New Orleans for the Holidays

I am loving every moment of New Orleans! I have done so much in the past few weeks so rather than write it all out I'll just post pictures. 

Last weekend was the Po Boy festival in Uptown. There were sooo many people there so after waiting in line for 45min for a 3" Po Boy I was ready to call it a day. The Po Boy was from Zea and it basically changed my world. Asian sesame fried oyster Po Boy. Oysters are now officially my favorite food here. 

Servin' up the deliciousness at Po Boy Fest

The random guy did a terrible job taking our picture

Raw Oysters after work!

So we got off work early on Friday and decided to go out to lunch at Parkway, a famous Po Boy shop in Bayou St. John. We took our Po Boys to go and sat on the canal. I got the Thanksgiving Po Boy: 8" hoagie with turkey, stuffing, and cranberries. Whoa. I devoured that deliciousness! I meant to take a picture of it before I ate it but I was so hungry I just inhaled it. I didn't mean to eat the whole thing because as a recovering vegan I didn't want stomach issues after eating a large amount of turkey for the first time in 15 years, but I literally couldn't put it down. That's when I knew I was more "recovering" than "vegan".

View from my tree perch in City Park

Urban Outfitters for Black Friday!!

Some friends and I went to City Park Friday after Thanksgiving for Celebration in the Oaks - a festival of lights. It was absolutely lovely! They had Christmas lights up in all the beautiful trees, we got to walk through the botanical gardens and see some sculptures in the sculpture gardens, but the best part was the cajun version of the Night Before Christmas, read aloud with lights to depict. 

As far as work goes, it's been awesome! I am getting closer to my team and learning and getting experience every day. This a picture of one of my favorite days at work so far. Sarah and I were sent a house to pull up a temporary pole used for temporary electrical service, but the pole was 20' and after 30min of struggling we realized we could never pull it out ourselves. So we got some 12AWG wire out of the van, tied one end to the top of the pole and I took the other end. Sarah took the saws-all and we lumberjacked it. Here's the aftermath. 

OK, now on to the holidays! Traditional New Orleans Thanksgiving dinner: WOW!! It was so different from my family's normal Thanksgiving but it was so incredible! One of the families in my church was loving enough to invite me over for dinner. All the food was home made! Turkey, carrot souffle  home made rolls, seafood gumbo with rice and potato salad (potato salad in gumbo is kinda weird to me but apparently it's normal at least for Thanksgiving), and then the best part: oyster dressing. Oysters, ground pork, chicken liver, and stuffing. Whew, changed my life. I think I might need to be in New Orleans for every Thanksgiving from now on!

After dinner at the family's I went with to an Americorp person's house for my second Thanksgiving. They had a lot of good food, and the Turkey was a garbage can turkey (cooked in a garbage can?). 

So basically I've eaten more nonvegan than vegan the past few days and guess what? My stomach is intact with no apparent damage. I'm a pro at recovering. 

The Most Jolly Tornado

So I have been getting along in NOLA. This city is definitely not my home yet. I am literally a foreigner: I don't speak this language, I don't know where anything is and the amount of times I fill up my car with gas is evidence of how lost I get, I don't know what this food is, and the way I stand around awkwardly while other people do their crazy, loud greetings shows that socially I just don't fit in. Here are some examples:

Language
NOLA has different words or phrases than we use up north.

The itis = food comma
Smart in the mouth =  smart mouth
Stay down = don't get on the high way

Also, I usually don't understand about 20% of what native New Orleanians say. For example, I picked up my friend Ebonee (born and raised New Orleans) so we could meet our friend who lives off Carrollton. I was asking Ebonee the quickest way to get to Carrollton, but it turns out I was pronouncing the street like Carl-ton, when really it is pronounced Care-olton. Small difference but apparently big enough so that native New Orleanians might think you're talking about a person and not a street if you say it incorrectly.

