New Orleans Day 2

Day Two of our New Orleans adventures began, as always, with me getting up way before anyone else was awake and drinking my coffee. This time I was in the living room, though, as the sun hadn't yet come up.

Coffee on the couch.

Incidentally, the lightbulbs in this house were THE WORST. Such a bright, glaring white that I refused to turn any of the lights on in the living room when I was in there. Instead I turned on the lights in the connecting dining room and entryway to light the living room. So bad.

Anyway.

This being Sunday, we were of course going to church. Some of my children had been asking when we could go to a Latin Mass again, which is not something readily available to us at home. In a big, very Catholic city like New Orleans, though? I was sure I would find one somewhere, and sure enough, 9:15 a.m. at old St. Patrick's church downtown was a Latin Mass.

Accordingly, I awakened the family in enough time to get us all downtown, find parking, and go to Mass.

This was a big church, old and beautiful, and full of veiled women, men in three-piece suits, and a LOT of kids. I am always uncomfortable taking photos inside a church, so I didn't get any of the altar. There are plenty online, if you're curious, but I did get this lovely photo of the morning sun coming in to light up Mary.

Our Lady of Light, indeed.

This was a long Latin Mass, and by the time we left church around 10:30 a.m., everyone was very ready for some food. Since we were downtown already, we went to the original Cafe du Monde on Jackson Square for cafe au lait and beignets.

Beignets are sort of like fried dough, Or a doughnut. Better than either of those, however, and always served with piles of powdered sugar on top. This makes them quite messy to eat, and I regretted not covering my black skirt with a napkin.

This looks vaguely galactic.

After that, we went across the square to the cathedral. This had been closed for weddings the afternoon before, so we hadn't had a chance to see it yet. The last Mass was just ending when we got there.

Another beautiful church. There are many in New Orleans.

Next we drove to Metairie, which is the suburb of New Orleans in which my mother grew up. The house she grew up in and that I visited so many times is still there, and is virtually unchanged on the outside, though no longer owned by my family. 

We also went to my grandparents' grave in Metairie.

Cemeteries in New Orleans are very unique, thanks to the above-ground mausoleums necessitated by the high water table. The cemeteries look like little villages of tiny houses. They even have street signs so you can find your way around.

I didn't think to buy flowers for the permanent urn in front of our family mausoleum, but Poppy has had enough experience with found flowers that she immediately set about picking some of the small purple flowers all over the grass to make a bunch for the grave. I added some greenery from a nearby tree, and we had a tiny arrangement for the grave.

Small and unorthodox, but made with love.

The whole month of November in the Catholic church is dedicated to the souls of those who have died, and all are encouraged to visit cemeteries to pray for them. It was very special to bring my children to their great-grandparents' grave and pray for their souls there in this particular month.

Next, A. requested we go to the New Orleans Art Museum. He loves art museums, as does one of the boys, but rarely has the opportunity to visit them. 

This is a relatively small museum, but they have a nice collection.

I was particularly amused by this giant, very realistic Hulk lunchbox in the modern art section.

A. took the one boy who also loves museums around, and I took the other three kids separately around the museum. This way, when those of us who were not as enthralled had finished, we could just go outside to the park by the museum to wait for the art lovers to finish.

Playing under the Spanish moss.

Everyone was thoroughly exhausted by that time, and we went back to the house for dinner. Also for Looney Tunes, as A. figured out how to get Youtube on one of the three smart TVs in the house.

That's a wrap on Day 2. Check back later for Day 3, in which we visit a plantation and the swamp.

Snapshots: New Orleans, Of Course

As many of you may remember, my mother is from New Orleans, and that is a large part of why I wanted to bring my family there. The only one of my children who had ever been was my eldest, and that was when we went for my grandmother's funeral when he was only seven months old. I wanted to show them the place their own grandmother grew up and the place I have so many good memories of.

And so, I did. 

With six people in our family, one hotel room is not enough. Two hotel rooms costs enough that it makes a lot more sense to rent a house through Airbnb. It's also much, much more comfortable for our family to have room to spread out and run around. The house I rented was in Gentilly, which is a residential neighborhood in New Orleans proper*. The house had three bedrooms, two and a half bathrooms, and enough beds for all of us.

I think it was built just about ten years after my mother's childhood home was built.

Just a little old brick house.

Some of the house had been updated, but much of it was original to the house. 

This is a bathroom from an earlier era, for sure.

