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Fair Grounds Thanksgiving in New Orleans

Tue, 24 Nov 2009 00:01:24 -0600

Of course there will be turkey and oyster dressing and all the trimmings on tables all over New Orleans this Thanksgiving. If you’re here on a visit you can make reservations at one of the great restaurants. But why not try something different and head out to the Fair Grounds Race Track for a great meal while watching the Sport of Kings. The newly renovated Fair Grounds, which traditionally opens on Thanksgiving day, opened a few weeks earlier this year. The new facility is beautiful and not only has a world class restaurant, the oval track associated with Churchill Downs, but also 250 all-new slot machines.

The Sport of Kings:

The sport of kings is alive and well in New Orleans. The Fair Grounds Race Course has provided first class horse racing in New Orleans since 1872. The Fair Grounds, also the site for the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, takes on a very different aura in the fall when some of the best race the course.

Steeped in History:

Originally on the site was the Union Race Course founded in 1852. It closed in 1857 only to be re-opened in 1859 as the Creole Race Course. The course was sacked during the Civil War by Union Troops, and quality horses were confiscated. Nevertheless, horse racing continued. The course became the Mechanics’ and Agricultural Fair Grounds and was leased for the duration of the war by several promoters such as the notorious Mississippi riverboat gambler George Devol. The track was the scene for Boxing and baseball games along with bull and bear fights are attractions which accompany Thoroughbred, harness, Quarter Horse, and cavalry races.

Great Food:

The Fairgrounds today is bigger than ever with quality horses, large purses and, as with everything in New Orleans, great food. The traditional opening day for the Fairgrounds Race Course is Thanksgiving Day. Make it a point to include a day at the Fair Grounds on your next visit.

From About.com

New Press Release from Domenica

Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:35:20 -0600

Panini for Lunch, Weekends for Brunch!

At six weeks out of the gate, Domenica expands its service and menu

Just when you thought Domenica was your new favorite restaurant, offering, as it does, the best of both worlds with its irresistible home style Italian cuisine in a chic contemporary atmosphere within the newly renovated Roosevelt Hotel – it gets even better:

Panini

Chef Alon Shaya puts his expertise in all things Italian to more extensive use with his new range of mouth-watering panini at lunch. Go ahead and try to choose between the Slow Roasted Porchetta, aged provolone, salsa verde and broccoli rabe; the Prosciutto, fresh mozzarella, tomato, mayonnaise; Oxtail, taleggio, sautéed mushrooms; and the Trippa alla fiorentina, salsa piccante. Tempting vegetarian choices include Grilled market vegetables, goat cheese, arugula, radicchio and Mortadella, fontina, tomato, basil and mustard. Your best bet? Bring a few friends and share a selection! Sit at the central communal table and pass them around. Each delectable grilled sandwich is $13, served with rosemary roasted potatoes or house made vegetable giardiniera.

So many takaways. So many touchdowns #saints

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 16:59:42 -0600

So many takaways. So many touchdowns #saints

Yin yang twins

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:03:19 -0600

Yin yang twins

“he sees the field in his mind”, some random commentator on Drew Brees

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 15:03:18 -0600

“he sees the field in his mind”, some random commentator on Drew Brees

Where fans and friends huddle up

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 12:57:49 -0600

Where fans and friends huddle up

Has some tickets to White Denim @OneEyedJacks. RT this for a chance to get on the list. They Rock

Sun, 22 Nov 2009 11:19:17 -0600

Has some tickets to White Denim @OneEyedJacks. RT this for a chance to get on the list. They Rock

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=210128514907&index=1 http://bit.ly/07vfwTs

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 10:15:04 -0600

http://www.facebook.com/home.php?#/event.php?eid=210128514907&index=1 http://bit.ly/07vfwTs

Blight continues to disappear in New Orleans, report shows

Sat, 21 Nov 2009 04:49:18 -0600

The number of vacant properties in New Orleans has plummeted in the past year — from nearly 70,000 abandoned lots to about 61,000 — while blight in several other major American cities has seen a steady uptick, according to a new report by the Greater New Orleans Community Data Center.

Using U.S. Postal Service records, researchers found that some 54,000 properties across town remain blighted or have no structure on them, while nearly 7,500 homes are likely habitable but vacant.

The new statistics continue a trend of diminishing blight. The data centerreported in May that New Orleans was home to about 65,900 vacant or unoccupied properties.

Data center director Allison Plyer said the steep drop over the past year “indicates substantial progress in the rebuilding and redevelopment of neighborhoods flooded by the levee failures of 2005.” City officials have estimated that more than half of New Orleans’ 200,000 residential properties were severely damaged in Hurricane Katrina.

The past year’s decline in blight brings the total proportion of abandoned addresses in New Orleans to 29 percent of all residential lots, according to the report.

While that ratio remains the highest among five other cities with chronic blight problems, those cities — Washington, Pittsburgh, Baltimore, and Detroit and Flint, Mich. — all saw increases in the number of blighted properties in the past year, the report indicates.

