Archive for the 'Life in Louisiana' Category

Some Super Bowl Thoughts

Published on February 6, 2010 in Life in Louisiana. 1 Comment

I have low expectations. But Drew Brees is King of Bacchus, and we are all very, very happy here to have our Saints in the Super Bowl after 40 years. After never, ever going to a single dance in high school, and finally being invited to the senior prom, it’s great just to go to the prom. You don’t have to be prom queen, too.

And when it’s all over, we will still be New Orleans, a city with culture and gumbo, bursting with creativity and corruption and the third highest murder rate in the entire world, behind only Caracas Venezuela and Capetown, South Africa. There have been parades all this weekend, and for the last month, and there will be parades all next weekend. We will still be New Orleans, while you will still be…Indianapolis.

Even if we lose, we win.

Thanksgiving Menu

Published on November 26, 2009 in Life in Louisiana and Food. 2 Comments

For Vilo, who I’m told wants the details.

For an appetizer, hot shrimp dip with crackers.

For dinner:
Boneless rib roast, cooked medium rare
Mashed potatoes with roasted garlic
Glazed carrots
Green bean casserole
Sauteed mushrooms and onions

For dessert, pumpkin and pecan pies.

I told Mark we are having four meals today: breakfast, shrimp dip, dinner and pie.

Aside: I wonder if it’s true that potatoes ferment in your stomach and turn to vodka, which is what makes you tired on Thanksgiving after eating. Because now that dinner is over, I am SO ready for my Thanksgiving day nap.

DH’s Happy Half Century Lunch

Published on August 16, 2009 in Life in Louisiana. 1 Comment

One of our favorite places to eat in New Orleans is the Superior Grill, located in the Garden District on St. Charles Avenue. DH absolutely loves their shrimp cocktail appetizer (coctel de camerones). We had talked about going there for dinner last night, but decided that we should try to be more thrifty now that he is getting so old.

After discussing the restaurant, he developed a real hankering for a for a coctel de camerones, so I dug up a recipe on the internet and fixed it for lunch as an entree. I only made a few adjustments. I omitted the seeds from the jalapeno, and used four cloves of fresh garlic and a bit of salt instead of garlic salt. I sliced up the other half of the jalapeno for DH to use on his coctel, because he likes his food much hotter than I like mine.

One of my favorite things about living here is the reasonably priced shrimp. I probably made enough for eight restaurant-sized shrimp cocktails, and it cost less than $20. It made a delicious cold lunch on a hot day, and there’s enough left for an appetizer for dinner tonight.

Happy Birthday, DH!

How to make a muffaletta

Published on August 10, 2009 in Life in Louisiana. 2 Comments

A whole muffuletta (enough to serve two hungry people) costs $17.95 at the Camellia Cafe. We figured we could do better ourselves. We were right, but not by much.

What makes a muffuletta special is the olive salad. Without it, according to my older son, all you have is an expensive ham and cheese sandwich. Good olive salad is not hard to find here. We bought the Rouse’s store brand. I’m not a connoisseur, but I thought it was excellent. They are a Louisiana-owned grocer, so I figured it would be acceptable. For a real cooking adventure, you could use the olive salad recipe from Gumbo Pages, which is where I got the muffuletta recipe below

The Recipe
makes two whole muffalettas

Two muffaletta loaves. These are round loaves, about 8″ in diameter, with sesame seeds on top.
1/2 lb. sliced ham
1/2 lb. Genoa salami
1/2 lb. mortadella
1/2 lb. provolone
1/2 lb. mozzarella
2 cups olive salad with oil (or more)

Slice the loaves horizontally. Layer the bottom with the meats and cheeses. Top each with 1/2 cup of olive salad and oil. Put the top half back on. Put a plate on top and press for 30 minutes or longer. Serve at room temperature, or heat for 10 minutes in medium (350) oven.

How much did all this cost? $27.00. So we saved $4.50 for each muffuletta.

