The Big Easy's banquet

NEW ORLEANS -- I've awakened to my first morning here, just a few hours after getting my mind - and hearing - blown by the Soul Rebels Brass Band at uptown's Le Bon Temps Roule.

It's time to treat myself to the cultural banquet that is the Big Easy, a city that celebrates cuisine and considers music essential to everyday life. Hurricane Katrina's specter haunts the abandoned houses and boarded-up businesses, but if you love food and music, you can't wrong in this Southern city, sticky air and all.

"We're a tale of two cities," says Mary Beth Romig, communications director for New Orleans' Convention & Visitors Bureau. "We still have a lot of recovery to go in some neighborhoods. But parts of the city are very much alive and thriving, like the French Quarter and uptown. The attractions are back, and we have more restaurants than ever in the city's history."

First, let's head to the Southern Food & Beverage Museum, at the Riverwalk Marketplace near the slow-rolling Mississippi River. Step inside and you'll find exhibits that feed your mind - and make you hungry.

The museum focuses on foods that define the South, New Orleans in particular: crawfish, corn, po' boy sandwiches and much more that'll make you feel like munching.

Right now, curators are restoring a massive wooden bar that was constructed in the early 1850s for Bruning's Restaurant, the city's third-oldest eating place. Katrina broke it into 176 pieces.

The po' boy exhibit keeps drawing our attention, and now we're craving one of the sub-style sandwiches.

No one is sure how the name originated, but one popular theory says "po' boy" dates to free sandwiches distributed to New Orleans streetcar workers during a 1929 strike. "Here comes another po' boy" was apparently a popular saying when a striker came looking for a handout sandwich.

We're off to a semi-industrial section of the Mid City neighborhood. The lunch rush packs Parkway Bakery & Tavern (538 Hagen Ave.), where a fuzzy-sounding voice announces ready orders over a loudspeaker: a home-cooked hot roast beef with gravy po' boy, an order of sweet potato fries with a bottle of Barq's root beer.

Bread defines the po' boy, with a crunchy crust balanced by an especially soft center. This Louisiana French bread is sturdy enough to hold a variety of meats and fried seafoods, but it's no match for the roast beef po' boy at Parkway. The mound of savory, gravy-soaked meat spills over the sides and drenches the bread.

When I asked chefs about must-visit New Orleans restaurants, one name kept coming up: Cochon Restaurant (930 Tchoupitoulas St.). Located in the downtown warehouse district, Cochon takes Cajun and Southern cooking to an impeccable place. And if your fork can't get enough pork, Cochon is your new favorite eatery.

We're talking sandwiches made with oysters and house-cured bacon, crispy pork cheeks that taste almost like carnitas, and spicy pork ribs with pickled peppers.

The star remains the Louisiana cochon. Using the mantra "slow and low," hearty portions of pork shoulder and tenderloin are seasoned with a balanced blend of salt and spices, and cooked to a wonderful tenderness.

No trip to New Orleans would be proper without soaking up a "second line" parade (named for the partiers who follow the "main line" of those from the parade's sponsoring group). The second line season generally runs on Sundays from August to February's Mardi Gras.

Second line parades have their roots in African-American benevolent societies and clubs of the mid-1800s that offered insurance and financial aid to their members.

We're on a corner of St. Charles Avenue, where a crowd is getting ready to party through the streets. Pit bosses tend to their smokers, selling pork ribs and $2 Budweiser cans to revelers. The Goodfellas Social Aid and Pleasure Club's brass band warms up nearby.

Then the band starts blowing, and quickly it's a procession of orange, white and blue - the club's colors - followed by a dancing crowd. The entourage struts down St. Charles Avenue, then winds into nearby neighborhoods, where some residents dance on their porches and roofs.

We walk in rhythm to the sousaphone's throbbing bass notes and screaming trumpets, the humid air slicking our backs with sweat. Life should always feel this joyous.

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