How many times can you say, "Who dat!" in one blog post?

Between the Saints playing in their first Super Bowl tomorrow and Mardi Gras starting in a week and a half, I suppose my venturing down to the New Orleans this past weekend was somewhat serendipitous. That said, while partaking in the sensory overload that is New Orleans, it was nearly impossible to forget either the Saints or Mardi Gras, for even a moment.

We arrived in town Saturday evening and found ourselves staying right along the Krewe du Vieux parade route. Since our cab (provided by the Praise God Cab Company, no less) couldn't take us any further, we followed the mule-pulled floats and marching bands down Chartres to drop off our stuff and then head back to the revelry.

The Krewe du Vieux, from what I understand, is a locally-grown pre-Mardi Gras tradition. This year's theme, Fired Up!, showcased some rather, ahem, adult-themed floats and others poking fun at local politicians like Ray Nagin and Bobby Jindal, all this to the sound of brass bands and repeated crowd chants of, "Who dat! Who dat say dey gonna beat dem Saints!" I think this is the closest I'd ever like to come to Mardi Gras; the revelers were just fired up enough.

That said, with the exception of Sunday's (men in) Dress(es) Parade to celebrate the Saints Super Bowl debut, and more, "Who Dat!"-ing, I spent the next few days in relative quiet. I strolled the streets of the Marigny and the French Quarter, wandered over to the Mississippi River, took the ferry to Algiers, rode the St. Charles Avenue streetcar up to the Garden District and toured the "cities of the dead."

Being vegetarian, I felt somewhat left out of the city's fine food tradition, but not completely. A highlight being our Creole-style breakfast of Eggs Sardou and Cala Cakes (fried rice cakes filled with pecans and covered in maple syrup) at the Old Coffee Pot. The beautiful, rose-detailed chandelier and salon-like atmosphere hearkened back to another era, but was somewhat incongruous with the music blasting from the kitchen and the wait staff's intermittent chants of, you've got it, "Who Dat!" Dat said, this spot had character and definite charm. The clincher being a waitress stopping to serenade a little boy with the most soulful rendition of Happy Birthday that I've ever heard.

So, we wandered and ate. Stopping to scarf-down vegetarian muffulata and eat our fill of beignet buried in powdered sugar.

We wandered and drank. I know a lot of people visit New Orleans intending to drink mind-bending, punchy Hurricanes or Cyclones, but that's just silly in a city with such a deep appreciation of classic cocktails. If I only had one drink in New Orleans, I'd intended it to be the first cocktail ever, Sazerac. When all was done, I had far more than one drink in New Orleans, but two of them were Sazerac. I sipped one at Herme's Bar at Antoine's, the other at the Roosevelt Hotel's Sazerac Bar and both were utterly intoxicating, figuratively and literally.

In the end, there was jazz, jazz and more jazz, I piqued my sense of smell at a centuries-old perfumery and even teased my sixth sense by leaving an offering at the grave of New Orlean's most famous voodoo queen, Marie Laveau. I spent a chock-full three days and sadly, wasn't able to check every item off my to-do list, but that's probably for the best. If nothing else, I've got a reason to return and see if people still, "Who Dat!" and parade around in beads on a random Thursday in April.

I've posted more photos here.

Thanksgiving in LA and environs

Here I will attempt to start filling in the gaping hole that is November.

Among other things, I spent Thanksgiving week in and around Los Angeles. The ultimate goal being to spend the holiday with family and to celebrate my Gramma's birthday, but I also snuck in a little sightseeing with old friends. In addition to my high school BF, I was able to spend some time with a good friend from Philly who now lives in Hollywood.

Following lunch at The Grove, we wandered Hollywood Boulevard a bit, which was both fun and weird. I hadn't really been down there since high school and while it's cleaned-up nicely, I kind of missed the teenage runaways. The only freaks left seemed to be the celebrity look-alikes.

We'd thought about hitting Melrose Avenue for old-time sake, but opted for pool side cocktails at the Roosevelt Hotel. Site of the first Academy Awards in 1929, the hotel also hosted celebrities like Clark Gable and Marilyn Monroe. The later's first magazine photo shoot took place at this very pool and more eerily, she's said to haunt the place. Oh, how I would have liked to have seen such a glamourous ghost.