Greetings
My normal greeting for a friend is a hug and a "how are you!?". Not here. When people from New Orleans greet each other it is one of the loudest, jolliest occurances you'll see. It's like the most jolly tornado erupts once a friend walks through the door: a loud "HEYYY GIRL!!!!", a big ole hug, some joking around, some picking fun, asking about the family, everything loud. I usually stand there extremely awkwardly because even if I tried to fit in, I just can't. I'm not even joking, it's like I could say or do the same thing they do to each other to one of them and they would have no idea what I was saying or doing. I just don't have the New Orleans tornado within me.

Food
I don't really know what the menus mean. Also, even though I'm not vegan any more, I don't want to pay $10 for andouille sausage when realistically I'd only eat like $3-$5 worth. New Orleanians also really love pickled things. I'm not trying to knock it, but it kinda looks really gross. and I probably won't ever try it.

ew pickled everything GROSS

Also of note, look at how they spell ketchup. Weirdos.

So basically I have been hanging out a lot with Americorp people and exploring the Marigny and Bywater area, and it's really fun! For Halloween  Marta had a potluck and then we went out to Frenchman St which was overwhelming. This past weekend was super fun! Friday we went to Frenchman St again and ate a burrito, and then Saturday we went dancing at Maison and it was SO FUN!! I love dancing!! Then we got late night food (like 3am late night) at a place called 13 also on Frenchman and they had Tachos (tater tots with nacho fixin's) which made me homesick for Fardowner's Tachos in Crozet. I miss my home sometimes.  

I also FINALLY saw Rebirth Brass Band at the Howling Wolf (so perfect for me, right??). It was great. But considering I get up at 5am every morning and go to bed at about 9:30pm, my tendency is to be socially useless after about 10pm because I'm so sleepy, so I've had to learn to break out of that. 

Otherwise, work is going well. I'm still getting beat up with cuts and bruises everywhere. I also got shocked this week! 240V baby, I aint playing. We did a lot of trim out this week which was fun - putting on cover plates, installing lights and appliances. Sometimes I can't believe I have 10 months of this. 

And now for some miscellaneous stuff. 

Vanilla spice cupcakes with pumpkin pudding on top! Tis the season!

Beautiful flowers are a site I was working at in NOLA East. They changed color every day!

Found this website. I'm still in love with Detroit.

Flat tire - womp womp

My final thoughts on the past two weeks are this: at first I was feeling super lonely because I feel geographically (because of where I live) and socially isolated from the people who I can share this "new" experience with - the other Americorp people who I started St. Bernard Project with. I get along great with my room mate and my other friends from church, but they are all settled in their lives here - I can't share all the feelings of being overwhelmed and confused and excited about being in a new city with them. But once I started hanging out with Americorp people more, I feel like I have peers to go through this with, and it makes me feel like I have a home base and that I'm starting to build my New Orleans family. Overall, I feel like the most loved girl in New Orleans between all the support and encouragement and protection and consideration I get from all my friends. New Orleans is looking up and I feel really happy here. 

I have arrived, all in one long post

NOLA is awesome, as I guessed before I moved here!

My dad and i drove the 13ish hours from Va to NOLA on Sunday the 6th and Monday the 7th. The drive was pretty uneventful. We stopped in Birmingham on Monday because the only impression my Dad and I have of the city is from the Freedom Riders, and we wanted to get the full story. The city was reallly boring and empty! We could see the old town with old abandoned factories and the new town with new buildings where everyone was working probably. They had a little park with a Freedom Walk where they had statues and memoirs documenting the heavy discrimination in Birmingham but we were accosted by people asking for money so we left.

My dad and my drive down!

When we arrived in the city we obvoiusly went right to the Royal House were Aryn and I went during Jazzfest. We got crawfish etouffee, chicken and sausage gumbo, and shrimp - very tastey! My Dad was here for about a week and we explored the city and he helped me take care of some business (buying a car and all that entails, groceries, clothes, directions). It's awesome having an awesome Dad! It was fun exploring with him but I am happy now I feel like I can make NOLA my town with my traditions and rituals and friends and hot spots. I feel impatient for roots and relationships to grow here but I need to learn how to enjoy this in between time where I am on my own.

