Thursday, November 3, 2011

New Orleans Road Trip - Day 11

Today was pretty much a rest, relax and plan day. This morning we did some shopping for our Mileage Madness Prize. If no one enters, I guess we will win it. And it is just our size! Well, Linda's size.

It started raining this morning which was a good reminder that Wilma needed some new windshield wipers. John took her to the Honda dealership which is conveniently located almost next to our La Quinta. He had to buy two windsheild wiper replacement inserts for the paltry sum of $14.16. He was especially happy since they were kind enough to install them for him at no additional cost.

Since, beginning tomorrow, we will be miles and miles away from the Cafe du Monde and their chicory coffee and beignets, we decided to go there for lunch. Bet you can't guess what we had. And they made some fresh ones, just for the old buzzards. They were almost too hot to pick up but we managed it. Linda took some photos of the pastry chef as he performed his world's best doughnut dance. It was through a glass window so there's a bit of a reflection. John picked out a Cafe du Monde cup and Linda got a can of dekaf chicory coffee to take back to Morgan Hill.

After “lunch” John did research on our next few days' adventures, finding a back-road route to New Iberia, some sugar mills along the way and even an old plantation in New Iberia that we can go visit. This week they are having a civil war reinactment on the grounds. Linda took Fannie for a walk after the rain cleared up.

We decided on a return visit to Deanie's Seafood for our dinner since we both thought their menu was worthy of further exploration.  And it was. John had iced tea and a dish called the Crawfish Quartet which was mud puppies four delicious ways – etouffee, au gratin, fried tails and crawfish dressing balls...(don't go there!)  There were also fries on the plate but he only ate about 3 of them. Linda had an Abita Pecan beer, a garden salad and, you guessed it, a cup of seafood and okra gumbo. Tonight's gumbo rating was 8 and ½. And the pecan beer had a nice nutty flavor. Also noteworthy was the artichoke dressing Linda chose for her salad. We were seated by two tables of very boisterous Mississippi folks. They were having lots of fun but one lady's voice and laugh were pretty piercing. John was thinking of asking her to use her “inside voice” like our grandson's parents ask him to do sometimes. But maybe she doesn't have one. They left  fairly soon after our dinner was served so we enjoyed the welcome change in ambient volume to a much lower level. This time Linda did order the rich custard-like bread pudding with a light touch of coconut, topped with cream anglaise and toasted almonds. John offered to help her with it and the old buzzards finished off every morsel. The Livestrong website says there are 306 calories in a cup of bread pudding. Good thing we split it! Linda reports that it is the best bread pudding she has ever had anywhere and she does love her bread pudding.

It has been fun being able to be here in the New Orleans area for several days. We leave here tomorrow for more adventures in Louisiana. We'll still be on the Gulf Coast for several more days and will have access to more wonderful seafood treats!

If all this talk about coffee with chicory, beignets, gumbo, crawfish and other foods Cajun is working up a hunger for some of it, we can highly recommend you explore the Cajun Grocer's website. We have ordered from them many times. They ship perishables in dry ice and live seafood (like live crawfish) they ship FedEx overnight. They have literally anything you could possibly think of... even a Turduckin (turkey stuffed with a duck stuffed with a chicken).

Today's photo gallery is not a photo gallery, it is a video slideshow with some Cajun music. You view it on YouTube. This is an experiment and we would appreciate your feedback. You can view the short slideshow (about one minute, since we didn't have many pictures today) by clicking here.

John also built a video slideshow from the images that were in Day 09's photo gallery. If you want a further video slideshow experience to try, you can view Day 09's video slideshow by clicking here.

Note: if either of these have fits of stopping and starting, just put it on pause and let more video build in the buffer, then start it again.

Here's the sign Linda liked today:
                    “You know what's funny?
                    Paintings of Adam and Eve
              where they both have belly buttons.
                         Think about it . . . . .
                Take as much time as you need.”

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