A lot of tourists who come to New Orleans go home and describe the city as an oasis of European-looking streets lined with music clubs where people wander around drinking cocktails and eating beignets 24 hours a day. This fabulous wonderland is the same 13 riverside blocks that locals describe as dirty, smelly, crime-ridden, home to gutter punks, T-shirt shops, and over-priced restaurants they wouldn’t go to even if they could find a parking place.
On today’s Out to Lunch Peter Ricchiuti hosts an examination of the French Quarter from the perspective of locals who don’t shun the neighborhood – they live there. Peter's lunch guests are guardians of the Quarter as a community.