The kitchen was pretty well-equipped. Given that we didn't arrive until 10 p.m. on Friday night, I was particularly relieved to see there was a coffee machine and coffee already there.

There was even a mug of similar shape to my beloved mug at home.

This house was lacking a good porch to sit on, so I just brought my coffee out to the front steps to enjoy the extremely tropical morning.

It even looked tropical.

I was somewhat dismayed to find that the washing machine at the house was clearly in the middle of repairs and wasn't functional. We had brought limited clothing in our carry-on backpacks, anticipating doing laundry during the week. There was a laundromat about a mile away, but I had zero desire to spend any time in a laundromat. Thankfully, the dryer was working. So I just did a small load of laundry in the bathtub every morning, hung it over a rack in the tub to drip-dry while we were gone during the day, and then dried it the rest of the way in the dryer when we got back to the house at night.

Tub laundry: vacation edition. (I had to rotate this photo, and now it looks funny. Oh well.)

Our rental car had a fun feature on the dash where it gave us our elevation. This is particularly interesting in New Orleans because much of the city is actually below sea level.

Here we were at -5 feet. The lowest we saw was -15.

The first day we wanted to go the Garden District and the French Quarter. My main concern was parking, which is very expensive near the French Quarter. However, there are old streetcars that run around the city. These are fun to ride, so I decided we should go to the Garden District first, where we would hopefully find cheaper parking, and then take the streetcar to the French Quarter.

We ended up finding an unmetered spot on a side street in the Garden District, so parking was free this day.

We wandered the Garden District for awhile, admiring the beautiful homes.

This house had a water fountain for people, and a water bowl and treats for dogs.

The giant live oaks are fun to climb around on.

Poppy found the world's biggest Richard Scarry book at a bookstore.

Eventually we made our way to the streetcar. We rode the St. Charles streetcar to get to the French Quarter. This is the same streetcar my mother rode every day to and from school. The cars themselves are the same, so we might literally have been riding a car my mother rode many years ago. The machine for cash fares wasn't working, and the driver let us ride for free. It was very crowded initially, and we all had to ride standing up until some people got off.

We did get seats towards the end, though.

The streetcar dropped us at Canal Street, where the first order of business was feeding the children. We ended up getting fried chicken, which everyone enjoyed very much.

Poppy did not understand this sign at the restaurant, and honestly, neither did I.

Then we walked. We went down Bourbon Street, where one boy played chess with a guy who had his board set up on the street. We looked in a store that sells antique guns and weapons. We walked around Jackson Square, where a man on stilts was entertaining the gathered crowd, a wedding was happening in the garden area of the square, and psychics and voodoo practitioners were set up literally in front of the cathedral.

We stopped at the Pharmacy Museum, which has some very interesting displays about historic medicine and also a very nice courtyard.

Cool staircase, too.

At this point, everyone's late night was catching up with them, so we decided to get back on the streetcar and work our way back to the house, where the children played with the toys at the house, and I made dinner, dried laundry, and generally got us settled.

Looks like home already.

Okay, I think this is long enough for now. Stay tuned for day two of our adventures!

* The city of New Orleans transitions within blocks from nice neighborhoods to places I definitely did not want to stay. I relied heavily on the Airbnb reviews and Google streetview to find a house in a place I thought would be safe. This house was in a very safe and quiet neighborhood, although just about a mile away was not a place I would have felt comfortable.

Friday Food: In New Orleans

We were in New Orleans all week, as you will see in our food. 

Also in photos. This is definitely not New Mexico.

Friday

Short version: Overpriced airport pizza and very late scrambled egg sandwiches

Long version: Our total travel time this day from our house in New Mexico to our rental house in New Orleans was 13 hours. We had a long layover in Dallas on our way to New Orleans. Although I had brought food with me, it was not enough to sustain my children--particularly my always-ravenous sons--for 13 hours. I had planned on getting them dinner in Dallas, so that is what we did.

They all wanted pizza. A. had Chinese food.

When we got to our rental house at 10 p.m., they were all hungry again. I literally had nothing with which to feed them except carrot sticks and some beef jerky. A. had immediately gone to find a convenience store in the hopes of getting bread, eggs, and butter for breakfast the next morning. He returned with Bunny bread, eggs, and margarine, with which I made scrambled eggs sandwiches.

I did not tell my children they were eating margarine. I'm pretty sure they'd never had it. They did note the eggs seemed kind of greasy, but they ate them anyway.

