please tell them there’s nothing wrong with New Orleans

It was an odd but repeated request during my time in New Orleans for a nursing conference. “Please go home and tell them there’s nothing wrong with New Orleans. That’s all we ask.” The tour guide for our cemetery tour said that some people thought New Orleans was still under water, even though six whole years have passed since Hurricane Katrina.

So I am here to fulfill my promise to them. There is nothing wrong with New Orleans. In fact, there are a lot of things that are quite right and quite lovely. It was one of the most unique and fascinating cities I have ever had the opportunity to visit. While there are clearly struggles with poverty in NOLA, compounded by a mark left by Katrina that is not always physically obvious but still pervasive in your gut as you walk the streets, there is also a strong sense of a rich culture that did not die, but rather gained a renewed fire because of what this city has endured.

So to answer the question of the potential tourist, New Orleans is not submerged under water. There are more forms of public transportation in NOLA than what you would find in Los Angeles. And they are much, much more charming.

There was, of course, the food! This is the famous Cafe du Monde, serving up its classic combination of beignets and cafe au laits.

I discovered pralines during this trip. I’d always heard of them in the context of other things such as praline ice cream, but never actually knew what a pure praline was: an intense combination of sugar and butter and pecans melted and firmed into the most amazing deliciousness.

There is the spirituality and mysticism of the Big Easy:

There was the architecture, from the *very* old to just old.

These tombs below were those set aside for the Protestants, in the back, less visible area of the cemetery.

This pyramid-like tomb is reported to be Nicolas Cage’s future burial site.

I wish I’d gotten more and better pictures of the charming Creole cottages. But here is at least a glimpse as to the charm of these Southern homes.

And finally, the music. The incredible music that you heard anywhere and everywhere, anytime and every time.

The dueling pianos could play anything that was requested of them.

There were street performers everywhere, young and younger still.

Blues, jazz, bluegrass – NOLA had it all.

The music was what I remember the most. It was as if to say, we still know and love and want to express who we are. New Orleans is alive and well. Come find it in our music.

Pacific NW Post #1: Seattle

This was my first time in the Pacific Northwest, and I must now join in the chorus of voices who just rave endlessly about the area. The natural environment is beyond gorgeous, there is clearly a huge appreciation for the arts, the food is incredible, and people overall seem very pleasant. We were spoiled with sunny weather the entire time, and we had to remind ourselves towards the end of the trip that the norm for the area is actually overcast and rainy.

This post will only describe a bit of what we saw in Seattle, and includes only a few pictures from the many, many photos that I took there. One day when I have more time, perhaps I will be able to share more. More photos to come from our time in Vancouver and Portland as well!

Well, as mentioned in a previous post, what seems to define trips for us more than anything is the food. And that remains true for this trip. Oh the gluttony we indulged in! Our favorite place by far was Paseo, with their Cuban sandwiches that you could literally smell from 3 blocks away. I have no pictures to prove that we were there because we couldn’t wait to eat the sandwiches! The Midnight Cuban Press sandwich was by far the best thing I have ever eaten in my life. Salty, savory, creamy, spicy, slightly sweet, crunchy, chewy, perfect. Another fun and favorite food experience was this taco bus, Tacos El Asadero. They sold Mexican street tacos for $1.25, which made our wallets and taste buds wonderfully happy! The kitchen was set up in the back of the bus, and there were a few stools inside, but mostly people just sat outside and enjoyed the grub from there.

 

Next we of course had to go to Pike Place Market. The fresh seafood and produce were an absolute delight for the senses.

Speaking of a delight for the senses, we went out of our way to find really good coffee and we were not disappointed. We read rave reviews about Espresso Vivace and their white velvet latte was pretty ridiculously delicious. We also got a good supply of beans from Stumptown and are now enjoying their Holler Mountain roast at home.

One site that we were surprisingly pleased with was the Chittenden Locks, which is this amazing engineering system of controlling the levels of freshwater and saltwater using gravity alone, such that the rise and fall of the water level within these “locks” is what allows boat traffic to navigate in an orderly manner through the waterways. The Locks help to prevent the mixing of seawater from Puget Sound and the freshwater of the local lakes. The system also includes a fish ladder that helps salmon through their migration patterns. It sounds very technical and yes, a tad boring, but when you’re there on a beautiful day, it makes for a lovely and relaxing outdoor activity, and it’s actually really fascinating to see how the system works. You can even see huge salmon leaping out of the water, and the sea lion who hangs around will catch himself a hefty meal every so often. In the picture below, the sea lion is at the bottom center of the picture, welcoming all the incoming boats.

Another thing that stood out about Seattle was the strong appreciation for the arts in this city. When a community turns a wall once marred by gross gobs of chewed gum into a lovely display of art (albeit in a lovely-gross kind of way) you know you’ve got some creatively-minded people dwelling in these parts.