The view from East Bank (near Cafe Du Monde in French Quarter) across the Mississippi River to Algiers, where I live

The view from East Bank of the Central Business District

Swamp Adventures!!

Work with St. Bernard Project started on Monday, and it was mostly boring orientation stuff but we got to learn a lot about Katrina, disaster relief, contractor fraud, the levee system, home owners, St Bernard Project, flood damage, and everything in between. I could write at length (and I mean, length!) about everything I am learning. I feel like every piece of info I get just fills a part of my heart that was yearning for years to be here in NOLA doing this exact work and living and learning these exact things. It is so fulfilling and so awesome I can't really explain it which is why I would write at length about it! Wed we gutted a house in Plaquemines Parish Southeast of Orleans Parish (where the city of New Orleans is) which got flooded not during Katrina but during Isaac after the government redid the levee system in 2006. Isaac hit in late August and we gutted in mid October so you can imagine the stench and the mold that permeated everything in the house that hadn't been touched since the hurricane. On Thursday we put up insulation in another house in Orleans Parish and on Friday we framed out some windows in yet another house in Orleans Parish. I was nervous how I would do with manual labor after having a desk job for 2 years but I am loving it! No food coma after lunch!

Besides all that, I have a few immediate and random observations and thoughts:

1. The trees are sooo beautiful here. It's like they were engineered to provide the most beautiful canopy and refreshing shade. The stretch over the streets so it's a very old and rustic feel in the middle of a bustling city.

2. The ants here don't play. I accidently stepped on a pile of ants outside my house and got about 10 bites on my foot. 30min later it's still stinging, a week and a half later they are swollen and itching. I learned my lesson - don't confuse dirt with ants.

3. I'm probably the rudest person in NOLA. I don't let you cross the street if I'm driving, I don't stop and wave you on in a parking lot, and I probably won't smile at you if we're crossing paths. Sorry deep South, you gotta let me warm up a little bit.

4. So far my impression of the drivers is that they are appropriately aggressive. I feel at home. My Philly driver within can finally express itself.but I can change lanes way easier.

Yummy stuffed eggplant that tasted like Thanksgiving at a small restaurant in Lefitte, a city just outside NO

My small small kitchen that I still managed to bake chai spiced muffins in

Seafood stuffed pastry from a stand at New Orleans Seafood Festival. It was so heavy I couldn't finish it!

New obsessions, new season, new nail polish, new moves; New Post!!

It's been so long since I've updated. I'm blaming it on the fact that I've been dragging my feet along in a disconnected stupor ever since I activated my friend's old dumb phone in lieu of replacing my smart phone ($90 deductible? Nah). But anyway, I have changed just so much since the last time I updated! Firstly, I am moving to New Orleans in 1 week! I have a job as an assistant electrician with St. Bernard's Project. Even though this is a serious pay and prestige drop, it is my dream. For now anyway. Still trying to figure the whole thing out but I think my end dream will involve ex-convicts, affordable housing, and cupcakes. In the meantime, I have new obsessions! Ombre cakes and accent nails! So, please take some time to get to new the New Kate by looking at these websites.

Can I just have my wedding dress be an Ombre cake?

Ok but for real, I am going to master the art of Ombre cupcakes.

I am also very obsessed with accent nails, and my new favorite thing to do on a lazy night is peruse hello giggles nails of the day and then attempt it on my nails and my room mates' nails. Here's one of my personal favorites, and one I attempted last night while watching Princess and the Frog!

Fall is finally filling the air and it is definitely my favorite season of the year. I am figuring I am not getting much of an autumn out of NOLA, so I kick started the autumn in Cville this weekend by making pumpkin chocolate chip cookies, pumpkin pancakes, and pumpkin chili. They were all pretty good except I could have amped up the pumpkin in the chili some more. I think I was having commitment issues (the chili smelled so good before I put the pumpkin in and I got scared!).