Another Food Post - Sweet Potato Quesadillas

Published on July 5, 2009 in Life in Louisiana. 2 Comments

Calvin picked up tortillas from Rosa’s in Lubbock on his way back from his road trip with Mark. With all the good food here in Louisiana, I haven’t been able to find good tortillas since we moved from Lubbock. I used up the last of them today with stuff I bought at the farmer’s market yesterday. I got the outline of this recipe from Chowhound after Googling “savory sweet potatoes.” I wanted to do something with sweet potatoes that didn’t call for brown sugar.
Ingredients:

Four tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
Two yellow onions
Two sweet potatoes
Six italian sweet peppers
Six tortillas
6 oz of cheese (I used the soft cheese I bought yesterday at the farm market)
cumin to taste
red pepper flakes to taste

Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Caramelize two onions in two tablespoons of vegetable oil.
Slice in half vertically, then de-seed, and slice about six sweet peppers (not big green ones.)
Peel and grate two sweet potatoes.
Heat two tablespoons of vegetable oil. Reduce heat to medium and saute sweet potato and peppers in oil until softened and cooked through, seasoning with cumin and red pepper to taste. I used 1 tsp. of cumin or so, and about 1/2 tsp. of red pepper flakes. It could have stood more seasoning.

Spray a baking sheet with cooking spray. Place six tortillas on sheet. On half of each tortilla spread 1/6 of the sweet potato mixture. Top each with 1/6 of the onion mixture. Top each with 1 oz. cheese. Bake until heated through and the cheese is melted, about 10 minutes. Fold over tortillas and serve. Serves three hungry people or four normal people.

Farmer’s Market

Published on June 13, 2009 in Life in Louisiana. 4 Comments

My book club book for May/June was “Animal, Vegetable, Miracle” by Barbara Kingsolver. The book got me interested in buying locally where I can. Here in the Gulf South, it’s easy to buy local shrimp and other seafood. Today I went to the farmer’s market in my town and picked up some local produce, too.

As a result, I’m not only going to have to plan the main dishes for our meals this week, but also the sides, so we can be sure to use up all the vegetables before everybody leaves for our June road trips. I bought six tomatoes, a pound of green beans, two crowns of broccoli, two GINORMOUS green peppers, six sweet banana peppers, two very large sweet potatoes, two pints of blueberries and about two cups of basil. Here are the menus that will use up all this food:

Dinner tonight: Basil Cream Chicken with Pasta, Country Green Beans (both recipes from allrecipes.com.

Sunday lunch: Pepper Quesadillas, tomato salad.
Sunday dinner: some sort of casserole, broccoli

Monday lunch: tuna and tomato salad, bread
Monday dinner: Pork ribs, sweet potato casserole, Country Green Beans (again) (green beans and sweet potatoes are used up at this point.

Tuesday: A shrimpy pasta thing; tomatoes and probably the basil are used up at this point

Wednesday: Pepper quesadillas for lunch again, green and banana peppers are used up at this point.

Thursday: another casserole thing, broccoli. Broccoli is used up at this point.

Whew! That was a lot of work just planning it. But we’ll have lots of green things to eat this week, and they’re all from within 100 miles of here.

Take me out to the ballgame

Published on May 30, 2009 in Life in Louisiana and The Fam. 2 Comments

When DH and I were first dating, he lived in Detroit. We went to a lot of baseball games during that time. He is a big baseball fan, and having three brothers, I know a lot about the game. I’m not such a fan as he is (few people are) but I really enjoy going to see a game live.

This evening we’re off to see the local AAA PCL club, the New Orleans Zephyrs. I got BOGO tickets, third base line, 16th row. Game starts at 6:00, with a lot to do before we go, but here I am writing a blog post for the first time in ages instead of getting busy.

I thought he would miss living in a city with a Major League team, but it’s become so expensive (in spite of the recent price cuts) to see a Major League game that I don’t think he minds so much. AAA ball is still fun, and the prize giveaways and cheesy stuff only add to the fun.

Demo Celebration #2 of 3 (at least)

Published on November 17, 2008 in Life in Louisiana. 1 Comment

Tonight the St. Tammany Democratic Parish Executive Committee (DPEC) had its monthly meeting. The meeting was short, and there was an audience (an uncommon thing.) The members of the audience introduced themselves. Among the audience members were our last two congressional candidates and a candidate for constable. No victors there, but spirits were still high. As the constable candidate said, “We gave people a choice. It’s important to put a candidate on the ballot, even if the odds of winning are small, so people can have an option.”

Then the council conducted the very brief business meeting, at which it was agreed that a fund raiser would be held on Saturday, January 17 at a local facility. It will be our own little inaugural ball (which is party #3).

