Weekend Wrap Up

To wrap up yet another weekend gone by too quickly, Brie, Evan and I rode the street car to Lafayette Square to check out the Street Food and Go Cups event that was being put on by Tales of the Cocktail. Sucre's gelato truck was among the dozen or so various options. While there were plenty of food vendors to choose from, we opted to walk down the street to Luke for a late lunch/early dinner. 

Evan and I split an order of "Rillettes of Mangalitsa Pork" which was basically a meat salad esque concoction made of pork served with crispy bread and a selection of marmalades. Surprising delicious and cute that it came in a little glass jar. I also indulged in the "Luke Burger" with leftovers to boot! Check out that adorable mini bottle of ketchup!

While sitting at Luke's bar we chatted up an older gentleman named Victor Cook who was a professor at Tulane's business school. Since, apparently as a group we know no strangers, we walked with him back to his apartment building and received the grand tour while talking for over an hour about furniture, politics, and art. He certainly had some spectacular views of the Crescent City Connection. A very humorous, smart man that was a pleasure to meet.

 On our voyage back home we stopped off at the newly opened Fresh Market and scoped it out. I used to go to the one in Roanoke frequently, but with Whole Foods being here and closer to the house, I don't know that TFM will have the same pull on me here that it did in Virginia. 

Paint Project

When in VA the other month my Grandmaw offered me a wooden jewelry holder that she was not using. I was packing light on that visit, so my mom mailed it to me a few weeks later. I decided a nice coat of paint would spruce it up a bit! 

Ta Da! It sure is nice to have everything in one spot, tangle-free and organized! 

Pinterest Wins

I have slowly but surely been getting sucked into Pinterest! There are so many crafty ideas, tips for everyday life, style finds, and yummy looking recipes on there. I saw something that said that Pinterest is to girls what fantasy football is to guys! Haha! Check out my boards to see what puts a smile on my face!

Lake Euphrosine

It has been raining in New Orleans a lot recently, but usually there is a storm, it passes, and then the humidity is unbearable: typical summer weather. On Friday however, the rain kept coming down causing many streets to flood. Euphrosine Street, where I work, was no exception. A bunch of us in the office would get up to check the situation frequently and often see water lapping up on the steps outside. If a large truck braved the depth (which was easily around 2 feet) and drove through we could hear the waves of water hitting the side of the building. 

 The strange thing is that the water would rise like this, then the rain would lighten up a bit and we would peek outside 30 minutes later and it was all gone--the streets were clear--then the rain would pick up again and another lake would appear. Up and down. Up and down. Luckily but the time I was ready to go home the lake had nearly dried up!

What Is This World Coming To?

The other night people began trickling into my room and planting themselves in my (messy) floor. At first we were having actual old-school human conversations, but slowly our attentions turned to our phones and before I knew it we were all engaged in a trivia game that we were playing against each other. Sad really. Though I suppose it is worth noting that at least we were exercising our brains with our game choice.

Chef Katie is in the Kitchen!

I saw this recipe for Seared Scallops with Wilted Spinach over Parmesan Risotto while perusing Pinterest the other day and had to try my hand at it. This was my first attempt at risotto and while it was quite tasty, I think I will read over a few more recipes to see if something else grabs me. The wilted spinach was a cinch and the scallops were quick and easy to cook too, though it was my first time preparing them as well.

Overall this was a delightful and delicious meal.

A Little Humor. A Little Wisdom. A Little Sass.

Peanut Butter Jelly Time

Apologies for the absence. Life has been...routine. 

Any who... yesterday was new product test-tasting/judging day at work. The kitchen is working on some new cookie recipes and focusing on a PB&J style. Tariq is not a big fan of peanut butter so he challenged the gals in the kitchen to create samples to be tasted and judged. 

There were 24 entries. All were peanut butter with jelly in some capacity and were made in the same ring molds as our current Dark Chocolate Caramel Cookies. Each culinary hopeful was sliced, visually critiqued, and tasted by the judges that then rated the appearance, taste, creativity, and productability (made-up word by Tariq meaning how easy will this product be to produce on a large scale)

The official judges: Averill, Laura, and Amy. Tariq was the official slicer.

About three quarters of the way down the table the judges started to lose steam but they managed to rally on and sample each entry. After a few re-samplings to be 100% sure, it was concluded that cookie #1 was indeed the first place treat! From here, the creator of the winning cookie will pass the recipe on to Tariq and in due time we should be offering a new Peanut Butter and Raspberry Jelly Cookie!

I tried a few slivers, but was thankful to have bowed out of being a judge! I believe there were quite a few sugar-induced food comas as a result of the competition. 

Slidell Rocks

Yesterday Brie, Evan, AV and I enjoyed a Sunday Funday that included Vietnamese food, indoor rock climbing, and frozen yogurt :) 

We drove out to New Orleans East to Dong Phuong for some Banh Mis (sandwiches). I got the Chinese Roasted Pork...delicious! We are uncertain as to how truly meat-free Brie's vegetarian option was :-\ Evan and I split some sort of BBQ filled steamed bun (the green thing) that was ok. Super cheap lunch!

Our next stop was Slidell Rocks Climbing Gym; Brie and Evan had checked this place out earlier in the week so AV and I were the new kids on the block. There was a birthday party going on when we first got there so it was a little crowded, but it thinned out and we had our pick of walls.

 

Along with a bunch of different walls ranging in difficulty they also had ropes to climb and a peg board thing: both of which AV dominated! For a little over $15 we hung out for about 2 hours. 

While I do not think that I have found a new passion, I would be willing to try again. I sort of had a minor panic attack my first time up. I think in part because AV was belaying me and he had never done this before either so it was like the blind leading the blind. It was not the height because I had no problem looking back down at the ground to loudly say "I want to come down!". As to have no regrets I made a second go at it with Brie spotting me and I felt better about it though I did not make it to the top before deciding all of the "rocks" were too small to hold on to. My mind can't wrap around the fact that if I am 20 feet in the air and let go of everything solid, that I will in fact not plummet to the ground, but be caught by a rope instead. It is just something I would have to get more comfortable with. The others were awesome though and were all over the place! 

When we came back to NOLA we indulged in a little frozen yogurt to beat the heat before taking a stroll around Audubon Park. 

Overall a hot, but great Sunday Funday! Now AV is off to Kentucky for a visit while the rest of us are chugging on with our week.