Food tasted:
Raw oysters, fried oysters, oysters baked three ways, black ham with grits, a catfish po’ boy, gumbo, a muffaletta, shrimp with tasso ham, grilled black drum, turtle soup (hey, it’s farm-raised snapping turtle) and beignets with cafe au lait, of course.

Beads captured:
A handful of strands and some doubloons, too. We didn’t try as hard as we could have.

Mardi Gras parades seen:
Three. We missed the dog parade, though.

‘Only in New Orleans’ moments:
1. Having our oyster shucker go into great detail about Katrina (he floated on an inflatable raft for 12 hours through the Eighth Ward; he watched someone drown in front of him when she couldn’t get out of her quickly-going-underwater house because of the locked safety bars; he used a gun to blow a lock off a concessions stand at the Superdome to get food).

2. Having another oyster shucker at the same place slip us extra oyster after extra oyster in fine New Orleans lagniappe tradition. We ducked into the place to get a drink; he gave us a free oyster; they were so good we ordered half a dozen; he slipped us another four on the side.

3. Running an errand for our cab driver. She pulled over; we ran into the drugstore to get Tylenol PM for her; she brought us to the hotel.

4. Going into a store that sold used cookbooks — and only used cookbooks — in the French Quarter. OK, one of those cookbooks was ‘The Anarchist’s Cookbook,’ but still…

5. Bumping into the Krewe of Cork parade, one of the smaller and potentially most intoxicated of all Mardi Gras parades (the Krewe of Cork is made up of wine-lovers).

6. Having about a dozen waiters come into our private room at Commander’s Palace to assure all 16 of us were served simultaneously. The choreography alone was worth the price.

7. Finally, this little 2 a.m. nugget from the Cat’s Meow, a karaoke bar on Bourbon Street, recorded on a Blackberry (warning: there’s the occasional bar obscenity sprinkled in here).

It was, as they say, a good trip.