Food Fest 2007

I recently returned from my first trip to New Orleans. The purpose of my trip was to attend a conference for work. Since I have been in my current job, I have gone to Denver, Orlando, Atlanta, Tampa Bay and now New Orleans for similar conferences. The conferences themselves are a mandated activity required by our federal grant. I believe if you have to mandate the activity, it means that it's generally unpleasant or difficult or something. These conferences are usually unpleasant and boring. But I get to go to a different place and my hotel is paid for and occasionally I bring a guest along. I didn't bring anyone with me this time as at the time I had to make arrangments, I wasn't confident that I would still be in my current employment at the time of the conference and I didn't want anyone else to have to eat an airline ticket.

I didn't rent a car while in New Orleans and the street car that usually runs from different parts of the city is not fully up and running yet. And my time was limited to evening outings, for the most part. So I wasn't able to go to parts of the city where Katrina damage is most evident. However, I did see lots of construction fencing and lots of for lease/sale/rent signs and several FEMA trailers in the front yards of some very fancy homes in the Garden District. I also didn't really have time to do much sightseeing, tourist type of activities. I did have a chance to wander around the French Quarter, visit a cemetery, pop into a couple of tourist shops (including a voodoo shop), drink a couple of beers on Bourbon street, listen to several different versions of "When The Saints Go Marching In" from several different jazz bands (all totally awesome) and watch huge steamers rolling down the Mississippi from my hotel room window.
What I enjoyed most about my trip to New Orleans though were my dining experiences. Unintentionally, I am cultivating a keen appreciation for eating and New Orleans turned out to be a great food city. I ate at two celebrated fancy pants restaurants, K-Paul's Kitchen and the Commander's Palace and the food was great. I had oysters, a po-boy, gumbo, blackened fish, grilled fish, fried green tomatoes, gazpacho, stuffed artichokes, great bread, pralines and bread pudding while I was in New Orleans. I also squeezed in two trips to Cafe du Monde for beignets and coffee. But the best food I had was at Central Grocery where I stopped for a muffaletta on my way out of town on a recommendation from my boss. This sandwich has become one of my favorite sandwiches ever. The bread was great, the olive tapenade was totally divine and had lots of other things in it besides olives, like cauliflower and garlic cloves and roasted peppers, and the meat and cheese were perfect compliments to one another. It was just the best sandwich. And it was made all the better by the fact that I ate it out of a paper wrapping sitting at a bar stool at a counter in the grocery, which it turns out is a very small grocery that sells imported Italian food and these muffalettas. My drink came out of a Coke machine in the back of the store. Turns out that you don't need simultaneously delivered meals by a trio of waiters who are meticulously polite in order to enjoy a really fine meal.

My trip to New Orleans and the sneaking suspicion that I am becoming a food person (i'm trying not to use the word "foodie" here) has inspired akid and i to launch a new blog called eatin' with elandem. We are still working on our first post but stay tuned to the links column of both her blog and mine as eatin' will be appearing very soon.