Boots in the Oven

Jumpin' on the Funwagon with VGT's Omnivore's One Hundred

If all your foodblogging friends and contacts and idols jumped off a cliff, Girlie, would you follow?

Nope, but I'll do a meme about eating tasty and strange foods! 

This one has been making the rounds for the last six weeks or so.  It started out on the UK's own Very Good Taste, then quickly jumped the pond and has been showing up on pretty much every blog I read.  (No, that's not exhaustive!) And, hey, it looks like fun, and takes my mind of the impending (ongoing?) collapse of the US economy!

Here are the rules.

Hey LADIES! New Orleans Lunch at Lilette

Good bread, good company, a giant pile of hearts of palm - what more could I ask for?

While the guys were off being uber-manly, covered in fish guts and being snipped at by a cantankerous yet brilliant cap'm of the fishing seas, Mama Bear and I put on our best traveling suits - yes, divided skirts for riding and all - and went down to New Orleans.  We even kidnapped the lovely B, fresh from her second week of work and newly returned to New Orleans after a long absence traveling and working around the world.

After a couple hours of trying on ridiculous hats and $12 suits up and down Magazine Street, it was time for an extra-late lunch at Lilette, which B chose for us because if there's one thing late lunchin' ladies need, it's champagne cocktails.  Our lunch ended up being so late, as a matter of fact, that we arrived moments after service ended - but they took pity on us as it had started to rain outside.

Warm, crusty, delicious rolls arrived quickly with a little pot of butter.  Thumbs up.  There's really nothing worse at a nice restaurant than being served insipid, cold bread with a brick of frozen butter.

Soon after, our drinks arrived.  The lovely color of our Lilette Rouge is due to the mild herbacious bitterness of the aperitif Lillet Rouge, the sparkle from champagne, and the citrus, well, from citrus.  Lime and orange.  Not too heavy, not too sweet, just right and refreshing.

Reasons Behind Lack of Update

1. Husbear is fishing with his father and his brother in the back of beyond, south Louisiana.  Today, they caught 60 trout, 12 redfish, and a presumably lonely and confused black drum.

2. Girlie is chillaxing with the force of nature otherwise known as Mama Bear.  Today we power-shop, and tomorrow the WORLD!  Or just New Orleans.  Yeah, now that I think about it, definitely New Orleans.  A coffee with chicory would sure hit the spot right about eight hours from now.

We head back to Austin on Monday.  See you then!  (BTW, lots of new Project 366 pics were uploaded at Flickr the other day, so if you haven't stopped by, take a gander.)

Hugs,

Girlieness

Cochon

This cute little bistro is definitely doing something right. I mean sure, a chef thinks “I love cooking, I love pork. I’ll take my culinary heritage and a couple of pigs and open a seriously awesome restaurant.” That don’t mean it’s gonna happen but it certainly worked for Chef Donald Link.

On our most recent trip to New Orleans, we made some special arrangements to ensure that we wouldn’t miss a visit to Cochon, the newest enterprise from the man who started Herbsaint. We decided to go for lunch since our schedule was packed.

Walking in, the place was a blend of new and old. The seating was light wood with very modern styling but the feel was kind of like a gathering of picnic tables. The casually placed homemade bottles of hot sauce added to the relaxed, informal vibe.

Your kitchen smells of elderberries!

And is covered in deep purple stains.  What do you have to show for it?

Well, elderberry jelly, my new favorite!

Elderberries grow rampant all over the South.  The flowers can be used to make liqueurs, and the berries are often made into wine and jelly.  When my mother-in-law found a huge mess of elderberries growing in her backyard, she cut a ton of berry clusters off the tree in preparation for our arrival.

And we spent the better part of a day making jelly!  I could think of WAY worse ways to fritter away a day (yesterday's massive car breakdown and towing comes to mind).

Mama Bear saved us a step.  A trash bag full of elderberries awaited us.

Lousiana Lunch at Prejean, Lafayette LA

I haven't been hearing too much about Lafayette in the media since Gustav hit, but it was right in the area that got smacked.  I'm hoping everything is OK there.

Lafayette, and its neighboring town Breaux Bridge, are the closest we've gotten to exploring Cajun country.  Ah, someday... now that'll be a road trip.

I read about Prejean's in my copy of the new Roadfood, so it's not exactly off the beaten path.  Which is what we needed, since we were more than halfway through a nine-hour drive and I was about to eat the dashboard, those kolaches being but a several-hour old memory.

They provide kennels under a prettily shaded tree, if you need them for your pets.  A nice touch this time of year, though we'd left the cats back in Austin.

We start to throw our diet out the window in preparation for New Orleans.

If there's one thing that Central Texans are obsessed with, once you get past barbeque, Tex-Mex, and chicken-fried steak, it's the kolache.

I'd never heard of the Czech yeast dough pastries before arriving here, and apparently they aren't that popular back in the Old Country either.  But here, for some reason, they're extra well-liked, and people get into knock-down fights on Chowhound about where the best versions are available. 

On our way from Austin to Mandeville, Louisiana, last week, we passed two places heralded in the kolache lexicon - Weikel's in La Grange, whose kolaches we've enjoyed before while Husbear was working on a BBC TV show in the town, and Hruska's, off of TX-71 just before you reach I-10.

We're back!

Of course, you probably didn't know we were gone, what with my having not announced it anywhere we reside in the blogosphere.  But we're back now from southern and central Louisiana - specifically New Orleans/Mandeville and Natchitoches - and I have all sorts of stuff to blog.

The reason we were over in that neck of the woods was for a reception for Husbear's cousin who got married back in July.  Gustav did interrupt the proceedings, but only a bit, as it arrived in the area the day after the Sunday party.  However, the entire parish is currently without power and there's a tree sitting on my brother and sister-in-law's house in Baton Rouge, so your thoughts are appreciated.

Until I get my butt and pictures in gear, here's a small taste of our week-long New Orleans experience - though these beignets are from the Cafe du Monde in Mandeville on the North Shore, and not from the one in NOLA itself, it's still a pretty quintissential New Orleans brekkie.  Imagine a cup of hot, chicory-laced cafe au lait on the side, and there ya go.