Life 2.1

I have a running list in my head of rad things I want to do in New Orleans but oddly enough, when asked recently how I wanted to spend my Sunday, all of them escaped me. Serves me right for not writing them down. Hence this post. And also, I’m trying to bring back the word rad and this seemed like a good opportunity. I know I can count on MTG to help a sista out, but I hope I have your support as well.

Here’s what I got for round 1:

• Take a picture standing in front of the ‘Welcome to New Orleans’ sign
• Take a Cajun Cooking Class *Update–looks like this might just happen. Cheers to Miss Julie for hooking me up!
• Go to Cafe DuMonde and eat a beignet. I cannot believe I haven’t had one since I’ve been here. It’s practically a sin.
• Walk around Fulton Street and take pictures of all the Christmas decorations
• Go to a Hornets game since the last time I went to an NBA game I was young enough to have received a Chris Mullin peechee folder
• Go to a Saints game *I will be crossing this off the list as of Sunday. Woot woot!
• Attend JazzFest, the Essence Music Festival and do MardiGras from a balcony in the Quarter, where it’s safe.
• Dine on a Central Grocery muffaletta (refer to comment about beignets)
• Take one of the haunted house tours (volunteers welcome; I will not be doing this alone)

I will be adding to this list as I think of more. Hopefully I won’t think of them in the middle of the night because odds are good I won’t get up and blog about them. And we know I won’t remember them in the morning.

While I didn’t realize that it was an endangered food, after experiencing the Po’ Boy Festival yesterday, I am totally in favor of saving/preserving/eating them.

After a brief stint of sleeping in Sunday morning, I did a little work and threw on some shoes (as per order of the text message I received:

Po boy fest. Put ur shoes on don’t worry about what you wear. Down here and it’s awesome…

So I did just that and was even open to dealing with the crowds and put up with horrible parking situations, and we all know that that right there is half the battle for me.

20,000 of my closest friends. Not to be confused with the 20,000 closest friends from Halloween

I met up with everyone around 1:30 at Maple Leaf Bar, which was pretty much home base the rest of the day.

home base

JP convincing me to go to Metallica later than night

We walked around the festival, with our pick of po’ boys surrounding us. Local establishments set up tents and tables all along the sidewalks and served a variety of po’ boy offerings, ranging from fried shrimp to a portobello muffaletta po’ boy (which was actually quite delicious and I’m not a big portobello fan) to a traditional pulled pork style. My only regret is not sampling more.

Of course, because I’m the woman who never carries cash, I had to hit up an ATM while there (shame on me, attending a giant street festival with only a card!) but props to my bank back home for not charging me to take out cash from other ATMs and reimbursing up to five other bank ATM fees. That right there saved me 5 whole American dollars.

Also on the list of things that were rad would be the loaf of bread I got for free. It was almost as tall as me. Yes, I know that’s not saying much but it was a good 3 feet of bread. I ate quite a bit (the Atkins diet has nothing on me) and dueled with it, since I wasn’t the only lucky recipient of a giant loaf of bread. And they encourage playing with your food at these kinds of events.

Large loaves of bread can also be used as a guitar

I think the pictures best sum it up, but I had an absolute great day with a great group of people. I even woke up this morning still riding the high of the fun I had yesterday.

TSkaff and Justin outside of Maple Leaf

po boys everywhere, including a real one pinned to this dudes hat

Kelsey and JP = ♥

The Grand Marshall of the Parade

You may not be able to tell but I am holding my 3 foot loaf of free bread

Taking it all in

See all the money we saved on bread?

Yep, I’m gonna be all right here.

Halloween on a Friday night in New Orleans. Not gonna lie, the idea kinda scared me. I don’t do well in crowds. Or at least driving towards them.

I left my house around 10 and spent approximately 45 minutes driving to a destination 10 minutes away. I spent the majority of the time circling, looking for parking. I was ready to hand over all my worldly possessions for a convenient spot. Unfortunately, no one was in the market for all my worldly possessions so I wound up parking about a million miles away. Ok, maybe not a million miles but I definitely walked through the entire French Quarter (Corbet called it the French-25 cents the other day and I giggled).

It took me another 45 minutes to walk to meet up with my friends. I was in boots. I rank that idea right up there with wearing not-waterproof mascara to the airport when I moved here. I shoulda taken a cab to meet everyone. I learned later that some of those streets between my parking garage and Frenchmen St weren’t exactly the safest. Not awesome.

Fast forward to when I finally arrived at my destination with all my friends. Let the fun begin. I met everyone in the middle of an intersection where my friends were hanging out with a cooler filled with adult beverages. Item of note: those roaming the streets of New Orleans can often be found carrying a “to-go cup” aka the beverage that you may have been enjoying at a fine establishment, put into a plastic cup so you can take it with you upon leaving the aforementioned fine establishment. So needless to say, open containers are not an issue. It was a like a giant block party with 20,000 of my closest friends.