Then the meeting ended and we mixed and mingled and had a lovely time. Food and drinks (all soft, because this was parish property) and lively conversation. As leftie as I am, I was quite the moderate in this crowd. I seem to have insulted the most recent congressional candidate by asking him nicely what his plans were. OTOH, I had a lively conversation about the next senate race with the last congressional candidate. In two years, David Vitter, Mr. Family Values with Hookers on the Side, will be up for reelection. It’s my perception that in Louisiana they don’t care much about who you sleep with, even if you claim to be a committed Christian devoted to Family Values, so perhaps he’s not as vulnerable as I hope. However, if the party is going to start putting up candidates, they’d better get busy.

Party with the Dems

Published on November 12, 2008 in Miscellany and Life in Louisiana. 1 Comment

Tonight I went to the monthly meeting of the Progressive Northshore Democrats. It was a blast. The meeting happened at the end and was really brief. Mostly it was a party.

I live in a very, very red state, in the reddest of the red parishes. There usually isn’t much to celebrate here. It’s not quite as bad as Lubbock, where there were rarely any (D) candidates for office, and the Republican opponents usually ran to the RIGHT of the “establishment” candidate. But this is a very Catholic, very Southern, and mostly very white place.

But celebrate we did. Food and drink and happy talk of the brighter sun, bluer sky, and chirpier birds. We’re talking about having our own “Inaugural Ball.” What fun! Especially when you’re in the minority, it’s fun to gather with like-minded folks when a celebration is long overdue.

Lots of Stuff

Published on September 6, 2008 in Miscellany, Life in Louisiana and The Fam. 8 Comments

My mother is better. Her lung infection seems to be under control, so she’s more busy and energetic. She will be seeing the surgeon about the hernia late this month.

I saw my daughter a few weeks ago. It was really, really good to see her again, although it was a very short visit. She was in Tampa on vacation (her in-laws bought the tickets, because they love her more than I do), so we drove over to Gainesville and then drove down to Tampa on Saturday to see them. We went to Siesta Key, rated #3 on Dr. Beach’s Top 10 US beaches list. I so love the ocean, and this is a beautiful place on the Gulf. The visit would have been nicer and more fun if I hadn’t spent an hour helping DH (fruitlessly) search for his glasses in said Gulf. The lifeguard said they would probably wash up on the beach in 20 years, encrusted with barnacles. DH was fretting because he’s almost blind without his glasses. I was fretting because new glasses are going to set us back at least $300.

Matt over at Addicted to Vinyl wrote a couple of posts that covered a lot of material, which is what triggered this post covering a lot of material. One of his ‘graphs pointed out the painful reality that the Springsteen tour is o-ver. I found out from my sister-in-law after I arrived in Gainesville that Bruce was in Jacksonville (just 90 minutes away!) the Saturday night we were there. If I had known sooner, I probably would have arranged the weekend differently! In any case, we returned to Gainesville from Tampa late in the evening Saturday, so I wasn’t able to just show up at the last minute and buy a ticket. Matt’s reminder that Bruce is all done made me pout all over again that I missed it.

On the other hand, I wouldn’t have wanted to see my daughter and her family for any less time than I got - it was little enough any way. I really miss her. My grandchildren are beautiful and growing like…well, like children I haven’t seen in over a year. My daughter looked wonderful for someone who has had a headache for three weeks. She’s looking mighty slim as a result of three months of NVP (Nausea and Vomiting from Pregnancy, fka morning sickness). Oh, how I don’t miss that time of my life. It’s hard to remember when you’re going through it that you get a baby when you’re all done.

My evacuation from Gustav is almost at an end, possibly to be followed in short order by an evacuation for Hurricane Ike. On the one hand, I sort of think I should just stay here, but on the other hand, if I do, I would probably be here for another two full weeks, which is three weeks gone, which is way longer than I want to go without [fill in activity you think I will miss the most here]. I fly home through DC tomorrow a.m. My flight leaves at 7:30 and I’ll be arriving in NOLA around 2:00. Hopefully Ike will go to the Yucatan or fizzle out completely. In any case, we’re prepared.

I have an opinion post about feminism at my other blog. Probably some of my readers won’t like it much.

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