniversary ... But you did evacuate?
Right we were allowed back in because our home was not damaged. We were allowed back in a week after the storm so that we could come in and figure out what was wrong fix a few things, a 48 curfew, we were allowed to come in fix a few things and then leave. We came back permanently a week after that.
We immediately got to work, cleaned out the coolers, cleaned out the restaurant and had everything ready to start serving meals October 1st in our other little restaurant two blocks down and then we opened here October 20th. We had electricity but the real issue was gas. We didn't have any way to prepare food. In the first three weeks we were cooking off a Coleman camp stove. We were doing red beans, shrimp creole, jambalaya
You were getting very creative.
We had to be creative. Everyone had to be creative at that time. But there were so many people between the workers and the insurance agents, the adjusters and the military. There was a great opportunity back then and there still is.
And I've been walking around the Quarter and I'd like to stress that this area never got flooded.
No actually the water stopped at Rampart and Canal St. Which is the traditional boundary of the French Quarter back when New Orleans was founded. I guess the Indians knew what they were doing, right?
What would you like to say to viewers about your city and the traditions here?
New Orleans is one of the oldest cities in the country and it's one of the most romantic cities in the country. People come here, we see it everyday, I've grown up here so I know what the city is like. I'm not callous to it and I'm not inured to it but being able to see my city through fresh eyes on a regular basis in the French Quarter when visitors come in - they're enthralled with the architecture, with, you know? It's so European.
It reminds them of Paris and of Spanish architecture with the wrought iron. So I get to see New Orleans not only through my own experience and my own traditions but also through the excitement and the way new comers and new guests when they come into town.
I heard an interesting comment about New Orleans and not just Bourbon St. but the entire city is that it touches all of your senses. The sounds, what do you hear? You hear the jazz. The clop clop of the carriage hooves at nighttime. You hear
The bustle and the traffic
Well, it's not the mechanical stuff because there are sounds you just can't hear in other cities. What does it smell like in New Orleans? The food when you pass by a restaurant or someone's home. New Orleans is made up of neighborhoods. People came together around the table in [this city] we all grew up not eating to live but living to eat. When we're finishing our meal we're already talking about what we're going to have next. That's great when you're a Chef because people are just, all they talk about is food down here. Because it is go good.
I would like to say that I remember hearing the horses clop clop down the street early in the morning when I stayed in the Quarter. I remember the sound of the music at night on Bourbon St. I remember the sweet damp smell of the Quarter and Jackson Square and the aroma of the most wonderful food that I can't even describe. When the fragrance hits your nose you feel it right in your stomach; you're immediately famished. We continue.
Video: Ed Moise - Part 2 (4:58)
And it's woven through the culture. Food is part of it all. I always talk about New Orleans being a really compact town. It's a port town when you think about it. For many years it was a port town, the lake on the north, the river on the south and swamps on east and west, but it was a major port. So many people came into this town and so many ethnic groups.
Think of it: the Italians, the Irish, the French, the Germans, my mom was German, but she cooked food just like the Creoles cooked because that was her experience down here. And we're blessed with a temperate climate. Seafood? Food from the farms, we've got game you know ducks and squirrels and rabbits and so forth. So all of that is woven through every ethnic culture. Really what the Cajuns did when the came from Nova Scotia, they got kicked out of France then the got kicked out of Nova Scotia, they came down here and applied their skills in food and their techniques to the local ingredients.
So guys learn how to cook, one of my earliest memories is watching my Dad swirl butter, you know, for scrambling eggs. So as a Chef, my experience with food is going to be a lot more
Prominent
Prominent relative to other folks, but down here it's a wonderland of foods.
Hungry yet? Try the soup and remember to ask your server for a box of Kleenex. Tell ‘em Tessa sent ya'. Ed also talks about how some of the best places to eat are local little neighborhood "joints" that cater to an enthusiastic local crowd. I bet. I talked to Ed in his Bistro on the corner of Toulouse and Dauphine. They are tenants inside the Hotel St. Marie. The owners have been very gracious since the storm and haven't jacked up the rent on Ed and Hillery. They're hurting just like everyone in the city with reduced traffic and the problems associated with getting and keeping a good staff.