Saturday

Short version: Pork chops, andouille sausage, fried potatoes, green salad with vinaigrette, ice cream

Long version: There is a local New Orleans grocery store called Canseco's that has a location just a mile from our rental house. I, of course, was up in the morning way before anyone else was awake, so I took the opportunity to go to Canseco's when they opened at 7 a.m.

This is a small market with narrow aisles. There were workers everywhere stocking shelves for Thanksgiving and it was literally almost impossible to get around the store. For this reason, I did not spend as long looking around as I might have, instead grabbing things as I saw them and getting out of there as soon as I could.

Here's everything I got:

Zoom in if you're really curious.

Food is pretty cheap in New Orleans. I bought enough for four dinners and breakfasts, including meat, plus various snacks and treats like ice cream and Oreos, and it was still less than two hundred dollars.

As soon as I got back to the house, I cooked the entire five-pound bag of potatoes I had bought, just to have them ready to go. I couldn't find a peeler or paring knife in the kitchen of our house, so I just boiled them all whole.

We spent this day in the Garden District and the French Quarter. Everyone was very tired by the time we got back to the house around 5 p.m. Thankfully, the kitchen in this house was quite well stocked, with lots of spices and even olive oil and vinegar. I coated the pork chops I had bought with mustard, mayonnaise, and spices and broiled them. I chopped some of the potatoes and fried them in butter and olive oil, as well as the andouille sausage.

I had bought a big container of washed "baby greens" and some grape tomatoes, with which I made a salad every night. The dressing was made with the oil and vinegar I found at the house.

I found Blue Bell ice cream, which is made in Texas and is really good, and bought half gallons of cookies and cream and pecan pralines and cream. Yum.

Sunday

Short version: Crawfish, shrimp, mashed potatoes, salad, ice cream, Oreos

Long version: I bought prepared crawfish tail meat and shrimp which I cooked this night. The shrimp I just coated in butter and lemon juice and broiled. The crawfish I fried in butter and then added mustard, mayonnaise, cream, and lemon juice to it to make a sauce. This I served over the potatoes that I had made by just peeling and chunking up some already cooked potatoes and simmering them in milk until they were soft and I could mash them with a fork.

Those of us who are not fans of seafood had leftover pork chops.

I found both peanut butter Oreos and birthday cake Oreos that I got for everyone to try. Neither one was as good as original Oreos. They both had an artificial taste. I mean, they were eaten, but I think we would all have been happier with regular Oreos.

Monday

Short version: Chicken thighs, broiled potatoes, salad, last of the ice cream

Long version: Before we left for our day of plantation and swamp tours, I put the boneless, skinless chicken thighs in a marinade of mustard, olive oil, mayonnaise, lemon juice, and a spice blend I found at the house called Trader Joe's 21 Spice Salute (I think). I had thought I would broil the chicken, but that was taking too long, so I ended up frying it in a skillet. 

The potatoes I just chunked up and broiled with olive oil, butter, salt, and pepper.

None of the cookware at this house was big enough for the quantity of food I have to cook, which made it kind of challenging. I got it done, though.

Tuesday

Short version: Po'boys

Long version: This was not my plan for dinner. I had a lot of leftovers from previous nights that we were going to eat this night to use them up before leaving for home the next day.

Plans changed, however, when I got a message from our Airbnb host saying that her cleaning crew was there getting the house ready for the next guests and our personal belongings were still there.

Our things were still there because we weren't flying out until the next day. But I had mistakenly ended our reservation a day too early and never noticed until right then.

Thus ensued a very stressful half hour or so as I confirmed that yes, our flights were definitely the next day, as was our rental car return, so all we needed was somewhere to stay for the one night.

Well, and we needed to go right back to our original house and pick up all our things, which the cleaning crew had gathered up and stored in the garage for us until we could get there. They were very nice about it, and the host really was very understanding and helpful, but it was still less than ideal.

I had quickly made a new Airbnb reservation on my phone for a renovated historic shotgun house in the Riverside district of New Orleans. This happened to be just half a mile from a famous New Orleans po'boy restaurant called Domelise's. We went right to our new house from our old one without time to eat lunch. As we were driving to the new house, I saw Domelise's in the neighborhood and we decided to go there right before they closed at 3 p.m. to get po'boys for a late lunch.

Poppy and I got ham and cheese; two boys got shrimp; one boy and A. got oyster. All were very much enjoyed. There were some leftovers from a couple of sandwiches, which I wrapped up and brought to the new house. They were eaten later for dinner. 

