Monthly Archives: November 2011

Morocco: Educate Us and Win!

Posted on November 18, 2011 | 2 Comments

Photo: Matteo Martinello

He and She Said:

Our itinerary is set for our Moroccan adventure. As we mentioned a couple of months ago, we were fortunate enough to win an incredible privately guided trip to a place on our once-in-a-lifetime list.

We leave in February, and our trip will include stops in Rabat, Meknes, Volubilis, Fez, Marrakech, and Essaouira. We’ll eat, drink, experience, and bring back some cool things, and maybe something for you as well.

We’re looking for tips, especially of (but not limited to) the food variety. Most of our dinners and many of our lunches will be on our own, giving us the opportunity to find the best cross-section possible from street food to haute cuisine. Morocco’s a bit off the beaten path relative to places in Europe, and good intel is correspondingly a bit more difficult to obtain.

If you’ve been to Morocco, give us your insider secrets. If you know someone else who has, ask them for theirs or forward this post to them.

In return, we announce the very first He Said/She Said contest: best Morocco tip wins a free tagine, courtesy of us. The traditional clay pot used in Moroccan cooking is an item we already know we’ll need to acquire when we’re there (we’re still kicking ourselves for coming back from Spain without a paella pan), so we’ll pick up another as a thank you to the respondent who’s suggestion knocks our socks off the most.

Game on, and thanks in advance!

Photo: Katina Lynn

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Posted in Contests, Food, He and she said, Travel

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Overstuffed Egos: The Oak Street Po-Boy Festival

Posted on November 17, 2011 | 9 Comments

He Said:

Is Sunday National Set Your Money on Fire Day, and I just didn’t get the memo?

I hesitate to pile on Oak Street again. I really do. But…

So this Sunday is the big Oak Street Po-Boy Fest, the artist formerly known as the Po-Boy Preservation Festival until last year’s little pillow fight.

Turning five, this event has become to a degree a victim of its own success. Oak Street being what it is, the press of people has often created parking nightmares and stupefying lines. But not to worry! This year there’s a solution to all that: The brand new Fest VIP wristband.

If you don’t want to sweat the crowds or the parking, just purchase a VIP wristband. You’ll get a parking spot, VIP area access including draft beer and sodas, 3 free drinks, and VIP line access to purchase food and drink.

All of this can be yours for just $200.00. Per person.

Oh my. Continue reading →

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Posted in Festivals, He Said, Rants

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Why Rouses Matters

Posted on November 16, 2011 | 1 Comment

He Said:

Can it be a good thing when your mayor is drinking at 10:00am?

It was champagne in Mitch Landrieu’s hand yesterday morning, and it was a very good thing indeed. Mitch, a covey of local and state legislators, and what looked like every chef in town were on hand to celebrate the grand opening of Rouses gorgeous new downtown store in the old Sewell Cadillac building at Baronne and Girod.

Overwhelmingly, this is the most significant food news of the year in New Orleans. More importantly, this is the most significant economic development downtown since the 1975 opening of the Superdome.

The decision to locate New Orleans’ signature architecture in the heart of the city was financial dynamite, igniting an explosive transformation of the moribund skid row that was the Poydras corridor. And now there’s more to come.

Downtown matters. Make no mistake: The French Quarter is and should be our post-card to the world, the front cover of our brochure, but downtown is the muscle, the beating heart that will determine our economic growth in the coming decades. And that is why this store matters so much.

The best urban centers are vibrant places to work and to live. We just returned from perhaps the textbook example,Vancouver, a place with a cosmopolitan energy that crackled in the air. And New Orleans could be headed in that direction. Anybody paying attention knows that downtown New Orleans is in the midst of big change. It’s no secret that we live in an increasingly knowledge-based economy, and the ability to draw some of the best and brightest from around the country and the world is perhaps the biggest and most surprising post-Katrina narrative here.

But without food, there was going to be a ceiling to that growth. How ironic that one of the culinary capitals of the world has been without a downtown grocery store since 1965. And how refreshing that it’s changed in such spectacular fashion. The anchor of a comprehensive local market is the critical piece that makes downtown ideally suited for work and play and life. Smart, successful people have choices, and quality of downtown living is now another reason for them to choose NOLA.

And we all know what happens next, right? With Rouses stake in the ground, watch over the coming years as the concrete savannah of parking lots surrounding the market diminishes, replaced by all the ancillary businesses that give depth and richness to an urban landscape. Watch the real estate values climb. Watch the population of economic difference makers reach a self-sustaining tipping point.

Kudos to everyone at Rouses for making it happen. This store will be their flagship, and they’ll garner more than a little positive attention, all of it well-deserved. Yesterday there was a ceiling on growth. Today, the sky’s the limit.

