summertime, summertime.

I know it's been a while since my last post, but we've been busier than usual with settling into our new place! I've been wanting to post photos of the apartment, but temporarily misplaced my camera, so I'll post this one and take more current ones to post later... it's looking much more like home! 

moving, moving, moving, moving...

We've moved! And now that things have taken a slower pace, I'm able to post! And I'll have some photos shortly. There seem to be so many boxes (now empty) that any photo might appear an abstraction of brown cardboard.  Through all this moving I've realized I have quite a collection of books, a heavy load of New Yorkers and National Geographics... I think those are good to keep, do you? and all of the old things I found, like newspaper cut-outs about gymnasts I admired, oh, and receipts from the 90's. It's strange the way we accumulate things. 

how do you like your shrimp?

Remember the jumbo shrimp I mentioned in the last post? 

We peeled them, but left the tails on, so we could stuff them with crab meat, like so:

Unfortunately I don't have a photo of them out of the oven, they were gobbled up!

local seafood + my birthday.

Birthdays feel like a personal new year, yeah, that sounds accurate. In this sense I feel I want to see how I've done with my new year's resolutions, or maybe make some new ones? 
Life as a quarter-centurian has been great so far. It was a very nice long weekend filled with a visit to the Farmer's Market (where we bought some beautiful fresh jumbo shrimp and squid), plenty of cooking, even yard work (our compost will be happy). 

I'd never cleaned squid before, so Mom showed me how it's done. Squid aren't a common catch, but sometimes a few will get in the net. Mom said growing up, her family used to save them until they had enough to cook. 

First, you cut off the tentacles. You need to cut out the beak in the center, then they're good to eat as is. Next you turn over the mantle, and slice it open. Things can get messy as you clean out the insides... sometimes the ink sac releases the dark ink, which I'm thinking now, we could have saved for squid ink pasta (I've never tried that before).
Once that's cleaned out, you remove the quill, the backbone of the squid; it's also called the feather, or the pen.  

a pile of quills and a few beaks. 

Then you remove the skin of the mantle. (We did this, however, I recently heard that you don't have to remove the speckled skin).

this is what the end-product looks like. 

I found a recipe in the Williams Sonoma cookbook for fried calamari and gave it a try, they turned out nicely! 


(next post... Jumbo Shrimp)

Ray is here & we ate Hansen's snowballs on my birthday.

At last, Ray has arrived! We've been doing all sorts of fun things together...

love you, dear. 

like sharing a limeade snowball from Hansen's on my birthday. 

Father's Day Fun (the belated post)

I'm a little late on my Father's Day post, but any day seems like a good day to celebrate Fathers, right? 

at the Charleston Farmer's Market.

We picked up pastries from La Boulangerie in the morning and spent the evening at a lovely theater nearby, Le Chat Noir, where we saw a comedy production by Running with Scissors. They performed "Mildred Dearest!" which is a take on "Mommy Dearest" and the life of Joan Crawford. It was a really good time; here's hoping the theater can continue putting on performances in the coming years. 

Thanks Dad!

(Coming next, Ray is here!)

Saturday at the Farmer's Market.

These blueberries came from one of the Farmer's Markets in town. We stopped by on Saturday and picked up a few home grown treats; blueberries, eggplant, nectarines, and a very decadent chocolate milk from the local Smith's Creamery. 

They also had a beautiful selection of fresh seafood, and "eggs from happy chickens," as well as the whole chickens (and chicken organs, too), freshly baked breads and pizzas, salsas, pastries, herb plants, flowers, Shitake mushrooms, even a miller and a knife sharpener. It was great!

blue dot donuts

On Saturday Erin & I stopped by Blue Dot Donuts for the first time since they opened this past April. It was amazing! I can't remember the last time I ate donuts, but this was a good place to break the fast. We got several because of a coupon; ten dollars worth of donuts for five dollars: Red Velvet, Dulce de Leche, Key Lime Crumble, Orange glazed, Blueberry glazed, Strawberry glazed, Boston Cream, Maple and Bacon, Peanut Butter and Jelly, and a Buttermilk Fritter... is that all? I think my favorite is the blueberry glazed. 

I think we'll be stopping by Blue Dot Donuts again. 

of books and birthdays.

I've just finished reading Bill Bryson's book, Notes from a Big Country, which was a good read after living in England for a little while. Bryson writes about Americans living in England, and about returning to America from there; very very funny. And I recently finished Dara Wier's book, Reverse Rapture, an incredible work of poetry.  Now I've started these! So far Tree of Codes is amazing! Flannery O'Connor is too. (More on these books as I read them.)

Mom's birthday was last week and Megan's is this coming week so we celebrated the both of them at Erin & Trey's place with a homemade Tuna Niçoise salad, Aunt Janet's now famous key lime pie, and a blueberry tart that I baked! In other cooking news, I made fresh pasta (spinach & whole wheat) today, for the first time in a while, keeping my fingers crossed.

spring buds.

Remember I mentioned the Hydrangea and Easter Lily buds? 

Easter Lily

Hydrangea

Now they've blossomed!