Behind the counter at the po'boy place (and bar). Note the giant beer glass inscribed with "I'll Bet You Can't." 

Also for dinner, sort of, were some Zapp's Spicy Cajun Crawtators, which are a New Orleans brand of kettle potato chips, plus more of the Oreos that I set out on the porch in the evening when we sat and watched the traffic go by.

The cleaning crew had bagged up most of the food in the refrigerator of our first house, with the exception of the leftover meats and potatoes that had been in covered bowls owned by the house. I guess they threw those away, alas, but we got everything else and brought it with us to our new house. It was a fun place to stay for the one night, but the kitchen was much smaller and not as well-equipped.

I had to cook eggs in the morning in this pot, because there was no skillet in the kitchen.

Wednesday

Short version: Gas station burritos, tortillas and cheese and hot milk at home, finally

Long version: I used the rest of the loaf of bread and various leftovers--crawfish, ham and cheese, peanut butter and jelly--to make eight sandwiches that were eaten over the course of our 13-hour travel day. 

We had a three-hour drive from the airport to get home. I ran out of food completely in the first hour and was loathe to stop and get more overpriced restaurant food. So instead we stopped at a gas station near-ish home where I got beef and bean burritos for everyone to keep them happy for the last hour or so. Way better deal at $1.25 per burrito than fast food. 

When we got home at 8 p.m., the children had hot milk along with tortillas and cheese before collapsing into their beds.

Thursday

Short version: Thanksgiving Salisbury steaks with onion/milk gravy, rice, peas, collards

Long version: Although I bought a turkey for Thanksgiving and could technically have kept in the refrigerator to thaw while we were gone, I had no interest in cooking a big meal after our trip. I announced Sunday would be our turkey day.

We didn't eat any red meat while we were gone--New Orleans is a pork and seafood culture--and I wanted some. Thus, Salisbury steaks. Very good they were, too. I got the gravy just right this time, using the milk we stopped specifically to get on the way home.

A. and I had the collards; the children had the peas.

Refrigerator check:

A mostly-empty post-vacation refrigerator is very handy for fitting a thawing turkey.

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?

Home for the Holiday

We just returned last night from a week in New Orleans, so I am particularly thankful for a fun and safe trip.

This is not a house you will see where I live.

 I am also extremely thankful to be home. 

Where there is precious little green to be seen, but also no chokingly humid air.

But as always, home or away, the people who came with me to New Orleans are what I am most thankful for.

Happy Thanksgiving to all. What are you thankful for?

An Alcohol Evolution

Although I have never been a big drinker, I have always liked to drink sometimes. I still do, it's just that "sometimes" has now become "rarely."

The reason for this is mostly because when I have a drink, I want to be able to relax. I do not want to have a drink and then spend the next two hours cooking and cleaning up dinner, for example. I will not get home late from an event and have a drink before bed, either. Pretty much the only time I want to have a cocktail is at 4 p.m. We eat early and I go to bed early, so everything else is correspondingly early as well. 

So the situations in which I actually have a drink are very specific, and therefore very infrequent.

When I do have a drink, it is always a cocktail. I never much liked beer or wine. When I was younger, I liked rum and Coke. Later, I liked gin and tonic. And then for awhile, I preferred Sidecars.

All of those, however, relied on sugar for flavor. I find that now, I don't want any sugar at all in addition to the alcohol when I have a cocktail. That's why I now drink flavored vodka. That way I can have flavor with no sugar (or sugar substitutes, which I uniformly dislike). I always cut it with flavored seltzer, too. My favorite flavored vodka is peach. The lime vodka my sister brought last time she visited was good, too.

This makes a very light drink that is just enough to  be pleasant.

Especially pleasant in an actual cocktail glass.

So tell me: Do you drink? What do you prefer?

Snapshots: A Cameo by Moby Chomper

The very old Jeep that A. bought a few months ago came with all the pieces to enclose the vehicle, and A. got them all put on to protect the interior (such as it is) from rain and snow.

So sporty.

I think we might be in the last years of having a kid small enough to curl up on the heating vent in the kitchen.

Every single kid does this when they're little. It's an instinct.

I made French toast for the kids' after-church breakfast last Sunday and was very gratified that the egg and milk mixture was exactly enough for the pieces of bread I had cut, without having any left over or any bread that was too dry.

So satisfying.

Poppy seems to be susceptible to coughs, and it helps her to breathe in steam under a towel with her face over a bowl of hot water. She doesn't like it much, but it does help. 

