New Orleans Day 4

Did I begin the day with coffee before dawn and a walk when the sun came up? But of course.

A house spotted on the walk.

We didn't have any scheduled activities this day, so I let everyone sleep in a little bit and we left the house around 10 a.m. We had arranged to go visit my aunt and uncle, who live in Covington. This is a suburban town across the Causeway.

The Causeway is a giant bridge that spans the entirety of Lake Pontchartrain. It's about 24 miles long, which means you drive on it for a very long time and it really feels like you're just out there in the middle of the water. It's pretty fun, although I wouldn't want to break down on it.

We did not break down and made it to my aunt and uncle's house. We visited with them for a little bit before going to my cousin's house nearby. She has a granddaughter Poppy's age and my aunt wanted the two girls to meet.

After that, my aunt and uncle wanted to take us out to lunch, so they started driving to the restaurant and we followed in our car. 

This is when I got a message from our Airbnb host that the cleaners were at the house getting it ready for the next guests and that some of our personal effects were still there.

Well, yes. ALL our personal effects were still there, because we weren't leaving until the next day. But apparently I had made a mistake in my booking and this day was the last day I had reserved.

*&$*#@!!!

That was what was in my head as I frantically messaged our host, trying to figure out what I needed to do. I was expecting a big fee, all our stuff thrown out, etc. Instead, when I apologized and told her how sorry I was to have caused so much trouble, she was very understanding and told me the cleaning crew would collect all our things and store them in a locked room until we could get there to pick them up.

I felt very bad about this, because of course our belongings were scattered around, since we hadn't planned on having to pack up until that night. I had, thankfully, asked the kids that morning to pick out their clothing for the next day and put everything else in their bags, so their rooms weren't too bad. It was still a lot of random stuff for the cleaners to gather up, though.

By the time I had had this exchange with our host and checked to make sure that yes, our flight and rental car return were indeed for the next day, we were at the restaurant. Our Airbnb host had told me there was no rush to get back to the house, but I felt like we should get there as soon as possible. I made my apologies to my aunt and uncle and we went right back across the Causeway to New Orleans.

On our way back to the house, I made a hasty new reservation on Airbnb. I had originally thought I would just get rooms at a hotel near the airport, as we were flying out the next day. However, A. encouraged me to try to find another house in New Orleans. That way we could actually enjoy our last afternoon and night. Hotels are not enjoyable for our family, so I took his point and got back onto Airbnb.

Within the parameters I had set for number of beds and cost, there were only a couple of options. I chose a renovated shotgun house and made the reservation. So at least we had somewhere to sleep that night.

We arrived back at the house when the cleaning lady was still there, so we had a chance to look around the house and get anything she had missed. She actually got almost everything. She had even bagged up the food in the refrigerator so we could take that with us. She was very nice about all of this, assuring us that Venus was in retrograde, and that was probably why this had happened. I gave her a large tip, we stuffed our very disorganized belongings in the car, and we set off for our new house.

It was only about half an hour away, and we couldn't get into it for over an hour. It was now about 2 p.m. None of us had eaten lunch yet. I had been promising my children po'boys for four days and had not yet delivered. A quick search on my phone revealed that one of the most famous po'boy places in the city, Domelise's, was only half a mile from our new house. It closed in an hour, so we went directly there.

Po'boys are like sub sandwiches. They are made on French bread, with various toppings, often seafood, served dressed--with lettuce, tomato, pickles, mayonnaise--or undressed, and hot or cold. They're best, in my opinion, dressed and heated. And the bread is miles better than most subs. I love them.

This place was a real hole in the wall institution, clearly.

Sandwiches being made above a sketch of the building.

I ordered two ham and cheese, two shrimp, and two oyster po'boys, plus five Barq's root beers, which is local to New Orleans. Our sandwiches were ready within about fifteen minutes. We sat outside to eat them, as the restaurant was closing.

After that, we parked in front of our new house. This turned out to be on Tchoupitoulas Street, a main parade route for the Mardi Gras parade. We still had about half an hour before we could get into the house, so we walked around the neighborhood for a bit until we could get in.

Hello, new home.

Shotgun houses are particular to New Orleans. They are so named because they are long and narrow, have no hallways, each room leads directly into the next, and theoretically, you can stand at the front door and shoot a gun from there to the back without the bullet going through any walls.

My children were disappointed that this house didn't have the doors lined up, so the shotgun test wouldn't have worked. It was still a cool old house, though.

This was the first bedroom, which was between the kitchen/living room and the next bedroom.

After getting all our stuff inside and re-organizing it all, and then settling the children in front of a documentary about bayous on one of the three televisions, A. and I realized we could actually leave and go have a drink in a bar. Like a date.