We're a tenant here. Our landlord has been really gracious in making it easy for us to stay [in Hotel St. Marie.] Our landlord has been very gracious and managing the relative, I mean we're doing about 30-40 percent relative to before the storm. So they've been gracious in managing our situation with his situation.
That's great that your rent is more based on volume and not just a flat fee.
The French Quarter and the surrounding areas are 110% open and ready for business. The people down here are open, they're hanging on and we know that there is going to be an opportunity.
And it's so weird where he goes with this next and just as I run out of tape.
And, you know, it's really hard to explain but an old Italian woman told me once, "Once you get the Mississippi River water in your system you never get it out."
He even puts a special little twang on the "never get it out." And that's exactly what I saw with most all these New Orleanians that I met. They are facing a huge struggle for their existence. They know the risks going forward which are significant. They have been obstructed, neglected, let down, marginalized, pandered to, flat out lied to, they have been painted with a broad brush that doesn't fit them in many case. But they're sticking. They're staying and it's that Mississippi Water in their blood and the people they work and live with, the food they eat and live by that makes the whole crazy proposition worthwhile and vital to them as individuals.
Ed said two really cool things after we stopped taping when Tessa came in:
95% of the coverage tells 2% of the story
and for Tessa
The food of New Orleans is a cross-cultural cuisine and one of the ways that people in a compact port city learned to live together. It’s the common thread woven through the fabric of the neighborhoods in the shape of the aroma wafting though our homes and streets.
It's a city worth saving, it's vitally important that this kind of history and culture be celebrated and preserved for future generations.
Here are a few great links for reporting, not the Anderson Cooper kind, about the levee failures and Katrina. The AC story will be in the final vlog in this series, it's too complicated to put it here and I need to work on that one a bit more.
Ed has heard that Katrina means cleansing. The exact meaning in the Greek is debatable but I found a couple of sources that have a lot of meaning for this storm:
Katrina:
- clean, pure
- physically
- purified by fire
- in a similitude, like a vine cleansed by pruning and so fitted to bear fruit
- in a levitical sense
- clean, the use of which is not forbidden, imparts no uncleanness
- each of the two
sources: behind the name and the greek lexicon
If anything good can come out of this storm in this country then please God let it be a re-commitment by us to each other. If you think that a Superdome can't happen in your town then you're lying to yourself. Today Katrina is a slow burn leaching the strength and vitality out of an entire region of the nation the approximate size of Great Britain. People are starting over and they are getting some joy back into their lives, but the rebuild is being done by people on their own. That's not right. The middle-class and the poor are all one event away from ending up at your city's version on the Dome, but today as I write this we are walking away from our responsibility to the survivors. We have a commitment to New Orleans (and the whole Gulf region) which remains in a state of destitution and ruin (outside the French Quarter and Marigny) and I fear that we are moving on with our lives and forgetting our commitment. We are forgetting that poverty, the root cause of the inhumanity we saw at the Superdome, is an issue everywhere in this country that will not go away unless we do something about it. If you're still reading then that means you.
I would like to say a couple of things about my observations on Hillery and Ed. They're angry and upset about the media's portrayal of New Orleans as a modern day plantation. They're mad that more people didn't leave. People they knew that lived in the Ninth Ward and could have left didn't leave. Ed talked to me off camera about the evacuation and Hurricane Betsy. It may not have escaped your notice that Ed and Hillery are owners and operators of a restaurant, but one thing you may not know is that Saturday in the business is not only the money night - it's fancy night. By that I mean you have a particular kind of clientele that comes out on Saturday, they expect more and they expect the best. As owners and the chef, the restaurant needed Ed and Hillery that night regardless of a storm coming. They took off anyway on the on Saturday before the storm because Ed told me that he knew people in his class at school that died in Betsy. They respect the power of these storms and recognize the unique vulnerability of their city. Hillery said in Part 3 of her comments that the official policy of the restaurant is that staff always has the option to leave. They also wanted me to know that New Orleans got 1.5 million people out in the evacuation. That was a success story. With 85% of the city underwater after the levee failures the destruction could have been so much worse.