Ghastly... A couple of days later, we headed out to Santa Monica, because no trip to California is compete without seeing the Pacific. Following a surprisingly scream-worthy go at the Sea Dragon and Zoltar advising Aneek to live everyday as if it were her last, I made a new green friend - a 13 year-old parrot who proceeded to fall asleep on my shoulder. I'll post more LA photos to Flickr, but you get the idea.

I ultimately had a huge Thanksgiving dinner with my grandparents, mom, aunt, uncle and cousins. I am grateful to have had the opportunity to spend time in a place that holds so many warm-and-fuzzies for me, with people I see way too infrequently. And with that, happy holidays, all. Here's to good food, family and friends.

Endless Mountains, endless

This time last week, we were winding through back roads past Scranton; slowly making our way to Nick's Dad's cabin in the Endless Mountains. Frustrated by intermittent rain and the cold, we couldn't help but think that our weekend was just not going the way we'd planned. As if the weather weren't disappointing enough, we were a week early for the annual haunted hay ride put on by the local high school - my personal favorite fall event in that neck of the woods.

When we finally arrived at the cabin it was by the extreme darkness of night, not a star was visible and by contrast, we were surprised by the colorful landscape that would greet us come morning.

Needless to say, we spent a couple of days trudging through wet woods, observing flora and fauna and most notably, huddled by the fire, failing to ever completely dry our wet socks. That said, I spent a good amount of time working on my first knit sweater. It's for a toddler. And I couldn't help but think, very much in line with Mother Nature's color scheme for the weekend.

All said, I would have liked to have spent another day in the woods: cold and wet, struggling to keep the fire lit. It looks like this weekend in New York will be damp, too. Maybe I'll finish that sweater and take a walk to see the foliage, all with the knowledge that I have a hearty stock of dry socks at home.

(Mon)tréal

Last weekend about this time, armed with a printed-out, step-by-step guide, I was embarking on a walking tour of Old Montreal.

Here's a link to some of the photos I took on said walking tour and around Montreal in general: http://www.flickr.com/photos/beebimbop/sets/72157621833069529/

christmastime is here

Here I am, back in Chicago. Quiet times in Mexico City spent strolling through lush parks and thoughts of pleasantly chilly evenings sitting outside with a beverage, hold sway over me as I brace myself for a cruel Chicago winter. Snow is falling and is forecast to continue through tomorrow afternoon. Seems Mother Nature and the major networks are in cahoots, premiering Charlie Brown's Christmas Special and our first 24-hour long snowstorm all at once.

la vida loca

I can't decide whether or not I'm a complete jackass. I'm supposed to be saaaving my money, right? Big move in a year and all that. So what do I do when faced with bargain airfare and a long holiday weekend? That's right, folks. Book a ticket to Mexico City for Thanksgiving. Put in your requests for post cards and trinkets now.

random post

This is completely irrelevant, but these are some photos I took of the roadtrip Nick and I took in a cherry convertible from Chicago down to Memphis last summer. This set obviously includes The Sears Tower representing Chicago, our starting point. Below The Sears Tower is a photo taken, down what's left of Route 66, of the state capital building in Springfield, Illinois. To the left of the state capital is a photo of The Arch in St. Louis and above that a photo of Memphis, as depicted on that cool-to-scale-replica of The Mississippi River.

that armonica — genius!

It's been a busy week. Or so it seems. Monday night/Tuesday morning I returned from Philadelphia where, that's right, I ran into Benjamin Franklin eating ice cream at the Reading Terminal Market.

