Breakfast at Tiffany's

Another oldie to check off the must see list: Breakfast at Tiffany's. There was a crowd of about three dozen Wednesday morning at the Prytania to bare witness to Holly Golightly's gold digging ways and her eventual falling for a rather handsome Paul Varjak despite his financial short comings. Those gorgeous blue eyes are worth more than anything money can buy!

Right off the bat the fact that Mickey Rooney was cast as the Asian landlord was a huge PC red flag. Eeek! That would never float these days. However the film is over fifty years old, so I suppose things have progressed considerably in that arena. The time period also explains the heavy smoking by most characters. Yuck! Overall I enjoyed the film a great deal. There was fun and laughter and sadness and realization and adventure. All good things in a movie.

I loved Audrey Hepburn's apartment: it was the perfect size for a young woman living on her own in the big city. Her clawfoot tub couch with its bright cushions was too cool! My favorite character may have been Cat...reminded me of Hank, Roommate Sarah's orange cat from our time in Roanoke :)

Cochon Butcher

If you're ever in the notion for some good ol' meat on a sandwich, Cochon Butcher is the place to go. Sara and I had never been before so we sampled a good bit of items. She got the cold roast beef while I opted for smoked turkey. We split an order of duck pastrami sliders, potato salad and mac and cheese that had a bit of a kick to it!  I loved my sandwich with its avocado, sprouts, and basil aioli! I took half home to enjoy the next day. 

Due to a mix up with order numbers, we were comped a slice of chocolate, peanut, caramel pie. It was chunky and hard to eat with a fork, but overall very yummy!

They are known for their Elvis King Cake that is filled with peanut butter and bananas, covered in a marshmallow icing and topped with bacon, but that is not really my thing. I opted for one of their precious mini king cakes in the cream cheese variety to take home with me. Instead of a baby they provide a cute little pig! 

Gone with the Wind

There are many classic films I have not seen, but I can now remove Gone with the Wind from that list. The Prytania was playing this 1939 romance drama so Sara and I packed up some bourbon cocktails (they are BYOB) and settled in for the nearly four hour runtime!

The title of the movie runs across the screen instead of being plastered up there so I had to settle for a photo of the rolling credits instead!

My overall impression is that it is a very pretty movie. The costumes were gorgeous and the backgrounds so ornate. The sound editing was a bit off for me. Loud booms of cannons or girly shrieks (Prissy's voice the entire time!) were scratchy sounding. But I recognize that this movie is coming up on 80 years old, so all can be forgiven. There were more comedic moments than I expected, but I enjoyed that. Also, I did not realize that the iconic "frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" line is the last thing Rhett says on screen.

As for the characters themselves: Scarlett was nearly unbearable. She was an impulsive, selfish brat and I don't blame Ashely one bit for choosing his much calmer, sincere cousin, Melanie. As for Rhett, his tanned skin distracted me almost as much as his sleazy mustache. I think he enjoyed the challenge of Miss O'Hara at first, but he should have come to terms with her style of crazy long before he did and hit the road! He may not have thought of himself as the marrying type, but his footloose, playboy ways were a different sort of wild from Scarlett's. They were an odd couple in my opinion.

I am glad that I was able to see this classic on the big screen!

Pine Leaf Boys @ dba

Shortly after making it back to NOLA I headed to Frenchmen Street with AV to see my favorite zydeco band, the Pine Leaf Boys. They put on a great show and had lots of folks dancing up a storm in dba's small space! Fun!

