Royal Insider

16/05/2019

The Besthoff Sculpture Garden at New Orleans Museum of Art was already one of the best in the world. And the new expansion is spectacular! As part of an arrival-to-departure Royal Insider trip, you can experience this best-of-the-best sculpture garden as a true insider---with a prominent curator who helped make it happen.

12/12/2018

This writer is on a roll, showing extraordinary insights into who we are as a people and culture---in eloquent articles about our New Orleans food scene: "If the city’s historic core is to have vitality worthy of its heritage, it has to be relevant to New Orleanians, the people who will add chapters to its story." Preach!

Go big or go home? Lately in the French Quarter I’ve been thinking precisely the opposite, and feeling right at home at a clutch of spots that run small to

22/08/2018

What does luxury mean to you?

New Orleans virtuoso trumpet player, composer, bandleader, storyteller and Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center, Wynton Marsalis ~ "Here’s a story about luxury: years ago we were in Istanbul, Turkey at a drum factory. It was in a neighborhood that could be graciously called lower middle class – there was a sweet shop, there were dogs on the street. I was the only black person in sight. The little kids kept saying “He’s Michael!” Because the only black men they knew were called Michael – either Tyson, Jackson or Jordan. Some band members and I were just hanging out, playing Tic Tack Toe, when a 13-year old girl appeared on a second-story balcony with either her mom or her grandmother standing next to her. She spoke English, so we shouted back a forth a bit. Then she said “I’m coming down.” Ten minutes passed, and she appeared with a tray with cups and Turkish coffee for all of us. You know how when people don’t have much, but they have something that is special and really means something to them? I could tell that for her, it was those cups and that tray – they were the very best things they had in their house. She poured the coffee with grace, elegance, love, soul and sweetness – that was the feeling it had. That was luxury. To receive and to give – that was the best coffee I have ever had."

Jazz master Wynton Marsalis shares what luxury means to him, his favorite exercise, his hidden talent, and his dream destination.

07/06/2018

Your ultimate insider connection in New Orleans, Royal Insider, lined up all of the interviews with key culture bearers for this article in Virtuoso Traveler magazine. It's those relationships that allow Royal Insider to create custom multi-generational family trips of a lifetime.

"To travel like an insider, you need to be invited inside." ®

http://www.nxtbook.com/nxtbooks/virtuoso/traveler_20180405/index.php #/40

19/02/2017

The Mardi Gras Indians are a significant part of the cultural landscape, here, yet many people who've been to New Orleans multiple times have never even heard of them, much less seen them.

The origins of these tribes of African-descended New Orleanians are obscured in the mists of folklore. But at some point in the 19th century, gangs began to form in the African-descended neighborhoods whose members would roam the streets on Mardi Gras Day costumed as indigenous Americans, "Indians." This seemingly unlikely appropriation was actually rooted in the historic brotherhood that had developed in the times of slavery when people enslaved in New Orleans escaped to the outlying areas and were welcomed to live among the Indian tribes.

The Mardi Gras Indian "tribes" were formerly gangs who would settle grudges on the streets with violence. In the late 1960's, Big Chief "Tootie" Montana, now revered as the original and greatest Chief of Chiefs, resolved to "make them stop fighting with the gun and the knife and start fighting with the needle and thread.” Each Mardi Gras Indian now works year-round to create an elaborate "suit" (costume) that he will don only on Mardi Gras Day, then perhaps two or three more times in the year.

Today, while the roles played by the various tribe members—Spy Boy, Flag Boy, Wild Man, Big Chief—still reference the combative strategies of street gangs, the "battles" that ensue when Mardi Gras Indian tribes encounter each other on the streets are "fought" with drumming, dancing and chanting, and the winners are judged largely on the "prettiness" of their "suits." With the transformation from gangs to peaceful parading tribes, the Mardi Gras Indians have become a beloved part of the New Orleans culture and communities.

13/02/2017

Carnival balls, as well as king cakes and the proliferation of purple, green and gold colors everywhere, have been happening since January 6th (Twelfth Night, King's Day, Epiphany). But the Carnival season kicks into parading gear each year about 2-1/2 weeks before Mardi Gras Day with the wildly irreverent Krewe du Vieux parade---one of the only krewes that's allowed to go through the French Quarter because its floats are so small and its participants mainly on foot. It's ragtag and very rude ... and the locals absolutely love it. This is the view from a Royal Street gallery.

11/01/2017

Did you know that in New Orleans...

06/01/2017

Happy King's Day! Carnival season has begun! It's time for king cake ... and this is our favorite right now. That's the bakery across the street.

For those unfamiliar, the New Orleans tradition is to make brioche king cakes in the shape of a ring, as in the south of France, although some bakeries do offer the same puff pastry 'galettes des rois' found in Paris—and contemporary culinary passions are fueling an explosion in creative new king cake varieties, here. Our traditional ring king cakes are glazed in the official colors of New Orleans Carnival: purple, green and gold. The gold doll in the picture is "the baby Jesus" that bakeries won't put inside the cake anymore so people won't choke on them (and sue the bakery). Whoever gets the slice with the baby has to give the next king cake party. And any bakery that offers king cakes before 6 January (King's Day, the Feast of the Epiphany, Twelfth Night) or after Mardi Gras Day is widely scorned.