They didn't have a car to get out, but they found one. They didn't have a place to stay, but they found one. If the Superdome hadn't gone down the way it did it would be a moot point. But the Superdome did happen and it took something away from every New Orleanian, black or white. The Superdome stripped all Americans of a lot of pride and dignity that we have for our country, but it must have been especially hard for New Orleanians, black or white.
They told me about the Edwards-Duke race for Governor in 1991. You all know that David Duke is and was a notorious white supremacist and that Edwin Edwards is and was a notorious crook. Ed told me about the most popular political bumper sticker in Louisiana that year:
Vote for the crook. It's important.
that year they also had:
Better a Lizard than a Wizard.
Ed and Hillery wanted me to tell you that they don't live in the kind of city where the money spent to rebuild and recover would go into the pockets of crooks or lizards like Edwards. Our tax dollars will be sent to people like Ed and Hillery and their employees.
That’s the bottom line and besides fraud is no excuse to withhold funding for the rebuild.
On Wednesday March 21, 2007 Congressman Gene Taylor (D-MS 04) was publicly admonished for questioning a fellow member's "decency" for seeking to restrict housing reconstruction funds for Hurricane Katrina and Rita victims. He was forced to apologize before being allowed back into the chamber where he was sent by the people of Mississippi to serve. But you already know that story.
Taylor silenced on House floor for Katrina remark
Rep. Gene Taylor (D-MS): First, let me tell the gentleman from Georgia that I appreciate him trying to save some money. I think his efforts though are a year late. If you want to look for Katrina fraud, look for the Katrina fraud that was perpetrated by the Bush administration.
In south Mississippi at one point we had 40,000 people living in FEMA trailers, we're grateful for every one of them. But those trailers were delivered by a friend of the president by the name of Riley Bechtel, a major contributor to Bush administration. He got $16,000 to haul a trailer the last 70 miles from Fergus, MS down to the Gulf Coast , hook it up to a garden hose, hook it up to a sewer tap, and plug it in, $16,000. So the gentleman never came to the floor once last year to talk about that fraud.
But now little towns like Waveland, Bay St. Louis, Pass Christian, that have no tax base because their stores were destroyed in the storm, a county like Hancock County, where 90% of the residents lost everything, or at least substantial damage to their home, he wants to punish Bay St. Louis, he wants to punish Waveland, he wants to punish Pass Christian for mistakes of the Bush administration.
Mr. Price, I wish you'd have the decency, if you're going to do that to the people of south Mississippi, that maybe you ought to come visit south Mississippi, and see what has happened, before you hold them to a standard you would never hold your own people to, and that you fail to hold the Bush administration to.
I couldn't agree more Congressman Taylor. It's hard to disagree with the Truth, but here's another Truth. We have forgotten them. We have forsaken them all and ourselves by doing so. We lied to them when we told them we cared and that we would help. We labeled them racist and backwards and called it a day as the media packed up their satellite trucks and moved on to the next story comfortable in their conceit and overjoyed with their astronomical ratings. But the people I met for this vlog wanted me to tell you they are alive.
Because they are alive.
Ed and Hillery are alive and they're hanging on. You can give them the opportunity they are poised to make the most of in New Orleans because if they succeed then about 30 other people will have a chance to get their jobs back and make their former lives before Katrina a possibility too. The French Quarter is full of Mom and Pop stores struggling to continue in business. Give them a chance to hold on. They would do it for you and if you don't think you can stand the heat then think again. The women I met down there look almost half their age. They all told me it was precisely because of the heat. The sweat keeps the skin soft and smooth. So there’s that too.
These vlogs are dedicated to the four thousand people that lost their lives to Katrina and Rita and to all those that lost something to the storm and the water throughout Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama.