Festive Saturday

If it is one thing that I have learned about New Orleans, it is that they have a festival for EVERYTHING!! This past Saturday Brie and I hit up two; the Coffee Festival on Freret Street and the Mirliton Festival down in Bywater. While I did not partake in any coffee, I enjoyed meandering through the craft booths and listening to the live music. The weather was exceptionally nice and perfect for outdoor fun. Once we had our fill of festival #1, we drove to the festival #2 for some lunch. I did not really know what a mirliton was, but I quickly discovered that it is a delicious green squash type vegetable. There were numerous different vendors serving a variety of dishes containing them. I had a seafood stuffed mirliton that was super yummy! We met AV at this festival and were able to enjoy the music of Gal Holiday (whom I have seen before and blogged about).

Stuffed mirliton was kind of like a stuffed pepper.

On our way out we grabbed Chocolate Sea Salt popsicles for the road. Little did we know that those popsicle sticks were going to be rigged together using hair ties once we reached the parking lot and realized that I had locked my keys in my car! Fortunately I had cracked the windows due to the gorgeous weather and could see my keys lying in the floor board. We had been attempting to push the unlock button for a few minutes when an older gentleman came up to us and offered to help. He asked me to hold his beer while he assessed the situation. *Note that this was 3:30 in the afternoon in a public parking lot with people wandering all around, so while it may sound sketchy, there was no real danger to be seen.* His hat said that he was a Coast Guard Veteran and I would guess he was in his mid-70’s. Luckily this man had a fishing pole with him and after about 15 minutes of trying, he was able to pull my keys up to the window where I could grab them! Brie and I thanked him profusely and he scurried off rather quickly. Who says folks don’t help each other out anymore? I sure am glad he was willing to take the time to lend a hand!

This coming Sunday is the Po-Boy Festival that I am looking forward to! I have been promised good music and good food!