So, I am pledging to continue to update my blog with my ombre cupcake attempts while I am in NOLA. Even though I'm in a new city, I will NEVER loose my dream to be the Cupcake Authority, a dream started by utter disappointment in Cville vegan baked goods selections that led to the sheer drive to bake a better cupcake than Cville has ever known (at a reasonable price, not $3/cupcake coughcoughCappellinoscoughcough). I have a new sense of freedom writing about my dreams now that I have quit my corporate job and can come out of the closet with my unabashed stickittothemaneosis. I've got an illness and the only cure is: more Jack Black.



Until next cupcake or nail polish endeavor...I'm out.

Cupcake Whisperer

If I could be anyone in the world, I would either be Beyonce or Isa Chandra Moskowitz. You all know B, she needs to explanation or introduction other than Diva #1. Isa? You probably don't know her. This is her. You might be wondering what she looks like, or where she's from, or what her greatest accomplishments are, but none of that matters to me (well OK she's a yankee so we can relate). All that matters is her perfect, genius, delicious, flawless recipes. I've never made a single recipe from her that wasn't yummy, or that was messed up, or that just didn't taste right. She's so perfect! I want to be perfect! And, if a=b and b=c, then I want to = Isa.

But, my dream is to actually have vegan cupcake recipes that I made up and that are flawless, not go off of someone else's recipes. Which is why I have made these peanut butter chocolate cupcakes (sans the hi-hat frosting) 4 times trying to get them tastey and right. What is the deal with peanut butter cupcakes? I've mixed the mess out of the peanut butter to lighten it, loosen it...I've tried about 3 different egg replacements, I've added liquid, I can't get it right! But, the good news is that through trying to perfect these stupid cupcakes I've learned quite a bit. Things like, the cupcakes on the top rack heat quicker than the ones on the bottom rack (I needed my Bachelor of Science to figure that one out though), soy yogurt leavens as well as moistens, and too much leavening causes cupcakes to look like bowls (inverted cupcake has a nice ring).

I am slowly learning how to be a cupcake whisperer. It's an uphill battle, I'll tell you! But, if there's one thing I've learned from life, it is this: It's a long way to the top of you want to Rock n' Roll.

Yes I'm going to New Orleans!

New Orleans. That's where I want to be!

I had a blast with Aryn in the Big Easy. The grit, the character, the music, the culture, the FOOD!, the life...everything. I want it! I know I've been saying for a while now that NOLA is the place for me, and now I have even more proof!

Where to start? So, some background, Aryn and I planned this trip while we were busy living really boring lives in Charlottesville. We wanted something fun, and we both wanted to go to NOLA, so we figured we should go to the Jazzfest! The time finally arrived. I waited for Aryn in the NOLA airport, it was almost 12 hours of travelling for me (who goes from DC to Texas to get to NOLA?). When we finally arrived at our hostel and the gorgeous, cool early summer air (and our growling stomachs) convinced us to get a bite to eat. Funny thing is that, even though I've been vegan for 9 years, I decided to try shell fish in the place where the shell fish is probably freshest. So, first up on the menu: BBQ shrimp!!




Not the best picture, but this was so delicious. It's not Hienz BBQ sauce, it's home made, and I can't even really explain it except absolutely delicious. I ate a shrimp or two (I wanted to start easy), and it was OK. A little crunchy for me. But honestly, it felt so great to eat it!! Aryn was a champ - she didn't make a big deal out of it so it was easier for me to pick up the shrimp and take a bite.



Day 2: Fried oyster pasta :) the cheese was a mistake...I wish I had asked for no cheese. Another mistake: not trying Aryn's raw oysers (left). Always another trip...



Of course I had to take a break from the non-vegan and eat my quintessential dish: falafel sandwich!! It was OK...the fried oyster was better :)


T
Late night snack? Beignet!! What an awesome night this was...just chillin in the French Quarter, making our way to Frenchman's St for some live (and very late night) music. After a probably huge dinner on Bourboun, we were strolling around and making our way towards the river. We took a break to chow down on NOLA's signiture pastry. It was good, but funnel cake is better!



