Volunteer at the IACP Convention in NOLA

http://www.nola.com/food/t-p/index.ssf?/base/living-1/1204785405304580.xml&coll=1

Members of the FRP team are set to attend the IACP Convention in New Orleans in April, 2008.

It's gonna be a great time.

If you want to get a free glance at what this convention is all about, it looks like they need volunteers!

Fitting, in my opinion, that this convention is to be held in the Crescent City.

I recall my first time in New Orleans.

I had driven to Louisiana to go to grad school in Baton Rouge a week before Katrina hit.
So I never got to see NOLA before the storm.
Instead, a native New Orleanian drove me down one sticky October Sunday, about a month after those big hurricanes had passed.

The city was barren and still badly broken, as much of it remains even today.

We rolled past National Guardsmen still holding things down on Canal and meandered into Mandina's, where it seemed like the only other remaining people in the city had gathered.
The waitresses were working really hard to serve everyone. They kept telling people they didn't have a lot, but what they did have they would gladly serve.

Thus my first truly informed impression of the people of New Orleans was that they carried an intense spirit: my second was that even though the storm had washed away a lot, it hadn't touched the city's propensity for amazing food.