Blog Hog: a glutton’s trip recap

Hog log frog, ham lamb spam, bull beef bear… ring any bells? Anyone?

Okay, well as you know, I went down to see my sister for the weekend. The collapsed family vacation in New Orleans actually worked out well for me because it happened to be Mardi Gras weekend. I’m very familiar with this holiday because of living near Mobile and getting out of school for it, but NOLA celebrates just a tad differently. I went to 5 parades and found out the hard way that they do not throw moon pies there. But I caught a lot of beads and stuff for T-Frank, lost my camera and ran after a float with Big Frank to catch six intact BAGS of beads… awesome. What I learned, you don't have to push and shove and being from out-of-town helps you get more beads. Despite their governmental struggles, New Orleans does a few things well and fortunately for me that’s fun and food. I’m going to bore you with my weekend menu because it was ridiculous.

1) Vietnamese “3 Happiness Restaurant” (the Chinese restaurant is 5 Happiness, so I guess this one has the mopes): crab rangoons, wonton soup, egg rolls and cook your own chicken and shrimp rice paper roll-ups. This was a real feast that was almost missed because Conlee tried to get us to get up and leave abruptly before ordering. I vetoed this.

2) Sunday lunch with family & friends: crab & shrimp bisque/creole, seafood gumbo, rice, fried chicken, garlic bread, BBQ, Zapp’s chips and chocolate king cake.

3) Blue Frog Chocolates: chocolate covered gummy bears, sweet potato chips dipped in chocolate, and specialty chocolates like fresh peanut butter and strawberry jelly inside of chocolate.

4) Patois (a fancy dinner for Conlee and I): Almond crusted Flounder with roasted potato galettes, green beans and Satsuma meniere (whatever that is) with a Fleur de Lis martini… yes please.

5) Oak Street Café: a 50-minute wait for a bacon/egg/cheese biscuit and some great hot chocolate. They claim to have donuts all day but the donuts “had the day off” when we went. (There was also an emo guy outside with a giant Mick Jagger head on advertising for more people to come to the café, even though it was PACKED.)

6) Tried to go out to a second Vietnamese place that is in Kenner’s Little Vietnam but it was closed for Chinese New Year. They like to get special Vietnamese Po’ Boys from there, but instead we went to a creepy bakery “French” bakery that is not run by the French or any English speakers. (Side note: When I saw their business card with the French name I made a “can I have your number?” reference in my head but since I gave up cussing for Lent, you’ll have to figure that joke out yourself.)

7) Around the house: Fancy pork nachos (9pm dinner), specialty cheeses and strawberries, spicy cheese grits, Frank’s special rare burgers (gross) and then Conlee gave me John Besh’s first and only cookbook that came out in the fall. Looking forward to cooking out of it.


The city was also extra crazy because of the big Super Bowl win. The team parade was last week and then the regular parades followed. I don’t understand it quite yet, but the Who Dat nation has their own soundtrack from this victory that everyone knows and plays but I don’t know where it came from. These are mostly just older songs with Saints-adapted lyrics. This is all I listened to all weekend and it was always cranked to eleven. Featured on this are U2/Greenday’s “The Saints Are Coming,” Baby Boy da Prince’s “Saints Song 2009” and my favorite-- Ying Yang Twins “Halftime” a.k.a. “Crunk” to which old and young jump up and starting getting crunk… it’s a-mazing! There are CDs sold but I don’t know where they are produced or if it’s legal, but everyone knows the songs and the bands in every parade played “Crunk.” Of course I’m still listening to it, but the whole thing is still a mystery to me. Sorry I lost my camera or else I could have shared a video of some of this playing out. Please explore these songs in your free time.

Peace out!