Erin's 30th Birthday Surprise Party

Last weekend at this time we were all sneaking around, cooking and baking for the surprise party Trey planned for Erin...

I'm making such a crazy face because those cakes are HEAVY!
(I baked them, too. They're blondie cakes iced with chocolate dream frosting,
with dollops of peanut butter around the rim of the cake.
The "3" and the "0" are made with pretzel m&ms.) 

Way to go everyone for keeping it a surprise!

The laughing bunch: Uncle Lee, Mom, Aunt Maria, Aunt Janet.

Happy 30th Erin!

French Quarter Fest

A couple weekends ago was the French Quarter Fest. It's a fabulous festival (and one of the top money makers for the city). There's no entrance fee, and there is an extraordinary amount of absolutely amazing food. And thank goodness this time I ordered some very good food: Cochon de Lait Po'boy, Shrimp and Alligator Sausage Cheesecake, some very tasty spring rolls, Barbecue Shrimp with Roasted Garlic Bread Pudding, Blackened Crawfish Cakes with Crawfish Cream Sauce and of course for dessert, Strawberry Creole Cream Cheese Bavarian, Chocolate Marshmallow Smores, and Buttermilk Drops. I ate all of this by myself!! Just kidding, Mom, Aunt Janet, Erin, Trey and I + some of their friends, shared all of these treats.  

Erin and I French Quarter Fest-ing.

We walked around quite a bit, but did have a seat by the river for a little while, the breeze off the Mississippi was nice and cool. While we sat we listened to Ovi-G and the Froggies. 

The Hat Ladies (- me) + Erin. 

the Natchez on the Mississippi.

St. Patrick, St. Joseph, Isleño Parade

It's been a while since I've posted. I've kept busy lately working through the grad school decision-making process, helping Dad out at the gallery, spending time with Erin during her birthday celebration week, and, of course, all of the festivals and parades that are going on this time of year in New Orleans. 

Mom and Aunt Janet at the parade!

The St. Patrick, St. Joseph, Isleño parade was my first parade in St. Bernard and let me tell you, they know how to do it. Plenty of good food and family. There was a huge smoker for cooking chicken and sausage, red fish caught outside my Uncle-Jr.'s house, oysters... YUM. They weren't just throwing beads at this parade either. They were throwing cabbages, onions, carrots, parsnips, lemons, oranges, grapefruit, lucky beans, Ramen noodles, even handing down bags of ice to parade-goers... not sure what that was about.

Erin and Trey dressed festively for St. Patrick. 

Spring in New Orleans

This is a plant I bought in Charleston (at the Farmer's Market) during my last summer there. It survived the move to New Orleans last year and has bloomed again! I haven't had much luck with flowering plants, but this one is doing great. Last Spring I managed to save an Easter Lily and a Hydrangea plant and recently found a few buds, it'd be great if they blossom. 

Last weekend was the French Quarter Road Food Festival. I'd never been before, but Megan, Ben and I headed down there to see what good eats we could find. Since being back in New Orleans, besides Mom's exquisite cooking, I have eaten a very tasty fried catfish po'boy from Joey K's, a Tuna Nicoise salad from Cafe Rani, and a fabulous brunch. I had a hankering for some boiled crawfish, but ended up with a less than delicious crawfish panini. (Just one of those times when you order the wrong thing...) The good news is Megan and Ben shared some of their tastier finds + my Uncle Jr. is looking for a good weekend for a crawfish boil, and there are more festivals in the coming weeks that are sure to have tasty foods. 

Ben (my future brother-in-law) and I at the road food festival eating crawfish louise.

Back in the Big Easy.

A little over a week ago I made the journey back across the Atlantic to New Orleans. The weather has been gorgeous, and it's so wonderful spending time with family, though I'm definitely missing this guy:

It's a transition, especially with the time change. It has been much easier than I imagined, but still by early evening I feel something like a zombie... that should clear up soon. So much is in bloom now, check out this lovely flower, it reminds me of a paper lantern.

Mardi Gras Mambo

Just a lil' Mambo for you this Mardi Gras Season. Wooo!

happy mardi gras + pancake day!

As I was talking to the family Sunday afternoon, everyone was getting ready for a full day of parades! That evening Bacchus, one of our favorites, rolled down the Avenue, followed by Endymion, which was postponed due to a rough rainstorm yesterday. It's sure to have been a fun time! There's something really special about Mardi Gras and it isn't just the booze and glitzy beads, it's also that people of all different backgrounds, and from all walks of life come together in the streets to celebrate for a good time, it's just lovely. I wish everyone back home a very, very Happy Mardi Gras.


On our end, I made a king cake for the celebrations! It was truly delicious and Ray thinks it's just about the greatest thing ever. England as a whole doesn't celebrate Mardi Gras, but they do celebrate Pancake Day (also known as Shrove Tuesday). Because pancakes have eggs, butter and fat ...all things forbidden during Lent... almost everyone eats pancakes before the start of Lent. From the research I've done...English pancakes are more of what we consider to be crepes in the States, yum!