L. A. Norma flew back from Los Angeles renewed in her belief that banning cigarette smoking leads to greater air pollution. "Never did the air smell as bad as it did this trip."

I said she just smelled it for the first time after foregoing cigarettes a few days. She smiled a prove-it smile and placed a filter-less Camel atop her soft-shell crab. A greasy spot spread quickly along the cigarette's porous paper. She flicked it over on the tablecloth and pushed half the crab into her mouth. We were sitting at a rear table in the newly opened Mother's Next Door, on Tchoupitoulas. Formerly a garage, Mother's Next Door has the calming plain features of old New Orleans cafes. There is a dark inviting bar near the front door and the walls are creamy pale under skylights that make me think of Chicago's Saint Valentine's Day Massacre.

"It's designed for overflow crowds and private parties," a friendly waitress hefting a platter of soft-shell crabs told us. "Mother's bought the building ten years ago and decided now was the time to open this sucker up."

"To serve crowds spilling over from the world's largest empty Casino?" Norma asked. The waitress smiled and nodded quickly, "They get crowds." She picked the cigarette up off the table and reminded us there was no smoking inside " . . . but no one will stop you out on the street."

"What great fun that would be," Norma groused. "In Los Angeles you can't even stop by the door and smoke." The waitress urged two more crabs onto our plates, "They fresh, they fried and they never smoked a day in their lives."

After the May shooting at Louis Armstrong International Airport, Norma and I took the new Marigny-Bywater bus to the Cuban restaurant Liborio, on Magazine. Crossing Canal she said, "It was a Florida man named Gott, a self-proclaimed Muslim. He answered an insult - maybe real maybe imagined - to his turban by shooting a sawed-off shotgun into the airport crowd. A woman from California was hit bad and is seriously in hospital."

(John Cooksey was not among the airport crowd - Cooksey being the Congress Critter from Louisiana who breathed fire into the Middle East by saying Arabs wear diapers on their heads.)

Norma thinks it her duty to take an interest in Californians who run aground in Our Fair Swamp. Since we could do nothing else she decided we should eat Cuban food with fried plantains and black beans in the woman's honor. "Her family flew in," she said, "but they are taking no calls and no one will tell me anything. I don't even know her name." At the restaurant, I selected pulled beef from the menu. It was good but in need of more garlic. "The chicken needs to marinate longer and more garlic," Norma added. Still, the meal was good though Norma thought it, "Not as good as old Havana" (which I don't doubt).

A few nights later, we walked rue Royal to the nearby-faraway French Quarter. Brennan's Restaurant was hosting a party for the New Orleans Wine & Food Experience. "Slurping on Royal," Norma called it. We ate Oysters Rockefeller, firm white fish with cappers, and classic New Orleans Grillades and Grits. "Heavenly," declared travel writer and salon muse Marda Burton, home from a "Veranda Magazine" assignment aboard the good condo ship THE WORLD "of ResidenSea." (Travel writers have all the fun.) Burton joined THE WORLD in Venice for its christening voyage to Taormina, Sicily.

Also at our table was Charlotte Giacona, with "Where New Orleans" and Leslie Ferrand of Charleston, South Carolina. Ferrand is account executive for Orient Express and had never tasted Grillades and Grits. She liked them. Maybe they will show up on the Orient Express as they fade from New Orleans menus.

On our way out publicist Liz Goliwas presented us each with a small wine glass emblazoned with "New Orleans Wine & Food Experience 2002," in very small print. Fortified, we stumbled along tasting some forty wines and foods served out of tony art galleries and antique shops, sponsored by the Royal Street Guild. Neat. Much of the night was good but our best experiences were at Brennin's; Martin Laborde Gallery (serving Kenwood, Lake Sonoma and Valley of the Moon); and the William & Joseph Gallery, between Orleans and Saint Ann (King Estate). Mary Bonney of William & Joseph told us the gallery was celebrating its first anniversary and had hired CTOBRE Custom Catering for the night. Chef Brian Donewar deserves a tip of the medicinal red for his accompanying creations. Tasty.

On every block were bottles of water for refreshing the palate, but precious little wine filled the spit-buckets. We swilled and swallowed our way down Royal to Kerlerec and the homey, nonparticipating R Bar. We arrived happy as sailors in port, but the tender declined free-filling our little wine glasses. "The only wine experience you're going to get here," Norma correctly observed, "you're going to have to pay for." We ordered two Becks, the wine of my country.

Note: The California woman shot at the airport has died. We are greatly saddened by the loss and offer our prayers to her family. A Southwest Airline clerk hit in the hand is doing fine. Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office said forty-three-year-old Patrick Gott of Pensacola, Florida, has been booked with first-degree murder of the forty-five-year-old Department of Defense employee. Relatives asked that she not be identified.