Moonshine Tasting

On my road trip back south I stopped off in Gatlinburg to do some moonshine tasting. We went to Dollywood years ago when I was a kid, but I have not been back into the Smoky Mountains since then. To get to the distilleries I drove through Pigeon Forge and through some adorable touristy areas! My first stop was Sugarlands Distilling Company where I gathered around a round bar with others to hear about and taste the many varieties of shine they produce. Once carded and stamped I was ready for my communion cup to runneth over (that isn't what they called it, but that is what they are--the same cups we use for communion at church!). Our guide had us sample the following: 

• Silver Cloud, 100 proof
• Appalachian Apple Pie, 50 proof
• Blockader's Blackberry, 40 proof
• Butterscotch Gold, 40 proof 
• Jim Tom Hendrick's Unaged Rye, 100 proof
• Mark Rogers American Peach, 80 proof
• Tickle's Dynamite Cinnamon, 70 proof
• Blueberry Muffin, 70 proof

They offer a few other flavors including PB&J, Sweet Tea and Lemonade, but those were not sampled out. I'm not sure I would want to drink a PB&J moonshine...sounds weird! 

After my initial sampling I made the trek further up the mountain (by foot, not car: all of these distilleries were among the hundreds of other shops and restaurants built for visitors along a main stretch of street) to the Ole Smoky Distillery. There they were sampling the following:

• Blue Flame, 100 proof
• White Lightnin', 100 proof
• Hunch Punch, 80 proof
• Margarita, 40 proof
• Pumpkin Pie, 40 proof
• Moonshine Peaches, 100 proof (actual chunks of peaches soaked in White Lightnin')
• Cinnamon, 80 proof
• Apple Pie, 70 proof
• Apple Pie, 40 proof (yes, they have 2 Apple Pies and one bites harder than the other!)
• Butterscotch, 40 proof
• Maple, 80 proof (I passed on this one)
• Shine Nog, 35 proof (described as "like Baileys")

After my hooch sampling I meandered up and down the street checking out all of the little shops along the way. Despite it being January, the town still had a ton of Christmas lights up. When you drove over one bridge it was covered with green and white lights. Very pretty. I'm glad that I made this pit stop on my drive back to New Orleans :)

New Years: Lexington Style

Who knew that little ol' Lexington has its own ball dropping ceremony to ring in the new year!? Perched atop the old Robert E. Lee Hotel building, the well-lit sphere could easily be seen by the couple hundred spectators that gathered in the blocked off street. Mom, dad and I got there about twenty minutes before the main event, joining an already decent size crowd. Closer to the main event townies started flooding the area. There were fireworks and a live band playing as 2016 officially began. I have never been to NYC for New Years, but I imagine that Lexington's version is more my speed :)

blurry selfie with the ball in the top left corner

Katie's Chocolate Club: December

With the hustle and bustle of purchasing gifts, traveling home to Virginia, celebrating Christmas, and mom's birthday, my December chocolate club nearly slipped my mind! Luckily Lexington is home to one of the Cocoa Mill branches so I slipped in to their store front between rain showers and created a custom box for myself.

I've been to the Cocoa Mill numerous times over the years, but my typical purchase is a chocolate covered Oreo or an assortment of bark to take back to friends in New Orleans. This may be the first time I tried their bon bons. While they may not have as broad of a selection as I am used to at Sucre and other chocolatiers I have sampled through my Club,  I was pleased with my truffles!

ROW #1

Dark Raspberry

Milk Bailey's Irish Cream

Dark Jack Daniel's

"Bittersweet" (Dark)

Milk Hazelnut

ROW #2

Milk Chocolate

Dark Bailey's Irish Cream

Milk Grand Marnier

Milk Chocolate

Dark Grand Marnier

ROW #3

Dark Hazelnut

Milk Jack Daniel's

Dark Mint

Dark Cappuccino

Dark Hazelnut

Their guide does not offer much fluff when it comes to the names of the truffles. It is all pretty straight forward: each variety is available in both "bittersweet" (dark) and milk. In an effort to be open minded (open palated?) I selected a cappuccino truffle and two orange flavored ones (Grand Marnier). The orange was very orangy... meh... not my favorite. I think I was wise in selecting the dark version of the cappuccino over the milk. The coffee flavor blended in nicely with the darker cocoa. My favorite was the Dark Hazelnut. Yum! All of the truffles had a creamy consistency. I would definitely purchase a box of these again in the future, if not for myself, then to give as a gift :)