This house was in the Riverside district of New Orleans, which meant were a LOT of bars to choose from. We passed a couple that were just standard bars with middle-aged regulars hanging out drinking. This was not really the scene I was going for. Instead we went to a fancy bar associated with a steakhouse, where it was quiet and we could get nice cocktails and actually talk.

This was vodka, St. Germain (an elderflower liqueur) lime, and cranberry juice. It was very good.

This was only about half a mile from our house, so we were gone about an hour. On our walk back, we happened to go past a warehouse that had an open door and lights on. We paused to look in, because it was pretty clear that they were making Mardi Gras floats in there. We agreed we should bring the children back to see it, so as soon as we got back to the house, we gathered them all up and walked back to the warehouse.

We stopped in the open doors just to look, but a sculptor named Benny saw us there and invited us in. When he learned we don't live there, he took us on a tour and explanation of the various works of art in progress. He would not have done this if we were local, because we were seeing the parade floats for the coming Mardi Gras, which are supposed to be secret.

For that reason, I will not show you the couple of photos I took, but it was very cool. He explained the themes and how the floats are constructed from paper mache on a frame of two by fours.

After that we went back to the house and spent some time sitting on the front porch, eating potato chips and watching the traffic go by on Tchoupitoulas Street before going to bed.

The next day wasn't too early of a start. We were in the car by 7:45 a.m. to get to the airport. I wasn't sure how long it would take to return the car* and get through security the day before Thanksgiving, so I made sure we had lots of time. 

Everything was so fast, though, that we ended up sitting at our gate for about two hours. Plenty of time for a few more beignets from the airport Cafe Du Monde.

Not as good as Jackson Square, but happily eaten nonetheless.

Our flights and drive home were uneventful, if long. We had a wonderful time, but everyone was very glad to make it home.

* I had a few minutes of panic when I left my purse in the rental car and had to run back up to the car to search for it. Thankfully, the car hadn't been moved yet. Unthankfully, I first looked in the wrong car because it was exactly the same as our rental car, same color and everything. When I eventually realized my mistake and looked in the right car, I found my purse right away, but it was a bad few minutes.

Friday Food: A Sunday Thanksgiving

Friday 

Short version: Chicken thighs, rice, carrot sticks

Long version: I made chicken thighs for the sole reason that I would need more poultry stock on hand for our delayed Thanksgiving meal. Dressing and gravy take a lot of stock, way more than I get from the actual turkey.

Knowing I would be using the bones of the thighs for stock, I didn't season them very heavily with many spices, instead just using salt, pepper, and thyme on them. I did salt them for a few hours before baking them, which seems to help a lot with texture and flavor.

Saturday

Short version: Freezer skillet, fried bean tacos, raw radishes

Long version: I spent most of the day in the kitchen doing Thanksgiving prep that included pumpkin and pecan pies, cranberry sauce, and the aforementioned chicken stock.

A sink full of cranberries is very pretty.

So are pies.

For dinner, I pulled out some leftover taco meat I had frozen before we left, as well as the last cup or so of rice that I had frozen before our trip so it wouldn't go bad. Those I just heated up in a skillet and then added sour cream.

That wouldn't have been quite enough, so I also used an open can of refried beans from the refrigerator to make tacos. I made them A.-style by frying the corn tortillas first on both sides in lard, then adding the beans and cheese, folding them over and frying until brown and crispy, and then baking for a few minutes in the oven to ensure the cheese was all melted.

A very filling peasant meal.

Sunday

Short version: Turkey day! And everything else.

Long version: For our delayed Thanksgiving meal this year, we had the turkey and gravy, sage sourdough dressing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, maple carrots, frozen corn, pecan pie with whipped cream or ice cream, pumpkin pie with whipped cream, and crispy rice treats.

The MiL saved Thanksgiving for us this year by randomly sending in a box of other things a paper bag full of herbs from her garden that she had dried. As usual, I forgot to buy sage, but there it was, in the bag. Also thyme and marjoram, which I used in the cavity of the turkey. Thanks, MiL!

I have learned that the best part of holiday desserts is abundance, which is why I made two pies. The crispy rice treats were mostly for a guest who doesn't eat gluten, but my children were quite pleased to see them as well and I think everyone had one along with their pie.

I got both pies just right this time. Yay, me.

Monday

Short version: Leftovers, of course

Long version: We had leftovers of everything except the cranberry sauce. I failed to freeze the two bags of cranberries I bought before our trip, so by the time we were picking through them, almost half of them were starting to go bad. Boo. But good thing I bought two bags to start with, I guess.

Tuesday

Short version: Hamburger patties, leftover mashed potatoes and gravy, turkey noodle soup, garlic bread, corn on the cob, green salad with vinaigrette, green grapes, Mexican wedding cookies

Long version: Turkey break! Well, except for the soup, which I made expressly for the child with a nasty sinus infection.