This week she was overseen by Moby Chomper, the giant stuffed fish requested and received by the middle son last year at the high school gift exchange. Moby Chomper is going to feature in a fly-fishing demonstration youngest son is helping with at the Christmas talent show, so we needed to get Moby to school. I put him on my chair at the table so he wouldn't get forgotten. From there, he kept an eye on the steaming.

It was very funny.

There you have it! My life, snapshotted.

Friday Food: Double Pudding and Calzones

Friday 

Short version: Leftovers

Long version: There was leftover pasta bake, chicken, and mashed potatoes that I divvied out. My refrigerator was getting a little crowded.

Saturday

Short version: Beefy Spanish rice, butterscotch pudding

Long version: I had some lamb-y rice leftover and then made some more with the rest of the beef stock that resulted from cooking the tongue. I used that, plus ground beef, the last of the pinto beans in the refrigerator, frozen corn, and pureed tomatoes to make something like Spanish rice. Oh, and I added cheese, too. 

I made the pudding because I wanted to get through the last couple of gallons in the refrigerator before I picked up four more gallons at school on Monday. Pudding uses a lot of milk and makes everyone happy. Most of the family loves butterscotch pudding, although I'm not wildly enthused about it. 

I double this recipe and add a bit of molasses to it, because my family likes molasses. 

Sunday

Short version: Lamb roast with potatoes, carrots, and onions; cucumbers with salt and vinegar, chocolate pudding

Long version: This was the last leg of lamb in the freezer. I marinated it, shoved garlic into slits, and put a spice rub on it, so it had lots of flavor. 

There was room enough in the dish with the lamb to cook potatoes, carrots, and onions, so I did that.

Sunday roast.

More pudding to use more milk, but chocolate this time (doubled, with the optional cocoa and half dark chocolate chips, half semi-sweet chips). I did the extra step of sieving the pudding when I was scraping it out of the pot because no matter how careful I am, I always end up scraping out some of the layer of cornstarch, etc. on the bottom of the pot, and that makes little lumps. Half the pleasure of pudding is the smooth texture, so I sieved it this time. Much better.

Monday

Short version: Calzones, raw radishes, cookies

Long version: A mom from school just had her fourth baby, which means she now has four kids under 8 years old.

Been there. That mom needs food.

Her oldest daughter is in Poppy's class, so I asked Poppy what she thought I should make for their family. She thought pizza. Okay. That's what I made for them.

We had pizza not too long ago, so I thought I would try something a little different and make calzones. Pretty much pizza, just wrapped up instead of flat.

Of course, calzones are individual and have to be rolled out, which makes them a bit more time consuming. I also felt like I couldn't get enough filling in them, because they were so bulky before the cheese melted.

They browned nicely, though. And they were certainly large.

I made extra sauce for whoever wanted it, which was everyone except Poppy.

I had also made oatmeal chocolate chip cookies for the other family, and there were enough for our family, too. We got the ones that I over-baked when I got distracted, but they were still happily dunked in milk and consumed.

Tuesday

Short version: Stuffed pizza

Long version: The general consensus on the calzones was that they needed more sauce and cheese. There were four of them left, and only four people eating this night, which worked out nicely. It also worked out to have leftovers, as I was at First Communion class with Poppy until about 5:30 p.m. 

A. re-heated the calzones in the oven before I got home, and then I topped them with more sauce and cheese, just like pizza. So they were pretty much like a stuffed pizza. Much better.

Wednesday

Short version: Eggs and rice, leftovers

Long version: The younger children had a party at school in the afternoon, at which they filled up on many snacks. I knew they would do this, so I hadn't planned on anything too elaborate for dinner. Also, the eldest was traveling home at dinnertime from an FFA event, so he ate on the road.

There was enough leftover lamb roast, potatoes, and carrots for A. and the middle boy. Poppy and I had fried eggs and rice. The youngest boy wasn't hungry at all and didn't eat dinner.

Thursday

Short version: Spanish tortilla, Snow's clam chowder, raw radishes, chocolate wafer cookies

Long version: I had thought I would be at a basketball game, so I made a Spanish tortilla ahead of time for dinner. I completely filled a 12-inch skillet with the tortilla and wasn't careful enough when I poured the scrambled eggs in with the potatoes and and so on.

Fun.

I didn't end up going to the game, but it was nice to have dinner already made. I did add the clam chowder since I was home and it was rainy and cold.

Refrigerator check:

Pretty empty.

Okay, your turn! What'd you eat this week?