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Posted in Food, He Said

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Drink Up! Whole Foods Holiday Wine Tasting

Posted on November 15, 2011 | Leave a comment

Derek Gavey

She Said:

Will you be having Chardonnay or Claret, Riesling or Rhone?

Over the next week and a half, we’ll be thrust into the maelstrom of ‘the most wonderful time of the year.’ Whether you intend to spread the cheer or say bah humbug, one thing is for certain, you’ll likely be doing so with a glass in hand. Well, that is if you are anything like me.

For some the holidays can be a bit stressful. There are parties to attend, families to endure, and cash flying out of our bank accounts faster than Kim Kardashian unwinds an I Do. The social obligations abound and along with that is a constant necessity to show up bearing gifts. I hope we all agree that it is not socially acceptable to show up empty-handed.  I’m pretty sure I have finally converted even my father to this premise, which is no small feat.

So the challenge is, what to bring? Everybody has their own culinary traditions, and you know what dishes are your stars, so who am I to project my personal food fetishes on you? (well unless you happen to be gracing any of the events that I will attend) Instead, I’ll suggest you bring wine. It’s always a safe bet. If you are a wine novice, or are simply seeking easy options, I have the perfect event for you.

This Thursday, Whole Foods Arabella Station and Metairie will host Whole Foods Market in-store Twitter Tasting of Top 10 Holiday Wines.  Beginning at 7pm, guests will be invited to taste and tweet their thoughts on global wine buyers Doug Bell and Geof Ryan’s top 12 picks (I guess they wanted a little lagniappe). 

Each of these wines are in the solidly affordable range from $8.99 to $14.99 and will be on special over the next two months in stores. If you can’t get there, check out the live twitter feed at: Twitter.com/WFMWineGuys

I was fortunate enough to attend an advance tasting last week (producing delicious envy from my otherwise committed husband) and my ‘research’ produced seventeen bottles to take home, which ought to get us at least to Thanksgiving. A few tips: If you’re lucky, you just might get to taste Whole Foods exclusive Camembert Herve’ Mons cheese while enjoying your vino! Be sure to try the Cantora Carmenere Cab and the Innovacion Malbec-Tempranillo blend, which were among my favorites.

Remember, a house without wine for the holidays is a sad house indeed. Santa does not live on milk and cookies alone, so act like a barfly boyscout and be prepared!

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Posted in She said, Wine

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New Orleans: Proud to Kill at Home

Posted on November 14, 2011 | 5 Comments

She Said:

Albert Glover

Joshua Lewis

Gisela Dagmar

Alba Valladares

Do any of these names ring a bell? If not, they should.  Each person listed was murdered in our city streets. In 2010, there were 175 individuals killed in New Orleans. Men, women, children, the elderly, locals, and visitors are represented in that number. As of a month ago, we had already lost 145 in 2011, 43% of whom were male and under the age of 25.

Would you be sickened if I told you the murder rate in NOLA is five times the national average? Don’t worry, that was just a hypothetical question.

Our murder rate is actually ten times the national average.

1000%

Chew on that for a minute Continue reading →

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Posted in Rants, She said

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Field Trip: Seattle and Vancouver

Posted on November 8, 2011 | Leave a comment
Downtown Vancouver

Downtown Vancouver

 

He Said:

October is a traveling month for us, it seems. This time we blame The Delachaise.

We’ve begun to catch on to the idea that for some reason October is a good month for fare sales. We made a quick decision two years ago to get away to Santa Fe, opted for New England last year, and found ourselves seated at the bar in The Delachaise one Sunday evening a few months ago where the  dangerous combination of wine and wireless enabled us to find and book cheap Fall flights to Seattle with the idea of heading north to Vancouver, both places we’d never been. You might argue it was the most expensive bottle we drank all summer.

Flights booked, there was the little matter of arranging everything else that remained. A local friend of ours put us in touch with his sister, a Seattle resident and frequent Vancouver visitor, who was able to give us an amazing catalog of do’s and don’t’s, illustrating what is perhaps rule one of travel: hook up with a local whenever possible. When she learned she’d be out of town during our visit, she went the extra mile and insisted we stay at her place gratis. Amazing generosity from someone whom we’ve still never met IRL. Then again, the fact that she doesn’t actually know us might go a long way toward explaining her willingness to have us in her house.

So below, a few thoughts, observations, photos, and terrific places we discovered in our trip to the Pacific Northwest: Continue reading →

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Posted in Art, Breakfast, Dinner, Farmer's Markets, Food, He Said, Lunch, Travel

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