A New Orleans Vieux-To-Do
Celebrating Tomatoes, Seafood, and Zydeco in One Fun-filled Weekend

There couldn’t be a better way for three small festivals to make a big impact than by combining forces for a weekend of fun. From Friday, June 13 through Sunday, June 15, the New Orleans Seafood Festival, Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Festival and Great Creole Tomato Festival all come together to serve great local food and live music in one action-packed event.

It is being called “A New Orleans Vieux-To-Do,” a play on words combining the official name of the French Quarter – the Vieux Carré – and the Audubon Institute’s highly popular “Zoo-To-Do.”

For more than 20 years, the Creole Tomato Festival has celebrated this unique Louisiana vegetable which adds so much to so many local recipes. Centered around the French Market, which dates back to 1791 and is the nation’s oldest city marketplace, the event features live music, cooking demonstrations, and a parade. Some of the city’s most renowned chefs show off their culinary creativity with dishes featuring the Creole tomato as a primary ingredient and there are also plenty of homegrown produce items on sale.

The New Orleans Seafood Festival takes place just across the street on the grounds of the Louisiana State Museum’s Old U.S. Mint. Louisiana harvests more seafood than any other state and shrimp, fish, crab, oysters and crawfish form the basis for many great New Orleans dishes. Chefs such as Paul Prudhomme, Susan Spicer and Dominique Macquet divulge some of their recipes and demonstrate the cooking of things like seafood gumbo, trout meuniere and crawfish etouffee.

There’s also live music and some behind-the-scenes tours of working kitchens where seafood is prepared. On the final day of the event, celebrity chefs come together to create the world’s largest seafood dish and the world’s largest crawfish boil.
Held simultaneously at the same location, the Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Festival features more than twenty performances on two stages. Visitors can shake a leg or two-step to the beats of top musicians from Acadiana and New Orleans such as Steve Riley & the Mamou Playboys, Sunpie & the Louisiana Sunspots, Bruce Daigrepont, and the Bluerunners.

For more information on the Creole Tomato Festival, call (504) 522-2621 or visit www.frenchmarket.org. Information on the New Orleans Seafood Festival can be found at www.neworleansseafoodfestival.com  and for more on the Louisiana Cajun-Zydeco Festival, call (504) 558-6100 or visit www.jazzandheritage.org.