TRAVELING in style : JAMBALAYA JUNKET : New Orleans a la carte: A noted native conducts a tour of the many charms of the Crescent City.

NEW ORLEANS IS MY CITY, and the closer I get to the real New Orleans, the more I begin to feel its mystery.

I start to feel it as I drive past the city’s cemeteries. The water table in New Orleans is very high and people must be buried above ground. Thus the cemeteries, with their expanses of granite and marble tombs, are themselves like cities, extraordinary works that are especially beautiful and mystical.

Since much of New Orleans is below sea level, huge pumps constantly remove water from under the city--and that, again, is part of its mystery. Should the pumps stop working, parts of New Orleans would simply disappear.

As I drive into the city, I like to take the Canal Street exit off I-10 to get into the downtown area. Canal is the main street and its history is fascinating. Many years ago, the intention was to make this route a 50-foot-wide canal with boats for transportation. But the waterway was never dug and today Canal Street is a huge avenue that separates what I consider to be the two main areas of New Orleans.

To get a good look at one part, you can take an old-fashioned streetcar that rumbles up St. Charles Avenue, beyond Canal Street and into the Garden District where the homes are beautiful and historic.

I love the Garden District’s beveled-glass doors and its enormous oak trees, which in sunlight cast cool and inviting shadows and in evening twilight throw off shadows filled with mystery. The grandness of the magnificent houses is a reminder of the past, since many of them have been here for more than a century. I love to ride up the avenue and imagine how it must have been 100 years ago on a Sunday afternoon . . . the men in formal dress on horseback and women in their finery riding in their buggies. If you take the streetcar farther up St. Charles Avenue to where the river bends, you’ll see an abundance of homes with huge windows and wrap-around porches and wonderful gardens where people held hands, where marriage was proposed and fabulous parties were given. It’s a glimpse of a past of gracious living.

The other side of Canal Street, the side I live in and love the most, begins with one of the most historic areas in America--the French Quarter, or, as we say, Vieux Carr e.

As soon as you enter the French Quarter, your senses are steeped in the past. The buildings differ architecturally and are very beautiful to look at, but they’re mysterious, too. They’re so close together, they seem to screen you out, keeping their secrets locked inside themselves. Yet if you peer through the cracks of some of the gateways, you’ll glimpse beautiful gardens behind the buildings and quarters where slaves used to live and work. And everywhere are graceful wrought-iron balconies hung with plants and flowers, filling your eyes with their beauty.

Many of the old bars in the French Quarter have been home to great jazz for years; now as you walk past, you’ll hear a variety of music--from jazz and soul to rock, Cajun and zydeco--and most of it is terrific.

When you pass some of the restaurants in the French Quarter, the tantalizing aromas will just knock you over: wafts of onions frying, of steaks blackening, of huge pots of crawfish and shrimp boiling in their spicy seasonings.

I love Jackson Square, where local artists will paint your picture and street performers will amuse you. In the middle of the square is a statue of Gen. Andrew Jackson on horseback, and behind the statue, St. Louis Cathedral. The cathedral is splendid by daylight, but my favorite time to see it is at night when, sitting on a bench, I watch the fog roll in off the river and over the city, shrouding the top of the steeples of the church in its mystery.

Across tthe square, I can smell the biegnets frying as I drive down Decatur Street in my truck on my way to work. Beignets are our doughnuts--puffy pillows covered with clouds of powdered sugar--which are served with cups of thick New Orleans coffee and chicory. This beignet shop, Cafe du Monde, has been here for years, and I know I can drop by any time--whether at noon or 3 o’clock in the morning--because it never closes. The smell of the beignets and their taste are overwhelmingly wonderful, and whenever I’m there I remember how when I was a kid I used to go there with my buddies and we’d blow the powdered sugar at each other.

Mixed in with the old, there’s a lot of the new. The Jackson Brewery, which was built around the turn of the century, closed in the ‘70s and was renovated, filled with trendy stores and boutiques and reopened a few years ago. Along the riverfront, just on the other side of Jackson Brewery, is a streetcar line that runs along the river. The streetcar is old, but it will take you to the aquarium that’s being built--an exciting step for the future--so you feel the old and the new together. And when I watch the beautiful Mississippi River roll by with its river boats and cargo ships, I always think about the people so many years ago, taking the ferries back and forth across the river.

Just a little farther down Decatur Street are two stores side by side--Progress Grocery and Central Grocery. Each has been run by its own family for many years and both have marvelous products--imported cheeses, dried fish, cold cuts, herbs and spices, and sandwiches such as the muffaletta . The muffaletta , originally created by Central Grocery, is one of our most famous sandwiches: a gigantic delight loaded with cold cuts and cheese and olive salad. The top bread is very thick, so I always ask them to leave that part off, cut the rest in half and put the two halves together. That way I get a muffaletta that’s almost solid cheese and meat and crunchy pickled vegetables . . . and delicious.

A block or two from here there’s a wonderful jazz club called Storyville and when you walk by, it’s like walking into history. Listening to the sounds that roll through its doors, you can’t help but envision great musicians from the past, such as Louis Armstrong, Professor Longhair and others who have helped raise the pulse of this city with their emotional musical beat. And today you might go by and hear an artist like Dr. John or Alan Toussaint playing there.

Right across from Storyville is the French Market where you can buy fresh fruits and vegetables, and its flea market, where you can get all sorts of trinkets and leather goods.

All this can be found in one small part of one street: Decatur Street. But the French Quarter--and New Orleans--is so much more. You can find wonderful shops selling antiques and all kinds of beautiful jewelry and exciting things that are unique to the area, like Mardi Gras headdresses and masks made of beautiful feathers and sparkles, old plantation dolls and--more mystery--voodoo dolls.

As I’m sure you know, New Orleans is really noted for its food, and the variety and quantity is endless. We have wonderful neighborhood restaurants where you can still get a great meal for $5 or $6, and we have great world-class restaurants, which have produced some of the top cooks and chefs in the world, and where you’ll pay $30 or $40 for a meal. And then there are so many restaurants in between--some that do jazz brunches and others in quiet corners of hotels.

The hotels themselves tell all about the city once more, because although we have some of the best and highest-ranked hotels in the world--class and comfortable hotels with good art on the walls and spacious rooms--we also have some of the country’s oldest hotels, whose buildings are a part of the rich history of the city. These hotels are usually filled with priceless antiques and have beautiful gardens and old brick courtyards, balconies and fountains.

I could go on and on, it’s so exciting for me to be able to tell you about my city. I guess you can tell by the way I’ve described it that I’m in love with it. And what’s so wonderful is that New Orleans has a unique way of giving love back to you. There’s no other city that I’ve ever been to that fulfills the promise of what it offers so gracefully and with such abundance, with its music and its food; with sights and sounds that are bound to make you happy.