A party at Peter's house!

Lined up on top of a marble top Louis Philippe commode are vintage linen napkins, 19th French fiddle and thread silver flatware and 18th & 19th century wedding band and cornflower Old Paris porcelain plates. 

Around this time last year, I had the pleasure of making the acquaintance of a new friend, Isabelle, introduce to me through a mutual friend Peter. Isabelle is a amazing person. She is a private chef and artist! Who doesn't love a artist that can cook well? Isabelle is half French and half American, born in Paris to A French mother, Her father is from Rhode Island. Isabelle has lived in both worlds. For the first time last year she visited Creole New Orleans and thank goodness fell into the hands of the right people. Our friend Peter decided to have a party at his Creole Antique filled French Quarter home with Chef Isabelle doing the cooking for the party, as a Isabelle and her cooking debut to New Orleans! 

A Empire gold gilt ormolu clock  next to a early fan. 

To the right my house guest at the time Romano from Switzerland and a neighbor of Peter's 

19th century Louisiana portraits overlook the party. 

Isabelle's seafood and vegetable stew 

marinated beets 

Strawberries 

Isabelle made lots of fabulous Strawberry cream tarts. 

This one displayed on a 18th century French porcelain platter. 

19th century Louisiana ancestral portrait of Peter's

18th Louisiana ancestral portrait of Peter's 

The party in full swing 

Isabelle 

Neoclassical carved details hanging in Peter's bathroom 

Neoclassical carved details hanging in Peter's bathroom 

Neoclassical carved details hanging in Peter's bathroom 

The bar 

18th Louisiana Creole ancestral portrait of Peter 

French 1830's Louis Philippe Champagne flutes await champagne next to Isabelle's fabulous Strawberry cream tart.

Isabelle entertaining us 

Peter pouring up some Louisiana made Satsuma-cello! 

A good time was had by all! 

All Saints Day

All Saints Day in New Orleans -- Decorating the Tombs in One of the City Cemeteries, an 1885 engraving

Happy all Saints day. All Saints' Day is Roman Catholic holiday officially the Solemnity of All Saints and also called All Hallows or Hallowmas in honor of all the saints, known and unknown. It is the custom on the Creole Catholic Gulf Coast to Clean and repair family tombs, Whitewash them and bring flowers to the graves of dead relatives and prayers are also offered. Catholic priest go around the cemetery blessing the tomb. In heavily Catholic New Orleans, All Saints Day (November 1) and All Souls' Day (November 2) have been observed for centuries through rituals celebrating life over death.

During the Yellow Fever epidemics in eighteenth century New Orleans, death always loomed close. It's presence left the lasting impression on this city and its inhabitants that life is a gift, perhaps fleeting, and should be enjoyed to its fullest each day. And so, on All Saints Day and All Souls Day, New Orleanians honor the lives of their dead loved ones by painting tombs with brilliant whitewashes, placing yellow chrysanthemums and red coxcombs on graves and ringing statuary with immortelles (wreaths of black glass beads). On these days, cemeteries throughout the city are alive with the flickering glow from fields of candles, as death is forgotten and lives lived are celebrated.



It is one of the many rich New Orleans' traditions I observe annually at a good friends family tomb in one of the Old Creole cemetery's just outside of the Old French Quarter. Each year every one in the party brought something to eat I usually brought French white wine. The Host made a big pot of Creole gumbo. Someone brought French bread. We had music and I wore my 18th century Mourning jewelry. We talked about our 18th & 19th century deceased relatives, as if they were standing by us. Ancestor worship is already something big in Creole New Orleans. Many 90 year old lady's have showed my family pieces of furniture that belonged to there 3 great grandmother and talk about them as if they might be in the next room. It is not unusual to go into a Old Louisiana family home and see 90% of the original furnishing including ancestor oil portraits peering down on you in there gilt ornate frames all dating before 1860. New Orleans is a wonderful time warp of the Old World, Antebellum, Creole and the slow progress of the new peering in this glorious gumbo of culture.