My parents also arrived for a visit this day, and they brought all the produce. I was out of all fresh vegetables and hadn't had a chance to get to a store, so my mom brought all the vegetables and fruit. She also brought the Mexican wedding cookies. She purchased those somewhere, and my children were quick to assure me that they weren't anything like mine.

Maybe not, but I also didn't have to make them, so enjoy your cookies!

Wednesday

Short version: FFA dinner at school

Long version: Every year our FFA chapter does a fundraiser around Christmas at which the elementary kids provide the entertainment*, there's an auction, and the FFA students prepare and serve dinner to everyone. It's pretty much the same every year: ham, "French" rice (I'm told by my son who helped prepare it that it's French because it has cans of French onion soup in it) green beans, salad, rolls, and a sopapilla cheesecake.

Thursday

Short version: Chicken tacos, refried beans, raw broccoli, cherry pie with vanilla ice cream

Long version: I took out what I thought was a pork butt only to find it was a bag of chicken leg quarters. No problem! Anything can be in a taco!

I put the leg quarters--still partially frozen--in a pot with water and simmered them until I could easily pull the meat off. After I made corn tortillas, I fried the meat with spices on the griddle pan in the rendered fat from the hamburgers.

Two cans of pinto beans mashed up to make refried beans. Raw broccoli because my mom brought some and a couple of kids don't put any toppings, and thus no vegetables, on their tacos.

The pie is the one my parents always get from the place they stay. Lucky we had vanilla ice cream on hand.

Refrigerator check:

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

* This year it was a talent show. The only boy still in elementary school did a fly fishing demonstration/humorous skit with his friends, and Poppy sang "The Star-Spangled Banner" (solo and a cappella, amazingly), acted in a skit with her class, and did a dance to "Girls Just Want To Have Fun" with her cheerleading team.

New Orleans Day 3

Just so you know, there is no expectation that all of you are reading these very long and frankly self-indulgent recaps of our trip. I mostly write them for myself, because this blog is the only way I remember anything anymore. 

With that in mind, onward!

Every day began with me drinking coffee in a dark house before the sun and the family were up. When the sun came up, I would go outside and walk around the quiet neighborhood we were staying in.

I love the giant live oaks hanging over the street.

Even though the roots do this to the sidewalks. And the roads themselves.

I didn't have to wake everyone up super early this morning, but we did need to get going somewhat promptly to drive out to Oak Alley plantation for the tour I had scheduled at the house there for 10:15 a.m.

There are many plantations out on this road west of New Orleans. We didn't have time to tour multiple ones, unfortunately, so I just chose the most well-known one. Oak Alley is one of the bigger and fancier plantations. Sort of like the Gone with the Wind plantation.

Overlooking the alley of oaks from which the plantation got its name.

A. and I had been there maybe 20 years ago, and they've made some changes since then. Notably, they've reconstructed the slave cabins and have much more information there than they did previously. 

One of the informational signs in these cabins explained how the slaves were baptized and mentioned that the church where this happened was only about four miles away. A. really wanted to go there, so after we spent some time walking around the gardens and grounds after the guided house tour, we drove to the church.

The church there now was built in I think the 1920s, after the older church was destroyed when the river came over the levee right there and washed everything away. The newer church was open, so we were able to go in and look around.

Some information in the church itself explained its history, including that the records for this church were at various times kept in French, Spanish, and English, according to who owned this area at different times. This church was actually in the Diocese of Havanna (Cuba) for a time, hence the Spanish. Louisiana and New Orleans are most often associated with the French, but the Spanish history there is just as strong.

Anyway. Across the road from the church was the original cemetery. It also sustained a lot of damage from the same flooding, and many of the mausoleums were damaged. We didn't have a lot of time to look around, as we had to get going to our scheduled swamp tour, so we just quickly drove through the cemetery before getting back on the road.

I had planned to stop at a restaurant near the swamp tour place for po' boy sandwiches, but between our church exploration and taking longer than I expected to get to the swamp tour, we didn't have time. Instead we got Subway sandwiches on the way and ate them in the car. Boo.

However! We did get to the swamp tour location right on time. 

I discovered when I was trying to find a good swamp tour that these companies do not allow children on the private boat tours, which is what I would have preferred. Instead we had to go on a big pontoon boat. And this particular company fed the animals with marshmallows, even the alligators. This did ensure that we saw animals--raccoons, wild boar, and the alligators--but I was not too pleased about that.

Can you spot the alligator?

The kids loved it, though, especially the part where they all got to hold a little alligator.

I really had no interest in holding this myself, but the captain was quite insistent.

By the time we finished with the swamp tour, it was somewhat late in the afternoon. We drove right back to the house for dinner and some downtime before bed. It was not hard to get any of the children to sleep after all of our exciting and tiring days.

Speaking of exciting . . . check back later for the tale of our last full day in New Orleans, in which I discover I have messed up our Airbnb booking and I have to scramble to find another one. Which ends up being literally next door to a college bar.

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?