The Olympic Sculpture Park is another incredible and fun display of art. Here are just a couple shots from that huge space.

And then there is, of course, God’s art. The green, the water, the evening glow of sundown, they were all unlike what we would ever find in Southern California. Just breathtaking. The two shots below were taken near Puget Sound.

We couldn’t miss a chance to ride the ferry, otherwise known as the poor man’s cruise. (I kid. Sort of.) But it was quite lovely since we caught it right at sundown, so the light on the way to Bainbridge Island was gorgeous, and then we got to see Seattle at night on the way back.

Finally, the last couple of shots were taken at or near Kerry Park, which provides one of the best views of the entire Seattle skyline and coast. If these don’t entice you to go up and visit for yourself, I don’t know what will! I’m already counting the days when I can return to explore and enjoy more of this fantastic city.

out of my way

The husband and I just returned from a most fantastic vacation to Portland, Seattle and Vancouver. And the one thing I quickly realized about both of us is that we will go out of our way to find really good food, really good coffee, and good photo opps.

Sterling Coffee Roasters in Portland most definitely met the coffee and photo opp categories. This awesome little vintage-style stand with the. world’s. best. mocha. EVER. Think dark chocolate. Top notch espresso. Perfectly creamy steamed milk.

I think I need to book another plane ticket. Soon.

the food of my peoples

Every time I plan a trip, the food is one of the key highlights around which I will plan all other activities. I will spend hours on Yelp to make sure I know exactly where I’m going and why. When the husband and I return from a trip and friends ask how it was, our answer is either, “The food was so good!” or “The food was just ok.” Never mind that we were in Spain or Colorado or some other breathtakingly beautiful location. We just always come back to talking about the food.

Well, my parents and I went to visit my sister in Chicago this past weekend, and any foodie knows that Chicago has no dearth of incredible cuisines to choose from. The Parthenon in Greektown, Rosebud Steakhouse, Shaw’s Crab Shack, and of course the plethora of coma-inducing deep dish pizzas are must-visits. Caramel ice cream french toast at the Bongo Room for brunch? Yes please.

But on this particular trip, what we really craved one morning was dim sum in Chinatown. The food of my peoples. The shared understanding with the other immigrant families in the room that this food is at the heart of our own hearts, and hence it never gets old. The yuppy brunch boutiques couldn’t compete with the carts of savory deliciousness brought to you by women reminiscent of that favorite jovial-but-borderline-bossy Chinese auntie who glowed with pride at the morsels they offered, and hardly hid the fact that they were more than slightly offended when you declined their offers. Only in a bonafide dim sum restaurant would this attitude from your server be both expected and appropriate, and earn them a better tip. After all, it only showed how much they cared.

There is, of course, the pork or shrimp siu-mai. Savory, salty, juicy, deceptively light morsels of meat and finely chopped vegetables enclosed in the thinnest of wrappers, subsequently dipped in soy sauce, hot sauce, or hot mustard. I don’t need the fancy overpriced dumplings at Din Tai Fung. Sit me in an old B-rated Chinatown restaurant anyday, so long as I see the aunties with their carts and the wrinkles of pride on their faces, I know what they have to offer must be authentic.

My sister and I reminisced about how adding the thousand-year-old-egg always made the best pot of rice porridge. Don’t let the black-and-green color or the pungent garbage-like smell of those eggs fool you. That stuff is nothing short of gourmet. Barbeque pork steamed buns, taro cakes, deep-fried sesame balls with red bean filling, and egg custard pastry cups are non-negotiables.

But somehow, what we look forward to the most are the chicken feet and the cow intestines. Frightening as they may appear, these delectables deserve a spot on “The Best Thing I Ever Ate.” Even if you need to close your eyes to eat them, or need a good Tsingtao beer afterwards to help you forget what you just consumed, the flavor in these dishes, when prepared correctly, is absolutely incomparable. (I have to admit though, when we found a small hair in our cow intestine dish, it seemed rather pointless to complain about it to our waiter. I mean, how clean can this cow intestine dish be, really?)

I could tell you plenty of other stories about the crickets and deep-fried waterbugs offered at Typhoon in Santa Monica. The live snake at the hole-in-the-wall in China that was subsequently sauteed into two dishes – one based on the skin, and the other based on the scant amount of meat running along the snake’s slithery skeleton. (That snake dish left me reeling with dizziness in the airport later that day, but it was so worth it.) The raw beef lips that I gleefully found in a 99 Ranch supermarket as the ultimate tool for a future practical joke. The brain soup of some poor unidentified creature that my uncle offered to me in a Taiwan night market. Just a brain in a bowl of broth. (No amount of Tsingtao was going to help me out with that one. I passed.) But alas, this post will remain dedicated to the glorious, incomparable cuisine known as dim sum, the food of my peoples.