It was a mostly sunny and beautiful day for St. Joseph's Day altars across the New Orleans area on Monday, March 19. Catholic churches, homes, restaurants and grocery stores hosted altars laden with beautifully decorated cakes, cookies, breads and seafood dishes to honor and thank St. Joseph, the patron saint of Sicily.

Legend credits St. Joseph with intervening during the Middle Ages to save Sicily from a famine. Many places served an Italian meal to those visiting the altars, and many guests also left with bags of cookies, prayer cards and lucky fava beans. New Orleans may be thought of as a French city, but today, it was all about the Italians.