Evidence of the evening:

Those 20,000 closest friends

Jem is truly outrageous. Truly truly truly outrageous.

Kyle captured the look of shacker perfectly here

So glad this pic was cropped…

And the bonus round was how I got to sleep in on Saturday since I didn’t have to work til 2:30. It pretty much rocked.

I think I had the best meal since I moved to Louisiana the other night. It was phenomenal. Like, bring-on-the-elastic-waisted-pants phenomenal.

A friend of mine from home was out here on business this week and we had a chance to grab dinner. Because neither of us knew where to go and we were both in the mood to explore, The Wendy asked the concierge at her hotel where he would go if he could only eat at one restaurant in the whole city and his answer was very definitive: Upperline.

So we plugged the address into Lola that’d be my GPS system that I purchased upon arrival– best.investment.ever. Shout out to my favorite Texan and JHart for that recommendation and off we went.

The restaurant was the most warm and inviting place and I live in Naw’lins where hospitality is serious stuff! There were three dining areas and each room was intimate and perfect for chatting. The staff was most welcoming and sent over some delicious specialties of the house, which I can’t remember what exactly it was called but it had shrimp and bacon and I think we all know how I feel about bacon, but I digress.

Upon being seated, we immediately ordered appetizers, which knocked my sock off! Well, heels off, to be more precise. We enjoyed Fried Green Tomato with Shrimp Remoulade, which I could have eaten all night long. The Remoulade was outstanding. It had a Creole kick that complimented the tomatoes. We also enjoyed Crispy Louisiana Oysters with Celery Root Remoulade apparently I was in the mood to only dine on items served with remoulade which were also tasty. Yes, I like oysters. In fact, I love them. I love them charbroiled and now fried and with garlic.

And did I mention that we enjoyed wine with our meal? I’m pretty sure this was also one of the best Pinots I have ever tasted. Domaine Serene Evenstad Reserve Pinot Noir. I know it’s probably not the best wine description but…it was ridiculously good. Since I’m feeling technical: smooth and lots of good cherry flavors, which I like. It kinda reminded me of a cherry fruit leather snack, which I enjoy. I have determined that I appreciate a good bottle of Pinot (this conclusion was made prior to consuming the Domain Serene) but this bottle just made me realize how enjoyable a well-crafted Pinot Noir can be. I happen to know that it’s a very difficult grape to grow so seeing what can be made from such a finicky fruit is actually really amazing.

So right, the meal. Let me preface this by saying I don’t usually do lamb. I haven’t really ever enjoyed it the few times that I’ve had it and my cousin has cursed me because every time I see it on the menu somewhere, I hear her voice describing it as tasting like socks (she really hasn’t had good lamb experiences!)

But I opted for it, seeing as how the other foods I had tried hadn’t let me down. And tah-dah! This lamb did not taste like socks!

It was a Braised Lamb Shank in Burgundy with Saffron Risotto, which I bet you didn’t know, is New Orleanian for freakin’ delicious! The lamb fell off the bone and the risotto was perfect, and this is coming from someone who was a little nervous about the use of saffron! But it didn’t dominate, which I appreciated.

Of course, because I am apparently unhappy with my current wardrobe and want to buy more clothes in a bigger size, I opted for dessert as well. Now, really, if you think about it, I blame the chef at my previous place of employment for my ordering dessert. Because if he didn’t make such a bomb (that means good, for those of you playing at home) bread pudding, I wouldn’t have such a craving for it. And since I cannot enjoy his recipe, I am forced to try it everywhere I go to see if I can find a place in New Orleans that will satisfy my craving. You see how clearly it’s his fault.

And now my search has ended.

I ate the whole darn thing. I would have licked my plate but that may have drawn strange looks from the people around me and I did just move here and don’t want to be the crazy Californian.

So in conclusion, I ate a great meal, had a great visit with a friend from home and now need bigger pants.

Here we are post-meal, mid-food coma:

We are full

But I wouldn’t mind entertaining more visitors, so consider that an open invite to the Big Easy. My new BFFs at Upperline are expecting me back soon and I really don’t want to eat alone so come visit. Now is good. Does now work for you? Super.

I was sitting at a bar on Saturday night (I live in New Orleans now, remember?) and was watching the various sporting events that were being televised when a very large man at the end of the bar heard that I had just moved here from CA. We began a lively discussion about the dialects and I told him what I knew (which was very little) but that one of the things that I did notice was that people in Louisiana tend to put an emphasis on the first syllable of words that I might normally put on the second syllable. (For example, I say ‘ce-MENT’ and they say ‘SEE-ment’.)

Then my new friend Rico asked me if I had made groceries yet.

I frowned a moment, which he must have thought was funny, and he quickly explained: “you probably go grocery shopping, we make groceries.”

Interesting, these things I’m pickin’ up here.

For the record, I made groceries last night at my neighborhood Rouse’s, which is where I will be doing all of my shopping from now on because the idea of making groceries in a Wal-Mart is weird to me.