Short of my friends, Ben Frank is easily one of my favorite Philadelphians and his museum, well, that's something I can go on-and-on about. Check it out if you can find it tucked behind the US Postal Museum on Market Street and then under the ghost structure that's supposed to represent the Renaissance Man's ripped-down house. Anyway, there are a couple of famous Benjamin Franklin impersonators walking the streets of Philadelphia, the most famous being Ralph Archbold, who knows who the guy I ran into really is, but I spotted him at the Bassett's Ice Cream counter. I approached Mr. Franklin-alike and we had a brief conversation about our mutual enthusiasm for Journalism and I summed up by complimenting him on the Armonica or Glass Harmonica. I love chatting it up with great historical figures — for real — and not having to play that lame party game "If you could have dinner with 5 people dead or alive... "

So, was meeting Benjamin Franklin the supeficial highlight of my trip? Perhaps. I did visit my parents and a few friends, attended a really nice, low-key wedding, stuffed my face with some mediocore gluten at Harmony Chinese Vegetarian and had a Yuegling Lager at Bob and Barabara's. On the last tip, it was nice offering a nod to the late Nate Wiley while listening to what members of The Crowd Pleasers are doing following his passing.

Whirl wind tour indeed.

in a nut shell

I sat down and tried to sum-up my adventures in Wisconsin and found the 'ole well o' wit dry, then I got a little sidetracked — blah-blah — here's my round-up.

A couple of weeks ago Nick, Stephen and I trekked to America's Diaryland for a long weekend spent camping and taking in the odd roadside attraction. Same as last year, we camped at Devil's Lake, outside of quaint Baraboo. Last year we spent a little time walking Baraboo's old-time streets and even checked out The Circus World Museum — Baraboo's claim-to-fame is the fact that it was the winter base of The Ringling Brother's Circus in the early 20th century.

This year we camped along The Ice Age Trail. It seems Devil's Lake is a mere pockmark left by a huge glacier that once covered large parts of North America! We didn't do so much hiking this year, although we laughed about my cursing the absurdly steep trail up to Balance Rock last year, and as the weather was beautiful, we decided we would rent a row boat. The three of us, in turn, rowed to the middle of the lake, taking in the view, but by the time we reached the middle, realized that we would have a problem getting the boat back ashore. Sure, it's easy to row without abandon, but with a determined direction, it's far more difficult. So, following a near mishap (dropping our oar in the lake), Stephen took the reins and streered us toward the boat house, near shore I jumped out of the boat and amidst millions of tadpoles, and tugged it in. Phew.

On the way home, we made a slight detour to Spring Green, Wisconsin, not to see Frank Lloyd Wright's one time home/studio/school, Taliesin*, although we saw the main building from the road, but to travel a mile-or-so farther and visit The House on the Rock. It seems an eccentric named Alex Jordan built The House on the Rock to spite his neighbor, Mr. Wright. In outward appearance the house is similar to a Wright structure, only there are numerous more buidings built into the rock. These buildings house Mr. Jordan's extensive collections and the results of his immense imagination: there are full-orchestras whose instruments play themselves, an actual indoor main street, the world's largest carousel and a room featuring a larger-than-life-sized whale battling a larger-than-life-sized octopus. Equally frightened and awed, we spent three hours touring this monstrosity, to find that we had only seen the tip of the ice burg. Unfortunately, the afternoon was slipping away, so we had to leave and make our way back to Chicago, vowing to someday finish our tour.

In the wake of our camping trip, Nick and I hosted Carl for a week. I spent a week meeting up with the guys after work each night for dinner, drinks, even a tour of the Escultura Social exhibit at the MCA, needless to say, I bid Carl an exhausted farewell on Friday.

And, in a nut shell, that's that.

*Taliesin's also got a bizarre story — tragic may be a better descriptor. In 1914 a disgruntled worker set fire to the house and murdered Wright's often maligned mistress Mamah Bothwick, her children, and four other people.

aloha

I haven't had an opportunity to fill you in on my Hawaiian adventure. In the interim, I'll link to some of my photos and you can fill in the blanks.

To bask in yesterday evening's warmth and celebrate the first of many *hopefully* soon to come warm Spring evenings, Nick and I threw on coats, grabbed a bottle of wine and sat ourselves out on the patio. A glass or so in, shocked to still feel our finger tips, Nick mentioned an email he'd received touting an airfare special to Hawaii. Now, both Nick and I have been plotting get aways, both crushed by the expense of airfare to our desired destinations. As a result, we each have been bating our time, waiting—for anything, well, to be honest, almost any thing.

