New Orleans

This trip was great!  It was a great time to visit NOLA.  It's funny... luckily I always seem to visit in the winter.  I'm smart like that.  I am also very thankful that Jeff had scoped out some awesome restaurants.  I really love food.  And drinks.  But food mostly.  It reminds me of when I first got to college and Ken took me to Momma G's one night.  I scarfed down an entire sandwich in just a few minutes.  He was both scared and impressed.  No salads for this chick!  So Momma G's is a sandwich place.  But they STEAM their sandwiches.  Seriously awesome shit.  It was the unofficial O-Club for the ROTC unit.  So once you got through your indoc summer you were allowed to go drink and eat at this place.  One time the ROTC unit challenged a Frat to see who could drink the most pitchers of beer.  We had half the amount of people and drank Momma G's out of 3 kegs of beer and I can't remember how many pitchers in total (100+?)... I was too busy puking in the bushes... but I digress.  I'm pretty sure we outdrank the Frat's previous numbers... and no one was allowed to drink that much at Momma G's again.  Wait a minute... who the hell paid for all that beer?  It sure as heck wasn't me!  I bought all my clothes at the college bookstore on my book/food account since I had no money.

Anyway... New Orleans and the Iron Bowl brought back all kinds of college memories.  I looked for the pics I took during Mardi Gras and the Tulane drill competition.  Couldn't find 'em.  I did find a bunch of cute sorority pics and tons and tons of ROTC pics, though.  Maybe I'll post them some time.

We tried to go to Cafe du Monde for beignets but the line was crazy long.  So we got beignets and coffee at a little place close by.  I don't know when a good time to go to Cafe du Monde is, really.  Well, when you're not hungry and don't mind waiting in line.  But I'm always hungry and hate waiting in line so that solves that.

A typical French Quarter building

We went to Delachaise the first night.  Jeff found some great restaurants in the Garden District.  We ate in the French Quarter for Thanksgiving dinner at Muriel's on Jackson Square.  We went to Cochon (recommended by a friend of my cousin Dan) the second night and I got to meet Jeff's mini-Boss, Dave.  I'm very glad he now has another aviator there with him.  Poor Jeff was going a bit crazy.  The last night we went to Atchafalaya.  Why?  Because of the name, of course.  It was also fantastic.  I really love spicy margaritas and they make an awesome one.  We had a ridiculous charcuterie plate.  It was like 5 types of meat.  Insane and delicious.  I was very glad that all of the places were more French food than Cajun food.  They all had a cajun flair but it wasn't overwhelming.  We went to Coulis for breakfast on Friday.  I had eggs benedict on jalapeño cornbread with pulled pork and homemade hollandaise.  Holy crap it was good.

New Orleans restaurants do not have the same level of cleanliness that California restaurants do.  Everything had a layer of crud on it and I about died when I looked up and saw a solid 1/2" of dust on the ceiling fans in one place.  It took all I had to keep eating and not stare at the ceiling.  Yuckeroo.  I have become very spoiled with my A ratings.  I don't know what to do when restaurants don't have their ratings posted in the windows.  Pray.  I pray :-D


My truck is still hanging on.  The streets are worse than horrible in New Orleans.  Naming it Pothole Central is being generous.  A few of the lines to the engine have come loose.  The service engine soon light was on and it was chugging at idle (Jeff had it checked and the diagnostics said a loose connection but he tightened everything he could see and the light was still on).  I felt kind of bad for my baby and hope Jeff gets her fixed.  She's 17 years old and I now feel like an ancient relic.  Whoa.

We (well, probably me more than Jeff) had a great time shopping on Magazine Street on Black Friday.  It was nice.  Not very crowded and some sales going on.  I would rather take 40mg of prednisone for a month than go to the mall on Black Friday.  Well, they're both pretty horrible actually.  My moon face is seriously depressing.  I must beat back the rejection so I can reduce my prednisone.  I'd love to get to 5mg (I'm at 10 now).

My hair is crazy frizzy! I was trying on headbands.

Stupid cat hasn't left my side since I've been home.  He's started this awful habit of climbing on my chest and falling asleep.  14 lbs of cat on my chest is pretty horrible.  My sternum doesn't hurt anymore, but it's still not fun!  Damn his fuzziness.

We stopped by some Thrift Stores/ Flea Markets as we passed by them and I found a Le Creuset 9" cast iron gratin pan for $18.  I should have bargained down to $15 but the guy didn't charge tax.  It's in great shape with only a few dings to the enamel on the edges.  I want the 14" gratin but it's $170 at Williams-Sonoma.  Reedonkulous.  Of course the 20% discounts never apply to Le Creuset.  I haven't seen the gratins at the outlet either.  I'm telling you... if you see cast iron at Thrift Stores you should buy it.

So Jeff took me over to the deserted shipyard where the boat is.  Yikes.  The shipyard is closing after The Somerset leaves and it was pretty sad looking.  Jeff says it actually pretty cool to observe the commerce on the Mississippi River.  He thinks it looks best at night... like a water highway.

Cheers!  

Oh yeah, WAR DAMN EAGLE!