Jackson Jambalaya

 You can buy almost anything in New Orleans.

You can buy a fine meal, a good seat for a great band, a room in a historic hotel, and enough drinks to make Bourbon Street seem like a reasonable idea.

But the best part of New Orleans can’t be reserved. It happens when someone gives you their time.

Last week, 23 guests traveled with me on my Yonderlust New Orleans tour. I’ve always tried to take people deeper than the standard itinerary. The food matters. The music matters. The museums, neighborhoods, and history matter, too. But what makes a trip memorable is a person who stops what he or she is doing, opens a door, pulls up a chair, tells a story, and lets a group into their world.

That happened several times last week. None meant more to me than the time we spent with Chef Frank Brigtsen.

I’ve said for years that if you polled 100 chefs in New Orleans and asked them to name their favorite chef, Frank would get about 95 votes. The other five probably misunderstood the question.

Frank has been cooking in New Orleans for more than 50 years. He worked for Chef Paul Prudhomme at Commander’s Palace, then followed him to K-Paul’s Louisiana Kitchen as his sous-chef. When Frank opened Brigtsen’s in 1986, Chef Paul helped bankroll the restaurant.

Forty years later, Brigtsen’s is still there, and Frank is at the heart of it.

Midway through dinner, Frank brought a chair into the dining room, sat down among us, and visited. He didn’t give a speech or put on a show. He talked about food, people, New Orleans, and a life spent in restaurants.

I bought each guest a copy of Frank’s new cookbook, Color of Flavor. The recipes are there, but so are Frank’s stories, his history, and a lifetime of knowledge from one of the greatest cooks New Orleans has produced. In my opinion, it is the new Bible of Creole and New Orleans cooking, and a worthy companion to Prudhomme’s Louisiana Kitchen.

The next morning, Frank came to the Hotel Monteleone and spent an hour with us. We sat in a circle, listened to him tell stories, and asked questions.

If I had asked the 23 guests to name the highlight of the trip, I suspect that hour would have received the most votes.

But it had plenty of competition.

Parkway Bakery and Tavern is closed on Tuesdays. The other six days, the line stretches down the street, and they serve more than 1,000 po’boys a day.

My friend Justin Kennedy opened Parkway just for us.

We had the place to ourselves. Justin covered the tables with shrimp and oyster po’boys, fried shrimp po’boys, roast beef po’boys, and the James Brown, a combination of barbecued beef and shrimp that makes perfect sense once you’ve eaten it.

Justin took us through the kitchen and showed us what it takes to feed that many people. We saw Parkway in a way that would’ve been impossible during service.

We weren’t going to make it to Hansen’s Sno-Bliz, so Justin set up in the parking lot and made sno-balls for everybody.

I hadn’t asked him to do it. That was just Justin being Justin.

We also spent time with my friend Eric Cook at Gris-Gris as he nears the end of his run there. I had ordered plenty of food, but Eric apparently took that as a rough suggestion.

Two dishes that have been on my Best of New Orleans list for several years were already coming—his gumbo and the fried oyster BLT. Either one is worth driving across town for.

Then the extras started arriving.

There were shrimp and grits, prime rib, other courses I hadn’t ordered, and two desserts. By the end of supper, nobody was thinking about breakfast.

Eric talked with the group about the restaurant and his years in New Orleans. That meant even more because this chapter of his career is coming to an end.

One day, the group went to the New Orleans School of Cooking. On most trips, I spend a lot of time thinking about where everyone will eat lunch. That day, the meal wasn’t in my hands. It was literally in theirs. They cooked lunch and learned there’s a big difference between eating jambalaya and standing over the pot while it comes together.

We finished the trip Thursday with brunch at Brennan’s. Ralph Brennan and his daughter, Catherine, spent time with us. Ralph has spent his life in the restaurant business, and Catherine is carrying that family tradition forward.

The brunch was everything Brennan’s brunch ought to be, and Ralph and Catherine were generous with their time.

We heard a different side of New Orleans music every night.

George Porter Jr. played at the Maple Leaf the first night. The next evening we heard traditional jazz at Preservation Hall. Then came big-band jazz at Snug Harbor. On the final night, we went to Rock ’n’ Bowl for a zydeco dance party with Jeffery Broussard and the Creole Cowboys.

There were museum visits, shopping, walks, and free time for people to wander off and make discoveries. Home base was the Hotel Monteleone, which is about as New Orleans as a hotel can get.

In the early years of hosting tours, I scheduled every waking minute. I thought a full itinerary meant I was giving people their money’s worth. Mostly, I was wearing them out. I’ve learned that adults can be trusted with free time, a city map, and a credit card.

New Orleans handled the rest.

The forecast had threatened rain, but most of it stayed away. We got cloud cover, which in a New Orleans summer is about as close to outdoor air-conditioning as you’re going to get.

I’m grateful to the 23 people who trusted us with their time. But I’m even more grateful to the people in New Orleans who gave us theirs.

That’s what private access and behind-the-scenes experiences amount to. It isn’t about getting into a room other people couldn’t enter. It’s about somebody opening the door because they care enough to share what’s on the other side.

Frank pulled up a chair. Justin opened Parkway on a day it was closed. Eric kept sending food we hadn’t ordered. Ralph and Catherine stopped what they were doing and visited with us.

Those are the things people remember.

For years, most of our Yonderlust calendar has centered on Europe, and it still will. Tuscany is on the calendar again this fall. But now that Brittany Nicholson has joined us as operations director, we’re building more trips closer to home, too.

Mississippi and New Orleans will each become annual trips, and we’re working on other domestic routes from New England to California.

I don’t want people to just see a place. I want them to understand why someone loves it. That usually happens around a table, in a kitchen, inside a music room, or during an hour spent listening to somebody who has devoted a lifetime to his craft.

We ate well, heard some great music, and New Orleans showed off the way New Orleans always does.

But the best things we received weren’t for sale.

Onward.