As mentioned fare sounded too good to be true, Nick urged me and my deal-finding fingers to check it out, you know, just for kicks. I did. Filled in travel dates corresponding with the advertised deal, and much to our surprise, the deal was real! Maybe it was our mutual desire to just get out of town, maybe it was the bottle of wine we'd just consumed, either way, I clicked "purchase."

Nick made a phone call or two and secured us a room in a Waikiki hostel located on the beach. We laughed for maybe an hour about the absurdity of our spending 5 days in Hawaii! We pulled out duelling laptops and ewwwed and awwwed at photos of beautiful beaches surrounded by mountains, rain forests and volcanoes.

Now I've got that somewhat uncomfortable morning-after feeling: questions of regret, wondering what really happened, alas, all I've got to do is open my inbox and there it is, a confirmation email for two round-trip tickets to Honolulu in May.

I spent the past 5 days in Philadelphia doing the usual stuff: visiting with family and friends, walking around and most notably, eating. The second-wave of the trip felt oddly displaced and hurried, not as relaxed as my Thanksgiving visit--although there was no squatting involved. This trip was wonderful in the sense that I was able to get in some good time with my parents and friends who I rarely see, but i didn't visit any of my old haunts, I patronized all new spots, which was odd in a city whose familiarity I relish.

I ate surprisingly good Chinese food at a Bistro near my parent's and tried-and-true Mexican. I noshed on a Kofta-meatball sandwich at the vegetarian Hari-Krishna take-out spot, lunched at a Burmese restaurant in Chinatown, but most notably gorged myself at a Cuban restaurant in Rittenhouse.

This last exploit started innocently. A friend recently started bar tending at aforementioned Cuban spot. She suggested we stop by their lounge for happy hour drinks while waiting to hear from another friend. So we sat in the dimly, although not so dimly, lit lounge that the modern, chicness of the place wasn't obvious, and ordered Mojitos, innocent, right? Unbeknownst to me tapas are included with your drinks. So our server started bringing out plates of empanadas, wonderful vegetarian empanadas. So, we're a Mojito in and the chef stops by our table to say, "Hi" to my friend. He then asks if we'd be interested in tasting a more extravengent empanda, well, who says no to that, so, out comes yet another empanada, only this time gigante.

With bellies steadily filling and another Mojito down, the Manager stops by our table to inquire whether my friend has yet tasted everything on the menu, which luckily she had not, because he insisted she order more plates to properly taste and again, no protests were heard from either of us.

First, a ceviche and salad arrive. I've never mustered-up the nerve to try ceviche, well, this one was named Rainbow and it was delicious. Never being one to stuff forkful-after-forkful of "raw" fish in my mouth, I found myself doing just that, shovelling forkful-after-forkful of raw fish into my mouth. This was intermittent with downing forkfuls of an Ensalada Blanca: frisee mixed with feta, toasted almonds and cubes of a sort-of amaretto jello, um, gelee, all glazed with a sherry vinaigrette.

At this point, our other friend arrived and yet another Mojito down, the next plates followed: the Smoked Marlin and Little Neck clams. The Smoked Marlin was a block of fish tacos, smoky marlin stuffed to the point of overflowing from their shells, fish tacos. The Marlin was rum-cured and the shells are called malanga boats, which were similar to a corn tortilla only, maybe most notably, lighter. I cracked into a Marlin taco and than the Little Neck Slams which I believe we simply had roja. Not being the largest clam fan, I feel the half-dozen or so I ate attest to their edibility. Now what did we do with the remaining red sauce, that's right, sop it up with a sweat and subtly cheesy bread, which I, unfortunately, cannot recall the name of.

At this point, surpassing sated, giddy with food, or was it Mojitos, we were asked if we'd like dessert. Really, who were we to say no, as we'd passed the point of no return 4 plates/Mojitos ago. So much to our amusement, a plate baring a cigar and book of matches arrives. The cigar being chocolate mouse wrapped in a leaf of chocolate ganache, the matchbook being marzipan, which the waiter then lit! And here mis amigos, as the marzipan match burns out, so does my recounting of this supper, made foggy by my Mojito-drenched memory.