Jackson's Square on Decator St! It looks like the Disney Castle. Jackson Square is where we got on our carriage ride, hand grenades in hand! On the carriage ride we learned about why the door handle was missing from a door (coughcoughBrad Pitt), why there are only ghosts on the third floors, and why Nicolas Cage is afraid of New Orleans.



Hand grenades are really not tastey.



They taste even more disgusting than they look.



HIGHLITE!!!! Crawfish Etouffe. So. Good. I want to eat it all the time!! Crawfish was undeniably my favorite. The first place I tried it (Royal House, where I got my fried oyster pasta), I thought it was the best ... thick, flavorful, not too spicey, earthy, the ultimate comfort food I thought. This place (Ralph and Kacoo's) was pretty good too. This was another one of our stops en route to Frenchman's St ... it's such a far walk we had to break it up with food :)



Crawfish boil!!! After church!! FOR FREE!! This was so delicious! Basically, you take the crawfish, rip off the tail, peal off the bottom of the tail, and pull our the meat. It's the smallest amount of meat for an already small creature, but it is packed with tasteyness. And then, you crack the head and suck out the juices. Yum. What little carnivour is left in me was so happy in this moment.



It was also great to get to know the people in the church down in NOLA. Since it's somewhere I can definitely see myself going back to, I was happy to make friendships with them.

OK...now for the REAL reason we came down to NOLA...the music!!! I am in love with brass bands...New Birth Brass Band, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, and my absolute favorite, Rebirth Brass Band!! After months and months of sitting at my desk at work listening to brass bands and pining for a true New Orleans experience to see brass bands up close and personal, the music was just so good. Aryn and I went running on the first day we were in NOLA, and we ran through a second line! I nearly cried, no joke. It's so common down there (seconds lines for funerals, births, etc), but it just felt like all the parts of me that have been trying to get out of my seat and have an adventure and do something fun was finally fulfilled! It was a really emotional experience, which is crazy, but I just can't explain to you how much I wanted this specific vacation. And, I'm not very eloquent, so that probably didn't even make sense.



Rebirth at the Jazzfest!!



Sharon Jones at the Jazzfest! If you don't know her, get to know her. She is the funkiest 56yr old you will EVER EVER EVER hear.



New Orleans Nightcrawlers at Jazzfest! This was my favorite show. They are such a tight band. And the drummer was young and so talented. You would think he could out play the older drummer but then the older drummer played and it was like...no you got so far to go, rookie.



Rebirth showing off their grammy at Big Sam's Funky Nation!! Big Sam was bad, but Rebirth is so good. This was a late night show, where it starts at 2am and goes till 5ish. I learned on the plane ride to NOLA that the best part about Jazzfest is the late night shows, where all the artists play in clubs around town. Of course we found out wayyy late and all the shows worth going to were sold out (like the original Meters with Rebirth and Trombone Shorty???? Shoooot we missed that!!). It was funny though, after Big Sam's we walked around trying to get a taxi and saw that Dirty Dozen Brass Band was playing like 3 doors down. W00ps. Another lesson learned for next year!!



The beer there is so sweet! Didn't love it. Not into sweet beers. But they were unique. We got this beer while we were waiting to be seated at a nice place on Frenchman's after Jazzfest. I have a distinct memory of us leaving our hostel, saying "hm I could have a snack before that show we are going to", and then as we got closer and closer to Frenchman's, we were saying "OK, yea I could eat", but still only planning on a light meal, and then we passed this nice place with folded cloth napkins and wine classes and dim lights and we both were like YUP!! We're going there!!! We were so exhausted from being in the heat all day, and standing for hours, that I think when we saw a nice easy place to chill with good drinks and food, we just went for it :) It was worth it! I actually completely forget what I got to eat there...what a shame.



*sigh* second lines...how I miss thee.

Gosh I miss it so much! Just going through and finally updating my blog and looking thorugh my pictures makes me remember how much fun this was. I know that if I ever moved to NOLA it wouldn't be vacation all the time, so the life I lived for the 5 days I was there is not indicative of a life there, but NOLA definitely still intriques me and draws me. I can't wait to go back, even if it's not until Jazzfest 2013!