I was introduced to the Turducken in New Orleans. And it wasn't Thanksgiving. Glenn at the Gourmet Butcher Block brought it by, and I had never heard of it or had seen one, and they put it in the booth, and it smelled so good that I had to taste it. And it was good. Then Thanksgiving came, and we got one in addition to the traditional turkey.

When a sports team is doing well in a city that's going through tough times like New Orleans, like Detroit, it bolsters this real sentiment of 'we can get through this.' And when you have that sentiment, it becomes more than feelings: It's transported into action.

Here in New Orleans, what a lot of the musical families do - and this is a romantic concept on my part - is they teach their kids to tap dance first. Then after tap dance, you learn piano, and after piano, you get to pick between all the instruments that are out there.

I have a love / hate relationship with the city of New Orleans, which is the strongest kind of relationship.

New Orleans life is such a night life. The thing that comes up very often is that our day essentially doesn't start until midnight or 2 in the morning.

In Zurich, in a cafe overlooking the Limmat, I ate butter-drenched white asparagus pulled from the ground that morning; it had the aftertaste of champagne. I've been able to appreciate epic meals in San Francisco, New Orleans, Berlin, Paris, Las Vegas.

You will never see Lil Wayne in New Orleans. You will never see those type of guys in New Orleans because the hate and the jealousy is that real and it's that overwhelming.

The rebuilding of New Orleans is an important point in the history of the United States.

New Orleans has a lot of good food.

In America, I would say New York and New Orleans are the two most interesting food towns. In New Orleans, they don't have a bad deli. There's no mediocrity accepted.

I've been through so much, especially coming from New Orleans where there was Hurricane Katrina in 2005. I had to pick up. We had to move, make new friends, and I think my family was just strong for me as well because we had to start completely over again.

These past years, as we have been recovering and given our city a rebirth, we have been encouraged by our faith, knowledge, and steadfast belief that we will pull through. There will be challenges and setbacks, as there have already been, but we will continue, and we the citizens of New Orleans will prevail in bringing our city back.

But when you talk about the education and you talk about the lack of recreation for kids to do, I mean, it's second to none in New Orleans when you talk about the lack of opportunities for young people. And it's not just black kids, it's white kids. It's Asian kids. I had Vietnamese kids in my class that had lack of opportunities.

I was on a strict diet to stay in shape for 'Jack Reacher,' but each day on set in New Orleans, catering dropped off delicious food at my trailer.

It has to do a lot more than just twerking. It's feel good music; it makes people have a good time. It doesn't matter what type of situation they're in, we bounce all around New Orleans. Weddings, birthday parties, funerals. The whole nine yards, and it's a happy music, it turns people from a frown to a happy smile.

My last trip to New Orleans was for the fifth anniversary of Katrina, and I had the awesome opportunity to bring my family down. We all worked on a house together and met some of the families.

So while an incredible amount of progress has been made, on this fifth anniversary, I wanted to come here and tell the people of this city directly: My administration is going to stand with you - and fight alongside you - until the job is done. Until New Orleans is all the way back, all the way.

One of the things that's beautiful about New Orleans is how culturally rich we are and how well we have worked together. People call us a gumbo. It's really important that we get focused on the very simple notion that diversity is a strength it's not a weakness.

We have been working with Habitat for Humanity and we have built eighty homes 80% of which are being lived in by New Orleans' musicians. It is called the Musicians' Village and at the center is the Ellis Marsalis Center for Music.

New Orleans life is such a night life. The thing that comes up very often is that our day essentially doesn't start until midnight or 2 in the morning.

We were poor. But my mom never accepted that. She worked hard to become a residential contractor - got her master's with honors at the University of New Orleans. I used to go to every class with her. Her father was my paternal figure.

New Orleans more than many places I know actually tangibly lives its culture. It's not just a residual of life it's a part of life. Music is at every major milestone of our life: birth marriage death. It's our culture.

These past years as we have been recovering and given our city a rebirth we have been encouraged by our faith knowledge and steadfast belief that we will pull through. There will be challenges and setbacks as there have already been but we will continue and we the citizens of New Orleans will prevail in bringing our city back.

I'm sure that there are reasonable people that had some reasonable projections about the future of New Orleans but none of those could include not trying to rebuild the city and make it better than it was before.