Continue Reading at the TP

Saturday Night at OEJ’s

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 23:02:53 -0600

Saturday Night at OEJ’s

Photo

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 22:01:21 -0600

ithoughtiwenthere: Kango and Meana. Ballin Out Da Gym Music...

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 12:52:09 -0600

ithoughtiwenthere:

Kango and Meana.

Ballin Out Da Gym Music Video Shoot.

d.deluco

In New Orleans, Elation Over Katrina Liability Ruling

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:43:50 -0600

NEW ORLEANS — Since the first days after Hurricane Katrina, when the streets were still under water, many residents of New Orleans and its surroundings have maintained that the flood that wrecked their lives was the government’s fault, and that the government should pay for it.

On Wednesday night came news that many had hoped for but few had believed would ever actually happen: a federal judge agreed.

“My head is spinning,” said Pam Dashiell, a co-director of the Lower Ninth Ward Sustainability Project and a 20-year resident of the neighborhood. “Maybe things are really breaking for the people.”

The sense of vindication was widespread, but the practical implications were less clear. The morning after Judge Stanwood R. Duval Jr.’s decision that the Army Corps of Engineers’ negligent maintenance of a major navigation channel led to major flooding in the Lower Ninth Ward and the adjacent St. Bernard Parish, a pleasantly startled New Orleans was still trying to decipher what it meant.

Was it an opening for tens of thousands of lawsuits, or a big class-action lawsuit, that could add up to billions of dollars in compensation for residents? Or was it leverage for negotiating a broader, regionwide settlement with the government? Some experts suggested that it was a welcome but ultimately symbolic ruling that could be overturned on appeal.

Charles S. Miller, a spokesman for the Department of Justice, said that the government was still reviewing the decision.

“We have made no decision as to what the government’s next step will be in this matter,” he said in a statement.

But given the potential of liability, legal experts are expecting the government to appeal.

The United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit in New Orleans, where the case would go, has a record of hostility to plaintiffs in environmental cases, said Oliver Houck, a law professor at Tulane University. But, he said, Judge Duval’s decision is so technical and packed with details — it came with a 33-page appendix of graphs, charts and maps — that there are only a few areas where it would be exposed to a reversal.

“For an appellate court to reverse him on the facts is unthinkable,” Professor Houck said.

Continue at the NY Times

New Orleans Saints' Drew Brees, President Obama team up

Fri, 20 Nov 2009 00:38:48 -0600

In support of his United We Serve initiative, President Barack Obama and NFL stars Drew Brees, DeMarcus Ware and Troy Polamalu team up to highlight the importance of fitness for America’s children.

Continue at the TP

ithoughtiwenthere: Jay DaMenace aka Jay Dogg aka The Legend. my...

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 14:42:02 -0600

ithoughtiwenthere:

Jay DaMenace aka Jay Dogg aka The Legend.

my new favorite jokester.

d.deluco

partners-n-crime video shoot

y'all seen chris hannah around town?

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 03:04:51 -0600

at jackson square

at the absinthe museum

at cure

~~~~~~~

send us some pics if you see hannah around.

Tonight at the Hi Ho Lounge:

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 01:58:21 -0600

Doors and drinks at 9. Music at 10. All Leonard Cohen, all night long. Come get you some!

Lineup:
Sarah Quintana and Helen Gillet
Meschiya Lake
Luke Allen
Steve Eck
Micah McKee
Loren Murrell
The Unturned Tricks (Wexler- vocals/piano, Natalie Mae- vocals/ banjo,
Kris Wesley- pedal steel, Chris Johnson- sax, Dante- trumpet, Mark
LaMaire- upright bass, Bobby DeVay- drums)

The Hi Ho LoungeThursday, Nov 19th9pmOnly $5

Taped up and reused to print more shirts.

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:21:00 -0600

Taped up and reused to print more shirts.

claytoncubitt: Walton Ford, ‘Sensations of an Infant Heart’...

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 08:16:12 -0600

claytoncubitt:

Walton Ford, ‘Sensations of an Infant Heart’ 1999 (detail)

“When John James Audubon was a young boy, his stepmother’s pet monkey strangled Audobon’s favorite pet parrot. The monkey was kept chained after the incident. Later Audubon would write that the “sensations of my infant heart at this cruel sight were agony to me” and that the painful memory may have been one of the reasons he painted birds.”

New Orleans hotels offer ‘Papa Noel’ deals

Wed, 18 Nov 2009 00:15:21 -0600

With sleigh bells ringing –– and surely an appetite for etouffee –– Papa Noel (that’s Santa Claus to us out-of-towners) is readying himself for a holiday destination guaranteed to be brimful with festive cheer.

Boasting a full holiday calendar in December, New Orleans will be offering its visitors free jazz and gospel cathedral concerts; caroling; themed meals and free cooking demonstrations; and the nightly Celebration of the Oaks tour in City Park.

And, as has become tradition, numerous hotels about town are offering “Papa Noel” rates for December stays. For a full list of participants, see the Christmas pages on New Orleans’ tourism site.

From the LA Times