Son of a gun, they're gonna have big fun - on Penn's Landing and on the bayou.
The occasion is Memorial Day weekend and the event is the "Jambalaya Jam," part of a three-day cultural exchange between New Orleans and Philadelphia.
Each day, on the new Great Plaza at Penn's Landing, there will be nonstop Dixieland and Cajun music, and nonstop food - gumbo, crayfish, pralines and, yes, jambalaya.
Come-one-come-all parades will wind across the landing tomorrow night and Sunday night. And Sunday afternoon, festival-goers can join in the Penn's Landing section of Hands Across America, the benefit to fight hunger. All for an admission fee of $3.50.
On Sunday, the high-rollers among us can attend Le Celebration New Orleans/ Philadelphia, an elaborate French banquet planned at the Franklin Institute on the Parkway. The cost is $125; black tie is optional.
Meanwhile, down South, New Orleans will be holding the "Philadelphia Block Party." For the New Orleans version, our city will be exporting Mummers, cheesesteaks, kielbasa and doo-wop music. And there'll be a plush banquet whipped up by chefs from such Philadelphia eateries as Bookbinders Seafood House on 15th Street and Le Bec-Fin.
This first "Great American Exchange" between Philadelphia and New Orleans has been months in the making. And it is a celebration with many meanings, according to Meryl Levitz, who is one of the idea's originators and who has been working full-time on the jam since February.
The festival is meant to mark National Tourism Week, which ends tomorrow. It is meant to draw crowds to the Great Plaza, a brand new, five-level
amphitheater at Penn's Landing that makes its debut with this festival.
And Levitz, director of special projects for the Convention and Visitors Bureau, hopes the Jambalaya Jam will help "put Memorial Day on the map" for tourists thinking of visiting Philadelphia.
The idea of an exchange between two American cities was first dreamed up years ago. But it becomes especially fitting because of the current reluctance of Americans to travel abroad, Levitz said.
"It's pretty timely," she said. "A lot of people are going to see America first this year. And we're going to do what we can to put Philadelphia on the top of everybody's list."
When Philadelphia was choosing a city to team up with, New Orleans won handily over an East Coast city that Levitz considers a bit dull but declined to name.
Why New Orleans?
